Various

“ The amount of fortune is often to be regulated—the good qualities of the parties placed in the best, or, what is often still more judicious, in the most suitable light—and when there happens to be a scarcity of the commodity, it must be furnished from her own invention. The miser is to be softened, the contemptuous tone of the purse-proud bodagh lowered without offence, the crafty cajoled, and sometimes the unsuspecting overreached. Now, all this requires an able hand, as matchmaking in general among the Irish does. ”

“ Thus did Rose very quietly and sagaciously bind two young hearts together, who probably might otherwise have never for a moment even thought of each other. Of course, when Paul and Biddy met at the dance on the following Friday, the one was the object of the closest attention to the other; and each being prepared to witness strong proofs of attachment from the opposite party, every thing fell out exactly according to their expectations. ”

“ Some other locality, perhaps of less natural or acquired beauty, becomes the fashion of the day, and after a time gets out of favour in turn, and is neglected for some other novel scene before unthought of or disregarded. Yet the principles of true taste are immutable, and that which is really beautiful is not the less so because it has ceased to attract the multitude, who are generally governed to a far greater extent by accidental associations of ideas than by any abstract feelings of the mind. ”

“ She rises up and kisses Rose, who gives her one glance of meaning, accompanied by the slightest imaginable smile, and a gentle but significant pressure of the hand, which thrills to her heart and diffuses a sense of ecstacy through her whole spirit. ”

“ Our readers are not to understand that in Ireland there exists, like the fiddler or dancing-master, a distinct character openly known by the appellation of matchmaker. No such thing. On the contrary, the negotiations they undertake are all performed under false colours. The business, in fact, is close and secret, and always carried on with the profoundest mystery, veiled by the sanction of some other ostensible occupation. ”

“ We have said thus much to prevent our fair neighbours of England and Scotland from imagining that because such a character as the Irish Matchmaker exists at all, Irishmen are personally deficient in that fluent energy which is so necessary to express the emotions of the tender passion. Addison has proved to the satisfaction of any rational mind that modesty and assurance are inseparable—that a blushing face may accompany a courageous, nay, a desperate heart—and that, on the contrary, an abundance of assurance may be associated with a very handsome degree of modesty. ”

“ It is impossible to imagine a happier life than that of the Cosherer. She has evidently no trouble, no care, no children, nor any of the various claims of life, to disturb or encumber her. Wherever she goes she is made, and finds herself, perfectly at home. The whole business of her life is carrying about intelligence, making and projecting matches, singing old songs and telling old stories, which she frequently does with a feeling and unction not often to be met with. ”

“ But though Leixlip no longer holds out attractions sufficient to gratify those whose tastes are dependent on fashion, it has never ceased to be a favourite with all whose tastes had a more solid foundation. It was here, and in its immediate vicinity, that the two Robertses, genuine Irish landscape painters, found many of the most congenial subjects for their pencils. ”

“ Fox was a huge Dan Donnelly of a brute, a very hero of the slates, and the terror of all the cats in the neighbourhood, save one; he walloped them right and left; and many a smirking sylph of the gutters, wont to pick her steps daintily to avoid all possible contact with the wet, was seen to scamper away screaming when Fox appeared in view, for truth obliges me to record that he spared neither age nor sex. Nor was he formidable to the brute creation alone—humanity often suffered under his visitations. ”

“ As the establishment of peace in Ireland led to an increase of civilization, which exhibited itself in improved roads and vehicles of conveyance, and the citizens, emerging from their embattled strongholds, ventured to enjoy the pleasures of nature and rural life, Lucan and Leixlip, with the beautiful scenery in which they are situated, became the favourite places of resort ”

“ Such a woman the reader will at once perceive is a formidable competitor for popular confidence with the Midwife. Indeed there is but one consideration alone upon which we would be inclined to admit that the latter has any advantage over her—and it is, that she is the Midwife; a word which is a tower of strength to her, not only against all professional opponents, but against such analogous characters as would intrude even upon any of her subordinate or collateral offices. As matchmakers, it is extremely difficult to decide between her and the Cosherer ”

