Chapter 7 No.7

----The nature of our people,

Our city's institutions, and the terms

Of common justice, y'are as pregnant in

As art and practice hath enriched any

That we remember. There is our commission!

Measure for Measure.

Fully resolved justly and conscientiously to discharge with unremitting and unceasing attention the responsible duties of his high office, the Duke now commenced his vice-regal career. He arose at an early hour, and whatever public business was to be transacted, he constantly despatched before the hour of breakfast. He was polite, courteous, and accessible to all; his was the suaviter in modo, but it was also accompanied with the fortiter in re.

The first day for holding a vice-regal levee, as specified by public notice from the Chamberlain's office, having arrived, it commenced exactly at one o'clock, and was most numerously attended. Among the vast assemblage were noticed the Lord Mayor, the Lord High Chancellor Sir Alexander Fitton Lord Baron of Gausworth; the judges and great officers of state; a long train of gentry, numerous members of the lower and upper houses of parliament attended; many a grave and reverend prelate, and many a baron bold-"Post alios; fortemque Gyan, fortemque Cloanthum," &c.

The company appeared arrayed in full and appropriate court costume. There were likewise present the different staff officers, besides those of the garrison; and a large body of ecclesiastics, Protestant and Catholic, attended. The ceremonies of the day were throughout conducted with great decorum and propriety.

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Among the notable personages that were this day presented to the Duke, we must not omit to notice the Honourable Mr. Berenger, M. P. for the County of--, of an ancient and ennobled family, whose ancestor came to Ireland in the time of the second Henry. He wore a very large black curled peruke, which flowed like a lion's mane adown his shoulders; his coat and small-clothes were of light blue velvet, richly embroidered; a waistcoat richly worked, and adorned with foliations formed of various precious stones. He wore, too, a superb diamond-hilted sword; diamond shoe and knee buckles; silk stockings, with gold embroidered clokes; and the heels of his shoes were of red Morocco leather. He was indeed, beyond all dispute, the unparalleled dandy of his day! Mr. Berenger had been in his youth a very handsome man; but his face now was deadly pale; and his eyes, which had been once brilliant as the diamonds which adorned him, reposed, dim and shorn of their beams, within their hollow and shrivelled sockets. Time, too, had left his stern impress in the indented furrows of the cheek and the care-scored wrinkles of his brow: he looked the languid voluptuary, while surfeit and satiety seemed to seal up his lips. His figure, notwithstanding, was yet even still fine and commanding. His countenance, however, spoke more plainly of the preterpluperfect than either of the present or future tense. His eyes reposed on the carpet or upon vacancy; they had in them "no speculation, that they did glare withal." When attending the gay and dissipated court of the second Charles he had often revelled with Rochester, and jested with Killigrew and, moreover, had the high distinction paid him of being called "a very finished gentleman indeed" by the witty monarch, "whose word no man relied on!"

The eccentric Mr. Berenger had severally proposed at three different times a matrimonial alliance with Lady Lucy, the Duke's youngest sister, who politely, but positively refused him; and upon some overtures to renew his solicitations, Lady Lucy observed, that as she had so long delayed to marry for love, she was now resolved not to marry in the capacity of a nurse-tender! This was so home an argumentum ad superbiam a cut and thrust at the pride of the Honourable Member, that he now seemed to have no intention of becoming a Benedict. Lady Letitia found great fault with her sister, complained of her cruelty, and sturdily maintained "that the Honourable M. P. having shewn such a confirmed constancy, ought not to have met with this sharp repulse; for it was evident and manifest that Mr. Berenger did not indeed belong to the shabby class of 'perhaps' suitors.

But it is now time that we should return from this digression. Sir John Caldwell was at the levee, and his protegé, our quondam acquaintance Doctor Dismal Drew, a newly-appointed chaplain, in a gown and cassock spick and span, who having fully acceded to the rules and stipulations of address, costume, and conduct, appeared indeed to have been moulded into quite a different personage. However his strange absence of mind and defect of judgment fully remained unaltered, as was fully exemplified on the ensuing Sunday, when he preached a sermon at the castle chapel before the Duke and his vice-regal suite. The text was chosen in bad tact, however, and still worse policy: it was selected from the xxvth chapter of Proverbs, 5th verse: "Take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be established in righteousness!" This was unquestionably an uncalled for attack upon the ministry, upon the noble viceroy, and on his patron; and his name was struck out of the list of chaplains, never to be again restored. So much for Doctor Drew! whose head seemed to be obtuse albeit-certainly, however, it was never destined to be encircled with that ornament with which Sancho crowned the head of his favourite Dapple.

