The Purcell Papers, Volume I | ||
MEMOIR
OF
JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU.
A NOBLE Huguenot family, owning
considerable property in Normandy, the Le
Fanus of Caen, were, upon the revocation of the
Edict of Nantes, deprived of their ancestral estates
of Mandeville, Sequeville, and Cresseron; but,
owing to their possessing influential relatives at
the court of Louis the Fourteenth, were allowed
to quit their country for England, unmolested,
with their personal property. We meet with
John Le Fanu de Sequeville and Charles Le Fanu
At the beginning of the eighteenth century, William Le Fanu was the sole survivor of his family. He married Henrietta Raboteau de Puggibaut, the last of another great and noble Huguenot family, whose escape from France, as a child, by the aid of a Roman Catholic uncle in high position at the French court, was effected after adventures of the most romantic danger.
Joseph Le Fanu, the eldest of the sons of this
marriage who left issue, held the office of Clerk of
the Coast in Ireland. He married for the second
time Alicia, daughter of Thomas Sheridan and
sister of Richard Brinsley Sheridan; his brother,
Captain Henry Le Fanu, of Leamington, being
united to the only other sister of the great wit
and orator.
Dean Thomas Philip Le Fanu, the eldest son of Joseph Le Fanu, became by his wife Emma, daughter of Dr. Dobbin, F.T.C.D., the father of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, the subject of this memoir, whose name is so familiar to English and American readers as one of the greatest masters of the weird and the terrible amongst our modern novelists.
Born in Dublin on the 28th of August, 1814, he did not begin to speak until he was more than two years of age; but when he had once started, the boy showed an unusual aptitude in acquiring fresh words, and using them correctly.
The first evidence of literary taste which he gave was in his sixth year, when he made several little sketches with explanatory remarks written beneath them, after the manner of Du Maurier's, or Charles Keene's humorous illustrations in `Punch.'
One of these, preserved long afterwards by
his mother, represented a balloon in mid-air,
and two aeronauts, who had occupied it, falling
As a mere child, he was a remarkably good actor, both in tragic and comic pieces, and was hardly twelve years old when he began to write verses of singular spirit for one so young. At fourteen, he produced a long Irish poem, which he never permitted anyone but his mother and brother to read. To that brother, Mr. William Le Fanu, Commissioner of Public Works, Ireland, to whom, as the suggester of Sheridan Le Fanu's `Phaudrig Croohore' and `Shamus O'Brien,' Irish ballad literature owes a delightful debt, and whose richly humorous and passionately pathetic powers as a raconteur of these poems have only doubled that obligation in the hearts of those who have been happy enough to be his hearers—to Mr. William Le Fanu we are indebted for the following extracts from the first of his works, which the boy-author seems to have set any store by:
Strike once again thy wreathed lyre!
Burst forth once more and wake thy tuneful numbers!
Kindle again thy long-extinguished fire!
Why should I bid thee strike thy harp once more?
Better to leave thee silent and forsaken
Than wake thee but thy glories to deplore.
Where once thy sceptred Princes sate in state—
Where rose thy music, at the festive hours,
Through the proud halls where listening thousands sate?
Thy tuneful bards were banished or were slain,
Some rest in glory on their deathbeds gory,
And some have lived to feel a foeman's chain.
Yet for the sake of Freedom's spirit fled,
Let thy wild harpstrings, thrilled with indignation,
Peal a deep requiem o'er thy sons that bled.
Sweep thy cold hand the silent strings along,
Flash like the lamp beside the hero dying,
Then hushed for ever be thy plaintive song.'
To Mr. William Le Fanu we are further indebted for the accompanying specimens of his brother's serious and humorous powers in verse, written when he was quite a lad, as valentines to a Miss G. K.:
If banished from thy view;
Life were too short, a thousand year,
If life were passed with you.
Is grief and melancholy,"
But where thou art, there joyous mirth
Proves all their wisdom folly.
All else in vain were given;
Heaven were imperfect wanting thee,
And with thee earth were heaven.'
