Life of Edmond Malone/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II.
1766—1769.
Led by attachment to Shakspeare and the natural desire of an intelligent mind, he had at this time in London formed the acquaintance of Dr. Johnson. The introduction took place through one of his friends of the Southwell family, younger brother of the peer of that name, whose manners Johnson so highly commended for “freedom from insolence.” “Edmund Southwell,” said Malone, “lived in intimacy with Johnson for many years. See an account of him in Hawkins’ Life. He died in London, November, 1772. In opposition to the knight’s unfavourable representation of this gentleman, to him I was indebted for my first introduction to Johnson. I take this opportunity to add that he appeared to me a pious man, and was very fond of leading the conversation to religious subjects.” Doubtless, he was proud of an honour valued by men of the highest attainments; and the event was duly communicated to Irish friends. His letters to Chetwood, descriptive of such incidents, are unluckily not to be found; for to those of others he often gave that preservative care not always bestowed upon his own. But the replies of this friend let us into the main events of this period of his life, so that we are not left wholly uninformed. Chetwood writes thus in November, 1765:—
You see, my dear Malone, that I am not of the number of those correspondents who never write but to answer their friends’ letters, and who think it a work of supererogation to address two successive letters to the same person without the regular intervention of a reply. However ceremonious I may wish to be with others in this respect, I want no encouragement to make me think every circumstance a favourable one that gives me a pretence for employing my pen to you. An opportunity that I have just met with by accident, of sending this free to Bath, is the reason for writing to you at present; and I am not without hopes that a passport thence to the Grecian (coffee-house) will be procured by the gentleman to whom this is enclosed. Were I to write a long letter you might say that I had more compassion for your pocket than yourself. . . . .
How happy are you who can sweeten even confinement with the company of men and works of genius! I envy you your intimacy with the editor of Shakspeare, and the opportunities you have by your situation in London of collecting books. I wish you may have sufficient influence over Mr. Johnson to urge him to continue his writings. His Prince of Abyssinia has been of use in the world enough to encourage him to prosecute the theme of morals. You amaze me by accusing him of indolence. I imagined from the perusal of his dictionary, that his application was at least equal to his abilities. I have received a few hours’ entertainment from a dialogue of Hurd’s, upon the uses of foreign travel, which I take for granted you have seen long ago. I should he highly obliged to you if you would give me an account of anything that appears in the literary world, worth notice. Books of the highest reputation may be read over half the globe}} before the fame of them is published in this unilluminated region. This is no small loss to me, who have a great deal of time to devote to study. It obliges me to employ my attention very frequently upon productions from which it is difficult to glean any useful knowledge amidst rude heaps of barbarous language and uninteresting events.
I suppose by this time Hussey and Burgh are resettled in the Temple. I saw them both in Dublin, and have in my possession a stronger proof than I ever saw before, of the poetical genius of the former. With all his irregularities, and with his many hasty and undigested sallies, there is an original softness and elegance of sentiment in him that I never found in Hammond or even in his master, Tibullus. He has sometimes, too, a strength and beauty of expression, particularly striking in him who is in general inattentive to the dress of his thoughts. I fear he is too volatile to apply very assiduously to any study, unless it be of poetry; and a man of imagination, possessed of a passion for the Nine, should never be licentious in the indulgence of either, if he means to be deeply learned in the intricacies of law. Such is the severe tax upon the ingenious of your profession.
I received this morning a long letter from our friend Southwell, which you may imagine was no small comfort to me in my retreat. This may possibly induce one of your humanity to lose no time in following his example, though I am in hopes when your next arrives I shall enjoy it in perfect sanity of body as well as mind, which the remains of a sore throat prevent me from enjoying at present. I fear Tom is not yet so near the verge of matrimony as I imagined him to be some time ago. There are circumstances that may perhaps totally prevent, or at least procrastinate, his hoped-for union. I think you had better say nothing to him on the subject in your letters, as I know he is uneasy when he thinks or is put in mind of it. It has given me much more material concern that his constitution is not what I could wish it were. . . . .
