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with others, formed the brilliant circle in the reception rooms of our English Blue Stocking Coteries; but the coteries passed away with knee-buckles and hair powder; with the reign of pantaloons, and hair dressed à la Victime, arose another literary association, which found its last supporters in Lydia White and old Lady Cork.

In these literary coteries all the subjects of the day were before the society; wit and humor were employed upon them, and puns, and epigrams, and stinging lampoons were suggested or written. A better order of composition was attempted by those whose powers enabled them to accomplish it.

ART. II. PAUL HIFFERNAN. A CHARACTER OF THE LAST CENTURY.

"Old times are changed old manners gone," and instead of saying there is nothing new under the sun, we may more fitly say, there is nothing old under the sun-whole classes of beings appear to be extinct-we do not speak of the supernatural beings only, who with one consent have taken their departure from a world become all-too bustling for them-the rustic swain now treads his way homewards when his evening task is over, uninterrupted by the merry laugh of fairies dancing on the green; the maiden, as she rises at the dawn of morning, never finds in het shoe the welcome coin; and even veritable beings of actual flesh and blood, have left vacant places in our land, and are never to appear among us again-the very hermits, once considered absolutely necessary to give the finishing effect to the picturesque, no longer sit in solemn state, with a handful of berries, a bunch of cresses and a draught of water, caught from the trickling rills, for their every-day fare-if such things as pilgrimages are still made, depend upon it they are accomplished with the aid of locomotives. The most romantic hero' of modern days turns aside from shady groves and purling streams, for the nearest railway station. The children of former times, when ignorance was bliss, who scampered about the green fields, far from the paths of science, have been succeeded by a race of juvenile philosophers deep in scholastic

and scientific lore. Oddities, too, are gone, oddities! who gave such amusing variety to society, and furnished anecdotes and adventures for the dramatist and novelist, which might now be considered an outrage on nature! In our young days, every little village, nay, every family, had its own oddity-but steam vessels and railroads have so thoroughly invaded the privacy of all localities, that there is scarcely a quiet nook left for the undisturbed cultivation of singularities. Men are now brought into such constant contact with each other, or as the mesmerists would say, in rapport, that they imbibe the same turn of thought and tone of feeling-just as we find the roughnesses of coins smoothed down into a level surface, when they have been for some time well jingled together in the pocket; so the peculiarities by which individuals are distinguished are worn away, wherever men are well jumbled together. For ourselves, we confess that we regret the close assimilation of manners and habits, and pine after the oddities of by-gone days and all their delightful eccentricities. Now we can only turn to our biographies to renew our acquaintance with them; but the manners and the tone which gave so much effect, cannot be recalled.

In turning over some biographical sketches, we met with some of the passages in the life of Paul Hiffernan, and though he was not a man in whom we could feel any interest, yet as the associate of many celebrated persons of his day, and being mentioned in Washington Irving's delightful biography of Goldsmith, and elsewhere, a brief account of him may not be unacceptable. In some respects his situation was similar to that of Goldsmith, but the contrast between their characters, is as great as can be conceived; the strangeness of his habits was no impediment to his intimacy with the most celebrated men of the day, nor to his introduction to the best society, but he had the power of amusing, which goes for a great deal.

Paul Hiffernan was born in the year 1719, in the neighbourhood of Dublin, and received the early part of his education in his native city. As he was intended for the Roman Catholic priesthood his parents sent him to pursue his studies in a college in the south of France; here, he became acquainted among his fellow students, with several, who afterwards became men of the highest celebrity. Rousseau and Marmontel were the most remarkable; with Marmontel, who was lively and social, he soon became intimate, and with his class fellows, appreciated

the powers of their young companion, whose wit, poétic turn, and agreeable sallies, gave promise of his future fame. In the intense love of retirement, and contemplation of Rousseau, he did not discover the genius that was yet to gain the applause of the world. Hiffernan found that most of the English and Irish students were studying medicine, and he resolved to give up the intention of taking orders, and to prepare himself for the medical profession. He remained in France for seventeen years, part of the time in Paris, and the remainder in the college; he then took out a medical degree, and returned to Dublin to practise as a physician, but this resolution was not put into execution. He was so intolerably indolent and so fond of amusement, that he was utterly unfit for any serious pursuit, and so could never have succeeded in a profession, in which the demand on time and thought is so constant, but he had qualities which fitted him for the life which he liked best ; he was a good scholar; he had caught much of the French manner during his residence in France, and abounded in anecdote; his company was sought, and he availed himself of the hospitality of his acquaintance, and was a constant guest at their tables. His first specimen of authorship was in a periodical paper called "The Tickler," for which he was engaged to write against Doctor Lucas, who was from his active patriotism, the most popular man at that time in Ireland, and had been returned to serve in Parliament by the peoplethe papers which Hiffernan furnished were much cried up and admired by the party for whom he wrote, and were the means of extending his convivial intercourse, as he was always welcome to those who were opposed to Lucas. These productions had no literary merit to insure a prolonged existence, they were in fact merely personal abuse, and prejudiced statements. Hiffernan became an object of great dislike to the popular party; the license which he had given to his tongue and to his pen, would have justified them in this, but it was carried too far, and the excitement against him became so violent that he could not venture to appear in public without incurring great danger; so by the advice of his friends he determined to leave Dublin and settle in London. Having obtained the approbation of his friends and excited the rage of his enemies, he considered himself fully qualified to set up as an author in the great city.

