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TALES AND NOVELS, VOL. IV
CONTAINING
CASTLE RACKRENT; AN ESSAY ON IRISH BULLS; AN ESSAY ON THE NOBLE SCIENCE
OF SELF-JUSTIFICATION; ENNUI; AND THE DUN.
BY
MARIA EDGEWORTH
IN TEN VOLUMES. WITH ENGRAVINGS ON STEEL.
1857.
"A prudence undeceiving, undeceived,
That nor too little nor too much believed;
That scorn'd unjust suspicion's coward fear,
And without weakness knew to be sincere."
_Lord Lyttelton's Monody on his Wife_.
PREFACE
The prevailing taste of the public for anecdote has been censured and
ridiculed by critics who aspire to the character of superior wisdom; but
if we consider it in a proper point of view, this taste is an
incontestable proof of the good sense and profoundly philosophic temper
of the present times. Of the numbers who study, or at least who read
history, how few derive any advantage from their labours! The heroes of
history are so decked out by the fine fancy of the professed historian;
they talk in such measured prose, and act from such sublime or such
diabolical motives, that few have sufficient taste, wickedness, or
heroism, to sympathize in their fate. Besides, there is much uncertainty
even in the best authenticated ancient or modern histories; and that
love of truth, which in some minds is innate and immutable, necessarily
leads to a love of secret memoirs and private anecdotes. We cannot judge
either of the feelings or of the characters of men with perfect
accuracy, from their actions or their appearance in public; it is from
their careless conversations, their half-finished sentences, that we may
hope with the greatest probability of success to discover their real
characters. The life of a great or of a little man written by himself,
the familiar letters, the diary of any individual published by his
friends or by his enemies, after his decease, are esteemed important
literary curiosities. We are surely justified, in this eager desire, to
collect the most minute facts relative to the domestic lives, not only
of the great and good, but even of the worthless and insignificant,
since it is only by a comparison of their actual happiness or misery in
the privacy of domestic life that we can form a just estimate of the
real reward of virtue, or the real punishment of vice. That the great
are not as happy as they seem, that the external circumstances of
fortune and rank do not constitute felicity, is asserted by every
moralist: the historian can seldom, consistently with his dignity, pause
to illustrate this truth: it is therefore to the biographer we must have
recourse. After we have beheld splendid characters playing their parts
on the great theatre of the world, with all the advantages of stage
effect and decoration, we anxiously beg to be admitted behind the
scenes, that we may take a nearer view of the actors and actresses.
Some may perhaps imagine, that the value of biography depends upon the
judgment and taste of the biographer: but on the contrary it may be
maintained, that the merits of a biographer are inversely as the extent
of his intellectual powers and of his literary talents. A plain
unvarnished tale is preferable to the most highly ornamented narrative.
Where we see that a man has the power, we may naturally suspect that he
has the will to deceive us; and those who are used to literary
manufacture know how much is often sacrificed to the rounding of a
period, or the pointing of an antithesis.
That the ignorant may have their prejudices as well as the learned
cannot be disputed; but we see and despise vulgar errors: we never bow
to the authority of him who has no great name to sanction his
absurdities. The partiality which blinds a biographer to the defects of
his hero, in proportion as it is gross, ceases to be dangerous; but if
it be concealed by the appearance of candour, which men of great
abilities best know how to assume, it endangers our judgment sometimes,
and sometimes our morals. If her grace the Duchess of Newcastle, instead
of penning her lord's elaborate eulogium, had undertaken to write the
life of Savage, we should not have been in any danger of mistaking an
idle, ungrateful libertine, for a man of genius and virtue. The talents
of a biographer are often fatal to his reader. For these reasons the
public often judiciously countenance those who, without sagacity to
discriminate character, without elegance of style to relieve the
tediousness of narrative, without enlargement of mind to draw any
conclusions from the facts they relate, simply pour forth anecdotes, and
retail conversations, with all the minute prolixity of a gossip in a
country town.
The author of the following Memoirs has upon these grounds fair claims
to the public favour and attention; he was an illiterate old steward,
whose partiality to _the family_, in which he was bred and born, must
be obvious to the reader. He tells the history of the Rackrent family
in his vernacular idiom, and in the full confidence that Sir Patrick,
Sir Murtagh, Sir Kit, and Sir Condy Rackrent's affairs will be as
interesting to all the world as they were to himself. Those who were
acquainted with the manners of a certain class of the gentry of Ireland
some years ago, will want no evidence of the truth of honest Thady's
narrative: to those who are totally unacquainted with Ireland, the
following Memoirs will perhaps be scarcely intelligible, or probably
they may appear perfectly incredible. For the information of the
_ignorant_ English reader, a few notes have been subjoined by the
editor, and he had it once in contemplation to translate the language
of Thady into plain English; but Thady's idiom is incapable of
translation, and, besides, the authenticity of his story would have
been more exposed to doubt if it were not told in his own
characteristic manner. Several years ago he related to the editor the
history of the Rackrent family, and it was with some difficulty that he
was persuaded to have it committed to writing; however, his feelings
for "_the honour of the family_," as he expressed himself, prevailed
over his habitual laziness, and he at length completed the narrative
which is now aid before the public.
The editor hopes his readers will observe that these are "tales of other
times:" that the manners depicted in the following pages are not those
of the present age: the race of the Rackrents has long since been
extinct in Ireland; and the drunken Sir Patrick, the litigious Sir
Murtagh, the fighting Sir Kit, and the slovenly Sir Condy, are
characters which could no more be met with at present in Ireland, than
Squire Western or Parson Trulliber in England. There is a time when
individuals can bear to be rallied for their past follies and
absurdities, after they have acquired new habits and a new
consciousness. Nations, as well as individuals, gradually lose
attachment to their identity, and the present generation is amused,
rather than offended, by the ridicule that is thrown upon its ancestors.
Probably we shall soon have it in our power, in a hundred instances, to
verify the truth of these observations.
When Ireland loses her identity by an union with Great Britain, she will
look back, with a smile of good-humoured complacency, on the Sir Kits
and Sir Condys of her former existence.
CONTENTS:
CASTLE RACKRENT
GLOSSARY
FOOTNOTES
ESSAY ON IRISH BULLS
Introduction
CHAP. I. Originality of Irish Bulls examined
II. Irish Newspapers
III. The Criminal Law of Bulls and Blunders
IV. Little Dominick
V. The Bliss of Ignorance
VI. "Thoughts that breathe, and Words that burn"
VII. Practical Bulls
VIII. The Dublin Shoeblack
IX. The Hibernian Mendicant
X. Irish Wit and Eloquence
XI. The Brogue
XII. Bath Coach Conversation
XIII. Bath Coach Conversation
XIV. The Irish Incognito
Conclusion
Appendix
Footnotes
AN ESSAY ON THE NOBLE SCIENCE OF SELF-JUSTIFICATION
ENNUI
THE DUN
CASTLE RACKRENT
_Monday Morning_.[A]
Having, out of friendship for the family, upon whose estate, praised be
Heaven! I and mine have lived rent-free, time out of mind, voluntarily
undertaken to publish the MEMOIRS of the RACKRENT FAMILY, I think it my
duty to say a few words, in the first place, concerning myself. My real
name is Thady Quirk, though in the family I have always been known by no
other than "_honest Thady_"--afterward, in the time of Sir Murtagh,
deceased, I remember to hear them calling me "_old Thady_," and now I'm
come to "poor Thady;" for I wear a long great coat[1] winter and summer,
which is very handy, as I never put my arms into the sleeves; they are
as good as new, though come Holantide next I've had it these seven
years; it holds on by a single button round my neck, cloak fashion. To
look at me, you would hardly think "poor Thady" was the father of
attorney Quirk; he is a high gentleman, and never minds what poor Thady
says, and having better than fifteen hundred a year, landed estate,
looks down upon honest Thady; but I wash my hands of his doings, and as
I have lived so will I die, true and loyal to the family. The family of
the Rackrents is, I am proud to say, one of the most ancient in the
kingdom. Every body knows this is not the old family name, which was
O'Shaughlin, related to the kings of Ireland--but that was before my
time. My grandfather was driver to the great Sir Patrick O'Shaughlin,
and I heard him, when I was a boy, telling how the Castle Rackrent
estate came to Sir Patrick; Sir Tallyhoo Rackrent was cousin-german to
him, and had a fine estate of his own, only never a gate upon it, it
being his maxim that a car was the best gate. Poor gentleman! he lost a
fine hunter and his life, at last, by it, all in one day's hunt. But I
ought to bless that day, for the estate came straight into _the_ family,
upon one condition, which Sir Patrick O'Shaughlin at the time took sadly
to heart, they say, but thought better of it afterwards, seeing how
large a stake depended upon it, that he should, by act of parliament,
take and bear the surname and arms of Rackrent.
Now it was that the world was to see what was _in_ Sir Patrick. On
coming into the estate, he gave the finest entertainment ever was heard
of in the country; not a man could stand after supper but Sir Patrick
himself, who could sit out the best man in Ireland, let alone the three
kingdoms itself.[B] He had his house, from one year's end to another, as
full of company as ever it could hold, and fuller; for rather than be
left out of the parties at Castle Rackrent, many gentlemen, and those
men of the first consequence and landed estates in the country, such as
the O'Neils of Ballynagrotty, and the Moueygawls of Mount Juliet's Town,
and O'Shannons of New Town Tullyhog, made it their choice, often and
often, when there was no room to be had for love nor money, in long
winter nights, to sleep in the chicken-house, which Sir Patrick had
fitted up for the purpose of accommodating his friends and the public in
general, who honoured him with their company unexpectedly at Castle
Rackrent; and this went on, I can't tell you how long--the whole country
rang with his praises!--Long life to him! I'm sure I love to look upon
his picture, now opposite to me; though I never saw him, he must have
been a portly gentleman--his neck something short, and remarkable for
the largest pimple on his nose, which, by his particular desire, is
still extant in his picture, said to be a striking likeness, though
taken when young. He is said also to be the inventor of raspberry
whiskey, which is very likely, as nobody has ever appeared to dispute it
with him, and as there still exists a broken punch-bowl at Castle
Rackrent, in the garret, with an inscription to that effect--a great
curiosity. A few days before his death he was very merry; it being his
honour's birth-day, he called my grandfather in, God bless him! to drink
the company's health, and filled a bumper himself, but could not carry
it to his head, on account of the great shake in his hand; on this he
cast his joke, saying, "What would my poor father say to me if he was to
pop out of the grave, and see me now? I remember when I was a little
boy, the first bumper of claret he gave me after dinner, how he praised
me for carrying it so steady to my mouth. Here's my thanks to him--a
bumper toast." Then he fell to singing the favourite song he learned
from his father--for the last time, poor gentleman--he sung it that
night as loud and as hearty as ever with a chorus:
"He that goes to bed, and goes to bed sober,
Falls as the leaves do, falls as the leaves do, and dies in October;
But he that goes to bed, and goes to bed mellow,
Lives as he ought to do, lives as he ought to do, and dies an honest
fellow."
Sir Patrick died that night: just as the company rose to drink his
health with three cheers, he fell down in a sort of fit, and was carried
off; they sat it out, and were surprised, on inquiry, in the morning, to
find that it was all over with poor Sir Patrick. Never did any gentleman
live and die more beloved in the country by rich and poor. His funeral
was such a one as was never known before or since in the county! All the
gentlemen in the three counties were at it; far and near, how they
flocked! my great grandfather said, that to see all the women even in
their red cloaks, you would have taken them for the army drawn out. Then
such a fine whillaluh![C] you might have heard it to the farthest end of
the county, and happy the man who could get but a sight of the hearse!
But who'd have thought it? just as all was going on right, through his
own town they were passing, when the body was seized for debt--a rescue
was apprehended from the mob; but the heir who attended the funeral was
against that, for fear of consequences, seeing that those villains who
came to serve acted under the disguise of the law: so, to be sure, the
law must take its course, and little gain had the creditors for their
pains. First and foremost, they had the curses of the country: and Sir
Murtagh Rackrent, the new heir, in the next place, on account of this
affront to the body, refused to pay a shilling of the debts, in which he
was countenanced by all the best gentlemen of property, and others of
his acquaintance; Sir Murtagh alleging in all companies, that he all
along meant to pay his father's debts of honour, but the moment the law
was taken of him, there was an end of honour to be sure. It was
whispered (but none but the enemies of the family believe it), that this
was all a sham seizure to get quit of the debts, which he had bound
himself to pay in honour.
It's a long time ago, there's no saying how it was, but this for
certain, the new man did not take at all after the old gentleman; the
cellars were never filled after his death, and no open house, or any
thing as it used to be; the tenants even were sent away without their
whiskey.[D] I was ashamed myself, and knew not what to say for the
honour of the family; but I made the best of a bad case, and laid it all
at my lady's door, for I did not like her any how, nor any body else;
she was of the family of the Skinflints, and a widow; it was a strange
match for Sir Murtagh; the people in the country thought he demeaned
himself greatly,[E] but I said nothing: I knew how it was; Sir Murtagh
was a great lawyer, and looked to the great Skinflint estate; there,
however, he overshot himself; for though one of the co-heiresses, he was
never the better for her, for she outlived him many's the long day--he
could not see that to be sure when he married her. I must say for her,
she made him the best of wives, being a very notable, stirring woman,
and looking close to every thing. But I always suspected she had Scotch
blood in her veins; any thing else I could have looked over in her from
a regard to the family. She was a strict observer for self and servants
of Lent, and all fast days, but not holidays. One of the maids having
fainted three times the last day of Lent, to keep soul and body
together, we put a morsel of roast beef into her mouth, which came from
Sir Murtagh's dinner, who never fasted, not he; but somehow or other it
unfortunately reached my lady's ears, and the priest of the parish had a
complaint made of it the next day, and the poor girl was forced, as soon
as she could walk, to do penance for it, before she could get any peace
or absolution, in the house or out of it. However, my lady was very
charitable in her own way. She had a charity school for poor children,
where they were taught to read and write gratis, and where they were
kept well to spinning gratis for my lady in return; for she had always
heaps of duty yarn from the tenants, and got all her household linen out
of the estate from first to last; for after the spinning, the weavers on
the estate took it in hand for nothing, because of the looms my lady's
interest could get from the Linen Board to distribute gratis. Then there
was a bleach-yard near us, and the tenant dare refuse my lady nothing,
for fear of a law-suit Sir Murtagh kept hanging over him about the
water-course. With these ways of managing, 'tis surprising how cheap my
lady got things done, and how proud she was of it. Her table the same
way, kept for next to nothing;[F] duty fowls, and duty turkeys, and duty
geese, came as fast as we could eat 'em, for my lady kept a sharp
look-out, and knew to a tub of butter every thing the tenants had, all
round. They knew her way, and what with fear of driving for rent and Sir
Murtagh's lawsuits, they were kept in such good order, they never
thought of coming near Castle Rackrent without a present of something or
other--nothing too much or too little for my lady--eggs, honey, butter,
meal, fish, game, grouse, and herrings, fresh or salt, all went for
something. As for their young pigs, we had them, and the best bacon and
hams they could make up, with all young chickens in spring; but they
were a set of poor wretches, and we had nothing but misfortunes with
them, always breaking and running away. This, Sir Murtagh and my lady
said, was all their former landlord Sir Patrick's fault, who let 'em all
get the half year's rent into arrear; there was something in that to be
sure. But Sir Murtagh was as much the contrary way; for let alone making
English tenants[G] of them, every soul, he was always driving and
driving, and pounding and pounding, and canting[H] and canting, and
replevying and replevying, and he made a good living of trespassing
cattle; there was always some tenant's pig, or horse, or cow, or calf,
or goose, trespassing, which was so great a gain to Sir Murtagh, that he
did not like to hear me talk of repairing fences. Then his heriots and
duty-work[I] brought him in something, his turf was cut, his potatoes
set and dug, his hay brought home, and, in short, all the work about his
house done for nothing; for in all our leases there were strict clauses
heavy with penalties, which Sir Murtagh knew well how to enforce; so
many days' duty work of man and horse, from every tenant, he was to
have, and had, every year; and when a man vexed him, why the finest day
he could pitch on, when the cratur was getting in his own harvest, or
thatching his cabin, Sir Murtagh made it a principle to call upon him
and his horse; so he taught 'em all, as he said, to know the law of
landlord and tenant. As for law, I believe no man, dead or alive, ever
loved it so well as Sir Murtagh. He had once sixteen suits pending at a
time, and I never saw him so much himself; roads, lanes, bogs, wells,
ponds, eel-wires, orchards, trees, tithes, vagrants, gravelpits,
sandpits, dunghills, and nuisances, every thing upon the face of the
earth furnished him good matter for a suit. He used to boast that he had
a lawsuit for every letter in the alphabet. How I used to wonder to see
Sir Murtagh in the midst of the papers in his office! Why he could
hardly turn about for them. I made bold to shrug my shoulders once in
his presence, and thanked my stars I was not born a gentleman to so much
toil and trouble; but Sir Murtagh took me up short with his old proverb,
"learning is better than house or land." Out of forty-nine suits which
he had, he never lost one but seventeen;[J] the rest he gained with
costs, double costs, treble costs sometimes; but even that did not pay.
He was a very learned man in the law, and had the character of it; but
how it was I can't tell, these suits that he carried cost him a power of
money; in the end he sold some hundreds a year of the family estate; but
he was a very learned man in the law, and I know nothing of the matter,
except having a great regard for the family; and I could not help
grieving when he sent me to post up notices of the sale of the
fee-simple of the lands and appurtenances of Timoleague. "I know, honest
Thady," says he, to comfort me, "what I'm about better than you do; I'm
only selling to get the ready money wanting to carry on my suit with
spirit with the Nugents of Carrickashaughlin."
He was very sanguine about that suit with the Nugents of
Carrickashaughlin. He could have gained it, they say, for certain, had
it pleased Heaven to have spared him to us, and it would have been at
the least a plump two thousand a-year in his way; but things were
ordered otherwise, for the best to be sure. He dug up a fairy-mount[2]
against my advice, and had no luck afterwards. Though a learned man in
the law, he was a little too incredulous in other matters. I warned him
that I heard the very Banshee[3] that my grandfather heard under Sir
Patrick's window a few days before his death. But Sir Murtagh thought
nothing of the Banshee, nor of his cough, with a spitting of blood,
brought on, I understand, by catching cold in attending the courts, and
overstraining his chest with making himself heard in one of his
favourite causes. He was a great speaker with a powerful voice; but his
last speech was not in the courts at all. He and my lady, though both of
the same way of thinking in some things, and though she was as good a
wife and great economist as you could see, and he the best of husbands,
as to looking into his affairs, and making money for his family; yet I
don't know how it was, they had a great deal of sparring and jarring
between them. My lady had her privy purse--and she had her weed
ashes,[L] and her sealing money[M] upon the signing of all the leases,
with something to buy gloves besides; and, besides, again often took
money from the tenants, if offered properly, to speak for them to Sir
Murtagh about abatements and renewals. Now the weed ashes and the glove
money he allowed her clear perquisites; though once when he saw her in a
new gown saved out of the weed ashes, he told her to my face (for he
could say a sharp thing), that she should not put on her weeds before
her husband's death. But in a dispute about an abatement, my lady would
have the last word, and Sir Murtagh grew mad;[N] I was within hearing of
the door, and now I wish I had made bold to step in. He spoke so loud,
the whole kitchen was out on the stairs.[O] All on a sudden he stopped
and my lady too. Something has surely happened, thought I--and so it
was, for Sir Murtagh in his passion broke a blood-vessel, and all the
law in the land could do nothing in that case. My lady sent for five
physicians, but Sir Murtagh died, and was buried. She had a fine
jointure settled upon her, and took herself away to the great joy of the
tenantry. I never said any thing one way or the other, whilst she was
part of the family, but got up to see her go at three o'clock in the
morning. "It's a fine morning, honest Thady," says she; "good bye to
ye," and into the carriage she stepped, without a word more, good or
bad, or even half-a-crown; but I made my bow, and stood to see her safe
out of sight for the sake of the family.
Then we were all bustle in the house, which made me keep out of the way,
for I walk slow and hate a bustle; but the house was all hurry-skurry,
preparing for my new master. Sir Murtagh, I forgot to notice, had no
childer;[4] so the Rackrent estate went to his younger brother, a young
dashing officer, who came amongst us before I knew for the life of me
where-abouts I was, in a gig or some of them things, with another spark
along with him, and led horses, and servants, and dogs, and scarce a
place to put any Christian of them into; for my late lady had sent all
the feather-beds off before her, and blankets and household linen, down
to the very knife cloths, on the cars to Dublin, which were all her own,
lawfully paid for out of her own money. So the house was quite bare, and
my young master, the moment ever he set foot in it out of his gig,
thought all those things must come of themselves, I believe, for he
never looked after any thing at all, but harum-scarum called for every
thing as if we were conjurers, or he in a public-house. For my part, I
could not bestir myself any how; I had been so much used to my late
master and mistress, all was upside down with me, and the new servants
in the servants' hall were quite out of my way; I had nobody to talk to,
and if it had not been for my pipe and tobacco, should, I verily
believe, have broke my heart for poor Sir Murtagh.
But one morning my new master caught a glimpse of me as I was looking at
his horse's heels, in hopes of a word from him. "And is that old Thady?"
says he, as he got into his gig: I loved him from that day to this, his
voice was so like the family; and he threw me a guinea out of his
waistcoat pocket, as he drew up the reins with the other hand, his horse
rearing too; I thought I never set my eyes on a finer figure of a man,
quite another sort from Sir Murtagh, though withal, _to me_, a family
likeness. A fine life we should have led, had he stayed amongst us, God
bless him! He valued a guinea as little as any man: money to him was no
more than dirt, and his gentleman and groom, and all belonging to him,
the same; but the sporting season over, he grew tired of the place, and
having got down a great architect for the house, and an improver for the
grounds, and seen their plans and elevations, he fixed a day for
settling with the tenants, but went off in a whirlwind to town, just as
some of them came into the yard in the morning. A circular letter came
next post from the new agent, with news that the master was sailed for
England, and he must remit 500_l_. to Bath for his use before a
fortnight was at an end; bad news still for the poor tenants, no change
still for the better with them. Sir Kit Rackrent, my young master, left
all to the agent; and though he had the spirit of a prince, and lived
away to the honour of his country abroad, which I was proud to hear of,
what were we the better for that at home? The agent was one of your
middle men,[5] who grind the face of the poor, and can never bear a man
with a hat upon his head: he ferreted the tenants out of their lives;
not a week without a call for money, drafts upon drafts from Sir Kit;
but I laid it all to the fault of the agent; for, says I, what can Sir
Kit do with so much cash, and he a single man? but still it went. Rents
must be all paid up to the day, and afore; no allowance for improving
tenants, no consideration for those who had built upon their farms: no
sooner was a lease out, but the land was advertised to the highest
bidder, all the old tenants turned out, when they spent their substance
in the hope and trust of a renewal from the landlord. All was now let at
the highest penny to a parcel of poor wretches, who meant to run away,
and did so, after taking two crops out of the ground. Then fining down
the year's rent came into fashion,[P] any thing for the ready penny; and
with all this, and presents to the agent and the driver,[Q] there was no
such thing as standing it. I said nothing, for I had a regard for the
family; but I walked about thinking if his honour Sir Kit knew all this,
it would go hard with him, but he'd see us righted; not that I had any
thing for my own share to complain of, for the agent was always very
civil to me, when he came down into the country, and took a great deal
of notice of my son Jason. Jason Quirk, though he be my son, I must say,
was a good scholar from his birth, and a very 'cute lad: I thought to
make him a priest,[R] but he did better for himself: seeing how he was
as good a clerk as any in the county, the agent gave him his rent
accounts to copy, which he did first of all for the pleasure of obliging
the gentleman, and would take nothing at all for his trouble, but was
always proud to serve the family. By-and-by a good farm bounding us to
the east fell into his honour's hands, and my son put in a proposal for
it: why shouldn't he, as well as another? The proposals all went over to
the master at the Bath, who knowing no more of the land than the child
unborn, only having once been out a grousing on it before he went to
England; and the value of lands, as the agent informed him, falling
every year in Ireland, his honour wrote over in all haste a bit of a
letter, saying he left it all to the agent, and that he must let it as
well as he could to the best bidder, to be sure, and send him over
200_l_., by return of post: with this the agent gave me a hint, and I
spoke a good word for my son, and gave out in the country that nobody
need bid against us. So his proposal was just the thing, and he a good
tenant; and he got a promise of an abatement in the rent, after the
first year, for advancing the half year's rent at signing the lease,
which was wanting to complete the agent's 200_l_., by the return of the
post, with all which my master wrote back he was well satisfied. About
this time we learned from the agent as a great secret, how the money
went so fast, and the reason of the thick coming of the master's drafts:
he was a little too fond of play; and Bath, they say, was no place for a
young man of his fortune, where there were so many of his own countrymen
too hunting him up and down, day and night, who had nothing to lose. At
last, at Christmas, the agent wrote over to stop the drafts, for he
could raise no more money on bond or mortgage, or from the tenants, or
any how, nor had he any more to lend himself, and desired at the same
time to decline the agency for the future, wishing Sir Kit his health
and happiness, and the compliments of the season, for I saw the letter
before ever it was sealed, when my son copied it. When the answer came,
there was a new turn in affairs, and the agent was turned out; and my
son Jason, who had corresponded privately with his honour occasionally
on business, was forthwith desired by his honour to take the accounts
into his own hands, and look them over till further orders. It was a
very spirited letter to be sure: Sir Kit sent his service, and the
compliments of the season, in return to the agent, and he would fight
him with pleasure to-morrow, or any day, for sending him such a letter,
if he was born a gentleman, which he was sorry (for both their sakes) to
find (too late) he was not. Then, in a private postscript, he
condescended to tell us, that all would be speedily settled to his
satisfaction, and we should turn over a new leaf, for he was going to be
married in a fortnight to the grandest heiress in England, and had only
immediate occasion at present for 200_l_., as he would not choose to
touch his lady's fortune for travelling expenses home to Castle
Rackrent, where he intended to be, wind and weather permitting, early in
the next month; and desired fires, and the house to be painted, and the
new building to go on as fast as possible, for the reception of him and
his lady before that time; with several words besides in the letter,
which we could not make out, because, God bless him! he wrote in such a
flurry. My heart warmed to my new lady when I read this; I was almost
afraid it was too good news to be true; but the girls fell to scouring,
and it was well they did, for we soon saw his marriage in the paper, to
a lady with I don't know how many tens of thousand pounds to her
fortune: then I watched the post-office for his landing; and the news
came to my son of his and the bride being in Dublin, and on the way home
to Castle Rackrent. We had bonfires all over the country, expecting him
down the next day, and we had his coming of age still to celebrate,
which he had not time to do properly before he left the country;
therefore a great ball was expected, and great doings upon his coming,
as it were, fresh to take possession of his ancestors' estate. I never
shall forget the day he came home: we had waited and waited all day long
till eleven o'clock at night, and I was thinking of sending the boy to
lock the gates, and giving them up for that night, when there came the
carriages thundering up to the great hall door. I got the first sight of
the bride; for when the carriage door opened, just as she had her foot
on the steps, I held the flam[S] full in her face to light her, at which
she shut her eyes, but I had a full view of the rest, of her, and
greatly shocked I was, for by that light she was little better than a
blackamoor, and seemed crippled, but that was only sitting so long in
the chariot. "You're kindly welcome to Castle Rackrent, my lady," says I
(recollecting who she was); "did your honour hear of the bonfires?" His
honour spoke never a word, nor so much as handed her up the steps--he
looked to me no more like himself than nothing at all; I know I took him
for the skeleton of his honour: I was not sure what to say next to one
or t'other, but seeing she was a stranger in a foreign country, I
thought it but right to speak cheerful to her, so I went back again to
the bonfires. "My lady," says I, as she crossed the hall, "there would
have been fifty times as many, but for fear of the horses, and
frightening your ladyship: Jason and I forbid them, please your honour."
With that she looked at me a little bewildered. "Will I have a fire
lighted in the state-room to-night?" was the next question I put to her,
but never a word she answered, so I concluded she could not speak a word
of English, and was from foreign parts. The short and the long of it
was, I couldn't tell what to make of her; so I left her to herself, and
went straight down to the servants' hall to learn something for certain
about her. Sir Kit's own man was tired, but the groom set him a talking
at last, and we had it all out before ever I closed my eyes that night.
The bride might well be a great fortune--she was a _Jewish_ by all
accounts, who are famous for their great riches. I had never seen any of
that tribe or nation before, and could only gather, that she spoke a
strange kind of English of her own, that she could not abide pork or
sausages, and went neither to church or mass. Mercy upon his honour's
poor soul, thought I; what will become of him and his, and all of us,
with his heretic blackamoor at the head of the Castle Rackrent estate! I
never slept a wink all night for thinking of it: but before the servants
I put my pipe in my mouth, and kept my mind to myself; for I had a great
regard for the family; and after this, when strange gentlemen's servants
came to the house, and would begin to talk about the bride, I took care
to put the best foot foremost, and passed her for a nabob in the
kitchen, which accounted for her dark complexion and every thing.
The very morning after they came home, however, I saw plain enough how
things were between Sir Kit and my lady, though they were walking
together arm in arm after breakfast, looking at the new building and the
improvements. "Old Thady," said my master, just as he used to do, "how
do you do?" "Very well, I thank your honour's honour," said I; but I saw
he was not well pleased, and my heart was in my mouth as I walked along
after him. "Is the large room damp, Thady?" said his honour. "Oh, damp,
your honour! how should it but be as dry as a bone," says I, "after all
the fires we have kept in it day and night? it's the barrack-room[T]
your honour's talking on." "And what is a barrack-room, pray, my dear?"
were the first words I ever heard out of my lady's lips. "No matter, my
dear!" said he, and went on talking to me, ashamed like I should witness
her ignorance. To be sure, to hear her talk one might have taken her for
an innocent,[U] for it was, "what's this, Sir Kit? and what's that, Sir
Kit?" all the way we went. To be sure, Sir Kit had enough to do to
answer her. "And what do you call that, Sir Kit?" said she, "that, that
looks like a pile of black bricks, pray, Sir Kit?" "My turf stack, my
dear," said my master, and bit his lip. Where have you lived, my lady,
all your life, not to know a turf stack when you see it? thought I, but
I said nothing. Then, by-and-by, she takes out her glass, and begins
spying over the country. "And what's all that black swamp out yonder,
Sir Kit?" says she. "My bog, my dear," says he, and went on whistling.
"It's a very ugly prospect, my dear," says she. "You don't see it, my
dear," says he, "for we've planted it out, when the trees grow up in
summer time," says he. "Where are the trees," said she, "my dear?"
still looking through her glass. "You are blind, my dear," says he;
"what are these under your eyes?" "These shrubs," said she. "Trees,"
said he. "May be they are what you call trees in Ireland, my dear,"
said she; "but they are not a yard high, are they?" "They were planted
out but last year, my lady," says I, to soften matters between them,
for I saw she was going the way to make his honour mad with her: "they
are very well grown for their age, and you'll not see the bog of
Allyballycarricko'shaughlin at-all-at-all through the skreen, when once
the leaves come out. But, my lady, you must not quarrel with any part or
parcel of Allyballycarricko'shaughlin, for you don't know how many
hundred years that same bit of bog has been in the family; we would not
part with the bog of Allyballycarricko'shaughlin upon no account at all;
it cost the late Sir Murtagh two hundred good pounds to defend his title
to it and boundaries against the O'Learys, who cut a road through it."
Now one would have thought this would have been hint enough for my lady,
but she fell to laughing like one out of their right mind, and made me
say the name of the bog over for her to get it by heart, a dozen
times--then she must ask me how to spell it, and what was the meaning of
it in English--Sir Kit standing by whistling all the while; I verily
believed she laid the corner stone of all her future misfortunes at that
very instant; but I said no more, only looked at Sir Kit.
There were no balls, no dinners, no doings; the country was all
disappointed--Sir Kit's gentleman said in a whisper to me, it was all my
lady's own fault, because she was so obstinate about the cross. "What
cross?" says I; "is it about her being a heretic?" "Oh, no such matter,"
says he; "my master does not mind her heresies, but her diamond cross,
it's worth I can't tell you how much; and she has thousands of English
pounds concealed in diamonds about her, which she as good as promised to
give up to my master before he married, but now she won't part with any
of them, and she must take the consequences."
Her honey-moon, at least her Irish honey-moon, was scarcely well over,
when his honour one morning said to me, "Thady, buy me a pig!" and then
the sausages were ordered, and here was the first open breaking-out of
my lady's troubles. My lady came down herself into the kitchen, to speak
to the cook about the sausages, and desired never to see them more at
her table. Now my master had ordered them, and my lady knew that. The
cook took my lady's part, because she never came down into the kitchen,
and was young and innocent in housekeeping, which raised her pity;
besides, said she, at her own table, surely, my lady should order and
disorder what she pleases; but the cook soon changed her note, for my
master made it a principle to have the sausages, and swore at her for a
Jew herself, till he drove her fairly out of the kitchen; then, for fear
of her place, and because he threatened that my lady should give her no
discharge without the sausages, she gave up, and from that day forward
always sausages, or bacon, or pig meat in some shape or other, went up
to table; upon which my lady shut herself up in her own room, and my
master said she might stay there, with an oath: and to make sure of her,
he turned the key in the door, and kept it ever after in his pocket. We
none of us ever saw or heard her speak for seven years after that:[6] he
carried her dinner himself. Then his honour had a great deal of company
to dine with him, and balls in the house, and was as gay and gallant,
and as much himself as before he was married; and at dinner he always
drank my Lady Rackrent's good health, and so did the company, and he
sent out always a servant, with his compliments to my Lady Rackrent, and
the company was drinking her ladyship's health, and begged to know if
there was any thing at table he might send her; and the man came back,
after the sham errand, with my Lady Rackrent's compliments, and she was
very much obliged to Sir Kit--she did not wish for any thing, but drank
the company's health. The country, to be sure, talked and wondered at my
lady's being shut up, but nobody chose to interfere or ask any
impertinent questions, for they knew my master was a man very apt to
give a short answer himself, and likely to call a man out for it
afterwards; he was a famous shot; had killed his man before he came of
age, and nobody scarce dared look at him whilst at Bath. Sir Kit's
character was so well known in the country, that he lived in peace and
quietness ever after, and was a great favourite with the ladies,
especially when in process of time, in the fifth year of her
confinement, my Lady Rackrent fell ill, and took entirely to her bed,
and he gave out that she was now skin and bone, and could not last
through the winter. In this he had two physicians' opinions to back him
(for now he called in two physicians for her), and tried all his arts to
get the diamond cross from her on her death-bed, and to get her to make
a will in his favour of her separate possessions; but there she was too
tough for him. He used to swear at her behind her back, after kneeling
to her to her face, and call her in the presence of his gentleman his
stiff-necked Israelite, though before he married her, that same
gentleman told me he used to call her (how he could bring it out, I
don't know) "my pretty Jessica!" To be sure it must have been hard for
her to guess what sort of a husband he reckoned to make her. When she
was lying, to all expectation, on her death-bed of a broken heart, I
could not but pity her, though she was a Jewish; and considering too it
was no fault of hers to be taken with my master so young as she was at
the Bath, and so fine a gentleman as Sir Kit was when he courted her;
and considering too, after all they had heard and seen of him as a
husband, there were now no less than three ladies in our county talked
of for his second wife, all at daggers drawn with each other, as his
gentleman swore, at the balls, for Sir Kit for their partner,--I could
not but think them bewitched; but they all reasoned with themselves,
that Sir Kit would make a good husband to any Christian but a Jewish, I
suppose, and especially as he was now a reformed rake; and it was not
known how my lady's fortune was settled in her will, nor how the Castle
Rackrent estate was all mortgaged, and bonds out against him, for he was
never cured of his gaming tricks; but that was the only fault he had,
God bless him!
My lady had a sort of fit, and it was given out she was dead, by
mistake: this brought things to a sad crisis for my poor master,--one of
the three ladies showed his letters to her brother, and claimed his
promises, whilst another did the same. I don't mention names. Sir Kit,
in his defence, said he would meet any man who dared to question his
conduct, and as to the ladies, they must settle it amongst them who was
to be his second, and his third, and his fourth, whilst his first was
still alive, to his mortification and theirs. Upon this, as upon all
former occasions, he had the voice of the country with him, on account
of the great spirit and propriety he acted with. He met and shot the
first lady's brother; the next day he called out the second, who had a
wooden-leg; and their place of meeting by appointment being in a new
ploughed field, the wooden-leg man stuck fast in it. Sir Kit, seeing his
situation, with great candour fired his pistol over his head; upon which
the seconds interposed, and convinced the parties there had been a
slight misunderstanding between them; thereupon they shook hands
cordially, and went home to dinner together. This gentleman, to show the
world how they stood together, and by the advice of the friends of both
parties, to re-establish his sister's injured reputation, went out with
Sir Kit as his second, and carried his message next day to the last of
his adversaries: I never saw him in such fine spirits as that day he
went out--sure enough he was within ames-ace of getting quit handsomely
of all his enemies; but unluckily, after hitting the tooth-pick out of
his adversary's finger and thumb, he received a ball in a vital part,
and was brought home, in little better than an hour after the affair,
speechless on a hand-barrow, to my lady. We got the key out of his
pocket the first thing we did, and my son Jason ran to unlock the
barrack-room, where my lady had been shut up for seven years, to
acquaint her with the fatal accident. The surprise bereaved her of her
senses at first, nor would she believe but we were putting some new
trick upon her, to entrap her out of her jewels, for a great while, till
Jason bethought himself of taking her to the window, and showed her the
men bringing Sir Kit up the avenue upon the hand-barrow, which had
immediately the desired effect; for directly she burst into tears, and
pulling her cross from her bosom, she kissed it with as great devotion
as ever I witnessed; and lifting up her eyes to heaven, uttered some
ejaculation, which none present heard; but I take the sense of it to be,
she returned thanks for this unexpected interposition in her favour when
she had least reason to expect it. My master was greatly lamented: there
was no life in him when we lifted him off the barrow, so he was laid out
immediately, and _waked_ the same night. The country was all in an
uproar about him, and not a soul but cried shame upon his murderer; who
would have been hanged surely, if he could have been brought to his
trial, whilst the gentlemen in the country were up about it; but he very
prudently withdrew himself to the continent before the affair was made
public. As for the young lady, who was the immediate cause of the fatal
accident, however innocently, she could never show her head after at the
balls in the county or any place; and by the advice of her friends and
physicians, she was ordered soon after to Bath, where it was expected,
if any where on this side of the grave, she would meet with the recovery
of her health and lost peace of mind. As a proof of his great
popularity, I need only add, that there was a song made upon my master's
untimely death in the newspapers, which was in every body's mouth,
singing up and down through the country, even down to the mountains,
only three days after his unhappy exit. He was also greatly bemoaned at
the Curragh,[V] where his cattle were well known; and all who had taken
up his bets were particularly inconsolable for his loss to society. His
stud sold at the cant[X] at the greatest price ever known in the county;
his favourite horses were chiefly disposed of amongst his particular
friends, who would give any price for them for his sake; but no ready
money was required by the new heir, who wished not to displease any of
the gentlemen of the neighbourhood just upon his coming to settle
amongst them; so a long credit was given where requisite, and the cash
has never been gathered in from that day to this.
But to return to my lady:--She got surprisingly well after my master's
decease. No sooner was it known for certain that he was dead, than all
the gentlemen within twenty miles of us came in a body, as it were, to
set my lady at liberty, and to protest against her confinement, which
they now for the first time understood was against her own consent The
ladies too were as attentive as possible, striving who should be
foremost with their morning visits; and they that saw the diamonds spoke
very handsomely of them, but thought it a pity they were not bestowed,
if it had so pleased God, upon a lady who would have become them better.
All these civilities wrought little with my lady, for she had taken an
unaccountable prejudice against the country, and every thing belonging
to it, and was so partial to her native land, that after parting with
the cook, which she did immediately upon my master's decease, I never
knew her easy one instant, night or day, but when she was packing up to
leave us. Had she meant to make any stay in Ireland, I stood a great
chance of being a great favourite with her; for when she found I
understood the weathercock, she was always finding some pretence to be
talking to me, and asking me which way the wind blew, and was it likely,
did I think, to continue fair for England. But when I saw she had made
up her mind to spend the rest of her days upon her own income and jewels
in England, I considered her quite as a foreigner, and not at all any
longer as part of the family. She gave no vails to the servants at
Castle Rackrent at parting, notwithstanding the old proverb of "_as rich
as a Jew_," which she being a Jewish, they built upon with reason. But
from first to last she brought nothing but misfortunes amongst us; and
if it had not been all along with her, his honour, Sir Kit, would have
been now alive in all appearance. Her diamond cross was, they say, at
the bottom of it all; and it was a shame for her, being his wife, not to
show more duty, and to have given it up when he condescended to ask so
often for such a bit of a trifle in his distresses, especially when he
all along made it no secret he married for money. But we will not bestow
another thought upon her. This much I thought it lay upon my conscience
to say, in justice to my poor master's memory.
'Tis an ill wind that blows nobody no good--the same wind that took
the Jew Lady Rackrent over to England, brought over the new heir to
Castle Rackrent.
Here let me pause for breath in my story, for though I had a great
regard for every member of the family, yet without compare Sir Conolly,
commonly called, for short, amongst his friends, Sir Condy Rackrent, was
ever my great favourite, and, indeed, the most universally beloved man I
had ever seen or heard of, not excepting his great ancestor Sir Patrick,
to whose memory he, amongst other instances of generosity, erected a
handsome marble stone in the church of Castle Rackrent, setting forth in
large letters his age, birth, parentage, and many other virtues,
concluding with the compliment so justly due, that "Sir Patrick
Rackrent lived and died a monument of old Irish hospitality."
CONTINUATION OF THE MEMOIRS OF THE RACKRENT FAMILY.
HISTORY OF SIR CONOLLY RACKRENT.
Sir Condy Rackrent, by the grace of God heir-at-law to the Castle
Rackrent estate, was a remote branch of the family: born to little or
no fortune of his own, he was bred to the bar; at which, having many
friends to push him, and no mean natural abilities of his own, he
doubtless would, in process of time, if he could have borne the
drudgery of that study, have been rapidly made king's counsel, at the
least; but things were disposed of otherwise, and he never went the
circuit but twice, and then made no figure for want of a fee, and being
unable to speak in public. He received his education chiefly in the
college of Dublin; but before he came to years of discretion lived in
the country, in a small but slated house, within view of the end of the
avenue. I remember him bare footed and headed, running through the
street of O'Shaughlin's town, and playing at pitch and toss, ball,
marbles, and what not, with the boys of the town, amongst whom my son
Jason was a great favourite with him. As for me, he was ever my
white-headed boy: often's the time when I would call in at his
father's, where I was always made welcome; he would slip down to me in
the kitchen, and love to sit on my knee, whilst I told him stories of
the family, and the blood from which he was sprung, and how he might
look forward, if the _then_ present man should die without childer, to
being at the head of the Castle Rackrent estate. This was then spoke
quite and clear at random to please the child, but it pleased Heaven to
accomplish my prophecy afterwards, which gave him a great opinion of my
judgment in business. He went to a little grammar-school with many
others, and my son amongst the rest, who was in his class, and not a
little useful to him in his book learning, which he acknowledged with
gratitude ever after. These rudiments of his education thus completed,
he got a-horseback, to which exercise he was ever addicted, and used to
gallop over the country while yet but a slip of a boy, under the care
of Sir Kit's huntsman, who was very fond of him, and often lent him his
gun, and took him out a-shooting under his own eye. By these means he
became well acquainted and popular amongst the poor in the
neighbourhood early; for there was not a cabin at which he had not
stopped some morning or other, along with the huntsman, to drink a
glass of burnt whiskey out of an eggshell, to do him good and warm his
heart, and drive the cold out of his stomach. The old people always
told him he was a great likeness of Sir Patrick; which made him first
have an ambition to take after him, as far as his fortune should allow.
He left us when of an age to enter the college, and there completed his
education and nineteenth year; for as he was not born to an estate, his
friends thought it incumbent on them to give him the best education
which could be had for love or money; and a great deal of money
consequently was spent upon him at College and temple. He was a very
little altered for the worse by what he saw there of the great world;
for when he came down into the country, to pay us a visit, we thought
him just the same man as ever, hand and glove with every one, and as
far from high, though not without his own proper share of family pride,
as any man ever you see. Latterly, seeing how Sir Kit and the Jewish
lived together, and that there was no one between him and the Castle
Rackrent estate, he neglected to apply to the law as much as was
expected of him; and secretly many of the tenants, and others, advanced
him cash upon his note of hand value received, promising bargains of
leases and lawful interest, should he ever come into the estate. All
this was kept a great secret, for fear the present man, hearing of it,
should take it into his head to take it ill of poor Condy, and so
should cut him off for ever, by levying a fine, and suffering a
recovery to dock the entail.[Y] Sir Murtagh would have been the man for
that; but Sir Kit was too much taken up philandering to consider the
law in this case, or any other. These practices I have mentioned, to
account for the state of his affairs, I mean Sir Condy's, upon his
coming into the Castle Rackrent estate. He could not command a penny of
his first year's income; which, and keeping no accounts, and the great
sight of company he did, with many other causes too numerous to
mention, was the origin of his distresses. My son Jason, who was now
established agent, and knew every thing, explained matters out of the
face to Sir Conolly, and made him sensible of his embarrassed
situation. With a great nominal rent-roll, it was almost all paid away
in interest; which being for convenience suffered to run on, soon
doubled the principal, and Sir Condy was obliged to pass new bonds for
the interest, now grown principal, and so on. Whilst this was going on,
my son requiring to be paid for his trouble, and many years' service in
the family gratis, and Sir Condy not willing to take his affairs into
his own hands, or to look them even in the face, he gave my son a
bargain of some acres, which Jell out of lease, at a reasonable rent.