The difference that subsisted for some time between his family and Lord Southwell, contributed at intervals to make him unhappy; and after the reconciliation took place, the hurry of perpetually visiting that right dishonourable and ignoble Peer deprived both me and him of a much more friendly intercourse. For several days I scarce ever saw him after breakfast till the hour of dressing for dinner. I must add a second caution—not to give him the least hint that I mentioned anything to you about his health. I don’t know whether I told you in my last letter that I had frequently seen Beresford and my friend Eliza. She is really improved and not in the least affected by her change of state. Were she unmarried, I could almost relapse into my quondam friendship for her. All appearance of vulgarness seems banished from her manners and speech. Adieu! It is well for you my paper is filled, for otherwise, I should have no mercy on you to-night.—Yours ever, J. C.
The “Grecian,” the Temple, and law studies were occasionally diversified by excursions into the country, or a short visit to Ireland. There he found his lively friend, Chetwood, diligently fulfilling parochial duties, while enjoying, with all the elasticity and vivacity of the national temperament, such amusements as a confined sphere permitted. Of these, added to literary tastes and desires—the latter always a favourite topic—some notice occurs in one of his letters, written from Bandon in August the following year. Nor is the allusion to the lady of the “thick legs” and his friend’s susceptibility of heart altogether without interest, as we shall find in a future page.
My dear Ned,—At last your long-expected epistle is arrived. It contains an excuse for delay so very reasonable, that I most heartily signed your acquittance from any imputation of neglect as soon as I had read it. I began to suspect that your plea would have been of another nature, and that something more interesting than even filial or fraternal affection had engaged your attention; for, from my intimate knowledge of your genius, I was convinced that your soul is as impregnated with fire as the flint, and that both, when struck, are equally prone to produce pain. I began to consider that even a glance was sufficient to unman a breast so susceptible of the least impulse, and concluded, in consequence, that some happy fair one—possessed of all the accomplishments, and as thick legs as the once favoured Elliott—had enslaved my friend’s affections. “Ever prompt to blaze at Beauty’s sacred call.” So that, from motives of pity, I had pardoned your omission to me before the receival of your excuse.
I am sorry you had not an opportunity of communicating all the handsome things I had penned for Mrs. Jeffries; but as she is fully convinced of my profound adoration and respect for her and her sister without the proof of Panegyride, the loss of so superfluous a compliment is not very material.
I despair of ever bringing our friend Southwell to a proper sense of his duty as a correspondent. I wrote him a long letter, and have not yet received a line in answer, but suppose his Donegal expedition, and his intention of assuming the garb of sobriety which you say he is resolved upon, has obliterated all epistolary thought. Where is he gone to, in so remote a part of Ireland as Donegal?
I still remain very comfortable and snug, and pleased with my situation. I begin to like the people of the country rather more than I did. I ride about as much as I can, and have lately been two or three days at Mallow, which is a most lovely situation as I ever saw. I met many people there whom I knew; among the rest, Mrs. Coote, the dowager, and Mrs. Anketell, her daughter. Dissipation, as Martin would say, reigns perpetually there. Nothing but dancing and public breakfasting, and such riotous customs, are practised. I propose going there again soon, and mixing a little with the beau monde, by way of recreation.
I received a letter lately from poet Hussey, who is studying the law hard with Foster in a little retirement in Surrey. It was half poetry, half prose. There are some good lines, the best of which I will just transcribe for you, as you are one of the wooers of the tuneful ladies. In praising my “idle life,” as he terms it, in comparison of his laborious one, he says:—
Shall chase the peaceful muse from thee;
She loves to live from toil and trouble free,
Basks in the sunshine of an idle life,
But flies averse from business and from me."
