all her life; and will at once, too, establish the fact of my treating my subject with equal honesty and disinterestedness.

The very day after landing at Kingstown, in Ireland, which I did for the purpose of embarking with my husband for the Cape of Good Hope-an embarkation ending after a weary voyage of three months, with shipwreck-I was told that Mr. O'Connell was going to head a meeting at the Corn Exchange, in Dublin; and a relation of his calling on me, said that she and a party of friends would accompany me, if I wished it, to hear him speak. My husband's chaperoning me to a political meeting was, of course, out of the question. The promise of an introduction after the meeting was over, made me accept the invitation immebiately.

I had an excellent opportunity of hearing Mr. O'Connell in his happiest vein. He seemed to be in a very good humour indeed; and instead of those vituperations in which he is too apt to indulge, and which are unworthy of a man of such abilities, he dwelt more largely on the beauties of his country than on the conduct of his foes; and his eloquent descriptions of dear Ireland made me readily understand how powerful must be his influence over that people whom he is in the habit of addressing. Then his humour was so racy, that even when he ridiculed the men I had been accustomed to hear lauded to the skies, I could not help laughing at his witty sallies, his apt quotations, and his amusing similes.

The meeting over, we left the gallery, and, in descending, reached the glass-door of Mr. O'Connell's office. I looked over the little green curtain, and there was the "immortal Dan" leaning against the mantelpiece and engaged in conversation with his secretary-the earnestness of the debate being manifested by the various attempts made by the Lord Mayor to settle his wig to his liking-a sure demonstration, I had understood, of the "Agitator's" agitation.

He was so busy that we did not like to disturb him; and I had given up all idea of the introduction, when, just as we were debating about sending for umbrellas (the rain falling fast), Mr. O'Connell's carriage came up, and Mr. O'Connell himself came down. A few words of introduction-a courteous smile-and an offer of "conveying me home"and in two minutes I was side by side with the Agitator. I declare I could hardly refrain from laughing; I could not but think of how my Tory relations would stare if they could but see me. I declare, too, I had a feeling of deception about me when I expressed myself delighted at having at length obtained the introduction I had so long desired; and after telling him of my old wish on that head, I said, with that candour which by many might be set down to wrong account-" I must tell you, Mr. O'Connell, that though I have long been anxious to meet you, though I have been most eager even to hear you speak, I cannot help thinking the Duke of Wellington the greatest man in the world: and I only say this lest you should attribute my desire of an introduction to you to any other motive than that of great admiration of your genius."

After all, what could Mr. O'Connell care for my motives? However, I satisfied my conscience - he was pleased to laugh at my honest avowal-and we understood one another perfectly.

Our drive, though short, permitted a few words of conversation. Something was said about the calamities and dissensions arising from

differences in religious opinions. I had, in the morning, seen Mr. O'Connell's bright-faced grand-daughter, as she came from chapel to the house where I was staying. His daughter, the Lady Mayoress, had also called-a fair, intelligent, creature; and, though the mother of a very large family, a still young and lovely woman. I had heard her express the most charitable opinions with evident ingenuousness; and could not but admire the domestic happiness to which the Agitator was wont to retire from the turmoils of public life. Let his choice of that life proceed from patriotic, ambitious, or selfish motives, or what it may, the position I found Mr. O'Connell held among his intimate friends and connexions surprised me. In the circle, who looked up to him as an idol of admiration and regard, I heard no political discussions; I listened only to anecdotes of his merry humour among his "people" at Darrynane and his grand-children at the Mansion House; and, having seen quite enough of the world (heaven help me!) to have rubbed off the rust of narrow-minded prejudices, I felt "how little indeed do we know of one another's inner life!"-how hard it is to judge of a man's private character by his public character!-and, above all, what a pleasant thing it is for one, (brought up, too, in directly opposite principles,) to discover redeeming, nay, endearing qualties, in one whom one has been led to consider altogether too worldly for the enjoyment of domestic affections. All this had passed through my mind before I found myself tête-à-tête with the Agitator; and as I have said, from one remark to another, we came to mutual regrets that difference of religious opinions between persons professing to be Christians should cause dissensions among families and destroy the ties of friendship. We began by being serious in our discussionO'Connell ended it with an anecdote and a laugh.

"Did you never," he said, "hear the anecdote of George the Third and O'Shaughnessy?"

"Never," I replied.

