"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.
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.
* * * * *
The following collection of Foreign Bulls was given us by a man of letters, who is now father of the French Academy.
* * * * *
Toutes les nations ont des contes plaisans de bêtises échappées non seulement à des personnes vraiment bêtes, 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 liberté de lui offrir un petit recueil de nos bêtises qui méritent le nom qu'elles portent aussi bien que les Irish bulls. J'ai fait autrefois une dissertation où je recherchois quelle étoit la cause du rire qu'excitent les bêtises, et dans laquelle j'appuyois mon explication de beaucoup d'exemples et peut-être même du mien sans m'en appercevoir; mais la femme d'esprit à qui j'ai adressé 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 excité par les bêtises est l'effet du contraste que nous saisissons entre l'effort que fait l'homme qui dit la bêtise, et le mauvais succès de son effort. J'assimilois la marche de l'esprit dans celui qui dit une bêtise, à ce qui arrive à un homme qui cherchant à marcher légèrement sur un pavé glissant, tombe lourdement, ou aux tours mal-adroits du paillasse de la foire. Si l'on veut examiner les bêtises rassemblèes ici, on y trouvera toujours un effort manqué de ce genre.
Un homme, dont la femme avoit été saignée, interrogé le lendemain pourquoi elle ne paroissoit pas à table, répondit:—"Elle garde la chambre: Morand l'a saignée hier, et une saignée affoiblit beaucoup quand elle est faite par un habile homme."
M. de Baville, intendant du Languedoc, avoit un secrétaire fort bête: il se servoit un jour de lui pour écrire au ministre sur des affaires très importantes et dicta ces mots: "Ne soyez point surpris de ce que je me sers d'une main étrangère pour vous écrire sur cet objet. Mon secrétaire est si bête qu'à ce moment même il ne s'apperçoit pas que je vous parle de lui."
On demandoit à un abbé de Laval Montmorency quel âge avoit son frère le maréchal dont il étoit l'aîné. "Dans deux ans," dit-il, "nous serons du même âge."
On se préparoit à observer une éclipse, et le roi devoit assister à l'observation. M. de Jonville disoit à M. Cassini—"N'attendra-t-on pas le roi pour commencer l'éclipse?"
Une femme du peuple qui avoit une petite fille malade avec le transport au cerveau, disoit au médecin, "Ah, monsieur, si vous l'aviez entendu cette nuit! elle a déraisonnée comme une grande personne."
Un homme avoit parié 25 louis qu'il traverseroit le grand bassin des Thuileries par un froid très rigoureux; il alla jusqu'au milieu, renonça à son entreprise, et revint par le même chemin en disant, "J'aime mieux perdre vingt-cinq louis que d'avoir une fluxion de poitrine."
Un homme voyoit venir de loin un médecin de sa connoissance qui l'avoit traité plusieurs années auparavant dans une maladie; il se détourna, et cacha son visage pour n'être 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 été malade."
On demande à un homme qui vouloit vendre un cheval, "Votre cheval est-il peureux?" "Oh, point du tout," répond-il; "il vient de passer plusieurs nuits tout seul dans son écurie."
Dans une querelle entre un père et son fils, le père reprochoit à celui-ci son ingratitude. "Je ne vous ai point d'obligations," disoit le fils; "vous m'avez fait beaucoup de tort; si vous n'étiez point né, je serois à présent l'héritier de mon grand-père."
Un avare faisant son testament, se fit lui-même son héritier.
Un homme voyoit un bateau si chargé que les bords en étoient à fleur d'eau: "Ma foi," dit-il, "si la rivière étoit un peu plus haute le bateau iroit à fond."
M. Hume, dans son histoire d'Angleterre, parlant de la conspiration attribuée aux Catholiques en 1678 sous Charles II. rapporte le mot d'un chevalier Player qui félicitoit la ville des précautions qu'elle avoit prises—"Et sans lesquelles," disoit-il, "tous les citoyens auroient couru risque de se trouver égorgés le lendemain à leur réveil."
Le maire d'une petite ville, entendant une querelle dans la rue au milieu de la nuit, se lève du lit, et ouvrant la fenêtre, crie aux passans, "Messieurs, me lèverai-je?"
Un sot faisoit compliment à une demoiselle don't la mère 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 père vient d'épouser madame votre mère."
Racine, qui avoit été toute sa vie courtisan très attentif, étoit enterré à Port Royal des Champs dont les solitaires s'étoient attirés l'indignation de Louis XIV. M. de Boissy, célèbre par ses distractions, disoit, "Racine n'auroit pas fait cela de son vivant."
On racontait dans une conversation que Monsieur de Buffon avoit disséqué une de ses cousines, et une femme se récrioit sur l'inhumanité de l'anatomiste. M. de Mairan lui dit, "Mais, madame, elle étoit morte."
On parloit avec admiration de la belle vieillesse d'un homme de quatre-vingt dix ans, quelqu'un dit—"Cela vous étonne, messieurs; si mon père n'étoit pas mort, il auroit à présent cent ans accomplis."
Mouet, de l'opera comique, conte qu'arrivant de Lyon, et ne voulant pas qu'on sut qu'il étoit à Paris, il recommanda à son laquais, supposé qu'il fut rencontré, de dire qu'il étoit à Lyon. Le laquais trouve un ami de son maitre, qui lui en demande des nouvelles. "Il est à Lyon," dit-il, "et il ne sera de retour que la semaine prochaine." "Mais," continue le questionneur, "que portez-vous là?" "Ce sont quelques provisions qu'il m'a envoyé chercher pour son diner."
Un homme examinoit un dessin représentant 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 écoutans lui dit, "Monsieur le docteur, et avec un boiteux, seroit-elle bonne?"
Un homme se plaignoit que la maison de son voisin lui ôtoit la vue d'une de ses fenêtres; un autre lui dit, "Vous avez un remède; faites murer cette fenêtre."
Un homme ayarit écrit à sa maitresse, avoit glissé le billet sous la porte, et puis s'avisant que la fille ne pourroit pas s'en appercevoir il en écrivit un autre en ces termes, "J'ai mis un billet sous votre porte; prenez-y garde quand vous sortirez."
Un homme étant sur le point de marier sa fille unique, se brouille avec le prétendant, 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 reçu à la grande poste une lettre avec cette adresse, _à Monsieur mon fils, Rue, &c. On alloit la mettre au rebut; un commis s'y oppose, et dit qu'on trouvera à qui la lettre s'adresse. Dix ou douze jours se passent. On voit arriver un grand benêt, qui dit, "Messieurs, je viens savoir si on n'auroit pas garde ici une lettre de mon cher père?" "Oui, monsieur," lui dit le commis, "la voilà." On prête ce trait à Bouret, fermier général.
Milord Albemarle étant aux eaux d'Aix-la-Chapelle, et ne voulant pas être connu, ordonna a un negre qui le servoit, si on lui demandoit qui étoit son maitre, de dire qu'il étoit Frangois. On ne manqua pas de faire la question an noir, qui répondit, "Mon maître est Franpois, et mot aussi."
Un marchand, en finissant d'écrire une lettre à un de ses correspondans, mourut subitement. Son commis ajouta en P.S. "Depuis ma lettre écrite je suis mort ce matin. Mardi an soir 7ème," &c.
Un petit marchand prétendoit avoir acheté trois sols ce qu'il vendoit pour deux. On lui représente que ce commerce le ruinera—"Ah," dit-il, "je me sauve sur la quantité."
Le chevalier de Lorenzi, étant à Florence, étoit allé se promener avec trois de ses amis à quelques lieues de la ville, à pied. Ils revenoient fort las; la nuit approchoit; il veut se reposer: on lui dit qu'il restoit quatres milles à faire—"Oh," dit-il, "nous sommes quatres; ce n'est qu'un mille chacun."
On pretend qu'un fermier général voulant s'éviter l'ennui ou s'épargner les frais des lettres dont on l'accabloit au nouvel an, écrivoit au mois de Décembre à tous les employés de son département qu'il les dispensoit du cérémonial, et que ceux-ci lui réponderoient pour l'assurer qu'ils se conformeroient à 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 à l'animal à dire monomotapa, et le perroquet n'en disoit que des syllabes séparées. Maupertuis faisoit des reproches au laquais; "Oh, monsieur," dit celui-ci, "cela ne va pas si vîte; je lui ai d'abord appris mo et puis no." "Vous êtes un bête," 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 écrit à 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 fiéra i porci sono saliti al cielo. O ricevete, o non ricevete questa, datemene aviso."
[24] Natural History, century iii. p. 191.—Bacon produces it to show that echoes will not readily return the letter S..
[25] "Un savant écrivoit à un ami, et un importun étoit à côté de lui, qui regardoit par dessus l'épaule ce qu'il écrivoit. Le savant, qui s'en apperçut, écrivit ceci à la place: 'Si un impertinent qui est à mon côté ne regardoit pas ce que j'écris, je vous écrirois encore plusieurs choses qui ne doivent être sues que de vous et de moi.' L'importun, qui lisoit toujours, prit la parole et dit: 'Je vous jure que je n'ai regardé ni lû ce que vous écriviez.' Le savant repartit, 'Ignorant, que vous êtes, 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 imprimée à Paris), à la Haye, chez Louis et Henry Vandole, marchands libraires, dans le Pooten, à l'enseigne du Port Royal, M.DC.XCIV.
[26] "Le bailli nous donne an diable, et nous nous recommandons à vous, monseigneur."
[27] On faisoit compliment à madame Denis de la façon dont elle venoit de jouer Zaïre. "Il faudroit," dit elle, "être belle et jeune." "Ah, madame!" reprit le complimenteur naïvement, "vous êtes bien la preuve du contraire."
[28] Locke's Essay concerning the Human Understanding, fifteenth edit. vol. i. p. 292.
[29] "De moi je commence à douter tout de ben.
Pourtant quand je me tâte, 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 Mémoires 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 moitié de ma vie a mis l'autre au tombeau."
[44] "Il pover uomo che non sen' era accorto,
Andava combattendo, ed erà 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 être soumise à l'autre. Les Anglois ont toujours eu sur les Irlandois la superiorite du génie, des richesses, et des armes. La supériorite que les blancs ont sur les noirs.
[66] "On lisait dans les premières éditions, la supèrioritè que les blancs ont sur les négres. M. de Voltaire effaça cette expression injurieuse. L'état presque sauvage ou étoit l'Irlande lorsqu'elle fut conquise, la superstition, l'oppression exercée 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 liberté. Les Irlandois ne le cédent plus aux Anglois, ni en industrie ni en lumières."
