Various

“ A more delightful work than this, a work more rich and racy, more brilliant in style or more graphic in delineation, it has rarely been our good fortune to meet with. Every page bears the stamp of a master-mind, every sentence the impress of genius. ”

“ What a knowledge of the human heart with all its nicer intricacies! What an intimacy with the springs of human action! What a mastery over the human passions! Ay, this is indeed the triumph of genius. ”

“ Regardless of wounds and death, you have ever been foremost where honour was to be won. Recollect, then, your ancient fame, and let your deeds this day show that you are still the same brave men who have so often chased your enemies from the field; the same brave men who have ever looked on death as a thing unworthy a moment’s consideration—on dishonour as the greatest of all evils. ”

“ Do you imagine for a moment that that man who, hat in hand, is looking up to you with such a respectful air—looking up to you as if you were a god—as if his very existence depended on your slightest breath—do you imagine for a moment, we ask, that he has in his heart that deference for you that he would make you believe? ”

“ In Ireland it may be considered as a very just indication of the spirit and character of the people; so much so, that it would be extremely difficult to find any test so significant of the Irish heart, and its varied impulses, as the dance, when contemplated in its most comprehensive spirit. In the first place, no people dance so well as the Irish, and for the best reason in the world, as we shall show. Dancing, every one must admit, although a most delightful amusement, is not a simple, nor distinct, nor primary one. ”

“ The elements of the human heart, however, and the passion that make up the general business of life, are the same in high and low, and exist with impulses as strong in the cabin as they have in the palace. The only difference is, that they have not equal room to play.
Buckram-Back’s system, in originality of design, in comic conception of decorum, and in the easy practical assurance with which he wrought it out, was never equalled, much less surpassed. Had the impudent little rascal confined himself to dancing as usually taught, there would have been nothing so ludicrous or uncommon in it ”

“ From that partner he never receives an open gaze in return, but in lieu of this an occasional glance, quick as thought and brilliant as a meteor, seems to pour into him a delicious fury that is made up of love—sometimes a little of whisky, kindness, pride of his activity, and a reckless force of momentary happiness that defies description. Now commences the dance in earnest. Up he bounds in a fling or a caper—crack go the fingers—cut and treble go the feet, heel and toe, right and left. ”

“ Like most persons of the itinerant professions, the old Irish dancing-master was generally a bachelor, having no fixed residence, but living from place to place within his own walk, beyond which he seldom or never went. The farmers were his patrons, and his visits to their houses always brought a holiday spirit along with them. When he came, there was sure to be a dance in the evening after the hours of labour, he himself good-naturedly supplying them with the music. ”

“ His daughter had been a very handsome and interesting young creature of sixteen, and was, until cut down like a flower, attending her father’s school at the period I allude to. The business of the school went on much in the usual way, until a young man who had generally been her partner got up to dance. The father played a little, but the music was unsteady and capricious; he paused, and made a strong effort to be firm; the dancing for a moment ceased, and he wiped away a few hot tears from his eyes. ”

“ The Irish dancing-masters were eternally at daggers-drawn among themselves; but as they seldom met, they were forced to abuse each other at a distance, which they did with a virulence and scurrility proportioned to the space between them. Buckram-Back had a rival of this description, who was a sore thorn in his side. His name was Paddy Fitzpatrick, and from having been a horse-jockey, he gave up the turf, and took to the calling of a dancing-master. ”

“ The conduct of his partner, whose face is lit up [Pg 70] into a modest blush, is evidently tinged with his enthusiasm—for who could resist it?—but it is exhibited with great natural grace, joined to a delicate vivacity that is equally gentle and animated, and in our opinion precisely what dancing in a female ought to be—a blending of healthful exercise and innocent enjoyment.
I have seen not long since an Irish dance by our talented countryman Mr M’Clise, and it is very good, with the exception of the girl who is dancing. ”

“ Wealth! what is wealth to me, my country, compared to thy happiness? Station! what is station, unless thou, too, art advanced? Power! what is power, unless the power of doing thee good? Oh, my country! ”