A few days after, he sent the following sequel:
You can't think how very sad I'm.
I sent you, or I mistake myself foully,
A very excellent imitation of the poet Cowley,
Containing three very fair stanzas,
Which number Longinus, a very critical man, says,
And Aristotle, who was a critic ten times more caustic,
To a nicety fits a valentine or an acrostic.
And yet for all my pains to this moving epistle,
I have got no answer, so I suppose I may go whistle.
Perhaps you'd have preferred that like an old monk I had pattered on
In the style and after the manner of the unfortunate Chatterton;
Or that, unlike my reverend daddy's son,
I had attempted the classicalities of the dull, though immortal Addison.
I can't endure this silence another week;
What shall I do in order to make you speak?
Shall I give you a trope
In the manner of Pope,
Or hammer my brains like an old smith
To get out something like Goldsmith?
Or shall I aspire on
To tune my poetic lyre on
The same key touched by Byron,
And laying my hand its wire on,
With its music your soul set fire on
By themes you ne'er could tire on?
Or say,
I pray,
Would a lay
Like Gay
Be more in your way?
I leave it to you,
Which am I to do?
It plain on the surface is
That any metamorphosis,
To affect your study
You may work on my soul or body.
Your frown or your smile makes me Savage or Gay
In action, as well as in song;
And if 'tis decreed I at length become Gray,
Express but the word and I'm Young;
And if in the Church I should ever aspire
With friars and abbots to cope,
By a nod, if you please, you can make me a Prior—
By a word you render me Pope.
If you'd eat, I'm a Crab; if you'd cut, I'm your Steel,
As sharp as you'd get from the cutler;
I'm your Cotton whene'er you're in want of a reel,
And your livery carry, as Butler.
I'll ever rest your debtor
If you'll answer my first letter;
Or must, alas, eternity
Witness your taciturnity?
Speak—and oh! speak quickly
Or else I shall grow sickly,
And pine,
And whine,
And grow yellow and brown
As e'er was mahogany,
And lie me down
And die in agony.
To write like the immortal Swift.'
But besides the poetical powers with which he
Amongst his compeers he was remarkable for his sudden fiery eloquence of attack, and ready and rapid powers of repartee when on his defence. But Le Fanu, whose understanding was elevated by a deep love of the classics, in which he took university honours, and further heightened by an admirable knowledge of our own great authors, was not to be tempted away by oratory from literature, his first and, as it proved, his last love.
Very soon after leaving college, and just when
Just before this period, Le Fanu had taken to writing humorous Irish stories, afterwards published in the `Dublin University Magazine,' such as the `Quare Gander,' `Jim Sulivan's Adventure,' `The Ghost and the Bone-setter,' etc.
These stories his brother William Le Fanu
was in the habit of repeating for his friends'
amusement, and about the year 1837, when he
was about twenty-three years of age, Joseph
Le Fanu said to him that he thought an
Irish story in verse would tell well, and
that if he would choose him a subject suitable
for recitation, he would write him one.
`Write me an Irish "Young Lochinvar," '
said his brother; and in a few days he
Of course this poem has the disadvantage not only of being written after `Young Lochinvar,' but also that of having been directly inspired by it; and yet, although wanting in the rare and graceful finish of the original, the Irish copy has, we feel, so much fire and feeling that it at least tempts us to regret that Scott's poem was not written in that heart-stirring Northern dialect without which the noblest of our British ballads would lose half their spirit. Indeed, we may safely say that some of Le Fanu's lines are finer than any in `Young Lochinvar,' simply because they seem to speak straight from a people's heart, not to be the mere echoes of medieval romance.
`Phaudrig Croohore' did not appear in
print in the `Dublin University Magazine'
till 1844, twelve years after its composition,
when it was included amongst the Purcell
Papers.