Early on the succeeding day her Grace the Duchess of Tyrconnel, the lovely Lady Adelaide, Ladies Letitia and Lucy, escorted by the polite and facetious Sir Patricius Placebo, arrived safely at Dublin Castle, and were most warmly and affectionately received by the Duke and viceroy.

The vice-regal party sat down to dinner at their usual and not irrational hour of four o'clock, which, in these our modern days of dissipation and late hours, would be considered as an hour for dinner quite gothic and á la Bourgeois; for in these our polished days of finished taste and refinement, late hours seem to be the very acme of fashion; late dinners necessarily being succeeded by late suppers, and, par conséquence, afternoon breakfasts, in consequatory succession, bringing up the rere of fashionable high-life to the great practice and benefit of the College of Physicians.

The conversation after dinner was lively and agreeable. The Duchess described their journey, and gave many traits of the good feeling and humour of the lower classes, as witnessed in their journey from Tyrconnel Castle. When the ladies had retired, Lord Glandarah, who was of the party, speaking of the eccentric Mr. Berenger, who had been at the levee on the preceding day, turning to Sir Patricius, inquired of him if he knew that eccentric personage? and the following reply, aided by the effects of brisk Champaign, thus effervesced and flowed from his lips: "Oh, yes, my Lord, I have before these days met with Count Berenger, as he was called; I have too heard him converse with the Windsor beauties, whose similitudes Sir Peter Lely, of pictorial fame,

----'On animated canvass stole

Their sleepy eye that speaks the melting soul.'

Ay, my Lord, and often have I met him at the carousals of old King Carolus, now defunct, but of blessed memory! He is certes the completely finished gentleman. He was once gay, and airy, and agreeable; but now in sooth I must say that he looks as sombre and demure as a solemn gentleman of the long robe extending his silken train, and dancing down a paven![17] In the sublime art of eating he is not a professor, but an artist, [Pg 144]

[Pg 145] only munches the sunny side of a peach or a nectarine; when he wishes to be helped to fowl or chicken, he is always sure to bespeak the liver wing; knows all the nice cuts in a haunch of venison, and he can carve you twenty nice morceaux from the head of a cod-fish; he knows too how turtle should be cooked, and how duly to appreciate callipash and callipe; a glass of liqueur or genuine Coniac he knows as well as I do to be a safe, salutary, and no unpleasant condiment to his fish. In a word, his is the true art of s?avoir vivre; and 'fore Jove or great Apollo, if this were a writing or a printing age, I should incontinently like and admire to have 'Culinary Lucubrations, or the whole divine Art of Cookery,' from the pen of the honourable and polished Mr. Berenger! But it was a sad omission of mine, my Lord, not to include among his various accomplishments, that he is an excellent judge of wines, and an excellent taster too, to boot; for he would never mistake Port wine for Tokay, Chambertin for Chateau-Margut, nor Vin de Grave for Hock! I think there is no going beyond these. Here, then, I sum up the climax of his character, 'not to know him argues one's self unknown!'-My Lord Glandarah, your Lordship's very good health."

Here the noble Duke, concluding from the foregoing symptoms that the Doctor had not omitted taking his quantum sufficit of Burgundy, proposed another flask to Lord Glandarah, or some coffee with the ladies. The ladies had the preference given them; and the Duke retiring to the drawing-room, was followed by his guests.

"I have," whispered Sir Patricius to Lord Glandarah, "observed, in divers companies and upon several occasions, that His Grace in these matters always leaves the discussion to the liberum arbitrium of his guests."

"And," replied the Peer, "Gad save my soul, I laud his discreet resolution!"

The Duchess appointed her first drawing-room for the succeeding evening. It may not be amiss here to acquaint the reader, that at the period of which we now write, court dresses were universally worn by both sexes at evening routes and balls: the gentlemen appeared in full court costume, with bags, swords, and buckles; and the ladies with monstrous bell-hoops, and portentous stomachers of an ell in longitude! and withal incased in the cumbrous accoutrement of a heavy stiffened silk mantua; while their false and elevated tetes reminded one of Pelion piled up on Ossa.

