More rain in Galway — A walk there — and the second Galway Night’s Entertainment.

“Seven hills has Rome, seven mouths has Nuns’ stream,

Around the Pole seven burning planets gleam.

Twice equal these is Galway, Connaught’s Rome:

Twice seven illustrious tribes here find their home.a

Twice seven fair towers the city’s ramparts guard:

Each house within is built of marble hard.

With lofty turret flanked, twice seven the gates,

Through twice seven bridges water permeates.

In the high church are twice seven altars raised,

At each a holy saint and patron’s praised.

Twice seven the convents dedicate to heaven, -

Seven for the female sex-for godly fathers seven.”b

Having read in Hardiman’s History the quaint inscription in Irish Latin, of which the above lines are a version, and looked admiringly at the old plans of Galway which are to be found in the same work, I was in hopes to have seen in the town some considerable remains of its former splendour, in spite of a warning to the contrary which the learned historiographer gives.

a By the help of an Alexandrine, the names of these famous families may also be accommodated to verse.

“Athey, Blake, Bodkin, Browne, Deane, Dorsey, Frinche.

Joyce, Morech, Skereth, Foote, Kirowan, Martin, Roche.”

b If the rude old verses are not very remarkable in quality, in quantity they are sill more deficient, and take some dire liberties with the laws laid  down in the Gradus and the Grammar:]

“Septem ornant montes Romam, sept ostia Nilum

Tot rutilis stellis splendet in axe Pollus.

Galvia, Polo Niloque bis aequas. Roma Conachtae,

Bis septem illultres has colit illa tribus.

Bis urbis septem defendunt moenia turres,

Intus et en duro est marmore quaeque domus.

Bis septem portae sunt, castra et culmina circum,

Per totidem pontum unda vias.

Principle bis septem fulgent altaria templo,

Quaevis patronae est ara dicata suo,

Et septem sacrata Deo coenobia, patrum

Foeminei et sexus, tot pia tecta tenet.”

The old city certainly has some relics of its former stateliness; and indeed, is the only town in Ireland I have seen, where an antiquary can find much subject for study, or a lover of the picturesque an occasion for using his pencil. It is a wild, fierce, and most original old town. Joyce’s Castle in one of the principal streets, a huge square grey tower, with many carvings and ornaments, is a gallant relic of its old days of prosperity, and gives one an awful idea of the tenements which the other families inhabited, and which are designed in the interesting plate which Mr. Hardiman gives in his work. The Collegiate Church, too, is still extant, without its fourteen altars, and looks to be something between a church and a castle, and as if it should be served by Templars with sword and helmet in place of mitre and crozier. The old houses in the Main Street are like fortresses the windows look into a court within; there is but a small low door, and a few grim windows peering suspiciously into the street.

Then there is Lombard Street otherwise called Deadman’s Lane, with a raw-head and cross-bones and a “memento mori” over the door where the dreadful tragedy of the Lynches was acted in 1493. If Galway is the Rome of Connaught, James Lynch Fitzstephen, the Mayor, may be considered as the Lucius Junius Brutus thereof. Lynch had a son who went to Spain as master of one of his father’s ships, and being of an extravagant, wild turn, there contracted debts, and drew bills, and alarmed his father’s correspondent, who sent a clerk and nephew of his own back in young Lynch’s ship to Galway to settle accounts. On the fifteenth day, young Lynch threw the Spaniard overboard. Coming back to his own country, he reformed his life a little, and was on the point of marrying one of the Blakes, Burkes, Bodkins, or others, when a seaman who had sailed with him, being on the point of death, confessed the murder in which he had been a participator.

Hereon the father, who was chief magistrate of the town, tried his son, and sentenced him to death; and when the clan Lynch rose in a body to rescue the young man, and avert such a disgrace from their family, it is said that Fitzstephen Lynch hung the culprit with his own hand. A tragedy called “The Warden of Galway” has been written on the subject, and was acted a few nights before my arrival.