[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.
* * * * *
"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 effect, if you cannot accompany them with the vacant stare, the insipid smile, the passive aspect of the humbly perverse.
Whilst I write, new precepts rush upon my recollection; but the subject is inexhaustible. I quit it with regret, though fully sensible of my presumption in having attempted to instruct those who, whilst they read, will smile in the consciousness of superior powers. Adieu! then, my fair readers: long may you prosper in the practice of an art peculiar to your sex! Long may you maintain unrivalled dominion at home and abroad; and long may your husbands rue the hour when first they made you promise "to obey!"
[Written in 1787—published in 1795.]
[70] Marmontel.
[71] Emilius and Sophia.
[72] Vide Duchess of Marlborough's Apology.
Tutta la gente in lieta fronte udiva
Le graziose e finte istorielle,
Ed Ì difetti altrui tosto scopriva
Ciascuno, e non i proprj espressi in quelle;
O se de' proprj sospettava, ignoti
Credeali a ciascun altro, e a se sol noti.
My daughter asks me for a Preface to the following volumes; from a pardonable weakness she calls upon me for parental protection: but, in fact, the public judges of every work, not from the sex, but from the merit of the author.
What we feel, and see, and hear, and read, affects our conduct from the moment when we begin, till the moment when we cease to think. It has therefore been my daughter's aim to promote, by all her writings, the progress of education from the cradle to the grave.
Miss Edgeworth's former works consist of tales for children—of stories for young men and women—and of tales suited to that great mass which does not move in the circles of fashion. The present volumes are intended to point out some of those errors to which the higher classes of society are disposed.
All the parts of this series of moral fictions bear upon the faults and excellencies of different ages and classes; and they have all arisen from that view of society which we have laid before the public in more didactic works on education. In the PARENT'S ASSISTANT, in MORAL and in POPULAR TALES, it was my daughter's aim to exemplify the principles contained in PRACTICAL EDUCATION. In these volumes, and in others which are to follow, she endeavours to disseminate, in a familiar form, some of the ideas that are unfolded in ESSAYS ON PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION.
The first of these stories is called
ENNUI.—The causes, curses, and cure of this disease are exemplified, I hope, in such a manner, as not to make the remedy worse than the disease. Thiebauld tells us, that a prize-essay on Ennui was read to the Academy of Berlin, which put all the judges to sleep.
THE DUN—is intended as a lesson against the common folly of believing that a debtor is able, by a few cant phrases, to alter the nature of right and wrong. We had once thoughts of giving to these books the title of FASHIONABLE TALES: alas! the Dun could never have found favour with fashionable readers.
MANOEUVRING—is a vice to which the little great have recourse, to show their second-rate abilities. Intrigues of gallantry upon the continent frequently lead to political intrigue: amongst us the attempts to introduce this improvement of our manners have not yet been successful; but there are, however, some, who, in every thing they say or do, show a predilection for "left-handed wisdom." It is hoped that the picture here represented of a manoeuvrer has not been made alluring.
ALMERIA—gives a view of the consequences which usually follow the substitution of the gifts of fortune in the place of merit; and shows the meanness of those who imitate manners and haunt company above their station in society.
Difference of rank is a continual excitement to laudable emulation; but those who consider the being admitted into circles of fashion as the summit of human bliss and elevation, will here find how grievously such frivolous ambition may be disappointed and chastised.
I may be permitted to add a word on the respect with which Miss Edgeworth treats the public—their former indulgence has not made her careless or presuming. The dates subjoined to these stories show that they have not been hastily intruded upon the reader.
Edgeworthstown,
March, 1809.
* * * * *
"'Que faites-vous à Potzdam?' demandois-je un jour an prince Guillaume. 'Monsieur,' me répondit-il, 'nous passons notre vie à conjuguer tous le même verbe; Je m'ennuie, tu t'ennuies, il s'ennuie, nous nous ennuyons, vous vous ennuyez, ils s'ennuient; je m'ennuyois, je m'ennuierai,'" &c.
THIEBAULD, Mém. de Frédéric le Grand.
* * * * *
Bred up in luxurious indolence, I was surrounded by friends who seemed to have no business in this world but to save me the trouble of thinking or acting for myself; and I was confirmed in the pride of helplessness by being continually reminded that I was the only son and heir of the Earl of Glenthorn. My mother died a few weeks after I was born; and I lost my father when I was very young. I was left to the care of a guardian, who, in hopes of winning my affection, never controlled my wishes or even my whims: I changed schools and masters as often as I pleased, and consequently learned nothing. At last I found a private tutor who suited me exactly, for he was completely of my own opinion, "that every thing which the young Earl of Glenthorn did not know by the instinct of genius was not worth his learning." Money could purchase a reputation for talents, and with money I was immoderately supplied; for my guardian expected to bribe me with a part of my own fortune, to forbear inquiring what had become of a certain deficiency in the remainder. This tacit compact I perfectly understood: we were consequently on the most amicable terms imaginable, and the most confidential; for I thought it better to deal with my guardian than with Jews. Thus at an age when other young men are subject to some restraint, either from the necessity of their circumstances, or the discretion of their friends, I became completely master of myself and of my fortune. My companions envied me; but even their envy was not sufficient to make me happy. Whilst yet a boy, I began to feel the dreadful symptoms of that mental malady which baffles the skill of medicine, and for which wealth can purchase only temporary alleviation. For this complaint there is no precise English name; but, alas! the foreign term is now naturalized in England. Among the higher classes, whether in the wealthy or the fashionable world, who is unacquainted with ennui? At first I was unconscious of being subject to this disease; I felt that something was the matter with me, but I did not know what: yet the symptoms were sufficiently marked. I was afflicted with frequent fits of fidgeting, yawning, and stretching, with a constant restlessness of mind and body; an aversion to the place I was in, or the thing I was doing, or rather to that which was passing before my eyes, for I was never doing any thing; I had an utter abhorrence and an incapacity of voluntary exertion. Unless roused by external stimulus, I sank into that kind of apathy, and vacancy of ideas, vulgarly known by the name of a brown study. If confined in a room for more than half an hour by bad weather or other contrarieties, I would pace backwards and forwards, like the restless cavia in his den, with a fretful, unmeaning pertinacity. I felt an insatiable longing for something new, and a childish love of locomotion.
My physician and my guardian, not knowing what else to do with me, sent me abroad. I set out upon my travels in my eighteenth year, attended by my favourite tutor as my companion. We perfectly agreed in our ideas of travelling; we hurried from place to place as fast as horses and wheels, and curses and guineas, could carry us. Milord Anglois rattled over half the globe without getting one inch farther from his ennui. Three years were to be consumed before I should be of age. What sums did I spend during this interval in expedition-money to Time! but the more I tried to hasten him, the slower the rogue went. I lost my money and my temper.
At last the day for which I had so long panted arrived—I was twenty-one! and I took possession of my estate. The bells rang, the bonfires blazed, the tables were spread, the wine flowed, huzzas resounded, friends and tenants crowded about me, and nothing but the voice of joy and congratulation was to be heard. The bustle of my situation kept me awake for some weeks; the pleasure of property was new, and, as long as the novelty lasted, delightful. I cannot say that I was satisfied; but my mind was distended by the sense of the magnitude of my possessions. I had large estates in England; and in one of the remote maritime counties of Ireland, I was lord over an immense territory, annexed to the ancient castle of Glenthorn;—a noble pile of antiquity! worth ten degenerate castles of modern days. It was placed in a bold romantic situation: at least as far as I could judge of it by a picture, said to be a striking likeness, which hung in my hall at Sherwood Park in England. I was born in Ireland, and nursed, as I was told, in an Irish cabin: for my father had an idea that this would make me hardy; he left me with my Irish nurse till I was two years old, and from that time forward neither he nor I ever revisited Ireland. He had a dislike to that country, and I grew up in his prejudices. I declared that I would always reside in England. Sherwood Park, my English country-seat, had but one fault, it was completely finished. The house was magnificent, and in the modern taste; the furniture fashionably elegant, and in all the gloss of novelty. Not a single luxury omitted; not a fault could be found by the most fastidious critic. My park, my grounds, displayed all the beauties of nature and of art, judiciously combined. Majestic woods, waving their dark foliage, overhung——But I will spare my readers the description, for I remember falling asleep myself whilst a poet was reading to me an ode on the beauties of Sherwood Park. These beauties too soon became familiar to my eye; and even the idea of being the proprietor of this enchanting place soon palled upon my vanity. Every casual visitor, all the strangers, even the common people, who were allowed once a week to walk in my pleasure-grounds, enjoyed them a thousand times more than I could. I remember, that, about six weeks after I came to Sherwood Park, I one evening escaped from the crowds of friends who filled my house, to indulge myself in a solitary, melancholy walk. I saw at some distance a party of people, who were coming to admire the place; and to avoid meeting them I took shelter under a fine tree, the branches of which, hanging to the ground, concealed me from the view of passengers. Thus seated, I was checked in the middle of a desperate yawn, by hearing one among the party of strangers exclaiming—
"How happy the owner of this place must be!"
Yes, had I known how to enjoy the goods of life, I might have been happy; but want of occupation, and antipathy to exertion, rendered me one of the most miserable men upon earth. Still I imagined that the cause of my discontent proceeded from some external circumstance. Soon after my coming of age, business of various sorts required my attention; papers were to be signed, and lands were to be let: these things appeared to me terrible difficulties. Not even that minister of state, who so feelingly describes his horror at the first appearance of the secretary with the great portfolio, ever experienced sensations so oppressive as mine were, when my steward began to talk to me of my own affairs. In the peevishness of my indolence, I declared that I thought the pains overbalanced the pleasures of property. Captain Crawley, a friend—a sort of a friend—a humble companion of mine, a gross, unblushing, thorough-going flatterer, happened to be present when I made this declaration: he kindly undertook to stand between me and the shadow of trouble. I accepted this offer.
"Ay, Crawley," said I, "do see and settle with these people."
I had not the slightest confidence in the person into whose hands, to save myself from the labour of thinking, I thus threw all my affairs; but I satisfied my understanding, by resolving that, when I should have leisure, I would look out for an agent upon whom I could depend.
