The Kingdom of Dalkey.

The Kingdom of Dalkey (As it was in the last century:) Its summer revels, re-unions, and mock pageantries, political associations, and interesting reminisces. Stephen The First and his “Elective and Limited! Monarchy,” Coronation Odes and Sermons.

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The “Kingdom of Dalkey,” and its officers of State, etc., etc., 80 years ago.

In the last century, a curious convivial society or club was establisbed in Dublin, which existed for a considerable time, until it became the parent of secret democratic societies, in connexion with the French revolutionists. Most of the wits and gay fellows of the middle and liberal class of society were members of it. Its president was styled “King of Dalkey, Emperor of the Muglins, Prince of the Holy Island of Magee, and Elector of Lambay and Ireland’s Eye, Defender of his own Faith and Respecter of all others, and Sovereign of the Most Illustrious Order of the Lobster and Periwinkle.” Proclamations in connexion with this mimic kingdom were issued from “The Palace Fownes’ street.”

[The following are extracts from the Dalkey Gazette Extraordinary: “The meeting at Dalkey to-morrow is expected to be the fullest and most splendid that has occurred in the kingdom for half a century. - Stephen Rex. Given at our Palace, Fownes’ street, 23rd June, 1791, in the third year of our reign.” “The birth-day ode, written by the celebrated Countess of Laurel, will be read in Council previous to its being set to music by Sir Jno. Handel.” “The deputation from the states of Lambay, Ireland’s Eye, and the Muglins, and from the Holy Knights of the Magee, came to lay their annual tribute at his Majesty’s feet consisting of three milk white rabbits, three young sea-gulls, three large lobsters, a firkin of mushrooms, & firkin of oysters, do. cockles, an antique mether of whiskey, a wreath of misletoe, and a robe of sea-wrack. - September 22nd, 1792.” “Last night (September 28th, 1792) came on the election for Lord Mayor and Sheriffs of the kingdom of Dalkey for the year ensuing, when Alderman Warren was elected Lord Mayor, and Sir Patrick Marlay and Sir Joseph Wilcock were elected Sheriffs, took the test and sworn in.” -Dalkey Gazette.

From the Dalkey Gazette, August 26, 1793 -“Yesterday her Most Affable Majesty departed this life. Her last moments were marked by firmness and resignation. The greater part of her personal property she has left in different donations to the poor. Her five millions in the Bank of Amsterdam are to return to the island from which they were produced, and to be expended in Christmas beef for such manufacturers as are at present destitute of employ; notwithstanding which his Majesty Stephen the First has declared that he shall have no occasion to call on his people to pay his debts.

“On this calamitous event the court has been thrown into the profoundest grief. The Marchioness of Mushroom, who was to have had a drawing-room, shut herself up with no other company than her Prayerbook and ‘Hoyle upon Gaming.’ Lord Periwinkle forgot to feed his pet monkey, and the dear creature expired through the neglect. Six Commoners - Oyster, Scollop, Kelp, White Rock, Muglin and Surge - who were said to be engaged to vote against their country in the evening, could not, through decency, appear in public, and were honest through regard to ceremony; and all the officers of the court appeared to be daily affected with a sense of their loss.”

“The Chamberlain has issued orders from the Royal Court at Armagh for a suitable dress. Full dress: Black calimancoe, trimmed with sea-weed. Undress: Grey frize, and weepers of the muslin of fish skin.”

“Royal Palace, July 13th, 1797. - This day his Majesty was pleased to appoint the Right Hon. Sir John Despatch to be Post-master-General of Dalkey.”]

The last and most popular King of Dalkey was a very respectable bookseller and pawnbroker of Dublin-Stephen Armitage, who reigned under the title of “King Stephen the First.”

George has of wealth the dev’l and all, Him we may King of Diamonds call; But thou bast such persuasive arts, We hail thee Stephen, King of Hearts.”

Moore.

The members of this society met once a year on Dalkey Island, to choose a king and state officers, the monarchy being elective. Strictly limited - that is, in extent - the people were averse to foreign conquest and standing armies. The point and intention of this original travestie of fun and festivity, was to revive, in a humourous and satirical vein, the events of the past year, and to discuss the questions of interest affecting political topics of the day, the shortcomings of the government and the state of European affairs generally. All the nobility of this petit kingdom were at one time wits, orators, and generally first-rate vocalists, and the royal visitors were supposed to be similarly gifted. The proceedings of these summer reunions, with a full report of the coronation sermons, as preached in the ruined church on the island, which was called Dalkey Cathedral, were published in most of the Dublin papers - more especially in Cooney’s Morning Post, the politics of which were very democratic. The Dalkey Gazette formed a portion of this journal. This paper is now difficult to be met with. At the conclusion of the coronation revels, which generally took place on a Sunday in the end of August or beginning of September, an ode composed for the occasion, was sung by all the people and the whole ceremony finished by a feast on the rocks; after which his Majesty and his officers of state embarked in pomp, followed by his people.

What glorious days these must have been for the boatmen of Bullock, Dunleary, and Dalkey! Generous fellows! they would cheerfully take over his Majesty’s liege subjects from “Dalkey stone common” to the seat of empire for nothing; but being determined enemies to absenteeism (the greatest grievance Ireland ever had), they would not allow them to depart on such easy terms, but would mulct with a heavy penalty all those who desired to abandon their country. The last royal procession, levee, and coronation anniversary of the “Kingdom of Dalkey,” were held on the 20th August, 1797, the year immediately preceding the rebellion of ‘98, on which occasion upwards of 20,000 persons were present At the time martial law was proclaimed; the prisons were full of persons suspected of treason; the United Irishmen were held in suspicion by the Lord Chancellor Clare and the Government; the mutiny at the Nore had been put down a month previous to the Dalkey revels in 1797, by reason of which numbers of soldiers and sailors were shot and hung, alluded to in the ode, written for the occasion by the satirical poetess, Mrs. Battier (“Countess of Laurel”). [“The notoriety I had already acquired by my little attempts in literature, as well as my own ambition to become known to such a person, brought me acquainted, at this time, with Mrs. Battier, the “Countess of Laurel” Poetess Laureate to the Kingdom of Dalkey, an odd, acute, warm-hearted, and intrepid little woman, the widow of a Captain Battier, who, with two daughters and very small means, lived, at the time of my acquaintance with her, in lodgings up two pair of stairs, in Fade-street; and acquired a good deal of reputation, besides adding a little to her small resources, by several satirical pieces of verse, which she from time to time published. Her satires were chiefly in the bitter Churchill style.

“As Mrs. Battier was much older than my own mother, and, though with a lively expression of countenance, by no means good-looking, it is some proof of my value for female intellect, at that time (though I have been accused of underrating it since), that I took great delight in her society, and always very gladly accepted her invitations to tea. One of these tea-parties I have a most lively remembrance of, from its extreme ridiculousness. There had lately come over from some part of England one of those speculators upon Irish hospitality and ignorance, which at that period of Dublin civilisation were not infrequent - a Mrs. Jane Moore, who had come upon the double speculation of publishing her poems, and promulgating a new plan for the dyeing of nankeens. Whether she had brought letters of introduction to Mrs. Battier, or had availed herself of their common pursuit (in one at least of their avocations) to introduce herself, I cannot now say; but having expressed a wish to read her poems to some competent judges, she was invited by my friend to tea for the purpose, and I was, much to my gratification, honoured with an invitation to meet her. I rather think that poor Mrs. Battier was reduced to a single room by the state of her circumstances, for I remember well that it was in the bed-room we drank tea, and that my seat was on the bed, where, enthroned as proudly as possible, with these old poetesses (the new arrival being of the largest and most vulgar Wapping mould), I sate listening while Mrs. Jane Moore read aloud her poems, making havoc with the v’s and w’s still as she went, while all the politeness of our hostess could with difficulty keep her keen satirical eyes from betraying what she really thought of the nankeen muse.” - Moore’s Memoirs, &c.]

It is stated in Cooney’s Morning Post, September 10th, 1792, that -” The long Coronation sermon recited by Gillespey, Chief of the Druids,* and Primate of ‘the Kingdom of Dalkey,’ was one of the richest treats of the day, and produced effects such as sermon never produced before.”

[* About the year 1792 the order of knights designated “The Druids” was founded by the then King of “Dalkey.” The Druids soon became an important body; their place of meeting was at “The Druid’s Head,” in George’s-street, South, a house kept by John Sweeny. He had the two houses now numbered 8 and 9. A large carving of the Druid’s Head was placed on the pier of the house No. 9; the holdfasts still remain. The house for some years previous to ‘98 was the rendezvous of United Irishmen. They met as Druids, and for a length of time eluded the notice of the government. John Sweeny opened the Druid’s Head Tavern in 1792, and continued in occupation till 1798. Major Sir then made his acquaintance, seized him and his chief waiter, and also a quantity of pikes in the waste ground next to his house, on which the present No. 10 is built. “Phil.,” the waiter, was severely flogged in Exchange Court, and I think Sweeny also. The house was never after re-opened. - Personal Recollections of Dr. Willis, senior, Ormond-quay, Dublin.]

This part of the proceedings was very objectionable, in treating with levity sacred subjects.

[While these cowardly and malignant attacks on religion and its ministers were appearing from day to day in the public journals of Dublin, a set of men, under the totle of “Philosophers,” or Freethinkers, were trying to establish a new system of civil society in France. In order to realize this dream of their vanity, it was necessary for them to overturn and destroy all the received notions of subordination, morality, and religion, which forms the safety, the happiness, and the consolation of mankind. Their projects of destruction were unfortunately attended with too much success. The events which so rapidly succeeded each other in France at that time, surpass, in atrocity, all that ever stained the page of history. Property, liberty, safety, and life, became a sport to the rage of unbridled passions, to the spirit of party and hatred, and to the most cruel and unbounded ambition. The annals of the human race do not present an epoch, when, in so short a space of time, so many crimes were committed, so many misfortunes occasioned, and so many tears caused to be shed. On the 20th of January, following the date of this “Coronation Sermon,” Louis XVI. of France, an amiable and innocent monarch, was publicly murdered by the hands of these most relentless monsters, execrable and sanguinary regicides, Robespiere, Pelletier, Legendre, Lacroix, Lasource, Thuriot, Barbaroux, Rubel, Barere, Petion, Merlin, Saint Just, Breard, Danton, Herbois, and 178 other blood-hounds. In the following October, 1793, the queen of France, the beautiful Marie Antoinette, of Austria and Lorraine, daughter of the great and immortal Marie Theresa, queen of Hungary, and of Francis I, emperor of Germany, was guillotined by a blood-thirsty set of maddened wretches, in the face of an astonished, sorrowful, and indignant world; and in defiance of the conscious terrors of God’s awful and avenging justice. Marie Antoinette was born Nov. 2nd, 1755; married, May 10th, 1774, Louis 16th, then Dauphin of France. She died with a spirit and greatness of mind far above her misfortunes.