The waters of Lough Corrib, which “permeate” under the bridges of the town, go rushing and roaring to the sea with a noise and eagerness only known in Galway; and along the banks you see all sorts of strange figures washing all sorts of wonderful rags, with red petticoats and redder shanks standing in the stream. Pigs are in every street: the whole town shrieks with them. There are numbers of idlers on the bridges, thousands in the streets, humming and swarming in and out of dark old ruinous houses; congregated round numberless apple-stalls, nail-stalls, bottle-stalls, pigsfoot-stalls; in queer old shops, that look to be two centuries old; loitering about warehouses, ruined or not; looking at the washerwomen washing in the river, or at the fish-donkeys, or at the potato-stalls, or at a vessel coming into the quay, or at the boats putting out to sea.

The boat at the quay, by the little old gate, is bound for Arranmore; and one next to it has a freight of passengers for the cliffs of Mohir on the Clare coast; and as the sketch is taken, a hundred of people have stopped in the street to look on, and are buzzing behind in Irish, telling the little boys in that language — who will persist in placing themselves exactly in the front of the designer — to get out of his way: which they do for some time; but at length curiosity is so intense that you are entirely hemmed in and the view rendered quite invisible. A sailor’s wife comes up — who speaks English — with a very wistful face, and begins to hint that them black pictures are very bad likenesses, and very dear too for a poor woman, and how much would a painted one cost does his honour think? And she has her husband that is going to sea to the West Indies to-morrow, and she’d give anything to have a picture of him. So I made bold to offer to take his likeness for nothing. But he never came, except, one day at dinner, and not at all on the next day, though I stayed on purpose to accommodate him. It is true that it was pouring with rain; and as English waterproof cloaks are not waterproof in Ireland, the traveller who has but one coat must of necessity respect it, and had better stay where he is, unless he prefers to go to bed while he has his clothes dried at the next stage.

The houses in the fashionable street where the club-house stands (a strong building, with an agreeable Old Bailey look,) have the appearance of so many little Newgates. The Catholic chapels are numerous, unfinished, and ugly. Great warehouses and mills rise up by the stream, or in the midst of unfinished streets here and there; and handsome convents with their gardens, justice-houses, barracks, and hospitals adorn the large, poor, bustling, rough-and-ready-looking town. A man who sells hunting-whips, gunpowder, guns, fishing-tackle, and brass and iron ware, has a few books on his counter; and a lady in a bystreet, who carries on the profession of a milliner, ekes out her stock in a similar way. But there were no regular book-shops that I saw, and when it came on to rain I had no resource but the hedge-school volumes again. They, like Patrick Spelman’s sign, present some very rude flowers of poetry and “entertainment” of an exceeding humble sort; but such shelter is not to be despised when no better is to be had: nay, possibly its novelty may be piquant to some readers, as an admirer of Shakspeare will occasionally condescend to listen to Mr. Punch, or an epicure to content himself with a homely dish of beans and bacon.

When Mr. Kilroy’s waiter has drawn the window-curtains, brought the hot-water for the whiskey-negus, a pipe and a “screw” of tobacco, and two huge old candlesticks that were plated once, the audience may be said to be assembled, and after a little overture performed on the pipe, the second night’s entertainment begins with the historical tragedy of the “Battle of Aughrim.”

Though it has found its way to the West of Ireland, the “Battle of Aughrim” is evidently by a Protestant author, a great enemy of popery and wooden shoes: both of which principles incarnate in the person of Saint Ruth, the French General commanding the troops sent by Louis XIV. to the aid of James II., meet with a woeful downfall at the conclusion of the piece. It must have been written in the reign of Queen Anne, judging from some loyal compliments which are paid to that sovereign in the play; which is also modelled upon “Cato.”

The “Battle of Aughrim” is written from beginning to end in decasyllabic verse of the richest sort; and introduces us to the chiefs of William’s and James’s armies. On the English side we have Baron Ginkell, three Generals, and two Colonels; on the Irish Monsieur Saint Ruth, two Generals, two Colonels, and an English gentleman of fortune, a volunteer, and son of no less a person than Sir Edmundbury Godfrey.