Jason set the land, as soon as his lease was sealed, to under tenants,
to make the rent, and got two hundred a-year profit rent; which was
little enough considering his long agency. He bought the land at twelve
years' purchase two years afterwards, when Sir Condy was pushed for
money on an execution, and was at the same time allowed for his
improvements thereon. There was a sort of hunting-lodge upon the
estate, convenient to my son Jason's land, which he had his eye upon
about this time; and he was a little jealous of Sir Condy, who talked
of setting it to a stranger, who was just come into the
country--Captain Moneygawl was the man. He was son and heir to the
Moneygawls of Mount Juliet's town, who had a great estate in the next
county to ours; and my master was loth to disoblige the young
gentleman, whose heart was set upon the lodge; so he wrote him back,
that the lodge was at his service, and if he would honour him with his
company at Castle Rackrent, they could ride over together some morning,
and look at it, before signing the lease. Accordingly the captain came
over to us, and he and Sir Condy grew the greatest friends ever you
see, and were for ever out a-shooting or hunting together, and were
very merry in the evenings; and Sir Condy was invited of course to
Mount Juliet's town; and the family intimacy that had been in Sir
Patrick's time was now recollected, and nothing would serve Sir Condy
but he must be three times a-week at the least with his new friends,
which grieved me, who knew, by the captain's groom and gentleman, how
they talked of him at Mount Juliet's town, making him quite, as one may
say, a laughing-stock and a butt for the whole company; but they were
soon cured of _that_ by an accident that surprised 'em not a little, as
it did me. There was a bit of a scrawl found upon the waiting-maid of
old Mr. Moneygawl's youngest daughter, Miss Isabella, that laid open
the whole; and her father, they say, was like _one out of his right
mind_, and swore it was the last thing he ever should have thought of,
when he invited my master to his house, that his daughter should
think of such a match. But their talk signified not a straw, for, as
Miss. Isabella's maid reported, her young mistress was fallen over head
and ears in love with Sir Condy, from the first time that ever her
brother brought him into the house to dinner: the servant who waited
that day behind my master's chair was the first who knew it, as he
says; though it's hard to believe him, for he did not tell it till a
great while afterwards; but, however, it's likely enough, as the thing
turned out, that he was not far out of the way; for towards the middle
of dinner, as he says, they were talking of stage-plays, having a
playhouse, and being great play-actors at Mount Juliet's town; and Miss
Isabella turns short to my master, and says, "Have you seen the
play-bill, Sir Condy?" "No, I have not," said he. "Then more shame for
you," said the captain her brother, "not to know that my sister is to
play Juliet to-night, who plays it better than any woman on or off the
stage in all Ireland." "I am very happy to hear it," said Sir Condy;
and there the matter dropped for the present. But Sir Condy all this
time, and it great while afterwards, was at a terrible nonplus; for he
had no liking, not he, to stage-plays, nor to Miss Isabella either; to
his mind, as it came out over a bowl of whiskey-punch at home, his
little Judy M'Quirk, who was daughter to a sister's son of mine, was
worth twenty of Miss Isabella. He had seen her often when he stopped at
her father's cabin to drink whiskey out of the egg-shell, out hunting,
before he came to the estate, and, as she gave out, was under something
like a promise of marriage to her. Any how, I could not but pity my
poor master, who was so bothered between them, and he an easy-hearted
man, that could not disoblige nobody, God bless him! To be sure, it was
not his place to behave ungenerous to Miss Isabella, who had disobliged
all her relations for his sake, as he remarked; and then she was locked
up in her chamber, and forbid to think of him any more, which raised
his spirit, because his family was, as he observed, as good as theirs
at any rate, and the Rackrents a suitable match for the Moneygawls any
day in the year: all which was true enough; but it grieved me to see,
that upon the strength of all this, Sir Condy was growing more in the
mind to carry off Miss Isabella to Scotland, in spite of her relations,
as she desired.
"It's all over with our poor Judy!" said I, with a heavy sigh, making
bold to speak to him one night when he was a little cheerful, and
standing in the servants' hall all alone with me, as was often his
custom. "Not at all," said he; "I never was fonder of Judy than at this
present speaking; and to prove it to you," said he, and he took from my
hand a halfpenny, change that I had just got along with my tobacco,
"and to prove it to you, Thady," says he, "it's a toss up with me which
I should marry this minute, her or Mr. Moneygawl of Mount Juliet's
town's daughter--so it is." "Oh, boo! boo!" [7] says I, making light of
it, to see what he would go on to next; "your honour's joking, to be
sure; there's no compare between our poor Judy and Miss Isabella, who
has a great fortune, they say." "I'm not a man to mind a fortune, nor
never was," said Sir Condy, proudly, "whatever her friends may say; and
to make short of it," says he, "I'm come to a determination upon the
spot;" with that he swore such a terrible oath, as made me cross myself;
"and by this book," said he, snatching up my ballad book, mistaking it
for my prayer book, which lay in the window; "and by this book," says
he, "and by all the books that ever were shut and opened, it's come to
a toss-up with me, and I'll stand or fall by the toss; and so Thady,
hand me over that _pin_[8] out of the ink-horn," and he makes a cross
on the smooth side of the halfpenny; "Judy M'Quirk," says he, "her
mark." [9] God bless him! his hand was a little unsteadied by all the
whiskey punch he had taken, but it was plain to see his heart was for
poor Judy. My heart was all as one as in my mouth when I saw the
halfpenny up in the air, but I said nothing at all; and when it came
down, I was glad I had kept myself to myself, for to be sure now it was
all over with poor Judy. "Judy's out a luck," said I, striving to laugh.
"I'm out a luck," said he; and I never saw a man look so cast down: he
took up the halfpenny off the flag, and walked away quite sober-like by
the shock. Now, though as easy a man, you would think, as any in the
wide world, there was no such thing as making him unsay one of these
sort of vows,[10] which he had learned to reverence when young, as I
well remember teaching him to toss up for bog-berries on my knee. So I
saw the affair was as good as settled between him and Miss Isabella,
and I had no more to say but to wish her joy, which I did the week
afterwards, upon her return from Scotland with my poor master.
My new lady was young, as might be supposed of a lady that had been
carried off, by her own consent, to Scotland; but I could only see her
at first through her veil, which, from bashfulness or fashion, she kept
over her face. "And am I to walk through all this crowd of people, my
dearest love?" said she to Sir Condy, meaning us servants and tenants,
who had gathered at the hack gate. "My dear," said Sir Condy, "there's
nothing for it but to walk, or to let me carry you as far as the house,
for you see the back road is too narrow for a carriage, and the great
piers have tumbled down across the front approach; so there's no driving
the right way, by reason of the ruins." "Plato, thou reasonest well!"
said she, or words to that effect, which I could no ways understand; and
again, when her foot stumbled against a broken bit of a car-wheel, she
cried out, "Angels and ministers of grace defend us!" Well, thought I,
to be sure, if she's no Jewish, like the last, she is a mad woman for
certain, which is as bad: it would have been as well for my poor master
to have taken up with poor Judy, who is in her right mind, any how.
She was dressed like a mad woman, moreover, more than like any one I
ever saw afore or since, and I could not take my eyes off her, but still
followed behind her; and her feathers on the top of her hat were broke
going in at the low back door, and she pulled out her little bottle out
of her pocket to smell to when she found herself in the kitchen, and
said, "I shall faint with the heat of this odious, odious place." "My
dear, it's only three steps across the kitchen, and there's a fine air
if your veil was up," said Sir Condy, and with that threw hack her veil,
so that I had then a full sight of her face; she had not at all the
colour of one going to faint, but a fine complexion of her own, as I
then took it to be, though her maid told me after it was all put on; but
even complexion and all taken in, she was no way, in point of good
looks, to compare to poor Judy; and with all she had a quality toss with
her; but may be it was my over-partiality to Judy, into whose place I
may say she stepped, that made me notice all this. To do her justice,
however, she was, when we came to know her better, very liberal in her
house-keeping, nothing at all of the skinflint in her; she left every
thing to the housekeeper; and her own maid, Mrs. Jane, who went with her
to Scotland, gave her the best of characters for generosity. She seldom
or ever wore a thing twice the same way, Mrs. Jane told us, and was
always pulling her things to pieces, and giving them away; never being
used, in her father's house, to think of expense in any thing; and she
reckoned, to be sure, to go on the same way at Castle Rackrent; but,
when I came to inquire, I learned that her father was so mad with her
for running off, after his locking her up, and forbidding her to think
any more of Sir Condy, that he would not give her a farthing; and it was
lucky for her she had a few thousands of her own, which had been left to
her by a good grandmother, and these were very convenient to begin with.
My master and my lady set out in great style; they had the finest coach
and chariot, and horses and liveries, and cut the greatest dash in the
county, returning their wedding visits: and it was immediately reported,
that her father had undertaken to pay all my master's debts, and of
course all his tradesmen gave him a new credit, and every thing went on
smack smooth, and I could not but admire my lady's spirit, and was proud
to see Castle Rackrent again in all its glory. My lady had a fine taste
for building, and furniture, and playhouses, and she turned every thing
topsy-turvy, and made the barrack-room into a theatre, as she called it,
and she went on as if she had a mint of money at her elbow; and, to be
sure, I thought she knew best, especially as Sir Condy said nothing to
it one way or the other. All he asked, God bless him! was to live in
peace and quietness, and have his bottle or his whiskey punch at night
to himself. Now this was little enough, to be sure, for any gentleman;
but my lady couldn't abide the smell of the whiskey punch. "My dear,"
says he, "you liked it well enough before we were married, and why not
now?" "My dear," said she, "I never smelt it, or I assure you I should
never have prevailed upon myself to marry you." "My dear, I am sorry you
did not smell it; but we can't help that now," returned my master,
without putting himself in a passion, or going out of his way, but just
fair and easy helped himself to another glass, and drank it off to her
good health. All this the butler told me, who was going backwards and
forwards unnoticed with the jug, and hot water, and sugar, and all he
thought wanting. Upon my master's swallowing the last glass of whiskey
punch, my lady burst into tears, calling him an ungrateful, base,
barbarous wretch! and went off into a fit of hysterics, as I think Mrs.
Jane called it, and my poor master was greatly frightened, this being
the first thing of the kind he had seen; and he fell straight on his
knees before her, and, like a good-hearted cratur as he was, ordered the
whiskey punch out of the room, and bid 'em throw open all the windows,
and cursed himself: and then my lady came to herself again, and when she
saw him kneeling there, bid him get up, and not forswear himself any
more, for that she was sure he did not love her, and never had: this we
learned from Mrs. Jane, who was the only person left present at all
this. "My dear," returns my master, thinking, to be sure, of Judy, as
well he might, "whoever told you so is an incendiary, and I'll have 'em
turned out of the house this minute, if you'll only let me know which of
them it was." "Told me what?" said my lady, starting upright in her
chair. "Nothing at all, nothing at all," said my master, seeing he had
overshot himself, and that my lady spoke at random; "but what you said
just now, that I did not love you, Bella; who told you that?" "My own
sense," she said, and she put her handkerchief to her face, and leant
back upon Mrs. Jane, and fell to sobbing as if her heart would break.
"Why now, Bella, this is very strange of you," said my poor master; "if
nobody has told you--nothing, what is it you are taking on for at this
rate, and exposing yourself and me for this way?" "Oh, say no more, say
no more; every word you say kills me," cried my lady; and she ran on
like one, as Mrs. Jane says, raving, "Oh, Sir Condy, Sir Condy! I that
had hoped to find in you----" "Why now, faith, this is a little too
much; do, Bella, try to recollect yourself, my dear; am not I your
husband, and of your own choosing; and is not that enough?" "Oh, too
much! too much!" cried my lady, wringing her hands. "Why, my dear, come
to your right senses, for the love of heaven. See, is not the whiskey
punch, jug and bowl, and all, gone out of the room long ago? What is it,
in the wide world, you have to complain of?" But still my lady sobbed
and sobbed, and called herself the most wretched of women; and among
other out-of-the-way provoking things, asked my master, was he fit for
company for her, and he drinking all night? This nettling him, which it
was hard to do, he replied, that as to drinking all night, he was then
as sober as she was herself, and that it was no matter how much a man
drank, provided it did no ways affect or stagger him: that as to being
fit company for her, he thought himself of a family to be fit company
for any lord or lady in the land; but that he never prevented her from
seeing and keeping what company she pleased, and that he had done his
best to make Castle Rackrent pleasing to her since her marriage, having
always had the house full of visitors, and if her own relations were not
amongst them, he said that was their own fault, and their pride's fault,
of which he was sorry to find her ladyship had so unbecoming a share. So
concluding, he took his candle and walked off to his room, and my lady
was in her tantarums for three days after; and would have been so much
longer, no doubt, but some of her friends, young ladies, and cousins,
and second cousins, came to Castle Rackrent, by my poor master's express
invitation, to see her, and she was in a hurry to get up, as Mrs. Jane
called it, a play for them, and so got well, and was as finely dressed,
and as happy to look at, as ever; and all the young ladies, who used to
be in her room dressing of her, said, in Mrs. Jane's hearing, that my
lady was the happiest bride ever they had seen, and that to be sure a
love-match was the only thing for happiness, where the parties could any
way afford it.
As to affording it, God knows it was little they knew of the matter; my
lady's few thousands could not last for ever, especially the way she
went on with them; and letters from tradesfolk came every post thick and
threefold with bills as long as my arm, of years' and years' standing:
my son Jason had 'em all handed over to him, and the pressing letters
were all unread by Sir Condy, who hated trouble, and could never be
brought to hear talk of business, but still put it off and put it off,
saying, settle it any how, or bid 'em call again to-morrow, or speak to
me about it some other time. Now it was hard to find the right time to
speak, for in the mornings he was a-bed, and in the evenings over his
bottle, where no gentleman chooses to be disturbed. Things in a
twelvemonth or so came to such a pass there was no making a shift to go
on any longer, though we were all of us well enough used to live from
hand to mouth at Castle Rackrent. One day, I remember, when there was a
power of company, all sitting after dinner in the dusk, not to say dark,
in the drawing-room, my lady having rung five times for candles, and
none to go up, the housekeeper sent up the footman, who went to my
mistress, and whispered behind her chair how it was. "My lady," says he,
"there are no candles in the house." "Bless me," says she; "then take a
horse and gallop off as fast as you can to Carrick O'Fungus, and get
some." "And in the mean time tell them to step into the playhouse, and
try if there are not some bits left," added Sir Condy, who happened to
be within hearing. The man was sent up again to my lady, to let her know
there was no horse to go, but one that wanted a shoe. "Go to Sir Condy
then; I know nothing at all about the horses," said my lady; "why do you
plague me with these things?" How it was settled I really forget, but to
the best of my remembrance, the boy was sent down to my son Jason's to
borrow candles for the night. Another time in the winter, and on a
desperate cold day, there was no turf in for the parlour and above
stairs, and scarce enough for the cook in the kitchen; the little
_gossoon_[11] was sent off to the neighbours, to see and beg or borrow
some, but none could he bring back with him for love or money; so as
needs must, we were forced to trouble Sir Condy--"Well, and if there's
no turf to be had in the town or country, why what signifies talking any
more about it; can't ye go and cut down a tree?" "Which tree, please
your honour?" I made bold to say. "Any tree at all that's good to burn,"
said Sir Condy; "send off smart and get one down, and the fires lighted,
before my lady gets up to breakfast, or the house will be too hot to
hold us." He was always very considerate in all things about my lady,
and she wanted for nothing whilst he had it to give. Well, when things
were tight with them about this time, my son Jason put in a word again
about the lodge, and made a genteel offer to lay down the
purchase-money, to relieve Sir Condy's distresses. Now Sir Condy had it
from the best authority, that there were two writs come down to the
sheriff against his person, and the sheriff, as ill luck would have it,
was no friend of his, and talked how he must do his duty, and how he
would do it, if it was against the first man in the country, or even his
own brother; let alone one who had voted against him at the last
election, as Sir Condy had done. So Sir Condy was fain to take the
purchase-money of the lodge from my son Jason to settle matters; and
sure enough it was a good bargain for both parties, for my son bought
the fee-simple of a good house for him and his heirs for ever, for
little or nothing, and by selling of it for that same, my master saved
himself from a gaol. Every way it turned out fortunate for Sir Condy;
for before the money was all gone there came a general election, and he
being so well beloved in the county, and one of the oldest families, no
one had a better right to stand candidate for the vacancy; and he was
called upon by all his friends, and the whole county I may say, to
declare himself against the old member, who had little thought of a
contest. My master did not relish the thoughts of a troublesome canvass,
and all the ill-will he might bring upon himself by disturbing the peace
of the county, besides the expense, which was no trifle; but all his
friends called upon one another to subscribe, and they formed themselves
into a committee, and wrote all his circular letters for him, and
engaged all his agents, and did all the business unknown to him; and he
was well pleased that it should be so at last, and my lady herself was
very sanguine about the election; and there was open house kept night
and day at Castle Rackrent, and I thought I never saw my lady look so
well in her life as she did at that time: there were grand dinners, and
all the gentlemen drinking success to Sir Condy till they were carried
off; and then dances and balls, and the ladies all finishing with a
raking pot of tea in the morning.[Z] Indeed it was well the company made
it their choice to sit up all nights, for there were not half beds
enough for the sights of people that were in it, though there were
shake-downs in the drawing-room always made up before sunrise for those
that liked it. For my part, when I saw the doings that were going on,
and the loads of claret that went down the throats of them that had no
right to be asking for it, and the sights of meat that went up to table
and never came down, besides what was carried off to one or t'other
below stairs, I couldn't but pity my poor master, who was to pay for
all; but I said nothing, for fear of gaining myself ill-will. The day of
election will come some time or other, says I to myself, and all will be
over; and so it did, and a glorious day it was as any I ever had the
happiness to see. "Huzza! huzza! Sir Condy Rackrent for ever!" was the
first thing I hears in the morning, and the same and nothing else all
day, and not a soul sober only just when polling, enough to give their
votes as became 'em, and to stand the browbeating of the lawyers, who
came tight enough upon us; and many of our freeholders were knocked off,
having never a freehold that they could safely swear to, and Sir Condy
was not willing to have any man perjure himself for his sake, as was
done on the other side, God knows; but no matter for that. Some of our
friends were dumb-founded, by the lawyers asking them: Had they ever
been upon the ground where their free-holds lay? Now, Sir Condy being
tender of the consciences of them that had not been on the ground, and
so could not swear to a freehold when cross-examined by them lawyers,
sent out for a couple of cleaves-full of the sods of his farm of
Gulteeshinnagh[12] and as soon as the sods came into town, he set each
man upon his sod, and so then, ever after, you know, they could fairly
swear they had been upon the ground.[13] We gained the day by this piece
of honesty.[A2] I thought I should have died in the streets for joy when
I seed my poor master chaired, and he bareheaded, and it raining as hard
as it could pour; but all the crowds following him up and down, and he
bowing and shaking hands with the whole town. "Is that Sir Condy
Rackrent in the chair?" says a stranger man in the crowd. "The same,"
says I; "who else should it he? God bless him!" "And I take it, then,
you belong to him?" says he. "Not at all," says I; "but I live under
him, and have done so these two hundred years and upwards, me and mine."
"It's lucky for you, then," rejoins he, "that he is where he is; for was
he any where else but in the chair, this minute he'd be in a worse
place; for I was sent down on purpose to put him up,[14] and here's my
order for so doing in my pocket." It was a writ that villain the wine
merchant had marked against my poor master for some hundreds of an old
debt, which it was a shame to be talking of at such a time as this. "Put
it in your pocket again, and think no more of it any ways for seven
years to come, my honest friend," says I; "he's a member of parliament
now, praised be God, and such as you can't touch him: and if you'll take
a fool's advice, I'd have you keep out of the way this day, or you'll
run a good chance of getting your deserts amongst my master's friends,
unless you choose to drink his health like every body else." "I've no
objection to that in life," said he; so we went into one of the public
houses kept open for my master; and we had a great deal of talk about
this thing and that. "And how is it," says he, "your master keeps on so
well upon his legs? I heard say he was off Holantide twelvemonth past."
"Never was better or heartier in his life," said I. "It's not that I'm
after speaking of," said he; "but there was a great report of his being
ruined." "No matter," says I, "the sheriffs two years running were his
particular friends, and the sub-sheriffs were both of them gentlemen,
and were properly spoken to; and so the writs lay snug with them, and
they, as I understand by my son Jason the custom in them cases is,
returned the writs as they came to them to those that sent 'em; much
good may it do them! with a word in Latin, that no such person as Sir
Condy Rackrent, Bart., was to be found in those parts." "Oh, I
understand all those ways better, no offence, than you," says he,
laughing, and at the same time filling his glass to my master's good
health, which convinced me he was a warm friend in his heart after all,
though appearances were a little suspicious or so at first. "To be
sure," says he, still cutting his joke, "when a man's over head and
shoulders in debt, he may live the faster for it, and the better, if he
goes the right way about it; or else how is it so many live on so well,
as we see every day, after they are ruined?" "How is it," says I, being
a little merry at the time; "how is it but just as you see the ducks in
the chicken-yard, just after their heads are cut off by the cook,
running round and round faster than when alive?" At which conceit he
fell a laughing, and remarked he had never had the happiness yet to see
the chicken-yard at Castle Rackrent. "It won't be long so, I hope," says
I; "you'll be kindly welcome there, as every body is made by my master:
there is not a freer spoken gentleman, or a better beloved, high or low,
in all Ireland." And of what passed after this I'm not sensible, for we
drank Sir Condy's good health and the downfall of his enemies till we
could stand no longer ourselves. And little did I think at the time, or
till long after, how I was harbouring my poor master's greatest of
enemies myself. This fellow had the impudence, after coming to see the
chicken-yard, to get me to introduce him to my son Jason; little more
than the man that never was born did I guess at his meaning by this
visit: he gets him a correct list fairly drawn out from my son Jason of
all my master's debts, and goes straight round to the creditors and buys
them all up, which he did easy enough, seeing the half of them never
expected to see their money out of Sir Condy's hands. Then, when this
base-minded limb of the law, as I afterward detected him in being, grew
to be sole creditor over all, he takes him out a custodiam on all the
denominations and sub-denominations, and every carton[B2] and half
carton upon the estate; and not content with that, must have an
execution against the master's goods and down to the furniture, though
little worth, of Castle Rackrent itself. But this is a part of my story
I'm not come to yet, and its bad to be forestalling: ill news flies fast
enough all the world over.
To go back to the day of the election, which I never think of but with
pleasure and tears of gratitude for those good times; after the election
was quite and clean over, there comes shoals of people from all parts,
claiming to have obliged my master with their votes, and putting him in
mind of promises which he could never remember himself to have made: one
was to have a freehold for each of his four sons; another was to have a
renewal of a lease; another an abatement; one came to be paid ten
guineas for a pair of silver buckles sold my master on the hustings,
which turned out to be no better than copper gilt; another had a long
bill for oats, the half of which never went into the granary to my
certain knowledge, and the other half were not fit for the cattle to
touch; but the bargain was made the week before the election, and the
coach and saddle horses were got into order for the day, besides a vote
fairly got by them oats; so no more reasoning on that head; but then
there was no end to them that were telling Sir Condy he had engaged to
make their sons excisemen, or high constables, or the like; and as for
them that had bills to give in for liquor, and beds, and straw, and
ribands, and horses, and postchaises for the gentlemen freeholders that
came from all parts and other counties to vote for my master, and were
not, to be sure, to be at any charges, there was no standing against all
these; and, worse than all, the gentlemen of my master's committee, who
managed all for him, and talked how they'd bring him in without costing
him a penny, and subscribed by hundreds very genteelly, forgot to pay
their subscriptions, and had laid out in agents' and lawyers' fees and
secret service money the Lord knows how much; and my master could never
ask one of them for their subscription you are sensible, nor for the
price of a fine horse he had sold one of them; so it all was left at his
door. He could never, God bless him again! I say, bring himself to ask a
gentleman for money, despising such sort of conversation himself; but
others, who were not gentlemen born, behaved very uncivil in pressing
him at this very time, and all he could do to content 'em all was to
take himself out of the way as fast as possible to Dublin, where my lady
had taken a house fitting for him as a member of parliament, to attend
his duty in there all the winter. I was very lonely when the whole
family was gone, and all the things they had ordered to go, and forgot,
sent after them by the car. There was then a great silence in Castle
Rackrent, and I went moping from room to room, hearing the doors clap
for want of right locks, and the wind through the broken windows, that
the glazier never would come to mend, and the rain coming through the
roof and best ceilings all over the house for want of the slater, whose
bill was not paid, besides our having no slates or shingles for that
part of the old building which was shingled and burnt when the chimney
took fire, and had been open to the weather ever since. I took myself to
the servants' hall in the evening to smoke my pipe as usual, but missed
the bit of talk we used to have there sadly, and ever after was content
to stay in the kitchen and boil my little potatoes,[15] and put up my
bed there; and every post-day I looked in the newspaper, but no news of
my master in the House; he never spoke good or bad; but as the butler
wrote down word to my son Jason, was very ill used by the government
about a place that was promised him and never given, after his
supporting them against his conscience very honourably, and being
greatly abused for it, which hurt him greatly, he having the name of a
great patriot in the country before. The house and living in Dublin too
were not to be had for nothing, and my son Jason said, "Sir Condy must
soon be looking out for a new agent, for I've done my part, and can do
no more:--if my lady had the bank of Ireland to spend, it would go all
in one winter, and Sir Condy would never gainsay her, though he does not
care the rind of a lemon for her all the while."
Now I could not bear to hear Jason giving out after this manner against
the family, and twenty people standing by in the street. Ever since he
had lived at the lodge of his own, he looked down, howsomever, upon poor
old Thady, and was grown quite a great gentleman, and had none of his
relations near him: no wonder he was no kinder to poor Sir Condy than to
his own kith or kin.[16] In the spring it was the villain that got the
list of the debts from him brought down the custodiam, Sir Condy still
attending his duty in parliament, and I could scarcely believe my own
old eyes, or the spectacles with which I read it, when I was shown my
son Jason's name joined in the custodiam; but he told me it was only for
form's sake, and to make things easier than if all the land was under
the power of a total stranger. Well, I did not know what to think; it
was hard to be talking ill of my own, and I could not but grieve for my
poor master's fine estate, all torn by these vultures of the law; so I
said nothing, but just looked on to see how it would all end.
It was not till the month of June that he and my lady came down to the
country. My master was pleased to take me aside with him to the
brewhouse that same evening, to complain to me of my son and other
matters, in which he said he was confident I had neither art nor part;
he said a great deal more to me, to whom he had been fond to talk ever
since he was my white-headed boy, before he came to the estate; and all
that he said about poor Judy I can never forget, but scorn to repeat.
He did not say an unkind word of my lady, but wondered, as well he
might, her relations would do nothing for him or her, and they in all
this great distress. He did not take any thing long to heart, let it be
as it would, and had no more malice, or thought of the like in him,
than a child that can't speak; this night it was all out of his head
before he went to his bed. He took his jug of whiskey punch--my lady
was grown quite easy about the whiskey punch by this time, and so I did
suppose all was going on right betwixt them, till I learnt the truth
through Mrs. Jane, who talked over their affairs to the housekeeper,
and I within hearing. The night my master came home thinking of nothing
at all but just making merry, he drank his bumper toast "to the deserts
of that old curmudgeon my father-in-law, and all enemies at Mount
Juliet's Town." Now my lady was no longer in the mind she formerly was,
and did no ways relish hearing her own friends abused in her presence,
she said, "Then why don't they show themselves your friends," said my
master, "and oblige me with the loan of the money I condescended, by
your advice, my dear, to ask? It's now three posts since I sent off my
letter, desiring in the postscript a speedy answer by the return of the
post, and no account at all from them yet." "I expect they'll write to
_me_ next post," says my lady, and that was all that passed then; but
it was easy from this to guess there was a coolness betwixt them, and
with good cause.
The next morning, being post-day, I sent off the gossoon early to the
post-office, to see was there any letter likely to set matters to
rights, and he brought back one with the proper post-mark upon it, sure
enough, and I had no time to examine, or make any conjecture more about
it, for into the servants' hall pops Mrs. Jane with a blue bandbox in
her hand, quite entirely mad. "Dear ma'am, and what's the matter?" says
I. "Matter enough," says she; "don't you see my bandbox is wet through,
and my best bonnet here spoiled, besides my lady's, and all by the rain
coming in through that gallery window, that you might have got mended,
if you'd had any sense, Thady, all the time we were in town in the
winter?" "Sure, I could not get the glazier, ma'am," says I. "You might
have stopped it up any how," says she. "So I did, ma'am, to the best of
my ability; one of the panes with the old pillow-case, and the other
with a piece of the old stage green curtain; sure I was as careful as
possible all the time you were away, and not a drop of rain came in at
that window of all the windows in the house, all winter, ma'am, when
under my care; and now the family's come home, and it's summer time, I
never thought no more about it, to be sure; but dear, it's a pity to
think of your bonnet, ma'am; but here's what will please you, ma'am, a
letter from Mount Juliet's Town for my lady." With that she snatches it
from me without a word more, and runs up the back stairs to my mistress;
I follows with a slate to make up the window. This window was in the
long passage, or gallery, as my lady gave out orders to have it called,
in the gallery leading to my master's bedchamber and hers. And when I
went up with the slate, the door having no lock, and the bolt spoilt,
was a-jar after Mrs. Jane, and as I was busy with the window, I heard
all that was saying within.
"Well, what's in your letter, Bella, my dear?" says he: "you're a long
time spelling it over." "Won't you shave this morning, Sir Condy?" says
she, and put the letter into her pocket. "I shaved the day before
yesterday," says he, "my dear, and that's not what I'm thinking of now;
but any thing to oblige you, and to have peace and quietness, my
dear"--and presently I had the glimpse of him at the cracked glass over
the chimney-piece, standing up shaving himself to please my lady. But
she took no notice, but went on reading her book, and Mrs. Jane doing
her hair behind. "What is it you're reading there, my dear?--phoo, I've
cut myself with this razor; the man's a cheat that sold it me, but I
have not paid him for it yet: what is it you're reading there? did you
hear me asking you, my dear?" "The Sorrows of Werter," replies my lady,
as well as I could hear. "I think more of the sorrows of Sir Condy,"
says my master, joking like. "What news from Mount Juliet's Town?" "No
news," says she, "but the old story over again, my friends all
reproaching me still for what I can't help now." "Is it for marrying
me?" said my master, still shaving: "what signifies, as you say, talking
of that, when it can't be help'd now?"
With that she heaved a great sigh, that I heard plain enough in the
passage. "And did not you use me basely, Sir Condy," says she, "not to
tell me you were ruined before I married you?" "Tell you, my dear," said
he; "did you ever ask me one word about it? and had not you friends
enough of your own, that were telling you nothing else from morning to
night, if you'd have listened to them slanders?" "No slanders, nor are
my friends slanderers; and I can't bear to hear them treated with
disrespect as I do," says my lady, and took out her pocket handkerchief;
"they are the best of friends; and if I had taken their advice--. But my
father was wrong to lock me up, I own; that was the only unkind thing I
can charge him with; for if he had not locked me up, I should never have
had a serious thought of running away as I did." "Well, my dear," said
my master, "don't cry and make yourself uneasy about it now, when it's
all over, and you have the man of your own choice, in spite of 'em all."
"I was too young, I know, to make a choice at the time you ran away with
me, I'm sure," says my lady, and another sigh, which made my master,
half shaved as he was, turn round upon her in surprise. "Why, Bell,"
says he, "you can't deny what you know as well as I do, that it was at
your own particular desire, and that twice under your own hand and seal
expressed, that I should carry you off as I did to Scotland, and marry
you there." "Well, say no more about it, Sir Condy," said my lady,
pettish like--"I was a child then, you know." "And as far as I know,
you're little better now, my dear Bella, to be talking in this manner to
your husband's _face_; but I won't take it ill of you, for I know it's
something in that letter you put into your pocket just now, that has set
you against me all on a sudden, and imposed upon your understanding."
"It's not so very easy as you think it, Sir Condy, to impose upon _my_
understanding," said my lady. "My dear," says he, "I have, and with
reason, the best opinion of your understanding of any man now breathing;
and you know I have never set my own in competition with it till now, my
dear Bella," says he, taking her hand from her book as kind as could
be--"till now, when I have the great advantage of being quite cool, and
you not; so don't believe one word your friends say against your own Sir
Condy, and lend me the letter out of your pocket, till I see what it is
they can have to say." "Take it then," says she, "and as you are quite
cool, I hope it is a proper time to request you'll allow me to comply
with the wishes of all my own friends, and return to live with my father
and family, during the remainder of my wretched existence, at Mount
Juliet's Town."
At this, my poor master fell back a few paces, like one that had been
shot. "You're not serious, Bella," says he; "and could you find it in
your heart to leave me this way in the very middle of my distresses, all
alone?" But recollecting himself after his first surprise, and a
moment's time for reflection, he said, with a great deal of
consideration for my lady, "Well, Bella, my dear, I believe you are
right; for what could you do at Castle Rackrent, and an execution
against the goods coming down, and the furniture to be canted, and an
auction in the house all next week? so you have my full consent to go,
since that is your desire, only you must not think of my accompanying
you, which I could not in honour do upon the terms I always have been,
since our marriage, with your friends; besides, I have business to
transact at home; so in the mean time, if we are to have any breakfast
this morning, let us go down and have it for the last time in peace and
comfort, Bella."
Then as I heard my master coming to the passage door, I finished
fastening up my slate against the broken pane; and when he came out, I
wiped down the window seat with my wig,[17] and bade him a good morrow
as kindly as I could, seeing he was in trouble, though he strove and
thought to hide it from me. "This window is all racked and tattered,"
says I, "and it's what I'm striving to mend." "It _is_ all racked and
tattered, plain enough," says he, "and never mind mending it, honest old
Thady," says he; "it will do well enough for you and I, and that's all
the company we shall have left in the house by-and-by." "I'm sorry to
see your honour so low this morning," says I; "but you'll be better
after taking your breakfast." "Step down to the servants' hall," said
he, "and bring me up the pen and ink into the parlour, and get a sheet
of paper from Mrs. Jane, for I have business that can't brook to be
delayed; and come into the parlour with the pen and ink yourself, Thady,
for I must have you to witness my signing a paper I have to execute in a
hurry." Well, while I was getting of the pen and ink-horn, and the sheet
of paper, I ransacked my brains to think what could be the papers my
poor master could have to execute in such a hurry, he that never thought
of such a thing as doing business afore breakfast, in the whole course
of his life, for any man living; but this was for my lady, as I
afterwards found, and the more genteel of him after all her treatment.
I was just witnessing the paper that he had scrawled over, and was
shaking the ink out of my pen upon the carpet, when my lady came in to
breakfast, and she started as if it had been a ghost! as well she might,
when she saw Sir Condy writing at this unseasonable hour. "That will do
very well, Thady," says he to me, and took the paper I had signed to,
without knowing what upon the earth it might be, out of my hands, and
walked, folding it up, to my lady.
"You are concerned in this, my Lady Rackrent," said he, putting it into
her hands; "and I beg you'll keep this memorandum safe, and show it to
your friends the first thing you do when you get home; but put it in
your pocket now, my dear, and let us eat our breakfast, in God's name."
"What is all this?" said my lady, opening the paper in great curiosity.
"It's only a bit of a memorandum of what I think becomes me to do
whenever I am able," says my master; "you know my situation, tied hand
and foot at the present time being, but that can't last always, and when
I'm dead and gone, the land will be to the good, Thady, you know; and
take notice, it's my intention your lady should have a clear five
hundred a year jointure off the estate afore any of my debts are paid."
"Oh, please your honour," says I, "I can't expect to live to see that
time, being now upwards of fourscore years of age, and you a young man,
and likely to continue so, by the help of God." I was vexed to see my
lady so insensible too, for all she said was, "This is very genteel of
you, Sir Condy. You need not wait any longer, Thady;" so I just picked
up the pen and ink that had tumbled on the floor, and heard my master
finish with saying, "You behaved very genteel to me, my dear, when you
threw all the little you had in your own power along with yourself into
my hands; and as I don't deny but what you may have had some things to
complain of,"--to be sure he was thinking then of Judy, or of the
whiskey punch, one or t'other, or both,--"and as I don't deny but you
may have had something to complain of, my dear, it is but fair you
should have something in the form of compensation to look forward to
agreeably in future; besides, it's an act of justice to myself, that
none of your friends, my dear, may ever have it to say against me, I
married for money, and not for love." "That is the last thing I should
ever have thought of saying of you, Sir Condy," said my lady, looking
very gracious. "Then, my dear," said Sir Condy, "we shall part as good
friends as we met; so all's right."
I was greatly rejoiced to hear this, and went out of the parlour to
report it all to the kitchen. The next morning my lady and Mrs. Jane
set out for Mount Juliet's Town in the jaunting car: many wondered at
my lady's choosing to go away, considering all things, upon the
jaunting car, as if it was only a party of pleasure; but they did not
know, till I told them, that the coach was all broke in the journey
down, and no other vehicle but the car to be had; besides, my lady's
friends were to send their coach to meet her at the cross roads; so it
was all done very proper.
My poor master was in great trouble after my lady left us. The execution
came down; and every thing at Castle Rackrent was seized by the gripers,
and my son Jason, to his shame be it spoken, amongst them. I wondered,
for the life of me, how he could harden himself to do it; but then he
had been studying the law, and had made himself Attorney Quirk; so he
brought down at once a heap of accounts upon my master's head. To cash
lent, and to ditto, and to ditto, and to ditto, and oats, and bills paid
at the milliner's and linen-draper's, and many dresses for the fancy
balls in Dublin for my lady, and all the bills to the workmen and
tradesmen for the scenery of the theatre, and the chandler's and
grocer's bills, and tailor's, besides butcher's and baker's, and worse
than all, the old one of that base wine merchant's, that wanted to
arrest my poor master for the amount on the election day, for which
amount Sir Condy afterwards passed his note of hand, bearing lawful
interest from the date thereof; and the interest and compound interest
was now mounted to a terrible deal on many other notes and bonds for
money borrowed, and there was besides hush money to the sub-sheriffs,
and sheets upon sheets of old and new attorneys' bills, with heavy
balances, _as per former account furnished_, brought forward with
interest thereon; then there was a powerful deal due to the crown for
sixteen years' arrear of quit-rent of the town-lands of
Carrickshaughlin, with driver's fees, and a compliment to the receiver
every year for letting the quit-rent run on to oblige Sir Condy, and Sir
Kit afore him. Then there were bills for spirits and ribands at the
election time, and the gentlemen of the committee's accounts unsettled,
and their subscription never gathered; and there were cows to be paid
for, with the smith and farrier's bills to be set against the rent of
the demesne, with calf and hay money; then there was all the servants'
wages, since I don't know when, coming due to them, and sums advanced
for them by my son Jason for clothes, and boots, and whips, and odd
moneys for sundries expended by them in journeys to town and elsewhere,
and pocket-money for the master continually, and messengers and postage
before his being a parliament man; I can't myself tell you what besides;
but this I know, that when the evening came on the which Sir Condy had
appointed to settle all with my son Jason, and when he comes into the
parlour, and sees the sight of bills and load of papers all gathered on
the great dining-table for him, he puts his hands before both his eyes,
and cried out, "Merciful Jasus! what is it I see before me?" Then I sets
an arm-chair at the table for him, and with a deal of difficulty he sits
him down, and my son Jason hands him over the pen and ink to sign to
this man's bill and t'other man's bill, all which he did without making
the least objections. Indeed, to give him his due, I never _seen_ a man
more fair and honest, and easy in all his dealings, from first to last,
as Sir Condy, or more willing to pay every man his own as far as he was
able, which is as much as any one can do. "Well," says he, joking like
with Jason, "I wish we could settle it all with a stroke of my grey
goose quill. What signifies making me wade through all this ocean of
papers here; can't you now, who understand drawing out an account,
debtor and creditor, just sit down here at the corner of the table and
get it done out for me, that I may have a clear view of the balance,
which is all I need be talking about, you know?" "Very true, Sir Condy;
nobody understands business better than yourself," says Jason. "So I've
a right to do, being born and bred to the bar," says Sir Condy. "Thady,
do step out and see are they bringing in the things for the punch, for
we've just done all we have to do for this evening." I goes out
accordingly, and when I came back, Jason was pointing to the balance,
which was a terrible sight to my poor master. "Pooh! pooh! pooh!" says
he, "here's so many noughts they dazzle my eyes, so they do, and put me
in mind of all I suffered, larning of my numeration table, when I was a
boy at the day-school along with you, Jason--units, tens, hundreds, tens
of hundreds. Is the punch ready, Thady?" says he, seeing me.
"Immediately; the boy has the jug in his hand; it's coming up stairs,
please your honour, as fast as possible," says I, for I saw his honour
was tired out of his life; but Jason, very short and cruel, cuts me off
with--"Don't be talking of punch yet a while; it's no time for punch yet
a bit--units, tens, hundreds," goes he on, counting over the master's
shoulder, units, tens, hundreds, thousands. "A-a-ah! hold your hand,"
cries my master; "where in this wide world am I to find hundreds, or
units itself, let alone thousands?" "The balance has been running on too
long," says Jason, sticking to him as I could not have done at the time,
if you'd have given both the Indies and Cork to boot; "the balance has
been running on too long, and I'm distressed myself on your account, Sir
Condy, for money, and the thing must be settled now on the spot, and the
balance cleared off," says Jason. "I'll thank you if you'll only show me
how," says Sir Condy. "There's but one way," says Jason, "and that's
ready enough: when there's no cash, what can a gentleman do, but go to
the land?" "How can you go to the land, and it under custodiam to
yourself already," says Sir Condy, "and another custodiam hanging over
it? and no one at all can touch it, you know, but the custodees." "Sure,
can't you sell, though at a loss? sure you can sell, and I've a
purchaser ready for you," says Jason. "Have ye so?" said Sir Condy;
"that's a great point gained; but there's a thing now beyond all, that
perhaps you don't know yet, barring Thady has let you into the secret."
"Sarrah bit of a secret, or any thing at all of the kind, has he learned
from me these fifteen weeks come St. John's eve," says I; "for we have
scarce been upon speaking terms of late: but what is it your honour
means of a secret?" "Why, the secret of the little keepsake I gave my
Lady Rackrent the morning she left us, that she might not go back
empty-handed to her friends." "My Lady Rackrent, I'm sure, has baubles
and keepsakes enough, as those bills on the table will show," says
Jason; "but whatever it is," says he, taking up his pen, "we must add it
to the balance, for to be sure it can't be paid for." "No, nor can't
till after my decease," said Sir Condy; "that's one good thing." Then
colouring up a good deal, he tells Jason of the memorandum of the five
hundred a-year jointure he had settled upon my lady; at which Jason was
indeed mad, and said a great deal in very high words, that it was using
a gentleman, who had the management of his affairs, and was moreover his
principal creditor, extremely ill, to do such a thing without consulting
him, and against his knowledge and consent. To all which Sir Condy had
nothing to reply, but that upon his conscience, it was in a hurry and
without a moment's thought on his part, and he was very sorry for it,
but if it was to do over again he would do the same; and he appealed to
me, and I was ready to give my evidence, if that would do, to the truth
of all he said.
So Jason with much ado was brought to agree to a compromise. "The
purchaser that I have ready," says he, "will be much displeased, to be
sure, at the incumbrance on the land, but I must see and manage him;
here's a deed ready drawn up; we have nothing to do but to put in the
consideration money and our names to it." "And how much am I going to
sell?--the lands of O'Shaughlin's Town, and the lands of
Gruneaghoolaghan, and the lands of Crookagnawaturgh," says he, just
reading to himself,--"and--oh, murder, Jason! sure you won't put this
in--the castle, stable, and appurtenances of Castle Rackrent." "Oh,
murder!" says I, clapping my hands, "this is too bad, Jason." "Why so?"
said Jason, "when it's all, and a great deal more to the back of it,
lawfully mine, was I to push for it." "Look at him," says I, pointing to
Sir Condy, who was just leaning back in his arm-chair, with his arms
falling beside him like one stupified; "is it you, Jason, that can stand
in his presence, and recollect all he has been to us, and all we have
been to him, and yet use him so at the last?" "Who will you find to use
him better, I ask you?" said Jason; "if he can get a better purchaser,
I'm content; I only offer to purchase, to make things easy, and oblige
him: though I don't see what compliment I am under, if you come to that;
I have never had, asked, or charged more than sixpence in the pound,
receiver's fees; and where would he have got an agent for a penny less?"
"Oh, Jason! Jason! how will you stand to this in the face of the county
and all who know you?" says I; "and what will people think and say, when
they see you living here in Castle Rackrent, and the lawful owner turned
out of the seat of his ancestors, without a cabin to put his head into,
or so much as a potatoe to eat?" Jason, whilst I was saying this, and a
great deal more, made me signs, and winks, and frowns; but I took no
heed; for I was grieved and sick at heart for my poor master, and
couldn't but speak.
"Here's the punch," says Jason, for the door opened; "here's the punch!"
Hearing that, my master starts up in his chair, and recollects himself,
and Jason uncorks the whiskey. "Set down the jug here," says he, making
room for it beside the papers opposite to Sir Condy, but still not
stirring the deed that was to make over all. Well, I was in great hopes
he had some touch of mercy about him when I saw him making the punch,
and my master took a glass; but Jason put it back as he was going to
fill again, saying, "No, Sir Condy, it sha'n't be said of me, I got
your signature to this deed when you were half-seas over: you know your
name and hand-writing in that condition would not, if brought before the
courts, benefit me a straw; wherefore let us settle all before we go
deeper into the punch-bowl." "Settle all as you will," said Sir Condy,
clapping his hands to his ears: "but let me hear no more; I'm bothered
to death this night." "You've only to sign," said Jason, putting the pen
to him. "Take all, and be content," said my master. So he signed; and
the man who brought in the punch witnessed it, for I was not able, but
crying like a child; and besides, Jason said, which I was glad of, that
I was no fit witness, being so old and doting. It was so bad with me, I
could not taste a drop of the punch itself, though my master himself,
God bless him! in the midst of his trouble, poured out a glass for me,
and brought it up to my lips. "Not a drop; I thank your honour's honour
as much as if I took it, though," and I just set down the glass as it
was, and went out, and when I got to the street-door, the neighbour's
childer, who were playing at marbles there, seeing me in great trouble,
left their play, and gathered about me to know what ailed me; and I told
them all, for it was a great relief to me to speak to these poor
childer, that seemed to have some natural feeling left in them: and when
they were made sensible that Sir Condy was going to leave Castle
Rackrent for good and all, they set up a whillalu that could be heard to
the farthest end of the street; and one fine boy he was, that my master
had given an apple to that morning, cried the loudest, but they all were
the same sorry, for Sir Condy was greatly beloved amongst the childer,
for letting them go a-nutting in the demesne, without saying a word to
them, though my lady objected to them. The people in the town, who were
the most of them standing at their doors, hearing the childer cry, would
know the reason of it; and when the report was made known, the people
one and all gathered in great anger against my son Jason, and terror at
the notion of his coming to be landlord over them, and they cried, "No
Jason! no Jason! Sir Condy! Sir Condy! Sir Condy Rackrent for ever!" and
the mob grew so great and so loud, I was frightened, and made my way
back to the house to warn my son to make his escape, or hide himself for
fear of the consequences. Jason would not believe me till they came all
round the house, and to the windows with great shouts: then he grew
quite pale, and asked Sir Condy what had he best do? "I'll tell you what
you'd best do," said Sir Condy, who was laughing to see his fright;
"finish your glass first, then let's go to the window and show
ourselves, and I'll tell 'em, or you shall, if you please, that I'm
going to the Lodge for change of air for my health, and by my own
desire, for the rest of my days." "Do so," said Jason, who never meant
it should have been so, but could not refuse him the Lodge at this
unseasonable time. Accordingly Sir Condy threw up the sash, and
explained matters, and thanked all his friends, and bid 'em look in at
the punch-bowl, and observe that Jason and he had been sitting over it
very good friends; so the mob was content, and he sent 'em out some
whiskey to drink his health, and that was the last time his honour's
health was ever drunk at Castle Rackrent.
The very next day, being too proud, as he said to me, to stay an hour
longer in a house that did not belong to him, he sets off to the Lodge,
and I along with him not many hours after. And there was great
bemoaning through all O'Shaughlin's Town, which I stayed to witness,
and gave my poor master a full account of when I got to the Lodge. He
was very low, and in his bed, when I got there, and complained of a
great pain about his heart, but I guessed it was only trouble, and all
the business, let alone vexation, he had gone through of late; and
knowing the nature of him from a boy, I took my pipe, and, whilst
smoking it by the chimney, began telling him how he was beloved and
regretted in the county, and it did him a deal of good to hear it.
