Unfortunately for me, the rebellion in Ireland was soon quelled; the nightly scouring of our county ceased; the poor people returned to their duty and their homes; the occupation of upstart and ignorant associators ceased, and their consequence sunk at once. Things and persons settled to their natural level. The influence of men of property, and birth, and education, and character, once more prevailed. The spirit of party ceased to operate: my neighbours wakened, as if from a dream, and wondered at the strange injustice, with which I had been treated.——— Those who had lately been my combined enemies were disunited, and each was eager to assure me, that he had always been privately my friend, but that he was compelled to conceal his sentiments: each exculpated himself, and threw the blame on others: all apologized to me, and professed to be my most devoted humble servants. My popularity, my power, and my prosperity, were now at their zenith, unfortunately for me: because my adversity had not lasted long enough to form and season my character. I had been driven to exertion by a mixture of pride and generosity: my understanding being uncultivated, I had acted from the virtuous impulse of the moment, but never from rational motive, which alone can be permanent in its operation. When the spur of the occasion pressed upon me no longer, I relapsed into my former inactivity. When the great interests and strong passions, by which I had been impelled to exertion, subsided, all other feelings, and all less objects, seemed stale, flat, and unprofitable. For the tranquillity, which I was now left to enjoy, I had no taste; it appeared to me a dead calm, most spiritless and melancholy. I remember hearing, some years afterwards, a Frenchman, who had been in imminent danger of being guillotined by Robespierre, and who, at last, was one of those who arrested the tyrant, declare, that when the bustle and horrour of the revolution were over, he could hardly keep himself awake; and that he thought it very insipid to live in quiet with his wife and family. He further summed up the catalogue of Robespierre's crimes, by exclaiming, "d'ailleurs c'etoit ungrand philantrope!" I am not conscious of any disposition to cruelty, and I heard this man's speech with disgust; yet, upon a candid self-examination, I must confess, that I have felt, though from different causes, some degree of what he described. Perhaps ennui may have had a share in creating revolutions. A French author pronounces ennui to be "a moral indigestion, caused by a monotony of situations!"
I had no wife or family to make domestic life agreeable; nor was I inclined to a second marriage, my first had proved so unfortunate, and the recollection of my disappointment with Lady Geraldine was so recent. Even the love of power no longer acted upon me: my power was now undisputed. My jealousy and suspicions of my agent, Mr. M'Leod, were about this time completely conquered, by his behaviour at a general election. I perceived, that he had no underhand design upon my boroughs; and that he never attempted or wished to interfere in my affairs, except at my particular desire. My confidence in him became absolute and unbounded; but this was really a misfortune to me, for it became the cause of my having still less to do. I gave up all business, and from all manner of trouble I was now free: yet I became more and more unhappy, and my nervous complaints returned. I was not aware, that I was taking the very means to increase my own disease. The philosophical Dr. Cullen observes, that
"Whatever aversion to application of any kind may appear in hypochondriacs, there is nothing more pernicious to them than absolute idleness, or a vacancy from all earnest pursuit. It is owing to wealth admitting of indolence, and leading to the pursuit of transitory and unsatisfying amusements, or exhausting pleasures only, that the present times exhibit to us so many instances of hypochondriacism."
I fancied that change of air and change of place would do me good; and, as it was fine summer weather, I projected various parties of pleasure. The Giant's Causeway, and the Lake of Killarney, were the only things I had ever heard mentioned as worth seeing in Ireland. I suffered myself to be carried into the county of Antrim, and I saw the Giant's Causeway. From the description given by Dr. Hamilton of some of these wonders of nature, the reader may judge how much I ought to have been astonished and delighted.
In the bold promontory of Bengore, you behold, as you look up from the sea, a gigantic colonnade of basaltes, supporting a black mass of irregular rock, over which rises another range of pillars, "forming altogether a perpendicular height of one hundred and seventy feet, from the base of which the promontory, covered over with rock and grass, slopes down to the sea, for the space of two hundred feet more; making, in all, a mass of near four hundred feet in height, which, in the beauty and variety of its colouring, in elegance and novelty of arrangement, and in the extraordinary magnificence of its objects, cannot be rivalled."
Yet I was seized with a fit of yawning, as I sat in my pleasure-boat, to admire this sublime spectacle. I looked at my watch, observed that we should be late for dinner, and grew impatient to be rowed back to the place where we were to dine: not that I was hungry, but I wanted to be again set in motion. Neither science nor taste expanded my view; and I saw nothing worthy of my admiration, or capable of giving me pleasure. The watching a straw floating down the tide was the only amusement I recollect to have enjoyed upon this excursion.
