The Press. — London, England, 1855-04-28 00:00:00

Yittraturt. The Life, Times, and Contemporaries of Lord Cloncurry. By William John Fitzpatrick. Dublin : Duffy. Tus subject of these memoirs was an Irish peer, incessant in the pursuit of popular applause, which he succeeded in gaining, without ever winning any true fame. He sympathised (and " something more ") with the rebels of 1798; ho worked for over thirty years in concert with the demagogues of the " Catholic Association ;" he advocated " Repeal of the Union" in the days when his political allies started for " Emancipation ;" and when the latter measure was conceded, and O'Connell and Sheil violated their solemn promises, and raised a cry for " Repeal," then Lord Cloncurry became moderate, and was vilified according to order! Afterwards he was a party to the Lichfield-house compact, and in more recent times he patronised the "Young Irelanders," and subscribed largely for the wife and children of Mr. John Mitchell ! He never wrote a line or performed a deed that will live in the annals of his country. Amiable in character, munificent in his dis bursements, he was mediocre in abilities, and vacillating in his conduct. How such a man could obtain so much notoriety, and keep his name permanently before the public for fifty years, might seem a problem for solution. But a perusal of this volume will explain matters. By rank belonging to the aristo cracy, Lord Cloncurry was of the Irish agita tors by his tastes and his tendencies. He had a fine house in the bay of Dublin, with good pictures, a capital cook, and guests blessed with excellent digestion for the commonplaces of their host's conversation, and the more re fined delicacies of his cordon bleu. Patriots have stomachs as well as folk with less aspir ing intentions, and Lord Cloncurry discovered that fact, and constantly had a " society " of " Irishmen" around his board " united " in the justice which they did to his viands, and wonderfully unanimous in the praise which they administered to crude projects for the amelioration of " their unfortunate country." He accepted their compliments, and they with more keen discernment swallowed their host's champagne. The guests professed, "when the " occasion arrived," to be ready to die for their country, and with less speculative pur poses their host was always prepared to dine for it; and he shed his banker's cheques freely to the full content of his wine merchant, and to the prodigious satisfaction of his reel ing and "rattling" confederates in the great cause of the " regeneration of Ireland," and " hip—hip—hurrah for the noble house of " Cloncurry !" Such was the man—amiable, absurd, un practical—who was vociferously cheered for nearly fifty years in Ireland. Prolific in pain. phlets, he never wrote one that gave proof of literary or political capacity. He enjoyed the noisy applause that is sure to follow a man of station who caters to vulgar prejudices. Stripped of his rank, Lord Cloncurry never would have been heard of in the world ; he never achieved anything, and yet we find that, not content with his lordship's own autobio graphy, one of his countryrtien has under taken to give us copious details of a politician whose exact historical pretension is stated in saying that he was a sort of Brummagem Charlemont. The author of this work is evidently not experienced in literature, and in many in -"es he has laled particulars which the Iladly have dispute was a Tage. Is 'loncurry elevation in Lord 1720, a 1 by a small wending his way - four of his however, who not or two, which THE PRESS. the boy was in the habit of setting snares for, or otherwise catching in the hills. • • • • .. . . The good wolleu•draper, who had a personal knowledge of Robin for a considerable time, at length took a moat im moderate fancy to him, and proposed that he should enter his service as a shop-boy, sleep at night under the counter, open shop in the morning, and ran of errands during the day. That Robert Lawless was but too happy to agree to the good wollen•draper's proposal it is unnecessary to say. He thanked him heartily for his benevolence, let both ass and turf go to the deuce, and, rubbing his frost-bitten fingers until they glowed congenially with the flush of satisfaction on his countenance, plunged earnestly and at once into the work he was engaged to execute. The intelligence and ready parts of Lawless stood his friend. He daily improved himself, and in a few years rose to be foreman and finally partner. On the death of his principal, in 1731, he married the widow, who was by many years the junior of her first husband. This lady was the daughter of Dominick Hadsor, one of whose an cestors had filled the office of Lord Mayor of Dublin. The son of this person became a baronet and a peer; and the author loads his memory with opprobrium, as a timeserving and unscrupu lous courtier. The best thing that the author has to tell of him is the following story, which is really " racy of the soil ": Soon after the elevation of Sir Nicholas Lawless to the peerage, he paid a visit to the Theatre loyal, Crow-street, dressed in the pink of the then fashion, and decorated with a star indicative of his rank. The piece was a pantomime, and the subject, Don Quixote. At the very ludicrous scene where Sancho is tossed by the village clowns in a blanket, Lord Cloneurry was observed to laugh so heartily as to be well nigh in danger of tumbling off his seat—rather a ludi crous proceeding, it must be confessed, when the buckram like dignity of his lordship's movements is taken into ac count. The idea was indeed truly laughable, and in the prolific mind of the notorious Lady Cahir (who happened to be in an adjoining stall), it speedily took root, and threw out blossoms of characteristic wit. Beckoning his lord ship into her box (at least, so the story has it), she exclaimed : Cloncurry, Cloncurry, Come here in a hurry— And tell why you laugh at the squire f Now altho' he's tossed high, I defy you deny That blankets have tossed yourself higher. It appears, however, that " blanketing" was a sore subject to the tribunitian peer who in herited the title, and we find that in bis own autobiography, when alluding to his father's engagement in trade, he wrote " banking " for " blanketing." Democrats, it has been ob served, have often a marked hostility to the indication of their origin. We surmise that the late peer would have been little obliged to his biographer for his having proved beyond question that so lately as the middle of the last century the first Lord Cloncurry kept a shop in Dublin. Of Lord Cloncurry's imprisonment in the Tower at the time of the Irish Rebellion, and of the circumstances connected with it, there is nothing new told here. But a vast deal of matter, often