There are two ladies — Jemima, the Irish Colonel Talbot’s daughter, in love with Godfrey; and Lucinda, lady of Colonel Herbert, in love with her lord. And the deep nature of the tragedy may be imagined when it is stated that Colonel Talbot is killed, Colonel Herbert is killed, Sir Charles Godfrey is killed, and Jemima commits suicide, as resolved not to survive her adorer. St. Ruth is also killed, and the remaining Irish heroes are taken prisoners or run away. Among the supernumeraries there is likewise a dreadful slaughter.

The author, however, though a Protestant is an Irishman (there are peculiarities in his pronunciation which belong only to that nation), and as far as courage goes, he allows the two parties to be pretty equal. The scene opens with a martial sound of kettle-drums and trumpets in the Irish camp, near Athlone. That town is besieged by Ginkell, and Monsieur St Ruth (despising his enemy with a confidence often fatal to Generals) meditates an attack on the besiegers’ lines, if, by any chance, the besieged garrison be not in a condition to drive them off. After discoursing on the posture of affairs, and letting General Sarsfield and Colonel O’Neil know his hearty contempt of the English and their General, all parties, after protestations of patriotism, indulge in hopes of the downfall of William. St. Ruth says he will drive the wolves and lions’ cubs away. O’Neil declares he scorns the revolution, and, like great Cato, smiles at persecution. Sarsfield longs for the day “when our Monks and Jesuits shall return, and holy incense on our altars burn.” When

Enter a Post.

“Post. With important news I from Athlone am sent,

Be pleased to lead me to the General’s tent.

“Sars. Behold the General there. Your message tell.

“St. Ruth. Declare your message. Are our friends all well?

“Post Pardon me, sir, the fatal news I bring

Like vulture’s poison every heart shall sting.

Athlone is lost without your timely aid.

At six this morning an assault was made,

When, under shelter of the British cannon,

Their grenadiers in armour took the Shannon,

Led by brave captain Sandys, who with fame

Plunged to his middle in the rapid stream.

He led them through, and with undaunted ire

He gained the bank in spite of all our fire

Being bravely followed by his grenadiers

Though bullets flew like hail about their ears,

And by this time they enter uncontrolled.

“St Ruth. Dare all the force of England be so bold

To attempt to storm so brave a town, when I

With all Hibernia’s sons of war am nigh?

Return: and if the Britons dare pursue,

Tell them St. Ruth is near, and that will do.

“Post Your aid would do much better than your name.

“St Ruth. Bear back this answer, friend, from whence you came.

[Exit Post."]

The picture of brave Sandys, “who with fame plunged to his middle in the rapid strame,” is not a bad image on the part of the Post; and St. Ruth’s reply, “Tell them St. Ruth is near, and that will do,” characteristic of the vanity of his nation. But Sarsfield knows Britons better, and pays a merited compliment to their valor:

“Sars. Send speedy succours and their fate prevent

You know not yet what Britons dare attempt.

I know the English fortitude is such,

To boast of nothing, though they hazard much

No force on earth their fury can repel,

Nor would they fly from all the devils in hell.”

Another officer arrives: Athlone is really taken, St: Ruth gives orders to retreat to Aughrim, and Sarsfield, in a rage, first challenges him, and then vows he will quit the army. “A gleam of horror does my vitals damp,“ says the Frenchman (in a figure of speech more remarkable for vigour than logic): “I fear Lord Lucan his forsook the camp!” But not so: after a momentary indignation, Sarsfield returns to his duty, and ere long is reconciled with his vain and vacillating chief.