"Your honour has a great many friends yet, that you don't know of, rich
and poor, in the county," says I; "for as I was coming along the road,
I met two gentlemen in their own carriages, who asked after you,
knowing me, and wanted to know where you was and all about you, and
even how old I was: think of that." Then he wakened out of his doze,
and began questioning me who the gentlemen were. And the next morning
it came into my head to go, unknown to any body, with my master's
compliments, round to many of the gentlemen's houses, where he and my
lady used to visit, and people that I knew were his great friends, and
would go to Cork to serve him any day in the year, and I made bold to
try to borrow a trifle of cash from them. They all treated me very
civil for the most part, and asked a great many questions very kind
about my lady, and Sir Condy, and all the family, and were greatly
surprised to learn from me Castle Rackrent was sold, and my master at
the Lodge for health; and they all pitied him greatly, and he had their
good wishes, if that would do, but money was a thing they unfortunately
had not any of them at this time to spare. I had my journey for my
pains, and I, not used to walking, nor supple as formerly, was greatly
tired, but had the satisfaction of telling my master, when I got to the
Lodge, all the civil things said by high and low.
"Thady," says he, "all you've been telling me brings a strange thought
into my head: I've a notion I shall not be long for this world any how,
and I've a great fancy to see my own funeral afore I die." I was greatly
shocked, at the first speaking, to hear him speak so light about his
funeral, and he, to all appearance, in good health, but recollecting
myself, answered, "To be sure, it would be as fine a sight as one could
see, I dared to say, and one I should be proud to witness, and I did not
doubt his honour's would be as great a funeral as ever Sir Patrick
O'Shaughlin's was, and such a one as that had never been known in the
county afore or since." But I never thought he was in earnest about
seeing his own funeral himself, till the next day he returns to it
again. "Thady," says he, "as far as the wake[18] goes, sure I might
without any great trouble have the satisfaction of seeing a bit of my
own funeral." "Well, since your honour's honour's so bent upon it," says
I, not willing to cross him, and he in trouble, "we must see what we can
do." So he fell into a sort of a sham disorder, which was easy done, as
he kept his bed, and no one to see him; and I got my shister, who was an
old woman very handy about the sick, and very skilful, to come up to the
Lodge to nurse him; and we gave out, she knowing no better, that he was
just at his latter end, and it answered beyond any thing; and there was
a great throng of people, men, women, and childer, and there being only
two rooms at the Lodge, except what was locked up full of Jason's
furniture and things, the house was soon as full and fuller than it
could hold, and the heat, and smoke, and noise wonderful great; and
standing amongst them that were near the bed, but not thinking at all of
the dead, I was started by the sound of my master's voice from under the
great coats that had been thrown all at top, and I went close up, no one
noticing. "Thady," says he, "I've had enough of this; I'm smothering,
and can't hear a word of all they're saying of the deceased." "God bless
you, and lie still and quiet," says I, "a bit longer, for my shister's
afraid of ghosts, and would die on the spot with fright, was she to see
you come to life all on a sudden this way without the least
preparation." So he lays him still, though well nigh stifled, and I made
all haste to tell the secret of the joke, whispering to one and t'other,
and there was a great surprise, but not so great as we had laid out it
would. "And aren't we to have the pipes and tobacco, after coming so far
to-night?" said some; but they were all well enough pleased when his
honour got up to drink with them, and sent for more spirits from a
shebean-house,[19] where they very civilly let him have it upon credit.
So the night passed off very merrily, but, to my mind, Sir Condy was
rather upon the sad order in the midst of it all, not finding there had
been such a great talk about himself after his death as he had always
expected to hear.
The next morning when the house was cleared of them, and none but my
shister and myself left in the kitchen with Sir Condy, one opens the
door, and walks in, and who should it be but Judy M'Quirk herself! I
forgot to notice, that she had been married long since, whilst young
Captain Moneygawl lived at the Lodge, to the captain's huntsman, who
after a whilst listed and left her, and was killed in the wars. Poor
Judy fell off greatly in her good looks after her being married a year
or two; and being smoke-dried in the cabin, and neglecting herself like,
it was hard for Sir Condy himself to know her again till she spoke; but
when she says, "It's Judy M'Quirk, please your honour, don't you
remember her?" "Oh, Judy, is it you?" says his honour; "yes, sure, I
remember you very well; but you're greatly altered, Judy." "Sure it's
time for me," says she; "and I think your honour, since I _seen_ you
last,--but that's a great while ago,--is altered too." "And with reason,
Judy," says Sir Condy, fetching a sort of a sigh; "but how's this, Judy?"
he goes on; "I take it a little amiss of you, that you were not at my
wake last night." "Ah, don't be being jealous of that," says she; "I
didn't hear a sentence of your honour's wake till it was all over, or it
would have gone hard with me but I would have been at it sure; but I was
forced to go ten miles up the country three days ago to a wedding of a
relation of my own's, and didn't get home till after the wake was over;
but," says she, "it won't be so, I hope, the next time,[20] please your
honour." "That we shall see, Judy," says his honour, "and may be sooner
than you think for, for I've been very unwell this while past, and don't
reckon any way I'm long for this world." At this, Judy takes up the
corner of her apron, and puts it first to one eye and then to t'other,
being to all appearance in great trouble; and my shister put in her
word, and bid his honour have a good heart, for she was sure it was only
the gout that Sir Patrick used to have flying about him, and he ought to
drink a glass or a bottle extraordinary to keep it out of his stomach;
and he promised to take her advice, and sent out for more spirits
immediately; and Judy made a sign to me, and I went over to the door to
her, and she said, "I wonder to see Sir Condy so low! has he heard the
news?" "What news?" says I. "Didn't ye hear it, then?" says she; "my
Lady Rackrent that was is kilt[D2] and lying for dead, and I don't doubt
but it's all over with her by this time." "Mercy on us all," says I;
"how was it?" "The jaunting car it was that ran away with her," says
Judy. "I was coming home that same time from Biddy M'Guggin's marriage,
and a great crowd of people too upon the road, coming from the fair of
Crookaghnawaturgh, and I sees a jaunting car standing in the middle of
the road, and with the two wheels off and all tattered. 'What's this?'
says I. 'Didn't ye hear of it?' says they that were looking on; 'it's my
Lady Rackrent's car, that was running away from her husband, and the
horse took fright at a carrion that lay across the road, and so ran away
with the jaunting car, and my Lady Rackrent and her maid screaming, and
the horse ran with them against a car that was coming from the fair,
with the boy asleep on it, and the lady's petticoat hanging out of the
jaunting car caught, and she was dragged I can't tell you how far upon
the road, and it all broken up with the stones just going to be pounded,
and one of the road-makers, with his sledge-hammer in his hand, stops
the horse at the last; but my Lady Rackrent was all kilt[21] and
smashed, and they lifted her into a cabin hard by, and the maid was
found after, where she had been thrown, in the gripe of the ditch, her
cap and bonnet all full of bog water, and they say my lady can't live
any way.' Thady, pray now is it true what I'm told for sartain, that Sir
Condy has made over all to your son Jason?" "All," says I. "All
entirely?" says she again. "All entirely," says I. "Then," says she,
"that's a great shame, but don't be telling Jason what I say." "And what
is it you say?" cries Sir Condy, leaning over betwixt us, which made
Judy start greatly. "I know the time when Judy M'Quirk would never have
stayed so long talking at the door, and I in the house." "Oh!" says
Judy, "for shame, Sir Condy; times are altered since then, and it's my
Lady Rackrent you ought to be thinking of." "And why should I be
thinking of her, that's not thinking of me now?" said Sir Condy. "No
matter for that," says Judy, very properly; "it's time you should be
thinking of her, if ever you mean to do it at all, for don't you know
she's lying for death?" "My Lady Rackrent!" says Sir Condy, in a
surprise; "why it's but two days since we parted, as you very well know,
Thady, in her full health and spirits, and she and her maid along with
her going to Mount Juliet's Town on her jaunting car." "She'll never
ride no more on her jaunting car," said Judy, "for it has been the death
of her, sure enough." "And is she dead then?" says his honour. "As good
as dead, I hear," says Judy; "but there's Thady here has just learnt the
whole truth of the story as I had it, and it is fitter he or any body
else should be telling it you than I, Sir Condy: I must be going home to
the childer." But he stops her, but rather from civility in him, as I
could see very plainly, than any thing else, for Judy was, as his honour
remarked at her first coming in, greatly changed, and little likely, as
far as I could see--though she did not seem to be clear of it
herself--little likely to be my Lady Rackrent now, should there be a
second toss-up to be made. But I told him the whole story out of the
face, just as Judy had told it to me, and he sent off a messenger with
his compliments to Mount Juliet's Town that evening, to learn the truth
of the report, and Judy bid the boy that was going call in at Tim
M'Enerney's shop in O'Shaughlin's Town and buy her a new shawl. "Do so,"
said Sir Condy, "and tell Tim to take no money from you, for I must pay
him for the shawl myself." At this my shister throws me over a look, and
I says nothing, but turned the tobacco in my mouth, whilst Judy began
making a many words about it, and saying how she could not be beholden
for shawls to any gentleman. I left her there to consult with my
shister, did she think there was any thing in it, and my shister thought
I was blind to be asking her the question, and I thought my shister must
see more into it than I did; and recollecting all past times and every
thing, I changed my mind, and came over to her way of thinking, and we
settled it that Judy was very like to be my Lady Rackrent after all, if
a vacancy should have happened.
The next day, before his honour was up, somebody comes with a double
knock at the door, and I was greatly surprised to see it was my son
Jason. "Jason, is it you?" said I; "what brings you to the Lodge?" says
I; "is it my Lady Rackrent? we know that already since yesterday." "May
be so," says he, "but I must see Sir Condy about it." "You can't see
him yet," says I; "sure he is not awake." "What then," says he, "can't
he be wakened? and I standing at the door." "I'll not be disturbing his
honour for you, Jason," says I; "many's the hour you've waited in your
time, and been proud to do it, till his honour was at leisure to speak
to you. His honour," says I, raising my voice, at which his honour
wakens of his own accord, and calls to me from the room to know who it
was I was speaking to. Jason made no more ceremony, but follows me into
the room. "How are you, Sir Condy?" says he; "I'm happy to see you
looking so well; I came up to know how you did to-day, and to see did
you want for any thing at the Lodge." "Nothing at all, Mr. Jason, I
thank you," says he; for his honour had his own share of pride, and did
not choose, after all that had passed, to be beholden, I suppose, to my
son; "but pray take a chair and be seated, Mr. Jason." Jason sat him
down upon the chest, for chair there was none, and after he had set
there some time, and a silence on all sides, "What news is there
stirring in the country, Mr. Jason M'Quirk?" says Sir Condy, very easy,
yet high like. "None that's news to you, Sir Condy, I hear," says
Jason: "I am sorry to hear of my Lady Rackrent's accident." "I'm much
obliged to you, and so is her ladyship, I'm sure," answered Sir Condy,
still stiff; and there was another sort of a silence, which seemed to
lie the heaviest on my son Jason.
"Sir Condy," says he at last, seeing Sir Condy disposing himself to go
to sleep again, "Sir Condy, I dare say you recollect mentioning to me
the little memorandum you gave to Lady Rackrent about the 500_l_.
a-year jointure." "Very true," said Sir Condy; "it is all in my
recollection." "But if my Lady Rackrent dies, there's an end of all
jointure," says Jason. "Of course," says Sir Condy. "But it's not a
matter of certainty that my Lady Rackrent won't recover," says Jason.
"Very true, sir," says my master. "It's a fair speculation, then, for
you to consider what the chance of the jointure on those lands, when
out of custodiam, will be to you." "Just five hundred a-year, I take
it, without any speculation at all," said Sir Condy. "That's supposing
the life dropt, and the custodiam off, you know; begging your pardon,
Sir Condy, who understands business, that is a wrong calculation."
"Very likely so," said Sir Condy; "but Mr. Jason, if you have any thing
to say to me this morning about it, I'd be obliged to you to say it,
for I had an indifferent night's rest last night, and wouldn't be sorry
to sleep a little this morning." "I have only three words to say, and
those more of consequence to you, Sir Condy, than me. You are a little
cool, I observe; but I hope you will not be offended at what I have
brought here in my pocket," and he pulls out two long rolls, and
showers down golden guineas upon the bed. "What's this?" said Sir
Condy; "it's long since"--but his pride stops him, "All these are your
lawful property this minute, Sir Condy, if you please," said Jason.
"Not for nothing, I'm sure," said Sir Condy, and laughs a
little--"nothing for nothing, or I'm under a mistake with you, Jason."
"Oh, Sir Condy, we'll not be indulging ourselves in any unpleasant
retrospects," says Jason; "it's my present intention to behave, as I'm
sure you will, like a gentleman in this affair. Here's two hundred
guineas, and a third I mean to add, if you should think proper to make
over to me all your right and title to those lands that you know of."
"I'll consider of it," said my master; and a great deal more, that I
was tired listening to, was said by Jason, and all that, and the sight
of the ready cash upon the bed worked with his honour; and the short
and the long of it was, Sir Condy gathered up the golden guineas, and
tied them up in a handkerchief, and signed some paper Jason brought
with him as usual, and there was an end of the business: Jason took
himself away, and my master turned himself round and fell asleep again.
I soon found what had put Jason in such a hurry to conclude this
business. The little gossoon we had sent off the day before with my
master's compliments to Mount Juliet's Town, and to know how my lady did
after her accident, was stopped early this morning, coming back with his
answer through O'Shaughlin's Town, at Castle Rackrent, by my son Jason,
and questioned of all he knew of my lady from the servant at Mount
Juliet's Town; and the gossoon told him my Lady Rackrent was not
expected to live over night; so Jason thought it high time to be moving
to the Lodge, to make his bargain with my master about the jointure
afore it should be too late, and afore the little gossoon should reach
us with the news. My master was greatly vexed, that is, I may say, as
much as ever I _seen_ him, when he found how he had been taken in; but
it was some comfort to have the ready cash for immediate consumption in
the house, any way.
And when Judy came up that evening, and brought the childer to see his
honour, he unties the handkerchief, and, God bless him! whether it was
little or much he had, 'twas all the same with him, he gives 'em all
round guineas a-piece. "Hold up your head," says my shister to Judy, as
Sir Condy was busy filling out a glass of punch for her eldest
boy--"Hold up your head, Judy; for who knows but we may live to see you
yet at the head of the Castle Rackrent estate?" "Maybe so," says she,
"but not the way you are thinking of." I did not rightly understand
which way Judy, was looking when she makes this speech, till a-while
after. "Why, Thady, you were telling me yesterday, that Sir Condy had
sold all entirely to Jason, and where then does all them guineas in the
handkerchief come from?" "They are the purchase-money of my lady's
jointure," says I. Judy looks a little bit puzzled at this. "A penny for
your thoughts, Judy," says my shister; "hark, sure Sir Condy is drinking
her health." He was at the table in _the room_,[22] drinking with the
exciseman and the gauger, who came up to see his honour, and we were
standing over the fire in the kitchen. "I don't much care is he drinking
my health or not," says Judy; "and it is not Sir Condy I'm thinking of,
with all your jokes, whatever he is of me." "Sure you wouldn't refuse to
be my Lady Rackrent, Judy, if you had the offer?" says I. "But if I
could do better!" says she. "How better?" says I and my shister both at
once. "How better?" says she; "why, what signifies it to be my Lady
Rackrent, and no castle? sure what good is the car, and no horse to draw
it?" "And where will ye get the horse, Judy?" says I. "Never mind that,"
says she; "may be it is your own son Jason might find that." "Jason!"
says I; "don't be trusting to him, Judy. Sir Condy, as I have good
reason to know, spoke well of you, when Jason spoke very indifferently
of you, Judy." "No matter," says Judy; "it's often men speak the
contrary just to what they think of us." "And you the same way of them,
no doubt," answers I. "Nay, don't be denying it, Judy, for I think the
better of ye for it, and shouldn't be proud to call ye the daughter of a
shister's son of mine, if I was to hear ye talk ungrateful, and any way
disrespectful of his honour." "What disrespect," says she, "to say I'd
rather, if it was my luck, be the wife of another man?" "You'll have no
luck, mind my words, Judy," says I; and all I remembered about my poor
master's goodness in tossing up for her afore he married at all came
across me, and I had a choaking in my throat that hindered me to say
more. "Better luck, any how, Thady," says she, "than to be like some
folk, following the fortunes of them that have none left." "Oh! King of
Glory!" says I, "hear the pride and ungratitude of her, and he giving
his last guineas but a minute ago to her childer, and she with the fine
shawl on her he made her a present of but yesterday!" "Oh, troth, Judy,
you're wrong now," says my shister, looking at the shawl. "And was not
he wrong yesterday, then," says she, "to be telling me I was greatly
altered, to affront me?" "But, Judy," says I, "what is it brings you
here then at all in the mind you are in; is it to make Jason think the
better of you?" "I'll tell you no more of my secrets, Thady," says she,
"nor would have told you this much, had I taken you for such an
unnatural fader as I find you are, not to wish your own son prefarred to
another." "Oh, troth, _you_ are wrong now, Thady," says my shister.
Well, I was never so put to it in my life: between these womens, and my
son and my master, and all I felt and thought just now, I could not,
upon my conscience, tell which was the wrong from the right. So I said
not a word more, but was only glad his honour had not the luck to hear
all Judy had been saying of him, for I reckoned it would have gone nigh
to break his heart; not that I was of opinion he cared for her as much
as she and my shister fancied, but the ungratitude of the whole from
Judy might not plase him; and he could never stand the notion of not
being well spoken of or beloved like behind his back. Fortunately for
all parties concerned, he was so much elevated at this time, there was
no danger of his understanding any thing, even if it had reached his
ears. There was a great horn at the Lodge, ever since my master and
Captain Moneygawl was in together, that used to belong originally to the
celebrated Sir Patrick, his ancestor; and his honour was fond often of
telling the story that he learned from me when a child, how Sir Patrick
drank the full of this horn without stopping, and this was what no other
man afore or since could without drawing breath. Now Sir Condy
challenged the gauger, who seemed to think little of the horn, to
swallow the contents, and had it filled to the brim with punch; and the
gauger said it was what he could not do for nothing, but he'd hold Sir
Condy a hundred guineas he'd do it. "Done," says my master; "I'll lay
you a hundred golden guineas to a tester[23] you don't." "Done," says
the gauger; and done and done's enough between two gentlemen. The gauger
was cast, and my master won the bet, and thought he'd won a hundred
guineas, but by the wording it was adjudged to be only a tester that was
his due by the exciseman. It was all one to him; he was as well pleased,
and I was glad to see him in such spirits again.
The gauger, bad luck to him! was the man that next proposed to my master
to try himself could he take at a draught the contents of the great
horn. "Sir Patrick's horn!" said his honour; "hand it to me: I'll hold
you your own bet over again I'll swallow it." "Done," says the gauger;
"I'll lay ye anything at all you do no such thing." "A hundred guineas
to sixpence I do," says he: "bring me the handkerchief." I was loth,
knowing he meant the handkerchief with the gold in it, to bring it out
in such company, and his honour not very able to reckon it. "Bring me
the handkerchief, then, Thady," says he, and stamps with his foot; so
with that I pulls it out of my great coat pocket, where I had put it for
safety. Oh, how it grieved me to see the guineas counting upon the
table, and they the last my master had! Says Sir Condy to me, "Your hand
is steadier than mine to-night, old Thady, and that's a wonder; fill you
the horn for me." And so, wishing his honour success, I did; but I
filled it, little thinking of what would befall him. He swallows it
down, and drops like one shot. We lifts him up, and he was speechless,
and quite black in the face. We put him to bed, and in a short time he
wakened, raving with a fever on his brain. He was shocking either to see
or hear. "Judy! Judy! have you no touch of feeling? won't you stay to
help us nurse him?" says I to her, and she putting on her shawl to go
out of the house. "I'm frightened to see him," says she, "and wouldn't
nor couldn't stay in it; and what use? he can't last till the morning."
With that she ran off. There was none but my shister and myself left
near him of all the many friends he had. The fever came and went, and
came and went, and lasted five days, and the sixth he was sensible for a
few minutes, and said to me, knowing me very well, "I'm in burning pain
all withinside of me, Thady." I could not speak, but my shister asked
him would he have this thing or t'other to do him good? "No," says he,
"nothing will do me good no more," and he gave a terrible screech with
the torture he was in--then again a minute's ease--"brought to this by
drink," says he; "where are all the friends?--where's Judy?--Gone, hey?
Ay, Sir Condy has been a fool all his days," said he; and there was the
last word he spoke, and died. He had but a very poor funeral, after all.
If you want to know any more, I'm not very well able to tell you; but
my Lady Rackrent did not die, as was expected of her, but was only
disfigured in the face ever after by the fall and bruises she got; and
she and Jason, immediately after my poor master's death, set about
going to law about that jointure; the memorandum not being on stamped
paper, some say it is worth nothing, others again it may do; others
say, Jason won't have the lands at any rate; many wishes it so: for my
part, I'm tired wishing for any thing in this world, after all I've
seen in it--but I'll say nothing; it would be a folly to be getting
myself ill-will in my old age. Jason did not marry, nor think of
marrying Judy, as I prophesied, and I am not sorry for it; who is? As
for all I have here set down from memory and hearsay of the family,
there's nothing but truth in it from beginning to end: that you may
depend upon; for where's the use of telling lies about the things which
every body knows as well as I do?
* * * * *
The Editor could have readily made the catastrophe of Sir Condy's
history more dramatic and more pathetic, if he thought it allowable to
varnish the plain round tale of faithful Thady. He lays it before the
English reader as a specimen of manners and characters, which are,
perhaps, unknown in England. Indeed, the domestic habits of no nation in
Europe were less known to the English than those of their sister
country, till within these few years.
Mr. Young's picture of Ireland, in his tour through that country, was
the first faithful portrait of its inhabitants. All the features in the
foregoing sketch were taken from the life, and they are characteristic
of that mixture of quickness, simplicity, cunning, carelessness,
dissipation, disinterestedness, shrewdness, and blunder, which, in
different forms, and with various success, has been brought upon the
stage, or delineated in novels.
It is a problem of difficult solution to determine, whether an Union
will hasten or retard the amelioration of this country. The few
gentlemen of education, who now reside in this country, will resort to
England: they are few, but they are in nothing inferior to men of the
same rank in Great Britain. The best that can happen will be the
introduction of British manufacturers in their places.
Did the Warwickshire militia, who were chiefly artisans, teach the Irish
to drink beer? or did they learn from the Irish to drink whiskey?
1800.
GLOSSARY.
* * * * *
_Some friends, who have seen Thady's history since it has been printed,
have suggested to the Editor, that many of the terms and idiomatic
phrases, with which it abounds, could not be intelligible to the English
reader without further explanation. The Editor has therefore furnished
the following Glossary_.
* * * * *
[A] _Monday morning_,--Thady begins his memoirs of the Rackrent Family
by dating _Monday morning_, because no great undertaking can be
auspiciously commenced in Ireland on any morning but _Monday morning_.
"Oh, please God we live till Monday morning, we'll set the slater to
mend the roof of the house. On Monday morning we'll fall to, and cut the
turf. On Monday morning we'll see and begin mowing. On Monday morning,
please your honour, we'll begin and dig the potatoes," &c.
All the intermediate days, between the making of such speeches and the
ensuing Monday, are wasted: and when Monday morning comes, it is ten to
one that the business is deferred to _the next_ Monday morning. The
Editor knew a gentleman, who, to counteract this prejudice, made his
workmen and labourers begin all new pieces of work upon a Saturday.
[B] _Let alone the three kingdoms itself._--_Let alone_, in this
sentence, means _put out of consideration_. The phrase, _let alone_,
which is now used as the imperative of a verb, may in time become a
conjunction, and may exercise the ingenuity of some future etymologist.
The celebrated Horne Tooke has proved most satisfactorily, that the
conjunction _but_ comes from the imperative of the Anglo-Saxon verb
_(beoutan) to be out_; also, that _if_ comes from _gif_, the imperative
of the Anglo-Saxon verb which signifies _to give_, &c.
[C] _Whillaluh_.--Ullaloo, Gol, or lamentation over the dead--
"Magnoque ululante tumultu."--VIRGIL.
"Ululatibus omne
Implevere nemus."--OVID.
A full account of the Irish Gol, or Ullaloo, and of the Caoinan or Irish
funeral song, with its first semichorus, second semichorus, full chorus
of sighs and groans, together with the Irish words and music, may be
found in the fourth volume of the transactions of the Royal Irish
Academy. For the advantage of _lazy_ readers, who would rather read a
page than walk a yard, and from compassion, not to say sympathy, with
their infirmity, the Editor transcribes the following passages:
"The Irish have been always remarkable for their funeral lamentations;
and this peculiarity has been noticed by almost every traveller who
visited them; and it seems derived from their Celtic ancestors, the
primaeval inhabitants of this isle ... ...
"It has been affirmed of the Irish, that to cry was more natural to
them than to any other nation, and at length the Irish cry became
proverbial.... ... ...
"Cambrensis in the twelfth century says, the Irish then musically
expressed their griefs; that is, they applied the musical art, in which
they excelled all others, to the orderly celebration of funeral
obsequies, by dividing the mourners into two bodies, each alternately
singing their part, and the whole at times joining in full chorus.... ...
The body of the deceased, dressed in grave clothes, and ornamented
with flowers, was placed on a bier, or some elevated spot. The relations
and keepers (_singing mourners_) ranged themselves in two divisions, one
at the head, and the other at the feet of the corpse. The bards and
croteries had before prepared the funeral Caoinan. The chief bard of the
head chorus began by singing the first stanza, in a low, doleful tone,
which was softly accompanied by the harp: at the conclusion, the foot
semichorus began the lamentation, or Ullaloo, from the final note of the
preceding stanza, in which they were answered by the head semichorus;
then both united in one general chorus. The chorus of the first stanza
being ended, the chief bard of the foot semichorus began the second Gol
or lamentation, in which he was answered by that of the head; and then,
as before, both united in the general full chorus. Thus alternately were
the song and choruses performed during the night. The genealogy, rank,
possessions, the virtues and vices of the dead were rehearsed, and a
number of interrogations were addressed to the deceased; as, Why did he
die? If married, whether his wife was faithful to him, his sons dutiful,
or good hunters or warriors? If a woman, whether her daughters were fair
or chaste? If a young man, whether he had been crossed in love; or if
the blue-eyed maids of Erin treated him with scorn?"
We are told, that formerly the feet (the metrical feet) of the Caoinan
were much attended to; but on the decline of the Irish bards these feet
were gradually neglected, and the Caoinan fell into a sort of slipshod
metre amongst women. Each province had different Caoinans, or at least
different imitations of the original. There was the Munster cry, the
Ulster cry, &c. It became an extempore performance, and every set of
keepers varied the melody according to their own fancy.
It is curious to observe how customs and ceremonies degenerate. The
present Irish cry, or howl, cannot boast of such melody, nor is the
funeral procession conducted with much dignity. The crowd of people who
assemble at these funerals sometimes amounts to a thousand, often to
four or five hundred. They gather as the bearers of the hearse proceed
on their way, and when they pass through any village, or when they come
near any houses, they begin to cry--Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Agh! Agh!
raising their notes from the first _Oh!_ to the last _Agh!_ in a kind of
mournful howl. This gives notice to the inhabitants of the village that
_a funeral is passing_, and immediately they flock out to follow it. In
the province of Munster it is a common thing for the women to follow a
funeral, to join in the universal cry with all their might and main for
some time, and then to turn and ask--"Arrah! who is it that's dead?--who
is it we're crying for?" Even the poorest people have their own
burying-places, that is, spots of ground in the church-yards where they
say that their ancestors have been buried ever since the wars of
Ireland; and if these burial-places are ten miles from the place where a
man dies, his friends and neighbours take care to carry his corpse
thither. Always one priest, often five or six priests, attend these
funerals; each priest repeats a mass, for which he is paid, sometimes a
shilling, sometimes half-a-crown, sometimes half-a-guinea, or a guinea,
according to their circumstances, or, as they say, according to the
_ability_ of the deceased. After the burial of any very poor man, who
has left a widow or children, the priest makes what is called _a
collection_ for the widow; he goes round to every person present, and
each contributes sixpence or a shilling, or what they please. The reader
will find in the note upon the word _Wake_, more particulars respecting
the conclusion of the Irish funerals.
Certain old women, who cry particularly loud and well, are in great
request, and, as a man said to the Editor, "Every one would wish and be
proud to have such at his funeral, or at that of his friends." The lower
Irish are wonderfully eager to attend the funerals of their friends and
relations, and they make their relationships branch out to a great
extent. The proof that a poor man has been well beloved during his life
is his having a crowded funeral. To attend a neighbour's funeral is a
cheap proof of humanity, but it does not, as some imagine, cost nothing.
The time spent in attending funerals may be safely valued at half a
million to the Irish nation; the Editor thinks that double that sum
would not be too high an estimate. The habits of profligacy and
drunkenness which are acquired at _wakes_, are here put out of the
question. When a labourer, a carpenter, or a smith, is not at his work,
which frequently happens, ask where he is gone, and ten to one the
answer is--"Oh, faith, please your honour, he couldn't do a stroke
to-day, for he's gone to _the_ funeral."
Even beggars, when they grow old, go about begging _for their own
funerals_; that is, begging for money to buy a coffin, candles, pipes,
and tobacco. For the use of the candles, pipes, and tobacco, see _Wake_.
Those who value customs in proportion to their antiquity, and nations in
proportion to their adherence to ancient customs, will doubtless, admire
the Irish _Ullaloo_, and the Irish nation, for persevering in this usage
from time immemorial. The Editor, however, has observed some alarming
symptoms, which seem to prognosticate the declining taste for the
Ullaloo in Ireland. In a comic theatrical entertainment, represented not
long since on the Dublin stage, a chorus of old women was introduced,
who set up the Irish howl round the relics of a physician, who is
supposed to have fallen under the wooden sword of Harlequin. After the
old women have continued their Ullaloo for a decent time, with all the
necessary accompaniments of wringing their hands, wiping or rubbing
their eyes with the corners of their gowns or aprons, &c. one of the
mourners suddenly suspends her lamentable cries, and, turning to her
neighbour, asks, "Arrah now, honey, who is it we're crying for?"
[D] _The tenants were sent away without their whiskey._--It is usual
with some landlords to give their inferior tenants a glass of whiskey
when they pay their rents. Thady calls it _their_ whiskey; not that the
whiskey is actually the property of the tenants, but that it becomes
their _right_ after it has been often given to them. In this general
mode of reasoning respecting _rights_ the lower Irish are not singular,
but they are peculiarly quick and tenacious in claiming these rights.
"Last year your honour gave me some straw for the roof of my house and I
_expect_ your honour will be after doing the same this year." In this
manner gifts are frequently turned into tributes. The high and low are
not always dissimilar in their habits. It is said, that the Sublime
Ottoman Porte is very apt to claim gifts as tributes: thus it is
dangerous to send the Grand Seignor a fine horse on his birthday one
year, lest on his next birthday he should expect a similar present, and
should proceed to demonstrate the reasonableness of his expectations.
[E] _He demeaned himself greatly_--means, he lowered or disgraced
himself much.
[F] _Duty fowls, duty turkeys, and duty geese_.--In many leases in
Ireland, tenants were _formerly_ bound to supply an inordinate quantity
of poultry to their landlords. The Editor knew of thirty turkeys being
reserved in one lease of a small farm.
[G] _English tenants_.--An English tenant does not mean a tenant who is
an Englishman, but a tenant who pays his rent the day that it is due.
It is a common prejudice in Ireland, amongst the poorer classes of
people, to believe that all tenants in England pay their rents on the
very day when they become due. An Irishman, when he goes to take a
farm, if he wants to prove to his landlord that he is a substantial
man, offers to become an _English tenant_. If a tenant disobliges his
landlord by voting against him, or against his opinion, at an election,
the tenant is immediately informed by the agent, that he must become an
_English tenant_. This threat does not imply that he is to change his
language or his country, but that he must pay all the arrear of rent
which he owes, and that he must thenceforward pay his rent on that day
when it becomes due.
[H] _Canting_--does not mean talking or writing hypocritical nonsense,
but selling substantially by auction.
[I] _Duty work_.--It was formerly common in Ireland to insert clauses in
leases, binding tenants to furnish their landlords with labourers and
horses for several days in the year. Much petty tyranny and oppression
have resulted from this feudal custom. Whenever a poor man disobliged
his landlord, the agent sent to him for his duty work; and Thady does
not exaggerate when he says, that the tenants were often called from
their own work to do that of their landlord. Thus the very means of
earning their rent were taken from them: whilst they were getting home
their landlord's harvest, their own was often ruined, and yet their
rents were expected to be paid as punctually as if their time had been
at their own disposal. This appears the height of absurd injustice.
In Esthonia, amongst the poor Sclavonian race of peasant slaves, they
pay tributes to their lords, not under the name of duty work, duty
geese, duty turkeys, &c., but under the name of _righteousnesses_. The
following ballad is a curious specimen of Esthonian poetry:--
"This is the cause that the country is ruined,
And the straw of the thatch is eaten away,
The gentry are come to live in the land--
Chimneys between the village,
And the proprietor upon the white floor!
The sheep brings forth a lamb with a white forehead,
This is paid to the lord for a _righteousness sheep_.
The sow farrows pigs,
They go to the spit of the lord.
The hen lays eggs,
They go into the lord's frying-pan.
The cow drops a male calf,
That goes into the lord's herd as a bull.
The mare foals a horse foal,
That must be for my lord's nag.
The boor's wife has sons,
They must go to look after my lord's poultry."
[J] _Out of forty-nine suits which he had, he never lost one but
seventeen_,--Thady's language in this instance is a specimen of a mode
of rhetoric common in Ireland. An astonishing assertion is made in the
beginning of a sentence, which ceases to be in the least surprising,
when you hear the qualifying explanation that follows. Thus a man who is
in the last stage of staggering drunkenness will, if he can articulate,
swear to you--"Upon his conscience now, and may he never stir from the
spot alive if he is telling a lie, upon his conscience he has not tasted
a drop of any thing, good or bad, since morning at-all-at-all, but half
a pint of whiskey, please your honour."
[K] _Fairy Mounts_--Barrows. It is said that these high mounts were of
great service to the natives of Ireland when Ireland was invaded by the
Danes. Watch was always kept on them, and upon the approach of an enemy
a fire was lighted to give notice to the next watch, and thus the
intelligence was quickly communicated through the country. _Some years
ago_, the common people believed that these barrows were inhabited by
fairies, or, as they called them, by the _good people_. "Oh, troth, to
the best of my belief, and to the best of my judgment and opinion," said
an elderly man to the Editor, "it was only the old people that had
nothing to do, and got together, and were telling stories about them
fairies, but to the best of my judgment there's nothing in it. Only this
I heard myself not very many years hack from a decent kind of a man, a
grazier, that as he was coming just _fair and easy (quietly)_ from the
fair, with some cattle and sheep, that he had not sold, just at the
church of ----, at an angle of the road like, he was met by a
good-looking man, who asked him where he was going? And he answered,
'Oh, far enough, I must be going all night.' 'No, that you mustn't nor
won't (says the man), you'll sleep with me the night, and you'll want
for nothing, nor your cattle nor sheep neither, nor your _beast
(horse)_; so come along with me.' With that the grazier _lit (alighted)_
from his horse, and it was dark night; but presently he finds himself,
he does not know in the wide world how, in a fine house, and plenty of
every thing to eat and drink; nothing at all wanting that he could wish
for or think of. And he does not _mind (recollect_ or _know_) how at
last he falls asleep; and in the morning he finds himself lying, not in
ever a bed or a house at all, but just in the angle of the road where
first he met the strange man: there he finds himself lying on his back
on the grass, and all his sheep feeding as quiet as ever all round about
him, and his horse the same way, and the bridle of the beast over his
wrist. And I asked him what he thought of it; and from first to last he
could think of nothing, but for certain sure it must have been the
fairies that entertained him so well. For there was no house to see any
where nigh hand, or any building, or barn, or place at all, but only the
church and the _mote (barrow)_. There's another odd thing enough that
they tell about this same church, that if any person's corpse, that had
not a right to be buried in that church-yard, went to be burying there
in it, no, not all the men, women, or childer in all Ireland could get
the corpse any way into the church-yard; but as they would be trying to
go into the church-yard, their feet would seem to be going backwards
instead of forwards; ay, continually backwards the whole funeral would
seem to go; and they would never set foot with the corpse in the
church-yard. Now they say that it is the fairies do all this; but it is
my opinion it is all idle talk, and people are after being wiser now."
The country people in Ireland certainly _had_ great admiration mixed
with reverence, if not dread, of fairies. They believed that beneath
these fairy mounts were spacious subterraneous palaces, inhabited by
_the good people_, who must not on any account be disturbed. When the
wind raises a little eddy of dust upon the road, the poor people
believe that it is raised by the fairies, that it is a sign that they
are journeying from one of the fairies' mounts to another, and they
say to the fairies, or to the dust as it passes, "God speed ye,
gentlemen; God speed ye." This averts any evil that _the good people_
might be inclined to do them. There are innumerable stories told of
the friendly and unfriendly feats of these busy fairies; some of these
tales are ludicrous, and some romantic enough for poetry. It is a pity
that poets should lose such convenient, though diminutive machinery.
By-the-bye, Parnell, who showed himself so deeply "skilled in faerie
lore," was an Irishman; and though he has presented his fairies to the
world in the ancient English dress of "Britain's isle, and Arthur's
days," it is probable that his first acquaintance with them began in
his native country.
Some remote origin for the most superstitious or romantic popular
illusions or vulgar errors may often be discovered. In Ireland, the
old churches and church-yards have been usually fixed upon as the
scenes of wonders. Now antiquaries tell us, that near the ancient
churches in that kingdom caves of various constructions have from time
to time been discovered, which were formerly used as granaries or
magazines by the ancient inhabitants, and as places to which they
retreated in time of danger. There is (p. 84 of the R.I.A.
Transactions for 1789) a particular account of a number of these
artificial caves at the west end of the church of Killossy, in the
county of Kildare. Under a rising ground, in a dry sandy soil, these
subterraneous dwellings were found: they have pediment roofs, and they
communicate with each other by small apertures. In the Brehon laws
these are mentioned, and there are fines inflicted by those laws upon
persons who steal from the subterraneous granaries. All these things
show that there was a real foundation for the stories which were told
of the appearance of lights, and of the sounds of voices, near these
places. The persons who had property concealed there, very willingly
countenanced every wonderful relation that tended to make these places
objects of sacred awe or superstitious terror.
[L] _Weed-ashes_.--By ancient usage in Ireland, all the weeds on a farm
belonged to the farmer's wife, or to the wife of the squire who holds
the ground in his own hands. The great demand for alkaline salts in
bleaching rendered these ashes no inconsiderable perquisite.
[M] _Sealing money_.--Formerly it was the custom in Ireland for tenants
to give the squire's lady from two to fifty guineas as a perquisite upon
the sealing of their leases. The Editor not very long since knew of a
baronet's lady accepting fifty guineas as sealing money, upon closing a
bargain for a considerable farm.
[N] _Sir Murtagh grew mad_.--Sir Murtagh grew angry.
[O] _The whole kitchen was out on the stairs_--means that all the
inhabitants of the kitchen came out of the kitchen, and stood upon the
stairs. These, and similar expressions, show how much the Irish are
disposed to metaphor and amplification.
[P] _Fining down the year's rent_.--When an Irish gentleman, like Sir
Kit Rackrent, has lived beyond his income, and finds himself distressed
for ready money, tenants obligingly offer to take his land at a rent far
below the value, and to pay him a small sum of money in hand, which they
call fining down the yearly rent. The temptation of this ready cash
often blinds the landlord to his future interest.
[Q] _Driver_.--A man who is employed to drive tenants for rent; that is,
to drive the cattle belonging to tenants to pound. The office of driver
is by no means a sinecure.
[R] _I thought to make him a priest_.--It was customary amongst those of
Thady's rank in Ireland, whenever they could get a little money, to send
their sons abroad to St. Omer's, or to Spain, to be educated as priests.
Now they are educated at Maynooth. The Editor has lately known a young
lad, who began by being a post-boy, afterwards turn into a carpenter,
then quit his plane and work-bench to study his _Humanities_, as he
said, at the college of Maynooth; but after he had gone through his
course of Humanities, he determined to be a soldier instead of a priest.
[S] _Flam_.--Short for flambeau.
[T] _Barrack-room_.--Formerly it was customary, in gentlemen's houses in
Ireland, to fit up one large bedchamber with a number of beds for the
reception of occasional visitors. These rooms were called Barrack-rooms.
[U] _An innocent_--in Ireland, means a simpleton, an idiot.
[V] _The Curragh_--is the Newmarket of Ireland.
[X] _The cant_.--The auction.
[Y] _And so should cut him off for ever, by levying a fine, and
suffering a recovery to dock the entail_.--The English reader may
perhaps be surprised at the extent of Thady's legal knowledge, and at
the fluency with which he pours forth law-terms; but almost every poor
man in Ireland, be he farmer, weaver, shopkeeper, or steward, is,
besides his other occupations, occasionally a lawyer. The nature of
processes, ejectments, custodiams, injunctions, replevins, &c. is
perfectly known to them, and the terms as familiar to them as to any
attorney. They all love law. It is a kind of lottery, in which every
man, staking his own wit or cunning against his neighbour's property,
feels that he has little to lose, and much to gain.
"I'll have the law of you, so I will!" is the saying of an Englishman
who expects justice. "I'll have you before his honour," is the threat of
an Irishman who hopes for partiality. Miserable is the life of a justice
of the peace in Ireland the day after a fair, especially if he resides
near a small town. The multitude of the _kilt_ (_kilt_ does not mean
_killed_, but hurt) and wounded who come before his honour with black
eyes or bloody heads is astonishing: but more astonishing is the number
of those who, though they are scarcely able by daily labour to procure
daily food, will nevertheless, without the least reluctance, waste six
or seven hours of the day lounging in the yard or court of a justice of
the peace, waiting to make some complaint about--nothing. It is
impossible to convince them that _time is money_. They do not set any
value upon their own time, and they think that others estimate theirs at
less than nothing. Hence they make no scruple of telling a justice of
the peace a story of an hour long about a _tester_ (sixpence); and if he
grows impatient, they attribute it to some secret prejudice which he
entertains against them.
Their method is to get a story completely by heart, and to tell it, as
they call it, _out of the face_, that is, from the beginning to the end,
without interruption.
"Well, my good friend, I have seen you lounging about these three hours
in the yard; what is your business?"
"Please your honour, it is what I want to speak one word to your
honour."
"Speak then, but be quick--What is the matter?"
"The matter, please your honour, is nothing at-all-at-all, only just
about the grazing of a horse, please your honour, that this man here
sold me at the fair of Gurtishannon last Shrove fair, which lay down
three times with myself, please your honour, and _kilt_ me; not to be
telling your honour of how, no later back than yesterday night, he lay
down in the house there within, and all the childer standing round, and
it was God's mercy he did not fall a-top of them, or into the fire to
burn himself. So please your honour, to-day I took him back to this man,
which owned him, and after a great deal to do, I got the mare again I
_swopped (exchanged)_ him for; but he won't pay the grazing of the horse
for the time I had him, though he promised to pay the grazing in case
the horse didn't answer; and he never did a day's work, good or bad,
please your honour, all the time he was with me, and I had the doctor to
him five times any how. And so, please your honour, it is what I expect
your honour will stand my friend, for I'd sooner come to your honour for
justice than to any other in all Ireland. And so I brought him here
before your honour, and expect your honour will make him pay me the
grazing, or tell me, can I process him for it at the next assizes,
please your honour?"
The defendant now turning a quid of tobacco with his tongue into some
secret cavern in his mouth, begins his defence with--
"Please your honour, under favour, and saving your honour's presence,
there's not a word of truth in all this man has been saying from
beginning to end, upon my conscience, and I wouldn't for the value of
the horse itself, grazing and all, be after telling your honour a lie.
For, please your honour, I have a dependence upon your honour that
you'll do me justice, and not be listening to him or the like of him.
Please your honour, it's what he has brought me before your honour,
because he had a spite against me about some oats I sold your honour,
which he was jealous of, and a shawl his wife got at my shister's shop
there without, and never paid for; so I offered to set the shawl against
the grazing, and give him a receipt in full of all demands, but he
wouldn't out of spite, please your honour; so he brought me before your
honour, expecting your honour was mad with me for cutting down the tree
in the horse park, which was none of my doing, please your honour--ill
luck to them that went and belied me to your honour behind my back! So
if your honour is pleasing, I'll tell you the whole truth about the
horse that he swopped against my mare out of the face. Last Shrove fair
I met this man, Jemmy Duffy, please your honour, just at the corner of
the road, where the bridge is broken down, that your honour is to have
the presentment for this year--long life to you for it! And he was at
that time coming from the fair of Gurtishannon, and I the same way. 'How
are you, Jemmy?' says I. 'Very well, I thank ye kindly, Bryan,' says he;
'shall we turn back to Paddy Salmon's and take a naggin of whiskey to
our better acquaintance?' 'I don't care if I did, Jemmy,' says I; 'only
it is what I can't take the whiskey, because I'm under an oath against
it for a month.' Ever since, please your honour, the day your honour met
me on the road, and observed to me I could hardly stand, I had taken so
much; though upon my conscience your honour wronged me greatly that same
time--ill luck to them that belied me behind my back to your honour!
Well, please your honour, as I was telling you, as he was taking the
whiskey, and we talking of one thing or t'other, he makes me an offer to
swop his mare that he couldn't sell at the fair of Gurtishannon, because
nobody would he troubled with the beast, please your honour, against my
horse, and to oblige him I took the mare--sorrow take her! and him along
with her! She kicked me a new car, that was worth three pounds ten, to
tatters the first time I ever put her into it, and I expect your honour
will make him pay me the price of the car, any how, before I pay the
grazing, which I've no right to pay at-all-at-all, only to oblige him.
But I leave it all to your honour; and the whole grazing he ought to be
charging for the beast is but two and eight pence halfpenny, any how,
please your honour. So I'll abide by what your honour says, good or bad.
I'll leave it all to your honour."
I'll leave _it_ all to your honour--literally means, I'll leave all the
trouble to your honour.
The Editor knew a justice of the peace in Ireland, who had such a dread
of _having it all left to his honour_, that he frequently gave the
complainants the sum about which they were disputing, to make peace
between them, and to get rid of the trouble of hearing their stories
_out of the face_. But he was soon cured of this method of buying off
disputes, by the increasing multitude of those who, out of pure regard
to his honour, came "to get justice from him, because they would sooner
come before him than before any man in all Ireland."
[Z] _A raking pot of tea_.--We should observe, this custom has long
since been banished from the higher orders of Irish gentry. The
mysteries of a raking pot of tea, like those of the Bona Dea, are
supposed to be sacred to females; but now and then it has happened, that
some of the male species, who were either more audacious, or more highly
favoured than the rest of their sex, have been admitted by stealth to
these orgies. The time when the festive ceremony begins varies according
to circumstances, but it is never earlier than twelve o'clock at night;
the joys of a raking pot of tea depending on its being made in secret,
and at an unseasonable hour. After a ball, when the more discreet part
of the company has departed to rest, a few chosen female spirits, who
have footed it till they can foot it no longer, and till the sleepy
notes expire under the slurring hand of the musician, retire to a
bedchamber, call the favourite maid, who alone is admitted, bid her _put
down the kettle_, lock the door, and amidst as much giggling and
scrambling as possible, they get round a tea-table, on which all manner
of things are huddled together. Then begin mutual railleries and mutual
confidences amongst the young ladies, and the faint scream and the loud
laugh is heard, and the romping for letters and pocket-books begins, and
gentlemen are called by their surnames, or by the general name of
fellows! pleasant fellows! charming fellows! odious fellows! abominable
fellows! and then all prudish decorums are forgotten, and then we might
be convinced how much the satirical poet was mistaken when he said,
"There is no woman where there's no reserve."
