Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 1 (of 3). Jonah Barrington
of former roughness and modern affectation, it would require the pen of such a writer as Fielding to do ample justice. It may, however, afford our reader some diversion to trace the degrees which led from the grossness of the former down to the effeminacy of the latter; and these may, in a great measure, be collected from the various incidents which will be found scattered throughout these sketches of sixty solar revolutions.
Nothing indeed can better illustrate the sensation which the grandfathers, or even aged fathers, of these slim lads of the Bond-street and St. James’s-street establishments, must have felt upon finding their offspring in the elegant occupations I have just mentioned, than an incident relating to Captain Parsons Hoye, of County Wicklow, who several years since met with a specimen of the kind of lad at Hudson’s, in Covent-Garden.
A nephew of his, an effeminate young fellow, who had been either on the Continent or in London a considerable time, and who expected to be the Captain’s heir, (being his sister’s son) accidentally came into the coffee-room. Neither uncle nor nephew recollected each other; but old Parsons’ disgust at the dandified manners, language, and dress of the youth, gave rise to an occurrence which drew from the bluff seaman epithets wonderfully droll, but rather too coarse to record: – the end of it was, that, when Parsons discovered the relationship of the stranger, (by their exchanging cards in anger,) he first kicked him out of the coffee-room, and then struck him out of a will which he had made, – and died very soon after, as if on purpose to mortify the macaroni!
Commodore Trunnion was a civilized man, and a beauty (but a fool), compared to Parsons Hoye, – who had a moderate hereditary property near Wicklow; had been a captain in the royal navy; was a bad farmer, a worse sportsman, and a blustering justice of peace: but great at potation! and what was called, “in the main, a capital fellow.” He was nearly as boisterous as his adopted element: his voice was always as if on the quarter-deck; and the whistle of an old boatswain, who had been decapitated by his side, hung as a memento, by a thong of leather, from his waistcoat button-hole. It was frequently had recourse to, and, whenever he wanted a word, supplied the deficiency.
In form, the Captain was squat, broad, and coarse: a large purple nose, with a broad crimson chin to match, were the only features of any consequence in his countenance, except a couple of good-enough bloodshot eyes, screened by most exuberant grizzle eye-brows. His powdered wig had behind it a queue in the form of a hand-spike, – and a couple of rolled-up paste curls, like a pair of carronades, adorned its broad-sides; a blue coat, with slash cuffs and plenty of navy buttons, surmounted a scarlet waistcoat with tarnished gold binding – the skirts of which, he said, he would have of their enormous length because it assured him that the tailor had put all the cloth in it; a black Barcelona adorned his neck; while a large old round hat, bordered with gold lace, pitched on his head, and turned up on one side, with a huge cockade stuck into a buttonless loop, gave him a swaggering air. He bore a shillelagh, the growth of his own estate, in a fist which would cover more ground than the best shoulder of wether mutton in a London market.17 Yet the Captain had a look of generosity, good nature, benevolence, and hospitality, which his features did their very best to conceal, and which none but a good physiognomist could possibly discover.
MY BROTHER’S HUNTING-LODGE
Waking the piper – Curious scene at my brother’s hunting-lodge – Joe Kelly’s and Peter Alley’s heads fastened to the wall – Operations practised in extricating them.
I met with another ludicrous instance of the dissipation of even later days, a few months after my marriage. Lady B – and myself took a tour through some of the southern parts of Ireland, and among other places visited Castle Durrow, near which place my brother, Henry French Barrington, had built a hunting cottage, wherein he happened to have given a house-warming the previous day.
The company, as might be expected at such a place and on such an occasion, was not the most select: – in fact, they were hard-going sportsmen, and some of the half-mounted gentry were not excluded from the festival.
Amongst others, Mr. Joseph Kelly, of unfortunate fate, brother to Mr. Michael Kelly, (who by the bye does not say a word about him in his Reminiscences,) had been invited, to add to the merriment by his pleasantry and voice, and had come down from Dublin solely for the purpose of assisting at the banquet.
