1829.] Memoirs of a Bashful Irishman. 653 



Well, this avenue to fortune closed, a variety of other plans suggested 

 themselves, but none appearing so likely to lead to immediate results 

 as an advertisement for a wife, I inserted one to that effect in two 

 of the most widely circulated papers in Dublin. The upshot was just 

 what I had anticipated. An infinite number of replies was sent to 

 each office. Among the lot were two Chloes, half-a-dozen Anna- Marias, 

 a dozen and a half Bashful Maidens, three Fannys, and a widow. Of 

 these, I selected only the last, and dispatched an answer agreeably to 

 the direction given, stating that at a certain hour, on a certain day, I 

 should be at a certain place, anxiously awaiting the arrival of my fair 

 unknown. Punctual as clock-work I was there, and had waited but ten 

 minutes, when I perceived a lady, robust and somewhat elderly, advanc- 

 ing veiled towards me. In an instant I was by her side, and was just 

 preparing to enter upon business, when she inopportunely raised her 

 veil, and disclosed the countenance of my wife — of that wife (Mrs. 

 O'Blarney, No. 1) whom, as my readers may recollect, I had left knocking 

 dowm a fat footman, at Naples. Paralysed with astonishment — remorse — 

 affright — my tongue cleaved to t?ie roof of my mouth — my knees knocked 

 together — I stood rooted to earth, the personification of embarrassed 

 bashf ulness ! " So stands the statue that enchants the world" — as I have 

 often thought since. 



In this state, I fell an easy prey to my wife, who taking a cowardly 

 advantage of my helplessness, rained on me a torrent of abuse that 

 quickly brought a crowd about us. Not satisfied with this revenge, 

 she actually " showed fight," and was just preparing to tweak a 

 memorandum on my nose with her finger-nails, when I luckily got 

 scent of her intentions, and doubling behind an obese green-grocer 

 in black, thrust him forward as a substitute, and fled with the speed of 

 a hunted poet from the spot. 



Late the next day arrived Mrs. O'Blarney, No. 2, and the day after 

 that, the bailiffs, Avho, I regret to add, in the second week of my elope- 

 ment from the window, caught me loitering in the romantic vale of 

 Ovoca, and in a vile spirit of prosaic common-place, brought me back to 

 Dublin. ]My trial took place at the ensuing sessions ; and, as my diffi- 

 dence would not permit me wantonly to tell an vmtruth (both my wives 

 being at hand to contradict me) I at once pleaded guilty to the indict- 

 ment, and as an encouragement for my candour, was sentenced to seven 

 years transportation beyond seas. Had it not been for this inconsiderate 

 confession, my attorney assured me I should have got off ! 



I am now like Themistocles in exile, with but little chance of ever 

 revisiting green Erin. Happier than Belisarius, inasmuch only as I am 

 less short-sighted, I am, like him, the offspring of mischance. The 

 occasion of my banisliment, however, is peculiar. Coriolanus was exiled 

 for political contumacy ; Aristides for inconvenient ideas of equity ; 

 Alcibiades for shameless libertinism ; but though all four of us were 

 unfortunate, I am incomparably the most so. That which should have 

 been my pride, has proved my curse. I am the martyr of my devotion 

 to Hymen. In a word, bigamy has been my ruin, just as though it did 

 not carry its own punishment sufficiently along with it. 



Then, too, this bashfulness of mine, this index to the folio volume 

 of my afflictions, when I reflect on all that it has lost me ; when I 

 remember that liad I not pleaded guihy to the bad taste of marrying 

 two wives, I might have been acquitted, and by the integrity of the 