The merit of the original idea of a raking pot of tea evidently belongs
to the washerwoman and the laundry-maid. But why should not we have _Low
life above stairs_ as well as _High life below stairs_?
[A2] _We gained the day by this piece of honesty_.--In a dispute
which occurred some years ago in Ireland, between Mr. E. and Mr. M.,
about the boundaries of a farm, an old tenant of Mr. M.'s cut a _sod_
from Mr. M.'s land, and inserted it in a spot prepared for its
reception in Mr. E.'s land; so nicely was it inserted, that no eye
could detect the junction of the grass. The old man, who was to give
his evidence as to the property, stood upon the inserted sod when the
_viewers_ came, and swore that the ground he _then stood upon_
belonged to his landlord, Mr. M.
The Editor had flattered himself that the ingenious contrivance which
Thady records, and the similar subterfuge of this old Irishman, in the
dispute concerning boundaries, were instances of _'cuteness_
unparalleled in all but Irish story: an English friend, however, has
just mortified the Editor's national vanity by an account of the
following custom, which prevails in part of Shropshire. It is
discreditable for women to appear abroad after the birth of their
children till they have been _churched_. To avoid this reproach, and at
the same time to enjoy the pleasure of gadding, whenever a woman goes
abroad before she has been to church, she takes a tile from the roof of
her house, and puts it upon her head: wearing this panoply all the time
she pays her visits, her conscience is perfectly at ease; for she can
afterwards safely declare to the clergyman, that she "has never been
from under her own roof till she came to be churched."
[B2] _Carton, and half carton_.--Thady means cartron, and half cartron.
"According to the old record in the black book of Dublin, a _cantred_ is
said to contain 30 _villatas terras_, which are also called _quarters_
of land (quarterons, _cartrons_); every one of which quarters must
contain so much ground as will pasture 400 cows, and 17 plough-lands. A
knight's fee was composed of 8 hydes, which amount to 160 acres, and
that is generally deemed about a _ploughland_."
The Editor was favoured by a learned friend with the above extract, from
a MS. of Lord Totness's in the Lambeth library.
[C2] _Wake_.--A wake in England means a festival held upon the
anniversary of the saint of the parish. At these wakes, rustic games,
rustic conviviality, and rustic courtship, are pursued with all the
ardour and all the appetite which accompany such pleasures as occur but
seldom. In Ireland a wake is a midnight meeting, held professedly for
the indulgence of holy sorrow, but usually it is converted into orgies
of unholy joy. When an Irish man or woman of the lower order dies, the
straw which composed the bed, whether it has been contained in a bag to
form a mattress, or simply spread upon the earthen floor, is immediately
taken out of the house, and burned before the cabin door, the family at
the same time setting up the death howl. The ears and eyes of the
neighbours being thus alarmed, they flock to the house of the deceased,
and by their vociferous sympathy excite and at the same time soothe the
sorrows of the family.
It is curious to observe how good and bad are mingled in human
institutions. In countries which were thinly inhabited, this custom
prevented private attempts against the lives of individuals, and formed
a kind of coroner's inquest upon the body which had recently expired,
and burning the straw upon which the sick man lay became a simple
preservative against infection. At night the dead body is waked, that is
to say, all the friends and neighbours of the deceased collect in a barn
or stable, where the corpse is laid upon some boards, or an unhinged
door, supported upon stools, the face exposed, the rest of the body
covered with a white sheet. Bound the body are stuck in brass
candlesticks, which have been borrowed perhaps at five miles' distance,
as many candles as the poor person can beg or borrow, observing always
to have an odd number. Pipes and tobacco are first distributed, and
then, according to the _ability_ of the deceased, cakes and ale, and
sometimes whiskey, are _dealt_ to the company:
"Deal on, deal on, my merry men all,
Deal on your cakes and your wine,
For whatever is dealt at her funeral to-day
Shall be dealt to-morrow at mine."
After a fit of universal sorrow, and the comfort of a universal dram,
the scandal of the neighbourhood, as in higher circles, occupies the
company. The young lads and lasses romp with one another, and when
the fathers and mothers are at last overcome with sleep and whiskey
(_vino et somno_), the youth become more enterprising, and are
frequently successful. It is said that more matches are made at wakes
than at weddings.
[D2] _Kilt_.--This word frequently occurs in the preceding pages,
where it means not _killed_, but much _hurt_. In Ireland, not only
cowards, but the brave "die many times before their death."--There
killing is no murder.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "The cloak, or mantle, as described by Thady, is of high antiquity.
Spenser, in his 'View of the State of Ireland,' proves that it is not,
as some have imagined, peculiarly derived from the Scythians, but that
most nations of the world anciently used the mantle; for the Jews used
it, as you may read of Elias's mantle, &c.; the Chaldees also used it,
as you may read in Diodorus; the Egyptians likewise used it, as you may
read in Herodotus, and may be gathered by the description of Berenice in
the Greek Commentary upon Callimachus; the Greeks also used it
anciently, as appeared by Venus's mantle lined with stars, though
afterward they changed the form thereof into their cloaks, called
Pallai, as some of the Irish also use: and the ancient Latins and Romans
used it, as you may read in Virgil, who was a great antiquary, that
Evander when Aeneas came to him at his feast, did entertain and feast
him sitting on the ground, and lying on mantles: insomuch that he useth
the very word mantile for a mantle,
'------Humi mantilia sternunt:'
so that it seemeth that the mantle was a general habit to most nations,
and not proper to the Scythians only."
Spenser knew the convenience of the said mantle, as housing, bedding,
and clothing.
"_Iren_. Because the commodity doth not countervail the discommodity;
for the inconveniences which thereby do arise are much more many; for it
is a fit house for an outlaw, a meet bed for a rebel, and an apt cloak
for a thief. First, the outlaw being, for his many crimes and villanies,
banished from the towns and houses of honest men, and wandering in waste
places, far from danger of law, maketh his mantle his house, and under
it covereth himself from the wrath of Heaven, from the offence of the
earth, and from the sight of men. When it raineth, it is his penthouse;
when it bloweth, it is his tent; when it freezeth, it is his tabernacle.
In summer he can wear it loose; in winter he can wrap it close; at all
times he can use it; never heavy, never cumbersome. Likewise for a rebel
it is as serviceable; for in this war that he maketh (if at least it
deserves the name of war), when he still flieth from his foe, and
lurketh in the _thick woods (this should be black bogs_) and straight
passages, waiting for advantages, it is his bed, yea, and almost his
household stuff."
[2] These fairy-mounts are called ant-hills in England. They are held in
high reverence by the common people in Ireland. A gentleman, who in
laying out his lawn had occasion to level one of these hillocks, could
not prevail upon any of his labourers to begin the ominous work. He was
obliged to take a _loy_ from one of their reluctant hands, and began the
attack himself. The labourers agreed, that the vengeance of the fairies
would fall upon the head of the presumptuous mortal, who first disturbed
them in their retreat. See Glossary [K].
[3] The Banshee is a species of aristocratic fairy, who, in the shape of
a little hideous old woman, has been known to appear, and heard to sing
in a mournful supernatural voice under the windows of great houses, to
warn the family that some of them are soon to die. In the last century
every great family in Ireland had a Banshee, who attended regularly; but
latterly their visits and songs have been discontinued.
[4] _Childer:_ this is the manner in which many of Thady's rank, and
others in Ireland, _formerly_ pronounced the word _children_.
[5] _Middle men_.--There was a class of men termed middle men in
Ireland, who took large farms on long leases from gentlemen of landed
property, and let the land again in small portions to the poor, as
under-tenants, at exorbitant rents. The _head landlord_, as he _was_
called, seldom saw his _under-tenants_; but if he could not get the
_middle man_ to pay him his rent punctually, he _went to his land, and
drove the land for his rent_, that is to say, he sent his steward or
bailiff, or driver, to the land to seize the cattle, hay, corn, flax,
oats, or potatoes, belonging to the under-tenants, and proceeded to sell
these for his rents: it sometimes happened that these unfortunate
tenants paid their rent twice over, once to _the middle man_, and once
to the _head landlord_.
The characteristics of a middle man _were_, servility to his superiors,
and tyranny towards his inferiors: the poor detested this race of
beings. In speaking to them, however, they always used the most abject
language, and the most humble tone and posture--"_Please your honour;
and please your honour's honour_" they knew must be repeated as a charm
at the beginning and end of every equivocating, exculpatory, or
supplicatory sentence; and they were much more alert in doffing their
caps to these new men, than to those of what they call _good old
families_. A witty carpenter once termed these middle men _journeymen
gentlemen_.
[6] This part of the history of the Rackrent family can scarcely be
thought credible; but in justice to honest Thady, it is hoped the reader
will recollect the history of the celebrated Lady Cathcart's conjugal
imprisonment.--The editor was acquainted with Colonel M'Guire, Lady
Cathcart's husband; he has lately seen and questioned the maid-servant
who lived with Colonel M'Guire during the time of Lady Cathcart's
imprisonment. Her ladyship was locked up in her own house for many
years; during which period her husband was visited by the neighbouring
gentry, and it was his regular custom at dinner to send his compliments
to Lady Cathcart, informing her that the company had the honour to drink
her ladyship's health, and begging to know whether there was any thing
at table that she would like to eat? the answer was always, "Lady
Cathcart's compliments, and she has every thing she wants." An instance
of honesty in a poor Irish woman deserves to be recorded:--Lady Cathcart
had some remarkably fine diamonds, which she had concealed from her
husband, and which she was anxious to get out of the house, lest he
should discover them. She had neither servant nor friend to whom she
could entrust them; but she had observed a poor beggar woman, who used
to come to the house; she spoke to her from the window of the room in
which she was confined; the woman promised to do what she desired, and
Lady Cathcart threw a parcel, containing the jewels, to her. The poor
woman carried them to the person to whom they were directed; and several
years afterwards, when Lady Cathcart recovered her liberty, she received
her diamonds safely.
At Colonel M'Guire's death her ladyship was released. The editor, within
this year, saw the gentleman who accompanied her to England after her
husband's death. When she first was told of his death, she imagined that
the news was not true, and that it was told only with an intention of
deceiving her. At his death she had scarcely clothes sufficient to cover
her; she wore a red wig, looked scared, and her understanding seemed
stupified; she said that she scarcely knew one human creature from
another: her imprisonment lasted above twenty years. These circumstances
may appear strange to an English reader; but there is no danger in the
present times, that any individual should exercise such tyranny as
Colonel M'Guire's with impunity, the power being now all in the hands of
government, and there being no possibility of obtaining from parliament
an act of indemnity for any cruelties.
[7] Boo! boo! an exclamation equivalent to _pshaw_ or _nonsense_.
[8] _Pin_, read _pen_. It formerly was vulgarly pronounced _pin_
in Ireland.
[9] _Her mark_. It _was_ the custom in Ireland for those who could not
write to make a cross to stand for their signature, as was formerly the
practice of our English monarchs. The Editor inserts the fac-simile of
an Irish _mark_, which may hereafter be valuable to a judicious
antiquary--
Her
Judy X M'Quirk,
Mark.
In bonds or notes, signed in this manner, a witness is requisite, as the
name is frequently written by him or her.
[10] _Vows_.--It has been maliciously and unjustly hinted, that the
lower classes of the people in Ireland pay but little regard to oaths;
yet it is certain that some oaths or vows have great power over their
minds. Sometimes they swear they will be revenged on some of their
neighbours; this is an oath that they are never known to break. But,
what is infinitely more extraordinary and unaccountable, they sometimes
make and keep a vow against whiskey; these vows are usually limited to a
short time. A woman who has a drunken husband is most fortunate if she
can prevail upon him to go to the priest, and make a vow against whiskey
for a year, or a month, or a week, or a day.
[11] _Gossoon_, a little boy--from the French word _garcon_. In most
Irish families there _used_ to be a barefooted gossoon, who was slave to
the cook and butler, and who in fact, without wages, did all the hard
work of the house. Gossoons were always employed as messengers. The
Editor has known a gossoon to go on foot, without shoes or stockings,
fifty-one English miles between sunrise and sunset.
[12] At St. Patricks meeting, London, March, 1806, the Duke of Sussex
said he had the honour of bearing an Irish title, and, with the
permission of the company, he should tell them an anecdote of what he
had experienced on his travels. When he was at Rome, he went to visit an
Irish seminary, and when they heard who he was, and that he had an Irish
title, some of them asked him, "Please you Royal Highness, since you are
an Irish peer, will you tell us if you ever trod upon Irish ground?"
When he told them he had not, "Oh, then," said one of the order, "you
shall soon do so". They then spread some earth, which had been brought
from Ireland, on a marble slab, and made him stand upon it.
[13] This was actually done at an election in Ireland.
[14] _To put him up_--to put him in gaol.
[15] _My little potatoes_--Thady does not mean, by this expression,
that his potatoes were less than other people's, or less than the usual
size--_little_ is here used only as an Italian diminutive, expressive
of fondness.
[16] _Kith and kin_--family or relations. _Kin_ from _kind_; _kith_ from
we know not what.
[17] Wigs were formerly used instead of brooms in Ireland, for sweeping
or dusting tables, stairs, &c. The Editor doubted the fact, till he saw
a labourer of the old school sweep down a flight of stairs with his wig;
he afterwards put it on his head again with the utmost composure, and
said, "Oh, please your honour, it's never a bit the worse."
It must be acknowledged, that these men are not in any danger of
catching cold by taking off their wigs occasionally, because they
usually have fine crops of hair growing under their wigs. The wigs are
often yellow, and the hair which appears from beneath them black; the
wigs are usually too small, and are raised up by the hair beneath, or by
the ears of the wearers.
[18] A wake in England is a meeting avowedly for merriment; in Ireland
it is a nocturnal meeting avowedly for the purpose of watching and
bewailing the dead; but, in reality, for gossiping and debauchery. See
Glossary [C2].
[19] Shebean-house, a hedge alehouse. Shebcan properly means weak
small-beer, taplash.
[20] At the coronation of one of our monarchs, the king complained of
the confusion which happened in the procession. The great officer who
presided told his majesty, "That it should not be so next time."
[21] _Kilt and smashed_.--Our author is not here guilty of an
anti-climax. The mere English reader, from a similarity of sound between
the words _kilt_ and _killed_, might be induced to suppose that their
meanings are similar, yet they are not by any means in Ireland
synonymous terms. Thus you may hear a man exclaim, "I'm kilt and
murdered!" but he frequently means only that he has received a black
eye, or a slight contusion.--_I'm kilt all over_ means that he is in a
worse state than being simply _kilt_. Thus, _I'm kilt with the cold_, is
nothing to _I'm kilt all over with the rheumatism_.
[22] _The room_--the principal room in the house.
[23] _Tester_--sixpence; from the French word, tete, a head: a piece of
silver stamped with a head, which in old French was called "un testion,"
and which was about the value of an old English sixpence. Tester is used
in Shakspeare.
ESSAY ON IRISH BULLS
Summos posse viros, et magna exempla daturos, Vervecum in patria,
crassoque sub aere nasci. JUVENAL.
IRISH BULLS
INTRODUCTION.
What mortal, what fashionable mortal, is there who has not, in the midst
of a formidable circle, been reduced to the embarrassment of having
nothing to say? Who is there that has not felt those oppressive fits of
silence which ensue after the weather, and the fashions, and the
politics, and the scandal, and all the common-place topics of the day
have been utterly exhausted? Who is there that, at such a time, has not
tried in vain to call up an idea, and found that _none would come when
they did call_, or that all that came were impertinent, and must be
rejected, some as too grave, others too gay, some too vulgar, some too
refined for the hearers, some relating to persons, others to
circumstances that must not be mentioned? Not one will do! and all this
time the silence lasts, and the difficulty of breaking it increases
every instant in an incalculable proportion.
Let it be some comfort to those whose polite sensibility has laboured
under such distress to be assured, that they need never henceforward
fear to be reduced to similar dilemmas. They may be insured for ever
against such dangers at the slight premium and upon the easy condition
of perusing the following little volume. It will satisfy them that there
is a subject which still affords inexhausted and inexhaustible sources
of conversation, suited to all tastes, all ranks, all individuals,
democratic, aristocratic, commercial, or philosophic; suited to every
company which can be combined, purposely or fortuitously, in this great
metropolis, or in any of the most remote parts of England, Wales, or
Scotland. There is a subject which dilates the heart of every true
Briton, which relaxes his muscles, however rigid, to a smile,--which
opens his lips, however closed, to conversation. There is a subject
"which frets another's spleen to cure our own," and which makes even the
angelic part of the creation _laugh themselves mortal_. For who can
forbear to laugh at the bare idea of an Irish bull?
Nor let any one apprehend that this subject can ever become trite and
vulgar. Custom cannot stale its infinite variety. It is in the main
obvious, and palpable enough for every common understanding; yet it
leads to disquisitions of exquisite subtlety, it branches into
innumerable ramifications, and involves consequences of surprising
importance; it may exercise the ingenuity of the subtlest wit, the fancy
of the oddest humourist, the imagination of the finest poet, and the
judgment of the most profound metaphysician. Moreover, this happy
subject is enveloped in all that doubt and confusion which are so
favourable to the reputation of disputants, and which secures the
glorious possibility of talking incessantly, without being stopped short
by a definition or a demonstration. For much as we have all heard and
talked of Irish bulls, it has never yet been decided what it is that
constitutes a bull. _Incongruity of ideas_, says one. But this
supposition touches too closely upon the definition of wit, which,
according to the best authorities, Locke, Burke, and Stewart, consists
in an unexpected assemblage of ideas, apparently discordant, but in
which some point of resemblance or aptitude is suddenly discovered.
Then, perhaps, says another, the essence of a bull lies in _confusion of
ideas_. This sounds plausible in theory, but it will not apply in
practice; for confusion of ideas is common to both countries: for
instance, was there not some slight confusion of ideas in the mind of
that English student, who, when he was asked what progress he had made
in the study of medicine, replied, "I hope I shall soon be qualified to
be a physician, for I think I am now able to cure a child?"
To amend our bill, suppose we insert the word laughable, and say that a
_laughable confusion of ideas_ constitutes a bull. But have we not a
laughable confusion of ideas in our English poet Blackmore's famous
lines in Prince Arthur?--
"A painted vest prince Vortigern had on,
Which from a naked Pict his grandsire won."
We are sensible that, to many people, the most vulgar Irish bull would
appear more laughable merely from its being Irish,--therefore we cannot
make the propensity to laughter in one man the criterion of what is
ridiculous in another; though we have a precedent for this mode of
judging in the laws of England, which are allowed to be the perfection
of human reason. If a man swear that his neighbour has put him in bodily
fear, he may have the cause of his terror sent to gaol; thus the
feelings of the plaintiff become the measure of the defendant's guilt.
As we cannot extend this convenient principle to all matters of taste,
and all subjects of risibility, we are still compelled to acknowledge
that no accurate definition of a bull has yet been given. The essence of
an Irish bull must be of the most ethereal nature, for notwithstanding
the most indefatigable research, it has hitherto escaped from analysis.
The crucible always breaks in the long-expected moment of projection: we
have nevertheless the courage to recommence the process in a new mode.
Perhaps by ascertaining what it is not, we may at last discover what it
is: we must distinguish the genuine from the spurious, the original from
all imitations, the indigenous from the exotic; in short, it must be
determined in what an Irish bull essentially differs from a blunder, or
in what Irish blunders specifically differ from English blunders, and
from those of all other nations. To elucidate these points, or to prove
to the satisfaction of all competent judges that they are beyond the
reach of the human understanding, is the object of the following _Essay
concerning the Nature of Bulls and Blunders_.
CHAPTER I.
ORIGINALITY OF IRISH BULLS EXAMINED.
The difficulty of selecting from the vulgar herd of Irish bulls one that
shall be entitled to the prize, from the united merits of pre-eminent
absurdity, and indisputable originality, is greater than hasty judges
may imagine. Many bulls, reputed to be bred and born in Ireland, are of
foreign extraction; and many more, supposed to be unrivalled in their
kind, may be matched in all their capital _points_: for instance, there
is not a more celebrated bull than Paddy Blake's. When Paddy heard an
English gentleman speaking of the fine echo at the lake of Killarney,
which repeats the sound forty times, he very promptly observed, "Faith,
that's nothing at all to the echo in my father's garden, in the county
of Galway: if you say to it, 'How do you do, Paddy Blake?' it will
answer, 'Pretty well, I thank you, sir.'"
Now this echo of Paddy Blake's, which has long been the admiration of
the world, is not a prodigy _unique_ in its kind; it can be matched by
one recorded in the immortal works of the great Lord Verulam.[24]
"I remember well," says this father of philosophy, "that when I went to
the echo at Port Charenton, there was an old Parisian that took it to
be the work of spirits, and of good spirits, 'for,' said he, 'call
Satan, and the echo will not deliver back the devil's name, but will
say, 'Va t'en.'"
The Parisian echo is surely superior to the Hibernian! Paddy Blake's
simply understood and practised the common rules of good-breeding; but
the Port Charenton echo is "instinct with spirit," and endowed with a
nice moral sense.
Amongst the famous bulls recorded by the illustrious Joe Miller, there
is one which has been continually quoted as an example of original Irish
genius. An English gentleman was writing a letter in a coffee-house, and
perceiving that an Irishman stationed behind him was taking that liberty
which Hephaestion used with his friend Alexander, instead of putting his
seal upon the lips of the _curious impertinent_, the English gentleman
thought proper to reprove the Hibernian, if not with delicacy, at least
with poetical justice: he concluded writing his letter in these words:
"I would say more, but a damned tall Irishman is reading over my
shoulder every word I write."
"You lie, you scoundrel!" said the self-convicted Hibernian.
This blunder is unquestionably excellent; but it is not originally
Irish: it comes, with other riches, from the East, as the reader may
find by looking into a book by M. Galland, entitled, "The Remarkable
Sayings of the Eastern Nations."
"A learned man was writing to a friend; a troublesome fellow was beside
him, who was looking over his shoulder at what he was writing. The
learned man, who perceived this, continued writing in these words, 'If
an impertinent chap, who stands beside me, were not looking at what I
write, I would write many other things to you, which should be known
only to you and to me.'
"The troublesome fellow, who was reading on, now thought it incumbent
upon him to speak, and said, 'I swear to you, that I have not read or
looked at what you are writing.'
"The learned man replied, 'Blockhead, as you are, why then do you say to
me what you are now saying?'" [25]
Making allowance for the difference of manners in eastern and northern
nations, there is, certainly, such a similarity between this oriental
anecdote and Joe Miller's story, that we may conclude the latter is
stolen from the former. Now, an _Irish_ bull must be a species of
blunder _peculiar_ to Ireland; those that we have hitherto examined,
though they may be called Irish bulls by the ignorant vulgar, have no
right, title, or claim to such a distinction. We should invariably
exclude from that class all blunders which can be found in another
country. For instance, a speech of the celebrated Irish beauty, Lady
C----, has been called a bull; but as a parallel can be produced in the
speech of an English nobleman, _it tells for nothing_. When her ladyship
was presented at court, his majesty, George the Second, politely hoped,
"that, since her arrival in England, she had been entertained with the
gaieties of London."
"Oh, yes, please your majesty, I have seen every sight in London worth
seeing, except a coronation."
This _naivete_ is certainly not equal to that of the English earl
marshal, who, when his king found fault with some arrangement at his
coronation, said, "Please your majesty, I hope it will be better
next time."
A _naivete_ of the same species entailed a heavy tax upon the
inhabitants of Beaune, in France. Beaune is famous for burgundy; and
Henry the Fourth, passing through his kingdom, stopped there, and was
well entertained by his loyal subjects. His Majesty praised the burgundy
which they set before him--"It was excellent! it was admirable!"
"Oh, sire!" cried they, "do you think this excellent? _we have much
finer_ burgundy than this."
"Have you so? then you can afford to pay for it," replied Harry
the Fourth; and he laid a double tax thenceforward upon the
burgundy of Beaune.
Of the same class of blunders is the following speech, which we actually
heard not long ago from an Irishman:--
"Please your worship, he sent me to the devil, and I came straight to
your honour."
We thought this an original Irish blunder, till we recollected its
prototype in Marmontel's Annette and Lubin. Lubin concludes his harangue
with, "The bailiff sent us to the devil, and we come to put ourselves
under your protection, my lord." [26]
The French, at least in former times, were celebrated for politeness;
yet we meet with a _naive_ compliment of a Frenchman, which would have
been accounted a bull if it had been found in Ireland.
A gentleman was complimenting Madame Denis on the manner in which she
had just acted Zaire. "To act that part," said she, "a person should be
young and handsome." "Ah, madam!" replied the complimenter _naivement_,
"you are a complete proof of the contrary." [27]
We know not any original Irish blunder superior to this, unless it
be that which Lord Orford pronounced to be the best bull that he
ever heard.
"I hate that woman," said a gentleman, looking at one who had been his
nurse; "I hate that woman, for she changed me at nurse."
Lord Orford particularly admires this bull, because in the confusion of
the blunderer's ideas he is not clear even of his personal identity.
Philosophers will not perhaps be so ready as his lordship has been to
call this a blunder of the first magnitude. Those who have never been
initiated into the mysteries of metaphysics may have the presumptuous
ignorance to fancy that they understand what is meant by the common
words _I_, or _me_; but the able metaphysician knows better than Lord
Orford's changeling how to prove, to our satisfaction, that we know
nothing of the matter.
"Personal identity," says Locke, "consists not in the identity of
substance, but in the identity of consciousness, wherein Socrates and
the present mayor of Queenborough agree they are the same person: if the
same Socrates, sleeping and waking, do not partake of the same
consciousness, Socrates waking and sleeping is not the same person; and
to punish Socrates waking for what sleeping Socrates thought, and waking
Socrates was never conscious of, would be no more of right than to
punish one twin for what his brother twin did, whereof he knew nothing,
because their outsides are so like that they could not be distinguished;
for such twins have been seen." [28]
We may presume that our Hibernian's consciousness could not retrograde
to the time when he was changed at nurse; consequently there was no
continuity of identity between the infant and the man who expressed his
hatred of the nurse for perpetrating the fraud. At all events, the
confusion of identity which excited Lord Orford's admiration in our
Hibernian is by no means unprecedented in France, England, or ancient
Greece, and consequently it cannot be an instance of national
idiosyncracy, or an Irish bull. We find a similar blunder in Spain, in
the time of Cervantes:--
"Pray tell me, squire," says the duchess, in Don Quixote, "is not your
master the person whose history is printed under the name of the sage
Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha, who professes himself the admirer of
one Dulcinea del Toboso?"
"The very same, my lady," answered Sancho; "and I myself am that very
squire of his, who is mentioned, or ought to be mentioned, in that
history, _unless they have changed me in the cradle_."
In Moliere's Amphitrion there is a dialogue between Mercure and Sosie,
evidently taken from the _Attic_ Lucian. Sosie being completely puzzled
out of his personal identity, if not out of his senses, says literally,
"of my being myself I begin to doubt in good earnest; yet when I feel
myself, and when I recollect myself, it seems to me that _I am I_." [29]
We see that the puzzle about identity proves at last to be of Grecian
origin. It is really edifying to observe how those things which have
long been objects of popular admiration shrink and fade when exposed to
the light of strict examination. An experienced critic proposed that a
work should be written to inquire into the pretensions of modern writers
to original invention, to trace their thefts, and to restore the
property to the ancient owners. Such a work would require powers and
erudition beyond what can be expected from any ordinary individual; the
labour must be shared amongst numbers, and we are proud to assist in
ascertaining the rightful property even of bulls and blunders; though
without pretending, like some literary blood-hounds, to follow up a
plagiarism, where common sagacity is at a fault.
CHAPTER II.
IRISH NEWSPAPERS.
We presume that we have successfully disputed the claims imposed upon
the public, in behalf of certain spurious alien blunders, pretending
to be native, original Irish bulls; and we shall now with pleasure
proceed to examine those which have better titles to notice. Even
nonsense ceases to be worthy of attention and public favour, unless it
be original.
"Dear Lady Emily," says Miss Allscrip, in the excellent comedy of the
Heiress--"Dear Lady Emily, don't you dote upon folly?"
"To ecstasy!" replies her ladyship; "I only despair of seeing it
well kept up."
We flatter ourselves, "there is no great danger of that," for we have
the Irish newspapers before us, where, no doubt, we shall find a fresh
harvest of indigenous absurdity ripe for the sickle.
The first advertisement that meets our eye is promising.
It is the late proclamation of an Irish mayor, in which we are informed,
that certain business is to be transacted in that city "every Monday
(Easter Sunday only excepted)." This seems rather an unnecessary
exception; but it is not an inadvertency, caused by any hurry of
business in his worship; it is deliberately copied from a precedent, set
in England, by a baronet formerly well known in parliament, who, in the
preamble to a bill, proposed that certain regulations should take place
"on every Monday (Tuesday excepted)." We fear, also, that an English
mayor has been known to blunder. Some years ago the mayor of a capital
English city published a proclamation and advertisement, previous to the
races, "that no gentleman will be allowed to ride on the course, but
_the horses_ that are to run." A mayor's blundering proclamation is not,
however, worth half so much in the eye of ridicule as a lord
lieutenant's.
"A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn."
A bull on the throne is worth twice as much as a bull in the chair.
"By the lord lieutenant and council of Ireland.
A proclamation.
------,
"Whereas the greatest economy is necessary in the consumption
of _all species of grain, and especially in the consumption of
potatoes, &c_.
"Given at the council chamber in Dublin."
This is the first time we have been informed, by authority, that
potatoes are a species of grain; but we must accede to this new
botanical arrangement, when published under such splendid auspices. The
assertion certainly is not made in distinct terms: but all who
understand the construction of language must imply the conclusion that
we draw from these premises. A general position is in the first member
of the sentence laid down, "_that the greatest economy is necessary in
the consumption of all species of grain_." A particular exemplification
of the principle is made in the next clause, "_especially in the
consumption of potatoes_."
The inference is as plain as can be made.
The next article in our newspaper is an advertisement of lands to be let
to _an improving tenant_:--"A few miles from Cork, in _a most sporting
country_, bounded by an _uncommon fine_ turf bog, on the verge of which
there are a number of fine _lime kilns_, where _that manure_ may be had
on very moderate terms, the distance for carriage not being many hundred
yards. The whole lands being now in great heart, and completely laid
down, entirely surrounded, and divided by _impenetrable furze ditches,
made of quarried stones laid edgeways_."
It will be a matter of difficulty to the untravelled English reader to
comprehend how furze ditches can be made of quarried stones laid
edgeways, or any way; and we fear that we should only puzzle his
intellects still more if we should attempt to explain to him the
mysteries of Irish ditching in the technical terms of the country. With
the face of a ditch he may be acquainted, but to _the back_ and _gripe_,
and bottom of the gripe, and top of the back of a ditch, we fear he is
still to be introduced.
We can never sufficiently admire these furze ditches made of quarried
stones; they can, indeed, be found only in Ireland; but we have heard in
England of things almost as extraordinary. Dr. Grey, in his erudite and
entertaining notes on Hudibras, records the deposition of a lawyer, who,
in an action of battery, told the judge "that the defendant beat his
client with a certain _wooden instrument_ called _an iron pestle_." Nay,
to go further still, a wise annotator on the Pentateuch, named Peter
Harrison, observed of Moses' two _tables of stone_, that they were made
of _shittim-wood_. The stone furze ditches are scarcely bolder instances
of the catachresis than the stone tables of shittim-wood. This bold
figure of rhetoric in an Irish advertisement of an estate may lead us to
expect that Hibernian advertisers may, in time, emulate the fame of
Christie, the prince of auctioneers, whose fine descriptive powers can
make more of an estate on paper than ever was made of it in any other
shape, except in the form of an ejectment. The fictions of law, indeed,
surpass even the auctioneer's imagination; and a man may be said never
to know the extent of his own possessions until he is served with a
process of ejectment. He then finds himself required to give up the
possession of a multitude of barns, orchards, fish-ponds, horse-ponds,
dwelling-houses, pigeon-houses, dove-cotes, out-houses, and
appurtenances, which he never saw or heard of, and which are nowhere to
be found upon the surface of the habitable globe; so that we cannot
really express this English legal transaction without being guilty of an
Irish bull, and saying that the person ejected is _ousted_ from places
which he never entered.
To proceed with our newspapers.--The next advertisement is from a
schoolmaster: but we shall not descant upon its grammatical errors,
because they are not blunders peculiar to Irish schoolmasters. We have
frequently observed that the advertisements of schoolmasters, even in
England, are seldom free from solecisms: too much care in writing, it
seems, is almost as bad as too little. In the preface of the dictionary
of the French Academy, there are, as it is computed by an able French
critic, no less than sixteen faults; and in Harris, the celebrated
grammarian's dedication of his Hermes, there is one bull, and almost as
many faults as lines. It appears as if the most precise and learned
writers sometimes, like the ladies in one of Congreve's plays, "run into
the danger to avoid the apprehension."
After a careful scrutiny of the Hibernian advertisements, we are
compelled to confess that we have not met with any blunders that more
nearly resemble our notion of an Irish bull than one which, some years
ago, appeared in our English papers. It was the title to an
advertisement of a washing machine, in these words: "Every _Man_ his
own _Washerwoman_!" We have this day, Nov. 19, 1807, seen the following:
"This day were published, Memoirs of the Life of Mrs. Elizabeth Carter,
with a _new edition_ of her Poems, some of which have _never_ before
appeared." And an eye-witness assures us, that lately he saw an
advertisement in the following terms stuck up on the walls of an English
coffee-house: "This coffee-house removed up-stairs!"
A Roman emperor used to draw his stairs up after him every night into
his bedchamber, and we have heard of throwing a house out of the
windows; but drawing a whole house up into itself is new.
How can we account for such a blunder, in an advertisement on the wall
of an English coffee-house, except by supposing that it was penned by an
Irish waiter? If that were the case, it would an admirable example of an
Irish bull! and therefore we had best take it for granted.
Let not any conscientious person be startled at the mode of reasoning by
which we have convicted an imaginary Irish waiter of a real bull: it is
at least as good, if not better logic, than that which was successfully
employed in the time of the _popish plot_, to convict an Irish physician
of forgery. The matter is thus recorded by L'Estrange. The Irish
physician "was charged with writing a treasonable libel, but denied the
thing, and appealed to the unlikeness of the characters. It was agreed
that there was no resemblance at all in the hands; but asserted that the
doctor had two hands; his _physic hand_ and his _plot hand_, and the one
not a jot like the other. Now this was the doctor's plot hand, and it
was insisted that, because it was not like one of his hands, it must be
like the other."
By this convenient mode of reasoning, an Irishman may, at any time, be
convicted of any crime, or of any absurdity.
But what have we next in our newspaper?--"Murder, Robbery, and Reward."
This seems a strange connexion of things, according to our vulgar
notions of distributive justice; but we are told that the wicked shall
have their _reward_ even in this world; and we suppose it is upon this
principle, that over the stocks in a town in Ireland there appears this
inscription: "A reward for vagabonds."
Upon proceeding further in our advertisement, which begins with "Murder,
Robbery, and Reward," we find, however, that contrary to the just
expectations raised by the title, the reward is promised, not to the
robbers and murderers, but to those who shall discover and prosecute
them to conviction. Here we were led into error by that hasty mode of
elision which sometimes obtains in the titles even of our English law
processes; as sci-fa, fi-fa, qui-tam, &c.; names which, to preserve the
glorious uncertainty of the law, never refer to the sense, but to the
first words of the writs.
In our newspaper, a formidable list of unanimous resolutions of various
committees and corps succeeds to the advertisement of murder, robbery,
and reward; and we have, at the close of each day's business,
thanksgivings, in various formulas, for the very proper, upright, or
spirited behaviour of our worthy, gallant, or respected chairman. Now
that a man may behave properly, or sit upright in a chair, we can
readily comprehend; but what are we to understand by a _spirited_
behaviour in a chair? Perhaps it alludes to the famous duel fought by a
gouty Irish gentleman in his arm chair. As the gallant chairman actually
in that position shot his adversary, it behoves us to _understand_ the
meaning of spirited behaviour in the chair.
We may, however, venture to hint, fas est et ab hoste doceri, that in
the publication of corps and committees, this formula should be
omitted--"Resolved _unanimously_ (with only _one_ dissentient voice)."
Here the obloquy, meant to rest on the one dissentient voice,
unfortunately falls upon the publishers of the disgrace, exposing them
to the ridicule of resolving an Irish bull. If this be a bull, however,
we are concerned to find it is matched by that of the government of
Munich, who published a catalogue of forbidden books, and afterwards,
under heavy penalties, forbade the reading of the catalogue. But this
might be done in the hurry occasioned by the just dread of revolutionary
principles.
What shall we say for the blunder of a French academician, in a time of
profound peace, who gave it as his opinion, that nothing should be read
in the public sittings of the academy "par dela ce qui est impose par
les statuts: il motivait son avis en disant--En fait _d'inutilites_ il
ne faut que _le necessaire_." If this speech had been made by a member
of the Royal Irish academy, it would have had the honour to be noticed
all over England as a bull. _The honour to be noticed_, we say, in
imitation of the exquisitely polite expression of a correspondent of the
English Royal Society, who talks of "the earthquake that had the honour
to be noticed by the Royal Society."
It will, we fear, be long before the Irish emerge so far from barbarism
as to write in this style. The Irish are, however, we are happy to
observe, making some little approaches to a refined and courtly style;
kings, and in imitation of them, great men, and all who think themselves
great--a numerous class--speak and write as much as possible in the
plural number instead of the singular. Instead of _I_, they always say
_we_; instead of _my, our_, according to the Italian idiom, which
flatters this humour so far as to make it a point of indispensable
politeness. It is, doubtless, in humble imitation of such illustrious
examples, that an Irishman of the lowest class, when he means to express
that he is a member of a committee, says, _I am a committee_; thus
consolidating the power, wisdom, and virtue of a whole committee in his
own person. Superior even to the Indian, who believes that he shall
inherit the powers and virtues of his enemies after he has destroyed
them;[30] this committee-man takes possession of the faculties of his
living friends and associates. When some of the _united men_, as they
called themselves, were examined, they frequently answered to the
questions, who, or what are you? I am a com'mittee.
However extraordinary it may at first sound, to hear one man assert that
he is a whole committee, it is not more wonderful than that the whole
parliament of Bordeaux should be found in a one-horse chair.[31]
We forbear to descant further upon Irish committee-men, lest we should
call to mind, merely by the similarity of name, the times when England
had her committee-men, who were not perfectly free from all tinge of
absurdity. It is remarkable, that in times of popular ferment, a variety
of new terms are coined to serve purposes and passions of the moment. In
the days of the English committee-men this practice had risen to such a
height, that it was fair game for ridicule. Accordingly, Sir John
Birkenhead, about that time, found it necessary to publish, "_The
Children's Dictionary; an exact Collection of all New Words born since
Nov. 3, 1640, in Speeches, Prayers, and Sermons, as well those that
signify something as nothing_." We observe that it has been likewise
found necessary to publish, in France, _un Dictionnaire neologique_, a
dictionary of the new terms adopted since the revolution.
It must be supposed, that during the late disturbances in Ireland, many
_cant_ terms have been brought into use, which are not yet to be
reckoned amongst the acknowledged terms of the country. However absurd
these may be, they are not for our purpose proper subjects of
animadversion. Some countries have their birds of passage, and some
their follies of passage, which it is scarcely worth while to shoot as
they fly. It has been often said, that the language of a people is a
just criterion of their progress in civilization; but we must not take a
specimen of their vocabulary during the immediate prevalence of any
transient passion or prejudice. It is to be hoped, that all party
barbarisms in language will now be disused and forgotten; for some time
has elapsed since we read the following article of country intelligence
in a Dublin paper:--
"General ---- scoured the country yesterday, but had not the good
fortune to meet with a single rebel."
The author of this paragraph seems to have been a keen sportsman; he
regrets the not meeting with a single rebel, as he would the not meeting
with a single hare or partridge; and he justly considers the human biped
as fair game, to be hunted down by all who are properly qualified and
licensed by government. To the English, perhaps, it may seem a strange
subject of lamentation, that a general could not meet with a single
rebel in the county of Wicklow, when they have so lately been informed,
from the high authority of a noble lord, that Ireland was so disturbed,
that whenever he went out, he called as regularly for his pistols as for
his hat and gloves. Possibly, however, this was only a figure of speech,
like that of Bishop Wilkins, who prophesied that the time would come
when gentlemen, when they were to go a journey, would call for their
wings as regularly as they call for their boots.--We _believe_ that the
hyperboles of the privy-counsellor and the bishop are of equal
magnitude.
CHAPTER III.
THE CRIMINAL LAW OF BULLS AND BLUNDERS.
Madame de Sevigne observes, that there are few people sufficiently
candid, or sufficiently enlightened, to distinguish, in their judgments
of others, between those faults and mistakes which proceed from _manque
d'esprit_, and those which arise merely from _manque d'usage_. We cannot
appreciate the talents or character of foreigners, without making
allowance for their ignorance of our manners, of the idiom of our
language, and the multifarious significations of some of our words. A
French gentleman, who dined in London, in company with the celebrated
author of the Rambler, wishing to show him a mark of peculiar respect,
drank Dr. Johnson's health in these words: "Your health, Mr. Vagabond."
Assuredly no well-judging Englishman would undervalue the Frenchman's
abilities, because he mistook the meaning of the words Vagabond and
Rambler; he would recollect, that in old English and modern French
authors, vagabond means wanderer: des eaux vagabondes is a phrase far
from inelegant. But independently of this consideration, no well-bred
gentleman would put a foreigner out of countenance by openly laughing at
such a mistake: he would imitate the politeness of the Frenchman, who,
when Dr. Moore said, "I am afraid the expression I have just used is not
French," replied, "Non, monsieur--mais il merite bien de l'etre." It
would, indeed, be a great stretch of politeness to extend this to our
Irish neighbours: for no Irishism can ever deserve to be Anglicised,
though so many Gallicisms have of late not only been naturalized in
England, but even adopted by the most fashionable speakers and writers.
The mistaking a feminine for a masculine noun, or a masculine for a
feminine, must, in all probability, have happened to every Englishman
that ever opened his lips in Paris; yet without losing his reputation
for common sense. But when a poor Irish haymaker, who had but just
learned a few phrases of the English language by rote, mistook a
feminine for a masculine noun, and began his speech in a court of
justice with these words: "My lord, I am a poor widow," instead of, "My
lord, I am a poor widower;" it was sufficient to throw a grave judge and
jury into convulsions of laughter. It was formerly, in law, no murder to
kill a _merus Hibernicus_; and it is to this day no offence against good
manners to laugh at any of this species. It is of a thousand times more
consequence to have the laugh than the argument on our side, as all
those know full well who have any experience in the management of the
great or little vulgar. By the common custom and courtesy of England we
_have_ the laugh on our side: let us keep it by all means. All means are
justifiable to obtain a great end, as all great men maintain in
practice, if not in theory. We need not, in imitating them, have any
scruples of conscience; we need not apprehend, that to ridicule our
Hibernian neighbours unmercifully is unfriendly or ungenerous. Nations,
it has been well observed, are never generous in their conduct towards
each other. We must follow the common _custom_ of nations where we have
no _law_ to guide our proceedings. We must therefore carefully continue
the laudable practice of ridiculing the blunders, whether real or
imaginary, of Irishmen. In conversation, Englishmen are permitted
sometimes to blunder, but without ever being called blunderers. It
would, indeed, be an intolerable restraint upon social intercourse, if
every man were subject to be taxed for each inaccuracy of language--if
he were compelled to talk, upon all occasions, as if he were amenable to
a star-chamber of criticism, and surrounded by informers.
Much must be allowed in England for the licence of conversation; but by
no means must this conversation-licence be extended to the Irish. If,
for instance, at the convivial hour of dinner, when men are not usually
intent upon grammatical or mathematical niceties, an Irish gentleman
desires him "who rules the roast," to cut the sirloin of beef
_horizontally downwards_, let the mistake immediately be set down in our
note-books, and conned over, and got by heart; and let it be repeated to
all eternity as a bull. But if an English lady observe, when the candles
have long stood unsnuffed, that "those odious long wicks will soon grow
up to the ceiling," she can be accused only of an error of vision. We
conjure our readers to attend to these distinctions in their intercourse
with their Hibernian neighbours: it must be done habitually and
technically; and we must not listen to what is called reason; we must
not enter into any argument, pro or con, but silence every Irish
opponent, if we can, with a laugh.
The Abbe Girard, in his accurate work, "Synonymes Francois," makes a
_plausible_ distinction between _un ane_ et _un ignorant_; he says, "On
est ane par disposition: on est ignorant par defaut d'instruction." An
ignorant person may certainly, even in the very circumstances which
betray his ignorance, evince considerable ability. For instance, the
native Indian, who for the first time saw a bottle of porter uncorked,
and who expressed great astonishment at the quantity of froth which he
saw burst from the bottle, and much curiosity to know whether it could
all be put in again, showed even in his ignorance a degree of capacity,
which in different situations might have saved his life, or have made
his fortune. In the situation of the poor fisher-man, and the great
giant of smoke, who issued from the small vessel, well known to all
versed in the Arabian Tales, such acuteness would have saved his life;
and a similar spirit of inquiry, applied to chemistry, might, in modern
times, have made his fortune. Even where no positive abilities are
displayed at the time by those who manifest ignorance, we should not
(_except the culprits be natives of Ireland_) hastily give them up.
Ignorance of the most common objects is not only incident to certain
situations, but absolutely unavoidable; and the individuals placed in
those situations are no more blameable than they would be for becoming
blind in the snows of Lapland, or for having goitres amongst the Cretins
of Le Vallais. Would you blame the ignorant nuns who, insensible of the
danger of an eruption of Mount Vesuvius,[32] warmed themselves at the
burning lava which flowed up to the windows of their cells? or would you
think the French canoness an idiot who, at the age of fifty, was, on
account of her health, to go out of her convent, and asked, when she met
a cow for the first time, what strange animal that was? or would you
think that those poor children deserved to be stigmatized as fools, who,
after being confined for a couple of years in an English workhouse,
actually at eight years old had forgotten the names of a pig and a
calf?[33] their ignorance was surely more deplorable than ridiculous.
When the London young lady kept a collection of chicken-bones on her
plate at dinner, as a bonne-bouche for her brother's horse,[34] Dr.
Johnson would not suffer her to be called an idiot, but very judiciously
defended her, by maintaining, that her action merely demonstrated her
ignorant of points of natural history, on which a London miss had no
immediate opportunity of obtaining information. Had the world always
judged upon such subjects with similar candour, the reproachful cant
term of _cockney_ would never have been disgracefully naturalized in the
English language. This word, as we are informed by a learned
philologist, originated from the mistake of a learned citizen's son, who
having been bred up entirely in the metropolis, was so gloriously
ignorant of country life and country animals, that the first time he
heard a _cock_ crow, he called it _neighing_. If such a mistake had been
made by an Irishman, it would surely have been called a bull: it has, at
least, as good pretensions to the title as many mistakes made by
ignorant Hibernians; for instance, the well-known blunder relative to
the sphinx:--An uninformed Irishman, hearing the sphinx alluded to in
company whispered to a friend, "The sphinx! who is that now?"