And now the love-intrigue begins. Godfrey enters, and states Sir Charles Godfrey is his lawful name: he is an Englishman, and was on his way to join Ginckle’s camp, when Jemima’s beauty overcame him: he asks Colonel Talbot to bestow on him the lady’s hand. The Colonel consents, and in Act II., on the plain of Aughrim, at 5 o’clock in the morning, Jemima enters and proclaims her love. The lovers have an interview, which concludes by a mutual confession of attachment, and Jemima says, “Here, take my hand. ’Tis true the gift is small, but when I can I’ll give you heart and all.” The lines show finely the agitation of the young person. She meant to say, Take my heart but she is longing to be married to him, and the words slip out as it were unawares. Godfrey cries in raptures-

“Thanks to the gods! who such a present gave:

Such radiant graces ne’er could man receive (resave)

For who on earth has e’er such transports known?

What is the Turkish monarch on his throne,

Hemmed round with rusty swords in pompous state?

Amidst his court no joys can be so great.

Retire with me, my soul, no longer stay

In public view! the General moves this way.”

’Tis, indeed, the General; who, reconciled with Sarsfield, straightway, according to his custom, begins to boast about what he will do:—

“Thrice welcome to my heart, thou best of friends!

The rock on which our holy faith depends!

May this our meeting as a tempest make

The vast foundations of Britannia shake,

Tear up their orange plant, and overwhelm

The strongest bulwarks of the British realm I

Then shall the Dutch and Hanoverian fall,

And James shall ride in triumph to Whitehall;

Then to protect our faith he will maintain

An inquisition here like that in Spain.

“Sars. Most bravely urged, my lord! your skill, I own.

Would be unparalleled — had you saved Athlone.

- “Had you saved Athlone!” Sarsfield has him there. And the contest of words might have provoked quarrels still more fatal, but alarms are heard: the battle begins, and St. Ruth (still confident) goes to meet the enemy, exclaiming, “Athlone was sweet, but Aughrim shall be sour.” The fury of the Irish is redoubled on hearing of Talbot’s heroic death: the Colonel’s corpse is presently brought in, and to it enters Jemima who bewails her loss in the following pathetic terms:—

“Jemima. Oh! — he is dead! — my soul is all on fire.

Witness ye gods! — he did with fame expire.

For Liberty a sacrifice was made,

And fell, like Pompey, by some villian’s blade.

There lies a breathless Corpse, whose soul ne’er knew

A thought but what was always just and true;

Look down from heaven, God of peace and love,

Waft him with triumph to the throne above;

And, O ye winged guardians of the skies

Tune your sweet harps and sing his obsequies!

Good friends, stand off — whilst I embrace the ground

Whereon he lies — and bathe each mortal wound

With brinish tears, that like to torrents run

From these sad eyes. O heavens! I’m undone.

[Falls down on the body.

“Enter Sir Charles Godfrey. He raises her.

“Sir Char. Why do these precious eyes like fountains flow,

To drown the radiant heaven that lies below’

Dry up your tears, I trust his soul ere this
Has reached the mansions of eternal bliss.

Soldiers I bear hence the body out of sight.

[They bear him of.

“Jem. Oh, stay-ye murderers, cease to kill me quite;

See how he glares -and see again he flies

The clouds fly open, and he mounts the skies.

Oh I see his blood, it shines refulgent bright,

I see him yet — I cannot lose him quite,

But still pursue him on — and — lose my sight.”

The gradual disappearance of the Colonel’s soul is now finely indicated, and so is her grief: when showing the body to Sir Charles, she says, “Behold the mangled cause of all my woes.” The sorrow of youth, however, is but transitory; and when her lover bids her dry her gushish tears, she takes out her pocket-handkerchief with the elasticity of youth, and consoles herself for the father in the husband.

Act III. represents the English camp: Ginckle and his Generals discourse; the armies are engaged. In Act IV. the English are worsted in spite of their valour; which Sarsfield greatly describes. “View,” says he -

“view how the foe like an impetuous flood

Breaks through the smoke, the water, and — the mud!”

It becomes exceedingly hot. Colonel Earles says-

“In vain Jove’s lightnings issue from the sky,

For death more sure from British ensigns fly.

Their messengers of death much blood have spilled,

And full three hundred of the Irish killed.”

A description of war (Herbert):—

“Now bloody colours wave in all their pride,

And each Proud hero does his beast bestride.