I had now been nearly two months at Sherwood Park; too long a time, I thought, to remain in any place, and I was impatient to get away. My steward, who disliked the idea of my spending my summers at home, found it easy to persuade me that the water on my estate had a brackish unwholesome taste. The man who told me this stood before me in perfect health, though he had drunk this insalubrious water all his life: but it was too laborious a task for my intellects to compare the evidence of my different senses, and I found it most easy to believe what I heard, though it was in direct opposition to what I saw. Away I hurried to a watering-place, after the example of many of my noble contemporaries, who leave their delightful country-seats, to pay, by the inch, for being squeezed up in lodging-houses, with all imaginable inconvenience, during the hottest months in summer. I whiled away my time at Brighton, cursing the heat of the weather, till the winter came, and then cursing the cold, and longing for the London winter.
The London winter commenced; and the young Earl of Glenthorn, and his entertainments, and his equipages, and extravagance, were the conversation of all the world, and the joy of the newspapers. The immense cost of the fruit at my desserts was recorded; the annual expense of the vast nosegays of hot-house flowers worn daily by the footmen who clung behind my coach was calculated; the hundreds of wax lights, which burned nightly in my house, were numbered by the idle admirers of folly; and it was known by every body that Lord Glenthorn suffered nothing but wax to be burned in his stables; that his servants drank nothing but claret and champagne; that his liveries, surpassing the imagination of ambassadors, vied with regal magnificence, whilst their golden trappings could have stood even the test of Chinese curiosity. My coachmaker's bill for this year, if laid before the public, would amuse and astonish sober-minded people, as much as some charges which have lately appeared in our courts of justice for extraordinary coaches, and very extraordinary landaus. I will not enter into the detail of my extravagance in minor articles of expense; these, I thought, could never be felt by such a fortune as that of the Earl of Glenthorn; but, for the information of those who have the same course to run or to avoid, I should observe, that my diurnal visits to jewellers' shops amounted, in time, to sums worth mentioning. Of the multitude of baubles that I bought, the rings, the seals, the chains, I will give no account; it would pass the belief of man, and the imagination of woman. Those who have the least value for their time have usually the greatest number of watches, and are the most anxious about the exactness of their going. I and my repeaters were my own plagues, and the profit of all the fashionable watchmakers, whose shops I regularly visited for a lounge. My history, at this period, would be a complete lounger's journal; but I will spare my readers this diary. I wish, however, as I have had ample experience, to impress it on the minds of all whom it may concern, that a lounger of fortune must be extravagant. I went into shops merely to pass an idle hour, but I could not help buying something; and I was ever at the mercy of tradesmen, who took advantage of my indolence, and who thought my fortune inexhaustible. I really had not any taste for expense; but I let all who dealt with me, especially my servants, do as they pleased, rather than be at the trouble of making them do as they ought. They assured me, that Lord Glenthorn must have such and such things, and must do so and so; and I quietly submitted to this imaginary necessity.
All this time I was the envy of my acquaintance; but I was more deserving of their compassion. Without anxiety or exertion, I possessed every thing they wanted; but then I had no motive—I had nothing to desire. I had an immense fortune, and I was the Earl of Glenthorn: my title and wealth were sufficient distinctions; how could I be anxious about my boots, or the cape of my coat, or any of those trifles which so happily interest and occupy the lives of fashionable young men, who have not the misfortune to possess large estates? Most of my companions had some real or imaginary grievance, some old uncle or father, some cursed profession to complain of; but I had none. They had hopes and fears; but I had none. I was on the pinnacle of glory, which they were endeavouring to reach; and I had nothing to do but to sit still, and enjoy the barrenness of the prospect.
In this recital I have communicated, I hope, to my readers some portion of that ennui which I endured; otherwise they cannot form an adequate idea of my temptation to become a gambler. I really had no vice, nor any of those propensities which lead to vice; but ennui produced most of the effects that are usually attributed to strong passions or a vicious disposition.
"O! ressource assurée,
Viens ranimer leur langueur desoeuvrée:
Leur âme vide est du moins amusée
Par l'avarice en plaisir deguisée."
Gaming relieved me from that insuperable listlessness by which I was oppressed. I became interested—I became agitated; in short, I found a new kind of stimulus, and I indulged in it most intemperately. I grew immoderately fond of that which supplied me with sensations. My days and nights were passed at the gaming-table. I remember once spending three days and three nights in the hazard-room of a well-known house in St. James's-street: the shutters were closed, the curtains down, and we had candles the whole time; even in the adjoining rooms we had candles, that when our doors were opened to bring in refreshments, no obtrusive gleam of daylight might remind us how the hours had passed. How human nature supported the fatigue, I know not. We scarcely allowed ourselves a moment's pause to take the sustenance our bodies required. At last, one of the markers, who had been in the room with us the whole time, declared that he could hold out no longer, and that sleep he must. With difficulty he obtained an hour's truce: the moment he got out of the room he fell asleep, absolutely at the very threshold of our door. By the rules of the house he was entitled to a bonus on every transfer of property at the hazard-table; and he had made, in the course of these three days, upwards of three hundred pounds. Sleep and avarice had struggled to the utmost, but, with his vulgar habits, sleep prevailed. We were wide awake. I shall never forget the figure of one of my noble associates, who sat holding his watch, his eager eyes fixed upon the minute-hand, whilst he exclaimed continually, "This hour will never be over!" Then he listened to discover whether his watch had stopped; then cursed the lazy fellow for falling asleep, protesting that, for his part, he never would again consent to such waste of time. The very instant the hour was ended, he ordered "that dog" to be awakened, and to work we went. At this sitting 35,000_l._ were lost and won. I was very fortunate, for I lost a mere trifle—ten thousand pounds; but I could not expect to be always so lucky.—Now we come to the old story of being ruined by play. My English John o'-the-Scales warned me that he could advance no more money; my Irish agent, upon whom my drafts had indeed been unmerciful, could not oblige me any longer, and he threw up his agency, after having made his fortune at my expense. I railed, but railing would not pay my debts of honour. I inveighed against my grandfather for having tied me up so tight; I could neither mortgage nor sell: my Irish estate would have been sold instantly, had it not been settled upon a Mr. Delamere. The pleasure of abusing him, whom I had never seen, and of whom I knew nothing but that he was to be my heir, relieved me wonderfully. He died, and left only a daughter, a mere child. My chance of possessing the estate in fee-simple increased: I sold this increased value to the Jews, and gamed on. Miss Delamere, some time afterwards, had the smallpox. Upon the event of her illness I laid bets to an amazing amount.
She recovered. No more money could be raised, and my debts were to be paid. In this dilemma I recollected that I once had a guardian, and that I had never settled accounts with him. Crawley, who continued to he my factotum and flatterer in ordinary and extraordinary, informed me, upon looking over these accounts, that there was a mine of money due to me, if I could but obtain it by law or equity. To law I went: and the anxiety of a lawsuit might have, in some degree, supplied the place of gambling, but that all my business was managed for me by Crawley, and I charged him never to mention the subject to me till a verdict should be obtained.
A verdict was obtained against me. It was proved in open court, by my own witnesses, that I was a fool; but as no judge, jury, or chancellor, could believe that I was so great a fool as my carelessness indicated, my guardian stood acquitted in equity of being so great a rogue as he really was. What was now to be done? I saw my doom. As a highwayman knows that he must come to the gallows at last, and acts accordingly, so a fashionably extravagant youth knows that, sooner or later, he must come to matrimony. No one could have more horror of this catastrophe than I felt; but it was in vain to oppose my destiny. My opinion of women had been formed from the commonplace jests of my companions, and from my own acquaintance with the worst part of the sex. I had never felt the passion of love, and, of course, believed it to be something that might have existed in former ages, but that it was in our days quite obsolete, at least, among the knowing part of the world. In my imagination young women were divided into two classes; those who were to be purchased, and those who were to purchase. Between these two classes, though the division was to be marked externally by a certain degree of ceremony, yet I was internally persuaded that there was no essential difference. In my feelings towards them there was some distinction; of the first class I was tired, and of the second I was afraid. Afraid! Yes—afraid of being taken in. With these fears, and these sentiments, I was now to choose a wife. I chose her by the numeration table: Units, tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands. I was content, in the language of the newspapers, to lead to the Hymeneal altar any fashionable fair one whose fortune came under the sixth place of figures. No sooner were my dispositions known than the friends of a young heiress, who wanted to purchase a coronet, settled a match between us. My bride had one hundred wedding-dresses, elegant as a select committee of dress-makers and milliners, French and English, could devise. The least expensive of these robes, as well as I remember, cost fifty guineas: the most admired came to about five hundred pounds, and was thought, by the best judges in these matters, to be wonderfully cheap, as it was of lace such as had never before been trailed in English dust, even by the lady of a nabob. These things were shown in London as a spectacle for some days, by the dress-maker, who declared that she had lost many a night's rest in contriving how to make such a variety of dresses sufficiently magnificent and distinguished. The jewellers also requested and obtained permission to exhibit the different sets of jewels: these were so numerous that Lady Glenthorn scarcely knew them all. One day, soon after her marriage, somebody at court, observing that her diamonds were prodigiously fine, asked where she bought them. "Really," said she, "I cannot tell. I have so many sets, I declare I don't know whether it's my Paris, or my Hamburgh, or my London set."
Poor young creature! I believe her chief idea of happiness in marriage was the possession of the jewels and paraphernalia of a countess—I am sure it was the only hope she could have, that was likely to be realized, in marrying me. I thought it manly and fashionable to be indifferent, if not contemptuous to my wife: I considered her only as an incumbrance, that I was obliged to take along with my fortune. Besides the disagreeable ideas generally connected with the word wife, I had some peculiar reasons for my aversion to my Lady Glenthorn. Before her friends would suffer me to take possession of her fortune, they required from me a solemn oath against gambling: so I was compelled to abjure the hazard-table and the turf, the only two objects in life that could keep me awake. This extorted vow I set down entirely to my bride's account; and I therefore became even more averse to her than men usually are who marry for money. Yet this dislike subsided. Lady Glenthorn was only childish—I, of an easy temper. I thought her ridiculous, but it was too much trouble to tell her so continually. I let the occasions pass, and even forgot her ladyship, when she was not absolutely in my way. She was too frivolous to be hated, and the passion of hatred was not to be easily sustained in my mind. The habit of ennui was stronger than all my passions put together.
"Or realize what we think fabulous,
I' th' bill of fare of Eliogabalus."
