The Purcell Papers, vol 1 | Page 3

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The 'Memoir' is nearly all in italics,?it was typed in by Judith Boss, Omaha, Nebraska.?Otherwise:?Scanned by Charles Keller with?OmniPage Professional OCR software?donated by Caere Corporation, 1-800-535-7226.?Contact Mike Lough
THE?PURCELL PAPERS.
BY THE LATE?JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU,?AUTHOR OF 'UNCLE SILAS.'
With a Memoir by?ALFRED PERCEVAL GRAVES
IN THREE VOLUMES.?VOL. I.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
MEMOIR OF JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU?THE GHOST AND THE BONE-SETTER?THE FORTUNES OF SIR ROBERT ARDAGH?THE LAST HEIR OF CASTLE CONNOR?THE DRUNKARD'S DREAM
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?de Cresseron, as cavalry officers in William the?Third's army; Charles being so distinguished a?member of the King's staff that he was presented?with William's portrait from his master's own?hand. He afterwards served as a major of?dragoons under Marlborough.
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?headlong to earth, the disaster being explained?by these words: 'See the effects of trying to go?to Heaven.'
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:
'Muse of Green Erin, break thine icy slumbers!
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, Muse of Erin, waken?
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.
'How could I bid thee tell of Tara's Towers,
Where once thy sceptred Princes sate in state--?Where rose thy music, at the festive hours,?Through the proud halls where listening thousands
sate?
'Fallen are thy fair palaces, thy country's glory,
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 thy unhappy nation,
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.
'O yes! like the last breath of evening sighing,
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.:
'Life were too long for me to bear
If banished from thy view;?Life were too short,