Penelope's Irish Experiences. Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

as secure as the lady in that poem of Moore's which portrayed the safety of women in Brian Boru's time. The old song has taken on a new meaning. It begins, you know—

      'Lady, dost thou not fear to stray

       So lone and lonely through this dark way?'

      and the Queen might answer as did the heroine,

      'Sir Knight, I feel not the least alarm,

       No son of Erin will offer me harm.'”

      It was small use for the parliamentary misrepresentatives to advise treating Victoria of the Good Deeds with the courtesy due to a foreign sovereign visiting the country. Under the miles of flags she drove, red, white, and blue, tossing themselves in the sweet spring air, and up from the warm hearts of the surging masses of people, men and women alike, Crimean soldiers and old crones in rags, gentry and peasants, went a greeting I never before heard given to any sovereign, for it was a sigh of infinite content that trembled on the lips and then broke into a deep sob, as a knot of Trinity College students in a spontaneous burst of song flung out the last verse of 'The New Wearing of the Green.' [**]

      'And so upon St. Patrick's Day, Victoria, she has said

       Each Irish regiment shall wear the Green beside the Red;

       And she's coming to ould Ireland, who away so long has been,

       And dear knows but into Dublin she'll ride Wearing of the Green.'

       ** Alfred Perceval Graves.

      The first cheers were faint and broken, and the emotion that quivered on every face and the tears that gleamed in a thousand eyes made it the most touching spectacle in the world. 'Foreign Sovereign, indeed!' She was the Queen of Ireland, and the nation of courtiers and hero worshippers was at her feet. There was the history of five hundred years in that greeting, and to me it spoke volumes.

      Plenty of people there were in the crowd, too, who were heartily 'agin the Government'; but Daniel O'Connell is not the only Irishman who could combine a detestation of the Imperial Parliament with a passionate loyalty to the sovereign.

      There was a woman near us who 'remimbered the last time Her Noble Highness come, thirty-nine years back—glory be to God, thim was the times!'—and who kept ejaculating, “She's the best woman in the wurrld, bar none, and the most varchous faymale!” As her husband made no reply, she was obliged in her excitement to thump him with her umbrella and repeat, “The most varchous faymale, do you hear?” At which he retorted, “Have conduct, woman; sure I've nothin' agin it.”

      “Look at the size of her now,” she went on, “sittin' in that grand carriage, no bigger than me own Kitty, and always in the black, the darlin'. Look at her, a widdy woman, raring that large and heavy family of children; and how well she's married off her daughters (more luck to her!), though to be sure they must have been well fortuned! They do be sayin' she's come over because she's plazed with seein' estated gintlemen lave iverything and go out and be shot by thim bloody Boers, bad scran to thim! Sure if I had the sons, sorra a wan but I'd lave go! Who's the iligant sojers in the silver stays, Thady? Is it the Life Guards you're callin' thim?”

      There were two soldiers' wives standing on the pavement near us, and one of them showed a half-sovereign to the other, saying, “'Tis the last day's airnin' iver I seen by him, Mrs. Muldoon, ma'am! Ah, there's thim says for this war, an' there's thim says agin this war, but Heaven lave Himself where he is, I says, for of all the ragin' Turcomaniacs iver a misfortunate woman was curst with, Pat Brady, my full private, he bates 'em all!”

      Here the band played 'Come back to Erin,' and the scene was indescribable. Nothing could have induced me to witness it had I realised what it was to be, for I wept at Holyrood when I heard the plaintive strains of 'Bonnie Charlie's noo Awa' floating up to the Gallery of Kings from the palace courtyard, and I did not wish Francesca to see me shedding national, political, and historical tears so soon again. Francesca herself is so ardent a republican that she weeps only for presidents and cabinet officers. For my part, although I am thoroughly loyal, I cannot become sufficiently attached to a president in four years to shed tears when I see him driving at the head of a procession.

Chapter VI. Dublin, then and now.

       Table of Contents

      'I found in Innisfail the fair,

       In Ireland, while in exile there,

       Women of worth, both grave and gay men,

       Many clerics, and many laymen.'

       James Clarence Mangan.

      Mrs. Delany, writing from Dublin in 1731, says: 'As for the generality of people that I meet with here, they are much the same as in England—a mixture of good and bad. All that I have met with behave themselves very decently according to their rank; now and then an oddity breaks out, but never so extraordinary but that I can match it in England. There is a heartiness among them that is more like Cornwall than any I have known, and great sociableness.' This picturesque figure in the life of her day gives charming pictures in her memoirs of the Irish society of the time, descriptions which are confirmed by contemporary writers. She was the wife of Dr. Delany, Dean of Down, the companion of duchesses and queens, and the friend of Swift. Hannah More, in a poem called 'Sensibility,' published in 1778, gives this quaint and stilted picture of her:—

      'Delany shines, in worth serenely bright,

       Wisdom's strong ray, and virtue's milder light.

       And she who blessed the friend and graced the page of Swift,

       still lends her lustre to our age.

       Long, long protract thy light, O star benign,

       Whose setting beams with added brightness shine!'

      The Irish ladies of Delany's day, who scarcely ever appeared on foot in the streets, were famous for their grace in dancing, it seems, as the men were for their skill in swimming. The hospitality of the upper classes was profuse, and by no means lacking in brilliancy or in grace. The humorous and satirical poetry found in the fugitive literature of the period shows conclusively that there were plenty of bright spirits and keen wits at the banquets, routs, and balls. The curse of absenteeism was little felt in Dublin, where the Parliament secured the presence of most of the aristocracy and of much of the talent of the country, and during the residence of the viceroy there was the influence of the court to contribute to the sparkling character of Dublin society.

      How they managed to sparkle when discussing some of the heavy dinner menus of the time I cannot think. Here is one of the Dean of Down's bills of fare:—

      Turkeys endove

       Boyled leg of mutton

       Greens, etc.

       Soup

       Plum Pudding

       Roast loin of veal

       Venison pasty

       Partridge

       Sweetbreads

       Collared Pig

       Creamed apple tart

       Crabs

       Fricassee of eggs

       Pigeons

       No dessert to be had.

      Although there is no mention of beverages we may be sure that this array of viands was not eaten dry, but was washed down with a plentiful variety of wines and liquors.

      The hosts, either in Dublin or London, who numbered among their dinner guests such Irishmen as Sheridan or Lysaght, Mangan or Lever, Curran or Lover, Father Prout or Dean Swift, had as great a feast of wit and repartee as one will be apt soon to hear again; although it must have been Lever or Lover who furnished the cream of Irish humour, and Father Prout and Swift the curds.

      If you are fortunate enough to be bidden to the right houses in Ireland to-day, you will