“ In those racy old times, when the manners and usages of Irishmen were more simple and pastoral than they are at present, dancing was cultivated as one of the chief amusements of life, and the dancing-master looked upon as a person essentially necessary to the proper enjoyment of our national recreation. Of all the amusements peculiar to our population, dancing is by far the most important, although certainly much less so now than it has been, even within our own memory. ”

“ On the contrary, it is merely little else than a happy and agreeable method of enjoying music; and its whole spirit and character most necessarily depend upon the power of the heart to feel the melody to which the limbs and body move. ”

“ After all, the old dancing-master, in spite of his most strenuous efforts to the contrary, bore, in simplicity of manners, in habits of life, and in the happy spirit which he received from and impressed upon society, a distant but not indistinct resemblance to the fiddler. ”

“ Every nation, therefore, remarkable for a susceptibility of music, is also remarkable for a love of dancing, unless religion or some other adequate obstacle, arising from an anomalous condition of society, interposes to prevent it. ”

“ How much it has pained them—how much they have grieved to see the inadequacy of the supplies of knowledge to the increasing wants of the community, especially alluding to the working and lower classes generally, whose interests they have deeply at heart, they need not say: but they may say, that they anticipate the most triumphant success in their present efforts to supply the desideratum alluded to. ”

“ He thinks to terrify you by his formidable appearance. But you regard him with a steady and a fearless eye.
Soldiers! the world rings with the fame of your deeds. Your glory is imperishable: it will live for ever. ”

“ And now we think we hear our readers exclaim of ourselves, what a humbug!
By no means, gentle readers; there are exceptions to every general rule. We have sketched the great mass of mankind, but we have no doubt that there are some truly sincere persons—few indeed—in all the classes we have sketched; and we trust that we ourselves shall be reckoned amongst the number.
C.
ANCIENT IRISH LITERATURE,
NUMBER I.
The ancient literature of Ireland is as yet but little known to the world, or even to ourselves. ”

“ In the times of our fathers it pretty frequently happened that the dancing-master professed another accomplishment, which in Ireland, at least, where it is born with us, might appear to be a superfluous one; we mean, that of fencing, or, to speak more correctly, cudgel-playing. Fencing-schools of this class were nearly as common in these times as dancing-schools, and it was not at all unusual for one man to teach both. ”

“ Our manners, however, are changed, and neither the fiddler nor the dancing-master possesses the fine mellow tints nor that depth of colouring which formerly brought them and their rich household associations home at once to the heart.
One of the most amusing specimens of the dancing-master that I ever met, was the person alluded to at the close of my paper on the Irish Fiddler, under the nickname of Buckram-Back. This man had been a drummer in the army for some time, where he had learned to play the fiddle ”

“ Poverty.—Poverty has in large cities very different appearances. It is often concealed in splendour, and often in extravagance. It is the care of a very great part of mankind to conceal their indigence from the rest. They support themselves by temporary expedients, and every day is lost in contriving for to-morrow. ”

“ Dancing! Why, it was the least part of what he taught or professed to teach.
In the first place, he undertook to teach every one of us—for I had the honour of being his pupil—how to enter a drawing-room “in the most fashionable manner alive,” as he said himself.
Secondly. He was the only man, he said, who could in the most agreeable and polite style taich a gintleman how to salute, or, as he termed it, how to shiloote, a leedy. ”

“ It is rather a curious feature this in the social character: every thing offered for sale is so offered through a pure spirit of benevolence, either for the public good or individual benefit; nothing for the sake of mere filthy lucre, or the particular interest of the seller—not at all. He, good soul, has no such motive—not he, indeed. ”

“ Before going farther with our Illustrations—indeed we don’t know whether we shall go any farther with them at all or not, as we rather think we have given quite enough of them—before going farther, then, with any thing in the more direct course of our subject, we may pause a moment to remark how carefully every one who comes before the public to claim its patronage, conceals the real object of his doing so. ”

“ It will rather surprise him to find, as a little reflection will certainly enable him to do, that humbug forms, in fact, the cement by which society is held together; that it pervades every department of it, fills up all its crevices and crannies, and, in truth, permeates its very substance. We, in short, all humbug one another ”