After my marriage, my old malady rose to an insupportable height. The pleasures of the table were all that seemed left to me in life. Most of the young men of any ton, either were, or pretended to be, connoisseurs in the science of good eating. Their talk was of sauces and of cooks, what dishes each cook was famous for; whether his forte lay in white sauces or brown, in soups, lentilles, fricandeaus, bechemele, matelotes, daubes, &c. Then the history and genealogy of the cooks came after the discussion of the merit of the works; whom my Lord C——'s cook lived with formerly—what my Lord D—— gave his cook—where they met with these great geniuses, &c. I cannot boast that our conversation at these select dinners, from which the ladies were excluded, was very entertaining; but true good eaters detest wit at dinner-time, and sentiment at all times. I think I observed that amongst these cognoscenti there was scarcely one to whom the delicacy of taste did not daily prove a source of more pain than pleasure. There was always a cruel something that spoiled the rest; or if the dinner were excellent, beyond the power of the most fastidious palate to condemn, yet there was the hazard of being placed far from the favourite dish, or the still greater danger of being deputed to carve at the head or foot of the table. How I have seen a heavy nobleman of this set dexterously manoeuvre to avoid the dangerous honour of carving a haunch of venison! "But, good Heavens!" said I, when a confidential whisper first pointed out this to my notice, "why does he not like to carve?—he would have it in his power to help himself to his mind, which nobody else can do so well."—"No! if he carve, he must give the nice bits to others; every body here understands them as well as he—each knows what is upon his neighbour's plate, and what ought to be there, and what must be in the dish." I found that it was an affair of calculation—a game at which nobody can cheat without being discovered and disgraced. I emulated, and soon equalled my experienced friends. I became a perfect epicure, and gloried in the character, for it could be supported without any intellectual exertion, and it was fashionable. I cannot say that I could ever eat as much as some of my companions. One of them I once heard exclaim, after a monstrous dinner, "I wish my digestion were equal to my appetite." I would not be thought to exaggerate, therefore I shall not recount the wonders I have seen performed by these capacious heroes of the table. After what I have beheld, to say nothing of what I have achieved, I can believe any thing that is related of the capacity of the human stomach. I can credit even the account of the dinner which Madame de Bavière affirms she saw eaten by Lewis the Fourteenth; viz. "quatre assiettes de différentes soupes; un faisan tout entier; un perdrix; une grande assiette pleine de salade; du mouton coupé dans son jus avec de l'ail; deux bons morceaux de jambon; une assiette pleine de patisserie! du fruit et des confitures!" Nor can I doubt the accuracy of the historian, who assures us that a Roman emperor,[73] one of the most moderate of those imperial gluttons, took for his breakfast, 500 figs, 100 peaches, 10 melons, 100 beccaficoes, and 400 oysters.
Epicurism was scarcely more prevalent during the decline of the Roman empire than it is at this day amongst some of the wealthy and noble youths of Britain. Not one of my select dinner-party but would have been worthy of a place at the turbot consultation immortalized by the Roman satirist. A friend of mine, a bishop, one day went into his kitchen, to look at a large turbot, which the cook was dressing. The cook had found it so large that he had cut off the fins: "What a shame!" cried the bishop; and immediately calling for the cook's apron, he spread it before his cassock, and actually sewed the fins again to the turbot with his own episcopal hands.
If I might judge from my own experience, I should attribute fashionable epicurism in a great measure to ennui. Many affect it, because they have nothing else to do; and sensual indulgences are all that exist for those who have not sufficient energy to enjoy intellectual pleasures. I dare say, that if Heliogabalus could be brought in evidence in his own case, and could be made to understand the meaning of the word ennui, he would agree with me in opinion, that it was the cause of half his vices. His offered reward for the discovery of a new pleasure is stronger evidence than any confession he could make. I thank God that I was not born an emperor, or I might have become a monster. Though not in the least inclined to cruelty, I might have acquired the taste for it, merely for desire of the emotion which real tragedies excite. Fortunately, I was only an earl and an epicure.
My indulgence in the excesses of the table injured my health; violent bodily exercise was necessary to counteract the effects of intemperance. It was my maxim, that a man could never eat or drink too much, if he would but take exercise enough. I killed fourteen horses,[74] and survived; but I grew tired of killing horses, and I continued to eat immoderately. I was seized with a nervous complaint, attended with extreme melancholy. Frequently the thoughts of putting an end to my existence occurred; and I had many times determined upon the means; but very small and apparently inadequate and ridiculous motives, prevented the execution of my design. Once I was kept alive by a piggery, which I wanted to see finished. Another time, I delayed destroying myself, till a statue, which I had just purchased at a vast expense, should be put up in my Egyptian salon. By the awkwardness of the unpacker, the statue's thumb was broken. This broken thumb saved my life; it converted ennui into anger. Like Montaigne and his sausage, I had now something to complain of, and I was happy. But at last my anger subsided, the thumb would serve me no longer as a subject of conversation, and I relapsed into silence and black melancholy. I was "a'weary of the sun;" my old thoughts recurred. At this time I was just entering my twenty-fifth year. Rejoicings were preparing for my birthday. My Lady Glenthorn had prevailed upon me to spend the summer at Sherwood Park, because it was new to her. She filled the house with company and noise; but this only increased my discontent. My birthday arrived—I wished myself dead—and I resolved to shoot myself at the close of the day. I put a pistol into my pocket, and stole out towards the evening, unobserved by my jovial companions. Lady Glenthorn and her set were dancing, and I was tired of these sounds of gaiety. I took the private way to the forest, which was near the house; but one of my grooms met me with a fine horse, which an old tenant had just sent as a present on my birthday. The horse was saddled and bridled; the groom held the stirrup, and up I got. The fellow told me the private gate was locked, and I turned as he pointed to go through the grand entrance. At the outside of the gate sat upon the ground, huddled in a great red cloak, an old woman, who started up and sprang forwards the moment she saw me, stretching out her arms and her cloak with one and the same motion.
"Ogh! is it you I see?" cried she, in a strong Irish tone.
At this sound and this sight, my horse, that was shy, backed a little. I called to the woman to stand out of my way.
"Heaven bless your sweet face! I'm the nurse that suckled yees when ye was a baby in Ireland. Many's the day I've been longing to see you," continued she, clasping her hands, and standing her ground in the middle of the gateway, regardless of my horse, which I was pressing forward.
"Stand out of the way, for God's sake, my good woman, or I shall certainly ride over you. So! so! so!" said I, patting my restless horse.
"Oh! he's only shy, God bless him! he's as quite now as a lamb; and kiss one or other of yees, I must," cried she, throwing her arms about the horse's neck.
The horse, unaccustomed to this mode of salutation, suddenly plunged, and threw me. My head fell against the pier of the gate. The last sound I heard was the report of a pistol; but I can give no account of what happened afterwards. I was stunned by my fall, and senseless. When I opened my eyes, I found myself stretched on one of the cushions of my landau, and surrounded by a crowd of people, who seemed to be all talking at once: in the buzz of voices I could not distinguish any thing that was said, till I heard Captain Crawley's voice above the rest, saying,
"Send for a surgeon instantly: but it's all over! it's all over! Take the body the back way to the banqueting-house; I must run to Lady Glenthorn."
I perceived that they thought me dead. I did not at this moment feel that I was hurt. I was curious to know what they would all do; so I closed my eyes again before any one perceived that I had opened them. I lay motionless, and they proceeded with me, according to Captain Crawley's orders, to the banqueting-house. When we arrived there, my servants laid me on one of the Turkish sofas; and the crowd, after having satisfied their' curiosity, dropped off one by one, till I was left with a single footman and my steward.
"I don't believe he's quite dead," said the footman, "for his heart beats."
"Oh, he's the same as dead, for he does not stir hand or foot, and his skull, they say, is fractured for certain; but it will all be seen when the surgeon comes. I am sure he will never do. Crawley will have every thing his own way now, and I may as well decamp."
"Ay; and among them," said the footman, "I only hope I may get my wages."
"What a fool that Crawley made of my lord!" said the steward.
"What a fool my lord made of himself," said the footman, "to he ruled, and let all his people be ruled, by such an upstart! With your leave, Mr. Turner, I'll just run to the house to say one word to James, and be back immediately."
"No, no, you must stay, Robert, whilst I step home to lock my places, before Crawley begins to rummage."
The footman was now left alone with me. Scarcely had the steward been gone two minutes, when I heard a low voice near me saying, in a tone of great anxiety, "Is he dead?"
I half opened my eyes to see who it was that spoke. The voice came from the door which was opposite to me; and whilst the footman turned his back, I raised my head, and beheld the figure of the old woman, who had been the cause of my accident. She was upon her knees on the threshold—her arms crossed over her breast. I never shall forget her face, it was so expressive of despair.
"Is he dead?" she repeated.
"I tell you yes," replied the footman.
"For the love of God, let me come in, if he is here," cried she.
"Come in, then, and stay here whilst I run to the house." [75]
The footman ran off; and my old nurse, on seeing me, burst into an agony of grief. I did not understand one word she uttered, as she spoke in her native language; but her lamentations went to my heart, for they came from hers. She hung over me, and I felt her tears dropping upon my forehead. I could not refrain from whispering, "Don't cry—I am alive."
"Blessings on him!" exclaimed she, starting back: she then dropped down on her knees to thank God. Then calling me by every fondling name that nurses use to their children, she begged my forgiveness, and alternately cursed herself and prayed for me.
The strong affections of this poor woman touched me more than any thing I had ever yet felt in my life; she seemed to be the only person upon earth who really cared for me; and in spite of her vulgarity, and my prejudice against the tone in which she spoke, she excited in my mind emotions of tenderness and gratitude. "My good woman, if I live, I will do something for you: tell me what I can do," said I. "Live! live! God bless you, live; that's all in the wide world I want of you, my jewel; and, till you are well, let me watch over you at nights, as I used to do when you were a child, and I had you in my arms all to myself, dear."
Three or four people now ran into the room, to get before Captain Crawley, whose voice was heard at this instant at a distance. I had only time to make the poor woman understand that I wished to appear to be dead; she took the hint with surprising quickness. Captain Crawley came up the steps, talking in the tone of a master to the steward and people who followed.
"What is this old hag doing here? Where is Robert? Where is Thomas? I ordered them to stay till I came. Mr. Turner, why did not you stay? What! has not the coroner been here yet? The coroner must see the body, I tell you. Good God! What a parcel of blockheads you all are! How many times must I tell you the same thing? Nothing can be done till the coroner has seen him; then we'll talk about the funeral, Mr. Turner—one thing at a time. Every thing shall be done properly, Mr. Turner. Lady Glenthorn trusts every thing to me—Lady Glenthorn wishes that I should order every thing."
