Penelope's Irish Experiences

n Innisfai

while in e

h, both grave

cs, and ma

larence

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 th

s, in worth s

ray, and virtu

the friend and grace

her lustre

ract thy light,

ams with added b

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

f the heavy dinner menus of the time I cannot thin

eys

leg o

ns,

o

Pud

loin o

son

tri

etb

ared

d appl

r

ssee

ge

ert to

that this array of viands was not eaten dry, but was wa

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 a

else in this degenerate age, which has mostly forgotten how to converse in learning to chat; and any one who goes to the Spring Show at Ball's Bridge,

feet now they pa

word, give

wid a turn

bird, just

o thick round th

ou it's fair time

art wid a kin

Irish girls has

race in the way they wear the 'whatever,' be it the chiffons of the fashionable dame, or the shawl of the country colleen, who can draw the two corners of

ddenly the hum of voices ceased as one of the aides-de-camp who preceded the vice-regal party announced 'their Excellencies.' We made a sort of passage as these dignitaries advanced to shake hands with a few of those they knew best. The Lord Lieutenant then gave his arm to the lady of highest rank (alas, it was not I!); her Excellency ch

ls went in

nt and the

d be more in sympathy with the festivities and more acceptable to our hostess, but that I had forgotten to provide myself for this occasion, my first function in Dublin; whereupon the good dean promptly remembered that there was a Penelope O'Connor, daughter of the King of Connaught. I could n

or his

estry

n's brig

d in h

monarch

mortal h

orn of t

ext to

rom Galloping O'Hogan, who helped Patrick Sarsfiel

ke me smile. A delightful man he was, exactly such an one as might have sprung full grown from a Lever novel; one who could talk

one," when a pretty woman, sitting near him, interpolated slyly, "We might say to you, your reverence, w

t, ma'am?" asked

' pracher, may y

er the minuets at eleven o'clock went to her basset table, while her pages attended behind her chair, and when on ball nights the ladies scrambled for sw

brown chenille, round which twined nasturtiums, ivy, honeysuckles, periwinkles, and all sorts of running flowers, which spread and covered the petticoat.... The robings and facings were little green banks covered with all sorts of weeds, and the sleeves a

tails for the instructi

; lappets in all sorts of curli-murlis; long hoods are worn close under the chin; the ear-ring

econd-