"A monster-man."
"Oh, a _Munster_-man: I thought he was from Connaught," replied our
Irishman, determined not to seem totally unacquainted with the family.
Gross and ridiculous as this blunder appears, we are compelled by
candour to allow, that the affectation of showing knowledge has betrayed
to shame men far superior to our Hibernian, both in reputation and in
the means of acquiring knowledge.
Cardinal Richelieu, the Maecenas or would-be Maecenas of France, once
mistook the name of a noted grammarian, _Maurus Terentianus_, for a play
of Terence's. This is called by the French writer who records it, "une
_bevue_ bien grossiere." However gross, a mistake can never be made into
a bull. We find _bevues_ French, English, Italian, German, Latin, and
Greek, of theologians, historians, antiquaries, poets, critics, and
translators, without end. The learned Budaeus takes Sir Thomas More's
Utopia for a true history; and proposes sending missionaries to work the
conversion of so wise a people as the Utopians. An English antiquary[35]
mistakes a tomb in a Gothic cathedral for the tomb of Hector. Pope, our
great poet, and prince of translators, mistakes _Dec. the 8th, Nov. the
5th_, of Cinthio, for Dec. 8th, Nov. 5th; and Warburton, his learned
critic, improves upon the blunder, by afterward writing the words
December and November at full length. Better still, because more comic,
is the blunder of a Frenchman, who, puzzled by the title of one of
Cibber's plays, "Love's Last Shift," translates it "La Derniere Chemise
de l'Amour." We laugh at these mistakes, and forget them; but who can
forget the blunder of the Cork almanack-maker, who informs the world
that the principal republics in _Europe_, are Venice, Holland, and
_America_?
The blunders of men of all countries, except Ireland, do not affix an
indelible stigma upon individual or national character. A free pardon
is, and ought to be, granted by every Englishman to the vernacular and
literary errors of those who have the happiness to be born subjects of
Great Britain. What enviable privileges are annexed to the birth of an
Englishman! and what a misfortune it is to be a native of Ireland!
CHAPTER IV.
LITTLE DOMINICK.
We have laid down the general law of bulls and blunders; but, as there
is no rule without an exception, we may perhaps allow an exception in
favour of little Dominick.
Little Dominick was born at Fort-Reilly, in Ireland, and bred nowhere
until his tenth year, when he was sent to Wales to learn manners and
grammar at the school of Mr. Owen ap Davies ap Jenkins ap Jones. This
gentleman had reason to think himself the greatest of men; for he had
over his chimney-piece a well-smoked genealogy, duly attested, tracing
his ancestry in a direct line up to Noah; and moreover he was nearly
related to the learned etymologist, who, in the time of Queen Elizabeth,
wrote a folio to prove that the language of Adam and Eve in Paradise was
pure Welsh. With such causes to be proud, Mr. Owen ap Davies ap Jenkins
ap Jones was excusable for sometimes seeming to forget that a
schoolmaster is but a man. He, however, sometimes entirely forgot that a
boy is but a boy; and this happened most frequently with respect to
little Dominick.
This unlucky wight was flogged every morning by his master, not for his
vices, but for his vicious constructions, and laughed at by his
companions every evening for his idiomatic absurdities. They would
probably have been inclined to sympathize in his misfortunes, but that
he was the only Irish boy at school; and as he was at a distance from
all his relations, and without a friend to take his part, he was a just
object of obloquy and derision. Every sentence he spoke was a bull;
every two words he put together proved a false concord; and every sound
he articulated betrayed the brogue. But as he possessed some of the
characteristic boldness of those who have been dipped in the Shannon, he
showed himself able and willing to fight his own battles with the host
of foes by whom he was encompassed. Some of these, it was said, were of
nearly twice his stature. This may be exaggerated, but it is certain
that our hero sometimes ventured with sly Irish humour to revenge
himself upon his most powerful tyrant by mimicking the Welsh accent, in
which Mr. Owen ap Jones said to him, "Cot pless me, you plockit, and
shall I never _learn_ you Enclish crammer?"
It was whispered in the ear of this Dionysius, that our little hero was
a mimick; and he was treated with increased severity.
The midsummer holydays approached; but he feared that they would shine
no holydays for him. He had written to his mother to tell her that
school would break up the 21st, and to beg an answer, without fail, by
return of post; but no answer came.
It was now nearly two months since he had heard from his dear mother or
any of his friends in Ireland. His spirits began to sink under the
pressure of these accumulated misfortunes: he slept little, ate less,
and played not at all; indeed nobody would play with him upon equal
terms, because he was nobody's equal; his schoolfellows continued to
consider him as a being, if not of a different species, at least of a
different _caste_ from themselves.
Mr. Owen ap Jones's triumph over the little Irish plockit was nearly
complete, for the boy's heart was almost broken, when there came to the
school a new scholar--oh, how unlike the others! His name was Edwards;
he was the son of a neighbouring Welsh gentleman; and he had himself the
spirit of a gentleman. When he saw how poor Dominick was persecuted, he
took him under his protection, fought his battles with the Welsh boys,
and, instead of laughing at him for speaking Irish, he endeavoured to
teach him to speak English. In his answers to the first question Edwards
ever asked him, little Dominick made two blunders, which set all his
other companions in a roar; yet Edwards would not allow them to be
genuine bulls.
In answer to the question, "Who is your father?" Dominick said, with a
deep sigh, "I have no father--I am an orphan[36]--I have only a mother."
"Have you any brothers and sisters?"
"No; I wish I had; perhaps they would love me, and not laugh at
me," said Dominick, with tears in his eyes; "but I have no brothers
but myself."
One day Mr. Jones came into the schoolroom with an open letter in his
hand, saying, "Here, you little Irish plockit, here's a letter from
your mother."
The little Irish blockhead started from his form, and, throwing his
grammar on the floor, leaped up higher than he or any boy in the school
had ever been seen to leap before, and, clapping his hands, he
exclaimed, "A letter from my mother! And _will_ I hear the letter? And
_will_ I see her once more? And _will_ I go home these holydays? Oh,
then I will be too happy!"
"There's no tanger of that," said Mr. Owen ap Jones; "for your mother,
like a wise ooman, writes me here, that py the atvice of your cardian,
to oom she is coing to be married, she will not pring you home to
Ireland till I send her word you are perfect in your Enclish crammer
at least."
"I have my lesson perfect, sir," said Dominick, taking his grammar up
from the floor; "_will_ I say it now?"
"_Will_ I say it now? No, you plockit, no; and I will write your mother
word you have proke Priscian's head four times this tay, since her
letter came. You Irish plockit!" continued the relentless grammarian,
"will you never learn the tifference between _shall_ and _will_? _Will_
I hear the letter, and _will_ I see her once more? What Enclish is
this, plockit?"
The Welsh boys all grinned, except Edwards, who hummed, loud enough to
be heard, two lines of the good old English song,
"And _will_ I see him once again?
And _will_ I hear him speak?"
Many of the boys were fortunately too ignorant to feel the force of the
quotation; but Mr. Owen ap Jones understood it, turned upon his heel,
and walked off. Soon afterwards he summoned Dominick to his awful desk;
and, pointing with his ruler to the following page in Harris's Hermes,
bade him "reat it, and understant it, if he could." Little Dominick
read, but could not understand.
"Then read it loud, you plockit."
Dominick read aloud--
"There is _nothing appears so clearly_ an object of the mind or
intellect only as _the future_ does, since we can find no place for its
existence any where else: not but the same, if we consider, is _equally
true_ of the past--"
"Well, co on--What stops the plockit? Can't you reat Enclish now?"
"Yes, sir; but I was trying to understand it. I was considering, that
this is like what they would call an Irish bull, if I had said it."
Little Dominick could not explain what he meant in English, that Mr.
Owen ap Jones _would_ understand; and, to punish him for his
impertinent observation, the boy was doomed to learn all that Harris
and Lowth have written to explain the nature of _shall_ and _will_. The
reader, if he be desirous of knowing the full extent of the penance
enjoined, may consult Lowth's Grammar, p. 52, ed. 1799, and Harris's
Hermes, p. 10, 11, and 12, 4th edition. Undismayed at the length of his
task, little Dominick only said, "I hope, if I say it all without
missing a word, you will not give my mother a bad account of me and my
grammar studies, sir."
"Say it all first, without missing a word, and then I shall see what I
shall say," replied Mr. Owen ap Jones.
Even the encouragement of this oracular answer excited the boy's fond
hopes so keenly, that he lent his little soul to the task, learned it
perfectly, said it at night, without missing one word, to his friend
Edwards, and said it the next morning, without missing one word, to
his master.
"And now, sir," said the boy, looking up, "will you write to my mother?
And _shall_ I see her? And _shall_ I go home?"
"Tell me first, whether you understant all this that you have learnt so
cliply," said Mr. Owen ap Jones.
That was more than his bond. Our hero's countenance fell: and he
acknowledged that he did not understand it perfectly.
"Then I cannot write a coot account of you and your crammer studies to
your mother; my conscience coes against it," said the conscientious Mr.
Owen ap Jones.
No entreaties could move him. Dominick never saw the letter that was
written to his mother; but he felt the consequence. She wrote word this
time punctually _by return of the post_, that she was sorry that she
could not send for him home these holydays, as she heard so bad an
account from Mr. Jones, &c. and as she thought it her duty not to
interrupt the course of his education, especially his grammar studies.
Little Dominick heaved many a sigh when he saw the packings-up of all
his school-fellows, and dropped a few tears as he looked out of the
window, and saw them, one after another, get on their Welsh ponies, and
gallop off towards their homes.
"I have no home to go to," said he.
"Yes, you have," cried Edwards; "and _our_ horses are at the door to
carry us there."
"To Ireland? me!--the horses!" said the poor boy, quite bewildered: "and
will they bring me to Ireland?"
"No; the horses cannot carry you to Ireland," said Edwards, laughing
good-naturedly, "but you have a home now in England. I asked my father
to let me _take_ you home with me; and he says 'Yes,' like a dear, good
father, and has sent the horses. Come, let's away."
"But will Mr. Jones let me go?"
"Yes; he dare not refuse; for my father has a living in his gift
that Jones wants, and which he will not have, if he do not change
his tone to you."
Little Dominick could not speak one word, his heart was so full. No boy
could be happier than he was during these holydays: "the genial current
of his soul," which had been frozen by unkindness, flowed with all its
natural freedom and force. When Dominick returned to school after these
holydays were over, Mr. Owen ap Jones, who now found that the Irish boy
had an English protector with a living in his gift, changed his tone. He
never more complained unjustly that Dominick broke Priscian's head,
seldom called him Irish plockit, and once would have flogged a Welsh boy
for taking up this cast-off expression of the master's, but the Irish
blockhead begged the culprit off.
Little Dominick sprang forward rapidly in his studies: he soon surpassed
every boy in the school, his friend Edwards only excepted. In process of
time his guardian removed him to a higher seminary of education. Edwards
had a tutor at home. The friends separated. Afterwards they followed
different professions in distant parts of the world; and they neither
saw nor heard any more of each other for many years. From boys they grew
into men, and Dominick, now no longer little Dominick, went over to
India as private secretary to one of our commanders in chief. How he got
into this situation, or by what gradations he rose in the world, we are
not exactly informed: we know only that he was the reputed author of a
much-admired pamphlet on Indian affairs; that the despatches of the
general to whom he was secretary were remarkably well written, and that
Dominick O'Reilly, Esq. returned to England, after several years'
absence, not miraculously rich, but with a fortune equal to his wishes.
His wishes were not extravagant: his utmost ambition was to return to
his native country with a fortune that should enable him to live
independently of all the world, especially of some of his relations, who
had not used him well. His mother was no more.
Upon his arrival in London, one of the first things he did was to read
the Irish newspapers.--To his inexpressible joy, he saw the estate of
Fort-Reilly advertised to be sold--the very estate which had formerly
belonged to his own family. Away he posted directly to an attorney's who
was empowered to dispose of the land.
When this attorney produced a map of the well-known pleasure-ground, and
an elevation of that house in which he had spent the happiest hours of
his infancy, his heart was so touched, that he was on the point of
paying down more for an old ruin than a good new house would cost. The
attorney acted _honestly by his client_, and seized this moment to
exhibit a plan of the stabling and offices, which, as sometimes is the
case in Ireland, were in a style far superior to the dwelling-house. Our
hero surveyed these with transport. He rapidly planned various
improvements in imagination, and planted certain favourite spots in the
pleasure-ground. During this time the attorney was giving directions to
a clerk about some other business: suddenly the name of _Owen ap Jones_
struck his ear--He started.
"Let him wait in the front parlour; his money is not forthcoming," said
the attorney; "and if he keep Edwards in gaol till he rots."
"Edwards! Good heavens!--in gaol! What Edwards?" exclaimed our hero.
It was his friend Edwards.
The attorney told him that Mr. Edwards had been involved in great
distress by taking upon himself his father's debts, which had been
incurred in exploring a mine in Wales; that of all the creditors none
had refused to compound, except a Welsh parson, who had been presented
to his living by old Edwards; and that this Mr. Owen ap Jones had thrown
young Mr. Edwards into gaol for the debt.
"What is the rascal's demand? He shall be paid off this instant," cried
Dominick, throwing down the plan of Fort-Reilly: "send for him up, and
let me pay him off upon the spot."
"Had not we best finish our business first, about the O'Reilly estate,
sir?" said the attorney.
"No, sir; damn the O'Reilly estate," cried he, huddling the maps
together on the desk, and taking up the bank notes, which he had
begun to reckon for the purchase money. "I beg your pardon, sir. If
you knew the facts, you would excuse me. Why does not this rascal
come up to be paid?"
The attorney, thunderstruck by this Hibernian impetuosity, had not yet
found time to take his pen out of his mouth. As he sat transfixed in his
arm-chair, O'Reilly ran to the head of the stairs, and called out in a
stentorian voice, "Here, you Mr. Owen ap Jones; come up and be paid off
this instant, or you shall never be paid _at all_."
Up stairs hobbled the old schoolmaster, as fast as the gout and Welsh
ale would let him. "Cot pless me, that voice," he began--
"Where's your bond, sir?" said the attorney.
"Safe here, Cot be praised," said the terrified Owen ap Jones, pulling
out of his bosom, first a blue pocket-handkerchief, and then a tattered
Welsh grammar, which O'Reilly kicked to the farther end of the room.
"Here is my bond," said he, "in the crammer," which he gathered from the
ground; then fumbling over the leaves, he at length unfolded the
precious deposit.
O'Reilly saw the bond, seized it, looked at the sum, paid it into the
attorney's hands, tore the seal from the bond; then, without looking at
old Jones, whom he dared not trust himself to speak to, he clapped his
hat upon his head, and rushed out of the room. Arrived at the King's
Bench prison, he hurried to the apartment where Edwards was confined.
The bolts flew back; for even the turnkeys seemed to catch our hero's
enthusiasm.
"Edwards, my dear boy! how do you do? Here's a bond debt, justly due to
you for my education. Oh, never mind asking any unnecessary questions;
only just make haste out of this undeserved abode: our old rascal is
paid off--Owen ap Jones, you know.--Well, how the man stares! Why, now,
will you have the assurance to pretend to forget who I am? and must I
_spake_," continued he, assuming the tone of his childhood, "and must I
_spake_ to you again in my ould Irish brogue before you will ricollict
your own _little Dominick_?"
When his friend Edwards was out of prison, and when our hero had leisure
to look into business, he returned to the attorney to see that Mr. Owen
ap Jones had been legally satisfied.
"Sir," said the attorney, "I have paid the plaintiff in this suit; and
he is satisfied: but I must say," added he, with a contemptuous smile,
"that you Irish gentlemen are rather in too great a hurry in doing
business: business, sir, is a thing that must be done slowly to be
done well."
"I am ready now to do business as slowly as you please; but when my
friend was in prison, I thought the quicker I did his business the
better. Now tell me what mistake I have made, and I will rectify it
instantly."
"_Instantly!_ 'Tis well, sir, with your promptitude, that you have to
deal with what prejudice thinks uncommon--an honest attorney. Here are
some bank notes of yours, sir, amounting to a good round sum. You made a
little blunder in this business: you left me the penalty, instead of the
principal, of the bond--just twice as much as you should have done."
"Just twice as much as was in the bond, but not twice as much as I
should have done, nor half as much as I should have done, in my
opinion," said O'Reilly; "but whatever I did was with my eyes open: I
was persuaded you were an honest man; in which you see I was not
mistaken; and as a man of business, I knew you would pay Jones only
his due. The remainder of the money I meant, and mean, should lie in
your hands for my friend Edwards's use. I feared he would not have
taken it from my hands: I therefore left it in yours. To have taken my
friend out of prison merely to let him go back again to-day, for want
of money to keep himself clear with the world, would have been a
blunder indeed, but not an Irish blunder: our Irish blunders are never
blunders of the heart."
CHAPTER V.
THE BLISS OF IGNORANCE.
No _well-informed_ Englishman would laugh at the blunders of such a
character as little Dominick; but there are people who justify the
assertion, that laughter always arises from a sense of real or imaginary
superiority. Now if it be true, that laughter has its source in vanity,
as the most ignorant are generally the most vain, they must enjoy this
pleasure in its highest perfection. Unconscious of their own
deficiencies, and consequently fearless of becoming in their turn the
objects of ridicule, they enjoy in full security the delight of humbling
their superiors. How much are they to be admired for the courage with
which they apply, on all occasions, their test of truth! Wise men may be
struck with admiration, respect, doubt, or humility; but the ignorant,
happily unconscious that they know nothing, can be checked in their
merriment by no consideration, human or divine. Theirs is the sly sneer,
the dry joke, and the horse laugh: theirs the comprehensive range of
ridicule, which takes "every creature in, of every kind." No fastidious
delicacy spoils their sports of fancy: though ten times told, the tale
to them never can be tedious; though dull "as the fat weed that grows on
Lethe's bank," the jest for them has all the poignancy of satire: on the
very offals, the garbage of wit, they can feed and batten. Happy they
who can find in every jester the wit of Sterne or Swift; who else can
wade through hundreds of thickly-printed pages to obtain for their
reward such witticisms as the following:--
"Two Irishmen having travelled on foot from Chester to Barnet, were
confoundedly tired and fatigued by their journey; and the more so when
they were told that they had still about ten miles to go. 'By my shoul
and St. Patrick,' cries one of them, 'it is but five miles a-piece.'"
Here, notwithstanding the promise of a jest held forth by the words, "By
my shoul and St. Patrick," we are ultimately cheated of our hopes. To
the ignorant, indeed, the word of promise is kept to the mind as well as
to the ear; but others perceive that, instead of a bull, they have only
a piece of sentimental arithmetic, founded upon the elegant theorem,
that friendship doubles all our pleasures, and divides all our pains.
We must not, from false delicacy to our countrymen, here omit a piece of
advice to English retailers or inventors of Irish blunders. Let them
beware of such prefatory exclamations as--"_By my shoul and St. Patrick!
By Jasus! Arrah, honey! My dear joy!_" &c., because all such phrases,
besides being absolutely out of date and fashion in Ireland, raise too
high an expectation in the minds of a British audience, operating as
much to the disadvantage of the story-teller as the dangerous exordium
of--"I'll tell you an excellent story;" an exordium ever to be avoided
by all prudent wits.
Another caution should be given to well-meaning ignorance. Never produce
that as an Irish bull for which any person of common literature can
immediately supply a precedent from our best authors. Never be at the
pains, for instance, of telling, from Joe Miller, a _good_ story of an
_Irish_ sailor, who _travelled_ with Captain Cook _round_ the world, and
afterwards swore to his companions that it was as flat as a table.
This anecdote, however excellent, immediately finds a parallel in Pope:
"Mad Mathesis alone was unconfined,
Too mad for mere material chains to bind;
Now to pure space lifts her ecstatic stare,
Now running _round_ the circle finds it square."
Pope was led into the blunder of representing Mad Mathesis running
_round the circle_, and finding it _square_ by a confused notion that
mathematicians had considered the circle as composed of straight lines.
His mathematical friends could have told him, that though it was talked
of as a polygon, it was not supposed to be a square; but _polygon_ would
not have rhymed to _stare_; and poets, when they launch into the ocean
of words, must have an eye to the helm; at all events a poet, who is not
supposed to be a student of the exact sciences, may be forgiven for a
mathematical blunder. This affair of squaring the circle seems to be
peculiarly liable to error; for even an accurate mathematician cannot
speak of it without committing something very like a bull.
Dr. Hutton, in his Treatise on Mensuration, p. 119, says, "As the
_famous_ quadrature of the late Mr. John Machin, professor of astronomy
in Gresham College, is extremely expeditious and _but little known_, I
shall take this opportunity of explaining it."
It is to be presumed, that the doctor here uses the word _famous_ in
that acceptation in which it is daily and hourly employed by our
Bond-street loungers, by city apprentices, and men of the ton. "That was
a _famous_ good joke;" "He is a _famous_ whip;" "We had a _famous_ hop,"
&c. Now it cannot be supposed that any of these things are in themselves
entitled to fame; but they may, indeed, by the courtesy of England, be
at once _famous_, and but little known. It is unnecessary to enter into
the defence either of Dr. Hutton or of Pope, for they were not born in
Ireland, therefore they cannot make bulls; and assuredly their mistakes
will not, in the opinion of any person of common sense or candour,
derogate from their reputation.
"Never strike till you are sure to wound," is a maxim well known to the
polite[37] and politic part of the world. "Never laugh when the laugh
can be turned against you," should be the maxim of those who find their
chief pleasure in making others ridiculous. This principle, if applied
to our subject, would lead, however, to a very extensive and troublesome
system of mutual forbearance; troublesome in proportion to the good or
ill humour of the parties concerned; extensive in proportion to their
knowledge and acquirements. A man of cultivated parts will foresee the
possibility of the retort courteous, where an ignorant man will enjoy
the fearless bliss of ignorance. For example, an illiterate person may
enjoy a hearty laugh at the common story of an old Irish beggar-man,
who, pretending to be dumb, was thrown off his guard by the question,
"How many years have you been dumb?" and answered, "Five years last St.
John's Eve, please your honour."
But our triumph over the Irishman abates, when we recollect in the
History of England, and in Shakspeare, the case of Saunder Simcox, who
pretended to be miraculously and instantaneously cured of blindness at
St. Alban's shrine.
Since we have bestowed so much criticism on the blunder of a beggar-man,
a word or two must be permitted on the blunder of a thief. It is natural
for ignorant people to laugh at the Hibernian who said that he had
stolen a pound of chocolate _to make tea of_. But philosophers are
disposed to abstain from the laugh of superiority when they recollect
that the Irishman could probably make as good tea from chocolate as the
chemist could make butter, sugar, and cream, from antimony, sulphur, and
tartar. The absurdities in the ancient chemical nomenclature could not
be surpassed by any in the Hibernian catalogue. If the reader should
think this a rash and unwarrantable assertion, we refer him to an
essay,[38] in which the flagrant abuses of speech in the old language of
chemistry are admirably exposed and ridiculed. Could an Irishman confer
a more appropriate appellation upon a white powder than that of
_beautiful black_?
It is really provoking to perceive, that as our knowledge of science
or literature extends, we are in more danger of finding, in our own
and foreign languages, parallels and precedents for Irish blunders; so
that a very well informed man can scarcely with any grace or
conscience smile, where a booby squire might enjoy a long and loud
horse-laugh of contempt.
What crowds were collected to see the Irish bottle conjuror[39] get into
a quart bottle; but Dr. Desaguliers had prepared the English to think
such a condensation of animal particles not impossible. He says, vol. i.
p. 5, of his Lectures on Natural Philosophy, "that the nature of things
should last, and their natural course continue the same; all the changes
made in bodies must arise only from the various separations, new
conjunctions, and motions, of these original particles. _These must be
imagined of an unconceivable smallness_, but by the union of them there
are made bigger lumps," &c.
Indeed things are now come to such a lamentable pass, that without
either literary or scientific acquirements, mere local knowledge, such
as can be obtained from a finger-post, may sometimes prevent us from the
full enjoyment of the Boeotian absurdity of our neighbours. What can, at
first view, appear a grosser blunder than that of the Irishman who
begged a friend to look over his library, to find for him the history of
the world before the creation? Yet this anachronism of ideas is not
unparalleled; it is matched, though on a more contracted scale, by an
inscription on a British finger-post--
"Had you seen these roads before they were made,
You'd lift up your eyes, and bless Marshal Wade!"
There is, however, a rabbi, mentioned by Bayle, who far exceeds both the
Irishman and the finger-post. He asserts, that Providence questioned
Adam concerning the creation before he was born; and that Adam knew more
of the matter than the angels who had laughed at him.
Those who see things in a philosophical light must have observed more
frequently than others, that there is in this world a continual
recurrence or rotation of ideas, events, and blunders. With his utmost
ingenuity, or his utmost absurdity, a man, in modern days, cannot
contrive to produce a system for which there is no prototype in
antiquity, or to commit a blunder for which there is no precedent. For
example: during the late rebellion in Ireland, at the military execution
of some wretched rebel, the cord broke, and the criminal, who had been
only half hanged, fell to the ground. The Major, who was superintending
the execution, exclaimed, "You rascal, if you do that again, I'll kill
you, as sure as you breathe."
Now this is by no means an original idea. In an old French book, called
"La Charlatanerie des Savans," is the following note:--"D'autres ont
propose et resolu en meme tems des questions ridicules; par exemple
celle-ci: Devroit-on faire souffrir une seconde fois le meme genre de
mort a un criminel, qui apres avoir eu la tete coupee viendroit a
resusciter?"--_Finkelth_, Praef. ad Observationes Pract. num. 12.
The passionate major, instead of being a mere Irish _blunderer_, was,
without knowing it, a learned casuist; for he was capable of deciding,
in one word, a question, which, it seems, had puzzled the understandings
of the ablest lawyers of France, or which had appalled their
conscientious sensibility.
Alas! there is nothing new under the sun.
"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise."
CHAPTER VI.
"THOUGHTS THAT BREATHE, AND WORDS THAT BURN."
We lamented, in our last chapter, that there is nothing new under the
sun; yet, perhaps, the thoughts and phraseology of the following story
may not be familiar to the English.
"Plase your honour," says a man, whose head is bound up with a garter,
in token and commemoration of his having been at a fair the preceding
night--"Plase your honour, it's what I am striving since six o'clock and
before, this morning, becaase I'd sooner trouble your honour's honour
than any man in all Ireland, on account of your character, and having
lived under your family, me and mine, twinty years, aye, say forty again
to the back o' that, in the old gentleman's time, as I well remember
before I was born; that same time I heard tell of your own honour's
riding a little horse in green with your gun before you, a grousing over
our town-lands, which was the mill and abbey of Ballynagobogg, though
'tis now set away from me (owing to them that belied my father) to
Christy Salmon, becaase he's an Orangeman--or his wife--though he was
once (let him deny it who can), to _my certain knowledge_, behind the
haystack in Tullygore, _sworn_ in a United man by Captain Alick, who was
hanged----Pace to the dead any how!------Well, not to be talking too
much of that now, only for this Christy Salmon, I should be still living
under your honour."
"Very likely; but what has all this to do with the present business? If
you have any complaint to make against Christy Salmon, make it--if not,
let me go to dinner."
"Oh, it would be too bad to be keeping your honour from your dinner, but
I'll make your honour sinsible immadiately. It is not of Christy Salmon
at-all-at-all I'm talking. May be your honour is not sinsible yet who I
am--I am Paddy M'Doole, of the Curragh, and I've been a flax-dresser and
dealer since I parted your honour's land, and was last night at the fair
of Clonaghkilty, where I went just in a quiet way thinking of nothing at
all, as any man might, and had my little yarn along with me, my wife's
and the girl's year's spinning, and all just hoping to bring them back a
few honest shillings as they desarved--none better!--Well, plase your
honour, my beast lost a shoe, which brought me late to the fair, but not
so late but what it was as throng as ever; you could have walked over
the heads of the men, women, and childer, a foot and a horseback, all
buying and selling; so I to be sure thought no harm of doing the like;
so I makes the best bargain I could of the little hanks for my wife and
the girl, and the man I sold them to was just weighing them at the
crane, and I standing forenent him--'Success to myself!'said I, looking
at the shillings I was putting into my waistcoat pocket for my poor
family, when up comes the inspector, whom I did not know, I'll take my
oath, from Adam, nor couldn't know, becaase he was the deputy inspector,
and had been but just made, of which I was ignorant, by this book and
all the books that ever were shut and opened--but no matter for that; he
seizes my hanks out of the scales that I had just sold, saying they were
unlawful and forfeit, becaase by his watch it was past four o'clock,
which I denied to be possible, plase your honour, becaase not one, nor
two, nor three, but all the town and country were selling the same as
myself in broad day, only when the deputy came up they stopped, which I
could not, by rason I did not know him.--'Sir,' says I (very civil), 'if
I had known you, it would have been another case, but any how I hope no
jantleman will be making it a crime to a poor man to sell his little
matter of yarn for his wife and childer after four o'clock, when he did
not know it was contrary to law at-all-at-all.'
"'I gave you notice that it was contrary to law at the fair of
Edgerstown,' said he.--'I axe your pardon, sir,' said I, 'it was my
brother, for I was by." With that he calls me liar, and what not, and
takes a grip[40] of me, and I a grip of my flax, and he had a
shilala[41] and I had none; so he gave it me over the head, I crying
'murder! murder!' and clinging to the scales to save me, and they set a
swinging and I with them, plase your honour, till the bame comes down
a'top o' the back o' my head, and _kilt_ me, as your honour sees."
"I see that you are alive still, I think."
"It's not his fault if I am, plase your honour, for he left me for dead,
and I am as good as dead still: if it be plasing to your honour to
examine my head, you'll be sinsible I'm telling nothing but the truth.
Your honour never _seen_ a man kilt as I was and am--all which I'm ready
(when convanient) to swear before your honour." [42]
The reiterated assurances which this hero gives us of his being killed,
and the composure with which he offers to swear to his own assassination
and decease, appear rather surprising and ludicrous to those who are not
aware that _kilt_ is here used in a metaphorical sense, and that it has
not the full force of our word killed. But we have been informed by a
lady of unquestionable veracity, that she very lately received a
petition worded in this manner--
"To the Right Hon. Lady E---- P----.
"Humbly showeth;
"That your poor petitioner is now lying dead in a ditch," &c.
This poor Irish petitioner's expression, however preposterous it sounds,
might perhaps be justified, if we were inclined to justify an Irishman
by the example, not only of poets comic and tragic, but of prose writers
of various nations. The evidence in favour both of the fact and the
belief, that people can speak and walk after they are dead, is attested
by stout warriors and grave historians. Let us listen to the solemn
voice of a princess, who comes sweeping in the sceptred pall of gorgeous
tragedy, to inform us that half herself has buried the other half.
"Weep, eyes; melt into tears these cheeks to lave:
One half myself lays t'other in the grave." [43]
For six such lines as these Corneille received six thousand livres, and
the admiration of the French court and people during the Augustan age of
French literature. But an Italian is not content with killing by halves.
Here is a man from Italy who goes on fighting, not like Witherington,
upon his stumps, but fairly after he is dead.
"Nor yet perceived the vital spirit fled,
But still fought on, nor knew that he was dead." [44]
Common sense is somewhat shocked at this single instance of an
individual fighting after he is dead; but we shall, doubtless, be
reconciled to the idea by the example of a gallant and modern commander,
who has declared his opinion, that nothing is more feasible than for a
garrison to fight, or at least to surrender, after they are dead, nay,
after they are buried.--Witness this public document.
"Liberty and Equality.
"May 29th, | Garrison of Ostend.
30th Floreal, 6 |
"Muscar, commandant of Ostend, to the commandant in
chief of his British majesty.
"General,
"The council of war was sitting when I received the honour
of your letters. We have unanimously resolved not to surrender
the place until we shall have been buried in its ruins," &c.
One step further in hyperbole is reserved for him, who, being buried,
carries about his own sepulchre.
"To live a life half dead, a living death,
And buried; but oh, yet more miserable!
Myself my sepulchre, a moving grave!"
No person, if he heard this passage for the first time from the lips of
an Irishman, could hesitate to call it a series of bulls; yet these
lines are part of the beautiful complaint of Samson Agonistes on his
blindness. Such are the hyperboles sanctioned by the genius, or, what
with some judges may have more influence, the name of Milton. The bounds
which separate sublimity from bombast, and absurdity from wit, are as
fugitive as the boundaries of taste. Only those who are accustomed to
examine and appraise literary goods are sensible of the prodigious
change that can be made in their apparent value by a slight change in
the manufacture. The absurdity of a man's swearing he was killed, or
declaring that he is now dead in a ditch, is revolting to common sense;
yet the _living death_ of Dapperwit, in the "Rape of the Lock," is not
absurd, but witty; and representing men as dying many times before their
death is in Shakspeare sublime:
"Cowards die many times before their death; The brave can never taste of
death but once."
The most direct contradictions in words do not (_in English writers_)
destroy the eflect of irony, wit, pathos, or sublimity.
In the classic ode on Eton College, the poet exclaims--
"To each their sufferings, all are men
Condemned alike to groan;
The feeling for another's pain,
Th' _unfeeling_ for their own."
Who but a half-witted dunce would ask how those that are unfeeling can
have sufferings? When Milton in melodious verse inquires,
"Who shall tempt with _wandering feet_
The dark _unbottom'd_ infinite abyss,
And through the _palpable obscure_ find out
His uncouth way!"--
what Zoilus shall dare interrupt this flow of poetry to object to the
palpable obscure, or to ask how feet can wander upon that which has
no bottom?
It is easy, as Tully has long ago observed, to fix the brand of ridicule
upon the _verbum ardens_ of orators and poets--the "Thoughts that
breathe, and words that burn."
CHAPTER VII.
PRACTICAL BULLS.
As we have not hitherto been successful in finding original Irish bulls
in language, we must now look for them in conduct. A person may be
guilty of a solecism without uttering a single syllable--"That man has
been guilty of a solecism with his hand," an ancient critic said of an
actor, who had pointed his hand upwards when invoking the infernal gods.
"You may act a lie as well as speak one," says Wollaston. Upon the same,
principle, the Irish may be said to act, as well as to utter bulls. We
shall give some instances of their practical bulls, which we hope to
find unmatched by the blunders of all other nations. Most people,
whether they be savage or civilized, can contrive to revenge themselves
upon their enemies without blundering; but the Irish are exceptions.
They cannot even do this without _a bull_. During the late Irish
rebellion, there was a banker to whom they had a peculiar dislike, and
on whom they had vowed vengeance: accordingly they got possession of as
many of his bank-notes as they could, and made a bonfire of them! This
might have been called a feu de joie, perhaps, but certainly not un feu
d'artifice; for nothing could show less art than burning a banker's
notes in order to destroy his credit. How much better do the English
understand the arts of vengeance! Captain Drinkwater[45] informs us,
that during the siege of Gibraltar, the English, being half famished,
were most violently enraged against the Jews, who withheld their stores
of provision, and made money of the public distress--a crime _never
committed except by Jews:_ at length the fleet relieved the besieged,
and as soon as the provisions were given out, the English soldiers and
sailors, to revenge themselves upon the Jews, burst open their stores,
and actually roasted a pig at a fire made of cinnamon. There are other
persons, as well as the Irish, who do not always understand their own
interests where their passions are concerned. That great warrior, Hyder
Ali, once lost a battle by a practical bull. Being encamped within sight
of the British, he resolved to give them a high idea of his forces and
of his artillery; for this purpose, before the engagement,[46] he
ordered his army to march early, and conveying some large pieces of
cannon to the top of a hill, he caused them to be pointed at the English
camp, which they reached admirably well, and occasioned a kind of
disorder and haste in striking and removing tents, &c. Hyder, delighted
at having thus insulted the English, caused all his artillery, even the
very smallest pieces, to be drawn up the hill for the purpose of making
a vain parade, though the greater part of the balls could never reach
the English: he imagined he should give the enemy a high idea of his
forces, and intimidate them by showing all his artillery, and the
vivacity with which it was worked; and in order that his intention might
be answered, he encouraged the soldiers himself, by giving money to the
cannoneers of those pieces that appeared to be the best served.
The English presently, after this farce was over, obliged Hyder to come
down from labour-in-vain hill and to give them battle in earnest. As
the historian observes, "The ridiculous cannonade at the top of the
hill had exhausted his ammunition, his great guns were useless to him,
and he lost the day by his premature rejoicings before the battle." A
still more ancient precedent for this preposterous practical bull, of
rejoicing for an anticipated victory, was given by Xerxes, we believe,
who brought with him an immense block of marble, on which he intended
to inscribe the date and manner of his victory over the Greeks. When
Xerxes was defeated, the Greeks dedicated this stone to Nemesis, the
goddess of vengeance. But Xerxes was in the habit of making practical
bulls, such as whipping the sea, and begging pardon for it afterwards;
throwing fetters into the Hellespont as a token of subjugation, and
afterwards expiating his offence by an offering of a golden cup and
Persian scimetar.
To such blunders can the passions betray the most renowned heroes,
although they had not the misfortune to have been born in Ireland.
The impatience which induced Hyder Ali to anticipate victory is not
confined to military men and warlike operations; if we descend to common
life and vulgar business, we shall find the same disposition even in the
precincts of Change-alley: those who bargained for South Sea stock, that
was not actually forthcoming, were called _bears_, in allusion to the
practice of the hunters of bears in Canada, who were accustomed to
bargain for the skin of the bear before it was caught; but whence the
correlative term _bull_ is derived we are at a loss to determine, and we
must also leave it to the mercantile speculators of England to explain
why gentlemen call themselves bulls of wheat and bulls of coals: all we
can say is, that these are not Irish bulls. There is one distinguished
peculiarity of the Irish bull--_its horns are tipped with brass_.[47] It
is generally supposed that persons who have been dipped in the
Shannon[48] are ever afterwards endowed with a supernatural portion of
what is called, by enemies, impudence or assurance, by friends,
self-possession or _civil courage_. These invulnerable mortals are never
oppressed with _mauvaise honte_, that malady which keeps the faculties
of the soul under imaginary imprisonment. A well-dipped Irishman, on the
contrary, can move, speak, think, like Demosthenes, with as much ease,
when the eyes of numbers are upon him, as if the spectators were so many
cabbage-stalks. This virtue of _civil courage_ is of inestimable value
in the opinion of the best judges. The great Lord Verulam--no one,
by-the-by, could be a better judge of its value than he, who wanted it
so much--the great Lord Verulam declares, that if he were asked what is
the first, second, and third thing necessary to success in public
business, he should answer boldness, boldness, boldness. Success to the
nation which possesses it in perfection! Bacon was too acute and candid
a philosopher not to acknowledge, that like all the other goods of life
this same boldness has its countervailing disadvantages.
"Certainly," says he, "to men of great judgment, bold persons are a
sport to behold; nay, and to the vulgar, boldness hath somewhat of the
ridiculous; for if absurdity be the subject of laughter, doubt you not
but great boldness is seldom without some absurdity; especially it is a
sport to see when a bold fellow is out of countenance, for that puts his
face into a most shrunken and wooden posture, as needs it must."
The man, however, who possesses boldness in perfection, can never be put
out of countenance, and consequently can never exhibit, for the sport of
his enemies, a face in this wooden posture. It is the deficiency, and
not the excess of this quality, that is to be feared. Civil boldness
without military courage would, indeed, be somewhat ridiculous: but we
cannot accuse the Irish of any want of military courage; on the
contrary, it is supposed in England, that an Irishman is always ready
_to give any gentleman satisfaction_, even when none is desired.
At the close of the American war, as a noble lord of high naval
character was returning home to his family after various escapes from
danger, he was detained a day at Holyhead by contrary winds. Reading in
a summer-house, he heard the well-known sound of bullets whistling near
him: he looked about, and found that two balls had just passed through
the door close beside him; he looked out of the window, and saw two
gentlemen who were just charging their pistols again, and, as he guessed
that they had been shooting at a mark upon the door, he rushed out, and
very civilly remonstrated with them on the imprudence of firing at the
door of a house without having previously examined whether any one was
withinside. One of them immediately answered, in a tone which proclaimed
at once his disposition and his country, "Sir, I did not know you were
within there, and I don't know who you are now; but if I've given
offence, I am willing," said he, holding out the ready-charged pistols,
"to give you the _satisfaction of a gentleman_--take your choice."
With his usual presence of mind the noble lord seized hold of both the
pistols, and said to his astonished countryman, "Do me the justice, sir,
to go into that summer-house, shut the door, and let me have two shots
at you; then we shall be upon equal terms, and I shall be quite at your
service to give or receive the _satisfaction of a gentleman_."
There was an air of drollery and of superiority in his manner which at
once struck and pleased the Hibernian. "Upon my conscience, sir, I
believe you are a very honest fellow," said he, looking him earnestly in
the face, "and I have a great mind to shake hands with you. Will you
only just tell me who you are?"
The nobleman told his name--a name dear to every Briton and every
Irishman.
"I beg your pardon, and that's what no man ever accused me of doing
before," cried the gallant Hibernian; "and had I known who you were, I
would as soon have _shot my own soul_ as have fired at the door. But how
could I tell who was withinside?"
"That is the very thing of which I complain," said his lordship.
His candid opponent admitted the justice of the complaint as soon as he
understood it, and he promised never more to be guilty of such a
practical bull.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE DUBLIN SHOEBLACK.
Upon looking over our last chapter on practical bulls, we were much
concerned to find that we have so few Irish and so many foreign
blunders. It is with still more regret we perceive, that notwithstanding
our utmost diligence, we have not yet been able to point out the
distinguishing characteristic of an Irish bull. But to compensate for
this disappointment we have devised a syllogism, which some people may
prefer to an a priori argument, to prove irrefragably, that the Irish
are blunderers.
After the instances we have produced, chapter 6th, of the _verbum
ardens_ of English and foreign poets, and after the resemblance that we
have pointed out betwixt certain figures of rhetoric and the Irish bull,
we have little reason to fear that the candid and enlightened reader
should object to our major.
_Major_.--Those who use figurative language are disposed to make bulls.
_Minor_.--The Irish use figurative language.
_Conclusion_.--Therefore the Irish are disposed to make bulls.
We proceed to establish the truth of our minor, and the first evidence
we shall call is a Dublin shoeblack. He is not in circumstances
peculiarly favourable for the display of figurative language; he is in a
court of justice, upon his trial for life or death. A quarrel happened
between two shoeblacks, who were playing at what in England is called
pitch-farthing, or heads and tails, and in Ireland, head or harp. One of
the combatants threw a small paving stone at his opponent, who drew out
the knife with which he used to scrape shoes, and plunged it up to the
hilt in his companion's breast. It is necessary for our story to say,
that near the hilt of this knife was stamped the name of Lamprey, an
eminent cutler in Dublin. The shoeblack was brought to trial. With a
number of significant gestures, which on his audience had all the powers
that Demosthenes ascribes to action, he, in a language not purely Attic,
gave the following account of the affair to his judge.
"Why, my l_a_rd, as I was going past the Royal Exchange I meets Billy.
'Billy,' says I, 'will you sky a copper?' 'Done,' says he; 'Done,' says
I; and done and done's enough between two jantlemen. With that I ranged
them fair and even with my hook-em-snivey--up they go. 'Music!' says
he--'Skulls!' says I; and down they come, three brown mazards. 'By the
holy! you flesh'd 'em,' says he. 'You lie,' says I. With that he ups
with a lump of a two year old, and lets drive at me. I outs with my
bread-earner, and gives it him up to Lamprey in the bread-basket."
To make this intelligible to the English, some comments are necessary.
Let us follow the text, step by step, and it will afford our readers, as
Lord Kames says of Blair's Dissertation on Ossian, a delicious morsel of
criticism.
_As I was going past the Royal Exchange I meets Billy._
In this apparently simple exordium, the scene and the meeting with Billy
are brought before the eye by the judicious use of the present tense.
_Billy, says I, will you sky a copper?_
A copper! genus pro specie! the generic name of copper for the base
individual halfpenny.
_Sky a copper._
_To sky_ is a new verb, which none but a master hand could have
coined: a more splendid metonymy could not be applied upon a more
trivial occasion; the lofty idea of raising a metal to the skies is
substituted for the mean thought of tossing up a halfpenny. Our orator
compresses his hyperbole into a single word. Thus the mind is
prevented from dwelling long enough upon the figure to perceive its
enormity. This is the perfection of the art. Let the genius of French
exaggeration and of eastern hyperbole hide their diminished
heads--Virgil is scarcely more sublime.
"Ingrediturque solo, et caput inter nubila condit."
"Her feet on earth, her head amidst the clouds."
Up they go, continues our orator.
_Music! says he--Skulls! says I._
Metaphor continually: on one side of an Irish halfpenny there is a harp;
this is expressed by the general term music, which is finely contrasted
with the word skull.
_Down they come, three brown mazards._
Mazards! how the diction of our orator is enriched from the vocabulary
of Shakspeare! the word head, instead of being changed for a more
general term, is here brought distinctly to the eye by the term mazard,
or face, which is more appropriate to his majesty's profile than the
word skull or head.
_By the holy! you flesh'd 'em, says he_.
By the holy! is an oath in which more is meant than meets the ear; it is
an ellipsis--an abridgment of an oath. The full formula runs thus--By
the holy poker of hell! This instrument is of Irish invention or
imagination. It seems a useful piece of furniture in the place for which
it is intended, to stir the devouring flames, and thus to increase the
torments of the damned. Great judgment is necessary to direct an orator
how to suit his terms to his auditors, so as not to shock their feelings
either by what is too much above or too much below common life. In the
use of oaths, where the passions are warm, this must be particularly
attended to, else they lose their effect, and seem more the result of
the head than the heart. But to proceed:--
_By the holy! you flesh'd 'em_.
_To flesh_ is another verb of Irish coinage; it means, in shoeblack
dialect, to touch a halfpenny, as it goes up into the air, with the
fleshy part of the thumb, so as to turn it which way you please,
and thus to cheat your opponent. What an intricate explanation
saved by one word!
_You lie, says I_.
Here no periphrasis would do the business.
_With that he ups with a lump of a two year old, and lets drive at me_.
_He ups with_.--A verb is here formed of two prepositions--a novelty in
grammar. Conjunctions, we all know, are corrupted Anglo-Saxon verbs;
but prepositions, according to Horne Tooke, derive only from
Anglo-Saxon nouns.
All this time it is possible that the mere English reader may not be
able to guess what it is that our orator ups with or takes up. He should
be apprised, that a lump of a two year old is a middle-sized stone. This
is a metaphor, borrowed partly from the grazier's vocabulary, and partly
from the arithmetician's vade-mecum. A stone, to come under the
denomination of a lump of a two year old, must be to a less stone as a
two year old calf is to a yearling; or it must be to a larger stone than
itself, as a two year old calf is to an ox. Here the scholar sees that
there must be two statements, one in the rule of three direct and one in
the rule of three inverse, to obtain precisely the thing required; yet
the untutored Irishman, without suspecting the necessity of this operose
process, arrives at the solution of the problem by some short cut of his
own, as he clearly evinces by the propriety of his metaphor. To be sure,
there seems some incongruity in his throwing this lump of a two year old
calf at his adversary. No arm but that of Milo could be strong enough
for such a feat. Upon recollection, however, bold as this figure may
seem, there are precedents for its use.
