“St. Patrick was a gentleman and come of decent people.” Met. Hist. of St. Patrick.

“We were kin to the Braghlaglans, Callagans, Connors and Brides alsoe.”—Irish Song.

At the beginning of the last century many of the manners and customs and national habits of Ireland in the middle ages still existed. The rustic amusements of the gentry as well as of the peasantry, were of a character that enlisted some of the most violent passions of Irish temperament; a dance begun in utmost jollity on the sod, often ended by laying one of the performers under it; and a duel was not rare that arose from some mere awkwardness in the canonical performance of the rite of hands across and back again in a country dance. The hurling matches in the provinces were the Olympic games of ould Ireland; the athletæ of Connaught would challenge the rival hurlers of Munster. County against county, but more frequently Bally against Bally came forth in

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mutual and picturesque defiance, not unaptly imaged forth in the wrestling contest of As You Like It. The first ladies of the neighbourhood frequently presided as umpires; whilst the combatants, whose chief claims were their personal prowess, enlisted in their ranks young men of the first families, as well as the prime youth and manhood of the “mere Irishry.”

On this occasion, the Queen of Beauty was Sydney, the orphan grand-daughter of Sir Malby Crofton; the victor of the day was Walter MacOwen, Anglice Owenson, a gentleman according to the genealogy of Connaught, but a farmer by actual position. He was very handsome in person and tall in stature, and of noted prowess in all contests like the present. The lady was a descendant of the house of Crofton, which settled in Ireland in the days of Elizabeth. The head of the family was made escheator-general of the province, by Sir Henry Sydney, who was the governor of Connaught. In the partition of the lands and estates of the Irish, the “Escheator-general” did not forget himself; he left at his death six brave sons to inherit six good estates; the second of these sons settled at

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Longford House, in Sligo, where a Sir Malby Crofton still lives at the present day.

The fair Queen of Beauty who then graced Longford House was smitten with the grace and bravery of the young victor in the hurling match; she probably intimated, or at least allowed him to discover, that he had

“Wrestled well—and overthrown More than his enemies.”

She was an extremely clever woman, who discharged her duties in all respects as a farmer’s wife, and obtained in the condition of life to which she had descended, the respect and influence she was calculated to have won in her own sphere. But the marriage was none the less indiscreet, neither was it a happy one, for she had not, like Desdemona,

“beheld Othello’s visage in his mind.”

Her husband seems to have been a jolly, racketting Irish boy; he was frequently absent on all manner of rustic frolics, hurling matches, fairs and other occa-

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sions, for the display of his vanity and those qualities which had bewitched her, but from which now, so far as she was concerned, all glamour had departed.

She was a woman of genius, a poetess and musician; she cultivated her natural gifts, and found in art a resource against unavailing regret for the position in life which she had left, and it was her best preservative against disgust at her present surroundings. She was appreciated by her Irish neighbours, who love music and song; they gave her the sobriquet of Clasagh na Valla, or the “Harp of the Valley;” she was eminent for her skill as a performer on the Irish harp, and for her poems in the Irish tongue; so her life did not pass entirely without sympathy and recognition. She had one son, named Robert, who seemed to unite the most remarkable peculiarities of both his parents.

He resembled his father in stature and personal beauty, and he had the artistic and poetical instincts of his mother; he had also a magnificent musical voice of extraordinary compass. His mother devoted herself to giving him the best education in her power; in this she had the good-natured assistance of the parish priest, who was an ex-member of the Jesuits’ College of Liege, and occasionally, the Protestant incumbent of the parish gave his aid. The young pupil of this combined instruction showed his gratitude by impartially intoning Low Mass in the early Sabbath morning with Father Mahony, and later in the day singing the New Version of Sternhold and Hopkins in the parish church with his mother, who was a Protestant. In

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this way, with a little French taught by Father Mahony with the true Belgian accent, a little Latin and English, together with reading in a few volumes of Irish traditionary lore belonging to his mother, who also gave him his musical, poetical and historical teaching, from the first arrival of the Crofton down to the latest contemporary grievance, the education of the young Robert Owenson went on until he had reached his seventeenth year.

