who would willingly have been his friends, were not only the men of genius of his time; among them were several noblemen and statesmen of power as well as rank. In a word, he might have climbed to the highest rung of the ladder, with helping hands, all the way up; he stumbled and fell at its base."[1]
This is, indeed, nothing but the literal and miserable truth. What can be therefore more sad than to survey, however imperfectly, this profitless and broken career; and know that, after all, one so variously and rarely gifted,—of learning so profound and extensive,—who, in philosophy was pronounced by Dr. Moir,[2]" abler than Coleridge,"—in satire, declared by Macnish "equal to Swift,"—as a political writer, termed by another great authority, "the greatest in the world,"—as a companion, remembered by Charles Knight as " one of the pleasantest and most improving of his visitors,"—whose intellect, as the "Modern Pythagorean" wrote, "adorned every theme that it touched,"—who was characterized by his biographer, Kenealy, "as a scholar, perhaps, the most universal of his time,—far more various in his learning than Voltaire, far more profound and elegant than Johnson,"—of whose "abilities as a writer and conversationist, and excellent nature as a man," Maclise could not find "words powerful enough to convey his opinion,"—whom Richard Oastler,[3] who was his companion in the Fleet, styled "the brightest star of intellectual light,"—to whom the able editor of the Homeric Ballads said the "celebrated eulogy of Parr on Fox so perfectly applied that it seemed to have been written for him,"—and who was described to Sir Robert Peel by the friend who wrote to that illustrious statesman on behalf of the dying man, as "an individual of exalted genius, the most universal scholar, perhaps, of the age, and as good, and kind, and gentle-hearted a being as ever breathed;"—should perish in the very prime and flower of life; and this, as we must infer, from his own imprudences in great measure;—and be indebted to the munificence of a stranger for the support of his last days, and the means of decent burial.
Passing from these anticipatory reflections, let us take a brief glance at the leading events in the literary career of this extraordinary man.
William Maginn was born in 1794, and was a native of Cork,—a city which can also boast of having given birth to Crofton Croker, James Sheridan Knowles, Forde, Hogan (the Sculptor), Barry and Maclise, (the Royal Academicians), Jack Boyle (the witty editor of the Cork Freeholder), the learned James Roche (the well-known "J. R." of the Gentleman's Magazine), Richard Sainthill[4] (the numismatist), Rogers ("the father of landscape painting in Ireland"), Richard Millikin (author of the immortal Groves of Bladney), Francis Mahony (better known as "Father Prout"), Dr. Edward Vaughan Kenealy (the Barrister,—a scholar, a poet, and a man of genius), the early lost Jeremiah Daniel Murphy,[5] my late friend, J. Milner Barry, M.D., of Tunbridge Wells (an
- ↑ Book of Memories, p. 158.
- ↑ The celebrated "Delta" of Blackwood's Magazine.
- ↑ Author of the Fleet Papers, and one of the ablest writers on the Labour Question.
- ↑ I am not sure that Mr. Sainthill was born at Cork, though he was long one of the literary notables of the "beautiful city." He was fond of designating himself with the genealogical pride of a true antiquary, of "Topsham, in Devonshire."
- ↑ Son of D. Murphy, merchant, of Cork. He was only eighteen years of age at his death, but had already mastered the Greek, Latin, French, Portuguese, Spanish, German and Irish languages, and was said to be profoundly versed in their respective
