Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 1 (of 3). Jonah Barrington
that I had no control over the riotous humour of the colliers, and knew but one mode of keeping them quiet. I desired Billy Howard, the innkeeper, to bring out all the ale he had; and having procured many barrels in addition, together with all the bread and cheese in the place, I set them at it as hard as might be. I told them I was sure of being elected in Dublin, and “to stay azy” (their own language); and in a little time I saw them as tractable as lambs. They made a bonfire in the evening, and about ten o’clock I left them as happy and merry a set of colliers as ever existed. Such as were able strolled back in the night; the others next morning; and not the slightest injury was done to any body or any thing.
The above was a totally unexpected and voluntary proof of the disinterested and ardent attachment of the Irish country people to all who they thought would protect or procure them justice.10
MY EDUCATION
My godfathers – Lord Maryborough – Personal description and extraordinary character of Mr. Michael Lodge – My early education – At home – At school – My private tutor, Rev. P. Crawley, described – Defects of the University course – Lord Donoughmore’s father – Anecdote of the Vice-Provost – A country sportsman’s education.
A christening was, formerly, a great family epocha: – my godfathers were Mr. Pool of Ballyfin, and Captain Pigott of Brocologh Park; and I must have been a very pleasant infant, for Mr. Pool, having no children, desired to take me home with him, in which case I should probably have cut out of feather a very good person and a very kind friend – the present Lord Maryborough, whom Mr. Pool afterwards adopted whilst a midshipman in the navy, and bequeathed him a noble demesne and a splendid estate near my father’s. My family have always supported Lord Maryborough for Queen’s County, and his lordship’s tenants supported me in my hard-contested election for Maryborough in 1800.
No public functionary could act more laudably than Mr. Pool did whilst secretary in Ireland; and it must be a high gratification to him to reflect that, in the year 1800, he did not sell his vote, nor abet the degradation of his country.
Captain Pigott expressed the same desire to patronise me as Mr. Pool; – received a similar refusal, and left his property, I believe, to a parcel of hospitals: whilst I was submitted to the guardianship of Colonel Jonah Barrington, and the instructions of Mr. Michael Lodge, a person of very considerable consequence in my early memoirs, and to whose ideas and eccentricities I really believe I am indebted for a great proportion of my own, and certainly not the worst of them.
Mr. George Lodge had married a love-daughter of old Stephen Fitzgerald, Esq. of Bally Thomas, who by affinity was a relative of the house of Cullenaghmore, and from this union sprang Mr. Michael Lodge.
I never shall forget his figure! – he was a tall man with thin legs and great hands, and was generally biting one of his nails whilst employed in teaching me. The top of his head was half bald: his remaining hair was clubbed with a rose-ribbon; a tight stock, with a large silver buckle to it behind, appeared to be almost choking him: his chin and jaws were very long: and he used to hang his under jaw, shut one eye, and look up to the ceiling, when he was thinking, or trying to recollect any thing.
Mr. Michael Lodge had been what is called a Matross in the artillery service. My grandfather had got him made a gauger; but he was turned adrift for letting a poor man do something wrong about distilling. He then became a land-surveyor and architect for the farmers: – he could farry, cure cows of the murrain, had numerous secrets about cattle and physic, and was accounted the best bleeder and bone-setter in that county – all of which healing accomplishments he exercised gratis. He was also a famous brewer and accountant – in fine, was every thing at Cullenagh: steward, agent, caterer, farmer, sportsman, secretary, clerk to the colonel as a magistrate, and also clerk to Mr. Barret as the parson: but he would not sing a stave in church, though he’d chant indefatigably in the hall. He had the greatest contempt for women, and used to beat the maid-servants; whilst the men durst not vex him, as he was quite despotic! He had a turning-lathe, a number of grinding-stones, and a carpenter’s bench, in his room. He used to tin the saucepans, which act he called chymistry; and I have seen him, like a tailor, putting a new cape to his riding-coat! He made all sorts of nets, and knit stockings; but above all, he piqued himself on the variety and depth of his learning.
Under the tuition of this Mr. Michael Lodge, who was surnamed the “wise man of Cullenaghmore,” I was placed at four years of age, to learn as much of the foregoing as he could teach me in the next five years: at the expiration of which period he had no doubt of my knowing as much as himself, and then (he said) I should go to school “to teach the master.”
This idea of teaching the master was the greatest possible incitement to me; and as there was no other child in the house, I never was idle, but was as inquisitive and troublesome as can be imagined. Every thing was explained to me; and I not only got on surprisingly, but my memory was found to be so strong, that Mr. Michael Lodge told my grandfather half learning would answer me as well as whole learning would another child. In truth, before my sixth year, I was making a very great hole in Mr. Lodge’s stock of information (fortification and gunnery excepted), and I verily believe he only began to learn many things himself when he commenced teaching them to me.