The above remarks will be sufficient to account for the short notice given for the intended drawing-room. We would also observe upon the hours at which the worthy folks of these days assembled at their evening parties. At this period of time the fashionable hour of paying visits was not, as it is now, in the morning, or rather mid-day, when every body is abroad, but it was in the evening, when every one almost was at home; and the visiting hour commenced at so early an hour as seven o'clock. In the autumnal and winter months the saloons and drawings-rooms of the noblesse and gentry in Dublin were at that hour, or at the first visitor's knock at the door, immediately brilliantly lighted up, and if both parties were perfectly disengaged, the guests remained; each room displaying richly cut glass lustres and glass chandeliers illuminated with wax; there was a numerous display of card-tables; the servants attending in rich liveries; while lords and knights, and commoners, and stately dames, and ladies gay, came attired in their court costume. The company partook of tea, coffee, &c.; in the course of the evening lemonade, orgeat, cake, wine, negus, jellies, sweetmeats, and confections, (for the luxury of ice was then unknown,) were handed around to the company, many of whom had meantime sat down to the card-table, some playing whist, cribbage, or tredrille; some at ombre, and others at loo. And as the clock struck ten the company separated, and all retired.

Ladies of high rank usually visited in their state sedan-chairs, which were stuffed, and lined with white and pink satin, and externally decorated with different rich ornaments; large silk tassels dangled at the four angular points of the roof, and the highest top, or pinnacle, was surmounted by a gilt coronet reposing on a crimson cushion; three, sometimes four, footmen, according to the rank of the individual, habited in splendid liveries, and arranged in single files, preceded the sedan-chair, each bearing a lighted flambeau. And sooth to say, some of the old dowagers, when the doubtful light of the flambeau flashed upon their withered visages, incontinently reminded the spectator of the waxen figure of queen Elizabeth in the glass-case at Westminster-Abbey!

The drawing-room night arrived, and was crowded by numbers of the nobility and gentry of both sexes, when the old and the young were assembled together. It was indeed a splendid scene-a galaxy of beauty and magnificence; the dresses were superb; and bright and brilliant were the blaze of gems and jewels that adorned the brows, ears, and encircled the lovely necks of the young, and sparkled on those of a more matronly description. The youthful and lovely fair presenting no unfavourable specimen of the beauty of the daughters of Erin; their cheeks rivalling the rose, and blushing in graceful adolescence; while their lovely bosoms, glowing in healthful bloom, reflected a pearly radiance around the diamonds which sparkled upon and adorned them.

Several ladies of the nobility and gentry, amounting to many hundreds, were presented, and all of whom were most graciously received by the truly kind and agreeable Duchess.

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The amusements of the evening commenced. Several grave minuets were danced in a most marvellous solemn pace; to these succeeded the minuet de lá Cour, which was danced by Sir Patricius Placebo and Lady Letitia Raymond, to the great entertainment of the Duke and Duchess, whose gravity, in sooth to say, was upon this occasion quite borne down and vanquished. Then followed cotillions, which were succeeded by contre-dances, which ended the amusements of the night. Numerous card-tables were placed, and were not unoccupied by the elder part of the assemblage, many of whom went away with their purses many a minus diminished, when they at solemn leisure reckoned their losses on the said night or ensuing morning. But the fun and the drollery of the evening seemed to concentrate in the ridicule attached to Sir Philip Fumbally, a civic knight and alderman, who somewhat resembled, in corporal shape and form, the paunch of Falstaff, with all the stiffness of mine ancient Pistol-aye, and the very nose of renowned Bardolph! However we must take up the brush and finish our portrait. Sir Philip was in stature about four feet five, a perfect rotundity in corpulence, fat short hands, fat short legs; and his face-oh, ye gods, such a face was his! Forehead, he had none! his hair was red, his small ferret eyes were grey, if eyes they could be called, which were indeed to him no windows of the soul! but closed as if under the awful influence of Somnus! His nose was flat, and in colour ruddy red, his chubby cheeks the same; and his mouth opened and grinned with all the agreeability of a cayman or crocodile! His laugh and look were horrid, the former the diapason of a demon, and the latter the very outline of Memistopheles. Leaning upon his unwieldy arm was seen his long-necked, long-armed, and long-legged ugly lady. The Irish, who are somewhat "both the great, vulgar, and the small," too much given liberally to bestow soubriquets, nicknamed this unparalleled pair flesh and bone! And Sir Patricius Placebo somewhat wittily observed, upon his word of honour, as a true knight, that Lady Fumbally always reminded him of an undertaker's horse, a Rosinante covered with a compound of velvet trappings and nodding plumage, withal to cover the skeleton which they adorned!