"We read in a certain author," says Beattie, "of a giant, who, in his
wrath, tore off the top of the promontory, and flung it at the enemy;
and so huge was the mass, that you might, says he, have seen goats
browsing on it as it flew through the air." Compared with this, our
orator's figure is cold and tame.
"_I outs with my bread-earner_," continues he.
We forbear to comment on _outs with_, because the intelligent critic
immediately perceives that it has the same sort of merit ascribed to
_ups with_. What our hero dignifies with the name of his bread-earner is
the knife with which, by scraping shoes, he earned his bread. Pope's
ingenious critic, Mr. Warton, bestows judicious praise upon the art with
which this poet, in the Rape of the Lock, has used many "periphrases and
uncommon expressions," to avoid mentioning the name of _scissars_, which
would sound too vulgar for epic dignity--fatal engine, forfex,
meeting-points, &c. Though the metonymy of _bread-earner_ for a
shoeblack's knife may not equal these in elegance, it perhaps surpasses
them in ingenuity.
_I gives it him up to Lamprey in the bread-basket._[49]
Homer is happy in his description of wounds, but this surpasses him in
the characteristic choice of circumstance. _Up to Lamprey_, gives us at
once a complete idea of the length, breadth, and thickness of the
wound, without the assistance of the coroner. It reminds us of a
passage in Virgil--
"Cervice orantis _capulo tenus_ abdidit ensem."
"Up to the hilt his shining falchion sheathed."
Let us now compare the Irish shoeblack's metaphorical language with the
sober _slang_ of an English blackguard, who, fortunately for the
fairness of the comparison, was placed somewhat in similar
circumstances.
Lord Mansfield, examining a man who was a witness in the court of King's
Bench, asked him what he knew of the defendant.
"Oh, my lord, I knew him. _I was up to him_."
"Up to him!" says his lordship; "what do you mean by being up to him?"
"Mean, my lord! why, _I was down upon him_."
"Up to him, and down upon him!" says his lordship, turning to Counsellor
Dunning, "what does the fellow mean?"
"Why, I mean, my lord, as deep as he thought himself, _I stagged him_."
"I cannot conceive, friend," says his lordship, "what you mean by this
sort of language; I do not understand it."
"Not understand it!" rejoined the fellow, with surprise: "_Lord, what a
flat you must be!_"
Though he undervalued Lord Mansfield, this man does not seem to have
been a very bright genius. In his cant words, "_up to him, down upon
him, stagged him_," there are no metaphors; and we confess ourselves to
be as great _flats_ as his lordship, for we do not understand this sort
of language.
"True no meaning puzzles more than wit,"
as we may see in another English example. Proverbs have been called the
wisdom of nations; therefore it is fair to have recourse to them in
estimating national abilities. Now there is an old English proverb,
"Tenterden steeple is the cause of Goodwin sands."
"This proverb," says Mr. Ray, "is used when an absurd and ridiculous
reason is given of any thing in question; an account of the original
whereof, I find in one of Bishop Latimer's sermons in these words--'Mr.
Moore was once sent with commission into Kent to try out, if it might
be, what was the cause of Goodwin sands, and the shelf which stopped up
Sandwich haven. Thither cometh Mr. Moore, and calleth all the country
before him, such as were thought to be men of experience, and men that
could, of all likelihood, best satisfy him of the matter concerning the
stopping of Sandwich haven. Among the rest came in before him an old man
with a white head, and one that was thought to be little less than a
hundred years old. When Mr. Moore saw this aged man, he thought it
expedient to hear him say his mind in this matter (for being so old a
man, it was likely that he knew the most in that presence or company);
so Mr. Moore called this old aged man unto him and said, 'Father,' said
he, 'tell me, if you can, what is the cause of the great arising of the
sands and shelves here about this haven, which stop it up so that no
ships can arrive here. You are the oldest man I can espy in all the
company, so that if any man can tell any cause of it, you, of all
likelihood, can say most to it, or, at leastwise, more than any man here
assembled.'
"'Yea, forsooth, good Mr. Moore,' quoth this old man, 'for I am well
nigh a hundred years old, and no man here in this company any thing
near my age.'
"'Well then,'quoth Mr. Moore, 'how say you to this matter? What
think you to be the cause of these shelves and sands which stop up
Sandwich haven?'
"'Forsooth, sir,' quoth he, 'I am an old man; I think that, Tenterden
steeple is the cause of Goodwin sands. For I am an old man, sir,' quoth
he, 'I may remember the building of Tenterden steeple, and I may
remember when there was no steeple at all there; and before that
Tenterden or _Totterden_ steeple was in building, there was no manner of
talking of any flats or sands that stopped up the haven, and therefore I
think that Tenterden steeple is the cause of the decay and destroying of
Sandwich haven.'" [50]--Thus far the bishop.
The prolix pertinacity with which this _old aged_ man adheres to the
opinion that he had formed, without any intelligible reason, is
characteristic of an English peasant; but however absurd his mode of
judging may be, and however confused and incongruous his ideas, his
species of absurdity surely bears no resemblance to an Hibernian
blunder. We cannot even suspect it to be possible that a man of this
slow, circumspect character could be in any danger of making an Irish
bull; and we congratulate the English peasantry and populace, as a body,
upon their possessing that temper which
"Wisely rests content with sober sense,
Nor makes to dangerous wit a vain pretence."
Even the _slang_ of English pickpockets and coiners is, as we may see in
Colquhoun's View of the Metropolis, free from all seducing mixture of
wit and humour. What Englishman would ever have thought of calling
persons in the pillory _the babes in the wood_? This is a common cant
phrase amongst Dublin reprobates. Undoubtedly such phrases tend to
lessen the power of shame and the effect of punishment, and a witty
rogue will lead numbers to the gallows. English morality is not in so
much danger as Irish manners must be from these humourous talents in
their knights of industry. If, nevertheless, there be frequent
executions for capital crimes in England, we must account for this in
the words of the old Lord Chief Justice Fortescue--"More men," says his
lordship, "are hanged in _Englonde_ in one year than _in Fraunce_ in
seven, _because the English have better hartes_; the _Scotchmenne_
likewise never _dare rob_, but only commit larcenies." At all events,
the phlegmatic temper of _Englonde_ secures her from making bulls. The
propensity to this species of blunder exists in minds of a totally
different cast; in those who are quick and enthusiastic, who are
confounded by the rapidity and force with which undisciplined multitudes
of ideas crowd for utterance. Persons of such intellectual characters
are apt to make elisions in speaking, which they trust the capacities of
their audience will supply: passing rapidly over a long chain of
thought, they sometimes forget the intermediate links, and no one but
those of equally rapid habits can follow them successfully.
We hope that the evidence of the Dublin shoeblack has, in some degree,
tended to prove our _minor_, that the Irish are disposed to use
figurative language: we shall not, however, rest our cause on a single
evidence, however respectable; but before we summon our other witnesses,
we beg to relieve the reader's attention, which must have been fatigued
by such a chapter of criticism. They shall now have the tale of a
mendicant. A specimen of city rhetoric is given in the shoeblack; the
country mendicant's eloquence is of a totally different species.
CHAPTER IX.
THE HIBERNIAN MENDICANT.
Perhaps the reader may wish to see as well as hear the petitioner. At
first view you might have taken him for a Spaniard. He was tall; and if
he had been a gentleman, you would have said that there was an air of
dignity in his figure. He seemed very old, yet he appeared more worn by
sorrow than by time. Leaning upon a thick oaken stick as he took off his
hat to ask for alms, his white hair was blown by the wind.
"Health and long life to you!" said he. "Give an old man something to
help to bury him. He is past his labour, and cannot trouble this world
long any way."
He held his hat towards us, with nothing importunate in his manner, but
rather with a look of confidence in us, mixed with habitual resignation.
His thanks were: "Heaven bless you!--Long life and success to you! to
you and yours! and may you never want a friend, as I do."
The last words were spoken low. He laid his hand upon his heart as he
bowed to us, and walked slowly away. We called him back; and upon our
questioning him farther, he gave the following account of himself:--
"I was bred and born--but no matter where such a one as I was bred and
born, no more than where I may die and be buried. _I_, that have neither
son, nor daughter, nor kin, nor friend on the wide earth, to mourn over
my grave when I am laid in it, as I soon must. Well! when it pleases God
to take me, I shall never be missed out of this world, so much as by a
dog: and why should I?--having never in my time done good to any--but
evil--which I have lived to repent me of, many's the long day and night,
and ever shall whilst I have sense and reason left. In my youthful days
God was too good to me: I had friends, and a little home of my own to go
to--a pretty spot of land for a farm, as you could see, with a snug
cabin, and every thing complete, and all to be mine; for I was the only
one my father and mother had, and accordingly was made much of, too
much; for I grew headstrong upon it, and high, and thought nothing of
any man, and little of any woman, but one. That one I surely did think
of; and well worth thinking of she was. Beauty, they say, is all fancy;
but she was a girl every man might fancy. Never was one more sought
after. She was then just in her prime, and full of life and spirits; but
nothing light in her behaviour--quite modest--yet obliging. She was too
good for me to be thinking of, no doubt; but 'faint heart never won fair
lady,' so I made bold to speak to Rose, for that was her name, and after
a world of pains, I began to gain upon her good liking, but couldn't get
her to say more than that she never _seen_ the man she should fancy so
well. This was a great deal from her, for she was coy and proud-like, as
she had a good right to be; and, besides being young, loved her little
innocent pleasure, and could not easy be brought to give up her sway. No
fault of hers: but all very natural. Well! I always considered she never
would have held out so long, nor have been so stiff with me, had it not
been for an old aunt Honour of hers--God rest her soul! One should not
be talking ill of the dead; but she was more out of my way than enough;
yet the cratur had no malice in her against me, only meaning her child's
good, as she called it, but mistook it, and thought to make Rose happy
by some greater match than me, counting her fondness for me, which she
could not but see something of, childishness, that she would soon be
broke of. Now there was a party of English soldiers quartered in our
town, and there was a sergeant amongst them that had money, and a pretty
place, as they said, in his own country. He courted Rose, and the aunt
favoured him. He and I could never relish one another at all. He was a
handsome portly man, but very proud, and looked upon me as dirt under
his feet, because I was an Irishman; and at every word would say,
'_That's an Irish, bull!_' or _'Do you hear Paddy's brogue?'_ at which
his fellow-soldiers, being all English, would look greatly delighted.
Now all this I could have taken in good part from any but him, for I was
not an ill-humoured fellow; but there was a spite in him I plainly saw
against me, and I could not, nor would not take a word from him against
me or my country, especially when Rose was by, who did not like me the
worse for having a proper spirit. She little thought what would come of
it. Whilst all this was going on, her aunt Honour found to object
against me, that I was wild, and given to drink; both which charges were
false and malicious, and I knew could come from none other than the
sergeant, which enraged me the more against him for speaking _so mean_
behind my back. Now I knew, that though the sergeant did not drink
spirits, he drank plenty of beer. Rose took it, however, to heart, and
talked very serious upon it, observing she could never think to marry a
man given to drink, and that the sergeant was remarkably sober and
staid, therefore most like, as her aunt Honour said, to make a good
husband. The words went straight to my heart, along with Rose's look. I
said not a word, but went out, resolving, before I slept, to take an
oath against spirits, of all sorts, for Rose's sweet sake. That evening
I fell in with some boys of the neighbours, who would have had me along
with them, but I _denied myself_ and them; and all I would taste was one
parting glass, and then made my vow in the presence of the priest,
forswearing spirits for two years. Then I went straight to her house to
tell her what I had done, not being sensible that I was that same time a
little elevated with the parting glass I had taken. The first thing I
noticed on going into the room was the man I least wished to see there,
and least looked for at this minute: he was in high talk with the aunt,
and Rose sitting on the other side of him, no way strange towards him,
as I fancied; but that was only fancy, and effect of the liquor I had
drunk, which made me see things wrong. I went up, and put my head
between them, asking Rose, did she know what I had been about?
"'Yes; too well!' said she, drawing back from my breath. And the aunt
looked at her, and she at the aunt, and the sergeant stopped his nose,
saying he had not been long enough in Ireland to love the smell of
whiskey. I observed, that was an uncivil remark in the present company,
and added, that I had not taken a drop that night, but one glass. At
which he sneered, and said that was a bull and a blunder, but no wonder,
as I was an Irishman. I replied in defence of myself and country. We
went on from one smart word to another; and some of his soldiermen being
of the company, he had the laugh against me still. I was vexed to see
Rose bear so well what I could not bear myself. And the talk grew higher
and higher; and from talking of blunders and such trifles, we got, I
cannot myself tell you how, on to great party matters, and politics, and
religion. And I was a catholic, and he a protestant; and there he had
the thing still against me. The company seeing matters not agreeable,
dropped off till none were left but the sergeant, and the aunt, and
Rose, and myself. The aunt gave me a hint to part, but I would not take
it; for I could not bear to go away worsted, and borne down as it were
by the English faction, and Rose by to judge. The aunt was called out by
one who wanted her to go to a funeral next day: the Englishman then let
fall something about our Irish howl, and savages, which Rose herself
said was uncivil, she being an Irish woman, which he, thinking only of
making game on me, had forgot. I knocked him down, telling him that it
was he that was the savage to affront a lady. As he got up he said that
he'd have the law of me, if any law was to be had in Ireland.
"'The law!' said I, 'and you a soldier!'
"'Do you mean to call me coward?' said he. 'This is what an English
soldier must not bear.' With that he snatches at his arms that were
beside him, asking me again, did I mean to call an Englishman coward?
"'Tell me first,' said I, 'did you mean to call us Irish savages?'
"'That's no answer to _my_ question,' says he, 'or only an Irish
answer.'
"'It is not the worse for that, may be," says I, very coolly, despising
the man now, and just took up a knife, that was on the table, to cut off
a button that was hanging at my knee. As I was opening of the knife he
asks me, was I going to stab at him with my Irish knife, and directly
fixes a bayonet at me; on which I seizes a musket and bayonet one of his
men had left, telling him I knew the use of it as well as he or any
Englishman, and better; for that I should never have gone, as he did, to
charge it against an unarmed man.
"'You had your knife,' said he, drawing back.
"' If I had, it was not thinking of you,' said I, throwing the knife
away. 'See! I'm armed like yourself now: fight me like a man and a
soldier, if you dare," says I.
"'Fight me, if you dare,' says he.
"Rose calls to me to stop; but we were both out of ourselves at the
minute. We thrust at each other--he missed me--I hit him. Rose ran in
between us to get the musket from my hand: it was loaded, and went off
in the struggle, and the ball lodged in her body. She fell! and what
happened next I cannot tell, for the sight left my eyes, and all sense
forsook me. When I came to myself the house was full of people, going to
and fro, some whispering, some crying; and till the words reached my
ears, 'Is she quite dead?' I could not understand where I was, or what
had happened. I wished to forget again, but could not. The whole truth
came upon me, and yet I could not shed a tear; but just pushed my way
through the crowd into the inner room, and up to the side of the bed.
There she lay stretched, almost a corpse--quite still! Her sweet eyes
closed, and no colour in her cheeks, that had been so rosy! I took hold
of one of her hands, that hung down, and she then opens her eyes, and
knew me directly, and smiles upon me, and says, 'It was no fault of
yours: take notice, all of you, it was no fault of his if I die; but
_that_ I won't do for his sake, if I can help it!'--that was the word
she spoke. I thinking, from her speaking so strong, that she was not
badly hurt, knelt down to whisper her, that if my breath did smell of
spirits, it was the parting glass I had tasted before making the vow I
had done against drink for her sake; and that there was nothing I would
not do for her, if it would please God to spare her to me. She just
pressed my hand, to show me she was sensible. The priest came in, and
they forced our hands asunder, and carried me away out of the room.
Presently there was a great cry, and I knew all was over."
Here the old man's voice failed, and he turned his face from us. When he
had somewhat recovered himself, to change the course of his thoughts, we
asked whether he were prosecuted for his assault on the English
sergeant, and what became of him?
"Oh! to do him justice, as one should do to every one," said the old
man, "he behaved very handsome to me when I was brought to trial; and
told the whole truth, only blamed himself more than I would have done,
and said it was all his fault for laughing at me and my nation more than
a man could bear, situated as I was. They acquitted me through his
means. We shook hands, and he hoped all would go right with me, he said;
but nothing ever went right with me after. I took little note ever after
of worldly matters: all belonging to me went to rack and ruin. The hand
of God was upon me: I could not help myself, nor settle mind or body to
any thing. I heard them say sometimes I was a little touched in my head:
however that might be I cannot say. But at the last I found it was as
good for me to give all that was left to my friends, who were better
able to manage, and more eager for it than I; and fancying a roving life
would agree with me best, I quitted the place, taking nothing with me,
but resolved to walk the world, and just trust to the charity of good
Christians, or die, as it should please God. How I have lived so long He
only knows, and his will be done."
CHAPTER X.
IRISH WIT AND ELOQUENCE.
"Wild wit, invention ever new," appear in high perfection amongst even
the youngest inhabitants of an Irish cottage. The word _wit_, amongst
the lower classes of Ireland, means not only quickness of repartee, but
cleverness in action; it implies invention and address, with no slight
mixture of cunning; all which is expressed in their dialect by the
single word _'cuteness_ (acuteness). Examples will give a better notion
of this than can be conveyed by any definition.
An Irish boy (a 'cute lad) saw a train of his companions leading
their cars, loaded with kishes[51] of turf, coming towards his
father's cabin; his father had no turf, and the question was how some
should be obtained. To beg he was ashamed; to dig he was
unwilling--but his head went to work directly. He took up a turf
which had fallen from one of the cars the preceding day, and stuck it
on the top of a pole near the cabin. When the cars were passing, he
appeared throwing turf at the mark. "Boys!" cried he, "which of ye
will hit?" Each leader of the car, as he passed, could not forbear to
fling a turf at the mark; the turf fell at the foot of the pole, and
when all the cars had passed, there was a heap left sufficient to
reward the ingenuity of our little Spartan.
The same 'cuteness which appears in youth continues and improves in old
age. When General V---- was quartered in a small town in Ireland, he and
his lady were regularly besieged, whenever they got into their carriage,
by an old beggar-woman, who kept her post at the door, assailing them
daily with fresh importunities and fresh tales of distress. At last the
lady's charity, and the general's patience, were nearly exhausted, but
their petitioner's wit was still in its pristine vigour. One morning, at
the accustomed hour, when the lady was getting into her carriage, the
old woman began--"Agh! my lady; success to your ladyship, and success to
your honour's honour, this morning, of all days in the year; for sure
didn't I dream last night that her ladyship gave me a pound of tea, and
that your honour gave me a pound of tobacco?"
"But, my good woman," said the general, "do not you know that dreams
always go by the rule of contrary?"
"Do they so, plase your honour?" rejoined the old woman. "Then it must
be your honour that will give me the tea, and her ladyship that will
give me the tobacco?"
The general being of Sterne's opinion, that a bon-mot is always worth
more than a pinch of snuff, gave the ingenious dreamer the value of
her dream.
Innumerable instances might be quoted of the Hibernian genius, not
merely for repartee, but for what the Italians call pasquinade. We shall
cite only one, which is already so well known in Ireland, that we cannot
be found guilty of _publishing_ a libel. Over the ostentatious front of
a nobleman's house in Dublin, the owner had this motto cut in stone:--
"Otium cum dignitate.--Leisure with dignity."
In process of time his lordship changed his residence; or, since we must
descend to plebeian language, was committed to Newgate, and immediately
there appeared over the front of his apartment his chosen motto, as
large as the life, in white chalk,
"Otium cum dignitate."
Mixed with keen satire, the Irish often show a sort of cool good sense
and dry humour, which gives not only effect, but value to their
impromptus. Of this class is the observation made by the Irish hackney
coachman, upon seeing a man of the ton driving four-in-hand down
Bond-street.
"That fellow," said our observer, "looks like a coachman, but drives
like a gentleman."
As an instance of humour mixed with sophistry, we beg the reader to
recollect the popular story of the Irishman who was run over by a troop
of horse, and miraculously escaped unhurt.
"Down upon your knees and thank God, you reprobate," said one of the
spectators.
"Thank God! for what? Is it for letting a troop of horse run over me?"
In this speech there is the same sort of humour and sophistry that
appears in the Irishman's celebrated question: "What has posterity done
for me, that I should do so much for posterity?"
The Irish nation, from the highest to the lowest, in daily conversation
about the ordinary affairs of life, employ a superfluity of wit and
metaphor which would be astonishing and unintelligible to a majority of
the respectable body of English yeomen. Even the cutters of turf and
drawers of whiskey are orators; even the _cottiers_ and _gossoons_ speak
in trope and figure. Ask an Irish gossoon to go early in the morning, on
an errand, and he answers,
"I'll be off at the flight of night."
If an Irish cottager would express to his landlord that he wishes for a
long lease of his land, he says,--
"I would be proud to live on your honour's land as long as grass grows
or water runs."
One of our English poets has nearly the same idea:--
"As long as streams in silver mazes run,
Or spring with annual green renews the grove."
Without the advantages of a classical education, the lower Irish
sometimes make similes that bear a near resemblance to those of the
admired poets of antiquity. A loyalist, during the late rebellion, was
describing to us the number of the rebels who had gathered on one
spot, and were dispersed by the king's army; rallied, and were again
put to flight.
"They were," said he, "like swarms of flies on a summer's day, that you
brush away with your hand, and still they will be returning."
There is a simile of Homer's which, literally translated, runs thus: "As
the numerous troops of flies about a shepherd's cottage in the spring,
when the milk moistens the pails, such numbers of Greeks stood in the
field against the Trojans." Lord Kames observes, that it is false taste
to condemn such comparisons for the lowness of the images introduced. In
fact, great objects cannot be degraded by comparison with small ones in
these similes, because the only point of resemblance is number; the mind
instantly perceives this, and therefore requires no other species of
similitude.
When we attempt to judge of the genius of the lower classes of the
people, we must take care that we are not under the influence of any
prejudice of an aristocratic or literary nature. But this is no easy
effort of liberty.
"_Agk! Dublin, sweet Jasus be wid you!_" exclaimed a poor Irishman, as
he stood on the deck of a vessel, which was carrying him out of the bay
of Dublin. The pathos of this poor fellow will not probably affect
delicate sensibility, because he says _wid_ instead of _with_, and
_Jasus_ instead of _Jesus_. Adam Smith is certainly right in his theory,
that the sufferings of those in exalted stations have generally most
power to command our sympathy. The very same sentiment of sorrow at
leaving his country, which was expressed so awkwardly by the poor
Irishman, appears, to every reader of taste, exquisitely pathetic from
the lips of Mary queen of Scots.
"Farewell, France! Farewell, beloved country! which I shall never more
behold!" [52]
In anger as well as in sorrow the Irishman is eloquent. A gentleman who
was lately riding through the county of ----, in Ireland, to canvass,
called to ask a vote from a poor man, who was planting willows in a
little garden by the road side.
"You have a vote, my good sir, I am told," said the candidate, in an
insinuating tone.
The poor man stuck the willow which he had in his hand into the
ground, and with a deliberate pace came towards the candidate to
parley with him.
"Please your honour," said he, gravely, "I have a vote, and I have
not a vote."
"How can that be?"
"I will tell you, sir," said he, leaning, or rather lying down slowly
upon the back of the ditch facing the road, so that the gentleman, who
was on horseback, could see only his head and arms.
"Sir," said he, "out of this little garden, with my five acres of land
and my own labour, I once had a freehold; but I have been robbed of my
freehold: and who do you think has robbed me? why, that man!" pointing
to his landlord's steward, who stood beside the candidate. "With my own
hands I sowed my own ground with oats, and a fine crop I expected--but I
never reaped that crop: not a bushel, no, nor half a bushel, did I ever
see; for into my little place comes this man, with I don't know how many
more, with their shovels and their barrows, and their horses and their
cars, and to work they fell, and they ran a road straight through the
best part of my land, turning all to heaps of rubbish, and a bad road it
was, and a bad time of year to make it! But where was _I_ when he did
this? not where I am now," said the orator, raising himself up and
standing firm; "not as you see me now, but lying on my back in my bed in
a fever. When I got up I was not able to make my rent out of my land.
Besides myself, I had my five children to support. I sold my clothes,
and have never been able to buy any since but such as a recruit could
sell, who was in haste to get into regimentals--such clothes as these,"
said he, looking down at his black rags. "Soon I had nothing to eat: but
that's not all. I am a weaver, sir: for my rent they seized my two
looms; then I had nothing to do. But of all this I do not complain.
There was an election some time ago in this county, and a man rode up to
me in this garden as you do now, and asked me for my vote, but I refused
him, for I was steady to my landlord. The gentleman observed I was a
poor man, and asked if I wanted for nothing? but all did not signify; so
he rode on gently, and at the corner of the road, within view of my
garden, I saw him drop a purse, and I knew, by his looking at me, it was
on purpose for me to pick it up. After a while he came back, thinking,
to be sure, I had taken up the purse, and had changed my mind, but he
found his purse where he left it. My landlord knew all this, and he
promised to see justice done me, but he forgot. Then, as for the
candidate's lady, before the election nothing was too fair-speaking for
me; but afterward, in my distress, when I applied to her to get me a
loom, which she could have had from _the Linen Board_ by only asking for
it, her answer to me was, 'I don't know that I shall ever want a vote
again in the county.'
"Now, sir," continued he, "when justice is done to me (and no sooner), I
shall be glad to assist my landlord or his friend. I know who _you_ are,
sir, very well: you bear a good character: success to you! but I have no
vote to give to you or any man."
"If I were to attempt to make you any amends for what you have
suffered," replied the candidate, "I should do you an injury; it would
be said that I had bribed you; but I will repeat your story where it
will meet with attention. I cannot, however, tell it so well as you
have told it."
"No, sir," was his answer, "for you cannot feel it as I do."
This is almost in terms the conclusion of Pope's epistle from Eloisa to
Abelard:--
"He best can paint them who shall feel them most."
In objurgation and pathetic remonstrancing eloquence, the females of the
lower class in Ireland are not inferior to the men. A thin tall woman
wrapped in a long cloak, the hood of which was drawn over her head, and
shaded her pale face, came to a gentleman to complain of the cruelty of
her landlord.
"He is the most hard-hearted man alive, so he is, sir," said she; "he
has just seized all I have, which, God knows, is little enough! and has
driven my cow to pound, the only cow I have, and only dependence I have
for a drop of milk to drink; and the cow itself too standing there
starving in the pound, for not a wisp of hay would he give to cow or
Christian to save their lives, if it was ever so! And the rent for which
he is driving me, please your honour, has not been due but one week: a
hard master he is; but these _middle_ men are all so, one and all. Oh!
if it had been but my lot to be a tenant to a _gentleman born_, like
your honour, who is the poor man's friend, and the orphan's, and the
widow's--the friend of them that have none other. Long life to you! and
long may you live to reign over us! Would you but speak three words to
my landlord, to let my cow out of pound, and give me a fortnight's time,
that I might see and fatten her to sell against the fair, I could pay
him then all honestly, and not be racked entirely, and he would be
ashamed to refuse your honour, and afraid to disoblige the like of you,
or get your ill-will. May the blessing of Heaven be upon you, if you'll
just send and speak to him three words for the poor woman and widow,
that has none other to speak for her in the wide world!"
Moved by this lamentable story, the effect of which the woman's whole
miserable appearance corroborated and heightened, the gentleman sent
immediately for her hard-hearted landlord. The landlord appeared; not a
gentleman, not a rich man, as the term landlord might denote, but a
stout, square, stubbed, thick-limbed, grey-eyed man, who seemed to have
come smoking hot from hard labour. The gentleman repeated the charge
made against him by the poor widow, and mildly remonstrated on his
cruelty: the man heard all that was said with a calm but unmoved
countenance.
"And now have you done?" said he, turning to the woman, who had
recommenced her lamentations. "Look at her standing there, sir. It's
easy for her to put on her long cloak, and to tell her long story, and
to make her poor mouth to your honour; but if you are willing to hear,
I'll tell you what she is, and what I am. She is one that has none but
herself in this world to provide for; she is one that is able to afford
herself a glass of whiskey when she pleases, and she pleases it often;
she is one that never denies herself the bit of _staggering bob_[53]
when in season; she is one that has a snug house well thatched to live
in all the year round, and nothing to do or nothing that she does; and
this is the way of her life, and this is what she is. And what am I? I
am the father of eight children, and I have a wife and myself to provide
for. I am a man that is at hard labour of one kind or another from
sunrise to sunset. The straw that thatched the house she lives in I
brought two miles on my back; the walls of the house she lives in I
built with my own hands; I did the same by five other houses, and they
are all sound and dry, and good to live in, summer or winter. I set them
for rent to put bread into my children's mouth, and after all I cannot
get it! And to support my eight children, and my wife, and myself, what
have I in this world," cried he, striding suddenly with colossal
firmness upon his sturdy legs, and raising to heaven arms which looked
like fore-shortenings of the limbs of Hercules; "what have _I_ in this
wide world but these four bones?" [54]
No provocation could have worked up a phlegmatic English countryman to
this pitch of eloquence. He never suffers his anger to evaporate in
idle figures of speech: it is always concentrated in a few words, which
he repeats in reply to every argument, persuasive, or invective, that
can be employed to irritate or to assuage his wrath. We recollect
having once been present at a scene between an English gentleman and a
churchwarden, whose feelings were grievously hurt by the disturbance
that had been given to certain bones in levelling a wall which
separated the churchyard from the pleasure ground of the lord of the
manor. The bones belonged, as the churchwarden believed or averred, to
his great great grandmother, though how they were identified it might
be difficult to explain to an indifferent judge; yet we are to suppose
that the confirmation of the suspicion was strong and satisfactory to
the party concerned. The pious great great grandson's feelings were all
in arms, but _indignation_ did not inspire him with a single poetic
idea or expression. In his eloquence, indeed, there was the principal
requisite, action: in reply to all that could be said, he repeatedly
struck his long oak stick perpendicularly upon the floor, and
reiterated these words--
"It's death, sir! death by the law! It's sacrilege, sir! sacrilege by
act of parliament! It's death, sir! death by the law! and the law I'll
have of him, for it's lawful to have the law."
This was the whole range of his ideas, even when the passions had
tumbled them all out of their dormitories.
Innumerable fresh instances of Irish eloquence and wit crowd upon our
recollection, but we forbear. The examples we have cited are taken from
real life, and given without alteration or embellishment.
CHAPTER XI.
THE BROGUE.
Having proved by a perfect syllogism that the Irish must blunder, we
might rest satisfied with our labours; but there are minds of so
perverse a sort, that they will not yield their understandings to the
torturing power of syllogism.
It may be waste of time to address ourselves to persons of such a cast;
we shall therefore change our ground, and adapt our arguments to the
level of vulgar capacities. Much of the comic effect of Irish bulls, or
of such speeches as are mistaken for bulls, has depended upon the tone,
or _brogue_, as it is called, with which they are uttered. The first
Irish blunders that we hear are made or repeated in this peculiar tone,
and afterward, from the power of association, whenever we hear the tone
we expect the blunder. Now there is little danger that the Irish should
be cured of their brogue; and consequently there is no great reason to
apprehend that we should cease to think or call them blunderers.
Of the powerful effect of any peculiarity of pronunciation to prepossess
the mind against the speaker, nay, even to excite dislike amounting to
antipathy, we have an instance attested by an eye-witness, or rather an
ear-witness.
"In the year 1755," says the Rev. James Adams, "I attended a public
disputation in a foreign university, when at least 400 Frenchmen
literally hissed a grave and learned _English_ doctor, not by way of
insult, but irresistibly provoked by the quaintness of the repetition of
sh. The thesis was, the concurrence of God _in actionibus viciosis_: the
whole hall resounded with the hissing cry of sh, and its continual
occurrence in _actio, actione, viciosa_, &c."
It is curious that Shibboleth should so long continue a criterion
among nations!
What must have been the degree of irritation that could so far get the
better of the politeness of 400 Frenchmen as to make them hiss in the
days of _l'ancien regime_! The dread of being the object of that species
of antipathy or ridicule, which is excited by unfashionable peculiarity
of accent, has induced many of the _misguided_ natives of Ireland to
affect what they imagine to be the English pronunciation. They are
seldom successful in this attempt, for they generally overdo the
business. We are told by Theophrastus, that a _barbarian_, who had taken
some pains to attain the true Attic dialect, was discovered to be a
foreigner by his speaking the Attic dialect with a greater degree of
precision and purity than was usual amongst the Athenians themselves. To
avoid the imputation of committing barbarisms, people sometimes run into
solecisms, which are yet more ridiculous. Affectation is always more
ridiculous than ignorance.
There are Irish ladies, who, ashamed of their country, betray themselves
by mincing out their abjuration, by calling tables _teebles_, and chairs
_cheers_! To such renegadoes we prefer the honest quixotism of a modern
champion[55] for the Scottish accent, who boldly asserted that "the
broad dialect rises above reproach, scorn, and laughter," enters the
lists, as he says of himself, in Tartan dress and armour, and throws
down the gauntlet to the most prejudiced antagonist. "How weak is
prejudice!" pursues this patriotic enthusiast. "The sight of the
Highland kelt, the flowing plaid, the buskined leg, provokes my
antagonist to laugh! Is this dress ridiculous in the eyes of reason and
common sense? No; nor is the dialect of speech: both are characteristic
and national distinctions.
"The arguments of general vindication," continues he, "rise powerful
before my sight, like the Highland bands in full array. A louder strain
of apologetic speech swells my words. What if it should rise high as the
unconquered summits of Scotia's hills, and call back, with voice sweet
as Caledonian song, the days of ancient Scotish heroes; or attempt the
powerful speech of the Latian orator, or his of Greece! The subject,
methinks, would well accord with the attempt: _Cupidum, Scotia optima,
vires deficiunt_. I leave this to the _king of songs_, Dunbar and
Dunkeld, Douglas in _Virgilian_ strains, and later poets, Ramsay,
Ferguson, and Burns, awake from your graves; you have already
immortalized the Scotish dialect in raptured melody! Lend me your golden
target and well-pointed spear, that I might victoriously pursue, to the
extremity of South Britain, reproachful ignorance and scorn still
lurking there: let impartial candour seize their usurped throne. Great,
then, is the birth of this national dialect," &c.
So far so good. We have some sympathy with the rhapsodist, whose
enthusiasm kindles at the names of Allan Ramsay and of Burns; nay, we
are willing to hear (with a grain of allowance) that "the manly
eloquence of the Scotish bar affords a singular pleasure to the candid
English hearer, and gives merit and dignity to the noble speakers, who
retain so much of their own dialect and tempered propriety of English
sounds, that they may be emphatically termed _British orators_." But we
confess that we lose our patient decorum, and are almost provoked to
laughter, when our philological Quixote seriously sets about to prove
that Adam and Eve spoke broad Scotch in Paradise.
How angry has this grave patriot reason to be with his ingenious
countryman Beattie,[56] the celebrated champion of _Truth_, who
acknowledges that he never could, when a boy or man, look at a certain
translation of Ajax's speech into one of the vulgar Scotch dialects
without laughing!
We shall now with boldness, similar to that of the Scotch champion, try
the risible muscles of our English reader; we are not, indeed, inclined
to go quite such lengths as he has gone: he insists that the Scotch
dialect ought to be adopted all over England; we are only going candidly
to confess, that we think the Irish, in general, speak _better English_
than is commonly spoken by the natives of England. To limit this
proposition so as to make it appear less absurd, we should observe, that
we allude to the lower classes of the people in both countries. In some
counties in Ireland, a few of the poorest labourers and cottagers do not
understand English, they speak only Irish, as in Wales there are vast
numbers who speak only Welsh; but amongst those who speak English we
find fewer vulgarisms than amongst the same rank of persons in England.
The English which they speak is chiefly such as has been traditional in
their families from the time of the early settlers in the island. During
the reign of Elizabeth and the reign of Shakspeare, numbers of English
migrated to Ireland; and whoever attends to the phraseology of the lower
Irish may, at this day, hear many of the phrases and expressions used by
Shakspeare. Their vocabulary has been preserved nearly in its pristine
purity since that time, because they have not had intercourse with those
counties in England which have made for themselves a jargon unlike to
any language under heaven. The Irish _brogue_ is a great and shameful
defect, but it does not render the English language absolutely
unintelligible. There are but a few variations of the brogue, such as
the long and the short, the Thady brogue and Paddy brogue, which differ
much in tone, and but little in phraseology; but in England, almost all
of our fifty-two counties have peculiar vulgarisms, dialects, and
brogues, unintelligible to their neighbours. Herodotus tells us that
some of the nations of Greece, though they used the same language, spoke
it so differently, that they could not understand each other's
conversation. This is literally the case at present between the
provincial inhabitants of remote parts of England. Indeed the language
peculiar to the metropolis, or the _cockney_ dialect, is proverbially
ridiculous. The Londoners, who look down with contempt upon all that
have not been _bred and born_ within the sound of Bow, talk with
unconscious absurdity of _w_eal and _w_inegar, and _v_ine and _v_indors,
and idea_r_s, and ask you _ow_you do? and '_ave ye bin taking_ the h_air
in 'yde park? and '_as_ your 'orse 'ad any _h_oats, &c.? aspirating
always where they should not, and never aspirating where they should.
The _Zummerzetzheer_ dialect, full of broad _oos_ and eternal _zeds_,
supplies never-failing laughter when brought upon the stage. Even a
cockney audience relishes the broad pronunciation of John Moody, in the
Journey to London, or of Sim in Wild Oats.
The cant of Suffolk, the vulgarisms of Shropshire, the uncouth
phraseology of the three ridings of Yorkshire, amaze and bewilder
foreigners, who perhaps imagine that they do not understand English,
when they are in company with those who cannot speak it. The patois of
Languedoc and Champagne, such as "_Mein fis sest ai bai via_," Mon fils
c'est un beau veau, exercises, it is true, the ingenuity of travellers,
and renders many scenes of Moliere and Marivaux difficult, if not
unintelligible, to those who have never resided in the French provinces;
but no French patois is more unintelligible than the following specimen
of _Tummas_ and _Meary's_ Lancashire dialogue:--
_Thomas_. "Whau, but I startit up to goa to th' tits, on slurr'd deawn
to th' lower part o' th' heymough, on by th' maskins, lord! whot dust
think? boh leet hump stridd'n up o' summot ot felt meety heury, on it
startit weh meh on its back, deawn th' lower part o' th' mough it jumpt,
crost th' leath, eaw't o' th' dur whimmey it took, on into th' weturing
poo, os if th' dule o' hell had driv'n it, on there it threw meh en, or
I fell off, I connaw tell whether, for th' life o' meh, into the poo."
_Mary_. "Whoo-wo, whoo-wo, whoo! whot, ith neme o' God! widneh sey?"
_Thomas_. "If it wur naw Owd Nick, he wur th' orderer on't, to be
shure----. Weh mitch powlering I geet eawt o' th' poo, 'lieve[57] meh,
as to list, I could na tell whether i'r in a sleawm or wak'n, till eh
groapt ot meh een; I crope under a wough and stode like o'
gawmbling,[58] or o parfit neatril, till welly day," &c.
Let us now listen to a conversation which we hope will not be quite so
unintelligible.
CHAPTER XII.
BATH COACH CONVERSATION.
In one of the coaches which travel between Bath and London, an Irish, a
Scotch, and an English gentleman happened to be passengers. They were
well informed and well-bred, had seen the world, had lived in good
company, and were consequently superior to local and national prejudice.
As their conversation was illustrative of our subject, we shall make no
apology for relating it. We pass the usual preliminary compliments, and
the observations upon the weather and the roads. The Irish gentleman
first started a more interesting subject--the Union; its probable
advantages and disadvantages were fully discussed, and, at last, the
Irishman said, "Whatever our political opinions may be, there is one
wish in which we shall all agree, that the Union may make us better
acquainted with one another."
"It is surprising," said the Englishman, "how ignorant we English in
general are of Ireland: to be sure we do not now, as in the times of
Bacon and Spenser, believe that wild Irishmen have wings; nor do we all
of us give credit, to Mr. Twiss's assertion, that if you look at an
Irish lady, she answers, '_port if you please_.'"
_Scotchman_.--"That traveller seems to be almost as liberal as he who
defined _oats_--food for horses in England, and for men in Scotland:
such illiberal notions die away of themselves."
_Irishman_.--"Or they are contradicted by more liberal travellers. I am
sure my country has great obligations to the gallant English and Scotch
military, not only for so readily assisting to defend and quiet us, but
for spreading in England a juster notion of Ireland. Within these few
months, I suppose, more real knowledge of the state and manners of that
kingdom has been diffused in England by their means, than had been
obtained during a whole century."
_Scotchman_.--"Indeed, I do not recollect having read any author of note
who has given me a notion of Ireland since Spenser and Davies, except
Arthur Young."
_Englishman_.--"What little knowledge I have of Ireland has been drawn
more from observation than from books. I remember when I first went over
there, I did not expect to see twenty trees in the whole island: I
imagined that I should have nothing to drink but whiskey, that I should
have nothing to eat but potatoes, that I should sleep in mud-walled
cabins; that I should, when awake, hear nothing but the Irish howl, the
Irish brogue, Irish answers, and Irish bulls; and that if I smiled at
any of these things, a hundred pistols would fly from their holsters to
_give_ or _demand_ satisfaction. But experience taught me better things:
I found that the stories I had heard were _tales of other times_. Their
hospitality, indeed, continues to this day."
_Irishman_.--"It does, I believe; but of later days, as we have been
honoured with the visits of a greater number of foreigners, our
hospitality has become less extravagant."
_Englishman_.--"Not less agreeable: Irish hospitality, I speak from
experience, does not now consist merely in pushing about the bottle; the
Irish are convivial, but their conviviality is seasoned with wit and
humour; they have plenty of good conversation as well as good cheer for
their guests; and they not only have wit themselves, but they love it in
others; they can take as well as give a joke. I never lived with a more
good-humoured, generous, open-hearted people than the Irish."
_Irishman_.--"I wish Englishmen, in general, were half as partial to
poor Ireland as you are, sir."
_Englishman_.--"Or rather you wish that they knew the country as well,
and then they would do it as much justice."
_Irishman_.--"You do it something more than justice, I fear. There are
little peculiarities in my countrymen which will long be justly the
subject of ridicule in England."
_Scotchman._--"Not among well-bred and well-informed people: those who
have seen or read of great varieties of customs and manners are never
apt to laugh at all that may differ from their own. As the sensible
author of the Government of the Tongue says, 'Half-witted people are
always the bitterest revilers.'"
_Irishman._--"You are very indulgent, gentlemen; but in spite of all
your politeness, you must allow, or, at least, I must confess, that
there are little defects in the Irish government of the tongue at which
even _whole_-witted people must laugh."
_Scotchman._--"The well-educated people in all countries, I believe,
escape the particular accent, and avoid the idiom, that are
characteristic of the vulgar."
_Irishman._--"But even when we escape Irish brogue, we cannot escape
Irish bulls."
_Englishman._--"You need not say _Irish_ bulls with such emphasis;
for bulls are not peculiar to Ireland. I have been informed by a
person of unquestionable authority, that there is a town in Germany,
Hirschau, in the Upper Palatinate, where the inhabitants are famous
for making bulls."
_Irishman._--"I am truly glad to hear we have companions in disgrace.
Numbers certainly lessen the effect of ridicule as well as of shame:
but, after all, the Irish idiom is peculiarly unfortunate, for it leads
perpetually to blunder."
_Scotchman._--"I have heard the same remarked of the Hebrew. I am told
that the Hebrew and Irish idiom are much alike."
_Irishman (laughing)._--"That is a great comfort to us, certainly,
particularly to those amongst us who are fond of tracing our origin up
to the remotest antiquity; but still there are many who would willingly
give up the honour of this high alliance to avoid its inconveniences;
for my own part, if I could ensure myself and my countrymen from all
future danger of making bulls and blunders, I would this instant give up
all Hebrew roots; and even the Ogham character itself I would renounce,
'to make assurance doubly sure.'"
_Englishman.--_"'To make _assurance doubly sure._' Now there is an
example in our great Shakspeare of what I have often observed, that we
English allow our poets and ourselves a licence of speech that we deny
to our Hibernian neighbours. If an Irishman, instead of Shakspeare, had
talked of making 'assurance doubly sure,' we should have asked how that
could be. The vulgar in England are too apt to catch at every slip of
the tongue made by Irishmen. I remember once being present when an Irish
nobleman, of talents and literature, was actually hissed from the
hustings at a Middlesex election because in his speech he happened to
say, 'We have laid the root to the axe of the tree of liberty,' instead
of 'we have laid the axe to the root of the tree.'"
Scotchman,--"A lapsus linguae, that might have been made by the greatest
orators, ancient or modern; by Cicero or Chatham, by Burke, or by 'the
fluent Murray.'"
Englishman,--"Upon another occasion I have heard that an Irish orator
was silenced with '_inextinguishable_ laughter' merely for saying, 'I am
sorry to hear my honourable friend stand mute.'"
Scotchman.--"If I am not mistaken, that very same Irish orator made an
allusion at which no one could laugh. 'The protection,' said he, 'which
Britain affords to Ireland in the day of adversity, is like that which
the oak affords to the ignorant countryman, who flies to it for shelter
in the storm; it draws down upon his head the lightning of heaven:' may
be I do not repeat the words exactly, but I could not forget the idea."
Englishman.--"I would with all my heart bear the ridicule of a
hundred blunders for the honour of having made such a simile: after
all, his saying, 'I am sorry to hear my honourable friend stand
_mute_,' if it be a bull, is justified by Homer; one of the charms in
the cestus of Venus is,
'Silence that speaks, and eloquence of eyes.'"
Scotchman.--"Silence that speaks, sir, is, I am afraid, an English, not
a Grecian charm. It is not in the Greek; it is one of those beautiful
liberties which Mr. Pope has taken with his original. But silence that
speaks can be found in France as well as in England. Voltaire, in his
chef-d'oeuvre, his Oedipus, makes Jocasta say,
'Tout parle centre nous jusqu'a notre _silence_.'" [59]
_Englishman_.--"And in our own Milton, Samson Agonistes makes as
good, indeed a better bull; for he not only makes the mute speak, but
speak loud:--
'The deeds themselves, though _mute, spoke loud_ the doer.'
And in Paradise Lost we have, to speak in _fashionable_ language, two
_famous_ bulls. Talking of Satan, Milton says,
'God and his Son except,
Created thing nought valued he nor shunn'd.'
And speaking of Adam and Eve, and their sons and daughters, he confounds
them all together in a manner for which any Irishman would have been
laughed to scorn:--
'Adam, the goodliest man of men since born,
His sons; the fairest of her daughters Eve.'
Yet Addison, who notices these blunders, calls them only little
blemishes."
_Scotchman_.--"He does so; and he quotes Horace, who tells us we should
impute such venial errors to a pardonable inadvertency; and, as I
recollect, Addison makes another very just remark, that the ancients,
who were actuated by a spirit of candour, not of cavilling, invented a
variety of figures of speech, on purpose to palliate little errors of
this nature."
"Really, gentlemen," interrupted the Hibernian, who had sat all this
time in silence that spoke his grateful sense of the politeness of his
companions, "you will put the finishing stroke to my obligations to you,
if you will prove that the ancient figures of speech were invented to
palliate Irish blunders."
_Englishman_.--"No matter for what purpose they were invented; if we can
make so good a use of them we shall be satisfied, especially if you are
pleased. I will, however, leave the burden of the proof upon my friend
here, who has detected me already in quoting from Pope's Iliad instead
of Homer's. I am sure he will manage the ancient figures of rhetoric
better than I should; however, if I can fight behind his shield I shall
not shun the combat."
