TO THE READER.
It has been the habit of novelists, for some reason or another withwhich we have nothing to do at present, to associate the Irishcharacter with rollicking fun, naive bungling, and mighty fine tastesof the brogue; and it occurred to me some time since that Englishreaders who are surfeited with orthodox Hibernian jollities might beglad, for a change, to look on Pat from his shadowed side; tocontemplate his dreary pilgrimage through the Valley of the Shadow ofDeath; to pause for a moment over the events which have bound roundhis character with sorrow and hedged him about with grief. The historyof Ireland has been so perverted by mendacious faction that the truthlies deeply interred. Protestant has vilified Catholic, and CatholicProtestant, to the extent which is inevitably associated withreligious rancour. My sympathies being specially with neither party, Ihave endeavoured to weigh the evidence in a free and independentspirit, and have come to the conclusion, as might have been expected,that both were in a measure right and both wrong, considering thatboth were actuated by grievances of a more or less awful character,which, being tinged by a colour of religion, drove them both tomadness and excess.
One of the chief difficulties with which an historical novelist has tocontend, is the question how far imagination may be permittedsuccessfully to fight with fact. Conversely, even reverend historiansare beset by this trouble. Walter Scott, Chateaubriand, Michelet,hardly allow us to separate romance from history, and history fromromance.
Being desirous of giving a true picture of a time, clothed in romanticgarb, I, in my last novel, conscientiously pointed out thepeccadilloes which lay cunningly in ambush in its chapters; and, beingstill anxious to keep my conscience clear, I deem it advisable now torepeat the process.
In the construction of this work I was deliberately guilty of twocrimes, both of which, I consider, are attended with extenuatingcircumstances.
The first concerns the compact between the Executive and thestate-prisoners, and is a sin of omission; for although the facts andthe disgraceful behaviour of the English King and Government aretruthfully related, it did not suit the scheme of the story to enterinto all the motives which impelled the United Irishmen to sacrificetheir feelings, and agree to so singular an arrangement. The rebelleaders submitted to examination by the secret council in hopes ofsaving the life of Oliver Bond; but as Oliver Bond was not one of mychosen puppets, I considered it permissible to leave him in his grave.
The second crime is one of much greater enormity. To suit the purposeof the weft, I have presumed to ante-date Emmett's rising by two yearsand a half. The United standard first waved over Dublin Castle onJanuary 1,1801, whilst Emmett's riot did not take place till July,1803. But I hold that, for the purposes of romance, the romancist maybe permitted to draw events together, though he is in no case to beallowed to transpose them. At the time of the Union Robert Emmett wasaway in France on treasonable business; but it is in every wayprobable that if he had been in Ireland he would have acted as I havemade him act. There is ample testimony to prove that the dwellers inthe country (as opposed to the dwellers in the towns) were ready asearly as the winter of '79 to make a new attempt if they could havefound a leader, and that they waited for two years simply becauseEmmett did not call them to arms till then.
Lord Cornwallis writes to General Ross under date of 1779: 'We haveevery reason to believe that the French are undertaking a seriousattack, and from the most authentic channels we learn that thedisaffected are more active than ever in swearing and organising thesouthern provinces.'[2] And again later: 'That the French willpersevere in their attempt to invade Ireland there can be no doubt,and if they should succeed, which God forbid, in establishing a war inthis country,'[3] etc. At page 86 we find, 'Though the new Directorywas never fully formed, yet the spirit of rebellion was carefully keptalive--the flame subtly fanned--till it burst out in 1803 under RobertEmmett.' H. Alexander, Esq., writes to the Rt. Hon. T. Pelham underdate January, 1800, that 'Dublin is much and seriously agitated.'
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Footnote 2: Cornwallis Correspondence, vol. iii., p. 56.
Footnote 3: Ibid., p. 60.
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My portrait of Lord Clare differs in some respects from the usualconception of that statesman; but I have diligently studied everythingconcerning him which was attainable, and am convinced that hischaracter was as it is here depicted.
I gratefully take this opportunity of thanking the Press for theunanimously indulgent manner in which they treated 'Lady Grizel'--withone exception, that of a certain weekly print whose _raison d'etre_ isits scurrility; and I further embrace this occasion of reminding theanonymous critic of the said ill-natured print that facts may beslightly distorted for a set purpose rather than through ignorance,and that the critic doth not transcendently exalt either his wisdom orhis attainments by pointing out with magnificent scorn that such anevent took place in January instead of March; for Macaulay'scelebrated schoolboy could do as much or more in a diligent half-hourby the help of that invaluable book 'The Encyclop[oe]dia ofChronology.' For the special benefit of the said sapient critic,however, I append to this discourse a list of the works upon Irishaffairs to which I have been indebted, in order that he too mayimprove his mind, and be the better prepared to hold up to derisionthe rents and slits in my poor pasteboard armour.
LEWIS WINGFIELD.
Garrick Club, _July_, 1879.
* * *
LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED IN THE COURSE OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF THIS STORY.
Barrington's Personal Sketches, 3 vols.Barrington's Historic Memoirs of Ireland, 2 vols.Madden's Irish Political Literature, 2 vols.Madden's United Irishmen, 4 vols.Croker's Memoirs of Holt, 2 vols.Gilbert's History of Dublin, 3 vols.Maxwell's Irish Rebellion, 1 vol.Curran's Speeches, 1 vol.Hardy's Memoirs of Charlemont, 2 vols.Memoirs and Journals of Wolfe Tone, 2 vols.Life and Times of Geo. R. Fitzgerald, 1 vol.Fitz Patrick's Sham Squire, 1 vol.Fitz Patrick's Ireland before the Union, 1 vol.Curran's Life, by his son, 2 vols.Philips's Curran and Contemporaries, 1 vol.Memoirs of the Earl of Clare, 2 vols.Walsh's Ireland Ninety Years Ago, 1 vol.The Spirit of the Nation, 1 vol.Cornwallis Correspondence, 3 vols.Castlereagh Correspondence, 3 vols.Gentleman's Magazine, vols. 53 to 72--19 vols.Memoirs of Captain Rock, 1 vol.Father Burke's Refutation of Froude, 1 vol.Goldwin Smith's Irish History And Character, 1 vol.Ladies' Museum and Polite Repository, 6 vols.Martin's Before and After the Union, 1 vol.Sufferings of Charles Jackson at Wexford. June, 1798, 1 vol.
PAMPHLETS.
Both Sides of the Gutter.Irish Catholics in 1725.Ireland: A Satire.Account of Ireland: A Letter.Aphorisms Relating to the Kingdom of Ireland.Causes of the Rebellion, 1799.
THE END.
* * * * * BILLING AND SON'S, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, SURREY. _S. & H_.
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