Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 1.djvu/313

 302 CURRAN At this school young Curran became the class-fellow of some young tyros, not then of prospects much superior to his own; but who afterwards in life experienced elevated fortunes, and became his intimate and attached friends. At this school also the promising proofs of young Curran's capacity attracted the benevolent protection of a generous lady, appositely named Allworthy, who undertook to bear the charge of his education; and in the family of this amiable gentlewoman, to whom he was distantly related through his maternal connection, and also in the family of the Wrixons and others of highly respectable rank in that part of the county, he was received as a welcome visitant, not only during his scholastic years, but afterwards during his college vacations; and here it was, as he himself frequently declared, that he formed the first notions of elo- quence. The wakes, that is to say, the assemblages of the neigh- bours in melancholy convention round the bodies of the deceased, during the nights that pass between death and interment, form no inconsiderable part in the occasional amusements of an Irish village, and no incurious charac- teristic in the customs of the country. The body of the deceased is laid out in a large room upon a bedstead or table, and covered by a sheet with the face only exposed; sprigs of rosemary, mint, and thyme, flowers and odorous herbage are spread over the coverlid, and the corpse is surmounted by plates of snuff and tobacco to regale the visitants. Tobacco pipes are plentifully distributed for the purpose of fumigation, and to counteract any unwholesome odours from the dead body. In the ancient Irish families, or those wherein civil refinements have not exploded old customs, two and sometimes four female bards attend on those mournful occasions, who are expressly hired for the purpose of lamentation: this is probably a relique of druidical usage coeval with the Phenician ancestry; and they sing, by turns, their song of death in voices sweet and piercing, but in tones the most melancholy and affect- ing. They string together, in rude extempore verse, the