We have had a visit very lately from our friends at Baronston, and the only drawback on the pleasure we always enjoy in their society was the absence of the good and worthy Miss Malone, who was not well enough to accompany them. All Miss Catherine’s cheerful spirits and goodhumour, Lady Sunderlin’s sound sense and understanding, your brother’s warmth of heart, and Jephson’s jokes, could not make us forget her.
I dare say they will have made the theatricals of Kilkenny, and the final close of that very classical scene, the subject of some of their late letters to you. My daughter has copied for you Mr. Moore’s verses on the effect of national music, which he recited on the stage there, as I heard from every one, in a most masterly manner. I do not much admire that little gentleman; and I am apt to believe, with a most excellent judge of character, that Tommy Moore will never become Thomas. But I think some of the verses of the Melologue, as he foolishly calls it in the cant phrase of the day, are extremely beautiful and true poetry.
The prediction happily was not fulfilled. Tommy grew to be Thomas; the supposed pigmy became a giant among admiring nations, equally valued for fancy, and sweetness, and often for strength. How is it that Irishmen are thus prone to form such undue estimates of each other? Why do not the gifted class more frequently travel to England for reputation—that England so often abused and vilified by the idle, the uninformed, and the bigoted of their country? There, when they deserve it, they will obtain it. No party or religious feelings which poison the sources of liberality elsewhere, can in her keep down the intellect of man to the narrow dimensions which interested bigotry and superstition prescribe at home. In England, the mind may expand to the length, and breadth, and depth which Providence may have