An Irish priest, the Rev. J. Edgeworth, prepared Louis the 16th for death. The following letter was written from Paris to a Rev. Mr. Massey, P. P., six weeks before the execution

“You are undoubtedly surprised, my dear and honoured friend, that whilst the clergy of France are flocking to England and Ireland, for Christian shelter and support, I should remain here, amidst the ruins of this persecuted and afflicted church; indeed, I have often wished to fly to that land of true liberty and solid peace, and to share with others your hospitable board; where, to be a stranger in distress is a sufficient title; … . but Almighty God has baffled my measures, and ties me to this land of horrors by chains which I have not the liberty to shake off… . . The case is this - the wretched Master charges me not to quit the country, as I am the person whom he intends to prepare him for death. And should the iniquity of the nation commit that last act of cruelty, I must also prepare myself for death; as, I am convinced, the popular rage will not allow me to survive an hour after the tragic scene; but I am resigned; my life is of no consequence; the preservation of it, or the shedding of my blood, is not connected with the happiness of millions: … could my life save him, I would willingly lay it down, and I should not die in vain.

. . Receive this unfeigned assurance (perhaps for the last time) of my respect and affection for you, which, I hope, even death will not destroy.” See Appendix for a short sketch of the last Twenty-four Hours of the Lives of Louis the Sixteenth and Marie Antoinette.]

The following coronation sermon is said to have been written by the celebrated John Philpot Curran:-

A SERMON, Preached September 9th, 1792. BEING THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE CORONATION OF Stephen I, King of Dalkey.

“Love God above all things, and your neighbour as yourself.”

“Dearly beloved, - We are this day met to celebrate the anniversary of an event auspicious to these realms - an event which the happy people of Dalkey Island and their fellow-subjects in the neighbouring states do hail, I am sure, with all that loyal gladness that does become the hearts of subjects loving, not dreading, the prince by whom they are ruled, not with a rod of iron, but with the peaceful olive-branch; a prince, to whose auspicious reign the good fellowship, brotherly love, and festive mirth, pervading every quarter of his happy dominions, give the truest marks of wise councils, and his benevolent sway-a prince, whose tranquil and happy subjects, equally distant from that indigence ever consequent to those oppressive taxes imposed by the avarice of weak princes, the corrupt luxuries of courts, or the insatiable rapacity of our court minions-from which, thanks to bounteous heaven! the virtuous government of Dalkey Island is free - and from that hell-begotten pride and restless ambition, which, in every other nation of Europe, tempts a few worthless beings, with no other merit than a casual pelf, to assume not only a superior rank over other men, their betters in every characteristic that can dignify human nature, but to usurp a privilege of insulting and oppressing them-a prince, I say, whose fortunate subjects, keeping the medium between these extremes, move in that temperate centre, where virtue and wisdom have ever found happiness; whilst wars, revolutions, carnage, plunder, and destruction, with all the dire and dreadful evils of Pandora’s fabled box, distract the great continent of Europe. Such are the baneful effects of those greatest of all national curses, from which we, happy islanders of Dalkey, are exempt - the wicked ambition of princes, and the insatiable rapacity of their corrupt minions.

“Could the chief pastor, whom the wise and illustrious ruler of Dalkey has chosen to superintend in these islands the religion of his people, forget so far the great object of his mission on the service of the Most High, as to devote to the flattery of an earthly prince, the day and the occasion set apart for a nobler purpose, infinitely more honorable to the prince himself, the beautiful and sublime of the Old Testament might afford me abundance of grand and high-sounding texts and pompous epithets wherewith to decorate the royal character, and adulate the royal mind into imaginary possession of virtues and reflections, seldom the lot of man, even in his remotest recesses of retirement and reflection, but much seldomer that of princes, surrounded by all the temptations of power, of wealth, of ambition, and more than all, of self-flattery, from those vassal sycophants who pander for the unseemly caprice of princes, and while they tempt it to tyranny, or, what is the same thing, the exertion of inordinate power, they become themselves the ready ministers of royal vice, in order to become sharers anew in royal protection and favour.

But, no; if I could profanely forget, that the great occasion of this day is to glorify the King of kings for those blessings we enjoy under the ruler He hath set over us, or to devote to the adulation of a mortal the praise consecrated to the Great Eternal, I should, on a moment’s reflection, blush for the rashness and folly of my error, when I know that I am speaking in the presence of a prince, who forgets not that the trappings of royalty are not proof armour against mortality; and who is mindful that, although we are subject to those laws over which he presides, yet that lie is as responsible for his mission as I am for mine, and that he is subject in common with us all, to the laws of the same great Creator, and the power of doing good or evil to his subjects, instead of being an helmet against the wrath of the Most High, will serve but to aggravate the omission of the one, or the commission of the other, before the great tribunal of ‘Heaven’s Chancery.’

Governed by such sentiments of my episcopal duty on one hand, and my reverence for the wisdom, benignity, and Christian modesty of a good-humoured, facetious, and unassuming prince on the other, I have chosen that text above all others which contains at once the essence of true religion and social happiness; which enjoins our first duties to the great Author of our being; and the Giver of all good unto us, and then counsels, as children of the same great parent to ‘love one another,’ not as modern brothers sometimes do, with an adulterated affection, alloyed with jealousies, policy,or what the sordid world calls prudence, but tells each to measure his affection for his neighbour by the love which he bears to himself - a love to be modulated under the first injunction of my text, by a preference to everything, for the justice, the piety, and the beneficence of the divine law. And thus, this brotherly love, stamped with the sterling touch of a heavenly mint, becomes currency suited to the commerce of Christianity and true friendship, and not like that shining dross which the misers of other countries, like the thievish jackdaws, filch from the common service of mankind, and hide in their sordid coffers; for which lawyers combat truth and reason, and pervert justice and mercy; for which soldiers engage in the sanguinary trade of war, butcher their fellow-creatures, and call it glory and valour; for which senators betray the dearest rights of their country, the most solemn confidence of their fellow citizens; and for which admirals and generals sometimes betray the safety of their country, and surrender to defeat and slaughter whole fleets and armies; for which; oh, worst of abominations! the clergy betray the faith and conscience of their flock, and sound the trumpet of prejudice and discord from the seat of meekness and peace, and wink at the vices of the great the proud, and the wealthy, for interest or gain. No, my beloved brethren, but a currency which, like the manna in the wilderness, nourisheth all to whom it passeth, cheers the heavenly spirit of mutual love, harmony, and good fellowship, and chases from the social soul the gloom of ill-nature, of pride, of peevishness, and misanthropy. In a word, it is the great golden rule laid down by the Divine Author of our religion, the Prince of Peace - ’ Love God above all things, and your neighbour as yourself.’

“With regard to the first part of my text, it is not my design to enter into learned and unintelligible illustrations from the writings of the Holy Fathers, nor yet exhibit an ostentatious variety in displaying my own depth of reading, by ringing the changes on various texts of Scriptures, from alpha to omega. The diction is so plain, so perfectly comprehensible, and withal, so consonant to that gratitude for numberless benefits, inseparable from the manly, social, and generous heart that I am sure, even though some of you, in human frailty, may have been omissive in your duty, you would feel your good sense offended, if I thought it necessary to explain that which none can misapprehend.

It occurs, however, that he who loves not in his heart justice, mercy, good-nature, honest fellowship, good living, peace and plenty, which are amongst the attributes and best gifts of the Deity, cannot be expected to extend them to his neighbour; and this observation brings to me the second part of my text

- Love your neighbour as yourself.

This precept of Him who suffered and sacrificed so much for the love of mankind, seems so admirably calculated for both the general and particular happiness of man in a social state, that it may be accounted the only sovereign antidote against avarice and ambition, and the only balm for those grievous wounds inflicted by both upon the peace and happiness of nations.

“But the duties of this heaven-descended maxim are no more fulfilled by the insipid civilities of a ceremonious intercourse, garnished with bows, grimaces, and unmeaning compliments - the mere dead-letter of friendship - than due obedience to the former part of my text consists in the mere, cold, church-going formality of frog-hearted hypocrites, who put on the grave cloak of eternal sanctity, like shop-lifters, in order the more effectually to purloin the confidence and good opinion or their neighbours.

Who is he, that, forgotten by the ingrate world, pierced by the freezing wounds of indigence, and cast by the storm of adversity on the bleak sands of neglect scorn, and despair, and who feels not in the benignant glance of one pitying friend, the emananation of the divine spirit of brotherly love, that banishes his sorrows for the moment, resuscitates his departed hope, and recalls his disgusted affections to the great purpose of creation-Society?

Where is the generous soul that has quaffed from the chalice of Christianity the celestial nectar of beneficence, and reveled in the god-like luxury of doing good, that does not see in this divine precept of my text a jewel worth all the gold of Ophir, all the diamonds of Golconda, all the sordid treasure of misers, who, destitute of benevolence, yield not a ray of happiness to the honest heart?

“Where is the hospitable man, whom heaven hath blessed with plenty, and who sees around his friendly board, not the saucy rich, the swollen proud, the haughty upstart, or the worthless, hungry-hearted niggard, called there not for the purposes of harmony and happiness, but to forward some mean, avaricious object - not the contemptuous great, courted to condescension by lavishing on them those kindnesses which were better bestowed in cultivating social happiness, and cementing the bonds of equal and honest friendship, but whose festive table reflects the smiles of his friends, like a mirror; all of whom merit, and some of whom, perhaps, may want his bounty? Ask him, for he knows, in the core of his worthy and benevolent heart, what is the invaluable blessing of the precept of my text

Love thy neighbour as thyself

Point out the man, and I will hail him as the noble of nature.