_Scotchman_.--"I stand corrected for quoting Greek. Now I will not go to
Longinus for my tropes and figures; I have just met with a little book
on the subject, which I put into my pocket to-day, intending to finish
it on my journey, but I have been better employed."
He drew from his pocket a book, called, "Deinology; or, the Union of
Reason and Elegance." "Look," said he, "look at this long list of tropes
and figures; amongst them we could find apologies for every species of
Irish bulls; but in mercy, I will select, from 'the twenty chief and
most moving figures of speech,' only the oxymoron, as it is a favourite
with Irish orators. In the oxymoron contradictions meet: to reconcile
these, Irish ingenuity delights. I will further spare four out of the
seven figures of less note: emphasis, enallage, and the hysteron
proteron you must have; because emphasis graces Irish diction, enallage
unbinds it from strict grammatical fetters, and hysteron proteron allows
it sometimes to put the cart before the horse. Of the eleven grammatical
figures, Ireland delights chiefly in the antimeria, or changing one part
of speech for another, and in the ellipsis or defect. Of the remaining
long list of figures, the Irish are particularly disposed to the
epizeuxis, as 'indeed, indeed--at all, at all,' and antanaclasis, or
double meaning. The tautotes, or repetition of the same thing, is, I
think, full as common amongst the English. The hyperbole and catachresis
are so nearly related to a bull, that I shall dwell upon them with
pleasure. You must listen to the definition of a catachresis:--'A
catachresis is the boldest of any trope. _Necessity makes it borrow and
employ an expression or term contrary to the thing it means to
express_.'"
"Upon my word this is something like a description of an Irish bull,"
interrupted the Hibernian.
_Scotchman_.--"For instance, it has been said, _Equitare in arundine
longa_, to ride on horseback on a stick. Reason condemns the
contradiction, but necessity has allowed it, and use has made it
intelligible. The same trope is employed in the following metaphorical
expression:--the seeds of the Gospel have been _watered_ by the _blood_
of the martyrs."
_Englishman_.--"That does seem an absurdity, I grant; but you know great
orators _trample on impossibilities_." [60]
_Scotchman_.--"And great poets get the letter of them. You recollect
Shakspeare says,
'Now bid me run,
And I will strive with things _impossible_,
Yea, _get the better of them_.'"
_Englishman_.--"And Corneille, in the Cid, I believe, makes his hero a
compliment upon his having performed impossibilities--'Vos mains
seules ont le droit de vaincre un invincible.'" [61]
_Scotchman_.--"Ay, that would be a bull in an Irishman, but it is only
an hyperbole in a Frenchman."
_Irishman_.--"Indeed this line of Corneille's _out-hyperboles_ the
hyperbole, considered in any but a prophetic light; as a prophecy, it
exactly foretels the taking of Bonaparte's _invincible_ standard by the
glorious forty-second regiment of the British: 'Your hands alone _have a
right_ to vanquish the invincible.' By-the-by, the phrase _ont le droit_
cannot, I believe, be literally translated into English; but the Scotch
and Irish, _have a right_, translates it exactly. But do not let me
interrupt my country's defence, gentlemen; I am heartily glad to find
Irish blunderers may shelter themselves in such good company in the
ancient sanctuary of the hyperbole. But I am afraid you must deny
admittance to the poor mason, who said, 'This house will stand as long
as the world, and longer.'"
_Scotchman_.--"Why should we 'shut the gates of mercy' upon him when we
pardon his betters for more flagrant sins? For instance, Mr. Pope, who,
in his Essay on Criticism, makes a blunder, or rather uses an hyperbole,
stronger than that of your poor Irish mason:--
'When first young Maro in his noble mind
A work _t'outlast immortal_ Rome design'd.'
And to give you a more modern case, I lately heard an English shopkeeper
say to a lady in recommendation of his goods, 'Ma'am, it will wear for
ever, and make you a petticoat afterwards.'"
_Irishman_.--"Upon my word, I did not think you could have found a match
for the mason; but what will you say to my countryman, who, on meeting
an acquaintance, accosted him with this ambiguous compliment--'When
first I saw you I thought it was you, but now I see it is your
brother.'"
_Scotchman_.--"If I were not afraid you would take me for a
pedant, I should quote a sentence from Cicero that is not far
behind this blunder."
_Irishman_.--"I can take you for nothing but a friend: pray let us have
the Latin."
_Scotchman_.--"It is one of Cicero's compliments to Caesar--'Qui, cum
ipse imperator in toto imperio populi Romani unus esset, esse me alterum
passus est.'[62] Perhaps," continued the Scotchman, "my way of
pronouncing Latin sounds strangely to you, gentlemen?"
_Irishman_.--"And perhaps ours would be unintelligible to Cicero
himself, if he were to overhear us: I fancy we are all so far from
right, that we need not dispute about degrees of wrong."
The coach stopped at this instant, and the conversation was interrupted.
CHAPTER XIII.
BATH COACH CONVERSATION.
After our travellers had dined, the conversation was renewed by the
English gentleman's repeating Goldsmith's celebrated lines on Burke:
"Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining,
And thought of convincing, whilst they thought of dining;
In short, 'twas his fate, unemployed or in place, sir,
To eat mutton cold, and cut blocks with a razor."
"What humour and wit there are in that poem of Goldsmith's! and where is
there any thing equal to his 'Traveller?'"
_Irishman_.--"Yet this is the man who used to be the butt of the company
for his bulls."
_Englishman_.--"No, not for his bulls, but for _blurting_ out opinions
in conversation that could not stand the test of Dr. Johnson's critical
powers. But what would become of the freedom of wit and humour if every
word that came out of our mouths were subject to the tax of a professed
critic's censure, or if every sentence were to undergo a logical
examination? It would be well for Englishmen if they were a little more
inclined, like your open-hearted countrymen, to _blurt_ out their
opinions freely."
_Scotchman_,--"I cannot forgive Dr. Johnson for calling Goldsmith an
inspired idiot; I confess I see no idiotism, but much inspiration, in
his works."
_Irishman_.--"But we must remember, that if Johnson did laugh at
Goldsmith, he would let no one else laugh at him, and he was his most
sincere and active friend. The world would, perhaps, never have seen the
'Vicar of Wakefield' if Johnson had not recommended it to a bookseller;
and Goldsmith might have died in jail if the doctor had not got him a
hundred pounds for it, when poor Goldsmith did not know it was worth a
shilling. When we recollect this, we must forgive the doctor for calling
him, in jest, an inspired idiot."
_Scotchman_.--"Especially as Goldsmith has wit enough to bear him up
against a thousand such jests."
_Englishman_.--"It is curious to observe how nearly wit and absurdity
are allied. We may forgive the genius of Ireland if he sometimes
'Leap his light courser o'er the bounds of taste.'
Even English genius is not always to be restrained within the strict
limits of common sense. For instance, Young is witty when he says,
'How would a miser startle to be told
Of such a wonder as insolvent gold.'
But Johnson is, I am afraid, absurd when he says,
'Turn from the glittering bribe your scornful eye,
Nor sell for gold what gold can never buy.'"
"One case, to be sure, must be excepted," said the Irishman; "a patriot
may sell his reputation, and the purchaser get nothing by it. But,
gentlemen, I have just recollected an example of an Irish bull in which
are all the happy requisites, incongruity, confusion, and laughable
confusion, both in thought and expression. When Sir Richard Steele was
asked, how it happened that his countrymen made so many bulls, he
replied, 'It is the effect of climate, sir; if an Englishman were born
in Ireland, he would make as many.'"
_Scotchman_.--"This is an excellent bull, I allow; but I think I can
match it."
_Englishman_.--"And if he can, you will allow yourself to be fairly
vanquished?"
_Irishman_.--"Most willingly."
_Scotchman_.--"Then I shall owe my victory to our friend Dr. Johnson,
the leviathan of English literature. In his celebrated preface to
Shakspeare he says, that 'he has not only shown human nature as it acts
in real exigencies, but as it _would be found in situations to which it
cannot be exposed_.' These are his own words; I think I remember them
accurately."
The English gentleman smiled, and our Hibernian acknowledged that the
Scotchman had fairly gained the victory. "My friends," added he, "as I
cannot pretend to be 'convinced against my will,' I certainly am not 'of
the same opinion still.' But stay--there are such things as practical
bulls: did you never hear of the Irishman who ordered a painter to draw
his picture, and to represent him standing behind a tree?"
_Englishman_.--"No: but I have heard the very same story told of an
Englishman. The dealers in _good jokes_ give them first to one nation
and then to another, first to one celebrated character and then to
another, as it suits the demand and fashion of the day: just as our
printsellers, with a few touches, change the portrait of General
Washington into the head of the king of France, and a capital print of
Sir Joshua Reynolds into a striking likeness of _the Monster_.
"But I can give you an instance of a practical bull that is not only
indisputably English, but was made by one of the greatest men that
England ever produced, Sir Isaac Newton, who, after he had made a large
hole in his study-door for his cat to creep through, made a small hole
beside it for the kitten. You will acknowledge, sir, that this is a good
practical bull."
"Pardon me," said the Hibernian, "we have still some miles further to
go, and, if you will give me leave, I will relate 'an Hibernian tale,'
which exemplifies some of the opinions held in this conversation."
The Scotch and English gentlemen begged to hear the story, and he began
in the following manner.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE IRISH INCOGNITO.
Sir John Bull was a native of Ireland, _bred_ and _born_ in the city of
Cork. His real name was Phelim O'Mooney, and he was by profession a
_stocah_, or walking gentleman; that is, a person who is too proud to
earn his bread, and too poor to have bread without earning it. He had
always been told that none of his ancestors had ever been in trade or
business of any kind, and he resolved, when a boy, never to _demean_
himself and family, as his elder brother had done, by becoming a rich
merchant. When he grew up to be a young man, he kept this spirited
resolution as long as he had a relation or friend in the world who would
let him hang upon them; but when he was shaken off by all, what could he
do but go into business? He chose the most genteel, however; he became a
wine merchant. I'm _only_ a wine merchant, said he to himself, and that
is next door to being nothing at all. His brother furnished his cellars;
and Mr. Phelim O'Mooney, upon the strength of the wine that he had in
his cellars, and of the money he expected to make of it, immediately
married a wife, set up a gig, and gave excellent dinners to men who were
ten times richer than he even ever expected to be. In return for these
excellent dinners, his new friends bought all their wine from Mr.
O'Mooney, and never paid for it; he lived upon credit himself, and gave
all his friends credit, till he became a bankrupt. Then nobody came to
dine with him, and every body found out that he had been very imprudent;
and he was obliged to sell his gig, but not before it had broken his
wife's neck; so that when accounts came to be finally settled, he was
not much worse than when he began the world, the loss falling upon his
creditors, and he being, as he observed, free to begin life again, with
the advantage of being once more a bachelor. He was such a good-natured,
free-hearted fellow, that every body liked him, even his creditors. His
wife's relations made up the sum of five hundred pounds for him, and his
brother offered to take him into his firm as partner; but O'Mooney
preferred, he said, going to try, or rather to make, his fortune in
England, as he did not doubt but he should by marriage, being, as he did
not scruple to acknowledge, a personable, clever-looking man, and a
great favourite with the sex.
"My last wife I married for love, my next I expect will do the same by
me, and of course the money must come on her side this time," said our
hero, half jesting, half in earnest. His elder and wiser brother, the
merchant, whom he still held in more than sufficient contempt, ventured
to hint some slight objections to this scheme of Phelim's seeking
fortune in England. He observed that so many had gone upon this plan
already, that there was rather a prejudice in England against Irish
adventurers.
This could not affect _him_ any ways, Phelim replied, because he did not
mean to appear in England as an Irishman at all.
"How then?"
"As an Englishman, since that is most agreeable."
"How can that be?"
"Who should hinder it?"
His brother, hesitatingly, said "Yourself."
"Myself!--What part of myself? Is it my tongue?--You'll acknowledge,
brother, that I do not speak with the brogue."
It was true that Phelim did not speak with any Irish brogue: his mother
was an English woman, and he had lived much with English officers in
Cork, and he had studied and imitated their manner of speaking so
successfully, that no one, merely by his accent, could have guessed that
he was an Irishman.
"Hey! brother, I say!" continued Phelim, in a triumphant English tone;
"I never was taken for an Irishman in my life. Colonel Broadman told me
the other day, I spoke English better than the English themselves; that
he should take me for an Englishman, in any part of the known world, the
moment I opened my lips. You must allow that not the smallest particle
of brogue is discernible on my tongue."
His brother allowed that not the smallest particle of brogue was to be
discerned upon Phelim's tongue, but feared that some Irish idiom might
be perceived in his conversation. And then the name of O'Mooney!
"Oh, as to that, I need not trouble an act of parliament, or even a
king's letter, just to change my name for a season; at the worst, I can
travel and appear incognito."
"Always?"
"No: only just till I'm upon good terms with the lady ---- Mrs. Phelim
O'Mooney, that is to be, God willing. Never fear, nor shake your head,
brother; _you_ men of business are out of this line, and not proper
judges: I beg your pardon for saying so, but as you are my own brother,
and nobody by, you'll excuse me."
His brother did excuse him, but continued silent for some minutes;
he was pondering upon the means of persuading Phelim to give up
this scheme.
"I would lay you any wager, my dear Phelim," said he, "that you could
not continue four days in England incognito."
"Done!" cried Phelim. "Done for a hundred pounds; done for a thousand
pounds, and welcome."
"But if you lose, how will you pay?"
"Faith! that's the last thing I thought of, being sure of winning."
"Then you will not object to any mode of payment I shall propose."
"None: only remembering always, that I was a bankrupt last week, and
shall be little better till I'm married; but then I'll pay you honestly
if I lose."
"No, if you lose I must be paid before that time, my good sir," said his
brother, laughing. "My bet is this:--I will lay you one hundred guineas
that you do not remain four days in England incognito; be upon honour
with me, and promise, that if you lose, you will, instead of laying down
a hundred guineas, come back immediately, and settle quietly again to
business."
The word _business_ was always odious to our hero's proud ears; but he
thought himself so secure of winning his wager, that he willingly bound
himself in a penalty which he believed would never become due; and his
generous brother, at parting, made the bet still more favourable, by
allowing that Phelim should not be deemed the loser unless he was, in
the course of the first four days after he touched English ground,
detected eight times in being an Irishman.
"Eight times!" cried Phelim. "Good bye to a hundred guineas, brother,
you may say."
"You may say," echoed his brother, and so they parted.
Mr. Phelim O'Mooney the next morning sailed from Cork harbour with a
prosperous gale, and with a confidence in his own success which supplied
the place of auspicious omens. He embarked at Cork, to go by long sea to
London, and was driven into Deal, where Julius Caesar once landed before
him, and with the same resolution to see and conquer. It was early in
the morning; having been very sea-sick, he was impatient, as soon as he
got into the inn, for his breakfast: he was shown into a room where
three ladies were waiting to go by the stage; his air of easy confidence
was the best possible introduction.
"Would any of the company choose eggs?" said the waiter.
"I never touch an egg for my share," said O'Mooney, carelessly; he knew
that it was supposed to be an Irish custom to eat eggs at breakfast; and
when the malicious waiter afterwards set a plate full of eggs in salt
upon the table, our hero magnanimously abstained from them; he even
laughed heartily at a story told by one of the ladies, of an Hibernian
at Buxton, who declared that "no English hen ever laid a fresh egg."
O'Mooney got through breakfast much to his own satisfaction, and to that
of the ladies, whom he had taken a proper occasion to call the _three
graces_, and whom he had informed that he was an _old_ baronet of an
English family, and that his name was Sir John Bull. The youngest of the
graces civilly observed, "that whatever else he might be, she should
never have taken him for an _old_ baronet." The lady who made this
speech was pretty, but O'Mooney had penetration enough to discover, in
the course of the conversation, that she and her companions were far
from being divinities; his three graces were a greengrocer's wife, a
tallowchandler's widow, and a milliner. When he found that these ladies
were likely to be his companions if he were to travel in the coach, he
changed his plan, and ordered a postchaise and four.
O'Mooney was not in danger of making any vulgar Irish blunders in paying
his bill at an inn. No landlord or waiter could have suspected him,
especially as he always left them to settle the matter first, and then
looked over the bill and money with a careless gentility, saying, "Very
right," or "Very well, sir;" wisely calculating, that it was better to
lose a few shillings on the road, than to lose a hundred pounds by the
risk of Hibernian miscalculation.
Whilst the chaise was getting ready he went to the custom-house to look
after his baggage. He found a red-hot countryman of his own there,
roaring about four and fourpence, and fighting the battle of his trunks,
in which he was ready to make affidavit there was not, nor never had
been, any thing contraband; and when the custom-house officer replied by
pulling out of one of them a piece of Irish poplin, the Hibernian fell
immediately upon the Union, which he swore was Disunion, as the
custom-house officers managed it. Sir John Bull appeared to much
advantage all this time, maintaining a dignified silence; from his quiet
appearance and deportment, the custom-house officers took it for granted
that he was an Englishman. He was in no hurry; he begged _that_
gentleman's business might be settled first; he would wait the officer's
leisure, and as he spoke he played so dexterously with half-a-guinea
between his fingers, as to make it visible only where he wished. The
custom-house officer was his humble servant immediately; but the
Hibernian would have been his enemy, if he had not conciliated him by
observing, "that even Englishmen must allow there was something very
like a bull in professing to make a complete identification of the two
kingdoms, whilst, at the same time, certain regulations continued in
full force to divide the countries by art, even more than the British
Channel does by nature."
Sir John talked so plausibly, and, above all, so candidly and coolly on
Irish and English politics, that the custom-house officer conversed with
him for a quarter of an hour without guessing of what country he was,
till in an unlucky moment Phelim's heart got the better of his head.
Joining in the praises bestowed by all parties on the conduct of a
distinguished patriot of his country, he, in the height of his
enthusiasm, inadvertently called him the _Speaker_.
"The Speaker!" said the officer.
"Yes, the Speaker--_our_ Speaker!" cried Phelim, with exultation. He
was not aware how he had betrayed himself, till the officer smiled
and said--
"Sir, I really never should have found out that you were an Irishman but
from the manner in which you named your countryman, who is as highly
thought of by all parties in this country as in yours: your enthusiasm
does honour to your heart."
"And to my head, I'm sure," said our hero, laughing with the best grace
imaginable. "Well, I am glad you have found me out in this manner,
though I lose the eighth part of a bet of a hundred guineas by it."
He explained the wager, and begged the custom-house officer to keep his
secret, which he promised to do faithfully, and assured him, "that he
should be happy to do any thing in his power to serve him." Whilst he
was uttering these last words, there came in a snug, but soft-looking
Englishman, who opining from the words "happy to do any thing in my
power to serve you," that O'Mooney was a friend of the custom-house
officer's, and encouraged by something affable and good-natured in our
hero's countenance, crept up to him, and whispered a request--"Could you
tell a body, sir, how to get out of the custom-house a very valuable box
of Sevre china that has been _laying_ in the custom-house three weeks,
and which I was commissioned to get out if I could, and bring up to town
for a lady."
As a lady was in the case, O'Mooney's gallantry instantly made his
good-nature effective. The box of Sevre china was produced, and opened
only as a matter of form, and only as a matter of curiosity its contents
were examined--a beautiful set of Sevre china and a pendule, said to
have belonged to M. Egalite! "These things must be intended," said
Phelim, "for some lady of superior taste or fortune."
As Phelim was a proficient in the Socratic art of putting judicious
interrogatories, he was soon happily master of the principal points it
concerned him to know: he learnt that the lady was rich--a spinster--of
full age--at her own disposal--living with a single female companion at
Blackheath--furnishing a house there in a superior style--had two
carriages--her Christian name Mary--her surname Sharperson.
O'Mooney, by the blessing of God, it shall soon he, thought Phelim. He
politely offered the Englishman a place in his chaise for himself and
Sevre china, as it was for a lady, and would run great hazard in the
stage, which besides was full. Mr. Queasy, for that was our soft
Englishman's name, was astonished by our hero's condescension and
affability, especially as he heard him called Sir John: he bowed sundry
times as low as the fear of losing his wig would permit, and accepted
the polite offer with many thanks for himself and the lady concerned.
Sir John Bull's chaise and four was soon ready; and Queasy seated in the
corner of it, and the Sevre china safely stowed between his knees.
Captain Murray, a Scotch officer, was standing at the inn-door, with his
eyes intently fixed on the letters that were worked in nails on the top
of Sir John's trunk; the letters were P. O'M. Our hero, whose eyes were
at least as quick as the Scotchman's, was alarmed lest this should lead
to a second detection. He called instantly, with his usual presence of
mind, to the ostler, and desired him to uncord _that_ trunk, as it was
not to go with him; raising his voice loud enough for all _the yard_ to
hear, he added--"It is not mine at all; it belongs to my friend, Mr.
O'Mooney: let it be sent after me, at leisure, by the waggon, as
directed, to the care of Sir John Bull."
Our hero was now giving his invention a prodigious quantity of
superfluous trouble; and upon this occasion, as upon most others, he was
more in danger from excess than deficiency of ingenuity: he was like the
man in the fairy tale, who was obliged to tie his legs lest he should
outrun the object of which he was in pursuit. The Scotch officer, though
his eyes were fixed on the letters PO'S., had none of the suspicions
which Phelim was counteracting; he was only considering how he could ask
for the third place in Sir John's chaise during the next stage, as he
was in great haste to get to town upon particular business, and there
were no other horses at the inn. When he heard that the heavy baggage
was to go by the waggon, he took courage and made his request. It was
instantly granted by the good-natured Hibernian, who showed as much
hospitality about his chaise as if it had been his house. Away they
drove as fast as they could. Fresh dangers awaited him at the next inn.
He left his hat upon the table in the hall whilst he went into the
parlour, and when he returned, he heard some person inquiring what Irish
gentleman was there. Our hero was terribly alarmed, for he saw that his
hat was in the inquirers hand, and he recollected that the name of
Phelim O'Mooney was written in it. This the inquisitive gentleman did
not see, for it was written in no very legible characters on the leather
withinside of the front; but "F. Guest, hatter, Damestreet, Dublin," was
a printed advertisement that could not be mistaken, and _that_ was
pasted within the crown. O'Mooney's presence of mind did not forsake him
upon this emergency.
"My good sir," said he, turning to Queasy, who, without hearing one word
of what was passing, was coming out of the parlour, with his own hat and
gloves in his hand; "My good sir," continued he, loading him with
parcels, "will you have the goodness to see these put into my carriage?
Ill take care of your hat and gloves," added O'Mooney, in a low voice.
Queasy surrendered his hat and gloves instantly, unknowing wherefore;
then squeezed forward with his load through the crowd, crying--"Waiter!
hostler! pray, somebody put these into Sir John Bull's chaise."
Sir John Bull, equipped with Queasy's hat, marched deliberately through
the defile, bowing with the air of at least an English county member to
this side and to that, as way was made for him to his carriage. No one
suspected that the hat did not belong to him; no one, indeed, thought of
the hat, for all eyes were fixed upon the man. Seated in the carriage,
he threw money to the waiter, hostler, and boots, and drew up the glass,
bidding the postilions drive on. By this cool self-possession our hero
effected his retreat with successful generalship, leaving his new Dublin
beaver behind him, without regret, as bona waviata. Queasy, before whose
eyes things passed continually without his seeing them, thanked Sir John
for the care he had taken of his hat, drew on his gloves, and calculated
aloud how long they should be going to the next stage. At the first town
they passed through, O'Mooney bought a new hat, and Queasy deplored the
unaccountable mistake by which Sir John's hat had been forgotten. No
further _mistakes_ happened upon the journey. The travellers rattled on,
and neither 'stinted nor stayed' till they arrived at Blackheath, at
Miss Sharperson's. Sir John sat Queasy down without having given him the
least hint of his designs upon the lady; but as he helped him out with
the Sevre china, he looked through the large opening double doors of the
hall, and slightly said--"Upon my word, this seems to be a handsome
house: it would be worth looking at, if the family were not at home."
"I am morally sure, Sir John," said the soft Queasy, "that Miss
Sharperson would be happy to let you see the house tonight, and this
minute, if she knew you were at the door, and who you were, and all your
civility about me and the china.--Do, pray, walk in."
"Not for the world: a gentleman could not do such a thing without an
invitation from the lady of the house herself."
"Oh, if that's all, I'll step up myself to the young lady; I'm certain
she'll be proud----"
"Mr. Queasy, by no means; I would not have the lady disturbed for the
world at this unseasonable hour.--It is too late--quite too late."
"Not at all, begging pardon, Sir John," said Queasy, taking out his
watch: "only just tea-time by me.--Not at all unseasonable for any body;
besides, the message is of my own head:--all, you know, if not well
taken----"
Up the great staircase he made bold to go on his mission, as he thought,
in defiance of Sir John's better judgment. He returned in a few minutes
with a face of self-complacent exultation, _and_ Miss Sharperson's
compliments, and begs Sir John Bull will walk up and rest himself with a
dish of tea, and has her thanks to him for the china.
Now Queasy, who had the highest possible opinion of Sir John Bull and of
Miss Sharperson, whom he thought the two people of the greatest
consequence and affability, had formed the notion that they were made
for each other, and that it must be a match if they could but meet. The
meeting he had now happily contrived and effected; and he had done his
part for his friend Sir John, with Miss Sharperson, by as many
exaggerations as he could utter in five minutes, concerning his
perdigious politeness and courage, his fine person and carriage, his
ancient family, and vast connexions and importance wherever he appeared
on the road, at inns, and over all England. He had previously, during
the journey, done his part for his friend Miss Sharperson with Sir John,
by stating that "she had a large fortune left her by her mother, and was
to have twice as much from her grandmother; that she had thousands upon
thousands in the funds, and an estate of two thousand a year, called
Rascally, in Scotland, besides plate and jewels without end."
Thus prepared, how could this lady and gentleman meet without falling
desperately in love with each other!
Though a servant in handsome livery appeared ready to show Sir John up
the great staircase, Mr. Queasy acted as a gentleman usher, or rather
as showman. He nodded to Sir John as they passed across a long gallery
and through an ante-chamber, threw open the doors of various apartments
as he went along, crying--"Peep in! peep in! peep in here! peep in
there!--Is not this spacious? Is not this elegant! Is not that grand?
Did I say too much?" continued he, rubbing his hands with delight. "Did
you ever see so magnificent and such highly-polished steel grates out
of Lon'on?"
Sir John, conscious that the servant's eyes were upon him, smiled at
this question, "looked superior down;" and though with reluctant
complaisance he leaned his body to this side or to that, as Queasy
pulled or swayed, yet he appeared totally regardless of the man's vulgar
reflections. He had seen every thing as he passed, and was surprised at
all he saw; but evinced not the slightest symptom of astonishment. He
was now ushered into a spacious, well-lighted apartment: he entered with
the easy, unembarrassed air of a man who was perfectly accustomed to
such a home. His quick coup-d'oeil took in the whole at a single glance.
Two magnificent candelabras stood on Egyptian tables at the farther end
of the room, and the lights were reflected on all sides from mirrors of
no common size. Nothing seemed worthy to attract our hero's attention
but the lady of the house, whom he approached with an air of
distinguished respect. She was reclining on a Turkish sofa, her
companion seated beside her, tuning a harp. Miss Sharperson half rose to
receive Sir John: he paid his compliments with an easy, yet respectful
air. He was thanked for his civilities to _the person_ who had been
commissioned to bring the box of Sevre china from Deal.
"Vastly sorry it should have been so troublesome," Miss Sharperson said,
in a voice fashionably unintelligible, and with a most becoming yet
intimidating nonchalance of manner. Intimidating it might have been to
any man but our hero; he, who had the happy talent of catching, wherever
he went, the reigning manner of the place, replied to the lady in equal
strains; and she, in her turn, seemed to look upon him more as her
equal. Tea and coffee were served. _Nothings_ were talked of quite
easily by Sir John. He practised the art "not to admire," so as to give
a justly high opinion of his taste, consequence, and knowledge of the
world. Miss Sharperson, though her nonchalance was much diminished,
continued to maintain a certain dignified reserve; whilst her companion,
Miss Felicia Flat, condescended to ask Sir John, who had doubtless seen
every fine house in England and on the continent, his opinion with
respect to the furniture and finishing of the room, the placing of the
Egyptian tables and the candelabras.
No mortal could have guessed by Sir John Bull's air, when he heard this
question, that he had never seen a candelabra before in his life. He was
so much, and yet seemingly so little upon his guard, he dealt so
dexterously in generals, and evaded particulars so delicately, that he
went through this dangerous conversation triumphantly. Careful not to
protract his visit beyond the bounds of propriety, he soon rose to take
leave, and he mingled "intrusion, regret, late hour, happiness, and
honour," so charmingly in his parting compliment, as to leave the most
favourable impression on the minds of both the ladies, and to procure
for himself an invitation to see the house next morning.
The first day was now ended, and our hero had been detected but once. He
went to rest this night well satisfied with himself, but much more
occupied with the hopes of marrying the heiress of Rascally than of
winning a paltry bet.
The next day he waited upon the ladies in high spirits. Neither of them
was _visible_, but Mr. Queasy had orders to show him the house, which he
did with much exultation, dwelling particularly in his praises on the
beautiful high polish of the steel grates. Queasy boasted that it was he
who had recommended the ironmonger who furnished the house in that line;
and that his bill, as he was proud to state, amounted to _many, many_
hundreds. Sir John, who did not attend to one word Queasy said, went to
examine the map of the Rascally estate, which was unrolled, and he had
leisure to count the number of lords' and ladies' visiting tickets which
lay upon the chimney-piece. He saw names of the people of first quality
and respectability: it was plain that Miss Sharperson must be a lady of
high family as well as large fortune, else she would not be visited by
persons of such distinction. Our hero's passion for her increased every
moment. Her companion, Miss Flat, now appeared, and entered very freely
into conversation with Sir John; and as he perceived that she was
commissioned to sit in judgment upon him, he evaded all her leading
questions with the skill of an Irish witness, but without giving any
Hibernian answers. She was fairly at a fault. Miss Sharperson at length
appeared, elegantly dressed; her person was genteel, and her face rather
pretty. Sir John, at this instant, thought her beautiful, or seemed to
think so. The ladies interchanged looks, and afterwards Sir John found a
softness in his fair one's manner, a languishing tenderness in her eyes,
in the tone of her voice, and at the same time a modest perplexity and
reserve about her, which altogether persuaded him that he was quite
right, and his brother quite wrong _en fait d'amour_. Miss Flat appeared
now to have the most self-possession of the three, and Miss Sharperson
looked at her from time to time, as if she asked leave to be in love.
Sir John's visit lasted a full half hour before he was sensible of
having been five minutes engaged in this delightful conversation.
Miss Sharperson's coach now came to the door: he handed her into it, and
she gave him a parting look, which satisfied him all was yet safe in her
heart. Miss Flat, as he handed her into the carriage, said, "Perhaps
they should meet Sir John at Tunbridge, where they were going in a few
days." She added some words as she seated herself, which he scarcely
noticed at the time, but they recurred afterwards disagreeably to his
memory. The words were, "I'm so glad we've a roomy coach, for of all
things it annoys me to be _squeedged_ in a carriage."
This word _squeedged_, as he had not been used to it in Ireland, sounded
to him extremely vulgar, and gave him suspicions of the most painful
nature. He had the precaution, before he left Blackheath, to go into
several shops, and to inquire something more concerning his fair ladies.
All he heard was much to their advantage; that is, much to the advantage
of Miss Sharperson's fortune. All agreed that she was a rich Scotch
heiress. A rich Scotch heiress, Sir John wisely considered, might have
an humble companion who spoke bad English. He concluded that _squeedged_
was Scotch, blamed himself for his suspicions, and was more in love with
his mistress and with himself than ever. As he returned to town, he
framed the outline of a triumphant letter to his brother on his
approaching marriage. The bet was a matter, at present, totally beneath
his consideration. However, we must do him the justice to say, that like
a man of honour he resolved that, as soon as he had won the lady's
heart, he would _candidly_ tell her his circumstances, and then leave
her the choice either to marry him or break her heart, as she pleased.
Just as he had formed this generous resolution, at a sudden turn of the
road he overtook Miss Sharperson's coach: he bowed and looked in as he
passed, when, to his astonishment, he saw, _squeedged_ up in the corner
by Miss Felicia, Mr. Queasy. He thought that this was a blunder in
etiquette that would never have been made in Ireland. Perhaps his
mistress was of the same opinion, for she hastily pulled down the blind
as Sir John passed. A cold qualm came over the lover's heart. He lost no
time in idle doubts and suspicions, but galloped on to town as fast as
he could, and went immediately to call upon the Scotch officer with whom
he had travelled, and whom he knew to be keen and prudent. He
recollected the map of the Rascally estate, which he saw in Miss
Sharperson's breakfast-room, and he remembered that the lands were said
to lie in that part of Scotland from which Captain Murray came; from him
he resolved to inquire into the state of the premises, before he should
offer himself as tenant for life. Captain Murray assured him that there
was no such place as Rascally in that part of Scotland; that he had
never heard of any such person as Miss Sharperson, though he was
acquainted with every family and every estate in the neighbourhood where
she fabled hers to be. O'Mooney drew from memory, the map of the
Rascally estate. Captain Murray examined the boundaries, and assured him
that his cousin the general's lands joined his own at the very spot
which he described, and that unless two straight lines could enclose a
space, the Rascally estate could not be found.
Sir John, naturally of a warm temper, proceeded, however, with prudence.
The Scotch officer admired his sagacity in detecting this adventurer.
Sir John waited at his hotel for Queasy, who had promised to call to let
him know when the ladies f would go to Tunbridge. Queasy came. Nothing
could equal his astonishment and dismay when he was told the news.
"No such place as the Rascally estate! Then I'm an undone man! an undone
man!" cried poor Queasy, bursting into tears: "but I'm certain it's
impossible; and you'll find, Sir John, you've been misinformed. I would
stake my life upon it, Miss Sharperson's a rich heiress, and has a rich
grandmother. Why, she's five hundred pounds in my debt, and I know of
her being thousands and thousands in the books of as good men as myself,
to whom I've recommended her, which I wouldn't have done for my life if
I had not known her to be solid. You'll find she'll prove a rich
heiress, Sir John."
Sir John hoped so, but the proofs were not yet satisfactory. Queasy
determined to inquire about her payments to certain creditors at
Blackheath, and promised to give a decisive answer in the morning.
O'Mooney saw that this man was too great a fool to be a knave; his
perturbation was evidently the perturbation of a dupe, not of an
accomplice: Queasy was made to "be an anvil, not a hammer." In the midst
of his own disappointment, our good-natured Hibernian really pitied this
poor currier.
The next morning Sir John went early to Blackheath. All was confusion at
Miss Sharperson's house; the steps covered with grates and furniture of
all sorts; porters carrying out looking-glasses, Egyptian tables, and
candelabras; the noise of workmen was heard in every apartment; and
louder than all the rest, O'Mooney heard the curses that were denounced
against his rich heiress--curses such as are bestowed on a swindler in
the moment of detection by the tradesmen whom she has ruined.
Our hero, who was of a most happy temper, congratulated himself upon
having, by his own wit and prudence, escaped making the practical bull
of marrying a female swindler.
Now that Phelim's immediate hopes of marrying a rich heiress were over,
his bet with his brother appeared to him of more consequence, and he
rejoiced in the reflection that this was the third day he had spent in
England, and that he had but once been detected.--The ides of March were
come, but not passed!
"My lads," said he to the workmen, who were busy in carrying out the
furniture from Miss Sharperson's house, "all hands are at work, I see,
in saving what they can from the wreck of _the Sharperson_. She was as
well-fitted out a vessel, and in as gallant trim, as any ship upon the
face of the earth."
"Ship upon the face of the _yearth_.'" repeated an English porter with a
sneer; "ship upon the face of the water, you should say, master; but I
take it you be's an Irishman."
O'Mooney had reason to be particularly vexed at being detected by this
man, who spoke a miserable jargon, and who seemed not to have a very
extensive range of ideas. He was one of those half-witted geniuses who
catch at the shadow of an Irish bull. In fact, Phelim had merely made a
lapsus lingual, and had used an expression justifiable by the authority
of the elegant and witty Lord Chesterfield, who said--no, who
wrote--that the English navy is the finest navy upon the face of the
earth! But it was in vain for our hero to argue the point; he was
detected--no matter how or by whom. But this was only his second
detection, and three of his four days of probation were past.
He dined this day at Captain Murray's. In the room in which they dined
there was a picture of the captain, painted by Romney. Sir John, who
happened to be seated opposite to it, observed that it was a very fine
picture; the more he looked at it, the more he liked it. His admiration
was at last unluckily expressed: he said, "That's an incomparable, an
inimitable picture; it is absolutely _more like than the original_." [63]
A keen Scotch lady in company smiled, and repeated, "_More like than the
original_! Sir John, if I had not been told by my relative here that you
were an Englishman, I should have set you _doon_, from that speech, for
an Irishman."
This unexpected detection brought the colour, for a moment, into Sir
John's face; but immediately recovering his presence of mind, he said,
"That was, I acknowledge, an excellent Irish bull; but in the course of
my travels I have heard as good English bulls as Irish."
To this Captain Murray politely acceded, and he produced some
laughable instances in support of the assertion, which gave the
conversation a new turn.
O'Mooney felt extremely obliged to the captain for this, especially as
he saw, by his countenance, that he also had suspicions of the truth.
The first moment he found himself alone with Murray, our hero said to
him, "Murray, you are too good a fellow to impose upon, even in jest.
Your keen country-woman guessed the truth--I am an Irishman, but not a
swindler. You shall hear why I conceal my country and name; only keep my
secret till to-morrow night, or I shall lose a hundred guineas by my
frankness."
O'Mooney then explained to him the nature of his bet. "This is only my
third detection, and half of it voluntary, I might say, if I chose to
higgle, which I scorn to do."
Captain Murray was so much pleased by this openness, that as he shook
hands with O'Mooney, he said, "Give me leave to tell you, sir, that even
if you should lose your bet by this frank behaviour, you will have
gained a better thing--a friend."
In the evening our hero went with his friend and a party of gentlemen to
Maidenhead, near which place a battle was to be fought next day, between
two famous pugilists, Bourke and Belcher. At the appointed time the
combatants appeared upon the stage; the whole boxing corps and the
gentlemen _amateurs_ crowded to behold the spectacle. Phelim O'Mooney's
heart beat for the Irish champion Bourke; but he kept a guard upon his
tongue, and had even the forbearance not to bet upon his countryman's
head. How many rounds were fought, and how many minutes the fight
lasted, how many blows were put _in_ on each side, or which was the
_game man_ of the two, we forbear to decide or relate, as all this has
been settled in the newspapers of the day; where also it was remarked,
that Bourke, who lost the battle, "was put into a post-chaise, and left
_standing_ half an hour, while another fight took place. This was very
scandalous on the part of his friends," says the humane newspaper
historian, "as the poor man might possibly be dying."
Our hero O'Mooney's heart again got the better of his head. Forgetful of
his bet, forgetful of every thing but humanity, he made his way up to
the chaise, where Bourke was left. "How are you, my gay fellow?" said
he. "Can you _see at all with the eye that's knocked out_?"
The brutal populace, who overheard this question, set up a roar of
laughter: "A bull! a bull! an Irish bull! Did you hear the question this
Irish gentleman asked his countryman?"
O'Mooney was detected a fourth time, and this time he was not ashamed.
There was one man in the crowd who did not join in the laugh: a poor
Irishman, of the name of Terence M'Dermod. He had in former times gone
out a grousing, near Cork, with our hero; and the moment he heard his
voice, he sprang forward, and with uncouth but honest demonstrations of
joy, exclaimed, "Ah, my dear master! my dear young master! Phelim
O'Mooney, Esq. And I have found your honour alive again? By the blessing
of God above, I'll never part you now till I die; and I'll go to the
world's end to _sarve yees_."
O'Mooney wished him at the world's end this instant, yet could not
prevail upon himself to check this affectionate follower of the
O'Mooneys. He, however, put half a crown into his hand, and hinted that
if he wished really to serve him, it must be at some other time. The
poor fellow threw down the money, saying, he would never leave him. "Bid
me do any thing, barring that. No, you shall never part me. Do what you
plase with me, still I'll be close to your heart, like your own shadow:
knock me down if you will, and wilcome, ten times a day, and I'll be up
again like a ninepin: only let me sarve your honour; I'll ask no wages
nor take none."
There was no withstanding all this; and whether our hero's good-nature
deceived him we shall not determine, but he thought it most prudent, as
he could not get rid of Terence, to take him into his service, to let
him into his secret, to make him swear that he would never utter the
name of Phelim O'Mooney during the remainder of this day. Terence heard
the secret of the bet with joy, entered into the jest with all the
readiness of an Irishman, and with equal joy and readiness swore by the
hind leg of the holy lamb that he would never mention, even to his own
dog, the name of Phelim O'Mooney, Esq., good or bad, till past twelve
o'clock; and further, that he would, till the clock should strike that
hour, call his master Sir John Bull, and nothing else, to all men,
women, and children, upon the floor of God's creation.
Satisfied with the fulness of this oath, O'Mooney resolved to return to
town with his man Terence M'Dermod. He, however, contrived, before he
got there, to make a practical bull, by which he was detected a fifth
time. He got into the coach which was driving _from_ London instead of
that which was driving _to_ London, and he would have been carried
rapidly to Oxford, had not his man Terence, after they had proceeded a
mile and a half on the wrong road, put his head down from the top of the
coach, crying, as he looked in at the window, "Master, Sir John Bull,
are you there? Do you know we're in the wrong box, going to Oxford?"
"Your master's an Irishman, dare to say, as well as yourself," said the
coachman, as he let Sir John out. He walked back to Maidenhead, and took
a chaise to town.
It was six o'clock when he got to London, and he went into a
coffee-house to dine. He sat down beside a gentleman who was reading the
newspaper. "Any news to-day, sir?"
The gentleman told him the news of the day, and then began to read aloud
some paragraphs in a strong Hibernian accent. Our hero was sorry that he
had met with another countryman; but he resolved to set a guard upon his
lips, and he knew that his own accent could not betray him. The stranger
read on till he came to a trial about a legacy which an old woman had
left to her cats. O'Mooney exclaimed, "I hate cats almost as much as old
women; and if I had been the English minister, I would have laid the
_dog-tax_ upon cats."
"If you had been the _Irish_ minister, you mean," said the stranger,
smiling; "for I perceive now you are a countryman of my own."
"How can you think so, sir?" said O'Mooney: "you have no reason to
suppose so from my accent, I believe."
"None in life--quite the contrary; for you speak remarkably pure
English--not the least note or half note of the brogue; but there's
another sort of freemason sign by which we Hibernians know one another,
and are known all over the globe. Whether to call it a confusion of
expressions or of ideas, I can't tell. Now an Englishman, if he had been
saying what you did, sir, just now, would have taken time to separate
the dog and the tax, and he would have put the tax upon cats, and let
the dogs go about their business." Our hero, with his usual good-humour,
acknowledged himself to be fairly detected.
"Well, sir," said the stranger, "if I had not found you out before by
the blunder, I should be sure now you were my countryman by your
good-humour. An Irishman can take what's said to him, provided no
affront's meant, with more good-humour than any man on earth."
"Ay, that he can," cried O'Mooney: "he lends himself, like the whale, to
be tickled even by the fellow with the harpoon, till he finds what he is
about, and then he pays away, and pitches the fellow, boat and all, to
the devil. Ah, countryman! you would give me credit indeed for my good
humour if you knew what danger you have put me in by detecting me for an
Irishman. I have been found out six times, and if I blunder twice more
before twelve o'clock this night, I shall lose a hundred guineas by it:
but I will make sure of my bet; for I will go home straight this minute,
lock myself up in my room, and not say a word to any mortal till the
watchman cries 'past twelve o'clock,'--then the fast and long Lent of my
tongue will be fairly over; and if you'll meet me, my dear friend, at
the King's Arms, we will have a good supper and keep Easter for ever."
Phelim, pursuant to his resolution, returned to his hotel, and shut
himself up in his room, where he remained in perfect silence and
consequent safety till about nine o'clock. Suddenly he heard a great
huzzaing in the street; he looked out of the window, and saw that all
the houses in the street were illuminated. His landlady came bustling
into his apartment, followed by waiters with candles. His spirits
instantly rose, though he did not clearly know the cause of the
rejoicings. "I give you joy, ma'am. What are you all illuminating for?"
said he to his landlady.
"Thank you, sir, with all my heart. I am not sure. It is either for a
great victory or the peace. Bob--waiter--step out and inquire for the
gentleman."
The gentleman preferred stepping out to inquire for himself. The
illuminations were in honour of the peace. He totally forgot his bet,
his silence, and his prudence, in his sympathy with the general joy. He
walked rapidly from street to street, admiring the various elegant
devices. A crowd was standing before the windows of a house that was
illuminated with extraordinary splendour. He inquired whose it was, and
was informed that it belonged to a contractor, who had made an immense
fortune by the war.
"Then I'm sure these illuminations of his for the peace are none of the
most sincere," said O'Mooney. The mob were of his opinion; and Phelim,
who was now, alas! worked up to the proper pitch for blundering, added,
by way of pleasing his audience still more--"If this contractor had
_illuminated_ in character, it should have been with _dark lanterns_."
"Should it? by Jasus! that would be an Irish illumination," cried some
one. "Arrah, honey! you're an Irishman, whoever you are, and have spoke
your mind in character."
Sir John Bull was vexed that the piece of wit which he had aimed at the
contractor had recoiled upon himself. "It is always, as my countryman
observed, by having too much wit that I blunder. The deuce take me if I
sport a single bon mot more this night. This is only my seventh
detection, I have an eighth blunder still _to the good_; and if I can
but keep my wit to myself till I am out of purgatory, then I shall be in
heaven, and may sing Io Triumphe in spite of my brother."
Fortunately, Phelim had not made it any part of his bet that he
should not speak to himself an Irish idiom, or that he should not
_think_ a bull. Resolved to be as obstinately silent as a monk of La
Trappe, he once more shut himself up in his cell, and fell fast
asleep--dreamed that fat bulls of Basan encompassed him round
about--that he ran down a steep bill to escape them--that his foot
slipped--he rolled to the bottom--felt the bull's horns in his
side--heard the bull bellowing in his--ears--wakened--and found
Terence M'Dermod bellowing at his room door.
"Sir John Bull! Sir John Bull! murder! murder! my dear master, Sir John
Bull! murder, robbery, and reward! let me in! for the love of the Holy
Virgin! they are all after you!"
"Who? are you drunk, Terence?" said Sir John, opening the door.
"No, but they are mad--all mad."
"Who?"
"The constable. They are all mad entirely, and the lord mayor, all along
with your honour's making me swear I would not tell your name. Sure they
are all coming armed in a body to put you in jail for a forgery, unless
I run back and tell them the truth--will I?"
"First tell me the truth, blunderer!"