“ The Cosherer is always dressed with neatness and comfort, but generally wears something about her that reminds one of a day gone by, and may be considered as the lingering remnant of some old custom that has fallen into disuse. ”

“ The Matchmaker, therefore, is a general negociator in all such matters of love or interest as are designed by the principals or their friends to terminate in the honourable bond of marriage; for with nothing morally improper or licentious, or approaching to the character of an intrigue, will the regular Irish Matchmaker have any thing at all to do. The Matchmaker, therefore, after all, is only the creature of necessity, and is never engaged by an Irishman unless to remove such preliminary obstacles as may stand in the way of his own direct operations. ”

“ The third great master of the art of matchmaking is the Shanahus, who is nothing more or less than the counterpart of the Cosherer; for as the Cosherer is never of the male sex, so the Shanahus is never of the female. With respect to their habits and modes of life, the only difference between them is, that as the Cosherer is never idle, so the Shanahus never works; and the latter is a far superior authority in old popular prophecy and genealogy. As a matchmaker, however, the Shanahus comes infinitely short of the Cosherer ”

“ In humble country life, as in high life, we find in nature the same principles and motives of action. Let not the speculating mother of rank, nor the husband-hunting dowager, imagine for a moment that the plans, stratagems, lures, and trap-falls, with which they endeavour to secure some wealthy fool for their daughters, are not known and practised—ay, and with as much subtlety and circumvention too—by the very humblest of their own sex. ”

“ Indeed I question whether the wiliest politician that ever attempted to manage a treaty of [Pg 117] peace between two hostile powers could have a more difficult card to play than often falls to the lot of the Irish Matchmaker.
The Midwife, however, from her confidential intercourse with the sex, and the respect with which both young and old of them look upon her, is peculiarly well qualified for the office. She has seen the youth shoot up and ripen into the young man—she has seen the young man merged into the husband, and the husband very frequently lost in the wife. ”

“ The Cosherer is the very impersonation of industry. Unless when asleep, no mortal living ever saw her hands idle. Her principal employment is knitting; and whether she sits, stands, or walks, there she is with the end of the stocking under her arm, knit, knit, knitting. ”

“ In the first book of Homer’s Odyssey the suitors are described as amusing themselves with the game of chess:—
With rival art and ardour in their mien,
At chess they vie to captivate the queen,
Divining of their loves. ”

“ But enthusiastic admiration of the scenery of Leixlip has not been confined to the painters. Hear with what gusto our friend C. O. lets himself out on this subject, not in his drawing-room character as the clerical Connaught tourist, but in his more natural, buoyant, and Irish one, as Terence O’Toole, our co-labourer in the first volume of the Dublin Penny Journal:—
“Any one passing over the Bridge of Leixlip, must, if his eye is worth a farthing for anything else than helping him to pick his way through the puddle, look up and down with delight while moving over this bridge. ”

“ Rose, like many others in this world who are not conscious of the same failing, smelt strongly of the shop; in other words, her conversation had a strong matrimonial tendency. No two beings ever lived so decidedly antithetical to each other in this point of view as the Matchmaker and the Keener. ”

“ The Irish Matchmaker, then, is a person selected to conduct reciprocity treaties of the heart between lovers themselves in the first instance, or, where the principal parties are indifferent, between their respective families, when the latter happen to be of opinion that it is a safer and more prudent thing to consult the interest of the young folk rather than their inclination. ”

“ Nobody ever saw Rose receive a penny of money, and yet when she took a fancy, it was beyond any doubt that she has often been known to assist young folks in their early struggles; but in no instance was the slightest aid ever afforded to any one whose union she had not herself been instrumental in bringing about. ”