“Where is the liberal man, whose godlike mind, untainted by the narrow bigotries of politics or religion, glows with the heavenly fire of charity towards all the children of Adam, and who can admire the virtues, pity the failings, relieve the distress, and espouse the natural rights of every citizen of this world, alike regardless of complexion, country, sect or party, and by no means daring to assume a self-dubbed rank of superiority in the favour of heaven, much less to wrest from the hand of Omnipotence the scale of eternal justice, and attempt to weigh on the feeble fulcrum of human discernment the secrets of hearts, or the truths of speculative creeds, in whose mystic altitude, above the reach of our comprehension, consists the whole merit of our faith? Point me out the man, and I will hail him as the noblest work of God. He will tell you, for he enjoys it with the purest ecstacy, the blessings of compliance with the precept of my text

Love thy neighbour as thyself.

And where is the sordid wretch, in the frigid regions of whose gloomy bosom the genial rays of heaven-born friendship never shed their cheering light but on whose flinty heart the cold icicles of apathy continually trickle their gelid distillations, while the noxious mists of envy and distrust hover round his brain, and shed their slumbering influence on his torpid nerves? He is an outcast from that heaven which the precept of my text opens to man upon earth. Even great crimes, and bold enterprising villanies, are above his grovelling soul; and if he dares not act the footpad or the pickpocket I suspect honour or honesty have nothing to do with his forbearance, and his avarice only wants courage to lead him to plunder.

The gay flowerets of cheerfulness, the balm of friendship, the jessamine of taste, the myrtle of love, or the sweet rose of fruition, take no root in the barren, blighting climate of his dark soil. The rue of envy, the abortive savine of distrust, the rank hemlock of murky avarice, and the deadly nightshade of chill penury, are the native vegetations of that ungenial soil. A Gordian knot for ever binds up from pity and from friendship his relentless purse-strings, while he skulks with downcast look of conscious ingratitude by some reduced heartbroken worthy, who, perhaps, has often assuaged his youthful hunger, or benevolently raised him from rags and beggary, to the comforts of whole clothes and the first step of the ladder to affluence; or else struts on with awkward saucy importance, scowling at modest worth in threadbare garb, and thus sets up the shield of impudence against the shafts of contempt.

“His sordid hand, fitted only to the filthiest and most degrading offices of nature, was never extended to wipe away the widow’s tears, the orphan’s hunger, or lift the load of affliction from the heart of a distressed friend. To him the poverty of others is pestilence; for though, like the poison of a serpent it abounds in his own blood without injury, yet he instinctively shuns the semblance of it in an old companion, as the rattlesnake shuns the asp or the toad a spider.

“Who ever saw his board crowned with plenty, or surrounded by the smiles of cheerful festivity? Who ever beheld an altar raised to hospitality within his damp walls, or smoke with the savoury incense of roast beef or plum-pudding, of white plum-gravy, teeming legs of mutton, or well fed turkeys, or delicious hams? No one!

Who, with thirst-parched lips, has ever blown the yellow froth from his foaming tankard of rich brown stingo, the native cordial of honest hearts? No one!

“Who has ever heard the cheering sound of a cork drawn from his sixth bottle,or beheld with a gladdened eye the liquid ruby flow in brimming bumpers round his board? No one!

“In vain for him does plenty pour out on the earth her copious horn. In vain does Ceres show her yellow fields, with teeming crops of ripening corn. In vain do the fleecy flocks and lowing herds bear twins, the goodly feathered race of the farm-yard bring forth doubled broods, and pregnant nature load the earth with abundance. In vain Pomona decks her verdant trees with tempting fruits. In vain does Bacchus bepurple his Gallic fields with blushing clusters, and shed on his favoured clime a flowing vintage. In vain the hardy and adventurous sons of our happy isles elude the keen vigilance of revenue spies, and yield us at half-price the nectarious juice of France, the cordial pass-gruck of the plodding Dutch, or the flagrant rum of Western India. In vain might the lords of the revenue remit all taxes on the articles of good cheer, and the markets reduce their rates one-half. Still would sordid, worthless Gripus be the same. Still would his beer grow sour, his wine be pries, his bread mouldy, his meat musty, and the keys of his cellar and pantry rust in his pocket; and while the wretch would starve the world and himself; he would substitute his fancy in the place of his palate; and by the combined strength of’ avarice and imagination, transubstantiate his cucumbers, cold mutton, and small-beer, to ideal pine apples, venison, and Burgundy. But away with this horrid picture, which for you, happy subjects of this social realm, I have drawn as a contrast to your virtues, and as a hateful deviation from the benignant precept of my text. By you, disciples of cheerfulness, and children of friendship, the shrine of hospitality has never been impiously profaned. May you long enjoy the hallowed blessings of this happy reign, and never may you know the want of a friend, a bottle, or a splendid guinea! May you ever wear around your hearts the oaken wreath of manly fortitude, entwined with the sacred mistletoe of friendship and druidical piety. The blessings of the beggar and of the clerk of the crown attend you all in your adventures in this life, and the last prayer of the Recorder and of all the judges of crown circuit attend you in the next.

“A word now to the clergy, my fellow-labourers in the vineyard, and I have done.

“To you, venerable Druids, the exemplary clergy of these happy isles, let me, on this auspicious occasion, pay the tribute of just applause for the great and important share your wise precepts and pious examples have borne in the good morals, harmless mirth, cheerful demeanour, and singular contentment which reign throughout the festive kingdom of Dalkey. To your laud be it spoken, that while the chosen ministers of the Gospel in the surrounding nations have abandoned the primeval simplicity and exemplary lives of the primitive Apostles - while they have quit the pious labours of the Gospel vineyard, to launch into the regions of speculative controversy and polemical discord - while they have rent the seamless garments of their Divine Leader, and instead of conciliating among mankind the precept of charity and brotherly love laid down in my text, they have sown amongst them hatred and disunion; instead of infusing into their souls the meekness of Christianity, they have inflated them with the rage of furies and the phrenzy of fanaticism, and taught them to manifest their piety, their charity, and their love to an omnibeneficent Creator by all the horrors of fire and sword, of devastation and massacre - while they themselves, instead of illustrating their avowed faith and the truth of their doctrines by the humility, meekness, and purity of their lives, have built hierarchy upon hierarchy, grasped at all the pomps, vanities, and vices of this wicked world, rioted in all its luxuries, or wallowed in all its carnalities, and ground the face of the poor to raise revenues for the purpose of administering to avarice and extravagance; preaching at the same time, in solemn mockery, from their stalls or pulpits, which, as they never practised, so nobody would suppose they believed.

“Thus, true virtue and piety were forgotten, brotherly love and Christian charity were exploded, and men taught to contract mutual attachments or implacable hatreds to each other and posterity, not upon the merits or demerits of conduct or morals, but on the nature of mere speculative opinions in religion.

In the meantime, you, ye venerable successors to the Druids of old - ye gentle missionaries of concord and peace - have followed with pious steps the example of the primitive apostles, teaching to your disciples the saving truths of Christianity, and not the polemical substitutes of fantastical schoolmen - the charity and brotherly love of your Divine Leader, and not the rancours of bigotry. You have not ground the face of the poor with oppressive tithes, nor torn from the oppressed husbandman. You have scorned to live as idle drones in the social isle; and generously preferring to live on the bounty of Providence, drawn from the plenteous ocean with the labours of your own hands, and have become, like the first disciples, fishermen.

“Pursue ye ministers of peace, labours worthy of yourselves, and befitting the meekness of your mission. Continue to hold up to the churches that have strayed, examples worthy of imitation.

“Point out to the distracted nations of the earth a system of equal representation in the senate, equal liberty under the laws, and equal happiness in the several ranks of society throughout these happy isles, whatever may be the diversities of religious persuasion. On this score we are answerable alone to the great Searcher of hearts, and not to short-sighted men, who would foolishly set bounds to the imprescriptible franchises of the mind, yet who cannot restrain from their error the acts of the body.

Go, show the triple-crowned pontiffs, the mitred dignitaries, and full-fed pastors of the earth, the wild folly and presumption of measuring the mercies of the God of the universe by the narrow policy of prejudiced mortals.

“Which of them, in collecting the general tribute of his popedom, his priority, his bishopric, or his rectory, would reject the pence of Peter or the proctor’s arrears, because they were offered in silver money, and not in gold? Or who amongst them would refuse a tithe pig because it was not a sheaf of corn, or a sheaf of corn because it was not a lamb? Tributes to the Church, however various in kind, are all acceptable, because all converted to one aggregate revenue. Why, then, Church deny to the Deity the power of receiving the tribute of adoration from this creatures in such language and form as nature or education may have taught them? or cut off from eternal salvation nineteen-twentieths of mankind for differing in opinion from certain principles they never had an opportunity to learn?

“Narrow prejudice! uncharitable thought! With regard to worship, too silly for serious attention; and with relation to policy, too preposterous and absurd to meet the test of reason.

“The impiety and injustice of the system which the impolicy of a neighbouring kingdom founds upon this principle, is the best illustration of its folly. There the atheist, who denies all religion, and the apostate, who regards none, require no other title to the rights and immunities of citizens than the highest trusts and honours of the state, and swearing, in solemn mockery, upon the Gospels they don’t believe, while three-fourths of the people, who have conscience enough to abide by the faith in which they were educated, and honesty enough to decline the impious prophanation of a false oath, are treated with all the diffidence of aliens, enemies, or thieves, and cut off not only from the humblest offices of trust or emolument in the state, but from the common birthright of subjects.

To you, liberal Druids, such doctrines are abomination. You have wisely taught your flocks to separate their temporal from their eternal concerns, to live in harmony, in charity, and brotherly love - ‘to render unto Caesar those things which are Caesar’s, and unto God those things which are God’s.’ Your happy prince and wise senate, satisfied that all an earthly government can reasonably wish, and all that good subjects can fairly render as the best test of their loyalty, is a strict and cheerful obedience to the laws of God and of the realm - they hold no other title necessary to the equal rights of subjects, and they resign the jurisdiction of men’s minds and opinions to the great Searcher of hearts, to whom alone it belongs.

