The ready door and L-'s smile; Our hours shall pass in lingering talk ;- Who deck'd and graced that fairy scene, How good Gerald was, I hear you say, when he wrote those lines.' I believe I was better then, dear L, than for a long time before, and you see I do not now consider myself good enough to add any thing to them, unfinished as they are. Adieu, my dear friend, and believe that your best happiness and the happiness of all you love is amongst the warmest wishes of your poor friend, GERALD." However, with his "long shanks doubled up," and sitting in the Shanderadan beside John Banim, Gerald Griffin was, as in the old days when he wrote to his brother William of Banim, "What would I have done if I had not found. Banim? I should never be tired of talking about, and thinking of Banim. Mark me! he is a man-the only one I have met since I have left Ireland, almost."* As they sat by Banim's humble table, he gathered there, to do honor to his guest, all in Kilkenny who were likely to appreciate the mind-gleamings of himself and his friend. Amongst those thus invited to meet Griffin was an artist, now distinguished in his profession in Dublin, who tells us; "I met them often during Griffin's visit, alone and with others; and 'twas charming to mark their love of each other; Griffin's buoyant spirit seemed to make Banim forget his pains; and he appeared, when speaking of their London life, to fancy himself once more in London. It was all-don't you remember, Gerald ?-or, Griffin, my boy, do you recollect? and then, when Griffin sang for him his, Banim's, own songs, he seemed happier than I ever knew him, even in his best days." In fact, his love for Griffin was so tender and anxious, and yet so proud of its being returned by Griffin, that it took the hue of a kind man's loving regard for a woman: he loved him as Southey might have loved poor Hartley Cole See IRISH QUARTERLY REVIEW, Vol. IV. No. XVI. p. 850. ridge, had Hartley shunned the enemy that stole away his life and brains. Griffin returned to Pallas Kenry, and a few weeks afterwards he thus wrote to Banim. The letter is now first published, but one more creditable to the writer's heart we have never read : My dear Banim, "Pallas Kenry, Oct., 1836, It is with no little gratification I find myself writing to you once more as of old, to ask you how you are, and all who are about you. I have often thought since I left Windgap, that it must have been an ease to you to get rid of me, you kept such continual driving about while I was with you; besides the exhaustion of the evenings, which I fear must have been too much for you in your present state of health. To enable me to pass my time pleasantly, I am afraid you made it more unpleasant to yourself than I ought to have permitted; but I am a great hand at seeing what I ought to have done when the occasion is passed. And now in the first place I will ask you -How have you been since? and have you yet had any relief from those terrible pains and sinkings, from which you used to suffer so much and so continually while I was with you? I believe you would think well of the Munster folks, if you knew how kind and general have been their enquiries respecting you since my return. How fervently do I wish that time, and home, and patience, may bring about in you the same happy change which they have often done in other invalids, and enable you again to take, and long to hold, your rightful place at the head of our national literature. This sounds mighty like a fine speech, but let it pass. Would it be unreasonable to ask you to send me that song-your song-when you can conveniently do so. I would also wish to have that beautiful little poem you read for me one evening-the lines in a churchyard: some of them have been haunting me ever since I heard you read them. It is time for me to say something of the other members of your family, and to make enquiries for Mrs. Banim and for your sweet little daughter. It is a great blessing that Mrs. Banim's health has held out so well under the severe trials and fatigues to which it has been so long subjected, and most sincerely do I hope that her devotedness and patience may ere long meet some reward, in seeing you restored to at least a portion of the health you once enjoyed. I would be most ungrateful indeed, very ungrateful, if I could ever forget the attention I received both from her and you in London, when friends were less than few. In your present state, it must be a great source of satisfaction to have your sweet little Mary near friends who feel for her the interest which only, or almost only, relatives can feel. Farewell, my dear friend: God bless you, and all you feel an interest in. This is my sincere and fervent prayer. Remember me to your father and brother (who I find was perfectly right about action and reaction), also to your sister. Hoping that you will find my shalls' and 'wills,'' shoulds' and woulds,' 'weres' and 'have beens' in the foregoing, orthodox, and hoping far more ardently that they may find you better in health and hope than when I left you-I remain, My dear Banim, Your sincere friend, GERALD GRIFFIN." About this period the Earl of Mulgrave, now Marquis of Normanby, was Lord Lieutenant, and was hailed by the populace as the greatest and truest friend of Ireland that had ever held the Viceroyalty. Banim joined naturally in the popular opinion, and when the Lord Lieutenant, in the course of his "Progress" through Ireland, was reported to approach Kilkenny, Banim called, in the