Sketches of eminent Writers on the Catholic Question. – Right Rev. Dr. Doyle. – Thomas Furlong. – "Honest Jack Lawless." – Thomas Moore.

The Association had no sooner been fairly a-foot, than the attention of the whole country became rivetted upon its progress. Its two orators – O’Connell and Shiel – were long known to the people, as men of surpassingly great genius and the most profound sincerity in the Catholic cause. Others there were of various prominence, but these were such favorites that the Irish heart could take in no other idols. The people were never wearied of travelling to hear a speech from either; the newspapers were considered worthless if the question – "Is there anything from Dan, or Shiel?" – should be answered in the negative. Eloquence, in savage or in civilized society, must be felt, and will find its weight – but it is particularly formidable, if orally delivered, and in times of revolution. There arose, also, from the people of Ireland, champions of different device and weapons, but of no less zeal, and little inferior strength, to guide and goad, by turns, the free longings of the nation. Of these great pensmen, some must necessarily be overlooked in our limited space; I have chosen four names, however, not alone for their greater celebrity, but because their walks of usefulness were widely apart, and their advance characteristic of themselves. Each one’s life might be the subject of a volume of fruitful narrative; but to them all, we can give only one poor chapter.

Thomas Furlong was born in the barony of Scarawalsh, convenient to the ancient town of Ferns, in the county of Wexford, in 1794. His father was, in the country phrase, a "snug farmer," who gave him a liberal English education to fit him for commercial pursuits, to which end he was sent to Dublin as an apprentice, at the age of fourteen. Unlike poor Dermody, he attended punctually to business, and was loved by his employers for his gentleness and attention. Soon after the publication of "The Misanthrope," his first poem, in 1819, Mr. Jameson, an eminent brewer of Dublin, bestowed on him a confidential office, which gave him a handsome return, and allowed him every opportunity for prosecuting his mission as a patriot-writer. His first effort having ran through three editions, stimulated him to further labors: and in 1824 he published the Plagues of Ireland, A Satire.

Previous to this time, he had made the acquaintance of Moore, Lady Morgan, and Charles Robert Maturin, all of whom entertained for him the highest regard, and in their several circles, were of much assistance to his reputation, which they took an honest pride in establishing. He also contributed extensively the New Monthly Magazine, and in 1822 had projected the New Irish Magazine. He became deeply interested in the progress of the Catholic question, as well from an innate love of justice, as from being himself one of the number of proscribed Christians in a Christian land. His pen was often employed, and his purse as freely produced its aids. Her was a master of that terrible gift, which few of our writers possessed or exercised in verse – the gift of portraying men’s innermost thoughts, was evident. Since the days of Swift, there had been little satire written in Ireland, and that little was of a character most unworthy of its subjects. Moore had just opened a new vein, in which he displayed wonderful powers of ridicule, and brilliancy of fancy; but he could not be said to belong to the legitimate school of satire. He seized upon the foibles of nobles, and dandled them with the mischievous activity of an unvicious schoolboy. He never grappled with their darker passion – with the criminalities of the court of the fourth George, or the bitter antipathy of the Eldons and Percivals to everything like concession. He had too many flowers in his chaplet already, to covet a wreath of henbane. It was left to another to shed poison in the cup of the oppressor; and he performed this duty with terrible liberality. There were few so high as to escape his destroying potion. He had never basked in court sunshine – had never dispossessed the lap-dogs of fashionable countesses – had never courted the smiles of the effeminate skeletons who called themselves the nobles of the land. He had been nursed amongst the people – was little given to romance, and less to gallantry. His nature was transfused through his writings; frank, bitter, terse, and direct in his attacks, he came upon the castle hacks and demagogues of the land, like the destroying angel smiting with a sword of flame. He came not to ridicule, but to exterminate. He has left us this portrait of the then viceroy: --

It is chiefly on the merits of this poem, that many biographers have agreed in assigning to him the title of the Irish Churchill. In this, however, Furlong committed a great fault in coupling the agitators with the enemies of the land, but one which he more than redeemed by the energetic co-operation which he lent them, after being convinced of their sincerity. Nor was he an unrecognized advocate of religious toleration; the great leader of that struggle declared him "a thorn in the side of the enemy," and at its termination, his portrait was engraved for the Catholic Association, in common with those of Moore, Byron, and Shiel.