“Let us, then, rejoice this day, and be exceeding glad. Let us commemorate with joy and festivity the coronation of a prince, at once the father, the friend, and the respected favourite of his people. Let us eat, drink, and be merry. Long may his facetious Majesty reign over his kingdom and states of Dalkey; and long may the delicious Dublin Bay herring, the fine black sole, the delicate salmon trout, the charming large haddock, the rich lobster and high-flavoured crab, the nice mullet, mackerel, knowd, gurnet, and John Dory, in successive seasons, spread plenty round your coast and give health, vigour and activity to you and ninety-nine generations of your children’s children! May your days be employed profitably in industry, and your nights in harmony, good-fellowship, and love! May you long smoke together the calumet of peace, and quaff nectarious whiskey from the meather of friendship; and bound together like the famed faces of the Romans in the brotherly belt of wampum! May you ever, unbroken, resist your foes, and united in truth, harmony, and good fellowship, may you live all the days of your lives!”

“The extraordinary demand for our account of the proceedings of the ancient kingdom of Dalfrey on the anniversary of King Stephen’s coronation, and also the very elaborate and edifying sermon of his Grace the Lord Primate of all Dalkey on that occasion, has induced us to comply with the entreaties of many of our readers, by publishing the whole in our next.”

[The Morning Post, September the 20th, 1792.]

ODE, BY HENRIETTA, COUNTESS OF LAUREL, [Royal Palace 22nd August, 1792. At a full meeting of the Kingdom of Dalkey.

Present - The King’s Most Excellent Majesty, in Council.

Resolved - That the thanks of the King, and subjects of Dalkey, be given to Henrietta, Countess of Laurel, and that a gold medal be presented to her, in the name of the kingdom, by Earl Posey, as a small token of the high sense, which the King and subjects of Dalkey entertain of her unrivalled talents and unwearied exertions in the cause of freedom.] TO BE Performed on Sunday the 20th of August 1797. ON THE CORONATION OF Stephen I, King of Dalkey.

I Again the glorious sun His annual course has run, To bring about this festive day, Which recognizes Stephen’s sway. Ever gracious, ever gay, King of all those happy isles, O’er which imperial Dalkey smiles With brow serenely great; While rising from his watery bed, The sun lifts up his regal head, With cloudless countenance to view our state.

II. Happy state! where worth alone Gains admission to the throne; Where our King’s his people’s choice, - And speaks but thro’ his people’s voice; Where election is the test Of public virtue in the breast; And where electors and elect Their sacred trust alike respect.

III. Hail happy Dalkey, Queen of Isles! Where justice reigns, and freedom smiles. In thee we realize the Arcadian scene, And dance on velvet of perpetual green. In Dalkey justice holds her state, Unaided by the prison gate; No subjects of King Stephen lie In loathsome cells, they know not why. Health, peace, and good humour, in music’s soft strains, Invite and unite us on Dalkey’s wide plains.

IV. No flimsy sheriff enters here; No trading justice dare appear; No soldier asks his comrade whether The sheriff has yet cleaned his feather; Our soldiers here deserve the name, Nor wear a feather they don’t pluck from fame) Time-honor’d Dalkey I at thy silver spring, The votive muse presumes to sing The guiltless greatness of thy state and king.

V. How much unlike those wretched realms, Where wicked statesmen guide the helms! Here no first-rate merchants breaking; Here no first-rate vessels taking; Here no property is shaking; Here no shameful peace is making; Here we snap no apt occasion On the pretext of invasion; Here informers get no pensions To requite their foul inventions; Here no secret dark committee Spreads corruption through the city. No placemen or pensioners here are haranguing; No soldiers are shooting, or sailors are hanging; No mutiny reigns in the army or fleet, For our orders are just, our commander discreet.”

VI. Hail! then hail this happy day, That recognizes Stephen’s sway - Ever gracious, ever gay. Illustrious Stephen! hail to thee, Whose virtues guard the sacred tree Of Heaven-implanted liberty. May sacred science ever shed Her influence on King Stephen’s head, Long, long way his harmonious voice His happy subjects’ heads rejoice; Whilst round they throng To claim the song, The sweetly, sweetly warbled lay, Which crowns the joy of this auspicious day.”

Dalkey Printed (by permission) by Sir Peter Type, price sixpence-halfpenny.”

[A Muglin Knight, on reading the Ode on King Stephen’s birth-day, asked one of the Dalkey nobles what was the reason it was so much superior to any that ever had been written on a similar occasion in a neighbouring kingdom? The wit replied:

“That poets always succeed best in fiction.”

A SERMON, preached on Sunday, August 20th, 1797. BEING THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE CORONATION of Stephen I., King of Dalkrey.

In the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, and the first verse, are these words:-

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the Heaven.”

These are the words of King Solomon, surnamed The Wise. Yea, he was a wise man, indeed; he was wiser than any alderman of Dublin - nay, than any of the aldermen of Dalkey - nay, than the sapient privy counsellors of this realm, or any man, excepting our sovereign, who is wisdom itself.

Now, what does this wise King teach us? Why, in the words of my text, that there is a season for everything, and a proper time for every purpose. Thence we may conclude that everything is right that is done in season, and at a fit and proper time; and, therefore, there is a fit time for the celebration of the high festival we now commemorate, and that we aught in it to give way to every kind of festivity. To this we are urged by the words of the same wise King, who, in other parts of the same chapter, expressly declares, “there is a time to laugh ” therefore let us laugh. “There is a time to dance; therefore let us dance. “There is a time to embrace;” therefore let us embrace, whenever opportunity offers. And, also, “that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour;” therefore, let us eat and drink and be merry; for that purpose we are all come hither.

Every man knoweth the strict alliance between church and state, and that the crown and mitre are the natural supports of each other; therefore, whilst the King of this realm has bestowed on me the archiepiscopal mitre, it is fitting and proper that I, out of just return, should do my endeavours to support the interest of his crown, and this I cannot do better than in exhorting you all to due obedience, and to exert yourselves to promote the happiness of this extensive kingdom. * * *

So, praying for the health and prosperity of our King, and all who are put in authority under him, I recommend you to the practice of what you have heard this day.

- - -

To the Printer of the Dalkey Gazette.

Sir - Yesterday a very numerous deputation sailed for the island of Dalkey to present the enclosed address to his Majesty, but unfortunately the wind and tide were against us, and prevented our vessel getting to the sound ; we were obliged to cast anchor, and were under the painful necessity of returning without effecting our purpose. You will be pleased to lay it before his Majesty at the next Privy Council. I am, sir, your very humble servant, Tho. Kingsmerry, Seneschal of Ireland’s Eye. August 15, 1796.

At a general meeting of the inhabitants of the land of Ireland’s Eye, held the 13th day of August, 1796, the following address was unanimously agreed to, and a deputation consisting of Tho. Kingsmerry, Esq., and 24 burghers were appointed to present the same to his sacred Majesty, at his palace in the ancient kingdom of Dalkey, on the 14th of August, 1796.

“To the King’s most excellent Majesty, Stephen the First, of the Kingdom of Dalkey, Ireland’s Eye, the Muglins, and their dependencies.

“We, your Majesty’s loyal subjects of the island of Ireland’s Eye (convened by public notice), have beheld, with admiration and gratitude, the wisdom and justice which reigned in your Majesty’s councils for some time. After we had the happiness of being placed under your protection, we have experienced the blessed effects of the most salutary laws, administered equally to every description of your Majesty’s subjects without partiality or prejudice. We have seen your Majesty’s choice of Government and magistrates, meet the most cordial approbation of your subjects; and while the former administered the laws of wisdom and mercy, the latter cheerfully submitted to those decrees, that had no other object in view than the public good. But, alas! those halcyon days are past. Your Majesty’s unsuspecting nature has been imposed upon, and those good ministers that preserved peace and happiness to your subjects, were disgraced, and a set of men placed in their situation, remark able only for their effrontrey, inordinate ambition, avarice, and a thirst for blood; for they care not what streams flow, what human misery they create, so as they shall retain their places; and though your Majesty’s subjects are driven to the greatest distress, to pay the ponderous taxes, which weighed them down beyond their strength of bearing - yet your ministers and their numerous dependants, declare your subjects to be happy and your nation rich and powerful, and able to continue what they call - this just and necessary war! We must say, indeed, if widows and orphans constitute the wealth and power of a nation, your’s is the most rich and powerful in the world. We therefore beseech your Majesty, to remove from your councils those weak and wicked ministers, that have brought your kingdom to the brink of destruction, and call on men who possess the loves and confidence of all your people, we may then hope for a speedy termination to this calamitous war! - a war founded on principles of despotism, and ending we fear, in the subversion of monarchy. Your Majesty by this means will destroy that weak and wicked system of policy which heretofore divided and coerced your people, you will command the unequivocal blessing of their hearts, and the irresistible support of their hands. “Signed by order, “Thomas Kingsmerry, Seneschal”

Supplement to the Dalkey Gazette.

Banquet.

Previous to dinner, a discharge of three rockets. After dinner, on the King’s health being drank, a discharge of three rockets and nine cannon. Signal to prepare to leave the island, a rocket. His Majesty going on board the royal barge, a discharge of three rockets, to be answered by twenty-one guns.

The procession to be as follows :- Two gentlemen with white rods. The deputy gaoler, Sir James Watch, dressed in a proper habit, &c., &c. Such members of his assistants as can be provided. The high gaoler, Mimkin. Two gentlemen with white rods. The Sword of State to be borne by Lord Quebeck. The Crown, on a cushion, to be borne by two Esquires. The Royal Banner. Two Knights with white rods. His Majesty, attended by two Pages. Two Esquires with white rods. The Primate. The Chancellor. The Officer of State, Lord Posey (Gold Stick in waiting.) Dukes. Marquisses. Earls, Lords, &c., &c. Knights. Esquires. Two gentlemen with white rods to close the procession.

- - - -

The Crown of Dalkey - its loss.

Monday night, August 15,1796. From the Morning Post.

It is with infinite concern we state (from authority) that the report of this morning respecting the Crown of Dalkey, is but too well founded The particulars are as follow:- His Majesty, attended by Lord Posey and Sir Thomas Trump, crossed the sound in a private gondola, got refreshment, and walked to Bullock, in cog. At Bullock, being a good deal fatigued, they rested and drank three tumblers each, and then proceeded on their rout. It was observed that they not only measured the length but the breadth of the road; at the last mentioned place the King entrusted the Crown to the care of Lord Posey, but before they reached the Black Rock, his lordship first lost the King upon the road, and afterwards the crown; on his examination at the Secretary of State’s office, this day at noon, in the presence of the Privy Council, he solemnly declared, that he was inclined to think he had lost it; he, however, candidly admitted, that it might have been stolen, for he observed a great many Bloods on the road. His Majesty, King Stephen, is so well convinced of the loyalty and integrity of his people, that though it is the richest crown in Europe, he does not intend offering a higher reward than - HALF-A-CROWN.