"To be sure—no doubt—very proper—I don't say against that."
"But," continued Crawley, turning towards the sofa upon which I lay, and seeing Ellinor kneeling beside me, "what keeps this old Irish witch here still? What business have you here, pray; and who are you, or what are you?"
"Plase your honour, I was his nurse formerly, and so had a nat'ral longing to see him once again before I would die."
"And did you come all the way from Ireland on this wise errand?"
"Troth I did—every inch of the way from his own sweet place."
"Why, you are little better than a fool, I think," said Crawley.
"Little better, plase your honour; but I was always so about them childer that I nursed."
"Childer! Well, get along about your business now; you see your nursing is not wanted here."
"I'll not stir out of this, while he is here," said my nurse, catching hold of the leg of the sofa, and clinging to it.
"You'll not stir, you say," cried Captain Crawley: "Turn her out!"
"Oh, sure you would not have the cru'lty to turn his old nurse out before he's even cowld. And won't you let me see him buried?"
"Out with her! out with her! the old Irish hag! We'll have no howling here. Out with her, John!" said Crawley to my groom.
The groom hesitated, I fancy; for Crawley repeated the order more imperiously: "Out with her! or go yourself."
"May be it's you that will go first yourself," said she.
"Go first myself!" cried Captain Crawley, furiously: "Are you insolent to me?"
"And are not you cru'l to me, and to my child I nursed, that lies all as one as dead before you, and was a good friend to you in his day, no doubt?"
Crawley seized hold of her: but she resisted with so much energy, that she dragged along with her the sofa to which she clung, and on which I lay.
"Stop!" cried I, starting up. There was sudden silence. I looked round, but could not utter another syllable. Now, for the first time, I was sensible that I had been really hurt by the fall. My head grew giddy, and my stomach sick. I just saw Crawley's fallen countenance, and him and the steward looking at one another; they were like hideous faces in a dream. I sunk back.
"Ay, lie down, my darling; don't be disturbing yourself for such as them," said my nurse. "Let them do what they will with me; it's little I'd care for them, if you were but once in safe hands."
I beckoned to the groom, who had hesitated to turn out Ellinor, and bid him go to the housekeeper, and have me put to bed. "She," added I, pointing to my old nurse, "is to sit up with me at night." It was all I could say. What they did with me afterwards, I do not know; but I was in my bed, and a bandage was round my temples, and my poor nurse was kneeling on one side of the bed, with a string of beads in her hand; and a surgeon and physician, and Crawley and my Lady Glenthorn were on the other side, whispering together. The curtain was drawn between me and them; but the motion I made on wakening was instantly observed by Crawley, who immediately left the room. Lady Glenthorn drew back my curtain, and began to ask me how I did: but when I fixed my eyes upon her, she sunk upon the bed, trembling violently, and could not finish her sentence. I begged her to go to rest, and she retired. The physician ordered that I should be kept quiet, and seemed to think I was in danger. I asked what was the matter with me? and the surgeon, with a very grave face, informed me that I had an ugly contusion on my head. I had heard of a concussion of the brain; but I did not know distinctly what it was, and my fears were increased by my ignorance. The life which, but a few hours before, I had been on the point of voluntarily destroying, because it was insupportably burdensome, I was now, the moment it was in danger, most anxious to preserve; and the interest which I perceived others had in getting rid of me, increased my desire to recover. My recovery was, however, for some time doubtful. I was seized with a fever, which left me in a state of alarming debility. My old nurse, whom I shall henceforward call by her name of Ellinor, attended me with the most affectionate solicitude during my illness;[76] she scarcely stirred from my bedside, night or day; and, indeed, when I came to the use of my senses, she was the only person whom I really liked to have near me. I knew that she was sincere; and, however unpolished her manners, and however awkward her assistance, the good-will with which it was given, made me prefer it to the most delicate and dexterous attentions which I believed to be interested. The very want of a sense of propriety, and the freedom with which she talked to me, regardless of what was suited to her station, or due to my rank, instead of offending or disgusting me, became agreeable; besides, the novelty of her dialect, and of her turn of thought, entertained me as much as a sick man could be entertained. I remember once her telling me, that, "if it plased God, she would like to die on a Christmas-day, of all days; because the gates of Heaven, they say, will be open all that day; and who knows but a body might slip in unknownst?" When she sat up with me at nights she talked on eternally; for she assured me there was nothing like talking, as she had found, to put one asy asleep. I listened or not, just as I liked; any way she was contint. She was inexhaustible in her anecdotes of my ancestors, all tending to the honour and glory of the family; she had also an excellent memory for all the insults, or traditions of insults, which the Glenthorns had received for many ages back, even to the times of the old kings of Ireland; long and long before they stooped to be lorded; when their "names, which it was a pity and a murder, and moreover a burning shame, to change, was, O'Shaughnessy." She was well-stored with histories of Irish and Scotish chiefs. The story of O'Neill, the Irish blackbeard, I am sure I ought to remember, for Ellinor told it to me at least six times. Then she had a large assortment of fairies and shadowless witches, and banshees; and besides, she had legions of spirits and ghosts, and haunted castles without end, my own castle of Glenthorn not excepted, in the description of which she was extremely eloquent; she absolutely excited in my mind some desire to see it. For many a long year, she said, it had been her nightly prayer, that she might live to see me in my own castle; and often and often she was coming over to England to tell me so, only her husband, as long as he lived, would not let her set out on what he called a fool's errand: but it pleased God to take him to himself last fair day, and then she resolved that nothing should hinder her to be with her own child against his birthday: and now, could she see me in my own Castle Glenthorn, she would die contint—and what a pity but I should be in it! I was only a lord, as she said, in England; but I could be all as one as a king in Ireland.
Ellinor impressed me with the idea of the sort of feudal power I should possess in my vast territory, over tenants who were almost vassals, and amongst a numerous train of dependents. We resist the efforts made by those who, we think, exert authority or employ artifice to change our determinations; whilst the perverse mind insensibly yields to those who appear not to have power, or reason, or address, sufficient to obtain a victory. I should not have heard any human being with patience try to persuade me to go to Ireland, except this ignorant poor nurse, who spoke, as I thought, merely from the instinct of affection to me and to her native country. I promised her that I would, some time or other, visit Glenthorn Castle: but this was only a vague promise, and it was but little likely that it should be accomplished. As I regained my strength, my mind turned, or rather was turned, to other thoughts.
One morning—it was the day after my physicians had pronounced me out of all danger—Crawley sent me a note by Ellinor, congratulating me upon my recovery, and begging to speak to me for half an hour. I refused to see him; and said, that I was not yet well enough to do business. The same morning Ellinor came with a message from Turner, my steward, who, with his humble duty, requested to see me for five minutes, to communicate to me something of importance. I consented to see Turner. He entered with a face of suppressed joy and affected melancholy.
"Sad news I am bound in duty to be the bearer of, my lord. I was determined, whatever came to pass, however, not to speak till your honour was out of danger, which, I thank Heaven, is now the case, and I am happy to be able to congratulate your lordship upon looking as well as—"
"Never mind my looks. I will excuse your congratulations, Mr. Turner," said I, impatiently; for the recollection of the banqueting-house, and the undertaker whom Turner was so eager to introduce, came full into my mind. "Go on, if you please; five minutes is all I am at present able to give to any business, and you sent me word you had something of importance to communicate."
"True, my lord; but in case your lordship is not at present well enough, or not so disposed, I will wait your lordship's leisure."
"Now or never, Mr. Turner. Speak, but speak at once."
"My lord, I would have done so long ago, but was loth to make mischief; and besides, could not believe what I heard whispered, and would scarce believe what I verily saw; though now, as I cannot reasonably have a doubt, I think it would be a sin, and a burden upon my conscience, not to speak; only that I am unwilling to shock your lordship too much, when but just recovering, for that is not the time one would wish to tell or to hear disagreeable things."
"Mr. Turner, either come to the point at once, or leave me; for I am not strong enough to bear this suspense."
"I beg pardon, my lord: why then, my lord, the point is Captain
Crawley."
"What of him? I never desire to hear his name again."
"Nor I, I am sure, my lord; but there are some in the house might not be of our opinion."
"Who? you sneaking fellow; speak out, can't you?"
"My lady—my lord—Now it is out. She'll go off with him this night, if not prevented."
My surprise and indignation were as great as if I had always been the fondest and the most attentive of husbands. I was at length roused from that indifference and apathy into which I had sunk; and though I had never loved my wife, the moment I knew she was lost to me for ever was exquisitely painful. Astonishment, the sense of disgrace, the feeling of rage against that treacherous parasite by whom she had been seduced, all combined to overwhelm me. I could command my voice only enough to bid Turner leave the room, and tell no one that he had spoken to me on this subject. "Not a soul," he said, "should be told, or could guess it."
Left to my own reflections, as soon as the first emotions of anger subsided, I blamed myself for my conduct to Lady Glenthorn. I considered that she had been married to me by her friends, when she was too young and too childish to judge for herself; that from the first day of our marriage I had never made the slightest effort to win her affections, or to guide her conduct; that, on the contrary, I had shown her marked indifference, if not aversion. With fashionable airs, I had professed, that provided she left me at liberty to spend the large fortune which she brought me, and in consideration of which she enjoyed the title of Countess of Glenthorn, I cared for nothing farther. With the consequences of my neglect I now reproached myself in vain. Lady Glenthorn's immense fortune had paid my debts, and had for two years supplied my extravagance, or rather my indolence: little remained, and she was now, in her twenty-third year, to be consigned to public disgrace, and to a man whom I knew to be destitute of honour and feeling. I pitied her, and resolved to go instantly and make an effort to save her from destruction.
Ellinor, who watched all Crawley's motions, informed me, that he was gone to a neighbouring town, and had left word that he should not be home till after dinner. Lady Glenthorn was in her dressing-room, which was at a part of the house farthest from that which I now inhabited. I had never left my room since my illness, and had scarcely walked farther than from my bed to my arm-chair; but I was so much roused by my feelings at this instant, that, to Ellinor's great astonishment, I started from my chair, and, forbidding her to follow me, walked without any assistance along the corridor, which led to the back-stairs, and to Lady Glenthorn's apartment. I opened the private door of her dressing-room suddenly—the room was in great disorder—her woman was upon her knees packing a trunk: Lady Glenthorn was standing at a table, with a parcel of open letters before her, and a diamond necklace in her hand. She started at the sight of me as if she had beheld a ghost: the maid screamed, and ran to a door at the farther end of the room, to make her escape, but that was bolted. Lady Glenthorn was pale and motionless, till I approached; and then, recollecting herself, she reddened all over, and thrust the letters into her table-drawer. Her woman, at the same instant, snatched a casket of jewels, swept up in her arms a heap of clothes, and huddled them all together into the half-packed trunk.
