ABSTRACT
I Have already observed, that miss Evans’s impetuosity was of disservice to the noble cause which she conscientiously espoused; and Fitzosborne, certain that her zeal would defeat her intentions, passed her in silence, as an enemy whom he could only render formidable by appearing to fear. But the cause of principle was now defended by the arrival of another champion. Mr. Powerscourt availed himself of the countess’s invitation to chide his Lucy for a tyrannical exercise of female prerogative, in compelling him to take a journey of two hundred miles to whisper a love-tale which might have been more agreeably / told in a little woodbine bower which she had erected, in strict conformity to the rules prescribed by her favourite poet Mason, 402 in the parsonage garden at Powerscourt. Henry had named it after the Nerina of that elegant bard, and decorated it with the following inscription and motto:
