“I see by my memoranda that it is now near a fortnight
since I wrote to you last. On that day I wrote to you two letters, both of
which, I take it for granted, you have long before this received. What I said
in them I cannot now with exactness recollect. I had, however, by that time
made my contract with Mr Curran to go to
the assizes at Carlow, for which place we set out, Sunday, Aug. 3, the day
after I closed these letters. On our road, we called on Mr Geo. Ponsonby. . . . We, however, only
spent an hour or an hour and a half at his house, and I saw no more of him. At
Carlow I was introduced to my Lord Judge, Michael Kelly,
Esq., eighty years of age, and by his invitation had the honour to sit on the
bench with him. Here we hanged a postmaster, worth by his own evidence £1000 a
year, for opening letters and robbing the mail (he was appointed for execution
this morning), and procured an estate for a friend of Mr
Curran, by setting aside a last will in favour of the
testator’s relations, or a last will but one, in behalf of their friend,
who was no relation at all. Poor old Kelly made a grand speech in summing up,
the most ex parte pleading I ever
heard, the famousness and effort of which, as I was assured, was all prepared
for the ears of the author of ‘St Leon.’ (N.B.—‘St Leon’ is a much
greater favourite everywhere in Ireland than ‘Caleb Williams.’) These trials last
two days. Tuesday and Wednesday, Aug. 5, 6, at Carlow I also made acquaintance
with Mr Whaly, commonly called
Buck (in the Irish idiom Book)
Whaly, who made himself famous, a few years ago, by
undertaking for a wager, to go to Jerusalem and return in the space of 2 years.
This man, as a traveller, is really a curiosity:
| 372 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
| LETTER FROM WALES. | 373 |
“Tell Fanny and Mary I have brought each of them a present from Aunt Bishop and Aunt Everina. I love Aunt Bishop as much as I hate (you must not read that word) Aunt Everina: and therefore Fanny, as the eldest, must, I believe, have the privilege of choosing Mrs Bishop’s present, if she prefers it. Will not Fanny be glad to see papa next Tuesday? It will then be more than seven weeks since papa was at Polygon: I hope it will be a long, long while before papa goes away again for so much as seven weeks. What do you think, F.? But he had to come over the sea, and the sea would not let him come when he liked. Look at it in the map. . . .
“A further object of curiosity with which I have been gratified was, that Mr Grattan introduced me to a poor man who had been twice half-hanged by the King’s troops in the rebellion. I had, therefore, the account of the transaction from the fellow’s own mouth. The first time, seven cars were brought, and set on end, that seven villagers might be suspended from the tops of their shafts, to extort a confession of arms from them. The second time, the poor fellow’s wife, who was on her death-bed, crawled to the threshold to entreat for mercy for him in vain. She survived the scene, of which she thus became the spectator, exactly ten days. God save the king!”
[Enclosed in letter.]—“I have just closed the week with a very interesting conversation with Curran, upon the charge I had heard alleged against him of insincerity and prostitution of friendship. I am convinced it has no shadow of foundation to lean upon. I like him a thousand times better than ever.
“We are now going to set out for Carlow, and shall
spend an hour or two this morning with Geo.
Ponsonby, who is by most persons pronounced the third orator in
Ireland, and by the devo-
| 374 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“Ah, poor Fanny! here is another letter from papa, and what do you think he says about the little girls in it? Let me see. Would pretty little Mary have apprehension enough to be angry if I did not put in her name? Look at the map. This is Sunday that I am now writing. Before next Sunday I shall have crossed that place there, that you see marked as sea, between Ireland and England, and shall hope, indeed, to be half way home. That is not a very long while now, is it? My visit to Ireland is almost done. Perhaps I shall be on the sea in a ship, the very moment Marshall is reading this letter to you. There is about going in a ship in Mrs Barbauld’s book. But I shall write another letter, that will come two or three days after this, and then I shall be in England. And in a day or two after that, I shall hope to see Fanny and Mary and Marshall, sitting on the trunks of the trees. . . .”