General Dorrington’s description of the fight is, if possible, still more noble:

“Dor. Haste, noble friends, and save your lives by flight,

For ’tis but madness if you stand to fight.

Ourr cavalry the battle have forsook,

And death appears in each dejected look;

Nothing but dread confusion can be seen,

For severed heads and trunks o’erspread the green;

The fields, the vales, the hills, and vanquished plain,

For five miles round are covered with the slain.

Death in each quarter does the eye alarm,

Here lies a leg, and there a shattered arm.

There heads appear, which, cloven by mighty bangs,

And severed quite, on either shoulder hangs:

This is the awful scene, my lords. Oh, fly

The impending danger, for your fate is nigh.”

Which party, however, is to win — the Irish or English? Their heroism is equal, and young Godfrey especially, on the Irish side, is carrying all before him — when he is interrupted in the slaughter by the ghost of his father: of old Sir Edmundbury, whose monument we may see in Westminster Abbey. Sir Charles, at first, doubts about the genuineness of this venerable old apparition; and thus puts a case to the ghost:—

“Were ghosts in heaven, in heaven they there would stay

Or if in hell, they could not get away.

A clincher, certainly, as one would imagine; but the ghost jumps over the horns of the fancied dilemma, by saying that lit is not at liberty to state where he comes from.

“Ghost. Where visions rest, or souls imprisoned dwell,

By heaven’s command. we are forbid to tell;

But in the obscure grave — where corpse decay,

Moulder in dust and putrefy away, -

No rest is there for the immortal soul

Takes its full flight and flutters round the Pole;

Sometimes I hover over the Euxine sea -

From Pole to Sphere, until the judgment day -

Over the Thracian Bosphorus do I float,

And pass the Stygian lake in Charon’s boat,

O’er Vulcan’s fiery court and sulph’rous cave,

And ride like Neptune on a briny wave;

List to the blowing noise of Etna’s flames,

And court the shades of Amazonian dames;

Then take thy flight up to the gleamy moon:

Thus do I wander until the day of doom.

Proceed I dare not, or I would unfold

A horrid tale would make your blood run cold,

Chill all your nerves and sinews in a trice

Like whispering rivulets congealed to ice.

“Sir Char. Ere you depart me, ghost, I here demand

You’d let me know your last divine command!

The ghost says that the young man must die in the battle; that it will go ill for him if he die in the wrong cause; and, therefore, that he had best go over to the Protestants — which poor Sir Charles (not without many sighs for Jemima) consents to do. He goes off then, saying-

“I’ll join my countrymen, and yet proclaim

Nassau’s great title to the crimson plain.”

In Act V., that desertion turns the fate of the day. Sarsfield enters with his sword drawn, and acknowledges his fate. “Aughrim,” exclaims Lord Lucan,

“Aughrim is now no more, St. Ruth is dead,

And all his guards are from the battle fled,

As he rode down the hill he met his fall,

And died a victim to a cannon ball.”

And he bids the Frenchman’s body to

“ — lie like Pompey in his gore,

Whose hero’s blood encircles the Egyptian shore.”

“Four hundred Irish prisoners we have got,” exclaims an English Genera!, “and seven thousand lyeth on the spot.” In fact, they are entirely discomfited, and retreat off the stage altogether; while, in the moment of victory, poor Sir Charles Godfrey enters, Wounded to death, according to the old gentleman’s prophecy. He is racked by bitter remorse: he tells his love of his treachery, and declares “no crocodile was ever more unjust.” His agony increases, the “optic nerves grow dim and lose their sight, and all his veins are now exhausted quite;” and he dies in the arms of his Jemima, who stabs herself in the usual way.

And so every one being disposed, of the drums and trumpets give a great peal, the audience huzzas, and the curtain falls on Ginckle and his friends exclaiming-

“May all the gods th’ Suspicious evening bless,

Who crowns Great Britain’s arrums with success I ”

And questioning the prosody, what Englishman will not join in the sentiment.