About that time a great sensation was caused in the neighbourhood by the arrival of a stranger bearing the name of Blake, who proceeded to take possession of the castle of the Blakes of Ardfry, after a long interregnum, as the lineal descendant of the original proprietors of the estate.* He had been brought up in foreign parts, and was the possessor of a large West Indian property in addition to his Irish estate. He was a man of great eccentricity, singular accomplishments, and an utter stranger to the habits and manners of the country in which he was called upon to succeed to an ancient property. Mr. Blake was struck with the originality of all he saw around him in Ireland. He was anxious also, as a landlord, to improve the condition of the peasantry on his estate, and to study their habits.

A Protestant himself, he, nevertheless, visited impartially both the Protestant and Catholic places of worship in the parish. One Sunday, when he attended High Mass, he was struck with the beauty of a young fresh voice which rose distinctly above all others. He

* The Blakes of Meulo were a branch of the ancient family of Ardfry.

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was somewhat surprised, when an hour later he heard the same voice in the Protestant Church accompanied by a female soprano of great delicacy and some science, singing the magnificent hymn:

“O come, loud anthems let us sing.”

Mr. Blake was an eminent musician, fresh from the schools of Italy and Paris.

The manners and style of Clasagh na Valla convinced him that he was in the presence of a gentlewoman. Her husband was absent on one of his many frolics. It was new to Clasagh na Valla to have the society of one of her own class, and the motives of kindness which had brought Mr. Blake, although expressed with some coldness and formality, nevertheless worked upon her and warmed her to a degree of communicativeness which possibly surprised him. She told him her history, and ascribed the ruin of her husband’s family, and its present low estate, to the dishonesty of a member of Mr. Blake’s family in former times.

A Catholic, Mac Owen, had once entrusted some landed property to a Protestant Blake. A Bill of Discovery was filed by him against the owner, the ruin of the confiding Catholic ensued, and the traditional memory of the wrong had become exaggerated in its progress until it had become the standing griev-

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ance of the family, and in Clasagh na Valla it had certainly found the most eloquent and spirited of its narrators. Right or wrong in her belief, her eloquence and beauty interested the Lord of Ardfry; and whether he believed or not the imputation upon the memory of his remote kinsman, it is certain that he conceived the notion of turning the peculiar talents of young Owenson to his own account; the naivete and natural abilities of the boy promising amusement to one who was much in want of it. He offered to receive Robert Owenson into his family, if his parents would part with him, and to make him his own special protégé. He promised that he should receive such an education as would fit him for any liberal profession, and for the position of a gentleman in society.

The parents consented. Clasagh na Valla was proud of the effect her eloquence had produced. She beheld her son already restored to the position in life which she believed to be his lawful birthright, out of which he had been defrauded by the accident of her having married below her station. The father consented; probably he was not able to stand against his wife’s eloquence; possibly he could not get leave to say a word against it, and possibly, too, he may have thought it a fine thing for his son “to get his own again” from a Blake; at all events, it is certain that with the consent of all parties Mr. Blake took young Owenson into his own house and made him his companion.

Mr. Blake was not a good person to whom to entrust the destinies of a young man. He was an intellectual epicurean, profoundly selfish, and prepared to

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make every accident of his life subservient to his use, convenience, or delectation; confirmed in celibacy, and living only for himself, he saw he could make of his protégé a submissive dependent, an accomplished companion and an efficient future secretary, likely to be useful to him in the management of his estate, from being versed in Irish affairs from early habits and associations; above all, he would make a maestro de capello, who, after the fashion of foreign houses, would superintend his music and infinitely contribute to his amusements.

Young Owenson resided with Mr. Blake so long as he continued on his Irish estates, but Mr. Blake soon grew weary of the monotony of this remote existence and of provincial pursuits—the improvement of his tenantry included.