“ An’ no more I am,’ says he again, ‘for where, afther all, would you get the likes of Biddy Sullivan?’—Poor boy! throth my heart aches for him!”
“Well, can’t you fall in love wid him yourself, Rose, whoever he is?”
“Indeed, an’ if I was at your age, it would be no shame to me to do so; but, to tell you the thruth, the sorra often ever the likes of Paul Heffernan came acrass me.”
“Paul Heffernan! Why, Rose,” replied Biddy, smiling with the assumed lightness of indifference, “is that your beauty? If it is, why, keep him, an’ make much of him.” ”

“ Without it, learning is pedantry and wit impertinence; nay, virtue itself often looks like weakness. Discretion not only shows itself in words, but in all the circumstances of action; and is like an agent of Providence, to guide and direct us in the ordinary chances of life. ”

“ Perhaps it is less attributable to any characteristic volatility in the character of the inhabitants of our metropolis, than to the singular variety and number of the beautiful localities which surround our city, and in emulous rivalry attract our attention, that this inconstancy of attachment to any one locality is more strikingly instanced among ourselves, than among the citizens of any other great town with which we are acquainted. ”

“ Characters like Rose are fast disappearing in Ireland; and indeed in a country where the means of life were generally inadequate to the wants of the population, they were calculated, however warmly the heart may look back upon the memory of their services, to do more harm than good, by inducing young folks to enter into early and improvident marriages. ”

“ Nothing now remains but the opportunity, which is equally sought for by Rose and her, to hear without interruption the purport of her lover’s communication; and this we leave to lovers to imagine.
In Ireland, however odd it may seem, there occur among the very poorest classes some of the hardest and most penurious bargains in matchmaking that ever were heard of or known. ”

“ The Cosherer in Ireland is a woman who goes from one relation’s house to another, from friend to friend, from acquaintance to acquaintance—is always welcome, and uniformly well treated. The very extent of her connexions makes her independent ”

“ But let that beauty take warning from the fate of her predecessors, and not hold her head too high in her day of triumph, for she too will assuredly be cast off in turn, and find herself neglected for some rival as yet unnoticed. ”

“ I remember an observation made to me by one of the most gifted of the human race—one of the stars of this generation—the poet of nature and of feeling—the good and the great Mr Wordsworth. Having the honour of a conversation with him after he had made a tour through Ireland, I in the course of it asked what was the thing that most struck his observation here as making us differ from the English ”

“ There are many more shining qualities in the mind of man, but there is none so useful as discretion. It is this which gives a value to all the rest, which sets them at work, and turns them to the advantage of the person who is possessed of them. ”

“ I question much whether any castle, even Warwick itself [bravo, Terence!] stands in a grander position than Leixlip Castle, as it embattles the high and wooded grounds that form the forks of the two rivers. Of the towers, the round one of course was built by King John, the opposite square one by the Geraldines. This noble and grandly circumstanced pile has been in latter days the baronial residence of the White family, and subsequently the residence of [lord-lieutenants] generals and prelates. ”

“ Of such unmerited inconstancy and neglect there are no localities in the neighbourhood of Dublin which have greater reason to complain than the village of Lucan and that which forms the subject of our prefixed embellishment. ”

“ It is thus described at this period by the celebrated Doctor Campbell:—“All the outlets of Dublin are pleasant, but this is superlatively so which leads through Leixlip, a neat little village about seven miles from Dublin, up the Liffey; whose banks being prettily tufted with wood, and enlivened by gentlemen’s seats, afford a variety of landscapes, beautiful beyond description.” ”

“ In these matters they have not one whit of superiority over the lowest, sharpest, and most fraudulent gossip of a country village, where the arts of women are almost as sagaciously practised, and the small scandal as ably detailed, as in the highest circles of fashion. ”

“ In short, the Matchmaker is the person engaged in carrying from one party to another all the messages, letters, tokens, presents, and secret communications of the tender passion, in whatever shape or character the said parties may deem it proper to transmit them. ”