Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/54

 defiance of the poet laureate of that time to match his stupendous rhymes—

The achievement he had just completed was not a tragedy or an epic poem, but an acrostic—

And the poet demanded an adequate reward for his successful labour—

In another extravaganza he discoursed of philosophy in this style—

This delightful and unhappy man of genius has had his life made the subject of strange and fantastic speculations, especially about the event which made him an unhappy lover, which has been accounted for on half a dozen diverse theories, all of them wrong. As the facts are familiar to me, it is better, perhaps, that I should state them here. Shortly after our acquaintance commenced he brought me to visit a County Clare family, Mrs. Stacpoole and her daughters, living, I think, in Mount Street. I found them agreeable and accomplished, and repeated my visit several times, always with Mangan. One night, coming away, he