C. J. Hamilton

“ Let me only be of some use, employed as a common workman, and I am content. I speak somewhat earnestly, but I should not like to forfeit your esteem. I am Irish by origin, birth and feeling, though not by education, but if I have lived far from Ireland, she has still been as the faith and religion of my youth. I have ever been taught to love her with my whole soul, to bless her as a sorrowing mother, dear, though distant and unknown.—I have the honour, sir, to remain yours very sincerely,
"Julia Kavanagh." ”

“ What could be more ideally happy than the marriage of Elizabeth and Robert Browning, both poets, and both devoted to their art? Then we have Mr. and Mrs. Cowden Clarke, the popular writers on Shakespeare, who lived and worked harmoniously together; and William and Mary Howitt; but the most remarkable instance of a united literary life is that of the Irish writers, Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall. Not a cloud ever seems to have marred their complete harmony. ”

“ Nearly a century has passed away since Mary Leadbeater wrote in the peaceful seclusion of Ballitore, and now, as modern motors fly past the quiet village, perhaps some of us may give a thought to the calm, benevolent Quakeress with her spotless white muslin neckerchief and snowy cap, who once stood looking down on the River Griese, dreaming dreams of that far-off Bethel which she now gazes at with undimmed eyes. ”

“ They sing themselves, as all true songs should do. And so while many bulky volumes of verse, which have cost their authors years of toil, have gone down into the land of forgetfulness, these ballads, by virtue of their simplicity and truth, have lived and will continue to live for generations yet unborn. For "song passeth not away." Such ballads go straight to the heart, not only of the Irish people, but of humanity at large. There are no high-flown metaphors, they tell of homely joys and sorrows, "simple annals of the poor." ”

“ The woodbine-covered arbour was Catherine Hayes's favourite retreat. A lady in the town, who understood music, took a fancy to her, and used to teach her ballads. One day she played a shake on the piano, and asked little Kitty if she could imitate it. The child went to the arbour, and in a few days came back, and at the end of the ballad, broke into a shake so perfect, so finished, that her teacher gave a scream of delight and surprise. The kind-hearted Bishop did not forget the impression the child's singing had made on him. ”

“ When a stone was thrown in Smith O'Brien's face at Limerick, she wrote the following grandiloquent letter to Gavan Duffy:—
"What can be done with such idiots and savages? ...... This noble Smith O'Brien who has sacrificed all for the people, and who could gain nothing in return, for no position, however exalted, could add to his dignity, whose life has been a sacrifice to his country, a self-immolation,—and this is the man who has to be guarded by English from Irish murderers! I cannot endure to think of it. We are disgraced for ever before Europe, and justly so. ”

“ Johnson, Burke, Goldsmith, Boswell, and Reynolds, she went on to Sheridan, Moore, Byron, Kemble, and other lesser notabilities. She either had a dinner party, a reception, or else she went out every night of her life. Society was as the breath of her nostrils, she was never so much at her ease as when she was receiving guests, or exhibiting lions, literary or otherwise. Though she rarely seems to have visited Ireland, on her mother's side, at any rate, she came of a thoroughly Irish stock—the family of Westenra. Her Irish blood came out in her temperament ”

“ Anne's Church, Dublin, and Maria wrote to her new stepmother, "You will come into a new family, dear Miss Beaufort, but you will not come a stranger: you will not lead a new life, but only continue to lead the life you have been used to in your own happy cultivated family."
Strange to say, these words were verified to the letter, and Mr. Edgeworth's fourth and last wife brought nothing but harmony into this strangely-constituted home circle. "The more I see of my friend and mother," wrote Maria to her aunt, Mrs. Ruxton, "the more I love and esteem her. ”

“ Psyche is betrayed by Vanity and Flattery to Ambition; she has to go through the bower of Loose Delight, to encounter the attacks of Slander; to pass through the court of Spleen and the drear Island of indifference, till at last come her final triumph and apotheosis.
The writing of this poem was a never-failing joy to Mrs. Tighe. She calls it—
Delightful vision of my lonely hours,
Charm of my life, and solace of my care.
Sitting in a chestnut bower at Rosanna, which still may be seen, these thrilling scenes of an imaginary world passed before her mind's eye. ”