He took me a regular course by Horn-book, Primer, Spelling-book, Reading-made-Easy, Æsop’s Fables, &c.: but I soon aspired to such of the old library books as had pictures in them; and particularly, a very large History of the Bible with cuts was my constant study. Hence I knew how every saint was murdered; and Mr. Lodge not only told me that each martyr had a painter to take his portrait before death, but also fully explained to me how they had all sat for their pictures, and assured me that most of them had been murdered by the Papists. I recollect at this day the faces of every one of them at their time of martyrdom; so strongly do youthful impressions sink into the mind, when derived from objects which at the time were viewed with interest.11
Be this as it may, however, my wise man, Mr. Michael Lodge, used his heart, head, and hands, as zealously as he could to teach me most things that he did know, and many things he did not know; but with a skill which none of our schoolmasters practise, he made me think he was only amusing instead of giving me a task. The old man tried to make me inquisitive, and inclined to ask about the thing which he wanted to explain to me; and consequently, at eight years old I could read prose and poetry, – write text, – draw a house, a horse, and a game-cock, – tin a copper saucepan, and turn my own tops. I could do the manual exercise with my grandfather’s crutch; and had learnt, besides, how to make bullets, pens, and black-ball; to dance a jig, sing a cronaune,12 and play the Jew’s harp. Michael also showed me, out of scripture, how the world stood stock still whilst the sun was galloping round it; so that it was no easy matter at college to satisfy me as to the Copernican system. In fact, the old Matross gave me such a various and whimsical assemblage of subjects to think about, that my young brain imbibed as many odd, chivalrous, and puzzling theories as would drive some children out of their senses; and, truly, I found it no easy matter to get rid of several of them when it became absolutely necessary, whilst some I shall certainly retain till my death’s day.
This course of education I most sedulously followed, until it pleased God to suspend my learning by the death of my grandfather, on whom I doted. He had taught me the broad-sword exercise with his cane, how to snap a pistol, and shoot with the bow and arrow; and had bespoken a little quarter-staff, to perfect me in that favourite exercise of his youth, by which he had been enabled to knock a gentleman’s brains out for a wager, on the ridge of Maryborough, in company with the great grandfather of the present Judge Arthur Moore, of the Common Pleas of Ireland. It is a whimsical gratification to me, to think that I do not at this moment forget much of the said instruction which I received either from Michael Lodge, the Matross, or from Colonel Jonah Barrington, – though after a lapse of nearly sixty years!
A new scene was now to be opened to me. I was carried to Dublin, and put to the famous schoolmaster of that day, Dr. Ball, of St. Michael-a-Powell’s, Ship-street; – one of the old round towers still stands in the yard – towers which defy all tradition. Here my puzzling commenced in good
Here I wish to observe the distinction which occurs to me as existing between the attachment of the Scottish Highlanders to their lairds and the ardent love of the Irish peasantry to their landlords – (I mean, in my early days, when their landlords loved them.)
With the Highlanders – consanguinity, a common name, and the prescriptive authority of the Scottish chief over his military clan, (altogether combining the ties of blood and feudal obedience) exerted a powerful and impetuous influence on the mind of the vassal. Yet their natural character – fierce though calculating – desperate and decisive – generated a sort of independent subserviency, mingled with headstrong propensities which their lairds often found it very difficult to moderate, and occasionally impossible to restrain when upon actual service.
The Irish peasantry, more witty and less wise, thoughtless, enthusiastically ardent, living in an unsophisticated way but at the same time less secluded than the Highlanders, entertained an hereditary, voluntary, uninfluenced love for the whole family of their landlords. Though no consanguinity bound the two classes to each other, and no feudal power enforced the fidelity of the inferior one, their chiefs resided in their very hearts: – they obeyed because they loved them: their affection, founded on gratitude, was simple and unadulterated, and they would count their lives well lost for the honour of their landlords. In the midst of the deepest poverty, their attachment was more cheerful, more free, yet more cordial and generous, than that of any other peasantry to any chiefs in Europe.
The Irish modes of expressing fondness for any of the family of the old landlords (families which, alas! have now nearly deserted their country) are singular and affecting. I witnessed, not long since, a genuine example of this, near the old mansion of my family. – “Augh then! Musha! Musha! the owld times! – the owld times! – Ough! then my owld eyes see a B – before I die. ’Tis I that loved the breed of yees – ough! ’tis myself that would kiss the track of his honour’s feet in the guther, if he was alive to lead us! Ough! God rest his sowl! any how! Ough! a-vourneen! a-vourneen!”
Yet these peasants were all papists, and their landlords all protestants: – religion, indeed, was never thought of in the matter. If the landlords had continued the same, the tenantry would not have altered. But under the present system, the populace of Ireland will never long remain tranquil, whilst at the same time it is increasing in number – an increase that cannot be got rid of: – hang, shoot, and exile five hundred thousand Irish, the number will scarcely be missed, and in two years the country will be as full as ever again.
It is not my intention to enumerate the several modes recommended for reducing the Irish population, by remote and recent politicians; from Sir William Petty’s project for
Formerly the chimneys were all covered with tiles, having scripture-pieces, examples of natural history, &c. daubed on them; and there being a great variety, the father or mother (sitting of a winter’s evening round the hearth with the young ones) explained the meaning of the tiles out of the Bible, &c.; so that the impression was made without being called a lesson, and the child acquired knowledge without thinking that it was being taught. So far as it went, this was one of the best modes of instruction.
The