Another Dublin correspondent, whose name does not appear to his communication, sketches his lordship and a scene at the Royal Irish Academy, then recently instituted by his means, showing his harmless nationality, though not at the expense of amiability or good temper.
Our Academy will venture abroad this winter. The different essays were all determined upon before I had the honour of being admitted a member, and I have not yet learned either their numbers or the subjects. But I am not without some panic about them. This being the first publication (of the Transactions), a preface became necessary, the writing of which was consigned to the youngest man in the society. That was a good leading step! Such a rant on the heroism, genius, learning, and arts of Ireland as would have given the coup de grace to our reputation. We had a warm battle—a division at last, in which Bishop Percy, Mr. Kirwan, and I were left to ourselves by a vast majority. However, they cooled a little, and, at the next meeting, Mr. Kirwan prevailed to have two-thirds of the preface expunged. . . . . There has arisen in Ireland, within a few years, such a spirit of extravagant, fulsome self-adulation, that it exceeds everything human vanity has heretofore made pretensions to. There cannot be a stronger bar to improvement, and every sincere rational friend to the public should discourage it.
Our amiable friend, the president (Lord Charlemont), is more wild and boisterous on the subject of Ireland than you can conceive. Many a warm dispute we have. I told him,}}rejoicings mentioned by Ware:—In a MS. in the library of Trinity College is the following passage—“In the Parliament of 1541, wherein Henry VIII. was declared King of Ireland, there were present the Earls of Ormond and Desmond, the Lord Barry, MacGilla Phadrig, chieftain of Ossory, the sons of O’Bryan, MacCarthy More, with many Irish lords. And on Corpus Christi day they rode about the streets with the procession in their Parliament robes, and the Nine Worthies was played, and the mayor bore the mace before the deputy on horseback.”