trivial, but sometimes sugges tive, is introduced, throwing light on the period of " agitation " in Ireland. Lord Cloncurry was a well-meaning projector, shallow and sentimental, and his name and purse were often of timely use to the selfish persons who used and duped him. He writhed under the loss of his popularity con sequent on his becoming opposed to O'Connell's insincere agitation for " Repeal" in 1831. The author tells us that Poor Lord Cloncurry had a difficult card to play. He knew his Excellency—what the public did not—to be full of the best intentions towards Ireland. Sooner or later they would, he was sure, be carried into effect. Anglesey, in the privacy of the closet, opened his mind to Cloneurry. He told him to wait awhile and see what he would do for Ireland. O'Connell, stung by a prosecution which he neither ex expected nor deserved, violently denounced Lord Anglesey, and bitterly satirised Lord Cloncurry for daring to continue on terms of such close intimacy with so unpopular a vice roy. Cloncurry felt his own popularity on the ebb. The reflection galled him acutely. It smarted him in the marrow of his bones. li e was extremely un h appy. Since his imprisonment in the Tower, as he acknowledged years after, he had never felt more No. Men of firmness do not thus suffer in conse quence of the noise of the multitude being withheld from them ; but a vain person, who confounds popularity with fame, is sure to wince when he is received without " loud cheers." Of the lengths to which agitation has been carried in Ireland we get several glimpses in this volume. Thus we find the friend of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and the clamourer for " Emancipation," horrified at the return of Mr. Lucas for the county of Meath, and the SATURDAY, exclusion of Grattan's son. In a Private letter, dated August 11th, 1852, he alludes to Ireland and her ever persecuted people, who, under the guidance of, I must say, either mad or wicked ad. Thiel*, have forgotten all the best interests of Ireland, of their families, and of themselves, in favour of ignorant or of hostile strangers. All the good we ever had in Ire. land, we owed to Grattan. All the good we struggled to recover, was pointed outby O'Connell. The son of Grattan has been spit upon, reviled, and rejected in Meath, in favour of a stranger. Repeal, the only remedy for our evils, pointed out by Grattan and by O'Connell, has been for- gotten. The noble and most independent son of Grattan, who, even if he had not such a father, was deserving of all our love and all our confidence—whom we should have loved for his father's sake, if not for his own—at the very moment that he and his most amiable and talented wife mourned the loss of their only son, he bas been insulted, wad O'Connell has been forgotten. What reward can patriotism expect amongst the abject, place•hunting, flat. taring, degraded population? And so disgusted did Lord Cloncurry become with the triumph of the priestly party in Irish politics, that his biographer records : I Lord Cloncurry concluded his remarks with these words :—" Of the good and happiness of this wretched country I have less hope than I ever had before; end if I did not love it in dotage, I should seek another borne." Lord Cloncurry was not the only politician of his class who in working for " the people " in Ireland found that he had really been labouring for the priests. A provincial politician of Lord Cloncurry's ephemeral notoriety is not entitled to the honours of elaborate biography. He did not think profoundly, speak or write eloquently, or act vigorously. A parvenu in the peerage, he was only a pamphleteer in literature, and in active politics he had no success. He would already be deservedly forgotten if his biographer did not associate his name with much of the contemporary history of his times. But in doing this there was no neces sity for going into private scandals ; and matters paraded here relating to some erring members of Lord Cloncurry's family ought to have been wholly suppressed, as calculated to give deep and most gratuitous pain to their surviving relatives. The execution of this volume betrays throughout that it is by a youthful pen, inexperienced in composition. Its publication is not calculated to increase the fame of the Cloncurry family; and some of the late peer's relatives will, for reasons inde pendent of these scandals, be little obliged to the author for the minute prolixity of his per sonal details. Yet in many respects the work is of a more authentic character than the previous " Autobiography " of its subject, and as such it will be referred to by any modern historian of Ireland. The volume contains an immense variety of Trish matter, and its typography is creditable to the Dublin press. A Narrative of the Cruise of the Yacht Maria among the Fero* Islands in the Summer of 1854. With Illustrations. Loudon: Long mans. THE reasons which induced the authors of this volume to select the Feroe Islands for a summer cruise will probably lead many readers to take up their narrative. These islands are very little known. They are a group, situated in the Northern Sea, belonging to Denmark, and are so rarely visited that the inhabitants retain all the characteristics of a primitive people; but the coast scenery is magnificent, and the condition of the natives not without interest from its extreme sim plicity, equally removed from the vices of savage life and the evils which attend civilisa tion. The total population is between seven and eight thousand, and they support them selves chiefly by farming and fishing. The coasts abound in sea-fowl, which help to sup ply the natives with food, and their chief manufactures are knitted woollen jerseys and hose. One cause why the islands are so little known is, that the Danish Government monopolises the whole commerce of the country, and will not allow foreigners or even its own subjects to trade with the people. The consequence is that there is scarcely any intercourse with these islands except through the medium of the Government, and that hence the inhabitants are kept in a very patriarchal state. Such monopoly should, according to the rules of political economy, lead to deplorable stances he has revealed particulars wh family of Lord Cloncurry would gladl, forgotten. He has proved beyond ( as, ': the noble house of Lawless " ltaril lif tlkSethe Irish peem 6 4 a EA* .I. • t r e ' Ir' dsire of Lord Clo af A ... * g_. , 4. - y, whose eleval If . g "I 1 1 7 . 1 lige : ' • the year of our Lon • brh' Atha squa 1 , accoompanied by of tn4and fill ' ' tbe seen wending • ,ja dr Lfbectf of I) in, where three or fo pow dik •,.... rest . His best customer, wig le •.-- ~ 'scrollanqtroper in High-street, only bought • turf, but occ.asionally s hare or tv