After a few months he set out to go to London, where he had a house in Russell Street. He stopped a few days en route in Dublin. Amongst other reasons, he wished to furbish up and render presentable the young wild Irishman he was about to introduce to his London acquaintance and friends. The Connaught suit of genuine ratteen was exchanged for the fashionable costume of the day; his luxuriant black locks—shaggy and picturesque—were transformed into the coiffure poudré and ailes de pigeon which had succeeded the wigs of the preceding half-century. Thus dressed and disguised, he accompanied Mr. Blake to the Theatre Royal, Crow Street, to witness the performance of “Coriolanus,” by Mossop, the great tragedian of the age, whose father, a Protestant clergy-

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man in France, had christened my father nearly twenty years before. In the same font, Oliver Goldsmith (who was my father’s second cousin once removed) had also been christened, and by the same clergyman.

This was the first theatre he had entered—the first dramatic performance he had ever witnessed—he was not ignorant of Shakespeare, for Shakespeare has at all times been more read and better understood, or rather felt, even in the remote provinces of Ireland, than in the country which has the glory of his birth. The drama was, at this epoch, in Ireland at the acme of its popularity and its influence. Dublin supplied London with its best actors and its best dramatists, and the Irish stage was, for a time, almost a fourth power in the state. Young Owenson was “not touched but rapt, not wakened but inspired.” From that moment the son of Clasagh na Valla had discovered his vocation, and, though in future years he worked it out under the influence of a far different temperament to that of his countryman Mossop, the impression and intention remained indestructible.

In a few days from this memorable night, Mr. Blake and his young protégé arrived in London, at the comfortable mansion of the former in Great Russell Street. He lost not a moment in seeking to render those abilities available, for which he had chosen his young charge on so short an experience. Mr. Blake was well acquainted with all that was most eminent in the musical society of London—professional and amateur, of which his own house was

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the resort. Among the most celebrated was Dr. Arne, the reviver, perhaps it might be said, the founder, of English opera, the composer of Artaxerxes, and of many operas now forgotten. Arne was particularly skilful in instructing vocal performers. The young Irish melodist gave him a proof of the quality of his voice, which he declared to be one of the finest baritones he ever heard, and particularly susceptible of that quality of intonation then so much admired and now so much out of fashion, the falsetto, then introduced from the Italian school. Arne had at that time completely merged his reputation as a teacher in his higher qualification of a maestro; and his grand opera of Artaxerxes placed him at the head of all English composers; he, therefore, declined taking his friend’s musical protégé as his pupil, but strongly recommended him to Dr. Worgan, the celebrated blind organist of Westminster Abbey, rival of Dr. Burney, and the first singing master of the day. Dr. Worgan accepted the cultivation of a voice and ear so rare and perfect, and Mr. Blake paid a liberal entrance fee for the admission of his protégé into the evening classes, twice a week, of this singularly gifted blind instructor. The mornings of young Owenson were otherwise employed; he was placed for some hours daily under the tuition of the Rev. Mr. Eyle, who kept one of those academies then numerous in London, where elocution, mathematics, the English classics and the rudiments of Latin were taught; similar to that opened by Mr. Sheridan, the father of Brinsley Sheridan, on his retreat from his arduous

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reign over the insatiable vanities of an Irish theatre and the caprices of an Irish audience.

The rest of the young man’s time was devoted to the domestic régime of his protector; a good arithmetician, as most Irish lads are, he audited the Irish accounts, which were forwarded by Mr. Blake’s agent from the county of Galway; he took the foot of his dinner-table, having been systematically taught to carve by the old butler, a jealous and confidential servant, and, above all, he sung his delightful Irish melodies with their genuine Irish words, to the very bad accompaniment of Mr. Blake himself on the harpsichord, whose incompetent performance induced the young amateur to study counterpoint, and so accompany himself. Owenson had charge of the house in Russell Street in the absence of his protector on visits to the seats of his friends in the country, among whom was Lord Clare the protector of Goldsmith.