- - -

Dalkey Gazette - Extraordinary. August 16, 1796.

Never was there a day of greater festivity and harmony. His Majesty, by the advice of able ministers left politics entirely out of the question, and on the singing of “God save the King,” it was received with the most enthusiastic demonstrations of joy.

Among the variety of deputations to the King of Dalkey, a very respectable one from the clergy deserves particular notice, as follows: “The Commissioners having adjusted to the mutual satisfaction of both parties, the contested rights of presentation to the Deanery of the Muglins, and having superseded the ponderous of political discussion, the clangor of the trumpets proclaimed the approach of an harbinger preceding an herald, who demanded an immediate audience of the King.

“This being by the proper officers communicated to the lords in waiting, and by their lordships announced to his Majesty, He, with his accustomed condescension was graciously pleased to command the herald to be conducted into the royal presence, which being done, and his credentials duly examined and ascertained, the Lord High Chamberlain was ordered to enquire into the nature of his mission, and silence being proclaimed, he thus unfolded the subject of his dispatch - ‘Please to inform the most august and happy of the European powers, that I am charged by that beneficent prelate, his Grace of Lambay and Kilbarrack, to signify that he is perfectly satisfied with the equitable determination which his Majesty and Council have made, respecting his Grace’s claim to the Deanery of the Muglins, and he drinks his Majesty’s health, and wishes that God may long preserve the royal faniily.”’

This was received with every demonstration of unfeigned pleasure by the King and nobles; and his Majesty facetiously observed “the herald who bears Cousin of Kilbarrack’s greeting does in no wise disgrace his Lord’s diocese - for by holy Paul he is as fat as butter, and will, in our mind, fitly become our noble order of the Scollop; I do, therefore, direct that a chapter of emergency be forthwith holden.”

Proclamation being accordingly made, the herald was in due form invested with the ensigns of the order, and the sword of state being presented to his Majesty, he gently laid it on the herald’s head, and dubbed him Sir Harry Icikle, amid the plaudits of surrounding millions.

His Majesty having drunk the health of his Grace, and prosperity to the united dioceses of Lambay and Kilbarrack, was pleased to direct same conduct to Sir Harry, and to order the Attorney-General, the Speaker, and Sir James Turf, to bear his gracious greetings, to his trusty Cousin, and assure his Grace that every right, royalty, and privilege of his should be preserved inviolate.

- - -

Dalkey Gazette - Extraordinary. August 16, 1796.

On Sunday morning, at the dawn of day, his Majesty King Stephen, came in a private coach to the palace in Eustace-street, attended by their Graces, the Dukes of Glosdoon and Stoneland and Lord Posey (goldstick in waiting), and held a grand council to adjust the weighty affairs of the kingdom, after which his Majesty, attended by the great officers of state, and a splendid suit, preceded by the royal band, marched in procession to Sir John Rogerson’s-quay, and embarked on board a fleet of light brigantines, under the command of Lord Neptune, Lord High Admiral of Dalkey. His Majesty’s arrival was announced by firing of rockets, discharges of artillery, and the most unbounded shouts of applause from the surrounding multitude. His Majesty entered his dominions at Dalkey, at one o’clock, and was received as the father of a country ought to be, with adoration. A grand procession took place; and on arriving at the council chamber, the foreign ambassadors, &c., were introduced; different processions round the dominions afterwards took place, when was performed the following Ode :-

ODE On the King of Dalkey’s Birth Day, WRITTEN BY HENRIETTA, COUNTESS OF LAUREL, Poetess Laureat.

Now let each scollop swell, Within its loyal shell, To greet the flowing tide, On which doth ride, The state barge that brings, So many pretty things - The PEERS OF DALKEY and the best of KINGS!

Happy island, free from guilt, In which no subject’s blood is spilt, Free from knaves, and free from fool, In which no proud plebeian rules; In which no rent-wreck’d peasants sweat, Beneath a nations sizeless debt, In which the nobles are indeed, All of true patrician breed; Happiest island of the main, Free from every venal strain, And trebly blest in good KING STEPHEN’s reign.

While kings of iron heart, Their savage will impart, That subjects all Both great and small Should march away to slaughter; Our gracious king employs His time in harmless joys, And on his natal day, He comes to make his subjects gay, In spite of wind and weather.

Then may no heavy rain Descend upon the plain, Till all the weighty cares Of Dalkey’s state affairs, Are settled to King Stephen’s mind, And all his trusty citizens have dined; And may no envious cloud, Our ceremonies enshroud. That all around may flock, As at the opening of the Dock, When fish and flesh stood gazing on; While Camden* laid The glittering blade, Across the back Of dapper Jack, And bid him rise - Sir John. Thus shall the honours given, By order of King Stephen, Whether of Knights, or Dukes, or Lords, Be entered on the tower records Of Muglin or Magee. And from palace sent, By charge of our good government, Gazetted they shall be; And then ‘tis eight to one but Captain Trolope Begs for the nobler order of the Scollop!!!

Thus on Dalkey’s fertile plains The all-illustrious Stephen reigns, And while the rocks and mountains ring The praises of a patriot king, His subjects round him throng; Not with petitions to redress The grievance of some made cess, But with the ancient charter of the land, By which his people all demand

King Stephen’s favourite Song. - ” LOVE’S MY PASSION AND GLORY.”

[* Earl Camden, Viceroy of Ireland in 1795.]

The dinner was sumptuous; great conviviality prevailed; when the cloth was removed, the following toasts were drank - “The Kingdom of Dalkey.” “Stephen, King of Dalkey, and a long and prosperous reign to him.” On which, his Majesty arose, and with great dignity gave - “His brother, George the Third, King of Great Britain and Ireland, and long may he reign.” A royal salute of 21 guns. His Majesty then accompanied by the whole Board, and the royal band, sung “God save the King.” The next toast given by King Stephen was - “His Majesty of Great Britain’s forces, by sea and land.” Then “Rule Britannia,” which was sung by his Majesty, accompanied as before.

Supplement to the Dalkey Gazette. Dublin Morning Post, August 20, 1796.

ORDERS FOR THE DAY (SUNDAY, 14TH INST.)

[The following is the arrangement for the coronation, as struck out by Sir John Hasler, of Dalkey.]

Leaving the quay, three rockets and nine cannon to be discharged.

His Majesty, on his arrival at the island, to be saluted with 21 guns and nine rockets, then to proceed to the royal tent, where after the ministers of state forminga council, his Majesty will receive all foreign ambassadors, and such noblemen and gentlemen of his kingdom, as come to pay their respects. The city to march in form, preceded by a band, to the levee; the Lord Mayor and Aldermen in their wigs and gowns, after which his Majesty, attended by the whole kingdom, in their proper regalias, to proceed to the cathedral (the crown, &c. carried on a cushion before the King). After the sermon to proceed the usual bounds of the kingdom, and in the most convenient part, the whole to draw up, and the band to be disposed of in the most judicious manner, for the purpose of singing the ode, and after the necessary proclamation, the whole to proceed in the most regular manner to partake of the royal banquet.

Prerogattve was an assumption of undefined power, which could not be suffered in any country where there was law and reason. And patronage, as it should never be exerted but for the public good, was a dangerous instrument in bad men’s hands - he therefore thought it safer for this end - that official department (qr.) should always depend on known talents and popular election, rather than the partiality or caprice of an individual.

Lord Seaview moved that his Majesty’s proposal be accepted, and the question being put, was carried unanimously.

His Majesty then returned without crown or sceptre to the bar of the Assembly.

By order of the Assembly the Viceroy of Ireland’s Eye, King at Arms, went forth to the people, preceded by an herald - and proclaimed the King’s resignation of the crown and sceptre, with the nature and causes of his resignation, and demanded of them to nominate a king from amongst the great body of the nation whom they would choose to rule over them, in consequence of his resolution-and the whole, with one voice, named their beloved monarch - STEPHEN I.

Ireland’s Eye returned to the Convention, and reported the choice of the people, which was forthwith confirmed by the unanimous vote of the Assembly, and his facetious Majesty was again invested with the ancient crown and oaken sceptre; and after being consecrated by the Primate, and having taken the oaths of festivity and public justice towards his people, upon a bowl of grog, was again proclaimed - King.

Lord Minikin, Keeper of the Tower, by order of his Majesty, went forth with a herald trumpeter, and declared to all the people, that his Majesty, in open senate, was now ready to hear their complaints, and grant the reasonable and just desires of his people. If any, therefore, were aggrieved, they were desired to come forward, and they should be heard.

A deputation from the order of Periwinkle immediately came to the bar of the assembly, and presented four articles of impeachment against the Lord Chancellor. [John, first Baron Fitzgibbon, afterwards Earl of Clare, was Lord Chancellor of Ireland when this was published in the Dalkey Gazette.]

First, for corruption in a former official capacity.

Secondly, violating a sacred and solemn obligation, taken on his being appointed one of “his facetious Majesty’s most good humoured privy council.

Thirdly, mal-administration of justice in his capacity of Chancellor, and-fourthly, his late unconstitutional conduct in using undue influence, as a peer of the realm, at a meeting of the order of the Scollop, to make them declare contrary to the known laws of the empire, that the members of the orders of the Periwinkle had no right, individually or collectively, to petition the King and Senate for a redress of grievances.

Those articles being read, the Lord Chancellor was called upon by his Majesty, to answer those several charges, when his lordship, not being prepared for trial, made the following affidavit.

WE, the Right Hon. J. Lord High Chancellor of the Empire of Dalkey, maketh oath and saith, that the several persons following, viz., Henry Stevens Rielly, Esq., Alderman, Wm. James, Wm. Napper, Esq., and John Walter, Esq., are material witnesses for dept. on the trial of the articles of impeachment exhibited against dept. And dept. not having received information of the items of said articles, so as to have an opportunity of summoning said persons to attend on this day, means and intends to use every exertion to procure their attendance on the day appointed for his trial before the National Convention, now agreed upon by his Majesty, and all the people, and does not mean any affected delay, &c. Sworn before me, LAUGHABLE, Lord Mayor.