I was assured, however, by Lady Ormsby, that I could not help being enchanted with the lake of Killarney. The party was arranged by this lady, who, having the preceding summer seen me captivated by Lady Geraldine, and pitying my disappointment, had formed the obliging design of restoring my spirits, and marrying me to one of her near relations. She calculated, that, as I had been charmed by Lady Geraldine's vivacity, I must be enchanted with the fine spirits of Lady Jocunda Lawler. So far were the thoughts of marriage from my imagination, I only was sorry to find a young lady smuggled into our party, because I was afraid she would be troublesome: but I resolved to be quite passive upon all occasions, where attentions to the fair sex are sometimes expected.
My arm, or my hand, or my assistance, in any manner, I was determined not to offer: the lounging indifference, which some fashionable young men affect towards ladies, I really felt; and, besides, nobody minds unmarried women! This fashion was most convenient to my indolence. In my state of torpor I was not, however, long left in peace. Lady Jocunda was a high-bred romp, who made it a rule to say and do whatever she pleased. In a hundred indirect ways I was called upon to admire her charming spirits.
I hated to be called upon to admire any thing. The rattling voice, loud laughter, flippant wit, and hoyden gaiety of Lady Jocunda, disgusted me beyond expression. A thousand times on the journey I wished myself quietly asleep in my own castle. Arrived at Killarney, such blowing of horns, such boating, such seeing of prospects, such prosing of guides, all telling us what to admire. Then such exclamations, and such clambering. I was walked and talked till I was half dead. I wished the rocks, and the hanging woods, and the glens, and the water-falls, and the arbutus, and the myrtles, and the upper and lower lakes, and the islands, and Mucruss, and Mucruss Abbey, and the purple mountain, and the eagle's nest, and the grand Turk, and the lights, and the shades,
and the echoes, and, above all, the Lady Jocunda, fairly at the devil.
A nobleman in the neighbourhood had the politeness to invite us to see a stag hunt upon the water. The account of this diversion, which I had met with in my guide to the lakes [Note: The stag is roused, from the woods that skirt Glenaa mountain, in which there are many of these animals that run wild; the bottoms and sides of the mountains are covered with woods, and the deellvities are so long and steep, that no horse could either make his way to the bottom, or climb, these impracticable hills. It is impossible to follow the hunt, either by land or on horseback. The spectator enjoys the diversion on the lake, where the cry of hounds, the harmony of the horn, resounding from the hills on every side, the universal shouts of joy along the valleys and mountains, which are often lined with foot people, who come in vast numbers to partake and assist at the diversion, roecho from hill to hill, and give the highest glee and satisfaction, that the imagination can conceive possible to arise from the chase, and perhaps can nowhere be enjoyed with that spirit and sublime elevation of soul, that a thorough bred sportsman feels at a stag-hunt on the lake of Killarney. There is, however, one imminent danger, which awaits him, that in his raptures and ecstasies he may forget himself, and jump out of the boat. When hotly pursued, and weary with the constant difficulty of making his way with his ramified antlers through the woods, the stag, terrified by the cry of his open-mouthed pursuers, almost at his heels, now looks towards the lake as his last resource———then pauses and looks upwards; but the hills are insurmountable, and the woods refuse to shelter him———the hounds roar with redoubled fury at the sight of their victim———he plunges into the lake. He escapes but for a few minutes from one merciless enemy to fall into the hands of another——— the shouting boatmen surround their victim, throw cords round his majestic antlers———he is haltered and dragged to shore; while the big tears roll down his face, and his heaving sides and panting flanks speak his agonies, the keen searching knife drinks his blood, and savages exult at his expiring groan.], promised well. I consented to stay another day: that day I really was revived by this spectacle, for it was new. The sublime and the beautiful had no charms for me: novelty was the only power, that could waken me from my lethargy; perhaps there was in this spectacle something more than novelty. The Romans had recourse to shows of wild beasts and gladiators to relieve their ennui. At all events, I was kept awake this whole morning, though I cannot say, that I felt in such ecstasies, as to be in any imminent danger of jumping out of the boat.
Of our journey back from Killarney I remember nothing, but my being discomfited by Lady Jocunda's practical jests and overpowering gayety. When she addressed herself to me, my answers were as constrained and as concise as possible; and, as I was afterwards told, I seemed, at the close of my reply to each interrogative of her ladyship's, to answer with Oden's prophetess,
"Now my weary lips I close; Leave me, leave me to repose." This she never did till we parted; and at that moment, I believe, my satisfaction appeared so visible, that Lady Ormsby gave up all hopes of me. Arrived at my own castle, I threw myself on my bed quite exhausted. I took three hours' additional sleep every day, for a week, to recruit my strength, and rest my nerves, after all that I had been made to suffer by this young lady's prodigious animal spirits.