It may not be amiss to say something here of this remarkable person. I knew him from his early youth. His father was a dancing-master in Mary-street, Dublin; and I found in the newspapers of that period a number of puffs, in French and English, of Mr. O’Kelly’s abilities in that way – one of which, a certificate from a French artiste of Paris, is curious enough.18 What could put it into his son’s head, that he had been Master of the Ceremonies at Dublin Castle is rather perplexing! He became a wine-merchant latterly, dropped the O which had been placed at the beginning of his name, and was a well-conducted and respectable man.19
Joe was a slender young man, remarkably handsome; but what, in that part of the country, they emphatically styled “the devil!” I recollect his dancing a hornpipe upon the stage in a sailor’s costume most admirably. He also sang the songs of Young Meadows, in “Love in a Village,” extremely well, as likewise those of Macheath and other parts; but he could never give the acting any effect. He was, strictly speaking, a bravura singer; – there was no deep pathos – nothing touchant in his cadences; – but in drinking-songs, &c. he was unrivalled. As his brother has not thought proper to speak about him, it might be considered out of place for me to go into his history, all of which I know, and many passages whereof might probably be both entertaining and instructive. Some parts of it however are already on record, and others I hope will never be recorded. The Duke of Wellington knew Joe Kelly extremely well; and if he had merited advancement, I dare say he would have received it. The last conversation I had with him was on the Boulevard Italien, in Paris. I was walking with my son, then belonging to the 5th Dragoon Guards. Kelly came up and spoke to us. I shook him by the hand, and he talked away: – spoke to my son – no answer; – he tried him again – no reply. Kelly seemed surprised, and said, “Don’t you know me, Barrington? why don’t you speak to me?” – “’Tis because I do know you that I do not speak to you,” replied my son. – Kelly blushed, but turned it off with a laugh. I could not then guess the reason for this cut direct; and my son refused to tell me: I have since, however, become acquainted with it, and think the sarcasm well merited. It was indeed the bitterer, from its being the only one I ever heard my son utter. Joe Kelly killed his man in a duel, for which he was tried, and narrowly escaped. According to his own account indeed, he killed plenty at the battle of Waterloo, and in other actions. He was himself shot at Paris by a commissary with whom he had quarrelled, and the Irish humorists remarked thereupon that Joe had “died a natural death.”
Of this convivial assemblage at my brother’s, he was, I take it, the very life and soul. The dining-room (the only good one) had not been finished when the day of the dinner-party arrived, and the lower parts of the walls having only that morning received their last coat of plaster, were, of course, totally wet.
We had intended to surprise my brother; but had not calculated on the scene I was to witness. On driving to the cottage-door, I found it open, whilst a dozen dogs, of different descriptions, showed themselves ready to receive us not in the most polite manner. My servant’s whip, however, soon sent them about their business, and I ventured into the parlour to see what cheer. It was about ten in the morning: the room was strewed with empty bottles – some broken – some interspersed with glasses, plates, dishes, knives, spoons, &c. – all in glorious confusion. Here and there were heaps of bones, relics of the former day’s entertainment, which the dogs, seizing their opportunity, had cleanly picked. Three or four of the Bacchanalians lay fast asleep upon chairs – one or two others on the floor, among whom a piper lay on his back, apparently dead, with a table-cloth spread over him, and surrounded by four or five candles, burnt to the sockets; his chanter and bags were laid scientifically across his body, his mouth was quite open, and his nose made ample amends for the silence of his drone. Joe Kelly, and a Mr. Peter Alley, from the town of Durrow, (one of the half-mounted gentry,)
I once saw the inconvenience of that species of fist strongly exemplified. The late Admiral Cosby, of Stradbally Hall, had as large and as brown a fist as any admiral in His Majesty’s service. Happening one day unfortunately to lay it on the table during dinner, at Colonel Fitzgerald’s, Merrion Square, a Mr. Jenkins, a half-blind doctor, who chanced to sit next to the admiral, cast his eye upon the fist: the imperfection of his vision led him to believe it was a roll of French bread, and, without further ceremony, the doctor thrust his steel fork plump into the admiral’s fist. The confusion which resulted may be easily imagined: – indeed, had the circumstance happened any where but at a
Mr. O’Kelly is just returned from Paris. Ladies and gentlemen, who are pleased to send their commands to No. 30, Mary-street, will be most respectfully attended to.
Je certifie que M. Guillaume O’Kelly est venu à Paris pour prendre de moi leçons, et qu’il est sorti de mes mains en état de pouvoir enseigner la danse avec succès.
Gardel, Maître à Danser de la Reine,
et Maître des Ballets du Roi.
But as he was a Roman Catholic, and as no Roman Catholic could then hold any office in the vice-regal establishment of Dublin Castle, Mr. M. Kelly must have been misinformed on that point as to his father, whom I have often seen. Mr. Gofton, a dancing-master of Anne-street, Linen Hall, and uncle to Doctor Barrett, the late extraordinary vice-provost of Trinity College, was a friend of Mr. O’Kelly’s, and taught me to the day of his death, which was sudden. Under his tuition, I beat time and danced minuets for four years. Doctor Barrett used to carry his uncle’s