Denny Lane Papers Descriptive List (Ref. U611)

U611/

Tipperary man’ but could not finish it. Compliments Davis on his last publication, ‘if I speak I’ll make its first sentence my text- Men of Ireland be steady’. He is writing the letter while presiding at a meeting of the Board of Guardians, ‘How think you Sir James would digest that, and every Guardian round me is a repeal Warden…’. 1p 6 6 July 1843 Letter, from Thomas Davis, 61 Baggot Street, Dublin, to Denny Lane, esquire. ‘Are you too full of cider to notice an article in the Packet against purchasing English works for the Art Union? Either you were absurd in what you said in the Nation article or you were not. If you were hold your tongue…If you were not write some qualified rational sagacious & short proof thereof…If you do so say the cruellest thing your strict conscience will allow you of MacManus and slaughter Partridge’s happy Lucifer- the calf…’. Davis says he is ‘almost in love with that darling blue-eyed girl of Fishers’ and wishes she would spend summer with him, leaving his friends to their ‘desolate perambulations’. Smith O’Brien (William Smith O’Brien) ‘has made a hit. His voice & delivery are I’m told, feeble gentlemanly & wretched…’. Relates that ‘We had about 100,000 people at Donnybrook (County Dublin) which makes me think your Cork story of 500,000 was a quintuple lie…’. He is in a ‘very die away lovely mood…If I don’t get out of it soon I’ll fall in love or fight a duel’. Remarks on the ‘fine sentiment people talk about Fawcett…Pah ! wasn’t that as good a way as a man could die in time of peace’. 4pp 7 [1843] Fragment of a letter from ‘T.D.’ (Thomas Davis) to Denny Lane. ‘Plunket or when will you? Let me know this. The Boyhood Years Wd run to 6 pages of music & is not a ballad so it will not be in the spirit.’ Asks Lane to write some music, ‘I want you to grind some airs of Bunting (unused by Moore) into Barry’s head & make him versify to them…’. His life is an ‘odd mixture of hard work & active idleness…We miss you sadly…’. 2pp

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