In consequence of which, his Majesty and the assembly were pleased to order that the trial be postponed until the next National Convention.

The Grand Committee appointed to inquire into the interior state of the nation brought forward articles of impeachment against Lord Glassdone, Tony Laughable, Lord Mayor, and the Lord Chancellor, as guardians of the empire during his Majesty’s absence, for high crimes and misdemeanours - first, in neglecting all inquiry into the government of the several interior departments of the kingdom, by which his Majesty’s subjects were oppressed, good humour and harmony interrupted, and his Majesty’s revenues considerably impaired. Ordered to be tried at the next general Convention.

The Committee of Finance also exhibited articles of impeachment against the Lords of the Treasury for the embezzlement of the sum of £200,000 in good and gingerbread money of the realm, entrusted to their care, and also against the Chief Commissioner of the Revenue, and his accomplices, in aiding and abetting therein. Ordered that the investigation do stand over till the next general Convention.

NEW ORDER of NOBILITY.

Lord Jocular observed, that it had been frequently remarked, and with too much justice, that titles of nobility, instead of being considered as the rewards of the past, and the inducements to future virtues and great actions by their possessors, were too often used as substitutes for virtue itself, and only served as the empty supporters of ignorant pride, of vicious and tyrannical principle; no man could consider the dignity of a mere titular distinction in a more frivolous light than himself, and no man more pointedly despised the owner, if his actions were not such as marked the superiority of his virtues, as well as his title did that of rank.

His lordship observed, that the monarch of the country had nobly come forward, and disclaimed all hereditary pretensions to distinction, placing his claims to the rank and power on the most honourable of all foundations, that of personal virtue and merit, he therefore thought the least that should be expected of the nobles, was to follow the example of their king, and subject their titles to annual appointments, and their conduct to annual revision. Titular honours, he said, were the strongest sarcasms on demerit, and the very pillory of vice, for who but an idiot, or an atheist, would wish to be blazoned in titles, that are supposed to distinguish superior virtue, yet whose notoriety in the lowest vices sunk him to the level of abandoned reprobacy. A rascal in robes, said his lordship, is a character infinitely more ridiculous and contemptable, than a bedlamite emperor or a mountebank buffoon.

His lordship said, that though he did not wish, like the French Assembly, to abolish all titular distinctions, he would not wish to settle a lease of titular honours upon any man longer than he should deserve it; much less entail on his posterity, without proviso or condition. Human nature was frail, and in nothing more than ambition. If a man must need wear a title, he should wear it like a gentleman, and keep it clean, like his coat; and the best way to insure his decency in this respect was, to subject him to annual revision; his lordship concluded by moving, that no titular honours be enjoyed longer than one year without a revision of the conduct of those who wore them, before a committee of honour, to be chosen from the members of the Convention. Carried unanimously.

His lordship then moved, that the title virtuous citizen, do henceforward stand as the highest rank of noble distinction in the state next to royalty. Carried unanimously.

After which, with his Majesty’s concurrence, the Convention adjourned, sine die

His Majesty, attended as before, returned to the great hall, where a sumptuous banquet was prepared; and in the meantime, the Lord Mayor and municipality, attended by Lord Seaview, and several other noblemen knights, and squires, perambulated the franchise of the city of Dalkey. They were met at Stormy-gate ~by a party of the Liberty boys of Dalkey, who, according to custom took the sword from his lordship’s sword-bearer in triumph to the great mole, from whence his lordship threw the civic daft into the sea, and then returned to the royal hall and participated in a most sumptuous repast, in the course of which a plenipotentiary arrived from the Grand Duke of Bullock, with a present of potatoes ready boiled for his Majesty’s table, which was most graciously accepted; and his Majesty was pleased to confer the honour of knighthood on the ambassador.

After dinner a council of war was held in which it was resolved, that the thanks of his Majesty in council be returned in the name of the king and people of Dalkey, to Captain Wm. Power Keating French of Dublin garrison, for his politeness and assiduity in endeavouring to obtain musicians from the garrison to supply the deficiencies of the royal band of Dalkey, and that the messengers who bear the said thanks be instructed to express to Colonel York of that garrison, the proper sense which the court of Dalkey entertains of his Yorkshire politeness in a surly refusal of his permission for any of the military bands to attend.

It was also resolved, that the thanks of his Majesty in council be returned to the captain, officers and seamen of his Britannic Majesty’s frigate lying off Dunleary, and also those of his Britannic Majesty’s yacht, the “Dorset,” in Dublin Bay, for their polite and honourable attentions to the Dalkey squadron, on passing them. The council having broken up -

The grand chambers of hilarity were thrown open the royal band filled the orchestre. His Majesty was graciously pleased to sing the first song, “Love’s my Passion and Glory,” the Lord Mayor the second, and the evening concluded with a grand ball, to which the fair visitants of the island were invited; while the exhilerating cup went round and the loyal subjects of the empire of mirth, jovially supported the honours of their facetious government.

The remarkable toasts on this occasion were as follows:- By the King - The people and constitution of Dalkey, with a grand signal of rockets, by a party of fireworkers, under the direction of Lord Portfire, Master-general of the Ordnance, and three cheers by the people.

May the will of the people be the law of the land. Three cheers. Prosperity to the commerce, and lasting happiness to all the subjects of the Empire of Dalkey. Three cheers. Lord Seaview then gave, on the part of the people, “A long life and prosperous reign to the King of Dalkey.” Three cheers, uncovered. Equal liberty, political and religious, to all the sons of Adam. Three times three. The fair visitants of the island, and all the fair sex of the earth. Three times three, uncovered, and with flowing bumpers.

The ball and entertainments being ended, his Majesty retired towards his yacht, and all the subjects of his kingdom formed around him a circle, and performed a festive dance, after which his Majesty embarked, and his example was followed by all his subjects, who went on board hundreds of vessels, and the whole fleet immediately weighed and sailed for Dublin.

- - -

The following interesting notice of the Kingdom of Dalkey in the last century, is taken from Herbert’s “Recollections for the last Fifty Years,” a rare book, published many years ago

THE KING OF DALKEY

“A party of high-bred wits formed, by what accident chronology has not promulgated, but as long as I can remember any public occurrence worthy of notice, I recollect The King of Dalkey, his court, and adherents, going to spend a day every summer at this charming place, and the sayings and doings of that day have been echoed and re-echoed in my ears.

“My reader shall be made acquainted with the subject as far as I can relate. In the first place Dalkey Island, in Dublin Bay, is a small piece of land, which in fine weather is invitingly eligible to pass a day and partake of a cold collation, and it is frequented by citizens, particularly on Sunday, for that purpose. One of those parties, becoming numerous, formed a government, and elected a king and court. All the officers of state, the military, the church, and the bar, furnished places, or at least titles; and the same ceremonies practised at courts were observed, and the respectful homage paid to rank and station; the speeches used, and the mode of addressing, copied from the court, senate, bar, and church; these were strictly attended to: the whole was a playful burlesque upon forms and prescribed rules. Stephen Armitage, of vocal memory, was king when I first witnessed this scene of hilarity and mockery. I obtained a ticket, and was permitted to land, for they had even land-waiters, who were very strict; all officers were kept on the alert.

“Kane O’Hara was poet laureat of the mimic kingdom at the time - I believe he obtained that high favour for “My Lord Altam’s Bull;” “The Night before Larry was stretched,” another song from his pen. In the course of the day, while business was transacted, many subjects were discussed before his majesty; those subjects were questions on some public measure that .was perhaps not decidedly passed, and therefore such objections as might be made were slily introduced; but the gravity of the speaker, the whim, the satire, were beyond endurance, without bursts of laughter. Never had comedy and farce, or burlesque, such fair display; when business ended and refreshments were administered, then came the tug of war; but all was in good humour, every one was served, and there were great numbers admitted as visitors. After dinner, and drinking a few glasses, his majesty, king Stephen, honoured his subjects by singing. He had a good voice, and gave his song with great energy, which the open Space where we were assembled required. Then followed calls, and many excellent songs, duets, catches, glees, slang and other humorous compositions, perhaps matchless in any other assemblage, entertained us the whole evening. The party then retired, boats in requisition surrounded the island and we all got home generally without accident. I had the pleasure of enjoying this occasionally whilst it continued a custom.

But King Stephen died, and John West, brother to my worthy master, Francis Robert West, was chosen king. This new monarch came into power too near the Rebellion in Ireland, 1798, so that the satire was not deemed such a safe conductor of sentiment as it had been in more peaceable times. The kingdom of Dalkey was therefore neglected, and the government died a natural death on the demise of King John Oh, Rebellion! thou destroyer of all the social virtues! I saw one rebellion, and I never shall, I hope, see another.” - - -

Among the persons who took part in the convivialities of the Kingdom of Dalkey, wasthe celebrated T. O’Meara. As the times became menacing, and Ireland infected with French principles, the Lord Chancellor Clare was vigilant in watching every society which was formed, and, among the rest, the kingdom of Dalkey and its Druids attracted his notice. O’Meara was personally known to him, and supposing he could enlighten him, Lord Clare sent for him.

You, sir,” said the Chancellor, “are, I understand, connected with the kingdom of Dalkey.” “I am, my lord,” said O’Meara. “Pray, may I ask what title are you recognized by?” I am Duke of Muglins.” And what post do you hold under the government?” “Chief Commissioner of the Revenue.” What are your emoluments in right of your office?” “I am allowed to import ten thousand hogsheads, duty free.” “Hogsheads of what Mr. Commissioner?” “Of salt water, my lord.” The chancellor was satisfied without further question.