"Well, then, I'll tell it you. O'Shaughnessy was a man whom George the Third used to employ to make his clothes, and even to alter them occasionally. He was anything but a fashionable artist; but whether it was that his work suited the king's homely habits, or that his majesty liked to have him about him, and to hear him talk, (as he did, with the Irish absence of reserve when encouraged,) I know not; certain it is, O'Shaughnessy was often summoned to Windsor, and was often known to hold long conversations with his royal employer, with whom he evidently increased in favour. This, of course, raised him many enemies; and at last, some who wished to do him injury in the sight of the king, told his majesty that O'Shaughnessy was a papist. The king did not send for him to dismiss him immediately as was anticipated, but the next time he had occasion to employ him, he called out O'Shaughnessy! I say O'Shaughnessy! they tell me you are a papist! What religion are you, Mr. O'Shaughnessy-I say, what religion are you, eh? Plase your majesty,' replied O'Shaughnessy, very quietly and gravely, "I'm a―TAILOR P

"Sure," continued O'Connell, "the king never asked O'Shaughnessy another question on this subject. And wasn't it a good example to set, that as long as a man minds his own business, and does it well, it is no business of other people what his religious opinions may be?"

Cape Town, Sept. 28, 1842.

THE TOWN LIFE OF THE RESTORATION.

BY ROBERT BELL.

PART I.

"When Players come to act the Parts of Queens,
Within the Curtains, and behind the Scenes-

*

When two good Kings shall be at Brentford town,
And when in London there shall not be one."
Nostradamus's Prophecy.-MARVELL.

"You see, Madam, here, the unhappiness of being born in our time, in which to that Virtue and Perfection, the Greeks and Romans would have given Temples and Altars, the highest thing we dare dedicate, is a Play, or some such Trifle.”—Dedication of the Mulberry Garden to the Duchess of Richmond.—SEDLEY.

THE age of the Restoration was not less memorable for its own excesses, than for the solemn decorum it displaced. The transition was sudden, startling, and complete, from the "shop-board breeding" of the ruffed and cloaked puritan,

“With coz'ning cough and hollow cheek,”

to the spanking licentiousness of the cavalier. The rapidity of the
change is scarcely intelligible to us, accustomed as we are to the silent
and certain progression of the public mind.
frozen springs were set free, and London was flooded with long pent-
In a single night the
up appetites and riotous passions. The king himself set the example,
and had scarcely finished the enthusiastic reception at Whitehall, when
he retired in indecent haste and impetuous disorder, to lull his fluttered
royalty in the lap of Mrs. Palmer. It was like a general gaol delivery
of all the vices, in a state of rabid excitement; and the frantic multitude,
roaring through the streets, may be easily imagined, shrieking a
tumultuous chorus, in the words of one of their own popular poets-
"Let every conduit run

Canary, 'till we lodge the reeling sun-
Tap every joy, let not a pearl be spilt,
'Till we have set the ringing world a-tilt!"

A new race, new manners, new institutions, new licences, from that instant set in. The "men about town" of the new regime, that "starving crew," of whom, says Sedley,

"None but has killed his man, or writ his play,"

exhibited a daring contrast to their immediate predecessors; the men "of sure election,

With eyes all white, and many a groan,

And neck aside to draw in tone."

The best picture of the times is to be found in the satires, epigrams, and lampoons of the day; where there was no sparing of the salient characteristics at either side, and where, through a haze of the strangest buffoonery and the most audacious caricature, we get a closer insight into the daily life of the period, than the conventional dignity of history will permit us to procure, except very rarely, in its more authentic pages. The two phases of the Commonwealth and the Monarchy have been felicitously epitomized, in the characters of Cromwell and Charles, by Cleaveland and Marvell, both stanch adherents to their opposite

VOL. III.

K

parties. Cleaveland's famous lines on the Protector are well known, beginning with

"What's a Protector? He's a stately thing,
That apes it in the non-age of a king;

A Tragick Actor, Cæsar in a clown:

He's a brass farthing stamped with a crown."

Whoever is curious to pursue the parallel between Cromwell,

"An outward saint, lined with a devil within,”

and Charles, as drawn by Marvell, who "kept his father's asses," and "Who, in the mimics of the Spinstrian sport,

Outdoes Tiberius and his goatish court,"

may be referred to these pieces of rampant satire, not only for familiar portraits of the individuals, but for the broad features of the ages on which they so vividly impressed their own likenesses. We here propose to confine ourselves to the racketting era of the Restoration, and especially to that distinctive aspect of it which we have ventured to call its town-life.