As on this work his reputation chiefly rests, we cannot refrain from indulging our disposition to extract a couple of passages further, indicative alike of a just conception of the satirist’s office, a faultless versification, and an ardent patriotism.

Amongst other characters distinguished in "Saint" Farnham’s train, was the Rev Mr. Graham, of Magilligan, a small beer poet and a foaming apostle to the Gentiles. Of him Furlong gives a finished sketch: --

The following glorious passage, in relation to the intolerant Orange factions, the poorer classes, and the insensibility of the government to the state of the nation, will conclude our selections from this, alas! Too rare poem: --

But in another character than that of the political poet, we find him equally patriotic. As the translator of Carolan’s Remains, Thomas Furlong is an exception in the history of Irish genius. For the previous two centuries, no man had arisen to unlock those treasuries of song, which in the crumbling cloister, or the wild, roadless mountain-glen, betimes found a voice to charm the ear of the wanderer. No hand had been stretched forth to roll the stone from the door of the sepulchre, where slept the soul of patriotism and of chivalry, of religion and of love – the national music, in an obscure tomb hewn by stranger hands from the chilling rock.

Carolan, the greatest of the modern lyric poets of Ireland who wrote in the ancient language of the land, [... ]

But here we have no right to pursue the singular story of his life. He lived; he wrote and played, and loved, and died – but was not forgotten. In the days of the Parliament, appeared the works of Walker, Miss Brooke, and Bunting, on the musical antiquities of Ireland. These patriots were followed in their enterprize, by Mr. James Hardiman, of Galway, who, in 1831, published the first full collection of the original words, with translations, of Irish melodies, that deserves the name.

The last labor of Furlong’s life was the translation of the songs and short lyrical poems of Carolan, for this collection. In their intrinsic worth, he at first had no faith; but on examination, he found them so pregnant with passion and harmony, that he entered into the labor with all his soul.

As works in which those translations have appeared, are very rare in cis-Atlantic libraries, it is presumed that the reader will not find the following specimens unworthy of his perusal:--

The following is in a different strain: --

These most pathetic stanzas are the language of a really poetic soul:

Such is an inadequate sample of the powers of the translator, and the genius of the original. It is hoped, however, that as the life of a hero is sometimes preserved in the remembrance of a single action – as we judge of a palace or a monastery of other days by the greatness of its fragments – that these simple and random selections will enable those unacquainted with the Gaelic language, to form a favorable opinion of the skill and poetic taste of Furlong, as well as of the real genius of Carolan; to those who know the latter in his native garb, we need say nothing of the appropriateness of his Anglo-Irish costume. In executing his great undertaking, Furlong possessed no notion of patronage; an undying love of country, and warm admiration for the efforts of her genius was at once his motive and reward. The following fine lines were the last he ever wrote, probably suggested by a self-examination on the bed of death, when he might have asked himself whether he had deserved the gratitude of his country: --

"Loved land of the bards and saints! To me
There’s nought so dear as thy minstrelsy;
Bright is Nature in every dress,
Rich in unborrowed loveliness;
Winning in every shape she wears,
Winning she is thine own sweet airs;
What to the spirit more cheering can be,
than the lay whose lingering notes recall
The thoughts of the holy, the fair, the free,
Beloved in life or deplored in their fall?
Fling, fling the forms of art aside –
Dull is the ear that these forms enthrall;
Let the simple songs of our sires be tried –
They go to the heart – and the heart is all.
Give me the full responsive sigh,
The glowing cheek and the moistened eye;
Let these the minstrel’s might attest –
And the vain and the idle may share the rest."