Now I am speaking of poets, you have often heard me mention a very particular friend of mine in Oxford, by name Bagot, many of whose productions I have shown you. He has been obliged to have recourse to Lisbon for the recovery of his health, from whence I received a long letter from him a few days ago. He informs me he is better in that climate than when he left England; but I much fear he will fall a martyr to severity of study. Adieu! dear Ned.
In April, 1766, Edmond writes from London to his father, who he regrets had a “new commission” to return to some duties at Clonmel—“Mr. Pitt is very ill with the gout at Hayes.” The conclusion notices two personages once well known at the “Grecian” and in theatrical circles—“I am at present writing in a coffee-house, in the midst of so much noise and bustle—the celebrated anti-Sejanus (Mr. Scott[1]) on one side and Mr. Macklin on the other—that I can't add anything more at present.”
It will be seen by previous letters that an intimacy existed with the family of Lord Southwell. In the autumn of this year he accompanied, as a friend, the son and grandson of that nobleman to the south of France. Marseilles formed their original destination. A halt arising from illness, occurred at Avignon which continued to be their abode; and where his friend by the death of his father soon afterward succeeded to the peerage. The first impressions of the spot are addressed by Malone to his father, December 3, 1766:—
It gave me great pleasure to hear by a letter which received yesterday from my brother, that your affairs in England were at length settled to your mind, and that you were soon likely to be freed from the disagreeable task of court solicitation. I take it for granted that before this time your patent is passed, and that this letter will find you safe arrived in Dublin.
I have been here near a month. Mr. Southwell, when we arrived, had no thoughts of staying longer than one day, but his son unhappily was seized with illness, which has continued upon him ever since. He was so miserably weak previously, that this new attack was very near destroying him; but as he has borne it so long, he may perhaps get through, and it may possibly be of service by carrying off the cause of the disorder that has afflicted him so many months. We were for a good while in a very disagreeable way in an inn; but for the last week have been in private lodgings, where probably they will remain for the winter; for they seem to have no hope of being able to reach Marseilles. It is unlucky that we were not able to reach that town, as by all accounts it is a lively and agreeable place, which is of no little consequence to an invalid.
Avignon is very far from being a place one would wish to settle in. It has no sort of trade or business, no public entertainments, and is besides an old, straggling, ugly town. It was rendered famous for some time by the residence of the old Pretender, and in the year 1746 his son retired hither after the rebellion. He lived very magnificently, but so void of gratitude, or even common decency, as to give a grand ball, at which he danced, at the very time he well knew his party, Lords Balmarino and Kilmallock, were losing their heads in London.
The Duke of Ormond spent the last twenty years of his life in this town; and at this time it is the residence of two or three families who were attached to the same cause. They have probably chosen it for the sake of more easy correspondence with their friends at Rome, this town and the adjacent country being under the dominion of the Pope. I don’t know whether you ever heard of a brother of Lord Mansfield’s. He was governor to the present Pretender, and was created, if it may be called a creation, Lord Dunbar. He is an agreeable old man, and we are glad sometimes to see him, for want of other English company. By this account you may see if a man’s principles were any ways doubtful it would not be very safe to pitch his tent in this place.
We received the account of Lord Southwell’s death last night. Mr. Southwell was infinitely obliged by your letter, and takes it extremely kind of you to have concerned yourself so much in his affairs. His father was so worthless a man, that I believe he has not left many wet eyes after him. It appears pretty plain how friendless he must have been, from having appointed none of his own family his executors, and being obliged to have recourse to two persons with whom they are entirely unacquainted.
I beg you will tell my sister Kitty that I received her letter yesterday, and will answer it by the next post. I long much to hear that you and my brother have got safe over the Irish Sea, which is sometimes very rough at this season. I wish most heartily all health and happiness, &c.
The business which carried his father from Ireland to London was expected removal from the Bar to the Bench. One of the channels used for that purpose was the Earl of Bristol, first husband of the famous Miss Chudleigh, who afterwards giving her hand to the Duke of Kingston, figured in the celebrated trial for bigamy. At this time he was expected to become Viceroy of Ireland. The Malones had become known to him; and the serjeant judged it becoming to pay his personal respects to so influential a friend in England. His suit proved successful, though the Earl did not become Lord Lieutenant.
