MEMOIR OF A GENTLEMAN. 257 



kinsman favoured me with an embossed card, on which was 

 fairly engraven, * Mr. Marc Antony Burke Bodkin, Baliy- 

 broney House.' 



" On minor matters I will not dilate. It appeared that 

 Miss Brasilia O'Shaughnessey had come to London, in hope- 

 less search after a legacy she expected in right of her great- 

 uncle, Field-Marshal OToole ; that the Field-Marshal's 

 effects were undiscoverable ; and no available assets could be 

 traced beyond certain old swords and battered snuff- boxes ; 

 and consequently Brasilia, who had been an heiress in expect- 

 ancy, w r as sadly chagrined. Furthermore, it appeared that 

 Mr. Marc Antony Bodkin formed her escort from Connemara, 

 and, being a ' loose gentleman,'* and a loving cousin, he 

 ' bore her company.' 



" If ever the course of love ran smooth, which I sincerely 

 disbelieve, mine was not the one. I shall not attempt a 

 description of the progress of my affaire du cceur ; for I sus- 

 pect that I was the wooed one, and that Brasilia had marked 

 me for her own, and Marc Antony aided and abetted. He, 

 good easy gentleman, was formed for Cupid* s embassies. He 

 ' could interpret between you and your love,' as Hamlet says ; 

 and to one with my sensibilities, his services were worth a 

 Jew's eye. If woman ever possessed the cardinal virtues 

 united, that person was Brasilia . She was what Marc called 

 ' the soul of honour ;' yet she had her weak points, and he 

 hinted darkly that myself had found favour in her sight. As 

 a thing of course, I muttered a handsome acknowledgement ; 

 a rejoinder was promptly returned, per same conveyance, as 

 my father would have said and before six days I was made 

 the happiest of men, and levanted to Gretna with the lady 

 of my love, and formally attended by that fidus Achates, 

 Marc Antony Bodkin. 



" What a whirligig world this is ! I recollect well the 

 evening before the indissoluble knot was tied, when I strolled 

 into the little garden at Newark. My thoughts were ' big 

 with future bliss,' and my path of life, as I opined, strewed 

 knee-deep with roses of perennial blossom. I heard voices in 



* No attempt is made here to insinuate aught against the morality of 

 Miss O'Shaughnessey's protector. " A loose gentleman," in the common 

 parlance of the kingdom of Connaught, meaneth simply a gentleman who 

 has nothing to do, and nineteen out of twenty of the aristocracy of tha? 

 truly independent country may be thus honourably classed. ED. 



I 