In the interlude the band (the pipe) performs a favourite air. Jack the waiter and candle-snuffer looks to see that all is ready; and after the dire business of the tragedy, comes in to sprinkle the stage with water (and perhaps a little whiskey in it). Thus all things being arranged, the audience takes its seat again and the afterpiece begins.

Two of the little yellow voumes purchased at Ennis are entitled “The Irish and Hibernian Tales.” The former are modern, and the latter of an ancient sort; and so great is the superiority of the old stories over the new, in fancy, dramatic interest, and humour, that one can’t help fancying Hibernia must have been a very superior country to Ireland.

These Hibernian novels, too, are evidently intended for the hedge-school universities. They have the old tricks and some of the old plots that one has read in many popular legends of almost all countries, European and Eastern: successful cunning is the great virtue applauded; and the heroes pass through a thousand wild extravagant dangers, such as could only have been invented when art was young and faith was large. And as the honest old author of the tales says “they are suited to the meanest as well as the highest capacity, tending both to improve the fancy and enrich the mind,” let us conclude the night’s entertainment by reading one or two of them; and reposing after the doleful tragedy which has been represented. The “Black Thief “ is worthy of the Arabian Nights, I think, — as wild and odd as an Eastern tale.

It begins, as usual, with a King and Queen who lived once on a time in the South of Ireland, and had three sons; but the Queen being on her death-bed, and fancying her husband might marry again, and unwilling that her children should be under the jurisdiction of any other woman, besought his Majesty to place them in a tower at her death, and keep them there safe until the young Princes should come of age.

The Queen dies: the King of course marries again, and the new Queen, who bears a son too, hates the offspring of the former marriage, and looks about for means to destroy them.

“At length the Queen, having got some business with the hen-wife, went herself to her, and after a long conference passed, was taking leave of her, when the hen-wife prayed that if ever she should come back to her again she might break her neck.

The Queen, greatly incensed at such a daring insult from one of her meanest subjects, to make such a prayer on her, demanded immediately the reason, or she would have her put to death. ‘It is worth your while, madam,’ says the hen-wife, ‘to pay me well for it, for the reason I prayed so on you concerns you much.’ ‘What must I pay you?’ asked the Queen. ‘You must give me,’ says she ‘the full of a pack of wool: and I have an ancient crock which you must fill with butter; likewise a barrel which you must fill for me full of wheat.’ ‘How much wool will it take to the pack?’ says the Queen. ‘It will take seven herds of sheep,’ said she, ‘and their increase for seven years.’ ‘How much butter will it take to fill your crock?’ ‘Seven dairies,’ said she, ‘and the increase for seven years.’ ‘And how much will it take to fill the barrel you have?’ says the Queen. ‘It will take the increase of seven barrels of wheat for seven years.’ ‘That is a great quantity,’ says the Queen, ‘but the reason must be extraordinary, and before I want it I will give you all you demand."’

The hen-wife acquaints the Queen with the existence of the three sons, and giving her Majesty an enchanted pack of cards, bids her to get the young men to play with her with these cards, and on their losing, to inflict upon them such a task as must infallibly end in their ruin. All young princes are set upon such tasks, and it is a sort of opening of the pantomime, before the tricks and activity begin. The Queen went home, and “got speaking” to the King “in regard of his children, and she broke it off to him in a very polite and engaging manner, so that he could see no muster or design in it.” The King agreed to bring his sons to court, and at night, when the royal party “began to sport, and play at all kinds of diversions,” the Queen cunningly challenged the three Princes to play cards. They lose, and she sends them in consequence to bring her back the Knight of the Glen’s wild steed of bells.

On their road (as wandering young princes, Indian or Irish, always do) they meet with the Black Thief of Sloan, who tells them what they must do. But they are caught in the attempt, and brought “into that dismal part of the palace where the Knight kept a furnace always boiling, in which he threw all offenders that ever came in his way, which in a few minutes would entirely consume them. ‘Audacious villains!’ says the Knight of the Glen, ‘how dare you attempt so bold an action as to steal my steed? see now the reward of your folly: for your greater punishment, I will not boil............