His son, in the first of the following letters, dutifully laments some delay which had occurred in the transit to the seat of justice. In the second, we hear of what was no doubt the first feat of his own in the business of law—making a will; and, the late difficulty in promotion being conquered by his father, he is not a little pleased to change the address from “Mr. Serjeant” to “The Honourable Mr. Justice Malone, Stephen's Green, Dublin.”
Avignon, Dec. 29, 1766.
I little imagined some time ago that my letter would find you in London in the beginning of January; but by one that I received from my brother yesterday, I find this may possibly overtake you, before your departure for Ireland. I need not tell you how concerned I am at the occasion of your stay. It was, indeed, a great mortification to me, for I had flattered myself that after you once had got my Lord Bristol's absolute promise, and only waited for Judge Marshall's letters, nothing could have prevented you from succeeding. It shall be a lesson to me never to believe in any great man's word, unless coupled with performance, and to aspire by every honest means at the greatest blessing of life, independence.
Possibly, however, your powerful friend may still be able to effect something for you; if that has been the case, I hope you will be so good as to write me a few words before you leave London. I have written to you two or three times since I came to this town; but imagining you would be in Ireland about the middle of last month, addressed all my letters to Stephen's Green. My Lord Southwell, on the same supposition when he answered your letter, directed to the same place. He sent you two advertisements; one of thanks to the county Limerick, and the other for his son, to be inserted in the public papers; but luckily at the same time forwarded duplicates to his agent in the country. So that, notwithstanding your absence, they have probably appeared. He desired me to give you a thousand thanks for your kind letter.
I am extremely obliged for the 25l. you have permitted me to draw, which I shall do very unwillingly, because I fear it may distress you; but I shall be in absolute need of it to carry me home. I must draw upon you instead of Norton, for my credit at Foley’s, which I got from Nesbit when I was leaving England, is on you, and not on him. I shall draw a bill on you for 40l., the 25l. you have been so good as to give me, and 15l. which will remain due to me on the 1st of February, the rest of that quarter being gone in chamber rent, &c.; and at the same time write to Nesbit to send the bill to Mr. Norton, who will I suppose, accept instead of sending it to you in Ireland.
I mean to go next week for a few days to Marseilles with a gentleman of this town, who has offered me a place in his chaise. There I must receive my money, my credit from Foley being on the banker of that place, and where Lord Southwell thought to spend the winter, but which he will probably not now visit, as he has got a house in the town, and is now settled here. His son is surprisingly better within this fortnight; and I have now great hopes of him. I am so hurried in order to overtake the post, that I can only add that I am, dear sir, &c.
I intend to leave this about the 10th of February. Be pleased to direct to me here.
Avignon, Jan. 28, 1767.
I have been so unsettled for some time, that this is almost the first opportunity I have had of thanking you for yours of 10th of last month, which I received about a fortnight ago, and of congratulating you on your having at length succeeded to the bebch. I received your letter at Marseilles, whither I went about three weeks ago with a French gentleman, who, happening to be going thither, offered hm a place in his chaise. I found there a great number of English, and much more entertainment than this town affords. It surprised me, however, a good deal, to meet many young men of fortune who have it in their power to go either towards Italy or to Paris, in either of which I should think they might spend their time more profitably, as well as more agreeably, than in a remote provincial town like Marseilles.
Nat Clements’ second son, and a General Sandford, who are settled there, were very civil, and made me dine whenever I was disengaged. Mr. Clements has found much benefit by bathing in the sea, which he does whenever the weather permits, to the astonishment of the French who have no notion of such hardiness. The climate at Marseilles is I think much better than at this place, the town being tolerably well sheltered from the north wind, which here cuts through and through.