This town-life was a thing peculiar to the period. It never existed before, it never existed since, and it would be impossible to revive it. It was like the fair of Amsterdam (which, from the intensity of its abandonment, lasts only a single night), an uproarious carnival, sanctioned by examples that had all the influence of prescriptive authority, utterly independent of all law and morality, running riot at the perilous height of the animal spirits, inflamed with drink, and maddened with over-reaching lusts, that at last paralyzed the senses of the revellers, and smote their quivering pulses dead, while they were yet gasping in unfulfilled pleasures. This blood-wantonness, which, in its fearful and unbridled fury, bears some resemblance to the Image of Carnage, thrust itself, in the open daylight into the face of the people, fearless, shameless, lawless. It corrupted all the public places, it infected the tone of private society, swept like a pest from the court to the stews, contaminated even the literature of the day, and having first debauched the stage, ultimately elevated its polluted priestesses to the palace. Casting the loathsome responsibility of all this demoralization upon the right shoulders, Dryden, in his famous and fearless Epilogue to Fletcher's Pilgrim, branded the monarch with immortal infamy. Some of his lines fill the ear like a burst of trumpets :

"Misses there were, but modestly conceal'd;
Whitehall the naked Venus first reveal'd;
Who standing as at Cyprus, in her shrine,
The strumpet was adored with rites divine."

In all this there was nothing but grossness and the lowest depravity. It was a Monster of Selfishness, without Faith, without Love, without Reason; ready to trample down all laws, sympathies, and affections, for the gratification of the meanest of its own crawling desires. One of the most curious illustrations of the surpassing licentiousness of the age, is to be found in the fact that two of the royal physicians in ordinary recommended themselves to the favour of the king by advo cating his two predominant vices-the one making the king's favourite indulgence a sixth sense, and the other maintaining, in a grave scientific treatise, the advantage of the constant use of wine for the preservation

of health!* Rochester is said to have left behind him a manuscript history of the intrigues of the court, which was burned by his mother, a woman of piety. It is a great pity the papers were destroyed; they would have laid bare an imbroglio of profligacies such as the world has never conceived in its wildest dreams of wolfish prerogative let loose upon mankind.

The public of our day look back upon the orgies of that period with something of the same sort of feeling inspired by the dances of the witches on the Brocken. The whole scene is filled with similar wild and hellish gambols; and the only gleam of grace by which it is sparingly relieved, is that sparkling gaiety which distinguished most of the courtiers. But gaiety without heart is a very equivocal grace after all, and so its influence is but slightly felt. Yet there are many objects to provoke our curiosity in this strange hurly-burly. It is so opposed to our own experiences-so fantastic-so crowded with brilliant figuresso distracted with rays of light that seem to be perpetually melting each other down-that one wants to get a little nearer, to see how this dazzling life was actually carried on.

The habits and whereabouts of the wits and coxcombs, the Fribbles and Keepwells, the Beau Hewitts and Sedleys, suggest a variety of discursive inquiries that may be worth following out. If we get only a glimpse here and there of the town, under the influence of the delirium, it may repay the trouble of penetrating sundry obscure nooks and corners of a fugitive literature, frequently explored, but not yet

exhausted.

The playhouse was the centre-wheel round which all the movements of the fashionable profligates revolved. The situation of the theatreroyal, abutting upon Drury-lane, was favourable to every species of intrigue, from the "lark" of the apprentice, at the Rose Tavern, to the more stealthy pleasure of an assignation in the Duke of Bedford's piazza. Covent-garden was a famous place for the rendezvous of lovers of all classes, and of all shades of morality. Martha, in Wycherley's comedy of Love in a Wood, speaks of meeting Dapperwit "in a piazza at midnight;" and Mrs. Frail, in Love for Love, jests about taking a turn in a hackney-coach with a friend, in Covent-garden square. The whole of that neighbourhood was the fashionable quarter, and Bow-street was the great lounge. Drury-lane was then an aristocratic locality, the stately piles of Craven and Bohemia houses occupying the greater part of that thoroughfare.

Descending towards the Strand, even but a few hundred yards, we at once get out of the fairy-land of our town-life. Once we leave Brydges-street to move southwards, or eastwards, we make as marked a transition as from light to darkness. The way by Craven house was scarred with pits and sloughs; and the Strand itself was nothing better than a bleak, rugged highway. The space round Covent-garden was covered with fields and gardens belonging to the abbots of Westminster; and the distant region beyond the village of Charing, now called Pall Mall, was a stretch of neglected pasture-ground, known as St. James's Fields. Fleet-street was in the same condition; and the actors were rejoiced when they were able to remove from the large theatre, called

Beloe's Anecdotes, vol. i. p. 200.

† Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors.