Delville At Glasnevin

*Delville At Glasnevin

Glasnevin. - Delville. - Addison. - Tickell. - Dean Swift. - Dr. Delany. - Mrs. Pendarves, afterwards Mrs. Delany. - Stella.

The pretty little village of Glasnevin, about a mile and a half from the post-office, has a delightful air of quietude that would have suited that constant dreamer Evelyn to perfection. Here he could have found the restful calm that is never attained in the Great Babylon ; here the trees, the flowers, the brooks, all tell the same story they have been telling for centuries-that the end of man is vanity. Glasnevin, indeed, is eminently suited for meditation.

We have only to go into God’s-acre close by, where the dead lie, as Longfellow says, “in holy sleep. No one comes to them now to hold them by the hand and with delicate fingers to smooth their hair; they need us not, however much we may need them, and yet they silently await our coming.” If any people should be familiarized with the thought of death, it must be the inhabitants of Glasnevin, fifty or more funerals passing each day, and in times of severe epidemic even a hundred.

The bell from the cemetery is tolling all through the forenoon its eternal requiem, and the interminable procession of carriages is ever winding along the road. Glasnevin is, in fact, “always berryin’,” as the old sexton said with an air of pride, as if to say other places lacked this excitement; and then in answer to a question of mine “We don’t mind the work - Lord love you, no ! - we likes it; and will like it too when our time comes. Earth to earth for me; none of your stonework a-laying on top of me like a mountain weight, nor your big lonely vaults.” “Afeard of what? There ain’t nothing to be afeard of. Them that’s down there” (with a comprehensive wave of his finger and thumb to the grass) “is the good-naturedest folk going ; even the childer ain’t afraid of *them! *Our little ‘uns are downright fond of the coffins, they is; and all the childer like playing at funerals.”

The sexton’s observations were slightly creepy but I reflected that custom reconciles one to everything, and that had I lived all my life under the shadow of a churchyard I might have been fond of the coffins too. It is a fact that the Irish have rather a pronounced taste for such sad functions as funerals. A well-known dignitary of the law always kept an extra pair of horses to do the funeral work, which was very heavy; the pair, which were none of the best, being always busy.

For the rest, the Glasnevin Cemetery is made lovely with flowers, shrubs, and finely grown trees. It has a dim religidus air about it, a sort of sacredness that impresses even the most frivolous. The monuments are, as a rule, in good taste. Here lie two of Ireland’s patriots. The water tower erected to Daniel O’Connell, which can be seen for miles round, is not a very touching record of a life given to his country; but at all events it is a record. Mr. Parnell’s grave is as yet unmarked, save by the floral decorations annually presented by his admirers.

Glasnevin has many associations beside those connected with the grave; it bristles, in fact, with memories of bygone celebrities. A very rural path brings us from the Cemetery to the Botanic Gardens, which had been the home of Tickell the poet, who came to Ireland with Addison, Lord Sunderland’s secretary. One of the walks was planted under Addison’s direction, and is called in his honour Addison Walk. It is said it was here Tickell composed the ballad called “Cohn and Lucy,” commencing ” In Leinster famed for maidens fair.”

Tickell’s poems are not much read, if at all, by the present generation; but he showed a poet’s want of tact when he emphasized the beauty of any particular district. Neither was his assertion correct, as the most celebrated beauties hail from the South and West. Probably Tickell wished to convey a compliment to the noble family of Kildare. [Tickell’s grandson married Miss Linley, the sister of Mrs. Sheridan. The family, however, had then left Ireland. Not many years ago there was a descendant of Tickell living in Dublin; he was in humble circumstances, but he always maintained his descent from the poet.]

The Botanic Gardens are close to the village of Glasnevin, which lies at the foot of a slight elevation dignified with the name of a hill. There is one long, straggling street, in which there are some good houses interspersed with shops. Life evidently is not at high pressure in Glasnevin. A picturesque bridge crosses the Tolka (a tributary streamlet dignified with the title of river), the view being delightfully sylvan and sweet.

As I stood on the bridge that lovely summer’s afternoon, my fancy pictured all those who had once made this quiet country nook alive with fun and frolic. I saw the large figure of Jonathan Swift striding along in his Dean’s hat, with all his satellites about him for here lived one of his intimate companions, who had built himself a house called Delville at the top of the so-called hill. There it stands, just as it was, the high gates shutting out the curious eyes of the village worthies.

[The gates are only slightly indicated in the illustration, which gives the *prettiest *view of Delville]

Readers of Mrs. Delany have read all about D.D., the Dean of Down, who was the friend of his neighbour Tickell, and of Addison, Swift, Sheridan, and all the wits and literati of the day. Although he had been born in the humblest rank-it was said he was the son of a servant, and passed through Trinity College as a sizar - he got on through the usual means, the powerful patron in his case being Lord Carteret, the Lord-Lieutenant in 1730. The first preferments he received were, however, too small to be of any real service, as he very humorously describes in a letter to his Excellency. This appeal was in verse, a manner of writing then very much in fashion:

Would my good Lord but cast up th’ account,

And see to what my resources amount;

My title’s ample, hut my gain so small

That one vicarage is worth them all.

And very wretched, sure, is he that doubles

In nothing hut his titles and his troubles.

Dr. Delany was a truly Irish character, one that is rarely understood by our English brethren. He was kind, humorous, hot-headed, and variable, as most clever men are. He was an excellent Churchman, and had a certain amount of religion, which by his enemies was called cant. A recent writer says his chief talent (always excepting his *hypocrisy, *and the most refined arts of dissimulation and flattery, wherein perhaps he excelled all the human race) was that of writing an epigram, wherein he outshone most of his contemporaries.

It was this gift, taken together with his social position, that made him one of that brilliant circle of wits which comprised Swift, Berkeley, and Sheridan. These, when they were not supping together, were busy writing to one another verses upon every conceivable subject. To us who read them now, without the advantage of knowing the dramatis personae, or the clrcumstances, the wit is sometimes rather obscure; the flow was, however, kept up in the most surprising manner. In 1732 **Dr. Delany sends Dean Swift a silver standish with lines

Hither from Mexico I came

To serve a proud Iernian Dame;

Was long submitted to her will;

At length she lost me at Quadrille.

Through various shapes I often passed,

Still hoping to have rest at last,

And still ambitious to attain

Admission to the *Patriot *Dean (or Dane ?),

And sometimes got within his door,

But soon turned out to serve the poor;

Not strolling idleness to aid,

But honest industry decayed.

At length an artist purchased me,

And wrought me to the shape you see;

This done, to Hermes I applied,

And Hermes gratified my pride.

Be it my fate to serve a sage,

The greatest genius of his age

That matchless pen let me supply,

Whose living lines will never die.

“I grant your suit,” the god replied,

And here he left me to reside.

The Dean’s Answer To Presents Received On His Birthday

A paper book is sent by Boyle,

Too neatly gilt for me to soil;

Delany sends a silver standish,

When I no more a pen can brandish.

Let both around my tomb be placed

As trophies of a Muse deceased,

In praise of long-departed wit,

Engraved on either side in columns,

More to my praise than all my volumes,

To burst with envy, spite, and rage

The vandals of the present age.

When Dr. Delany got into easier circumstances, he bought some ground at Glasnevin, on which, in conjunction with his friend Dr. Helsham, fellow of Trinity College, he built and laid out the grounds of Delville, or Heldeville, as it was originally called, from the first two syllables of the owners’ names.

This sulphur-and-brimstone title was, however, too tempting for the wits of the day, who gave the two doctors such a hot time, that the first syllable was dropped, and the place was known as Delville. But this change did not lessen the attacks of the persecutors, who bombarded the two friends with all manner of satirical rhyming upon their new domicile. The satire, however, was denied by Dr. Sheridan, who dedicated an entire poem to Delville, beginning

Would you that Delville I describe?

Believe me, sir, I will not gibe;

For who would be satirical upon a thing so very small?

He goes on to describe this nutshell:

You scarce upon the borders enter

Before you’re at the very centre;

A single crow can make it night,

When o’er your farm she takes her flight.

Vet o’er this narrow compass we

Observe a vast variety;

Both walks and doors, and rooms and stairs,

Arid hills and dales, and woods and fields,

And hay and grass and corn it yields,

All to your haggard brought so cheap in

Without the mowing or the reaping.

A razor - though to say’t I’m loth -

Would shave you and your meadows both!

The house is treated in a very amusing manner:

Though small’s the farm, yet here’s a house

Full large to entertain a mouse,

But where a rat is dreaded more

Than savage Caledonian bear

For if it’s entered by a rat,

There is no room to bring a cat.

All this gibing was accepted in good part, hard-hitting being a feature of Irish society, where it prevails to the present day - unfortunately in a less witty form.

For the rest, Dr. Delany and Helsham could smile at any effort to decry their charming little domicile, which to this day preserves its unique attraction. The garden is singularly pretty. It is said to have been the first demesne which shook off the stiff Dutch style of gardening introduced in William III.’s reign, and of which an example is still preserved at Hampton Court.

At Delville the straight lines were softened into curves, the everlasting terrace was made into a sloping bank; and there were all sorts of “prettinesses,” as Mrs. Delany calls them, scattered through the grounds - little wild walks, private seats, and lovely prospects. She mentions the Beggars’ Seat, which was placed at the end of a cunning wild path, thick set with trees; it overlooks the brook, which entertains you with a purling sound. Through the grounds were scattered “bowers of delight”; one of these was the famous ternple dedicated to Swift.

After all, as in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the principal interest Delville holds for the present generation is its association with Swift, whose giant personality seems to have dwarfed almost to insignificance the men of his time.

That Swift admitted Dr. Delany to an intimate companionship is proved by the many mementoes which existed of him at Delville: the printing press in a dark vault, where the first number of the *Legion Club *was printed; the temple erected at the point he preferred; while on the frieze there is the motto attributed to him *(Fastigia despicit urbis), *and inside the medallion of Stella. On each Wednesday in the week he was the centre of a brilliant company of clever men, who were wont to assemble round the Doctor’s hospitable board, Mrs. Johnson being the only lady ever admitted on these occasions.

The interchange of rhymes that flowed from the pen of Dr. Delany to the Dean and from the Dean to Dr. Delany would fill a volume. Some of these efforts are mere trifles; others are very smart, especially when the Dean takes the pen. I do not wish to weary my reader with too much versifying, but Swift’s lines on one of the windows of Delville are very much to the point:

A bard grown desirous of saving his pelf,

Built a house he was sure would hold none but himself;

This enraged god Apollo, who Mercury sent,

And bid him to ask what his votary meant.

“Some foe to my empire has been his adviser;

‘Tis of dreadful portent when a poet grows miser;

I have sworn by the Styx to defeat his design,

For wherever he lives the Muses shall reign-

And the Muses, he knows, have a numerous train.”

These lines were prophetic. One of the Muses, as we know, did take possession of Delville, but not for many years after Swift’s lines were written; nor was she the first occupier of the house which was too small to hold ” a cat.”

It was in 1742 - Dr. Delany being then a widower, and enjoying the ample fortune of his first wife-that reports began to be whispered that he was about to marry a second time, and to the charming fashionable Mrs. Pendarves, the niece of my Lord Granville, and connected with the highest English nobility.

A certain Mrs. Foley spread the news, which caused a great stir. Mrs. Pendarves was herself taken by surprise - at least. so she gives us to understand. She was just about to start on a trip to the Continent with Lady Westmorland, when a letter arrived from the Dean of Down, which changed the whole colour of her life.

[*Letter of proposal from the Dean of Down to Mrs. Pendarves. - He *begins by alluding to the death of his first wife: “You, madam, are not a stranger to my present unhappy situation, and that it has pleased God to desolate my dwelling.” Then he acknowledges he has lost one that was as *his own soul *Still the void in his heart must be filled: “I flatter myself that I have still a heart turned to social delights, and not estranged either from the tenderness of true affection or the refinement of friendship.” He is old, but looks older than he really is; and “though not bettered in years, still is in good heart” - a delightful expression. His circumstances come next: “I have a good clear income for my life; a trifle to settle; a good house, as houses go in our part of the world, moderately furnished; a good many books; and a pleasant garden.”]

It is really a very pretty letter, and it is no wonder it touched the heart of the lady; but her friends were indignant at such presumption. A man of no family, a hanger-on to the Castle, and in *gravis annae, *as Johnson said of him, they would not listen to the bare notion.

The lover, however, was persistent. He implored for one minute’s conversation, and, this request being granted, the rest followed; for we all know the fate of the woman who hesitates. The marriage was a very happy one; and the present generation must be thankful that it secured for them those delightful volumes of Mrs. Delany’s Autobiography, where we mix in the most pleasant society, and feel we know intimately all manner of charming people.

Mrs. Delany’s pen photographs for us with lifelike accuracy her household, her mode of life, and her house itself She had known Delville 13 years before she came to it as a bride, but she was all anxiety to see it again. “There never was a sweeter dwelling, ” she writes to her sister. “I have traversed the house and gardens, and never saw a more delightful place.”

In another letter she describes every room with its furniture and arrangements with the closest particularity. The late Lady Llanover, in her introduction to the Autobiography, tells us that this account is so faithful that when she read it to a lady who had been there in 1860 she declared it might still serve as a description of the place; and I may add that what was faithful in 1860 is also wonderfully correct in 1897, the disposition of the rooms being quite the same, and in some cases the position of the furniture being much the same as it was 160 years ago.

Mrs. Delany was not only a proficient in the delicate needlework in which our grandmothers delighted, but she likewise excelled in what was apparently an invention of her own; it was a mixture of painting and shell-work, the effect being something after the manner of stucco. She arranged her shells in festoons and garlands and the fame of her work spread everywhere, giving her a reputation for artistic skill, which she afterwards increased by her wonderful “Flora,” which was the admiration of the Court of good Queen Charlotte.

There might be, however, a possibility of having too much of a good thing; and to judge from her own account, Mrs. Delany rather overdid Delville with shellwork. But this is a common fault with amateurs. The temple was surrounded with a frieze of shells, every room almost had either a shell frieze or a shell circle round the ceiling.

In the portico dedicated to the Duke of Portland (fancy dedicating a portico!) there was a shell chandelier, which fell to pieces one day when some great folks

• I think Lord and Lady Chesterfield - were expected. [This untoward accident occurred from the damp, which made the cement give way.]

In 1860 the lady [Lady Llanover] who visited a certain Mr. and Mrs. Mallet, who at that time occupied Delville, saw a quantity of shells which had been taken down when the house was under repair. [The shells were exceedingly expensive, good specimens, costing from five to fifteen guineas.] Mrs. Mallet fortunately left some rooms as they were, and these still remain with the pretty festoons of shellwork, at which one looks with a saddened interest; for is it not curious to think how so slight a thing as a woman’s work should survive so much longer than the artist? Of Mrs. Delany’s japanning, in which she also excelled, there is no trace.

Mrs. Delany was indeed a woman of many occupations, and never seems to have been idle a moment. She was always perfectly happy, whether she was busy settling the library, where the Dean had added a sort of closet, or whether she was preparing for the reception of Lord and Lady Chesterfield. How amusing is her description of their visit, written October, 1745 It reads like an event in your life or mine, always supposing we are on such intimate terms with Viceroys

“Early in the morning came an express from Dublin to say their Excellencies were coming to breakfast. To work went all my maids, dropping covers off all the chairs, sweeping, dusting, until by eleven my house was as spruce as a cabinet of curiosities, and well bestowed upon their Excellencies, who commended and admired, and were as polite as possible. They came soon after eleven in their travelling coach, examined every room, were delighted with the situation, liked the furniture, but were impatient to see my own work, upon which the Dean conducted them into ‘the Minerva,’ where I had two tables covered with all sorts of breakfast.”

Their Excellencies came again but the bishopric upon which Mrs. Delany had set her heart was given to Dr. Clayton, who was not half so orthodox as dear D. D., who had written an excellent book on Revelation, which has long since been committed to the Erebus which receives such old-world theology. Dr. Johnson said the Dean was an able man; but he did not care for his theory about eating blood which was in his book on Revelation.

Dr. Delany was very absent-minded; and one day, being appointed to preach before George II. at St. James’s, he entered the chapel after prayers were begun, and seated himself by the side of the reader. The clerk looked about for the preacher, and, seeing a clergyman in the desk, reminded him of his duty by pulling his sleeve. The doctor, angry at being thus disturbed at his devotions, kicked the man, and resisted until brought to a recollection of his duty by being asked for the text, which had to be handed to the King.

There is an end, however, to the happiest of all happy lives, and the day came when poor D.D. was carried away and buried in the Cathedral, and his widow had to leave her sweet Delville, with all the shell decorations. I am sure she felt an added pang that they could not go with her into her new life, which life, by the way, led her into a much higher walk than the one she and D.D. had trodden. And so the chapter closed, as all chapters must.

Delville underwent many changes after Mrs. Delany left. It passed through many hands. At one time it was occupied by Sir William Somerville; in late years by Sir Patrick Keenan, who allowed Swift’s time-honoured temple to be used as a stable.

Delville is now in the hands of those who seem to appreciate its simple beauties and to reverence its old-world associations; any improvements made by Mr. O’Keefe are in excellent taste.

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