Though I did not carry any of my law-books with me, yet I can’t say I was wholly idle at Marseilles; for Lady Macclesfield, who is now there, did me the honour of entrusting me with her will, and requested me to draw up a codicil to it, by which she made many alterations. She has left four nieces who travel with her very good fortunes.
I drew upon the banker there for 25l. which you were so good as to give me, for which I am extremely obliged. I should be very sorry to put you to the least distress, but so much of my money has gone in clothes to make a decent appearance in this dressing country, where everybody down to the peruke-maker puts everything he is worth on his back, that I am afraid I shall be obliged to make use of the indulgence you were so kind as to give in the latter part of your letter, and draw for 20l. when I get to Paris.
I intend to set out hence about the 15th of next month, and will travel in the cheapest manner that I can. There is a coach hence to Lyons, but it goes so exceedingly slow, being four or five days doing about 140 miles, that I think of proceeding with the courier, to which method there is no exception but his going rather too quick. But that is I think a better extreme than the other. From Lyons to Paris there is a tolerably good stage-coach, which performs the journey in six or seven days. My Lord Southwell received your letter very safe, and, imagining you would be in Ireland, directed his answer thither. He desires his best compliments, and will trouble you soon with some law queries, which however he says he would equally have done had you remained in your former situation. His son is daily mending, almost beyond our warmest hopes. If I should be under the necessity of troubling you, I’ll draw upon Norton. I take it for granted this letter will find you in Dublin, where I suppose you were this week invested with your dignity. I have only to wish health and many years to enjoy it, and to assure you that I am, dear sir, &c.
I hope you got the letter that I addressed to Tom’s coffeehouse the latter end of last month.
In March, 1767, he reached London. A letter to his father in the following month returns thanks for a present (of money) paid him by Lord Catherlough; adverts to the parliamentary exertions of his friend Lord Northington; to the debates, &c., on American disturbance; and requests that he will not insist upon his residing in town in summer; “for studies in a farmhouse, far from obstructing, would advance their progress;” concluding with the promise–“It is my firm resolution to apply as closely as possible, till I go to Ireland, to the study of law and the practice of the Court of Chancery; and hope soon to make up for the time I have lost.”
Soon afterward he was called to the Irish Bar. Such a profession, in either country, seems one of the hazardous casts in the lottery of life. Patience is one of its requisites, and family funds to fall back upon in case of failure, another. Time, diligence, and aptitude, can alone untie the tongues and store the bags of the youthful, the silent, and the briefless.
To the few it affords all that men can wish—rank, wealth, and honours; to the many, but a dreary attendance, unenlivened by calls to employment. The stream of success sweeps by unfelt by the large majority of candidates, who, like wrecks upon the shore, remain objects of pity or spectacles to gaze at, till disgust drives them from a scene of failure and mortification to some other occupation. Ingenuity indeed has found out other spheres for exertion for the helpless of the profession. A “barrister of seven years’ standing,” although unknown to fame, unheard of in the courts, is often deemed fit for anything; and he who never held half-a-dozen briefs, or showed himself in the courts, may at last, by the favour of friends, stumble into a lucrative office. “Life at the Bar” may make a title and promising theme for the ingenious novelist.
His hopes we may believe, were as vivid as youth and good connections could make them. But law did not close his heart against letters. London, associates and conversations were not forgotten; politics certainly were not. They became a necessary condition of Bar life, as forming the main road to its higher offices; and at the tables of his father and uncle were found those who could aid in bestowing such things, as well as others who were fated, if not fitted, to receive them.
But some restraint was thrown upon the reception of certain political guests at particular tables shortly after this period. The wits of Dublin on the popular side had combined against the government of Lord Townshend. Missiles, in the form of jest, story, ridicule, and banter, were shot forth against it in the newspapers, in which he took part, and these were afterwards collected into a volume (Baratariana) with some effect. We have an indistinct glance at Edmond after he had been some time in Dublin through his friend Chetwood, who seems to have been transferred to a new scene in the south of Ireland, little in unison with his tastes.