"Leave the room," said I to her sternly. She locked the trunk, pocketed the key, and obeyed.
I placed a chair for Lady Glenthorn, and sat down myself. We were almost equally unable to stand. We were silent for some moments. Her eyes were fixed upon the ground, and she leaned her head upon her hand in an attitude of despair. I could scarcely articulate; but making an effort to command my voice, I at last said—
"Lady Glenthorn, I blame myself more than you for all that has happened."
"For what?" said she, making a feeble attempt at evasion, yet at the same time casting a guilty look towards the drawer of letters.
"You have nothing to conceal from me," said I.
"Nothing!" said she, in a feeble voice.
"Nothing," said I; "for I know every thing"—she started—"and am willing to pardon every thing."
She looked up in my face astonished. "I am conscious," continued I, "that you have not been well treated by me. You have had much reason to complain of my neglect. To this I attribute your error. Forget the past—I will set you the example. Promise me never to see the man more, and what has happened shall never be known to the world."
She made me no answer, but burst into a flood of tears. She seemed incapable of decision, or even of thought. I felt suddenly inspired with energy.
"Write this moment," continued I, placing a pen and ink before her, "write to forbid him ever to return to this house, or ever more to appear in your presence. If he should appear in mine, I know how to chastise him, and to vindicate my own honour. To preserve your reputation, I refrain, upon these conditions, from making my contempt of him public."
I put a pen into Lady Glenthorn's hand; but she trembled so that she could not write. She made several ineffectual attempts, then tore the paper; and again giving way to tears, exclaimed, "I cannot write—I cannot think—I do not know what to say. Write what you will, and I will sign it."
"I write to Captain Crawley! Write what I will! Lady Glenthorn, it must be your will to write, not mine. If it be not your will, say so."
"Oh! I do not say so—I do not say that. Give me a moment's time. I do not know what I say. I have been very foolish—very wicked. You are very good—but it is too late: it will all be known. Crawley will betray me; he will tell it to Mrs. Mattocks: so whichever way I turn, I am undone. Oh! what will become of me?"
She wrung her hands and wept, and was for an hour in this state, in all the indecision and imbecility of a child. At last, she wrote a few scarcely legible lines to Crawley, forbidding him to see or think of her more. I despatched the note, and she was full of penitence, and gratitude, and tears. The next morning, when I wakened, I in my turn received a note from her ladyship.
"Since I saw you, Captain Crawley has convinced me that I am his wife, in the eye of Heaven, and I therefore desire a divorce, as much as your whole conduct, since my marriage, convinces me you must in your heart, whatever may be your motives to pretend otherwise. Before you receive this I shall be out of your way and beyond your reach; so do not think of pursuing one who is no longer,
"Yours,
After reading this note, I thought not of pursuing or saving Lady Glenthorn. I was as anxious for a divorce as she could be. Some months afterwards the affair was brought to a public trial. When the cause came on, so many circumstances were brought in mitigation of damages, to prove my utter carelessness respecting my wife's conduct, that a suspicion of collusion arose. From this imputation I was clear in the opinion of all who really knew me; and I repelled the charge publicly, with a degree of indignation that surprised all who knew the usual apathy of my temper. I must observe, that during the whole time my divorce-bill was pending, and whilst I was in the greatest possible anxiety, my health was perfectly good. But no sooner was the affair settled, and a decision made in my favour, than I relapsed into my old nervous complaints.
"'Twas doing nothing was his curse;—
Is there a vice can plague us worse?
The wretch who digs the mine for bread,
Or ploughs, that others may be fed,
Feels less fatigue than that decreed
To him who cannot think or read."
Illness was a sort of occupation to me, and I was always sorry to get well. When the interest of being in danger ceased, I had no other to supply its place. I fancied that I should enjoy my liberty after my divorce; but "even freedom grew tasteless." I do not recollect any thing that wakened me from my torpor, during two months after my divorce, except a violent quarrel between all my English servants and my Irish nurse. Whether she assumed too much, upon the idea that she was a favourite, or whether national prejudice was alone the cause of the hatred, that prevailed against her, I know not; but they one and all declared that they could not, and would not, live with her. She expressed the same dislike to consorting with them; "but would put up with worse, ay, with the devils themselves, to oblige my honour, and to lie under the same roof wid my honour."
The rest of the servants laughed at her blunders. This she could bear with good-humour; but when they seriously affected to reproach her with having, by her uncouth appearance, at her first presenting herself at Sherwood Park, endangered my life, she retorted, "And who cared for him in the wide world but I, amongst you all, when he lay for dead? I ask you that," said she.
To this there was no reply; and they hated her the more for their having been silenced by her shrewdness. I protected her as long as I could; but, for the sake of peace, I at last yielded to the combined forces of the steward's room and the servants' hall, and despatched Ellinor to Ireland, with a renewal of the promise that I would visit Glenthorn Castle this year or the next. To comfort her at parting, I would have made her a considerable present; but she would take only a few guineas, to bear her expenses back to her native place. The sacrifice I made did not procure me a peace of any continuance in my own house:—ruined by indulgence, and by my indolent, reckless temper, my servants were now my masters. In a large, ill-regulated establishment, domestics become, like spoiled children, discontented, capricious, and the tyrants over those who have not the sense or steadiness to command. I remember one delicate puppy parted with me, because, as he informed me, the curtains of his bed did not close at the foot; he had never been used to such a thing, and had told the housekeeper so three times, but could obtain no redress, which necessitated him to beg my permission to retire from the service.
In his stead another coxcomb came to offer himself, who, with an incomparably easy air, begged to know whether I wanted a man of figure or a man of parts? For the benefit of those to whom this fashionable classification of domestics may not be familiar, I should observe, that the department of a man of figure is specially and solely to announce company on gala days; the business of the man of parts is multifarious: to write cards of invitation, to speak to impertinent tradesmen, to carry confidential messages, et cetera. Now, where there is an et cetera in an agreement, there is always an opening for dispute. The functions of the man of parts not being accurately defined, I unluckily required from him some service which was not in his bond; I believe it was to go for my pocket handkerchief: "He could not possibly do it, because it was not his business;" and I, the laziest of mortals, after waiting a full quarter of an hour, whilst they were settling whose business it was to obey me, was forced to get up and go for what I wanted. I comforted myself by the recollection of the poor king of Spain and le brasier. With a regal precedent I could not but be satisfied. All great people, said I to myself, are obliged to submit to these inconveniences. I submitted with so good a grace, that my submission was scarcely felt to be a condescension. My bachelor's house soon exhibited in perfection "High Life below Stairs."
It is said that a foreign nobleman permitted his servants to take their own way so completely, that one night he and his guests being kept waiting an unconscionable time for supper, he at last went down stairs to inquire into the cause of the delay: he found the servant, whose business it was to take up supper, quietly at cards with a large party of his friends. The man coolly remonstrated, that it was impossible to leave his game unfinished. The master candidly acknowledged the force of his plea; but insisted upon the man's going up stairs to lay the cloth for supper, whilst he took his cards, sat down, and finished the game for him.
The suavity of my temper never absolutely reached this degree of complaisance. My home was disagreeable to me: I had not the resolution to remove the causes of the discontents. Every day I swore I would part with all these rascals the next morning; but still they stayed. Abroad I was not happier than at home. I was disgusted with my former companions: they had convinced me, the night of my accident at Sherwood Park, that they cared not whether I was alive or dead; and ever since that time I had been more and more struck with their selfishness as well as folly. It was inexpressibly fatiguing and irksome to me to keep up a show of good fellowship and joviality with these people, though I had not sufficient energy to make the attempt to quit them. When these dashers and loungers found that I was not always at their disposal, they discovered that Glenthorn had always something odd about him; that Glenthorn had always a melancholy turn; that it ran in the family, &c. Satisfied with these phrases, they let me take my own way, and forgot my existence. Public amusements had lost their charm; I had sufficient steadiness to resist the temptation to game: but, for want of stimulus, I could hardly endure the tedium of my days. At this period of my life, ennui was very near turning into misanthropy. I balanced between becoming a misanthrope and a democrat.
Whilst I was in this critical state of ineptitude, my attention was accidentally roused by the sight of a boxing-match. My feelings were so much excited, and the excitation was so delightful, that I was now in danger of becoming an amateur of the pugilistic art. It did not occur to me, that it was beneath the dignity of a British nobleman to learn the vulgar terms of the boxing trade. I soon began to talk very knowingly of first-rate bruisers, game men, and pleasing fighters; making play—beating a man under the ropes—sparring—rallying—sawing—and chopping. What farther proficiency I might have made in this language, or how long my interest in these feats of prize-fighters might have continued, had I been left to myself, I cannot determine; but I was unexpectedly seized with a fit of national shame, on hearing a foreigner of rank and reputation express astonishment at our taste for these savage spectacles. It was in vain that I repeated the arguments of some of the parliamentary panegyrists of boxing and bull-baiting; and asserted, that these diversions render a people hardy and courageous. My opponent replied, that he did not perceive the necessary connexion between cruelty and courage; that he did not comprehend how the standing by in safety to see two men bruise each other almost to death could evince or inspire heroic sentiments or warlike dispositions. He observed, that the Romans were most eager for the fights of gladiators during the reigns of the most effeminate and cruel emperors, and in the decline of all public spirit and virtue. These arguments would have probably made but a feeble impression on an understanding like mine, unaccustomed to general reasoning, and on a temper habituated to pursue, without thought of consequences, my immediate individual gratification; but it happened that my feelings were touched at this time by the dreadful sufferings of one of the pugilistic combatants. He died a few hours after the battle. He was an Irishman: most of the spectators being English, and triumphing in the victory of their countryman, the poor fellow's fate was scarcely noticed. I spoke to him a little while before he died, and found that he came from my own county. His name was Michael Noonan. He made it his dying request, that I would carry half-a-guinea, the only money he possessed, to his aged father, and a silk handkerchief he had worn round his neck, to his sister. Pity for this unfortunate Irishman recalled Ireland to my thoughts. Many small reasons concurred to make me now desirous of going to that country. I should get rid at once of a tormenting establishment, and of servants, without the odium of turning them away; for most of them declined going into banishment, as they called it. Besides this, I should leave my companions, with whom I was disgusted. I was tired of England, and wanted to see something new, even if it were to be worse than what I had seen before. These were not my ostensible reasons: I professed to have more exalted motives for my journey. It was my duty, I said, to visit my Irish estate, and to encourage my tenantry, by residing some time among them. Duties often spring up to our view at a convenient opportunity. Then my promise to poor Ellinor; it was impossible for a man of honour to break a promise, even to an old woman: in short, when people are determined upon any action, they seldom fail to find arguments capable of convincing them that their resolution is reasonable. Mixed motives govern the conduct of half mankind; so I set out upon my journey to Ireland.