To return to the year 1837. Mr. William Le Fanu, the suggester of this ballad, who was from home at the time, now received daily instalments of the second and more remarkable of his brother's Irish poems—`Shamus O'brien' (James O'Brien)—learning them by heart as they reached him, and, fortunately, never forgetting them, for his brother Joseph kept no copy of the ballad, and he had himself to write it out from memory ten years after, when the poem appeared in the `University Magazine.'
Few will deny that this poem contains passages
most faithfully, if fearfully, picturesque,
and that it is characterised throughout by a
profound pathos, and an abundant though at
times a too grotesquely incongruous humour.
Can we wonder, then, at the immense popularity
with which Samuel Lover recited it in the United
States? For to Lover's admiration of the poem,
and his addition of it to his entertainment,
`Shamus O'Brien' owes its introduction into
America, where it is now so popular. Lover
`Shamus O'Brien' is so generally attributed to Lover (indeed we remember seeing it advertised for recitation on the occasion of a benefit at a leading London theatre as `by Samuel Lover') that it is a satisfaction to be able to reproduce the following letter upon the subject from Lover to William le Fanu:
`Astor House,
`New York, U.S. America.
`Sept. 30, 1846.
`My dear Le Fanu,
`In reading over your brother's poem
while I crossed the Atlantic, I became more and
`Yours very truly,
`SAMUEL LOVER.'
We have heard it said (though without having
inquired into the truth of the tradition) that
`Shamus O'Brien' was the result of a match at
pseudo-national ballad writing made between Le
Fanu and several of the most brilliant of his
young literary confrères at T. C. D. But
however this may be, Le Fanu undoubtedly was no
young Irelander; indeed he did the stoutest
service as a press writer in the Conservative
interest, and was no doubt provoked as well as
amused at the unexpected popularity to which
his poem attained amongst the Irish Nationalists.
And here it should be remembered that the ballad
was written some eleven years before the outbreak
of '48, and at a time when a '98 subject might
We left Le Fanu as editor of the `Warder.' He afterwards purchased the `Dublin Evening Packet,' and much later the half-proprietorship of the `Dublin Evening Mail.' Eleven or twelve years ago he also became the owner and editor of the `Dublin University Magazine,' in which his later as well as earlier Irish Stories appeared. He sold it about a year before his death in 1873, having previously parted with the `Warder' and his share in the `Evening Mail.'
He had previously published in the `Dublin University Magazine' a number of charming lyrics, generally anonymously, and it is to be feared that all clue to the identification of most of these is lost, except that of internal evidence.
The following poem, undoubtedly his, should make general our regret at being unable to fix with certainty upon its fellows:
Breathed o'er Killarney's magic shore
Will shed sweet floating echoes round
When that which made them is no more.
Wild echoes, that will sweetly thrill
The words of kindness when the voice
That uttered them for aye is still.
Full many a tale of grief and sorrow,
Of mad excess, of hope decayed,
Of dark and cheerless melancholy;
The dearest of the gifts of mind,
For all the joys that touch my heart
Are joys that I have left behind.
Le Fanu's literary life may be divided into three distinct periods. During the first of these, and till his thirtieth year, he was an Irish ballad, song, and story writer, his first published story being the `Adventures of Sir Robert Ardagh,' which appeared in the `Dublin University Magazine' of 1838.
In 1844he was united to Miss Susan Bennett,
We have considered Le Fanu as a ballad
writer and poet. As a press writer he is still
most honourably remembered for his learning
and brilliancy, and the power and point of his
sarcasm, which long made the `Dublin Evening
There are evidences in `Shamus O'Brien,' and even in `Phaudrig Croohore,' of a power over the mysterious, the grotesque, and the horrible, which so singularly distinguish him as a writer of prose fiction.
