From John Conwill   July 24th 1841.

Ambition

What is that passion men call

Which holds dominion o’er great and small

What’s that disturber of the human breast

That robs its vot’ries of nocturnal rest

What is that sin by which the angels fell

From heav’n’s high portals to the gulphs of hell

And soil’d the happiness which promis’d fair

In Eden’s bow’rs to crown the unborn pair

’Tis hard to say though almost ev’ry mind

In ancient or in modern times we find

Is subjugated by its conq’ring pow’rs

And held in bondage all life’s fleeting hours

The man whose pride and littleness of soul

Attempts at governance without control

Whose mountain arrogance with pain I see

My fellow-creature, perhaps my enemy

Is prompted by ambition’s luring call

To make himself despicable to all

Tho’ low his station and tho’s mean his birth

He thinks himself of consequence on earth

And though unskill’d in Nature’s various laws

Affects to state and trace the wond’rous cause

He’s quite astonish’d that all human kind

Don’t always rev’rence his magnific mind

Don’t crouch like slaves before an Eastern king

And from Golconda¹ richest presents bring

From Peru Chili and the Brazil shore

Don’t send him mines of gold and silver ore

And yet amid these notions of his brain

Say is he happy does his breast contain

One heart-felt pleasure which he dares reveal

One beam of comfort does he ever feel

Ah no his aching heart and throbbing breast

Continued fears and anxious cares molest

These are the evils which ambition brings

On all its vot’ries mendicants or kings

And those who would avoid its fatal snare

Should of its soft but syren arts beware.

July 24th 1841.

‘My dear Tyndall’

I perceive, though your brain had been rendered a complete system of jarring elements in consequence of your removal from Youghal, and the agitated state of Kinsale when you arrived in that place, that you have not forgotten your old friend, and that your cranium has become consolidated by the fortuitous concussion of its elementary particles, hurrah for Epicurus,² he was a queer sort of fellow, but away with him for the present.

You talked of silence’s having spread her mantle over me. I discard the allegation; because there never existed an individual, with few exceptions, whom I admire more than I admire you.

My lines on ambition were crossed by the Electioneering manoeuvers carried on in the County Carlow. I will not give you a portrait of the conduct of either the radical or the conservative party lest I might be considered biased to either side. I am sure your father has satisfied you on this subject, if Mr Evans should have neglected to do so. Mr Evan’s gratitude to me deserves the highest eulogium³ as he never so much as enquired after my welfare. Oh shame, never mention the fellow to me again.

Your uncle Caleb is acquitted just as I anticipated, with regard to his conduct I have nothing to say, because I am totally unaware of his transaction altogether; As there are so many stories afloat about him,⁴ I am sure his opponents exaggerated the circumstance of his firing very much.

The Sunday before the polling commenced in Carlow, I was going to see your father and mother. I met Emma and Miss Newsome at Mr Faulkner’s cottage,⁵ Emma told me your father was gone to Nurney, I then formed a resolution to go to your mother, and ere I had arrived at the market-cross I was assailed by a crowd of jack-asses roaring on every side. I wheeled round, perfectly disgusted, and never appeared in Leighlin since, except on two evenings for the purpose of getting my surveying chain⁶ fixed.

Your story of the fishermen of Kinsale⁷ flits across my mind at the moment – really I pitied you in my heart when I contemplated you in the midst of a rabble bellowing for whisky and who were ready to deprive you of existence had you not conceded to their wishes. Really my dear Tyndall, my ideas are so confused that I can scarcely write a correct sentence on any subject.

Your ever faithful teacher | John Conwill

Your poem on Friendship⁸ deserves the most unbounded applause. In my next letter I hope to write some lines on the same subject, though I must confess I am a very bad poet.

RI MS JT/1/11/3520

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