‘December 6th.—So
ends my hospitalities for the year 1832. The thousand details necessary for
getting up a recherché dinner with few servants is
Herculean labour,
| FLYING VISIT TO ENGLAND—1832. | 351 |
To-morrow we dine with the gay young Vaughans in Merrion Square (he is brother to Lord Lisburne). We are to be few and merry. Last Monday we dined at the P——’s, and were many and dull. Society here is all bad: dearth of mind, and want of Europeanism everywhere, to say nothing of party faction and religious acrimony. Miserable country!
December 10.—Yesterday we were at an amateur concert, at the castle. Lord Anglesey and I fell to discourse as usual—politics and badinage. The Duke of Leinster played his “big fiddle,” and looked happy and amiable, and after each act, pottered about, gathering together the music, settling lights, and, in short, enacting the part of “property man” in a theatrical orchestra to the life.
I had the pleasure of taking my two girls with me after a long dispute and struggle (and a little intrigue) with their mother as usual.
December 14th.—Dined last
evening at Mr. Stanley’s, the
Secretary of State, Phœnix Park. A large official party. It would have
been a heavy one, but I put my shoulder to the wheel, and away it went! It
turned
| 352 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. |
He said in the midst of a silence, with a half sneer on his face, “Oh, Lady Morgan, you are a great Irish historian, can you give me a census of the population of Ireland in the reign of Henry II.”
I affected confusion, and said, “Well, no, Mr. Stanley, not accurately; but may I presume to ask you what is the census of the English people in the reign of William IV.?”
