Laven'gro- on the learning of Languages

‘But he thinks of other things now,’ said my mother.

‘Other languages, you mean,’ said my father.  ‘It is strange that he has conceived such a zest for the study of languages; no sooner did he come home than he persuaded me to send him to that old priest to learn French and Italian, and, if I remember right, you abetted him; ... Well, there is no harm in learning French and Italian, perhaps much good in his case, as they may drive the other tongue out of his head.  Irish! why, he might go to the university p. 108but for that; but how would he look when, on being examined with respect to his attainments, it was discovered that he understood Irish?  How did you learn it? they would ask him; how did you become acquainted with the language of Papists and rebels?  The boy would be sent away in disgrace.’

It was for want of something better to do that, shortly after my return home, I applied myself to the study of languages.  By the acquisition of Irish, with the first elements of which I had become acquainted under the tuition of Murtagh, I had contracted a certain zest and inclination for the pursuit.  Yet it is probable that had I been launched about this time into some agreeable career, that of arms for example, for which, being the son of a soldier, I had, as was natural, a sort of penchant, I might have thought nothing more of the acquisition of tongues of any kind; but, having nothing to do, I followed the only course suited to my genius which appeared open to me.

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 In our house was a condemned musket, bearing somewhere on its lock, in rather antique characters, ‘Tower, 1746’; with this weapon I had already, in Ireland, performed some execution among the rooks and choughs, and it was now again destined to be a source of solace and amusement to me, in the winter season, especially on occasions of severe frost when birds abounded.  Sallying forth with it at these times, far into the country, I seldom returned at night without a string of bullfinches, blackbirds, and linnets hanging in triumph round my neck.  

British 1st/2d Model "Brown Bess" Musket Dated 1746 on the
Lock and Bearing the Cypher of the Royal Irish Regiment