Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/268

This page needs to be proofread.

262


NOTES AND QUERIES. [0* s. ni. APRIL g, '99.


Rev. Edward Murphy, A.M., " who departed this life at Dean Coote's, at Shaen Castle, Sep. 13, 1777." Murphy is remembered (though he is unnoticed in the 'D.N.B.') as the editor of the Lucian that was the text- book for generations in his alma mater, T.C.D. He was also the tutor or bear-leader who accompanied the Lord Charlemont on his prolonged grand tour on the Continent a century and a half ago. He became, pro- bably through Lord Charlemont's patronage, rector of Tartaraghan, co. Armagh. He was son of John Murphy, a landowner and farmer


in co. Tipperary, and was born in the town of Tipperary in 1706. He died while on a visit to his friend Dean Coote, and was buried as above stated. The inscription on his tornb further says, in simple and touching words, " He was most learned, and dear to his friends," and continues, " This monument was erected by his nephews, Jeremiah O'Meara and the Rev. Edward Ryan." Jeremiah O'Meara, a lawyer, was father of Barry O'Meara. The Rev. Edward Ryan, D.D., i's briefly noticed in the ' D.N.B.' The pedigree stands thus :


John Murphy, of Tipperary.

I


Rev. Ed. Murphy, M.A., b. 1706, d. 1777.


Kathleen, married^pPhilip Ryan, of Cordan- about 1740.* gan, Tipperary.


(dau.)=p O'Meara.


Rev. Ed. Ryan, D.D., d. 1819. The "nephew" in the inscription.


Jeremiah O'Meara, of Tipperary. The " nephew" of the inscription.

~


Lady Leigh, second wife, 1823-Barry Edw. O'Meara, b. 1770, d. 1836V first wife.

Denis O'Meara, of Tipperary. Kathleen O'Meara, b, 1839, d. 1888, an authoress (see 'D.N.B.').


Burke (*L. G.,' fourth edition) states that the Ven. Philip Ryan, Archdeacon of Lismore, brother of the Rev. Edward Ryan above men- tioned, married "Eliza, daughter of Major Harpur and aunt of Barry O'Meara" (the Archdeacon was born 1754, and died 1828). It

Sit remains to be ascertained who Barry 'Meara's first wife was, who his mother and paternal grandfather were, and what further issue he had. SIGMA TAU.


THE "RED LION" PUBLIC-HOUSE, PARLIAMENT STREET.

THE "Red Lion" public - house, No. 48, Parliament Street, at the corner of Derby Street, is about to be rebuilt. It was here, according to Mr. Laurence Hutton, the touching incident occurred in the early life of Charles Dickens, while his father was confined in the Marshalsea, and Dickens was lodging in a back attic in Lant Street, Borough, which the novelist after wards trans- ferred to the pages of 'David Copperfield.' In Mr. Button's words :

" It was during this period [1822-4] that Dickens ordered the 'glass of Genuine Stunning ale,' and excited the sympathy and won the motherly kiss of the publican's wife, so pathetically told in ' Copper- field.' In a private letter late in life, he declares this to have been an actual experience, and that the


  • Burke says " about 1710," an obvious mistake.


public-house was the ' Red Lion,' still standing in 1885 on the north-east corner [sic] of Derby and Par- liament Streets, Westminster." 'Literary Land- marks of London,' fourth edition, p. 81.

"I was such a child, and so little," says Dickens in the character of David Copper- field,

"that frequently when I went into the bar of a strange public-house for a glass of ale or porter, to moisten what I had had for dinner, they were afraid to give it me. I remember one hot evening I went into the bar of a public-house, and said to the landlord :

" ' What is your best your very be-stoile a glass?' For it was a special occasion. I don't know what. It may have been my birthday.

' ' Twopence-halfpenny,' says the landlord, ' is the price of the Genuine Stunning ale.'

" ' Then,' says I, producing the nioney, 'just draw me a glass of the Genuine Stunning, if you please, with a good head to it.'

" The landlord looked at me in return over the bar, from head to foot, with a strange smile on his face ; and instead of drawing the beer, looked round the screen and said something to his wife. She came out from behind it, with her work in her hand, and joined him in surveying me. Here we stand, all three, before me now. The landlord in his short sleeves, leaning against the bar window-frame ; his wife looking over the little half-door; and I, in some confusion, looking up at them from outside the partition. They asked me a good many questions ; as what my name was, how old I was, where I lived, how I was employed, and how I came there. To all of which, that I might commit nobody, I in- vented, I am afraid, appropriate answers. They