`Uncle Silas,' the fairest as well as most
familiar instance of this enthralling spell over
his readers, is too well known a story to tell in
detail. But how intensely and painfully distinct
is the opening description of the silent, inflexible
Austin Ruthyn of Knowl, and his shy, sweet
daughter Maude, the one so resolutely confident
in his brother's honour, the other so romantically
and yet anxiously interested in her uncle—the
sudden arrival of Dr. Bryerly, the strange
Swedenborgian, followed by the equally unexpected
apparition of Madame de la Rougière,
Austin Ruthyn's painful death, and the reading
This is his portrait:
`A face like marble, with a fearful monumental look, and for an old man, singularly vivid, strange eyes, the singularity of which rather grew upon me as I looked; for his eyebrows were still black, though his hair descended from his temples in long locks of the purest silver and fine as silk, nearly to his shoulders.
`He rose, tall and slight, a little stooped, all in black, with an ample black velvet tunic, which was rather a gown than a coat. . . .
`I know I can't convey in words an idea of
this apparition, drawn, as it seemed, in black
and white, venerable, bloodless, fiery-eyed, with
its singular look of power, and an expression so
`The wild eyes of this strange old man were fixed on me as he rose; an habitual contraction, which in certain lights took the character of a scowl, did not relax as he advanced towards me with a thin-lipped smile.'
Old Dicken and his daughter Beauty, old L'Amour and Dudley Ruthyn, now enter upon the scene, each a fresh shadow to deepen its already sombre hue, while the gloom gathers in spite of the glimpse of sunshine shot through it by the visit to Elverston. Dudley's brutal encounter with Captain Oakley, and vile persecution of poor Maude till his love marriage comes to light, lead us on to the ghastly catastrophe, the hideous conspiracy of Silas and his son against the life of the innocent girl.
It is interesting to know that the germ of
Uncle Silas first appeared in the `Dublin
University Magazine' of 1837 or 1838, as the
short tale, entitled, `A Passage from the Secret
There are about Le Fanu's narratives touches of nature which reconcile us to their always remarkable and often supernatural incidents. His characters are well conceived and distinctly drawn, and strong soliloquy and easy dialogue spring unaffectedly from their lips. He is a close observer of Nature, and reproduces her wilder effects of storm and gloom with singular vividness; while he is equally at home in his descriptions of still life, some of which remind us of the faithfully minute detail of old Dutch pictures.
Mr. Wilkie Collins, amongst our living
novelists, best compares with Le Fanu. Both of
these writers are remarkable for the ingenious
mystery with which they develop their plots, and
for the absorbing, if often over-sensational, nature
Those who possessed the rare privilege of Le
Fanu's friendship, and only they, can form any
idea of the true character of the man; for after
the death of his wife, to whom he was most
deeply devoted, he quite forsook general society,
in which his fine features, distinguished bearing,
and charm of conversation marked him out as
From this society he vanished so entirely that Dublin, always ready with a nickname, dubbed him `The Invisible Prince;' and indeed he was for long almost invisible, except to his family and most familiar friends, unless at odd hours of the evening, when he might occasionally be seen stealing, like the ghost of his former self, between his newspaper office and his home in Merrion Square; sometimes, too, he was to be encountered in an old out-of-the-way bookshop poring over some rare black letter Astrology or Demonology.
To one of these old bookshops he was at one
time a pretty frequent visitor, and the bookseller
relates how he used to come in and ask with
his peculiarly pleasant voice and smile, `Any
more ghost stories for me, Mr. —?' and
how, on a fresh one being handed to him, he
would seldom leave the shop until he had looked
it through. This taste for the supernatural
Shortly after completing his last novel, strange to say, bearing the title `Willing to Die,' Le Fanu breathed his last at his home No. 18, Merrion Square South, at the age of fifty-nine.
`He was a man,' writes the author of a brief
memoir of him in the `Dublin University
Magazine,' `who thought deeply, especially on
religious subjects. To those who knew him he
was very dear; they admired him for his
learning, his sparkling wit, and pleasant
conversation, and loved him for his manly virtues, for
his noble and generous qualities, his gentleness,
Le Fanu's novels are accessible to all; but his Purcell Papers are now for the first time collected and published, by the permission of his eldest son (the late Mr. Philip Le Fanu), and very much owing to the friendly and active assistance of his brother, Mr. William Le Fanu.
The Purcell Papers, Volume I | ||