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. lie was extremely unhappy. 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
64
a EA* .I. • tre' Ir' dsire of Lord Clo
af A...* g_. , 4.- y, whose eleval
If .g"I 117.1 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

Ann, 28, 1855.

results. But the actual fact is, that the popu-
lation is steadily increasing, that theft and
beggary are scarcely known, and that the
people are contented and prosperous. Their
condition, it is said, contrasts most advan-
tageously with that of portions of the popula-
tion on the northern coasts of Scotland. The
Government monopoly is certainly attended
with some advantages:—

The Government seem to deal direct with the consumers
and producers by retail, without the intervention of shops
or middlemen, and thus many intermediate profits are
saved to the inhabitants.

For many years, the opening of the trade of these islands
to general competition has been the subject of discussion
in Denmark, but as yet no steps have been taken iu that
direction, and it may be questioned whether it would be
wise so to do. No doubt the present system is in direct
violation of all the established maxims of political econo-
mists, and tends to isolate the inhabitants from intercourse
with other nations, as well as to prevent the full develop-
ment of their resources, nor can there be a doubt that the
Feroes might be made to support a more numerous popula-
tion. The people are however so well off, that we believe
the actual yield of happiness and innocence per acre, in
proportion to the fertility of the soil, to be greater than
that of any other European country. Extravagance with
its attendant crimes is not bred by foreign example ; the
variety of their occupations, consequent upon the absence
of all division of labour, renders them very intelligent, and
they are besides religious, well fed, and contented. Their
great fault is an indifference, almost a repugnance, to the
introduction of improvements into their methods of fishing,
manufacturing, and farming; and this no doubt is a great
evil, attributable to their peculiar circumstances ; but it
seems to us far more than compensated by their many
blessings.
- -

Trades are so little known that each family
is accustomed to supply its own wants—
another gross violation of economical rules :
There are few shops, except the three large Government
stores, in these islands, as the inhabitants supply most of
their wants at home. Division of labour, so much extolled
by political economists, is little practised here—every fa-
mily spins, weaves, dyes, cobbles, and tailors for itself; so
that all their garments, with the exception of linen shirts,
which are only used by the few, are manufactured entirely
at home, from the time the materials leave the animals'
backs to the final stitch which completes them for those of
their second wearers.

The capital, Thorshaven, contains about
120 houses built of one story only, and it is
noticed as an " interesting feature in their
" construction that the outer doors have no
" looks—a testimony to tho honesty of the in
" habitants of which no other European
" capital can boast." The people are remark-
able for their longevity :

Out of every 1,000 deaths, 319 take place after the age
of seventy ; whereas in Denmark, in the same number, the
proportion who outlive that Scriptural limit is only 187.
It is related that one man married at the
age of 90, had his first babe when he was 103,
and lived to see his wife the mother of five
thriving children. Of the simplicity of the
people some amusing instances are given.
While smoking a cigar on deck—

One of the sailors came aft, and, touching his hat, drew
our attention to a funeral procession which was moving in
the direction of a little burial-ground outside the town. We
instantly ran down fur our glaeses,intending to send home
a minute account of so interesting and touching a cere-
mony ; but, on bringing them to bear upon the shore, it
proved to be only our own skipper, who having made him-
self smart had landed for a quiet walk, and whose gold
band had procured for him the attendance of nearly all the
children and half the grownup people of the place. Our
features, which had been screwed up for sympathy, were
convulsed with laughter, and Jack went forward, no doubt
to tell his comrades how well he had unintentionally sold
the " Governor;" for under that paternal title every owner
is known in his own forecastle.

Was there ever a yacht voyage without
some practical joking? The only example
recorded here,however,was of a very harmless

Observing that two boats had put off from this village
and were reconnoitring us at a most respectful distance.
we determined to try the effect of two hideous masks upon
their unsophisticated minds. Accordingly two boys duly
decorated with them, and in their red yachting caps, were
sent off in the punt. The smaller of the native boats beat
a retreat directly she saw ours lowered ; but the crew of the
other, which was larger, consisting of ten men, pulled
boldly up to welcome the strangers, and as they neared
took off their hats. Our hearts smote us when we wit-
nessed this politeness, but it was too late; the boats had
drifted close to each other, and our boys, who had not yet
shown their faces, turned round to return the salute. The
effect was electrical; in an instant the ten caps were re.
placed upon their respective heads, and the owners of them
were pulling away as if for their lives. The sea•serpent
himself could not have created a greater sensation, and
our two urchins, who chased the Feroese some little way,
were soon distanced. The different sizes of the boats and
their crews formed a most ludicrous contrast; and pro-
bably the small stature of the boys made them the more
alarming, as Landt enumerates among the list of spectres
supposed to haunt the Feroes, Niagruisars, or " small