"Es tu contente à la fleur de tes ans?
As tu des goûts et des amusemens?
Tu dois mener une assez douce vie.
L'autre en deux mots répondait 'Je m'ennuie.'
C'est un grand mal, dit la fée, et je crois
Qu'un beau secret est de rester chez soi."—
I was detained six days by contrary winds at Holyhead. Sick of that miserable place, in my ill-humour I cursed Ireland, and twice resolved to return to London: but the wind changed, my carriage was on board the packet; so I sailed and landly safely in Dublin. I was surprised by the excellence of the hotel at which I was lodged. I had not conceived that such accommodation could have been found in Dublin. The house had, as I was told, belonged to a nobleman: it was fitted up and appointed with a degree of elegance, and even magnificence, beyond what I had been used to in the most fashionable hotels in London.
"Ah! sir," said an Irish gentleman, who found me in admiration upon the staircase, "this is all very good, very fine, but it is too good and too fine to last; come here again in two years, and I am afraid you will see all this going to rack and ruin. This is too often the case with us in Ireland: we can project, but we can't calculate; we must have every thing upon too large a scale. We mistake a grand beginning for a good beginning. We begin like princes, and we end like beggars."
I rested only a few days in a capital in which, I took it for granted, there could be nothing worth seeing by a person who was just come from London. In driving through the streets, I was, however, surprised to see buildings, which my prejudices could scarcely believe to be Irish. I also saw some things, which recalled to my mind the observations I had heard at my hotel. I was struck with instances of grand beginnings and lamentable want of finish, with mixture of the magnificent and the paltry; of admirable and execrable taste. Though my understanding was wholly uncultivated, these things struck my eye. Of all the faculties of my mind, my taste had been most exercised, because its exercise had given me least trouble.
Impatient to see my own castle, I left Dublin. I was again astonished by the beauty of the prospects, and the excellence of the roads. I had in my ignorance believed that I was never to see a tree in Ireland, and that the roads were almost impassable. With the promptitude of credulity, I now went from one extreme to the other: I concluded that we should travel with the same celerity as upon the Bath road; and I expected, that a journey for which four days had been allotted might be performed in two. Like all those who have nothing to do any where, I was always in a prodigious hurry to get from place to place; and I ever had a noble ambition to go over as much ground as possible in a given space of time. I travelled in a light barouche, and with my own horses. My own man (an Englishman), and my cook (a Frenchman), followed in a hackney chaise; I cared not how, so that they kept up with me; the rest was their affair. At night, my gentleman complained bitterly of the Irish post carriages, and besought me to let him follow at an easier rate the next day; but to this I could by no means consent: for how could I exist without my own man and my French cook? In the morning, just as I was ready to set off, and had thrown myself back in my carriage, my Englishman and Frenchman came to the door, both in so great a rage, that the one was inarticulate and the other unintelligible. At length the object of their indignation spoke for itself. From the inn yard came a hackney chaise, in a most deplorable crazy state; the body mounted up to a prodigious height, on unbending springs, nodding forwards, one door swinging open, three blinds up, because they could not be let down, the perch tied in two places, the iron of the wheels half off, half loose, wooden pegs for linch-pins, and ropes for harness. The horses were worthy of the harness; wretched little dog-tired creatures, that looked as if they had been driven to the last gasp, and as if they had never been rubbed down in their lives; their bones starting through their skin; one lame, the other blind; one with a raw back, the other with a galled breast; one with his neck poking down over his collar, and the other with his head dragged forward by a bit of a broken bridle, held at arm's length by a man dressed like a mad beggar, in half a hat and half a wig, both awry in opposite directions; a long tattered great-coat, tied round his waist by a hay-rope; the jagged rents in the skirts of his coat showing his bare legs marbled of many colours; while something like stockings hung loose about his ankles. The noises he made by way of threatening or encouraging his steeds, I pretend not to describe.
In an indignant voice I called to the landlord, "I hope these are not the horses—I hope this is not the chaise, intended for my servants."
The innkeeper, and the pauper who was preparing to officiate as postilion, both in the same instant exclaimed, "Sorrow better chaise in the county!"
"Sorrow" said I; "what do you mean by sorrow?"
"That there's no better, plase your honour, can be seen. We have two more, to be sure; but one has no top, and the other no bottom. Any way there's no better can be seen than this same." [77]
"And these horses!" cried I; "why, this horse is so lame he can hardly stand."
"Oh, plase your honour, tho' he can't stand, he'll go fast enough. He has a great deal of the rogue in him, plase your honour. He's always that way at first setting out."
"And that wretched animal with the galled breast!"
"He's all the better for it, when once he warms; it's he that will go with the speed of light, plase your honour. Sure, is not he Knockecroghery? and didn't I give fifteen guineas for him, barring the luck penny, at the fair of Knockecroghery, and he rising four year old at the same time?"
I could not avoid smiling at this speech: but my gentleman, maintaining his angry gravity, declared, in a sullen tone, that he would be cursed if he went with such horses; and the Frenchman, with abundance of gesticulation, made a prodigious chattering, which no mortal understood.
"Then I'll tell you what you'll do," said Paddy; "you'll take four, as becomes gentlemen of your quality, and you'll see how we'll powder along."
And straight he put the knuckle of his fore-finger in his mouth, and whistled shrill and strong; and, in a moment, a whistle somewhere out in the fields answered him.
I protested against these proceedings, but in vain; before the first pair of horses were fastened to the chaise, up came a little boy with the others fresh from the plough. They were quick enough in putting these to; yet how they managed it with their tackle, I know not. "Now we're fixed handsomely," said Paddy.
"But this chaise will break down the first mile."
"Is it this chaise, plase your honour? I'll engage it will go the world's end. The universe wouldn't break it down now; sure it was mended but last night."
Then seizing his whip and reins in one hand, he clawed up his stockings with the other: so with one easy step he got into his place, and seated himself, coachman-like, upon a well-worn bar of wood, that served as a coach-box. "Throw me the loan of a trusty Bartly, for a cushion," said he. A frieze coat was thrown up over the horses' heads—Paddy caught it. "Where are you, Hosey?" cried he. "Sure I'm only rowling a wisp of straw on my leg," replied Hosey. "Throw me up," added this paragon of postilions, turning to one of the crowd of idle bystanders. "Arrah, push me up, can't ye?"
A man took hold of his knee, and threw him upon the horse: he was in his seat in a trice; then clinging by the mane of his horse, he scrambled for the bridle, which was under the other horse's feet—reached it, and, well satisfied with himself, looked round at Paddy, who looked back to the chaise-door at my angry servants, "secure in the last event of things." In vain the Englishman in monotonous anger, and the Frenchman in every note of the gamut, abused Paddy: necessity and wit were on Paddy's side; he parried all that was said against his chaise, his horses, himself, and his country, with invincible comic dexterity, till at last, both his adversaries, dumb-foundered, clambered into the vehicle, where they were instantly shut up in straw and darkness. Paddy, in a triumphant tone, called to my postilions, bidding them "get on, and not be stopping the way any longer."
Without uttering a syllable, they drove on; but they could not, nor could I, refrain from looking back to see how those fellows would manage. We saw the fore-horses make towards the right, then to the left, and every way but straight forwards; whilst Paddy bawled to Hosey—"Keep the middle of the road, can't ye? I don't want ye to draw a pound at-all-at-all."
At last, by dint of whipping, the four horses were compelled to set off in a lame gallop; but they stopped short at a hill near the end of the town, whilst a shouting troop of ragged boys followed, and pushed them fairly to the top. Half an hour afterwards, as we were putting on our drag-chain to go down another steep hill,—to my utter astonishment, Paddy, with his horses in full gallop, came rattling and chehupping past us. My people called to warn him that he had no drag: but still he cried "Never fear!" and shaking the long reins, and stamping with his foot, on he went thundering down the hill. My Englishmen were aghast.
"The turn yonder below, at the bottom of the hill, is as sharp and ugly as ever I see," said my postilion, after a moment's stupified silence. "He will break their necks, as sure as my name is John."
Quite the contrary: when we had dragged and undragged, and came up to Paddy, we found him safe on his legs, mending some of his tackle very quietly.
"If that had broken as you were going down the steep hill," said I, "it would have been all over with you, Paddy."
"That's true, plase your honour: but it never happened me going down hill—nor never will, by the blessing of God, if I've any luck."
With this mixed confidence in a special providence, and in his own good luck, Paddy went on, much to my amusement. It was his glory to keep before us; and he rattled on till he came to a narrow part of the road, where they were rebuilding a bridge. Here there was a dead stop. Paddy lashed his horses, and called them all manner of names; but the wheel horse, Knockecroghery, was restive, and at last began to kick most furiously. It seemed inevitable that the first kick which should reach the splinter-bar, at which it was aimed, must demolish it instantly. My English gentleman and my Frenchman both put their heads out of the only window which was pervious, and called most manfully to be let out. "Never fear," said Paddy. To open the door for themselves was beyond their force or skill. One of the hind wheels, which had belonged to another carriage, was too high to suffer the door to be opened, and the blind at the other side prevented their attempts, so they were close prisoners. The men who had been at work on the broken bridge came forward, and rested on their spades to see the battle. As my carriage could not pass, I was also compelled to be a spectator of this contest between man and horse.
"Never fear," reiterated Paddy; "I'll engage I'll be up wid him. Now for it, Knockecroghery! Oh, the rogue, he thinks he has me at a nonplush, but I'll show him the differ."
After this brag of war, Paddy whipped, Knockecroghery kicked; and Paddy, seemingly unconscious of danger, sat within reach of the kicking horse, twitching up first one of his legs, then the other, and shifting as the animal aimed his hoofs, escaping every time as it were by miracle. With a mixture of temerity and presence of mind, which made us alternately look upon him as a madman and a hero, he gloried in the danger, secure of success, and of the sympathy of the spectators.