At first he was mostly engaged in making translations from the

Latin and Greek, for which task his familiarity with those languages would have particularly fitted him, had not his own language in a manner become foreign to him, during his long residence abroad; and he wanted that easy flow so essential in writing; this defect in style, and his want of punctuality, prevented his succeeding in this department of literature. He was however, more fortunate in a periodical called The Tuner, which came out in five numbers. In this he ridiculed with considerable humor some of the new plays. In the year 1755, he brought out miscellanies in prose and verse; many of those papers had been written during his stay in France for the ainusement of his friends, and embraced a variety of subjects, in which very entertaining anecdotes and original observations were introduced. Among them we find essays on taste, the virtues of cockfighting, theory of acting, and a dissertation on the character of Polonius, in which he defends him from the imputation of folly, in which he asserts himself to be fully borne out in the sage advice given by that statesman to his son and daughter, and by the character which the King gives of him to Laertes. Though this work was not devoid of merit, it was not popular, or profitable to its author; its sale was chiefly promoted by his personal application to his friends-no very creditable manner of seeking for success. He sometimes brought out a pamphlet having secured a list of subscribers among his intimates. Wishing to turn his pen to better account, he thought of exercising it in the art of puffing; it is stated that several painters and actors were under regular contribution to him. Numbers of aspirants to public favor, sought his services, which, from his intimacy with Garrick and Foote, and others of great influence in matters of taste, they supposed to be invaluable. He gave regular audience to those who sought his good offices; the cider cellar, Maiden lane, was the place where the presentations took place; vast numbers came forward to solicit his aid; actors who asserted that they had ability for the highest range of parts, and who from sheer envy were made to fill subordinate ones, called on him to publish their wrongs to the world, and to make the tyrant manager wince under a just chastisement, and learn a lesson never to be forgotten-that he who is fitted by nature and by study to represent the heroes of the drama, should never tread the stage but as such. Painters, wishing to crush the managers of the Exhibition, for excluding the works in which their discerning eyes could dis

cover the genius of a Titian or a Claude Lorraine, called on his pen for the merited castigation, and for a just eulogium on the excluded works. To administer to their vanity, and to satisfy their cravings for revenge was his business; and he made it a most lucrative one; candidates for the stage flocked to him in numbers.

The introduction of one, was after this fashion :-
:-

The waiter introduced him into the great man's presence, who never rose from his seat, but slowly withdrawing the pipe which he had been smoking from his mouth, made a slight inclination of the head, desiring the applicant to sit down, and speak; he listened with profound attention to the account which he gave of himself, of the great capabilities of which he conceived himself possessed, and the great parts for which he felt himself peculiarly inspired; the doctor listened, but did not give any opinion; he appointed a private meeting for the next evening, at the Black Lion, Russell-street, or at some other favorite ale-house. Here, he again gave audience to the candidate, and opened the proceedings by stating the terms of his patronage; a guinea entrance, a guinea for instruction, and two guineas more to be paid on getting an engagement at either of the theatres. The first instalment having been duly paid and deposited in the Doctor's pocket, he then took an accurate survey of the person of his protegé, in all directions, but for the more exact measurement of his proportions, he took a six-inch ruler, with which he was always provided, from his pocket, and making him stand against the wainscot, he took his dimensions with the utmost precision. If the candidate happened to be very tall, Hiffernan heaved a deep sigh, and said that was not so well, but then added, in a consolatory tone, that Barry was as tall, and nobody found fault with his acting; if he was short, deep regret was apparent in Hiffernan's countenance and manner, and he expressed his fears that such under-size was unsuited to the personation of a hero; but suddenly recollecting himself, his brow cleared in an instant, and he observed with a cheerful air, that Garrick was short, and yet everyone admired him. Of course, the candidates were satisfied when they found that there was a point of resemblance between them and those great actors. These evenings did not close without a propitiatory supper, the sole expense of which was defrayed by the novice, while Hiffernan was glad on this, as on every other occasion, to take whatever he could get, in

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