In his political life we cannot find that he ever appeared as a speaker but on one occasion – when the health of Tom Moore was proposed at a public meeting in Dublin. Mr. Furlong spoke briefly in response, giving to the bard of all Ireland the following eloquent character: "It is impossible," he said, "to speak of Moore in the ordinary terms of ordinary approbation – the mere introduction of his name is calculated to excite a warmer, a livelier feeling. We admire him not merely as one of the leading spirits of our time; we esteem him not merely as the eager and impassioned advocate of general liberty – but we love him as the lover of his country. We hail him as the denouncer of her wrongs, and the fearless vindicator of her rights." – Such was the language of his convictions, weighed in the balance of a kindred genius, and a not inferior patriotism. They had been personally acquainted many years before. When Moore visited Dublin, in 1815, Furlong forwarded to him, for perusal and judgment, a poem in blank verse [without rhyme, especially unrhymed verse having five iambic feet per line], written previous to his nineteenth year – to which the following considerate and encouraging answer was sent: --

"I have read the poem which you did me the honor to entrust to me, and think highly of the talent and feeling with which it is written; but I should deal unfairly with you, were I to promise you much success from the publication of it. There is nothing less popular at the present day, than blank verse; as some proof of which, I need not perhaps tell you, (for your subject and his are somewhat similar,) that the "Excursion" of Wordsworth, one of our first geniuses, lies unbought and unread on his publisher’s shelves. If, however, notwithstanding this discouragement, it should still be your wish to try the fate of your poem in London, I shall be happy to give you all the aid and recommendation in my power.

"Yours, &c., Thomas Moore.

"Mr. T. Furlong, &c. &c."

"The Misanthrope," and the "Doom of D’Renzy," with his better known political musings, and several smaller pieces of great merit, to be met with in old Dublin magazines, would form an exceedingly beautiful and interesting volume – one worthy, in point of genius, to keep companionship with any in the language. Sooner or later, there will come some man of taste and liberality among the tombs of the bards of Ireland – the bards of her dark and sunny seasons; and to him will the honor be awarded of introducing the neglected muse of Furlong, bright in her immortal beauty, to the admiration of the world.

Unfortunately for his country, the life of this "great young man," as Lord Mansfield said of the second Pitt, dwindled to a most untimely span; a constitutional weakness, akin to consumption, appeared gradually to undermine his health, and he grew alarmingly feeble in the spring of 1827. He lingered on till midsummer, eating nothing, sleeping but little, his body exhibiting to what a shadow mortality may be reduced, and yet live on. In the long, weary hours of his gradual dissolution, his religious and moral habits strengthened and supported him; as he sank towards the grave, two objects alone engaged his mind – the freedom of his country and the salvation of his soul. In his earliest days he had been deeply impressed with the pure truths of revealed religion, and one of his youngest efforts was this elegy on the death of a dear friend: --

"Ah! If the Atheist’s words were true,
If those we seek to save,
Sink – and in sinking from our view,
Are lost beyond the grave!
If life thus closed – how dark and drear
Would this bewildered earth appear!
Scarce worth the dust it gave.
A tract of black sepulchral gloom,
One yawning, ever opening tomb,
"Blest be that strain of high belief,
More heaven-like, more sublime;
Which says that souls that part in grief,
Part only for a time!
That, far beyond this speck of pain,
Far o’er the gloomy grave’s domain,
There spreads a brighter clime,
Where care, and toil, and trouble o’er,
Friends meet, and, meeting, weep no more.

On the 25^th of July, 1827, the patriotic poet breathed his last. He is buried in the churchyard of Drumcondra, near Dublin, close to the grave of Grose, the celebrated antiquary, and above his ashes is this expressive epitaph:

-----------

---


Return to Kelly-Furlong Home Page *** Return to previous Furlong page *** Send photo/note to Judy Picard




Copyright 1998 Judy Picard