When the presentations commenced, Sir Philip, "like a doating mallard," waddled after the unfurled train of "his darling duckie," (by which endearing name he familiarly styled my Lady Fumbally,) it so happened that in discharging this uxorious task he tripped up fairly, or rather foully, his lady's train, and by which losing his equipoise, the worthy knight was very nearly tripped up himself. The courtiers all tittered, and some indeed extended it to a most uncourtly loud laugh. The lady, like unto Lot's wife, would fain turn around in defiance of all courtly etiquette, and her visage seemed deeply to participate in the bouleversement of her velvet train. Here the amiable knight, compassionating her trodden down vanity, fairly took up the said portentous train, which was soon somewhat incontinently snatched by a chamberlain in waiting from the grasp of the knight, and again permitted to perform its meanders on the carpet ad libitum. The laugh and titters were again renewed. Mr. Berenger, who was standing close to Sir Patricius Placebo, seemed to be quite roused from his usual nonchalance, and whispered Sir Patricius, "this is too bad, risu ineptu nulla res ineptior est; (nothing is so foolish as the laugh of fools!) however, we courtiers are always too fond of a laugh, that is to say, (crede experto,) provided that it be never directed against ourselves! Sir Patricius, we (with his fore-finger touching the facial nerve of his nose) have been at the court of good old Carolus!"

The worthy Baronet, to whom these observations were addressed, did not commit himself by one single comment, but silently nodded, and was meantime taking snuff with immoderate rapidity, and in no stinted quantities; and when these piquant remarks were made by the ornament of the old court, Sir Patricius politely and gently as possible laughed (voce depresso) his heh, heh, heh, and his ahem! "Yes, yes, Mr. Berenger, indeed we have seen the world!-ahem!

DOSS MOI, TANE STIGMEN!"

Sir Philip Fumbally was the renowned and recorded alderman who at a civic feast loudly proclaimed that Marshal Turenne had taken Great Umbrage, and proposed as a right gallant toast-"Health to the mighty and glorious conqueror of Great Umbrage, the valiant Turenne!" The toast was drank with great enthusiasm; but soon each civic guest asked significantly his neighbour the geographical position of Great Umbrage; was it in France, in Flanders, Utopia, or the Lord knows where? The Gazetteer was put in requisition, and the general atlas (such as the times afforded) were called for, and were conned over. But alas! Umbrage-the proud, the great, and mighty, could no where be found; its place was a blank amid the nations!

What conduced to the mistake or blunder was, that a pique had arisen at that time between General Konigsmark and General Geis (subsequent to the passage of the river Neckar in Germany,) against the Duc d'Enghien, (by whose valour that pass was won, and also Wimpfen was taken;) declaring that the two former would quit the army, &c. At this declaration the Field Marshal Viscount Turenne, it was rumoured, had taken Umbrage! It was upon this datum that the worthy alderman had built his el dorado, his airy citadel, his undiscoverable principality and victory! But Turenne soared above the impetuosity of Konigsmark, and the obstinacy of the other two. Turenne was a hero! and one who would scorn to the city achievement of taking Umbrage from friend or foe!

For about the space of an hour the lovely Lady Adelaide was permitted to remain at the drawing-room, the delight of every eye, and the theme of every tongue.

The Duke sat down to play at tredrille with the Countess Dowager of Ossory and Lord Glandarah. This game, as the name implies, was played by three persons at a small triangular table, which in these our degenerate days, are shown only as curiosities in the cabinets of the curious; and the Duke, when they left off play, arose a winner of about twenty pounds; for in their quiet, snug way the good folks of those days often lost or won fourteen or fifteen pounds of the current coin of the realm at a pool of tredrille, which was then considered most moderate play!

About the hour of eleven o'clock the Duke and Duchess, who had been much gratified and amused during the course of the evening, arose, and bowing most gracefully and courteously to their guests, broke up the drawing-room, and retired.

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The company soon departed for their homes, highly pleased and gratified with the courteous deportment of the noble pair; charmed alike by their affable manners and fascinating attentions equally bestowed on all. It would be tedious at this time of day to detail the names, and it might seem invidious to record the particular beauties that graced the brilliant circle, which upon that memorable evening crowded and adorned the splendid suite of rooms at Dublin Castle.