Shanderadan, upon his artist friend, to whom we have already referred, and having been carried to the studio, said, "I want you to paint something for me." "Do you," said the artist, "only tell what, and I'll go at it at once.' 1 "Well," replied Banim, "you see there will be a procession to meet the Lord Lieutenant, and I want you to give a touch to the Shanderadan." "I was," says our friend, "rather taken aback by being requested to make myself something between a coach decorator and a sign painter; but, upon reflection, I could not refuse the poor fellow, so I enquired what kind of touch' he wished me to give the Shanderadan. He said, "I want you to paint the top and front of it green, and to put on the front, in orange letters, MULGRAVE FOR EVER."" This wish was gratified, and as John Banim, in the Shan deradan, drove through the city, on the day of Lord Mulgrave's entrance, not a truer, or more honest admirer of the Viceregal politics greeted the Viceroy on his way. Of Banim's every-day life at Windgap Cottage, Michael Banim thus writes to us : "His habits or occupations could be but little varied. Reviving from the exhaustion of the night, he arose generally at a late hour; from his bed he was removed to his sofa, and thence to the shanderadan, or to his chair, in the open air. There was then his drive before dinner, again to his sofa, and then to seek such rest as he could find. He could accept of no invitations, owing to his decrepitude; he was sometimes his father's guest, up to the old man's death which took place before John's; he dined now and then with his brother-in-law, and his relatives partook in turn of his family meal—chance guests might call on him of an evening, and then, if not in pain, he was merry, and his spirits cheerful. It will be easily credited, that leading the life I have particularised, it was impossible he could employ himself with any continuity at his pen. He said to me once: 'Michael, I shall never be able to do anything worth notice again; I am now only fit for stringing a few loose and pawky verses together; giving out the same odour as the archbishop's sermons in Gil Blas-the energy of my mind is gone with the health of my body-neither of them ever to return.' Yet he was not altogether idle-he sent a few contributions to Tait's Edinburgh Magazine-the manuscripts prepared at his dictation by his devoted little daughter, and he put together some songs; many of them sweet and plaintive, but little of power about them. I cannot point to the particular song or verses referred to by Gerald Griffin. Before he had been a year residing at home, the welcome news came that the queen had bestowed a pension on him of £150 per annum-never was the royal bounty more needed, or bestowed on a more helpless claimant. I had hopes at the time that this certainty of the future might tend, by easing his mind, to the abatement of the disease-his own hopes were similar to mine-but there was no amendment. I have heard him say, that for this boon, which by removing pecuniary anxiety lightened his sense of endurance, and helped to smooth his passage to the grave, he was principally indebted to the present Earl of Carlisle,*aided by his early friend, Mr. Sheil. * Now 1855, Lord Lieutenant. Amongst other persons of distinction who came to visit him, the Earl of Carlisle, then Lord Morpeth, favoured him more than once by calling to Windgap. My little niece, then twelve years of age, attracted his lordship's observation. The father spoke about his anxiety on her account, and a further pension of £40 was granted for the child's behoof. This was another great cause of uneasiness removed-my brother never spoke of this nobleman's kindness and commiseration without evincing the most lively gratitude." Michael Banim here refers to the tales and poems contributed by John Banim to the periodical literature of the time. Indeed these short pieces were his sole means of subsistence previous to the grant of his pension; and to the last hour of his life, literary composition was his best, and surest, and chiefest security against the depressing effect of pain. Amongst his poetic pieces written at this period are two little poems suggested by his love for the memory of his dead child, his son. How he loved this boy, Michael has thus told us: "I have listened to him for hours of an evening, after his return home, describing the noble qualities, and the affection of this child to him. I have heard him tell how the little fellow would come in from his play, steal gently to the back of the father's sick sofa, and press his soft lips on the hand that lay listlessly hanging over. The first intimation of the child's presence would be this affectionate salutation. And when the father turned his eyes to greet the saluter, then there was a spring into the parent's arms, and a fond, lengthened embrace between them. Other and various excellencies he would repeat, when he lay helpless and discoursed of his affections." It was a beautiful trait in the sick man's character, that frequently, during his bitterest pangs, his memory bore him back to the child's grave at Montmartre; the following are the lines to which we have referred : "TO MY CHILD. By the quiverings of thine eye, my babe, so quick and sharp, they seem By thy knowledge of our words to thee, although the knowledge come, By thine answers in thine actions, babe, so rapid and so true, Is all that by a word or look we want thee, babe, to do By signs like these 'tis whispered, babe, in moments as of fear, |