their journey homeward; through which lucky arrangement, the same precious privilege I had enjoyed, at Rome, of hearing the opinions of such practised judges, on all the great works of art I saw in their company, was afterwards continued to me through the various collections we visited together, at Florence, Bologna, Modena, Parma, Milan, and Turin. To some of those pictures and statues that most took my fancy, during my tour, allusions will be found in a few of the poems contained in this volume. But the great pleasure I derived from these and many other such works arose far more from the poetical nature of their subjects than from any judgment I had learned to form of their real merit as works of art, - a line of lore in which, notwithstanding my course of schooling, I remained, I fear, unenlightened to the last. For all that was lost upon me, however, in the halls of Art, I was more than consoled in the cheap picturegallery of Nature; and a glorious sunset I witnessed in ascending the Simplon is still remembered by me with a depth and freshness of feeling which no one work of art I saw in the galleries of Italy has left behind. I have now a few words to devote to a somewhat kindred subject with which a poem or two contained in the following pages are closely connected.* In my Preface to the First Volume of this collection, I briefly noticed the taste for Private Theatrical Performances which prevailed during the latter half of the last century among the higher ranks in Ireland. This taste continued for nearly twenty years to survive the epoch of the Union, and in the performances of the Private Theatre of Kilkenny gave forth its last, as well as, perhaps, brightest flashes. The life and soul of this institution was our manager, the late Mr. Richard Power, a gentleman who could boast a larger circle of attached friends, and through a life more free from shadow or alloy, *See pages 353. 356. than any individual it has ever been my lot to know. No livelier proof, indeed, could be required of the sort of feeling entertained towards him than was once shown in the reception given to the two following homely lines which occurred in a Prologue I wrote to be spoken by Mr. Corry in the character of Vapid. 'Tis said our worthy manager intends To help my night, and he, you know, has friends.* These few simple words I wrote with the assured conviction that they would produce more effect from the homefelt truism they contained than could be effected by the most laboured burst of eloquence; and the result was just what I had anticipated, for the house rung, for a considerable time, with the heartiest plaudits. The chief comic, or rather farcical, force of the company lay in my friend Mr. Corry, and "longo intervallo," myself; and though, as usual, with low comedians, we were much * See page 354. looked down upon by the lofty lords of the buskin, many was the sly joke we used to indulge together, at the expense of our heroic brethren. Some waggish critic, indeed, is said to have declared that of all the personages of our theatre he most admired the prompter, "because he was least seen and best heard." But this joke was, of course, a mere good-humoured slander. There were two, at least, of our dramatic corps, Sir Wrixon Becher and Mr. Rothe, whose powers, as tragic actors, few amateurs have ever equalled; and Mr. Corry - perhaps alone of all our company -would have been sure of winning laurels on the public stage. As to my own share in these representations, the following list of my most successful characters will show how remote from the line of the Heroic was the small orbit through which I ranged; my chief parts having been Sam, in "Raising the Wind," Robin Roughhead, Mungo, Sadi, in the "Mountaineers," Spado, and Peep ing Tom. In the part of Spado there occur several allusions to that gay rogue's shortness of stature which never failed to be welcomed by my auditors with laughter and cheers; and the words "Even Sanguino allows I am a clever little fellow" was always a signal for this sort of friendly explosion. One of the songs, indeed, written by O'Keefe for the character of Spado so much abounds with points thus personally applicable, that many supposed, with no great compliment either to my poetry or my modesty, that the song had been written, expressly for the occasion, by myself. The following is the verse to which I allude, and for the poetry of which I was thus made responsible: "Though born to be little's my fate, Yet so was the great Alexander; And, when I walk under a gate, I've no need to stoop like a gander. I'm no lanky, long hoddy-doddy, |