“ Just think of that, and hide your head, good Woman of Three Cows!
Your neighbour’s poor, and you it seems are big with vain ideas,
Because, inagh! [1] you’ve got three cows, one more, I see, than she has,
That tongue of yours wags more at times than Charity allows,
But, if you are strong, be merciful, great Woman of Three Cows! ”

“ The work, on which no expense will be spared, will be sold at a price so low as to leave but a bare remuneration for workmanship and material—so low, indeed, that a very large demand only can protect the publishers from positive loss. ”

“ Such, reader, is a slight and very imperfect sketch of an Irish dancing-master, which if it possesses any merit at all, is to be ascribed to the circumstance that it is drawn from life, and combines, however faintly, most of the points essential to our conception of the character. ”

“ You’re a purty lad, Dick; you’re a purty lad, Misther Doorish, wid a pair o’ left legs an you, to expect to larn to dance; but don’t despeer, man alive. I’m not afeard but I’ll meek a graceful slip o’ you yet. Can you meek a curchy?”
“Not right, sir. I doubt.”
“Well, sir, I know that; but, Misther Doorish, you ought to know bow to meek both a bow and a curchy. Whin you marry a wife, Misther Doorish, it mightn’t come wrong for you to know how to taich her a curchy. Have you the gad and suggaun wid you?” “Yes, sir.” ”

“ Neither vanity, nor the desire of gaining what is called a name, has had the slightest share in inducing him to take this step; still less has he been influenced by any sordid love of gain; he looks for neither praise nor profit. ”

“ You are not goose enough to believe for a moment that he is serious, that he has either the least regard or respect for you. Not he; he would not care a twopence although you were hanged, drawn, and quartered before his shop-door to-morrow, except, perhaps, for the inconvenience of the thing. ”

“ The author is but too well aware that the merits of his work, if indeed it have any at all, are of a very humble order; that it has, in short, many defects: but a liberal, discerning, and indulgent public, will make every allowance for one who makes no pretension to literary excellence. ”

“ Having soon however discovered the extremely small force by which they had been attacked, they rallied, and in turn became the assailants, pursuing Carew’s party to the gate of Leighlin-Bridge Castle, and some of them even entering within its walls; but by the bravery of the garrison they were soon expelled. Carew had two men and one horse killed, and every man of his party was wounded. The rebels lost sixteen men, among whom was one of their leaders, which so discomfited them that they retired, leaving one-half of the town uninjured. ”

“ One thing, however, to the honour of our countrywomen we are bound to observe, which is, that we do not remember a single result incompatible with virtue to follow from the little fellow’s system, which by the way was in this respect peculiar only to himself, and not the general custom of the country. ”

“ Certainly he was the jauntiest little cock living—quite a blood, ready to fight any man, and a great defender of the fair sex, whom he never addressed except in that highflown bombastic style so agreeable to most of them, called by their flatterers the complimentary, and by their friends the fulsome. ”

“ We confess, however, to be under strong temptations to give “the candidate’s humbug”—to exhibit that gentleman doing over the constituency, making them, whether he be whig or tory, swallow the grossest fudge that ever was thrust down an unsuspecting gullet ”

“ The parish church of Wells, the Roman Catholic chapel, and a national school-house, are on the Wells side of the river, as is also the ruined castle represented in our illustration.
To the erection of this castle the town owes its origin. As a position of great military importance to the interests of the first Anglo-Norman settlers in Ireland, it was erected in 1181, either by the renowned Hugh de Lacy himself, or by John de Clahull, or De Claville, “to whom De Lacy gave the marshallshipp of all Leinster, and the land between Aghavoe and Leighlin.” ”

“ In addition to the Black Castle and the bridge already noticed, Leighlin-Bridge had formerly a second castle, as well as a monastery, of which there are at present no remains. The former, which was called the White Castle, was erected in 1408 by Gerald, the fifth Earl of Kildare: its site, we believe, is now unknown. The monastery was erected for Carmelite or White Friars, under the invocation of the Virgin Mary, by one of the Carews, in the reign of Henry III., and was situated at the south side of the Black Castle. ”