Mr. Blake only once visited his estates in Ireland during the residence in his family of young Owenson, whom he treated with a condescension too marked ever to be construed into familiarity; a circumstance which often roused “the blood of the Mirabels,” and occasioned a petulance of manner better becoming a wild chief of the MacOwens in other times, than a dependent of the Anglo-Norman gentleman of the present. Of all the advantages which that dependant enjoyed from his position, the excellent male society occasionally assembled at Mr. Blake’s table, was the most profitable and delightful; almost all the literary men of the day were among his guests, and the Gerard

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Street Club were, with Garrick himself, his frequent guests; but there was one, above all others, among these high bidders for immortality, who had a peculiar interest in young Owenson’s heart and the strongest claim on his admiration—this was his countryman and relative, Oliver Goldsmith. His parents had furnished him with a letter of introduction to Goldsmith; and those claims made upon him for their son on the plea of kith, kin and relationship;—ties always admitted in Ireland to the remotest generation, were accepted with all that genial cordiality peculiar to Goldsmith’s happy temperament. A difference in age of nearly twenty years, still left Goldsmith nearly upon a par with his young countryman in ignorance of the world, and in ingenuousness of temper and feeling; his kindness was unbounded, but it was not always advantageous, and he who wanted a guardian over his own actions, such as the stern Johnson, was ill qualified to become Mentor to one whose natural tastes and national character were as easy and indiscreet as his own. Goldsmith was at that time in all the delirium of his passion for the theatre, where he had already brought out his charming comedy She Stoops to Conquer. He was intimate with the managers of both theatres, including Garrick, his earliest and fast friend; with Sheridan, his splendid countryman, as well as with the celebrated musical lessees of Covent Garden, Signor Giordani and Dr. Fisher. Goldsmith being an habitué of the green-room of both the Royal theatres, he occasionally and unnecessarily took his young countryman to those

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dangerous foyers of art and beauty which proved perilous to men of greater discretion than either of the two Irishmen. But danger awaited the younger man in a smaller and more intimate circle. Among the eminent artists of the day, who occasionally presented themselves in the highest classes of Dr. Worgan, was the then beautiful and celebrated Madame Weichsel, wife of the primo violoncello of the Italian opera, and mother of the greatest English vocalist of after times, Mrs. Billington. Madame Weichsel was the prima donna of His Majesty’s Theatre, and was, or had been, the prima donna assoluta over the heart of the famous Duc de Nivernois, at that time ambassador from France at the Court of St. James. The foreign siren was no longer young, and perhaps was not the less dangerous on that account; her engagement at the Italian Opera House did not prevent her occasional performances upon the English stage, and her engagement to play the part of Mundane in Dr. Arne’s Artaxerxes. She was induced to study that elaborate role, under the immediate direction of Dr. Worgan: in the duets between the Persian heroine and her lover Arbaces, the stage lover was frequently absent without leave, and his place was too readily supplied by Dr. Worgan’s favourite young Irish pupil, Robert Owenson. Never was “Fair Aurora, prythee, stay,” more passionately sung, and had old Weichsel been as apprehensive as the father of Cyrus, the Irish Arbaces would have given cause of uneasiness to that worthy gentleman, while the Duc de Nivernois might have applied at home for a lettre de

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cachet against his successful rival. This liaison had already lasted some time when Mr. Blake resolved on a journey to Ireland, refusing his young companion the permission to accompany him, for young Owenson had occasionally shown symptoms of the mal de pays. He was left, therefore, the unrestricted master of his own actions, and at liberty to follow his own devices in London.

During the absence of Mr. Blake in Ireland, as was thought, Madame Weichsel consented to “star it” for one night at Vauxhall. Young Owenson accompanied her thither. When she entered the orchestra, it was discovered that the singer who was to take part in the duet of “Fair Aurora” had not arrived. She insisted that her companion should take his place, and her request was too seducing to his vanity to be refused. He was in full dress; which was as indispensable then for Vauxhall as for the opera. He was announced as an amateur who had kindly offered to take the place of the original Arbaces, “who had been attacked by sudden indisposition,” &c. “Fair Aurora” was sung con amore, applauded and encored. Among the audience, however, was one neither expected nor desired; it was Mr. Blake, who had suddenly returned home unannounced, and finding the house deserted except by the old major domo, who could give no account of the young viceroy who had been left over him, except that he had dressed and gone to Vauxhall. Mr. Blake, who followed his example, somewhat out of humour, arrived just as Arbaces was finishing his duet! The