Skull, near Skibbereen, Feb. 10, 1768.
At last I address you from my own abode, heartily sorry to write to you from any greater distance than from the college to George Street, for I am sick of solitude and a sequestered rural life already. I was concerned at the necessity I was under of leaving town without seeing you; and the more so, as I had something which I wished to converse with you upon before my departure from Dublin. But that must be the subject of a future interview, or of a future letter. I heard from our friend Southwell last week; his account of himself is a very favourable one, and he seems to write in good spirits. I hear Lord Southwell is to be created Earl Belingsly.
I know you repine at your change of situation from London to our metroplis—not without reason. This ought to raise your compassion for me who am removed in effect out of the world, and as it is in your power in a great measure to introduce me into company, I can’t help being so unreasonable as to beg you will do it by informing me what is transacting in life, of parliamentary anecdotes particularly, of which I don’t know a man better informed.
I am at present quite out of spirits; I am ashamed to own it, but cannot help it. Philosophy does not always avail to correct constitution. I exert the little portion I can. I believe at last I must have recourse to one of my garrets and the Muse, to induce an oblivium vitæ præteritæ. Adieu! Write to me soon, and in the meantime believe me, my dear Ned, your unalterable J. C.
From this presumed familiarity with political matters, his feelings became about this time diverted into a widely different channel. He became in love. Sensitive as the national temperament is said to be to the attractions of the softer sex, he allowed it to influence and colour the whole tenor of his future life. Scarcely anything could expunge the fair object of it from recollection.
Chetwood, as we have seen in a former letter, jests upon his susceptibility of heart toward the lady of the “thick legs.” Who this damsel may have been is now unknown. But that either she or some new love exercised the very strongest sway over his heart and conduct we have his own testimony. By reference to dates, this attachment appears to have commenced in 1769. Why it was not gratified in the usual way—whether from humble birth, deficient fortune, family dislikes, or some unhappy flaw in character—does not appear. But matrimony was deemed inexpedient. He however shall tell his own story.
Lord Charlemont, in a letter to him in London in December 1781, thus writes:—“I will not trouble you with our politics, as I know you are not much addicted to that science, and as you probably have constant accounts of all that passes here.” The reply in the following month quite undeceives his noble friend. It is ample confession of weakness, yet loses him none of our respect, and forms almost a literal fulfilment of his master Shakspeare’s description.
Like a worm in the bud, prey on his damask cheek.”
You say, my Lord, you will not trouble me with politics, as I am not much addicted to that science. I was once deeply engaged by it; but a most unfortunate attachment, which never could have contributed much to my honour, and has ended most unhappily, has estranged me from that and almost everything else, except a few friends, the recollection of whom is one of the last sentiments I shall part with.
I endeavour to employ my thoughts with books and writing, and when weary of them fly into company; and when disgusted with that return back to the other. But all will not do—there is little chance of getting over an attachment that has continued with unabated force for thirteen years; nor at my time of life, is the heart very easily captured by a new object.
You see how frankly I confess my weakness. But if I am not much mistaken you will make some allowance for the extravagance of this sort of sensation, which is allied, however remotely, to some of the best feelings of the heart. I am a very domestic kind of animal, and not at all adapted for solitude.
From the moment it became inexpedient, from whatever cause, to gratify this passion, his feelings became painfully depressed. Whether any objection arose from his family does not appear. They were strongly attached to him; and his father, who was at this period in ill-health, had always evinced the most affectionate regard. To divert the current of thought, he was recommended to travel. His brother had gone to Spa the preceding year, and he joined him there in the summer of 1769.
To a companion of his former excursions, Mr. Thomas Southwell, who continued at Avignon and ultimately became a convert to Romanism, he wrote in April in a desponding tone without specifying the cause. His friend suspected it, and in a strain of pious earnestness thus hints his suspicions in the following month:—
I have turned and re-turned all the words and expressions of your letter, in order to get some insight into the cause of your distress, but am still as much in the dark as ever. The effects of it appear but too visibly in your manner of writing, and in your so long silence, as I had written twice. . . .
