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Life
?-1830 [var. Cody], The Patriot, or Hermit of Saxellan, mus. drama (2nd ed. Dublin 1811); also said to have been a govt. spy in ’98; edited the Tory journal, The Warder; he is subject of abuse in Furlong’s ‘Plagues of Ireland’; also attacked by Watty Cox [see IBL infra]; lived in Eccles St.; John Stevenson set his airs to music; a poem of his is quoted in W. J. Fitzpatrick’s Lady Morgan. The Russian Sacrifice, or Burning of Moscow (1813); wrote official Ode, on the birthday of George IV, to be performed at the Castle on 23 April 1821; music by Sir John Stevenson (1821); also ‘A Sprig of Shillelagh’, which appears in his Russian Sacrifice, erroneously attributed to Lysaght; did not however write ‘Donnybrook Fair’ properly by Charles O’Flaherty (d. c.1830), sometimes attributed to him; a commentary on Code appears in The New Irish Magazine and National Advocate (Oct. 1822, pp.133-34). PI GBI RAF OCIL FDA
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Criticism
Séamus Ó Casaidhe in ‘Henry B Code’, IBL, III, p.72; also IBL XXVII, 4, p. 90, Ó Casaidhe cites a vitriolic review of Code’s Russian Sacrifice (1813), in Walter Cox’s Irish Monthly Magazine (Mar 1813) [‘heap of nonsense, dullness and plagiarism’]. And see Irish Book Lover 14, 17; note a reference in Furlong’s Plagues of Ireland.
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Commentary
Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English, The Romantic Period, 1789-1850, Vol. 1 (1980): ‘H. B. Code, a particularly detested character, spy and informer placed by Furlong among the sores that give The Plagues of Ireland its name; author of an official ode to George IV on his Irish visit of 1812, to music by Sir John Stevenson (p.27). [Note: There is no Code bibl. in Rafroidi, op. cit., Vol. 2.]
Bryan Coleborne, ‘“They Sate in Counterview”, Anglo-Irish Verse in the Eighteenth Century’, in Hyland and Sammells, Irish Writing, Exile and Subversion (1991), pp.45-63, The stereotype emerging in Boys of Kilkenny becomes the stuff of entertainment in Henry Brereton Code’s musical drama The Russian Sacrifice, or the Burning of Moscow (1813); his separate verses include ‘The Song-Sprig of Shillella’, romanticising national character, ‘Who has e’er had the luck to see Donnybrook fair? / An Irishman all in his glory is there, / With his sprig of Shillela and shamrock so green: His clothes spick and span new, without e’er a speck, / A nice barcelona tied round his neat neck; / He goes to a tent, and he spends half a crown, / Comes out, meets a friend, and for love knocks him down. / With his sprig of Shillela and shamrock so green.’ (p.55)
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Quotations
Insurrection of the 23rd of July 1803 (1803), being a report of the trial. ‘The warning voice of the unfortunate Emmet, who might have been a support, and an ornament to society, that voice which spoke almost from the grave and seemed assimilating to the energy and inspiration of eternal truth [will teach us] to appreciate the character of the enemy whose abandoned emissaries would seduce them from their King, their Country and their God.’
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References
D. J. O’Donoghue, The Poets of Ireland: A Biographical Dictionary (Dublin: Hodges Figgis & Co 1912); says ‘I venture to ascribe to him a pamphlet called The Insurrection .&c’. O’Donoghue further says that he reported Emmet’s speech and ‘mutilated it for base purposes’. Brown also has an unflattering note on him in GBI.
Justin McCarthy, gen. ed., Irish Literature (Washington: University of America 1904) selects ‘A Sprig’.
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1: little is known, &c.; worked for government. RAF, ‘ a widely detested character..’; he notes that Russian Sacrifice (1813) appeared at C[row] S[treet], and The Patriot (?1810) at Peter St. [No entry ODNB].
Peter Kavanagh, The Irish Theatre (Tralee 1946), H. B. Code fl.1812; three musical dramas, mus. by Sir John Stevenson, The Spanish Patriot of A Thousand years Ago (Lyceum 22 Sept. 1812); The Patriot, or Hermit of Saxellan (Peter St. Theatre, Dublin, c.1810) 1811, written ‘to inculcate a loyal and patriotic union of all descriptions of Irishmen against an invading enemy’ (pref.); The Russian Sacrifice or The Burning of Moscow (Crow St. Dublin 1813) 1813, includes a stage-Irishman, Barney Mulhuddart.
Belfast Public Library holds Insurrection of the 23rd of July, 1803 (portraits).
De Burca Rare Books lists Henry Brereton Code, The Insurrection of the Twenty-Third July, 1803 [The Unfortunate Robert Emmet Manuscript Notes on the Last Words of Lord Kilwarden Possibly By Emmet’s Defence Counsel] Dublin: Printed by Graisberry and Campbell, 10 Back Lane, [1803]. The MS material consists of notes on the front leaf on the last words of Kilwarden in a neat contemporary hand. [€775].
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