CARR CARRIAGES. 



363 



which it suited had not altogether been superseded. 

 The Irish gentry, and many beneath that rank, had 

 still leisure to be amused by, and liberality to re- 

 ward, the talents of the musician and the poet. 

 Carolan was eminently both. His songs were al- 

 ready widely famed. His manners and conversation 

 were also of a pleasing character. He therefore found 

 no difficulty in commencing the erratic life which 

 he persevered in to the close of his days. It must 

 not be supposed that he appeared as an ordinary 

 mendicant. He was invited as a friend to live with 

 those who were pleased to patronise him ; and in 

 general there was a competition among the gentry 

 of Connaught for the honour of entertaining him. 

 It is recorded that messengers would sometime be 

 in pursuit of him for several days 'from place to 

 place, to obtain the honour of a visit from the blind 

 harper. In many instances he signified his grati- 

 tude by composing a song in honour of his host, or 

 of some interesting member of the family. He is 

 said to have in all composed about two hundred 

 airs, to the most of which he gave verses. His 

 compositions have all the wild grace and pathos 

 which characterise Celtic music and poetry, and 

 which shine so peculiarly in the melodies of Ire- 

 land. 



Carolan was so unfortunate as to contract, in 

 early life, a love of whisky, which greatly increased 

 as he advanced in years. In his latter days he 

 never composed without a bottle by his side, being 

 of opinion that it was necessary to stimulate or 

 awake his powers. 



Carolan died in the month of March 1738, when 

 he had attained his sixty-eighth year. He was in- 

 terred in the parish churchyard of Kilronan, in the 

 diocese of Ardagh, his funeral being attended by 

 sixty clergymen of different denominations, a num- 

 ber of gentlemen from the neighbouring counties, and 

 a vast concourse of country people, who, rude as 

 they were, had often enjoyed the strains of their 

 national bard. 



CARR, SIE JOHN, a writer of travel or tours, 

 which obtained some notoriety in their day, was a 

 native of Devonshire. He was bred to the law, 

 which he practised at the Middle Temple ; and at 

 first had recourse to travel on account of ill health. 

 His first publication was " The Fury of Discord, a 

 poem," printed in 1803, in 4to. His " Stranger in 

 France, a Tour from Devonshire to Paris," writ- 

 ten in the same year, when the world was greedy 

 for information respecting the character and man- 

 ners of a people changed by the events of a revolu- 

 tion, and again after a brief peace severed from our 

 intercourse by war, was read with avidity. The 

 light and rapid sketches, the spirit and gentlemanly 

 feeling which characterised his observations, led to 

 his recurring to that branch of literature, which 

 gratified the public whilst it benefited himself and ! 

 his publisher. In the interval he published, in : 

 1804, " The Sea-side Hero, a drama in three acts," 

 the scene of which was laid in Sussex, on the sup- 

 posed attack of the anticipated invasion ; and in 

 1805 appeared "A northern Summer, or Travels 

 round the Baltic, through Denmark, Sweden, Rus- 

 sia, part of Poland, and Prussia, in 1804." In 

 1806, appeared " The Stranger in Ireland ; or a 

 Tour in the Southern and Western Parts of that 

 Country in 1805;" soon after, the author was 

 knighted by the duke of Bedford, then viceroy. 

 In 1807, he published " A Tour through Holland, 

 along the Right and Left Banks of the Rhine to 

 the South of Germany in 1806." The frequency 



of his productions now began to elicit remarks; and 

 one Mr Edward Dubois ventured to satirize his 

 trade in tours, in a little 12mo book entitled " My 

 Pocket Book ; or Hints for a Ryghte Merrie and 

 Conceitede Tour, in 4to., to be called ' The Stran- 

 ger in Ireland, in 1805.' By a Knight Errant," 

 dedicated to the paper-makers. For this publica- 

 tion the booksellers were prosecuted in 1809. It 

 appeared on the trial that Sir John Carr had re- 

 ceived for the copyright of his Stranger in France, 

 100; for the "Northern Summer," 500; for 

 the "Stranger in Ireland," 700; and for the 

 " Tour in Holland," 600. Sir John failed in ob- 

 taining a verdict; the jury considering that "My 

 Pocket Book " contained no personal reflection on 

 the knight, unconnected with his writings ; and 

 in consequence his cacoethes itinerandi received a 

 certain check. However, he published about the 

 same time a work he had before in preparation, 

 " Caledonian Sketches, or a Tour through Scot- 

 land in 1807;" and in 1811, "Descriptive Travels 

 in the Southern and Eastern parts of Spain and the 

 Balearic Isles (Majorca and Minorca), in the year 

 1809," both in quarto. In 1809 he printed a vo- 

 lume of Poems, in quarto and octavo, to which his 

 portrait was prefixed. Sir John died in London, 

 July 17, 1832, aged sixty. The Edinburgh Re- 

 view, in criticising some of his tours, indulged 

 in an Irish pun, and called him a jaunting car. It 

 is but justice, however, to say that the light, 

 cheerful character of Sir John Carr's writings was 

 harmless, and that a lively and gentlemanly feel- 

 ing pervaded his volumes. The plates which ac- 

 companied his Tours were creditable to his pen- 

 cil. 



CARRIAGES. Wheel carriages for pleasure are 

 generally supposed to have first come into use in 

 England in the reign of queen Elizabeth. But 

 long before that time, carriages of some kind were 

 used on state occasions, or for the conveyance of 

 sick persons. Even in the time of the Saxons, a 

 clumsy kind of car, upon four wheels, was em- 

 ployed to carry great personages ; and Stow tells 

 us, that during Wat Tyler's insurrection in 1380, 

 Richard II., "being threatened by the rebels of 

 Kent, rode from the Tower of London to the 

 Miles End ; and with him his mother, because she 

 was sick and weak, in a whirlicote," which is sup- 

 posed to have been a sort of covered carriage. 

 "Chariots covered, with ladies therein," followed 

 the litter in which queen Catharine was carried 

 to her coronation with Henry VIII. But queen 

 Elizabeth's is the first that is called a coach. In 

 1564, William Boonen, a Dutchman, became the 

 queen's coachman, and about this time coaches 

 were brought into general use in England. In 

 1588, queen Elizabeth went from Somerset House 

 to Paul's Cross to hear return thanks on the de- 

 struction of the Spanish armada, in a coach pre- 

 sented to her by Henry earl of Arundel. 



These coaches must have been clumsy uncom- 

 fortable machines. They had no springs ; and the 

 state of the streets and roads must have made tra- 

 velling in them any thing but easy. But fashion 

 soon brought them into such general use, that in 

 1607, Dekker complains that " the wife of every 

 citizen must be jolted now." And in 1636, there 

 were 6,000 of them kept in London arid the neigh- 

 bourhood. 



At first they had only two horses, but after- 

 wards the number was increased. In the reign of 

 James I., " the stout old earl of Northumberland, 