“ Accompanied by his wife and his daughter, Julia, who was still a child, he went first to London, and then to France. It was this lengthened residence in France at the most impressionable period of her life which enabled Julia Kavanagh to give those vivid and delicate pictures of French country towns, in which she has never been excelled. Now in the quiet seclusion of a convent, now in the brilliant streets of Paris, she gleaned her impressions, and it was soon evident that she must be a writer. In her twentieth year she returned to London, and adopted literature as a profession. ”

“ Speranza's poems attracted much attention at the time. They were full of ardour, trumpet-calls to action, not feminine wailings for the past. Many thought that this stately daughter of an Irish archdeacon, with her dark flashing eyes, must be a man, and Gavan Duffy, when he went to see her at Leeson Street, was surprised to find that she was a girl of twenty. Of these much lauded verses hardly one has survived. They used to crop up in street ballads some years ago, but now they are like extinct volcanoes, their day is over, and there is no demand for them. ”

“ There have been many more powerful writers than Mrs. S. C. Hall, more eloquent, more witty, more learned, but none that breathed such a gentle, loving spirit of sympathy. Everything Irish was specially dear to her, in fact she did not write so well about anything else. Her thoughts were continually going back to the glades, the glens, the seashore of her beloved Wexford. ”

“ We hear sometimes of the romance of real life, and surely if ever there was a romance this was one—an affection, sanctified by suffering, which had borne the test of time, and which at last found its reward. Lady Dufferin—or to give her her new title, Lady Gifford—did not long survive. ”

“ S. C. Hall, says that "an oblong table is a sort of rallying-point for the family, while Miss Edgeworth sits quietly and abstractedly in her own peculiar corner on the sofa; her desk, upon which lies Sir Walter Scott's pen, given to her by him when in Ireland, is placed before her on a little quaint table. In the same corner, and upon that table, she has written nearly all that has delighted the world. A very large family-party assembles daily in this charming room. Mr. Francis Edgeworth has a family of little ones who seem to enjoy the freedom of the library as much as their elders. ”

“ Sir Robert Stewart brightened the dimly lit rooms with his cheery presence, and among this distinguished throng moved the tall figure of Speranza, a very queen of society, inspiring and inspired.
Writing in one of her essays about the faults of celebrated men of her time, Lady Wilde says with equal truth and eloquence:—
"Of what value to the world are the petty details of their weaknesses and failings? We want to know simply what great thoughts a man has added to the world's treasures, what great impulses he gave to the world's progress. ”

“ It is a colony of Quakers, called by the name of Ballitore. The River Griese winds its stream very near the houses, and the buildings, orchards, and gardens show an elegant simplicity peculiar to this people. Their burying-ground, near the road, is surrounded with different trees, whose verdure made us imagine it a well-planted garden till we were informed otherwise. The hedges that enclose the meadows and fields are quick-set, kept of an equal height, and about every ten yards trees regularly pierce through them, forming beautiful groves of a large extent. ”

“ Edmond Knox, Bishop of Limerick. He inquired who this wonderful singer was, and he found out that she was no fairy minstrel, but simply little Catherine Hayes, then barely ten years old. She had to sing. The birds had taught her, the murmur of the river had spoken to her, and her own soul, that stirred within her mightily. The child's voice that came from that woodbine-covered arbour was destined in after years to stir hundreds of thousands, not only in her native Ireland, but in Italy, America, Australia, even in the remote Sandwich Islands. ”

“ NO matter what collection of Irish ballads we take up, whether the pretty little green-bound volume at a shilling, or the coarse broadsheet at a penny, we are sure to find one or other of Lady Dufferin's songs. The Irish Emigrant is the great favourite both in Ireland and in America, but the humour and fun of Katey's Letter is irresistible, and The Bay of Dublin, Sweet Kilkenny Town, and Terence's Farewell to Kathleen are always popular whenever they are heard. ”

“ Gunning was a clever, ambitious woman, and as she looked at the wonderful beauty of her daughters, fast growing to maturity, she thought that the girls must be taken out into the world to make their mark there. ”

“ Prominent among the amateur actors, was the Earl of Derby who took one of the comic parts. He was married to Lady Betty Hamilton, only daughter of Elizabeth Gunning, the famous Irish beauty, by her first marriage with the Duke of Hamilton. The Countess of Derby was very pretty, but very wild and indiscreet in her conduct, and the marriage turned out most unhappily. From the time that Miss Farren appeared on the scene, Lord Derby had eyes and ears for no one else, and spent his time running after the beautiful actress, who on her part treated him with great hauteur. ”