A note on the life and writings of Paul Hiffernan, M. D. : read before the Bibliographical Society of Ireland on 24th November, 1930.

  • Percy Kirkpatrick
Date:
1931
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: A note on the life and writings of Paul Hiffernan, M. D. : read before the Bibliographical Society of Ireland on 24th November, 1930. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    JAN., FEB., I93I* A tfote on the Life and Writings of Taul Hiffernan, M.D. BY T. PERCY C. KIRKPATRICK [Read before the Bibliographical Society of Ireland on 24th November, 1930.] Almost everything we know of the life of Paul Hiffernan we owe to an anonymous writer in the European Magazine who, in February and March, 1794, contributed to that journal an article dealing with his life and writings. All who have since written of Hiffernan appear to have derived their facts from this writer, and anything which they have added is merely some personal view of the interpretation of his character, or estimate of his abilities. Paul Hiffernan, we are told, was born in the County of Dublin in 1719, and after some preliminary education in the neighbourhood of his home, was sent to school in the City of Dublin, where he received a sound education in the classics. Although the name Hiffernan was not uncommon in Ireland, we have not found any record of Paul’s parents, except that we are told they belonged to the Catholic Church, and, intending their son for the priesthood, sent him to France, to the University of Montpellier, to finish his education. At the University he is said to have met several men, such as Rousseau and Monmartel, who afterwards distinguished themselves in literature, and of these in later life he used to tell some interesting stories. Montpellier at the time was a University much frequented by those studying medicine and, perhaps for this reason, Paul was deflected from his studies in theology to medicine, and he is said to have graduated as a bachelor in that faculty. We have not found any record of his degree thesis having been printed, nor have we been able to fix the exact date at which he took his degree. Later in life he used to style himself “ Paul Hiffernan, M.D.,” but whether in addition to the degree of bachelor he took that of doctor, or whether he assumed the later as being more convenient, we have not been able to determine. After Montpellier he spent some time in Paris, and about 1747 he returned to Dublin to seek practice as a qualified doctor, having been absent in France, it is said, for seventeen years. If the dates given of his birth and of his return to Dublin are correct, he must have left Ireland for France at the age of eleven years—an age which seems to be inconsistent with the school career attributed to him in Dublin. It is said that when he came back to Dublin he was a good Latin scholar, and better acquainted with French than with English. In after life some of his failure as a writer of English is attributed to the predominating influence of his French education. Hiffernan when he returned to Dublin about the middle of the eighteenth century, with his French conversation and his French manners,