THE NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. ORIGINAL PAPERS. AUTO-BIOGRAPHY OF THEOBALD WOLFE TONE. A MANUSCRIPT of considerable interest and curiosity has, through the kindness of an Irish friend, been put into our hands, with permission to make such selections from it as under all the circumstances of the times and persons to which it relates, may appear to us to be not unfit for publication. It is a fragment of the personal and political biography of Theobald Wolfe Tone, entitled "Memorandums relative to my Life and Opinions." Of its authenticity we have been completely satisfied. It was written in France towards the latter end of 1796, while the armament for Ireland, under Hoche, which he had prevailed upon the French Directory to fit out, and with which he subsequently embarked, was in the act of being organised at Brest. The opening paragraph adverts to his situation and intentions at the time. "Paris, August 7, 1796. "As I shall embark in a business within a few days, the event of which is uncertain, I take the opportunity of a vacant hour to throw upon paper a few memorandums relative to myself and my family, which may amuse my boys, for whom I write them, in case they should hereafter fall into their hands." The commencing pages are accordingly taken up with a minute account of the members and circumstances of his family; but, as he advances, the subject expands, and finally assumes the more comprehensive form of a memoir of the part the writer had acted and was acting in the public history of his own time. The style throughout is natural and simple; some of the details are given with a degree of playfulness and ease that form a remarkable contrast with the solemn trains of thought which must have habitually pressed upon a man on the eve of plunging into the most doubtful and dangerous of human enterprises. He was born in Dublin on the 20th of June, 1763. His father was a coach-maker, and having acquired by inheritance some freehold leases in the county of Kildare, became involved in a Chancery suit regarding them, which ended in his ruin. His mother, whose maiden name was Lamport, was the daughter of a Captain of a vessel in the West India trade. Both his parents were ordinary persons. All their children were remarkable for a romantic spirit of enterprise. After specifying the early voyages and adventures of his three brothers, William, Matthew, and Arthur, and his sister Mary, he proceeds "I come now to myself.—I was, I have said, the eldest child of my parents, and a very great favourite. I was sent at the age of eight and nine to an excellent English school, kept by Lisson Darling, a man to whose kindness and affection I was much indebted, and who took more than common pains with me. I respect him yet. I was very idle, and it was only the fear of shame which could induce me to exertion. Nevertheless, at the approach of our public examinations, which were held quarterly, at which all my parents and friends attended, I used to labour for some time, and generally with success, as I have obtained six or seven premiums in different branches at our examinations, as mathematics, arithmetic, reading, spelling, recitation, use of the globes, &c. In two branches I always failed-writing, and the catechism, to which last I never could bring myself to apply. Having continued with Mr. Darling about three years, and pretty nearly exhausted the circle of English education, he recommended strongly to my father to put me to a Latin school, and to prepare me for the University, assuring him that I was a fine boy of uncommon talents, particularly for the mathematicks; that it was a thousand pities to throw me away on business, when, by giving me a liberal education, there was a moral certainty I should become a Fellow of Trinity College, which was a noble independence, besides the glory of the situation. In these arguments he was supported by the parson of the parish, Dr. Jameson, a worthy man, who used to examine me from time to time in the Elements of Euclid. My father, who, to do him justice, loved me passionately, and spared no expense on me that his circumstances could afford, was easily persuaded by these authorities. It was determined I should be a Fellow of Trinity College. I was taken from Mr. Darling, from whom I parted with regret, and placed about the age of twelve under the care of the Reverend William Craig, a man very different in all respects from my late preceptor. As the school was in the same street (Stafford-street) where we lived, and I was under my father's eye, I began Latin with great ardour, and continued for a year or two with great diligence, when I began Greek, which I found still more to my taste. But about this time, whether unluckily for me or not the future colour of my life must determine, my father, who had for some years entirely neglected his business, and led a very dissipated and irregular life, meeting with an accident of a fall down stairs, by which he was dreadfully wounded in the head, so that he narrowly escaped with his life, found on his recovery his affairs so deranged in all respects, that he determined on quitting business, and retiring to the country; a resolution which he executed accordingly, settling with all his creditors, and placing me with a friend near the school, whom he paid for my diet and lodging, besides allowing me a trifling sum for my pocket. In this manner I became, I may say, my own master before I was sixteen; and as at this hour I am not remarkable for my discretion, it may be well judged I was less so then. The superintendence of my father being removed, I began to calculate that, according to the slow rate chalked out for me by Craig, I could very well do the business of the week in three days, or even two if necessary, and consequently that the other three were lawful prize: I therefore resolved to appropriate three days at least in the week to my amusements, and the others to school, always keeping in the latter three the day of repetition, which included the business of the whole week; by which arrangement I kept my rank with the other boys of my class. I found no difficulty in convincing half a dozen of my schoolfellows of the justice of this distribution of our time; and by this means we established a regular system of what is called mitching, and we contrived, being some of the smartest boys at school, to get an ascendency over the spirit of the master, so that, when we entered the school in a body after one of our days of relaxation, he did not choose to burn his fingers with any of us, nor did he once write to my father to inform him of my proceedings: for which he most certainly was highly culpable. I must do myself and my schoolfellows the justice to say, that, though we were abominably idle, we were not vicious. Our amusements consisted in walking to the country, in swimming-parties in the sea, and particularly in attending all parades, field-days, and reviews of the garrison of Dublin in the Phoenix Park. I mention this particularly, because, independently of confirming me in a rooted habit of idleness, which I lament most exceedingly, I trace to the splendid appearance of the troops, and the pomp and parade of military show, the |