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truant did not return to Great Russell Street till the third night of his absence; and then went back, never imagining that his patron had returned. He found his trunks in the hall, packed and corded; a letter from Mr. Blake was put into his hand by the butler, who sent out for a hackney-coach, had the trunks placed upon it whilst young Owenson read his letter, and then inquired whither he wished the coach to be driven? Too indignant to express surprise or irritation, he replied promptly, “To Dr. Goldsmith’s,” and drove off never more to cross the threshold of his offended patron. The letter was concise; in it Owenson was dismissed with unqualified decision, and it contained an order on Mr. Blake’s banker for three hundred pounds, which he intended to be the last proof of his generosity. Young Owenson wrote a brief reply, accepting his dismissal, and returning the order with all the coolness with which it had been offered to him. Goldsmith received him with all the sympathy and kindness of his genial nature, and encouraged him in his scheme of independence.

Young Owenson had been more than four years resident in London, and had benefitted considerably by the instructions which Mr. Blake had liberally assisted him to acquire. An accomplished musician, he had also derived much advantage from those lessons in elocution, which young men, whether preparing for the stage or the pulpit, were then taking, at an epoch when declamatory recitation was indispensable to success in the sentimental comedies and high-flown tragedies of the day. The two cousins, putting their Irish

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heads together, pronounced in favour of the drama, as a profession best suited to the talents and personal deportment of the young adventurer who was now thrown upon himself. Goldsmith, although devoted to Irish music, and full of admiration for my father’s musical talents, encouraged him in the idea that acting would be his forte, and tragedy his speciality! Goldsmith had just made up a quarrel with Garrick, and he made use of the renewal of their amity to give Owenson a letter of introduction to that “abridgment of all that is pleasant in man,” which he presented in person. The interview took place at Garrick’s house in the Adelphi; the manager was gracious and favourable; and the son of Clasagh na Valla, in spite of his brogue, was permitted to make his first appearance in the high tragic part of Tamerlane! Tamerlane was, alas! a failure! as was only likely. It was declared by the critics to be not only bad, but absurd; and the bringing forward a débutant in that important part, a débutant who was a mere stripling, speaking with an Irish brogue, was declared to be one of the greatest insults ever offered to the town. The Irish Tamerlane, backed by his staunch ally, Oliver Goldsmith, begged for another hearing, and selected the part of Alexander the Great; but Garrick entirely declined to listen to the petition, flung the letter on the table, and Tamerlane retired for a short time into private life. This check did not, however, quench his spirit nor abate his hope. He made his next appearance as Captain Macheath in The Beggar’s Opera. This character was more in accordance with his genius; he was received with applause;

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which had the good effect of securing for him a permanent and profitable engagement for the next two years at Covent Garden, of which theatre the principal lessees and managers were Mr. Haines, Signor Giordani and Dr. Fisher, a celebrated composer and violinist of the day. The two latter gentlemen, whom Owenson had known at Dr. Worgan’s, had evinced much kindness for him there and remained his friends. Years afterwards they were his guests and frequent visitors at his house in Dublin. He was now fairly launched in a profession, with a fair prospect of an honourable maintenance. The principal event which befel him during the next few years was his marriage with Miss Hill, the daughter of Mr. Hill, a respectable burgess of the ancient city of Shrewsbury. The brother of the lady had been a fellow student of Mr. Owenson in Mr. Eyle’s classes; he had been charmed to infatuation with his companion’s talents, and a friendship had sprung up between them, very ardent on Mr. Hill’s part. On the occasion of his father being raised to the mayoralty of Shrewsbury, there was open house kept at Christmas, and young Hill invited his friend to come down and share the festivities. Miss Jane Hill, pious and prudent as the daughter of a substantial burgher ought to be—

“Sober, steadfast, and demure,”

was nevertheless not proof against the fascinations of the handsome Irishman. Nothing, however, came of it at that time, and the flame thus kindled might and probably would have died out, but that the sudden

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death of her sister obliged her to come to London to take charge of her brother-in-law’s household for a time. This led to the renewal of her acquaintance with Mr. Owenson. Much as her brother liked him, he had no wish for a nearer connection, and the mayor’s objection to receiving an actor for a son-in-law was insuperable. Miss Hill settled the matter by consenting to a clandestine marriage. The death of her father followed not long afterwards, leaving her the mistress of a moderate but independent fortune.