"I'll make my affidavit I never blundered, plase your honour, but just
went to the merchant's, as you ordered, with the draft, signed with the
name I swore not to utter till past twelve. I presents the draft, and
waits to be paid. 'Are you Mr. O'Mooney's servant?' says one of the
clerks after a while. 'No, sir, not at all, sir,' said I; 'I'm Sir John
Bull's, at your sarvice.' He puzzles and puzzles, and asks me did I
bring the draft, and was that your writing at the bottom of it? I still
said it was my master's writing, _Sir John Bull's_, and no other. They
whispered from one up to t'other, and then said it was a forgery, as I
overheard, and I must go before the mayor. With that, while the master,
who was called down to be examined as to his opinion, was putting on his
glasses to spell it out, I gives them, one and all, the slip, and whips
out of the street door and home to give your honour notice, and have
been breaking my heart at the door this half hour to make you hear--and
now you have it all."
"I am in a worse dilemma now than when between the horns of the bull,"
thought Sir John: "I must now either tell my real name, avow myself an
Irishman, and so lose my bet, or else go to jail."
He preferred going to jail. He resolved to pretend to be dumb, and he
charged Terence not to betray him. The officers of justice came to take
him up: Sir John resigned himself to them, making signs that he could
not speak. He was carried before a magistrate. The merchant had never
seen Mr. Phelim O'Mooney, but could swear to his handwriting and
signature, having many of his letters and drafts. The draft in question
was produced. Sir John Bull would neither acknowledge nor deny the
signature, but in dumb show made signs of innocence. No art or
persuasion could make him speak; he kept his fingers on his lips. One of
the bailiffs offered to open Sir John's mouth. Sir John clenched his
hand, in token that if they used violence he knew his remedy. To the
magistrate he was all bows and respect: but the law, in spite of
civility, must take its course.
Terence McDermod beat his breast, and called upon all the saints in the
Irish calendar when he saw the committal actually made out, and his dear
master given over to the constables. Nothing but his own oath and his
master's commanding eye, which was fixed upon him at this instant, could
have made him forbear to utter, what he had never in his life been
before so strongly tempted to tell--the truth.
Determined to win his wager, our hero suffered himself to be carried to
a lock-up house, and persisted in keeping silence till the clock struck
twelve! Then the charm was broken, and he spoke. He began talking to
himself, and singing as loud as he possibly could. The next morning
Terence, who was no longer bound by his oath to conceal Phelim's name,
hastened to his master's correspondent in town, told the whole story,
and O'Mooney was liberated. Having won his bet by his wit and
steadiness, he had now the prudence to give up these adventuring
schemes, to which he had so nearly become a dupe; he returned
immediately to Ireland to his brother, and determined to settle quietly
to business. His good brother paid him the hundred guineas most
joyfully, declaring that he had never spent a hundred guineas better in
his life than in recovering a brother. Phelim had now conquered his
foolish dislike to trade: his brother took him into partnership, and
Phelim O'Mooney never relapsed into Sir John Bull.
CONCLUSION.
Unable any longer to support the tone of irony, we joyfully speak in our
own characters, and explicitly declare our opinion, that the Irish are
an ingenious, generous people; that the bulls and blunders of which they
are accused are often imputable to their neighbours, or that they are
justifiable by ancient precedents, or that they are produced by their
habits of using figurative and witty language. By what their good-humour
is produced we know not; but that it exists we are certain. In Ireland,
the countenance and heart expand at the approach of wit and humour: the
poorest labourer forgets his poverty and toil, in the pleasure of
enjoying a joke. Amongst all classes of the people, provided no malice
is obviously meant, none is apprehended. That such is the character of
the majority of the nation there cannot _to us_ be a more convincing and
satisfactory proof than the manner in which a late publication[64] was
received in Ireland. The Irish were the first to laugh at the caricature
of their ancient foibles, and it was generally taken merely as
good-humoured raillery, not as insulting satire. If gratitude for this
generosity has now betrayed us unawares into the language of panegyric,
we may hope for pardon from the liberal of both nations. Those who are
thoroughly acquainted with Ireland will most readily acknowledge the
justice of our praises; those who are ignorant of the country will not,
perhaps, be displeased to have their knowledge of the people of Ireland
extended. Many foreign pictures of Irishmen are as grotesque and absurd
as the Chinese pictures of lions: having never seen that animal, the
Chinese can paint him only from the descriptions of voyagers, which are
sometimes ignorantly, sometimes wantonly exaggerated.
In Voltaire's Age of Lewis the Fourteenth we find the following
passage:--"Some nations seem made to be subject to others. The English
have always had over the Irish the superiority of genius, wealth, and
arms. The _superiority which the whites have over the negroes_." [65] A
note in a subsequent edition informs us, that the injurious
expression--"_The superiority which the whites have over the negroes,_"
was erased by Voltaire; and his editor subjoins his own opinion. "The
nearly savage state in which Ireland was when she was conquered, her
superstition, the oppression exercised by the English, the religious
fanaticism which divides the Irish into two hostile nations, such were
the causes which have held down this people in depression and weakness.
Religious hatreds are appeased, and this country has recovered her
liberty. The Irish no longer yield to the English, either in industry or
in information." [66]
The last sentence of this note might, if it had reached the eyes or ears
of the incensed Irish historian, Mr. O'Halloran, have assuaged his wrath
against Voltaire for the unguarded expression in the text; unless the
amor patriae of the historian, like the amour propre of some
individuals, instead of being gratified by congratulations on their
improvement, should be intent upon demonstrating that there never was
anything to improve. As we were neither _born nor_ bred in Ireland, we
cannot be supposed to possess this amor patriae in its full force: we
profess to be attached to the country only for its merits; we
acknowledge that it is a matter of indifference to us whether the Irish
derive their origin from the Spaniards, or the Milesians, or the Welsh:
we are not so violently anxious as we ought to be to determine whether
or not the language spoken by the Phoenician slave, in Terence's play,
was Irish; nay, we should not break our hearts if it could never be
satisfactorily proved that Albion is only another name for Ireland.[67]
We moreover candidly confess that we are more interested in the fate of
the present race of its inhabitants than in the historian of St.
Patrick, St. Facharis, St. Cormuc; the renowned Brien Boru; Tireldach,
king of Connaught; M'Murrough, king of Leinster; Diarmod; Righ-Damnha;
Labra-Loing-seach; Tighermas; Ollamh-Foldha; the M'Giolla-Pha-draigs; or
even the great William of Ogham; and by this declaration we have no fear
of giving offence to any but rusty antiquaries. We think it somewhat,
more to the honour of Ireland to enumerate the names of some of the men
of genius whom she has produced: Milton and Shakspeare stand unrivalled;
but Ireland can boast of Usher, Boyle, Denham, Congreve, Molyneux,
Farquhar, Sir Richard Steele, Bickerstaff, Sir Hans Sloane, Berkeley,
Orrery, Parnell, Swift, T. Sheridan, Welsham, Bryan Robinson, Goldsmith,
Sterne, Johnsons[68], Tickel, Brooke, Zeland, Hussey Burgh, three
Hamiltons, Young, Charlemont, Macklin, Murphy, Mrs. Sheridan,[69]
Francis Sheridan, Kirwan, Brinsley Sheridan, and Burke.
We enter into no invidious comparisons: it is our sincere wish to
conciliate both countries; and if in this slight essay we should succeed
in diffusing a more just and enlarged idea of the Irish than has been
generally entertained, we hope the English will deem it not an
unacceptable service. Whatever might have been the policy of the English
nation towards Ireland whilst she was a separate kingdom, since the
union it can no longer be her wish to depreciate the talents or ridicule
the language of Hibernians. One of the Czars of Russia used to take the
cap and bells from his fool, and place it on the head of any of his
subjects whom he wished to disgrace. The idea of extending such a
punishment to a whole nation was ingenious and magnanimous; but England
cannot now put it into execution towards Ireland. Would it not be a
practical bull to place the bells upon her own imperial head?
1801.
APPENDIX.
* * * * *
The following collection of Foreign Bulls was given us by a man of
letters, who is now father of the French Academy.
* * * * *
RECUEIL DE BETISES.
Toutes les nations ont des contes plaisans de betises echappees non
seulement a des personnes vraiment betes, mais aux distractions de gens
qui ne sont pas sans esprit. Les Italiens ont leurs _spropositi_, leur
arlequin ses balourdises, les Anglois leurs _blunders_, les Irlandois
leurs _bulls_.
Mademoiselle Maria Edgeworth ayant fait un recueil de ces derniers, je
prends la liberte de lui offrir un petit recueil de nos betises qui
meritent le nom qu'elles portent aussi bien que les _Irish bulls_. J'ai
fait autrefois une dissertation ou je recherchois quelle etoit la cause
du rire qu'excitent les betises, et dans laquelle j'appuyois mon
explication de beaucoup d'exemples et peut-etre meme du mien sans m'en
appercevoir; mais la femme d'esprit a qui j'ai adresse cette folie l'a
perdue, et je n'ai pas pu la recouvrir.
Je me souviens seulement que j'y prouvois _savamment_ que le rire excite
par les betises est l'effet du contraste que nous saisissons entre
l'effort que fait l'homme qui dit la betise, et le mauvais succes de son
effort. J'assimilois la marche de l'esprit dans celui qui dit une betise,
a ce qui arrive a un homme qui cherchant a marcher legerement sur un pave
glissant, tombe lourdement, ou aux tours mal-adroits du paillasse de la
foire. Si l'on veut examiner les betises rassemblees ici, on y trouvera
toujours un effort manque de ce genre.
Un homme, dont la femme avoit ete saignee, interroge le lendemain
pourquoi elle ne paroissoit pas a table, repondit:--"Elle garde la
chambre: Morand l'a saignee hier, et une saignee affoiblit beaucoup
quand elle est faite par un habile homme."
M. de Baville, intendant du Languedoc, avoit un secretaire fort bete:
il se servoit un jour de lui pour ecrire au ministre sur des affaires
tres importantes et dicta ces mots: "Ne soyez point surpris de ce que
je me sers d'une main etrangere pour vous ecrire sur cet objet. Mon
secretaire est si bete qu'a ce moment meme il ne s'appercoit pas que je
vous parle de lui."
On demandoit a un abbe de Laval Montmorency quel age avoit son frere le
marechal dont il etoit l'aine. "Dans deux ans," dit-il, "nous serons du
meme age."
On se preparoit a observer une eclipse, et le roi devoit assister a
l'observation. M. de Jonville disoit a M. Cassini--"N'attendra-t-on pas
le roi pour commencer l'eclipse?"
Une femme du peuple qui avoit une petite fille malade avec le transport
au cerveau, disoit au medecin, "Ah, monsieur, si vous l'aviez entendu
cette nuit! elle a deraisonnee comme une grande personne."
Un homme avoit parie 25 louis qu'il traverseroit le grand bassin des
Thuileries par un froid tres rigoureux; il alla jusqu'au milieu, renonca
a son entreprise, et revint par le meme chemin en disant, "J'aime mieux
perdre vingt-cinq louis que d'avoir une fluxion de poitrine."
Un homme voyoit venir de loin un medecin de sa connoissance qui l'avoit
traite plusieurs annees auparavant dans une maladie; il se detourna, et
cacha son visage pour n'etre pas reconnu. On lui demandoit,
"Pourquoi."--"C'est," dit-il, "que je suis honteux devant lui de ce
qu'il y a fort long temps que je n'ai ete malade."
On demande a un homme qui vouloit vendre un cheval, "Votre cheval est-il
peureux?" "Oh, point du tout," repond-il; "il vient de passer plusieurs
nuits tout seul dans son ecurie."
Dans une querelle entre un pere et son fils, le pere reprochoit a
celui-ci son ingratitude. "Je ne vous ai point d'obligations," disoit le
fils; "vous m'avez fait beaucoup de tort; si vous n'etiez point ne, je
serois a present l'heritier de mon grand-pere."
Un avare faisant son testament, se fit lui-meme son heritier.
Un homme voyoit un bateau si charge que les bords en etoient a fleur
d'eau: "Ma foi," dit-il, "si la riviere etoit un peu plus haute le
bateau iroit a fond."
M. Hume, dans son histoire d'Angleterre, parlant de la conspiration
attribuee aux Catholiques en 1678 sous Charles II. rapporte le mot d'un
chevalier Player qui felicitoit la ville des precautions qu'elle avoit
prises--"Et sans lesquelles," disoit-il, "tous les citoyens auroient
couru risque de se trouver egorges le lendemain a leur reveil."
Le maire d'une petite ville, entendant une querelle dans la rue au
milieu de la nuit, se leve du lit, et ouvrant la fenetre, crie aux
passans, "Messieurs, me leverai-je?"
Un sot faisoit compliment a une demoiselle don't la mere venoit de se
marier en secondes noces avec un ancien ami de la maison--"Mademoiselle,"
lui dit-il, "je suis ravi de ce que monsieur votre pere vient d'epouser
madame votre mere."
Racine, qui avoit ete toute sa vie courtisan tres attentif, etoit
enterre a Port Royal des Champs dont les solitaires s'etoient attires
l'indignation de Louis XIV. M. de Boissy, celebre par ses distractions,
disoit, "Racine n'auroit pas fait cela de son vivant."
On racontait dans une conversation que Monsieur de Buffon avoit disseque
une de ses cousines, et une femme se recrioit sur l'inhumanite de
l'anatomiste. M. de Mairan lui dit, "Mais, madame, elle etoit morte."
On parloit avec admiration de la belle vieillesse d'un homme de
quatre-vingt dix ans, quelqu'un dit--"Cela vous etonne, messieurs; si
mon pere n'etoit pas mort, il auroit a present cent ans accomplis."
Mouet, de l'opera comique, conte qu'arrivant de Lyon, et ne voulant pas
qu'on sut qu'il etoit a Paris, il recommanda a son laquais, suppose
qu'il fut rencontre, de dire qu'il etoit a Lyon. Le laquais trouve un
ami de son maitre, qui lui en demande des nouvelles. "Il est a Lyon,"
dit-il, "et il ne sera de retour que la semaine prochaine." "Mais,"
continue le questionneur, "que portez-vous la?" "Ce sont quelques
provisions qu'il m'a envoye chercher pour son diner."
Un homme examinoit un dessin representant la coupe d'un vaisseau
construit en Hollande; quelqu'un lui dit, "Est-ce que monsieur entend le
Hollandois?"
Un homme de loi disoit qu'on ne pouvait pas faire une stipulation
valable avec un muet. Un des ecoutans lui dit, "Monsieur le docteur, et
avec un boiteux, seroit-elle bonne?"
Un homme se plaignoit que la maison de son voisin lui otoit la vue
d'une de ses fenetres; un autre lui dit, "Vous avez un remede; faites
murer cette fenetre."
Un homme ayarit ecrit a sa maitresse, avoit glisse le billet sous la
porte, et puis s'avisant que la fille ne pourroit pas s'en appercevoir
il en ecrivit un autre en ces termes, "J'ai mis un billet sous votre
porte; prenez-y garde quand vous sortirez."
Un homme etant sur le point de marier sa fille unique, se brouille avec
le pretendant, et dans sa colere il dit, "Non, monsieur, vous ne serez
jamais mon gendre, et quand j'aurois cent filles uniques, je ne vous en
donnerois pas une."
On avoit recu a la grande poste une lettre avec cette adresse, _a
Monsieur mon fils, Rue, &c. On alloit la mettre au rebut; un commis s'y
oppose, et dit qu'on trouvera a qui la lettre s'adresse. Dix ou douze
jours se passent. On voit arriver un grand benet, qui dit, "Messieurs,
je viens savoir si on n'auroit pas garde ici une lettre de mon cher
pere?" "Oui, monsieur," lui dit le commis, "la voila." On prete ce trait
a Bouret, fermier general.
Milord Albemarle etant aux eaux d'Aix-la-Chapelle, et ne voulant pas
etre connu, ordonna a un negre qui le servoit, si on lui demandoit qui
etoit son maitre, de dire qu'il etoit Frangois. On ne manqua pas de
faire la question an noir, qui repondit, "_Mon maitre est Franpois, et
mot aussi_."
Un marchand, en finissant d'ecrire une lettre a un de ses correspondans,
mourut subitement. Son commis ajouta en P.S. "Depuis ma lettre ecrite
je suis mort ce matin. Mardi an soir _7eme_," &c.
Un petit marchand pretendoit avoir achete trois sols ce qu'il vendoit
pour deux. On lui represente que ce commerce le ruinera--"Ah," dit-il,
"je me sauve sur la quantite."
Le chevalier de Lorenzi, etant a Florence, etoit alle se promener avec
trois de ses amis a quelques lieues de la ville, a pied. Ils revenoient
fort las; la nuit approchoit; il veut se reposer: on lui dit qu'il
restoit quatres milles a faire--"Oh," dit-il, "nous sommes quatres; ce
n'est qu'un mille chacun."
On pretend qu'un fermier general voulant s'eviter l'ennui ou s'epargner
les frais des lettres dont on l'accabloit au nouvel an, ecrivoit au mois
de Decembre a tous les employes de son departement qu'il les dispensoit
du ceremonial, et que ceux-ci lui reponderoient pour l'assurer qu'ils se
conformeroient a ses ordres.
Maupertuis faisoit instruire un perroquet par son laquais, et vouloit
qu'on lui apprit des mots extraordinaires. Depuis deux ans le laquais,
enseignoit a l'animal a dire _monomotapa_, et le perroquet n'en disoit
que des syllabes separees. Maupertuis faisoit des reproches au laquais;
"Oh, monsieur," dit celui-ci, "cela ne va pas si vite; je lui ai d'abord
appris _mo_ et puis _no_." "Vous etes un bete," dit Maupertuis, "il faut
lui dire le mot entier." "Monsieur," reprend le laquais, "il faut lui
donner le temps de comprendre."
Il y a en Italien une lettre pleine de _spropositi_ assez plaisans. Un
homme ecrit a son ami, "Abbiamo avuto un famosissimo tremoto, che se per
la misericordia de Dio avesse durato una mezza hora di piu, saremmo
tutti andati al paradiso, che Dio ce ne liberi. Vi mando quatordici
pere, e sono tutti boni cristiani. A questa fiera i porci sono saliti al
cielo. O ricevete, o non ricevete questa, datemene aviso."
FOOTNOTES:
[24] Natural History, century iii. p. 191.--_Bacon produces it to show
that echoes will not readily return the letter S._.
[25] "Un savant ecrivoit a un ami, et un importun etoit a cote de lui,
qui regardoit par dessus l'epaule ce qu'il ecrivoit. Le savant, qui s'en
appercut, ecrivit ceci a la place: 'Si un impertinent qui est a mon cote
ne regardoit pas ce que j'ecris, je vous ecrirois encore plusieurs
choses qui ne doivent etre sues que de vous et de moi.' L'importun, qui
lisoit toujours, prit la parole et dit: 'Je vous jure que je n'ai
regarde ni lu ce que vous ecriviez.' Le savant repartit, 'Ignorant, que
vous etes, pourquoi me dites-vous done ce que vous dites?'" _Les Paroles
Remarquables des Orientaux; traduction de leurs ouvrages en Arabe, en
Persan, et en Turc (suivant la copie imprimee a Paris), a la Haye, chez
Louis et Henry Vandole, marchands libraires, dans le Pooten, a
l'enseigne du Port Royal, M.DC.XCIV._
[26] "Le bailli nous donne an diable, et nous nous recommandons a vous,
monseigneur."
[27] On faisoit compliment a madame Denis de la facon dont elle venoit
de jouer Zaire. "Il faudroit," dit elle, "etre belle et jeune." "Ah,
madame!" reprit le complimenteur naivement, "vous etes bien la preuve
du contraire."
[28] Locke's Essay concerning the Human Understanding, fifteenth edit.
vol. i. p. 292.
[29] "De moi je commence a douter tout de ben.
Pourtant quand je me tate, et quand je me rappelle,
Il me semble que je suis moi."
[30] "So Indian murd'rers hope to gain
The powers and virtues of the slain,
Of wretches they destroy."
[31] Vide Memoires du Cardinal de Retz.
[32] Vide Sir W. Hamilton's account of an eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
[33] This fact, _we believe_, is mentioned in a letter of Mrs. Cappe's
on parish schools.
[34] Vide Mrs. Piozzi's English Synonymy.
[35] John Lydgate.
[36] Iliad, 6th book, l. 432, Andromache says to Hector, "You will make
your son an orphan, and your wife a widow."
[37] Lord Chesterfield.
[38] Essay on Chemical Nomenclature, by S. Dickson, M.D.; in which are
comprised observations on the same subject, by R. Kirwan, Pres.
R.I.A,--Vide pages 21, 22, 23, &c.
[39] This conjuror, whose name was Broadstreet, was a native of the
county of Longford, in Ireland: he by this hit pocketed 200_l._, and
proved himself to be more knave than fool.
[40] A gripe or fast hold.
[41] An oak stick, supposed to be cut from the famous wood of Shilala.
[42] This is nearly verbatim from a late Irish complainant.
[43] "Pleurez, pleurez, mes yeux, et fondez vous en eau,
La moitie de ma vie a mis l'autre au tombeau."
[44] "Il pover uomo che non sen' era accorto,
Andava combattendo, ed era morto."
[45] See his account of the siege of Gibraltar.
[46] Life of Hyder Ali Khan, vol. ii. p. 231.
[47] See the advice of Cleomenes to Crius. HERODOTUS EBATO.
[48] It is said that the waters of the Garonne are famed for a
similar virtue.
[49] The stomach.
[50] This ancient old man, we fear, was more knave than fool. History
informs us, that the Bishop of Rochester had diverted the revenue,
appropriated for keeping Sandwich harbour in repair, to the purpose of
building a steeple.--Vide Fuller's Worthies of England, page 65.
[51] Baskets.
[52] Vide Robertson's History of Scotland.
[53] Slink calf.
[54] This was written down a few minutes after it had been spoken.
[55] James Adams, S.R.E.S., author of a book entitled, "The
Pronunciation of the English Language vindicated from imputed Anomaly
and Caprice; with an Appendix on the Dialects of Human Speech in all
Countries, and an analytical Discussion and Vindication of the Dialect
of Scotland."
[56] Vide Illustrations on Sublimity, in his Essays.
[57] The glossary to the Lancashire dialect informs us, that _'lieve
me_ comes from _beleemy_, believe me; from _belamy_, my good friend,
_old French_.
[58] Gawmbling (_Anglo-Saxon_, gawmless), stupid.
[59] "Every thing speaks against us, even our silence."
[60] Lord Chatham.
[61] Your hands alone have a right to conquer the unconquerable.
[62] And when Caesar was the only emperor within the dominion of Rome,
he suffered me to be another.
[63] This bull was really made.
[64] Castle Rackrent.
[65] Il y a des nations dont l'une semble faite pour etre soumise a
l'autre. Les Anglois ont toujours eu sur les Irlandois la superiorite du
genie, des richesses, et des armes. _La superiorite que les blancs ont
sur les noirs_.
[66] "On lisait dans les premieres editions, _la superiorite que les
blancs ont sur les negres_. M. de Voltaire effaca cette expression
injurieuse. L'etat presque sauvage ou etoit l'Irlande lorsqu'elle fut
conquise, la superstition, l'oppression exercee par les Anglois, le
fanatisme religieux qui divise les Irlandois en deux nations ennemies,
telles sont les causes qui ont retenues ce peuple dans l'abaissement et
dans la foiblesse. Les haines religieuses se sont assoupies, et elle a
repris sa liberte. _Les Irlandois ne le cedent plus aux Anglois, ni en
industrie ni en lumieres_."
[67] See O'Halloran's History of Ireland.
[68] Author of Chiysal, or Adventures of a Guinea.
[69] Author of the beautiful moral tale Nourjahad.
AN ESSAY ON THE NOBLE SCIENCE OF SELF-JUSTIFICATION.
* * * * *
"For which an eloquence that aims _to vex_,
With native tropes of anger arms the _sex_."--_Parnell._
* * * * *
Endowed as the fair sex indisputably are, with a natural genius for the
invaluable art of self-justification, it may not be displeasing to them
to see its rising perfection evinced by an attempt to reduce it to a
science. Possessed, as are all the fair daughters of Eve, of an
hereditary propensity, transmitted to them undiminished through
succeeding generations, to be "soon moved with slightest touch of
blame;" very little precept and practice will confirm them in the habit,
and instruct them in all the maxims of self-justification.
Candid pupil, you will readily accede to my first and fundamental
axiom--that a lady can do no wrong.
But simple as this maxim may appear, and suited to the level of the
meanest capacity, the talent of applying it on all the important, but
more especially on all the most trivial, occurrences of domestic life,
so as to secure private peace and public dominion, has hitherto been
monopolized by the female adepts in the art of self-justification.
Excuse me for insinuating by this expression, that there may yet be
amongst you some novices. To these, if any such, I principally
address myself.
And now, lest fired by ambition you lose all by aiming at too much, let
me explain and limit my first principle, "That you can do no wrong." You
must be aware that real perfection is beyond the reach of mortals, nor
would I have you aim at it; indeed it is not in any degree necessary to
our purpose. You have heard of the established belief in the
infallibility of the sovereign pontiff, which prevailed not many
centuries ago:--if man was allowed to be infallible, I see no reason why
the same privilege should not be extended to woman;--but times have
changed; and since the happy age of credulity is past, leave the
opinions of men to their natural perversity--their actions are the best
test of their faith. Instead then of a belief in your infallibility,
endeavour to enforce implicit submission to your authority. This will
give you infinitely less trouble, and will answer your purpose as well.
Right and wrong, if we go to the foundation of things, are, as casuists
tell us, really words of very dubious signification, perpetually varying
with custom and fashion, and to be adjusted ultimately by no other
standards but opinion and force. Obtain power, then, by all means: power
is the law of man; make it yours. But to return from a frivolous
disquisition about right, let me teach you the art of defending the
wrong. After having thus pointed out to you the glorious end of your
labours, I must now instruct you in the equally glorious means.
For the advantage of my subject I address myself chiefly to married
ladies; but those who have not as yet the good fortune to have that
common enemy, a husband, to combat, may in the mean time practise my
precepts upon their fathers, brothers, and female friends; with caution,
however, lest by discovering their arms too soon, they preclude
themselves from the power of using them to the fullest advantage
hereafter. I therefore recommend it to them to prefer, with a
philosophical moderation, the future to the present.
Timid brides, you have, probably, hitherto been addressed as angels.
Prepare for the time when you shall again become mortal. Take the alarm
at the first approach of blame; at the first hint of a discovery that
you are any thing less than infallible:--contradict, debate, justify,
recriminate, rage, weep, swoon, do any thing but yield to conviction.
I take it for granted that you have already acquired sufficient command
of voice; you need not study its compass; going beyond its pitch has a
peculiarly happy effect upon some occasions. But are you voluble enough
to drown all sense in a torrent of words? Can you be loud enough to
overpower the voice of all who shall attempt to interrupt or contradict
you? Are you mistress of the petulant, the peevish, and the sullen tone?
Have you practised the sharpness which provokes retort, and the
continual monotony which by setting your adversary to sleep effectually
precludes reply? an event which is always to be considered as decisive
of the victory, or at least as reducing it to a drawn battle:--you and
Somnus divide the prize.
Thus prepared for an engagement, you will next, if you have not already
done it, study the weak part of the character of your enemy--your
husband, I mean: if he be a man of high spirit, jealous of command and
impatient of control, one who decides for himself, and who is little
troubled with the insanity of minding what the world says of him, you
must proceed with extreme circumspection; you must not dare to provoke
the combined forces of the enemy to a regular engagement, but harass him
with perpetual petty skirmishes: in these, though you gain little at a
time, you will gradually weary the patience, and break the spirit of
your opponent. If he be a man of spirit, he must also be generous; and
what man of generosity will contend for trifles with a woman who submits
to him in all affairs of consequence, who is in his power, who is weak,
and who loves him?
"Can superior with inferior power contend?" No; the spirit of a lion is
not to be roused by the teasing of an insect.
But such a man as I have described, besides being as generous as he is
brave, will probably be of an active temper: then you have an
inestimable advantage; for he will set a high value upon a thing for
which you have none--time; he will acknowledge the force of your
arguments merely from a dread of their length; he will yield to you in
trifles, particularly in trifles which do not militate against his
authority; not out of regard for you, but for his time; for what man can
prevail upon himself to debate three hours about what could be as well
decided in three minutes?
Lest amongst infinite variety the difficulty of immediate selection
should at first perplex you, let me point out, that matters of _taste_
will afford you, of all others, the most ample and incessant subjects of
debate. Here you have no criterion to appeal to. Upon the same
principle, next to matters of taste, points of opinion will afford the
most constant exercise to your talents. Here you will have an
opportunity of citing the opinions of all the living and dead you have
ever known, besides the dear privilege of repeating continually:--"Nay,
you must allow _that_." Or, "You can't deny this, for it's the universal
opinion--every body says so! every body thinks so! I wonder to hear you
express such an opinion! Nobody but yourself is of that way of
thinking!" with innumerable other phrases, with which a slight attention
to polite conversation will furnish you. This mode of opposing authority
to argument, and assertion to proof, is of such universal utility, that
I pray you to practise it.
If the point in dispute be some opinion relative to your character or
disposition, allow in general, that "you are sure you have a great many
faults;" but to every specific charge reply, "Well, I am sure I don't
know, but I did not think _that_ was one of my faults! nobody ever
accused me of that before! Nay, I was always remarkable for the
contrary; at least before I was acquainted with you, sir: in my own
family I was always remarkable for the contrary: ask any of my own
friends; ask any of them; they must know me best."
But if, instead of attacking the material parts of your character,
your husband should merely presume to advert to your manners, to some
slight personal habit which might be made more agreeable to him;
prove, in the first place, that it is his fault that it is not
agreeable to him; ask which is most to blame, "she who ceases to
please, or he who ceases to be pleased"[70]--His eyes are changed, or
opened. But it may perhaps have been a matter almost of indifference
to him, till you undertook its defence: then make it of consequence by
rising in eagerness, in proportion to the insignificance of your
object; if he can draw consequences, this will be an excellent lesson:
if you are so tender of blame in the veriest trifles, how impeachable
must you be in matters of importance! As to personal habits, begin by
denying that you have any; or in the paradoxical language of
Rousseau,[71] declare that the only habit you have is the habit of
having none: as all personal habits, if they have been of any long
standing, must have become involuntary, the unconscious culprit may
assert her innocence without hazarding her veracity.
However, if you happen to be detected in the very fact, and a person
cries, "Now, now, you are doing it!" submit, but declare at the same
moment--"That it is the very first time in your whole life that you were
ever known to be guilty of it; and therefore it can be no habit, and of
course nowise reprehensible."
Extend the rage for vindication to all the objects which the most
remotely concern you; take even inanimate objects under your protection.
Your dress, your furniture, your property, every thing which is or has
been yours, defend, and this upon the principles of the soundest
philosophy: each of these things all compose a part of your personal
merit (Vide Hume); all that connected the most distantly with your idea
gives pleasure or pain to others, becomes an object of blame or praise,
and consequently claims your support or vindication.
In the course of the management of your house, children, family, and
affairs, probably some few errors of omission or commission may strike
your husband's pervading eye; but these errors, admitting them to be
errors, you will never, if you please, allow to be charged to any
deficiency in memory, judgment, or activity, on your part.
There are surely people enough around you to divide and share the
blame; send it from one to another, till at last, by universal
rejection, it is proved to belong to nobody. You will say, however,
that facts remain unalterable; and that in some unlucky instance, in
the changes and chances of human affairs, you may be proved to have
been to blame. Some stubborn evidence may appear against you; still you
may prove an alibi, or balance the evidence. There is nothing equal to
balancing evidence; doubt is, you know, the most philosophic state of
the human mind, and it will be kind of you to keep your husband
perpetually in this sceptical state.
Indeed the short method of denying absolutely all blameable facts, I
should recommend to pupils as the best; and if in the beginning of their
career they may startle at this mode, let them depend upon it that in
their future practice it must become perfectly familiar. The nice
distinction of simulation and dissimulation depends but on the trick of
a syllable; palliation and extenuation are universally allowable in
self-defence; prevarication inevitably follows, and falsehood "is but in
the next degree."
Yet I would not destroy this nicety of conscience too soon. It may be of
use in your first setting out, because you must establish credit; in
proportion to your credit will be the value of your future
asseverations.
In the mean time, however, argument and debate are allowed to the
most rigid moralist. You can never perjure yourself by swearing to a
false opinion.
I come now to the art of reasoning: don't be alarmed at the name of
reasoning, fair pupils; I will explain to you my meaning.
If, instead of the fiery-tempered being I formerly described, you should
fortunately be connected with a man, who, having formed a justly high
opinion of your sex, should propose to treat you as his equal, and who
in any little dispute which might arise between you, should desire no
other arbiter than reason; triumph in his mistaken candour, regularly
appeal to the decision of reason at the beginning of every contest, and
deny its jurisdiction at the conclusion. I take it for granted that you
will be on the wrong side of every question, and indeed, in general, I
advise you to choose the wrong side of an argument to defend; whilst you
are young in the science, it will afford the best exercise, and, as you
improve, the best display of your talents.
If, then, reasonable pupils, you would succeed in argument, attend to
the following instructions.
Begin by preventing, if possible, the specific statement of any
position, or if reduced to it, use the most general terms, and take
advantage of the ambiguity which all languages and which most
philosophers allow. Above all things, shun definitions; they will prove
fatal to you; for two persons of sense and candour, who define their
terms, cannot argue long without either convincing, or being convinced,
or parting in equal good-humour; to prevent which, go over and over the
same ground, wander as wide as possible from the point, but always with
a view to return at last precisely to the same spot from which you set
out. I should remark to you, that the choice of your weapons is a
circumstance much to be attended to: choose always those which your
adversary cannot use. If your husband is a man of wit, you will of
course undervalue a talent which is never connected with judgment: "for
your part, you do not presume to contend with him in wit."
But if he be a sober-minded man, who will go link by link along the
chain of an argument, follow him at first, till he grows so intent that
he does not perceive whether you follow him or not; then slide back to
your own station; and when with perverse patience he has at last reached
the last link of the chain, with one electric shock of wit make him quit
his hold, and strike him to the ground in an instant. Depend upon the
sympathy of the spectators, for to one who can understand _reason_, you
will find ten who admire _wit._
But if you should not be blessed with "a ready wit," if demonstration
should in the mean time stare you in the face, do not be in the least
alarmed--anticipate the blow. Whilst you have it yet in your power, rise
with becoming magnanimity, and cry, "I give it up! I give it up! La! let
us say no more about it; I do so hate disputing about trifles. I give it
up!" Before an explanation on the word trifle can take place, quit the
room with flying colours.
If you are a woman of sentiment and eloquence, you have advantages of
which I scarcely need apprize you. From the understanding of a man, you
have always an appeal to his heart, or, if not, to his affection, to his
weakness. If you have the good fortune to be married to a weak man,
always choose the moment to argue with him when you have a full
audience. Trust to the sublime power of numbers; it will be of use even
to excite your own enthusiasm in debate; then as the scene advances,
talk of his cruelty, and your sensibility, and sink with "becoming woe"
into the pathos of injured innocence.
Besides the heart and the weakness of your opponent, you have still
another chance, in ruffling his temper; which, in the course of a long
conversation, you will have a fair opportunity of trying; and if--for
philosophers will sometimes grow warm in the defence of truth--if he
should grow absolutely angry, you will in the same proportion grow calm,
and wonder at his rage, though you well know it has been created by your
own provocation. The by-standers, seeing anger without any adequate
cause, will all be of your side.
Nothing provokes an irascible man, interested in debate, and possessed
of an opinion of his own eloquence, so much as to see the attention of
his hearers go from him: you will then, when he flatters himself that he
has just fixed your eye with his _very best_ argument, suddenly grow
absent:--your house affairs must call you hence--or you have directions
to give to your children--or the room is too hot, or too cold--the
window must be opened--or door shut--or the candle wants snuffing. Nay,
without these interruptions, the simple motion of your eye may provoke a
speaker; a butterfly, or the figure in a carpet may engage your
attention in preference to him; or if these objects be absent, the
simply averting your eye, looking through the window in quest of outward
objects, will show that your mind has not been abstracted, and will
display to him at least your wish of not attending. He may, however,
possibly have lost the habit of watching your eye for approbation; then
you may assault his ear: if all other resources fail, beat with your
foot that dead march of the spirits, that incessant tattoo, which so
well deserves its name. Marvellous must be the patience of the
much-enduring man whom some or other of these devices do not provoke:
slight causes often produce great effects; the simple scratching of a
pick-axe, properly applied to certain veins in a mine, will cause the
most dreadful explosions.
Hitherto we have only professed to teach the defensive; let me now
recommend to you the offensive part of the art of justification. As a
supplement to reasoning comes recrimination: the pleasure of proving
that you are right is surely incomplete till you have proved that your
adversary is wrong; this might have been a secondary, let it now become
a primary object with you; rest your own defence on it for further
security: you are no longer to consider yourself as obliged either to
deny, palliate, argue, or declaim, but simply to justify yourself by
criminating another; all merit, you know, is judged of by comparison. In
the art of recrimination, your memory will be of the highest service to
you; for you are to open and keep an account-current of all the faults,
mistakes, neglects, unkindnesses of those you live with; these you are
to state against your own: I need not tell you that the balance will
always be in your favour. In stating matters or opinion, produce the
words of the very same person which passed days, months, years before,
in contradiction to what he is then saying. By displacing, disjointing
words and sentences, by mis-understanding the whole, or quoting only a
part of what has been said, you may convict any man of inconsistency,
particularly if he be a man of genius and feeling; for he speaks
generally from the impulse of the moment, and of all others can the
least bear to be charged with paradoxes. So far for a husband.
Recriminating is also of sovereign use in the quarrels of friends; no
friend is so perfectly equable, so ardent in affection, so nice in
punctilio, as never to offend: then "Note his faults, and con them all
by rote." Say you can forgive, but you can never forget; and surely it
is much more generous to forgive and remember, than to forgive and
forget. On every new alarm, call the unburied ghosts from former fields
of battle; range them in tremendous array, call them one by one to
witness against the conscience of your enemy, and ere the battle is
begun take from him all courage to engage.
There is one case I must observe to you in which recrimination has
peculiar poignancy. If you have had it in your power to confer
obligations on any one, never cease reminding them of it: and let them
feel that you have acquired an indefeasible right to reproach them
without a possibility of their retorting. It is a maxim with some
sentimental people, "To treat their servants as if they were their
friends in distress."--I have observed that people of this cast make
themselves amends, by treating their friends in distress as if they were
their servants.
Apply this maxim--you may do it a thousand ways, especially in company.
In general conversation, where every one is supposed to be on a footing,
if any of your humble companions should presume to hazard an opinion
contrary to yours, and should modestly begin with, "I think;" look as
the man did when he said to his servant, "You think, sir--what business
have you to think?"
Never fear to lose a friend by the habits which I recommend:
reconciliations, as you have often heard it said--reconciliations are
the cement of friendship; therefore friends should quarrel to strengthen
their attachment, and offend each other for the pleasure of being
reconciled.
I beg pardon for digressing: I was, I believe, talking of your husband,
not of your friend--I have gone far out of the way.
If in your debates with your husband you should want "eloquence to vex
him," the dull prolixity of narration, joined to the complaining
monotony of voice which I formerly recommended, will supply its place,
and have the desired effect: Somnus will prove propitious; then, ever
and anon as the soporific charm begins to work, rouse him with
interrogatories, such as, "Did not you say so? Don't you remember? Only
answer me that!"
By-the-by, interrogatories artfully put may lead an unsuspicious
reasoner, you know, always to your own conclusion.
In addition to the patience, philosophy, and other good things which
Socrates learned from his wife, perhaps she taught him this mode of
reasoning.
But, after all, the precepts of art, and even the natural susceptibility
of your tempers, will avail you little in the sublime of our science, if
you cannot command that ready enthusiasm which will make you enter into
the part you are acting; that happy imagination which shall make you
believe all you fear and all you invent.
Who is there amongst you who cannot or who will not justify when they
are accused? Vulgar talent! the sublime of our science is to justify
before we are accused. There is no reptile so vile but what will turn
when it is trodden on; but of a nicer sense and nobler species are those
whom nature has endowed with antennas, which perceive and withdraw at
the distant approach of danger. Allow me another allusion: similes
cannot be crowded too close for a female taste; and analogy, I have
heard, my fair pupils, is your favourite mode of reasoning.
The sensitive plant is too vulgar an allusion; but if the truth of
modern naturalists may be depended upon, there is a plant which, instead
of receding timidly from the intrusive touch, angrily protrudes its
venomous juices upon all who presume to meddle with it:--do not you
think this plant would be your fittest emblem?
Let me, however, recommend it to you, nice souls, who, of the mimosa
kind, "fear the dark cloud, and feel the coming storm," to take the
utmost precaution lest the same susceptibility which you cherish as the
dear means to torment others should insensibly become a torment to
yourselves.
Distinguish then between sensibility and susceptibility; between the
anxious solicitude not to give offence, and the captious eagerness of
vanity to prove that it ought not to have been taken; distinguish
between the desire of praise and the horror of blame: can any two things
be more different than the wish to improve, and the wish to demonstrate
that you have never been to blame?
Observe, I only wish you to distinguish these things in your own minds;
I would by no means advise you to discontinue the laudable practice of
confounding them perpetually in speaking to others.
When you have nearly exhausted human patience in explaining, justifying,
vindicating; when, in spite of all the pains you have taken, you have
more than half betrayed your own vanity; you have a never-failing
resource, in paying tribute to that of your opponent, as thus:--
"I am sure you must be sensible that I should never take so much pains
to justify myself if I were indifferent to your opinion.--I know that I
ought not to disturb myself with such trifles; but nothing is a trifle
to me which concerns you. I confess I am too anxious to please; I know
it's a fault, but I cannot cure myself of it now.--Too quick
sensibility, I am conscious, is the defect of my disposition; it would
be happier for me if I could be more indifferent, I know."
Who could be so brutal as to blame so amiable, so candid a creature? Who
would not submit to be tormented with kindness?
When once your captive condescends to be flattered by such arguments as
these, your power is fixed; your future triumphs can be bounded only by
your own moderation; they are at once secured and justified.
Forbear not, then, happy pupils; but, arrived at the summit of power,
give a full scope to your genius, nor trust to genius alone: to exercise
in all its extent your privileged dominion, you must acquire, or rather
you must pretend to have acquired, infallible skill in the noble art of
physiognomy; immediately the thoughts as well as the words of your
subjects are exposed to your inquisition.
Words may flatter you, but the countenance never can deceive you; the
eyes are the windows of the soul, and through them you are to watch what
passes in the inmost recesses of the heart. There, if you discern the
slightest ideas of doubt, blame, or displeasure; if you discover the
slightest symptoms of revolt, take the alarm instantly. Conquerors must
maintain their conquests; and how easily can they do this, who hold a
secret correspondence with the minds of the vanquished! Be your own
spies then; from the looks, gestures, slightest motions of your enemies,
you are to form an alphabet, a language intelligible only to yourselves,
yet by which you shall condemn them; always remembering that in sound
policy suspicion justifies punishment. In vain, when you accuse your
friends of the high treason of blaming you, in vain let them plead their
innocence, even of the intention. "They did not say a word which could
be tortured into such a meaning." No, "but they looked daggers, though
they used none."
And of this you are to be the sole judge, though there were fifty
witnesses to the contrary.
How should indifferent spectators pretend to know the countenance of
your friend as well as you do--you, that have a nearer, a dearer
interest in attending to it? So accurate have been your observations,
that no thought of their souls escapes you; nay, you often can tell even
what they are going to think of.
The science of divination certainly claims your attention; beyond the
past and the present, it shall extend your dominion over the future;
from slight words, half-finished sentences, from silence itself, you
shall draw your omens and auguries.
"I know what you were going to say;" or, "I know such a thing was a sign
you were inclined to be displeased with me."
In the ardour of innocence, the culprit, to clear himself from such
imputations, incurs the imputation of a greater offence. Suppose, to
prove that you were mistaken, to prove that he could not have meant to
blame you, he should declare that at the moment you mention, "You were
quite foreign to his thoughts; he was not thinking at all about you."
Then in truth you have a right to be angry. To one of your class of
justificators, this is the highest offence. Possessed as you are of the
firm opinion that all persons, at all times, on all occasions, are
intent upon you alone, is it not less mortifying to discover that you
were thought ill of, than that you were not thought of at all?
"Indifference, you know, sentimental pupils, is more fatal to love than
even hatred."
Thus, my dear pupils, I have endeavoured to provide precepts adapted to
the display of your several talents; but if there should be any amongst
you who have no talents, who can neither argue nor persuade, who have
neither sentiment nor enthusiasm, I must indeed--congratulate
them;--they are peculiarly qualified for the science of
Self-justification: indulgent nature, often even in the weakness,
provides for the protection of her creatures; just Providence, as the
guard of stupidity, has enveloped it with the impenetrable armour of
obstinacy.
Fair idiots! let women of sense, wit, feeling, triumph in their various
arts: yours are superior. Their empire, absolute as it sometimes may be,
is perpetually subject to sudden revolutions. With them, a man has some
chance of equal sway: with a fool he has none. Have they hearts and
understandings? Then the one may be touched, or the other in some
unlucky moment convinced; even in their very power lies their greatest
danger:--not so with you. In vain let the most candid of his sex attempt
to reason with you; let him begin with, "Now, my dear, only listen to
reason:"--you stop him at once with, "No, my dear, you know I do not
pretend to reason; I only say, that's my opinion."
Let him go on to prove that yours is a mistaken opinion:--you are ready
to acknowledge it long before he desires it. "You acknowledge it may be
a wrong opinion; but still it is your opinion." You do not maintain it
in the least, either because you believe it to be wrong or right, but
merely because it is yours. Exposed as you might have been to the
perpetual humiliation of being convinced, nature seems kindly to have
denied you all perception of truth, or at least all sentiment of
pleasure from the perception.
With an admirable humility, you are as well contented to be in the wrong
as in the right; you answer all that can be said to you with a provoking
humility of aspect.
"Yes; I do not doubt but what you say may be very true, but I cannot
tell; I do not think myself capable of judging on these subjects; I am
sure you must know much better than I do. I do not pretend to say but
that your opinion is very just; but I own I am of a contrary way of
thinking; I always thought so, and I always shall."
Should a man with persevering temper tell you that he is ready to adopt
your sentiments if you will only explain them; should he beg only to
have a reason for your opinion--no, you can give no reason. Let him urge
you to say something in its defence:--no; like Queen Anne,[72] you will
only repeat the same thing over again, or be silent. Silence is the
ornament of your sex; and in silence, if there be not wisdom, there is
safety. You will, then, if you please, according to your custom, sit
listening to all entreaties to explain, and speak--with a fixed
immutability of posture, and a pre-determined deafness of eye, which
shall put your opponent utterly out of patience; yet still by
persevering with the same complacent importance of countenance, you
shall half persuade people you could speak if you would; you shall keep
them in doubt by that true want of meaning, "which puzzles more than
wit;" even because they cannot conceive the excess of your stupidity,
they shall actually begin to believe that they themselves are stupid.
Ignorance and doubt are the great parents of the sublime.
Your adversary, finding you impenetrable to argument, perhaps would try
wit:--but, "On the impassive ice the lightnings play." His eloquence or
his kindness will avail less; when in yielding to you after a long
harangue, he expects to please you, you will answer undoubtedly with
the utmost propriety, "That you should be very sorry he yielded his
judgment to you; that he is very good; that you are much obliged to
him; but that, as to the point in dispute, it is a matter of perfect
indifference to you; for your part, you have no choice at all about it;
you beg that he will do just what he pleases; you know that it is the
duty of a wife to submit; but you hope, however, you may have an
_opinion_ of your own."
Remember, all such speeches as these will lose above half their |