O’Meara was an attorney well known at that time, as many of the same profession were, for his conviviality, spirit, wit, singularity and good nature. Among other anecdotes told of him was one very characteristic. An Englishman of rank and fortune visited Ireland, and accidentally met him at dinner at a friend’s house. It was then the hospitable custom for every person who met a stranger at a friend’s house, to ask him to dinner and show him every attention. This was done with more than usual attention by O’Meara, who attached himself to the Englishman, invited him to his house in the country, and, in the display of his good-nature and sense of hospitality, gave up his time and business to make the visit agreeable and instructive to his acquaintance, who left Ireland with many expressions of obligation for the kindness and attention he had received. Soon after, O’Meara for the first time visited London, and being a total stranger there, was well-pleased to see one day his English acquaintance walking on the other side of Bond-street; so he immediately crossed over, and with outstretched hand declared how delighted he was to see him again. The gentleman was walking with a group of others of a high aristocratic cast, and dressed in the utmost propriety of costume; and when he saw a fine-looking man, with soiled leather breeches, dirty top-boots, not over clean linen, - nor very close shaven beard, striding up to him, with a whip in his hand and the lash twisted under his arm, he started back, and with a look of cold surprise, said -

“Sir, you have the advantage of me.” “I have, sir,” said O’Meara, looking at him coolly for a moment - “I have, sir, and by ---- I’ll keep it;” and turned from him, casting such a look of contempt and superiority, as the other did not think it prudent to notice.

Moore, in his Memoirs, edited by Lord John Russell, in speaking of the anniversary of this convivial society (1796), at which he was present, says:- “Mt recollections of poor Mrs. Battier have brought back some other events and circumstances of this period, with which she was connected. There was a curious society or club established in Dublin, which had existed I believe for some time, but to which the growing political excitement of the day lent a new and humorous interest. A mere sketch of the plan and objects of the club (to which most of the gay fellows of the middle and liberal class of society belonged) will show what a fertile source it afforded not only of fun and festivity, but of political allusion and satire. The island of Dalkey, about seven or eight miles from Dublin, was the scene of their summer reunions, and here they had founded a kingdom, of which the monarchy was elective; and at the time I am speaking of, Stephen Armitage, a very respectable pawnbroker of Dublin, and a most charming singer, was the reigning king of the island. Every summer the anniversary of his coronation was celebrated, and a gayer and more amusing scene (for I was once the happy witness of it) could not be well imagined. About noon on Sunday, the day of the celebration, the royal procession set out from Dublin by water; the barge of his majesty, King Stephen, being most tastefully decorated, and the crowd of boats that attended him all vieing with each other in gaiety of ornament and company. There was even cannon planted at one or two stations along the shore, to fire salutes in honour of his majesty as he passed. The great majority, however, of the crowds that assembled made their way to the town of Dalkey by land; and the whole length of the road in that direction swarmed with vehicles all full of gay laughing people. Some regulations were made, if I recollect right, to keep the company on the island itself as select as possible; and the number of gay parties there scattered about, dining under tents, or in the open air (the day being, on the occasion I speak of, unclouded throughout), presented a picture of the most lively and exhilarating description.

The ceremonies performed in honour of the day by the dignitaries of the kingdom, were of course, a parody on the forms observed upon real state occasions; and the sermon and service, as enacted in an old ruined church, by the archbishop (a very comical fellow, whose name I forget) and his clergy, certainly carried the spirit of parody indecorously far. An old ludicrous song, to the tune of Nancy Dawson,” was given out in the manner of a psalm, and then sung in chorus by the congregation; as thus-

“And then he up the chimney went, The chimney went-the chimney went; And then he up the chimney went, And stole away the bacon.”

“There were occasionally peerages and knighthoods bestowed by his Majesty on such ‘good fellows’ as were deserving of them; on this very day which I am describing, Incledon the singer, who was with a party on the island, was knighted under the title of Sir Charles Melody. My poetical friend, Mrs. Battier, who held the high office of poetess laureate to the Monarch of Dalkey, had, on her appointment to that station, been created Countess of Laurel. I had myself been tempted, by the good fun of the whole travestie, to try my hand (for the first time I believe) at a humorous composition in the style of Peter Pindar, and meant as a birthday ode to King Stephen. Of this early jeu d’esprit of mine, which I remember amused people a good deal, I can recall only a few fragments here and there. Thus, in allusion to the precautions which George III. was said to be in the habit of taking, at that time, against assassination, I thus addressed his brother monarch, Stephen:-

“Thou rid’st not, prison’d in a’ metal coach, To shield from thy annointed head Bullets, of a kindred lead, Marbles and stones, and such hard-hearted things.”

But hae nugae seria ducent in mala. Most serious and awful indeed was the time which followed these gay doings. The political ferment that was abroad through Ireland soon found its way within the walls of our university; and a youth destined to act a melancholy but for ever memorable part in the troubled scenes that were fast approaching, had now begun to attract, in no ordinary degree, the attention both of his fellow-students and the college authorities in general. This youth was Robert Emmet, whose brilliant success in his college studies, and more particularly in the scientific portion of them, had crowned his career, as far as he had gone, with all the honours of the course; while his power of oratory displayed at a debating society, of which, about this time (1796-7), I became a member, were beginning to excite universal attention, as well from the eloquence as the political boldness of his displays. He was, I rather think, by two classes, my senior, though it might have been only by one. But there was, at all events, such an interval between our standings as, at that time of life, makes a material difference; and when I became a member pf the debating society, I found him in full fame, not only for his scientific attainments, but also for the blamelessness of his life and the grave suavity of his manners.

On the very morning after the celebration at which I was present, there appeared in the newspaper which acted as his Majesty’s state gazette, a highly humourous proclamation, offering a reward of I know not how many hundred crobanes or Irish halfpence, to whatsoever person or persons might have found and would duly restore, his Majesty’s crown, which, in walking home from Dalkey the preceding night, and measuring both sides of the road,” according to custom, he had unfortunately let fall from off his august head.

- - -

THE DALKEY KINGDOM

Grand anniversary of the coronation of his facetious Majesty Stephen I., King of Dalkey, Emperor of the Muglins, Prince of the Holy Island of Magee, and Elector of Lambay and Ireland’s Eye, 1797.

From the Dalkey Gazette.

“Sunday morning, at six o’clock, his Majesty, having spent the whole of the preceding night in the grand Chamber of the Carousal, at the Royal Palace of the Revels, in Eustace-street, in adjusting some important matters of state with the officers of his kingdom, and in preparing for his intended visit to his royal dominions, went in grand procession to the quay of St. George, attended by the privy council, his great officers of state, the lord mayor, and municipality of the capital of Dalkey, and a vast concourse of cheerful citizens, and embarked on board the royal yacht, attended by a squadron of light frigates, under the command of Commodore Byrne, who, on a signal gun from the royal yacht, immediately ordered a grand salute of three rounds from all the guns of the squadron.

“The fleet immediately weighed anchor, sailed down to Poolbeg, passed the Hills of Howth, and tacking on the starboard, stood right for Dalkey Sound, which, we understand, they reached after a voyage of three hours. We since learn of an officer on board the fleet, that as the royal yacht of Dalkey passed the Dorset yacht belonging to his Britannic Majesty, his Majesty, standing on the forecastle, sung the song of ‘Rule Britannia,’ accompanied by all the officers of state, the choir of Dalkey Cathedral, and the royal band of the household, in grand chorus; and was complimented in turn by three cheers from the Dorsets ship’s company.

His Majesty, with the same politeness, paid a similar compliment to a British frigate of war lying off Dunleary, which was most politely returned by her commander with every degree of respect to his Dalkeian Majesty. The shrouds of the frigate were instantly manned from the deck to the round top; and her fore and main mast presented two heroic pyramids of brave, honest fellows, who hailed with three cheers the King of Dalkey and fleet.”

- - -

Cooney’s Morning Post or Dublin Courant, September 2nd, 1797

Further particulars respecting the business of Dalkey, from the “Dalkey Gazette Extraordinary,” dated Monday, Sept. 10th.

“Yesterday morning, at nine o’clock, the royal yacht of Dalkey, with his facetious Majesty on board, conveyed by a squadron of frigates, under the command of Commodore Byrne, entered the Sound, and came to anchor opposite the royal stairs. The barges of the fleet were immediately manned, and his Majesty, attended by all the great officers of state, the lord mayor, and municipality, were immediately landed, and were received in the great valley of liberty by all the citizens of Dalkey, with three cheers that rent the vaults of heaven with the sound of gladness. His Majesty then proceeded to the great hall of the palace, where he took his seat on the royal throne of granite, under a canopy of celestiblue ether, surrounded by the officers of state in the robes and ribbons of their respective orders.

The great verdant table of nature was then spread in the royal hall of hospitality for a grand dejuner, and instantly covered /by the royal sutlers with abundance of hams, sheeps’ tongues, roast mutton, and other cold viands, and two tuns of nutbrown stingo from the royal cellars were broached in the grand saloon.

“A herald sounded the trumpet of hospitality, and invited all the world to come and partake of the good cheer of the king’s table. After which, grace being said by the lord primate (very contrary to the custom of surrounding nations at breakfast), the assembly seated themselves on the green sod, and manifested the gladsome coalition of those long contending parties, appetite and good cheer, while the royal band struck up ‘O’Rourke’s Noble Feast.’

Breakfast being over, his Majesty, attended by his court and state officers, and the municipality, perambulated the boundaries of his capital, and then attended divine service in the cathedral where a most excellent sermon was preached by the lord primate of Dalkey, and the service concluded by a grand anthem performed by the whole choir. Service being over, his Majesty held a levee at the palace, at which were present several of the nobility of the empire, and a great number of illustrious foreigners from Bullock, Dunleary, Howth, Kilbarrak and Ireland’s Eye, and other parts of the neighbouring continent.

“His Majesty then ascended the great rock, and entered the senate-house, where the states of the empire were assembled, and being led to the foot of the throne by the chancellor and the primate, and proceeded by the lord mayor, as representatives of the municipality, his Majesty declined ascending the royal seat. But turning round to the assembly, and pulling off his royal diadem, he laid it with his oaken sceptre on the table of the assembly, and addressed them in the following speech:

“‘My Lords and Gentlemen, and Citizens of Dalkey and her States -

“‘I come this day, to commemorate with my cheerful people, the occasion which raised me, by the unsolicited honour of their suffrages, to the throne of their realms. And I rejoice most exceedingly that nothing like hereditary pretensions are quartered in my scutcheons, or ranked amongst my claims to that dignity; that I hold it not as an heritance from ancestors who attained it by injustice, rapacity, or bloodshed, but that I enjoy it by the most honorable of all claims, the unsolicited choice and that unfeigned confidence and affection of a free, a generous, and a happy people.