I mentioned this to Chetwood lately. He assuredly knows nothing of your grief, or at least mentions nothing of it to me. Would to God I were near you! Perhaps I might comfort you, or give some counsel, or hit upon some expedient to extricate you from this distress. At this distance I have only prayers to offer that God will in his great mercy give you that help and consolation you desire. But you must address yourself zealously to that great Fountain of mercy. . . . I wish you could be more particular (in statement), except it be something absolutely improper for me to know. At present I have formed but one reasonable conjecture, which is that it is something of a love affair which you have not been able to bring about. I wish again I were near you. . . . I hope there is no disagreement with your father. . . .
His elder sister thus writes in August following:—
I beseech you, dear Ned, to recover your spirits. I own it is a very hard task, but the greater the difficulty, the more merit you will have in conquering it. I wish you would partake of all sorts of diversions; for though I do not expect they can afford you in your present situation any amusement at the time, yet I believe dissipation is the best remedy against low spirits; though I must confess I do not think it the pleasantest. . . . Adieu! my dear Ned, and let me once more entreat you to strive to get the better of your melancholy as well for your friends’ sake as your own; for it is impossible we ever can be happy when we see you otherwise.
Catherine, the younger, who through life evinced extreme affection for her brother, writing in September, is less explicit: “I am very glad to find that you are in better spirits than when you left us. Remember, I charge you that they be very good when we meet, which I hope will be soon.”
At a later date, another warm friend (the Rev. W. Jephson) is unable to sympathise with the sufferer: “We talk of you (with his sisters) like true lovers: begin generally by abusing, and assuredly end by praising you. Why will you not enjoy the affection that is lavished upon you, and manfully slight that which you cannot obtain or ought to scorn? No man, I verily believe, ever deserved the love of sisters more than you do, and I am certain no man ever possessed it more perfectly. And such sisters, my dearest Ned! But I have done with this. I never throw away the hope of seeing you one day or other think and act like yourself.”
His admiring friend Chetwood, who now understood his real position, writes in September 1771: “As to a part of your last letter I shall be silent, because I have some doubts whether this letter will arrive in Limerick by the time you propose leaving it. I cannot however resist my inclination to entreat that you will give me the solid satisfaction of informing me of the departure of to America as soon as you know it. I never wish that person to be in the same quarter of the globe with you; for as long as that is the case, I see plainly that you are not master of one atom of resolution.”
An eminent political friend, Mr. Denis Daly, of whom some account will hereafter appear, adverts to the same theme from Dublin, April 1779: “As to Mecklenburgh Street, you are quite wide of the mark. In spite of all your devotees, I am still of opinion that it is in the power of a man of resolution to be in or out of love, just as he thinks proper. The difficulty does not lie in succeeding in the attempt, but in making it. I am glad, however, that your resolution is not put to the test, and that the lady remains upon this side (Ireland) of the water.”
Poor Malone! what sympathy can the devoted but unlucky lover expect from his own, the coarser part of creation? Smiles, perhaps, or sneers, or other provoking proofs of indifference. They are too busy in matters of profit or worldly advancement for those deeper and unseen emotions which once shook their own firmness, but have been forgotten or thrown off as the folly of youth. But how different is it with woman! From her the sufferer may expect gentleness, kindness, and sympathy to soothe those feelings which, perhaps, cannot be healed. She can understand the distractions which encumber such a state. The life of man is business—to earn the bread he eats, or keep the station in society which he holds. The life of a woman is love—love for her parents, her husband, her children; the indulgence in short of those softer and devoted feelings which make her the comforter and civilizer of human life. And upon her, in the persons of two most attached sisters, devolved by unwearied assiduity the duty of cheering the sorrows of an amiable brother.
- ↑ Author of well-known letters under that signature in the newspapers.