""Tis my glory that I love you all; ‘tis my pride that you are happy, and my joy that you think so. And to manifest my sincerity on this head, it is my wish this day to establish, in the happy constitution of Dalkey, for ever, a principle which shall place its liberty and happiness above the power of permanent tyrants; and by depositing in the people of this happy realm a controlling discretion, which shall for ever preserve to them the privilege of recalling power and dignity from their king, so soon as they shall be found unworthy to hold either, to give them some hostage for the honesty of crowned heads.

The crimes of royalty, its tyrannies, its treacheries, and its rapacities, have rendered it suspicious everywhere-from that suspicion it is my wish to vindicate for ever him who wears the crown of Dalkey. Feeling no interest or happiness separate from yours, there is nothing in the title loyalty that can tempt me to wear it tarnished by the general suspicion. A king should be like Caesar’s wife, not only virtuous but unsuspected; and where reasonable doubt or suspicion can find footing in the character, I shall for ever hold, that “the post of honour is a private station.

“‘Take back, then, my people, this crown and this sceptre, typos of that power which is yours, and which you have only delegated to my hands for your own welfare and good government and not for my ambition or aggrandizement. I desire not to hold longer the weight of the trust than I shall have done my duty. If you return them to me, it will be a manifestation that you approve my past government, and thus renovate the covenant in expectation that I shall continue to deserve your confidence, and in this trust I shall never deceive you; but if you choose a worthier ruler, I shall rejoice.

For your parts, I advise you, trust not the promises of any mortal in the station I here fill, beyond your own power of control; and I, for mine, have but one ambitious wish left to exist, before your wisdom may judge it right to accept this day my resignation for ever, and dismiss me from the crown of those realms, and it is this: “That the last act of my regal life should be to join with you this day in adding to the great charter of your freedom, a clause which shall make the election of your king annual, and that no ruler be permitted to hold your confidence more than one year without being re-chosen by you.”

“‘I am not an advocate for the prerogative of kings against the rights of the race of Adam; but my ambition was always to reign over your hearts and affections, and not above your liberties.

“‘Your wisdom, I am sure, will see the good purposes of my proposal, and suggest the necessity of your joining with me this day in securing for you the liberties of Dalkey.’

“The lord chancellor immediately rose, and, in a speech of considerable length, disadvised his Majesty from soliciting that which must for ever circumscribe the rights attached to the crown of Dalkey, and resigning that penance of power, of prerogative and patronage, which his predecessors had maintained with becoming dignity, regardless of the notions of that long-eared mobocracy, called the people; and which future princes might highly value, though his Majesty’s taste might not be in the splendour of royalty. His Majesty shortly thanked the noble lord for his advice, and replied, he knew of no rights of royalty paramount of that power who made it - the power of the people.”

- - -

Moore wrote the Dalkey Coronation Ode for 1797. The poems composed for these commemorations had various degrees of merit. The following are two verses of the Ode of 1793:-

“Lord of all Dalkey lands, Chief of our jovial bands, Are you not man? With you though peace doth reign, Nor blood your isle doth stain, Nor famine here complain, Are you not man?

What though the realms rejoice In your melodious voice: Kings are but men! And while each subject sings: ‘God made us men, not kings!’ With echo Dalkey rings: ‘Kings are but men!’”

- - -

The following curious letter on political secret societies (the United Irishmen, Defenders, and the French Revolutionists of 1792), the style of which the celebrated “Terry O’Driscoll” seems to have adopted in his famous letters to the Warder, appeared in most of the leading papers in Ireland, almost at the same time with Gillespie’s Coronation Sermon on Dalkey Island, in 1792. It was afterwards copied into the Anthologia Hibernica.

My Dear Mister Printer, - Ime a very plane man, I hav no Lattin, and verie littel English, tho’ I can tauke Irish as fast as any man in Munster, except my weif, who, to be sure, can tauke me def; and afterwards tauke on till Ime tired of hearing hur. But tho’ Ime not book-larn’d, yet Father Tedy O’Rourke, who is a deep Scollard offten tells me when Ime giving him a jorum of whiskey’ punch that tho Ime ignorant, yet I have a good understanding. But if this be all blarny, and if I hav no understanding at aule, this need nat hinder me from riting abaute pollyticks, becaise this is a thing that everybodie understands. But it is time for me to be aftur telling what it is I mane. The Society of United Irishmen are sartingly mity fine people; they cant but noe everything, for they hav among um aule profissions, atturnies, and bruers, and steymakers, and docturs, and grand jontlemen, who ware formerly parliament men, and if they wer able to by burroes, wud be the seme agen; and they hav likeweys among um, preests and prospiterion ministers, and ethiests, and all the other religions in the kingdom. Now this Society tells us that the Frenshe revolushon is the most charmin, vartuous, nobel bizuisse that the world ever sawe, and that we aut to immitate it as faste as we can. But, on the other hand, there ere topping makers who swere that it is the most abominable, hellish worke, that ever was done sense Adam was cristened; and that if we attempt any such thing, we shall distroy all Irelond, and what is worser, destroy ourselves. Now by the vessment, these great people bodder me so by their palauvering on both sides, that I don’t noe what to think of it, at all, at all; and, therefore, I send you my own thauts upon the subject. I thinks then that tenn years is littel enuff for giving the Frensh Revolushon a fare triel. If we find in the year 1800, that it has brout to the Frenshmen, riches and honour, and happyness, and all that, then in the name of ---- let us aule drawe our spedes and flauns, and shilellies, and hav a grand bodderation of our one. But iff we see that it has maid the Frenshmen poor and infimous, and wicked, then lett us remane snug and pasible, and content ourselves with wolunteering, and singing trezion and ranking rebellion, jest to sho that we are brave Irish boys, but not come the joak any furthen In the manetime, until that liappy yeer shal come, in which we may posibly have the plesure of cutting one anoders troats, let us be indistrous, and ern a grete dele of money, and seve more. For tho’ England, to be shure, is not a match for us, yet in case of a war with hur, we shood want some mony. War is like a law-shute; and I know, to my grief, what a law-shute is; for I was alniost ruineted by ganing a cauze against a gossup of mine, that cheeted me; butt the divel shal hav all my gossups, men, women, and childrin, befoar I go to law with one of um agen. War requiers money as bad as a law-shute; without mony our generuls, and cornits, and granydeers wood’nt fire; without money our preests woodn’t prey us out of purgatury, when we were kilt; nay, our drummors wood no moar rattle their sticks without mony, than Counsillor Currin or Counsillor O’Driscoll wood rattle their tongues without their hire. When we have got mony, then will be the time to invaid Englond, take Lonnon, bring it hoam with us, and build it in Belfast.

My deer countrymen, everyone of you noes parfitly, that you are a wize nashon; herfoar, my sweet duils, take a fool’s advice, and be quiet

I am, deer printur, your sarvent to command till death, Patrick O’Flaherty. Ballyboohy, near Tipperary, Oggus the first, 1792. - - -

PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE PARLIAMENT OF PIMLICO.

[Tripoli; Published by the executors of Judith Freel, late printer to his Dalkeian Majesty: and sold at No. 5, College Green, and by all the flying stationers; price, four camacs.]

[NO. XIX.]

Lower House, 23rd and 25th of Jan. 1799.

The following is an extract from a supposed speech, by one styled Lawyer George, on the proposed union:-

Sir, the varieties of shapes and colors this proposed measure of union with Oxmantown has assumed, since its first introduction in Pimlico, and the multiplicity of opposite pretences with which it has been covered, create some difficulty as to the choice of points in which it is to be attacked, though at all points it seems to me equally weak and untenable; it is a measure not to annihilate or diminish the independence of the Pimlico parliament, but to concentrate, confirm, and eternise that independence, and to give it a proportionate sway over the whole Dalkeian empire.”

Extract from the Proceedings and Debates of the Parliament of Pimlico, on the last Session of the 18th Century.

House of Nobs, Die Stephani, 1799.

Their Wigships being assembled in their best bibs and tuckers, his honor, the Seneschal, who had in the morning taken the diversion of bull-beating, came down to the hall in great snuff His honor was attended in the State Jingle, by Nob Nothingworth, commander-in-chief to the Pimlico guards, who bore the cap and bells, and his grace, Moses, Marquis of Truck-street, who bore the axe of state.

His honor entered the hall about five o’clock, ushered by CROSS PODDLE, king-at-arms, and being seated on the great stool, (after three solemn reverences thereto made), a message was sent to the lower assembly by the gentleman usher of the oak stick, requiring their attendance forthwith. The lower assembly being accordingly come to their place, preceded by Mr. Orator Mum, their chairman, his honor, the seneschal, was pleased to deliver the following most facetious speech to both houses.

My Nobs and Gentlemen -

The Secretary commands me to inform you that the long, arduous, and ruinous contest in which he has been graciously pleased to involve these realms, jointly with our good allies, the Emperor of the Muglins, the Czar of Lambay, and the grand Duke of Bullock, against the impious republic of Skerries, is just about as far from termination as ever, notwithstanding all the threatened growlings and prowlings of the great and invincible generalissimo, Rusty Fusty; and that our said good allies, having for their most generous and disinterested aid, fleeced us of every camac and cronbane they could, are now resolved to follow the adage. - No longer pipe, no longer dance,” and are about to reneague from the contest leaving to us the honor of fighting it out alone, or getting out of the scrape in any manner we can; possessed, however, of an inexhaustible fund of experience and a most elaborate system of finance, the advantages of which will be fairly divided with his Majesty’s Pimliconian subjects, so soon as this GREAT MEASURE shall be established, whereby the most permanent advantage will accrue to the great virtues of temperance and economy in this realm of Pimlico.

The brilliant successes which have so recently distinguished the arms of Dalkey and her allies against the Zooder-Zealanders; the cheap bargain we have bought of their bumb-boats, and, above all, the splendid retreat secured for our gallant legions; a retreat unincumbered by horses, artillery, camp equipage, stores, or other such trumpery as must have proved highly embarrassing to that singular and unparalleled manoeuvre, beggars everything told in history of the races of Dunkirk or Ballinamuck; and gives the strongest pledge of indubitable success in our new expedition to the Fingallian coast, and the brightest promise to our hopes, that some time in the course of the new century, such order of things may be established amongst the Skerrinians as may warrant the Dalkeian cabinet in condescending to listen to terms of peace.

[Throughout the Pimliconian debates, which extend to a considerable length, there is frequent allusion to the King of Dalkey, and other mock titles from that quarter.]