"Ah! didn't I compass him cleverly then? Oh, the villain, to be browbating me! I'm too cute for him yet. See there, now, he's come to; and I'll be his bail he'll go asy enough wid me. Ogh! he has a fine spirit of his own, but it's I that can match him: 'twould be a poor case if a man like me cou'dn't match a horse any way, let alone a mare, which this is, or it never would be so vicious."
After this hard-fought battle, and suitable rejoicing for the victory, Paddy walked his subdued adversary on a few yards to allow us to pass him; but, to the dismay of my postilions, a hay-rope was at this instant thrown across the road, before our horses, by the road-makers, who, to explain this proceeding, cried out, "Plase your honour, the road is so dry, we'd expect a trifle to wet it."
"What do these fellows mean?" said I.
"It's only a tester or a hog they want, your honour, to give 'em to drink your honour's health," said Paddy.
"A hog to drink my health?"
"Ay, that is a thirteen, plase your honour; all as one as an English shilling."
I threw them a shilling: the hay-rope was withdrawn, and at last we went on. We heard no more of Paddy till evening. He came in two hours after us, and expected to be doubly paid for driving my honour's gentlemen so well.
I must say that on this journey, though I met with many delays and disasters; though one of my horses was lamed in shoeing by a smith, who came home drunk from a funeral; and though the back pannel of my carriage was broken by the pole of a chaise; and though one day I went without my dinner at a large desolate inn, where nothing was to be had but whiskey; and though one night I lay in a little smoky den, in which the meanest of my servants in England would have thought it impossible to sleep; and though I complained bitterly, and swore it was impracticable for a gentleman to travel in Ireland; yet I never remember to have experienced, on any journey, less ennui.[78] I was out of patience twenty times a day, but I certainly felt no ennui; and I am convinced that the benefit some patients receive from a journey is in an inverse proportion to the ease and luxury of their mode of travelling. When they are compelled to exert their faculties, and to use their limbs, they forget their nerves, as I did. Upon this principle I should recommend to wealthy hypochondriacs a journey in Ireland, preferably to any country in the civilized world. I can promise them, that they will not only be moved to anger often enough to make their blood circulate briskly, but they will even, in the acme of their impatience, be thrown into salutary convulsions of laughter, by the comic concomitants of their disasters: besides, if they have hearts, their best feelings cannot fail to be awakened by the warm, generous hospitality they will receive in this country, from the cabin to the castle.
Late in the evening of the fourth day, we came to an inn on the verge of the county where my estate was situate. It was one of the wildest parts of Ireland. We could find no horses, nor accommodations of any sort, and we had several miles farther to go. For our only comfort, the dirty landlady, who had married the hostler, and wore gold drop ear-rings, reminded us, that, "Sure, if we could but wait an hour, and take a fresh egg, we should have a fine moon."
After many fruitless imprecations, my French cook was obliged to mount one of my saddle-horses; my groom was left to follow us the next day; I let my gentleman sit on the barouche box, and proceeded with my own tired horses. The moon, which my landlady had promised me, rose, and I had a full view of the face of the country. As we approached my maritime territories, the cottages were thinly scattered, and the trees had a stunted appearance; they all slanted one way, from the prevalent winds that blew from the ocean. Our road presently stretched along the beach, and I saw nothing to vary the prospect but rocks, and their huge shadows upon the water. The road being sandy, the feet of the horses made no noise, and nothing interrupted the silence of the night but the hissing sound of the carriage-wheels passing through the sand.
"What o'clock is it now, think you, John?" said one of my postilions to the other.
"Past twelve, for sartain," said John; "and this bees a strange Irish place," continued he, in a drawling voice; "with no possible way o' getting at it, as I see." John, after a pause, resumed, "I say, Timothy, to the best of my opinion, this here road is leading on us into the sea." John replied, "that he did suppose there might be such a thing as a boat farther on, but where, he could not say for sartain." Dismayed and helpless, they at last stopped to consult whether they had come the right road to the house. In the midst of their consultation there came up an Irish carman, whistling as he walked beside his horse and car.
"Honest friend, is this the road to Glenthorn Castle?"
"To Glenthorn, sure enough, your honour."
"Whereabouts is the castle?"
"Forenent you, if you go on to the turn."
"Forenent you!" As the postilions pondered upon this word, the carman, leaving his horse, and car, turned back to explain by action what he could not make intelligible by words.
"See, isn't here the castle?" cried he, darting before us to the turn of the road, where he stood pointing at what we could not possibly see, as it was hid by a promontory of rock. When we f reached the spot where he was stationed, we came full upon the view of Glenthorn Castle: it seemed to rise from the sea, abrupt and insulated, in all the gloomy grandeur of ancient times, with turrets and battlements, and a huge gateway, the pointed arch of which receded in perspective between the projecting towers.
"It's my lord himself, I'm fond to believe!" said our guide, taking off his hat; "I had best step on and tell 'em at the castle."
"No, my good friend, there is no occasion to trouble you farther; you had better go back to your horse and car, which you have left on the road."
"Oh! they are used to that, plase your honour; they'll go on very quite, and I'll run like a redshank with the news to the castle."
He ran on before us with surprising velocity, whilst our tired horses dragged us slowly through the sand. As we approached, the gateway of the castle opened, and a number of men, who appeared to be dwarfs when compared with the height of the building, came out with torches in their hands. By their bustle, and the vehemence with which they bawled to one another, one might have thought that the whole castle was in flames; but they were only letting down a drawbridge. As I was going over this bridge, a casement window opened in the castle; and a voice, which I knew to be old Ellinor's, exclaimed, "Mind the big hole in the middle of the bridge, God bless yees!"
I passed over the broken bridge, and through the massive gate, under an arched way, at the farthest end of which a lamp had just been lighted: then I came into a large open area, the court of the castle. The hollow sound of the horses' feet, and of the carriage rumbling over the drawbridge, was immediately succeeded by the strange and eager voices of the people, who filled the court with a variety of noises, contrasting, in the most striking manner, with the silence in which we had travelled over the sands. The great effect that my arrival instantaneously produced upon the multitude of servants and dependants, who issued from the castle, gave me an idea of my own consequence beyond any thing which I had ever felt in England. These people seemed "born for my use:" the officious precipitation with which they ran to and fro; the style in which they addressed me; some crying, "Long life to the Earl of Glenthorn!" some blessing me for coming to reign over them; all together gave more the idea of vassals than of tenants, and carried my imagination centuries back to feudal times.
The first person I saw on entering the hall of my castle was poor
Ellinor: she pushed her way up to me—
"'Tis himself!" cried she. Then turning about suddenly, "I've seen him in his own castle—I've seen him; and if it pleases God this minute to take me to himself, I would die with pleasure."
"My good Ellinor," said I, touched to the heart by her affection, "my good Ellinor, I hope you will live many a happy year; and if I can contribute—"
"And himself to speak to me so kind before them all!" interrupted she. "Oh! this is too much—quite too much!" She burst into tears; and, hiding her face with her arm, made her way out of the hall.
The flights of stairs which I had to ascend, and the length of galleries through which I was conducted, before I reached the apartment where supper was served, gave me a vast idea of the extent of my castle; but I was too much fatigued to enjoy fully the gratifications of pride. To the simple pleasures of appetite I was more sensible: I ate heartily of one of the most profusely hospitable suppers that ever was prepared for a noble baron, even in the days when oxen were roasted whole. Then I grew so sleepy, that I was impatient to be shown to my bed. I was ushered through another suite of chambers and galleries; and, as I was traversing one of these, a door of some strange dormitory opened, and a group of female heads were thrust out, in the midst of which I could distinguish old Ellinor's face; but, as I turned my head, the door closed so quickly, that I had no time to speak: I only heard the words, "Blessings on him! that's he!"
I was so sleepy, that I rejoiced having escaped an occasion where I might have been called upon to speak, yet I was really grateful to my poor nurse for her blessing. The state tower, in which, after reiterated entreaties, I was at last left alone to repose, was hung with magnificent, but ancient tapestry. It was so like a room in a haunted castle, that if I had not been too much fatigued to think of any thing, I should certainly have thought of Mrs. Radcliffe. I am sorry to say that I have no mysteries, or even portentous omens, to record of this night; for the moment that I lay down in my antiquated bed, I fell into a profound sleep.
When I awoke, I thought that I was on shipboard; for the first sound I heard was that of the sea booming against the castle walls. I arose, looked out of the window of my bedchamber, and saw that the whole prospect bore an air of savage wildness. As I contemplated the scene, my imagination was seized with the idea of remoteness from civilized society: the melancholy feeling of solitary grandeur took possession of my soul.
From this feeling I was relieved by the affectionate countenance of my old nurse, who at this instant put her head half in at the door.
"I only just made bold to look in at the fire, to see did it burn, because I lighted it myself, and would not be blowing of it for fear of wakening you."
"Come in, Ellinor, come in," said I. "Come quite in."
"I will, since you've nobody with you that I need be afraid of," said she, looking round satisfied, when she saw my own man was not in the room.
"You need never be afraid of any body, Ellinor, whilst I am alive," said I; "for I will always protect you. I do not forget your conduct, when you thought I was dead in the banqueting-room."
"Oh! don't be talking of that; thanks be to God there was nothing in it! I see you well now. Long life to you! Sure you must have been tired to death last night, for this morning early you lay so quite, sleeping like an angel; and I could see a great likeness in yees to what you were when you were a child in my arms."
"But sit down, sit down, my good Ellinor," said I, "and let us talk a little of your own affairs."
"And are not these my own affairs?" said she, rather angrily.
"Certainly; but I mean, that you must tell me how you are going on in the world, and what I can do to make you comfortable and happy."
"There's one thing would make me happy," said she.
"Name it," said I.
"To be let light your fire myself every morning, and open your shutters, dear."
I could not help smiling at the simplicity of the request. I was going to press her to ask something of more consequence, but she heard a servant coming along the gallery, and, starting from her chair, she ran and threw herself upon her knees before the fire, blowing it with her mouth with great vehemence.
The servant came to let me know that Mr. M'Leod, my agent, was waiting for me in the breakfast-room.
"And will I be let light your fire then every morning?" said Ellinor eagerly, turning as she knelt.
"And welcome," said I.
"Then you won't forget to speak about it for me," said she, "else may be I won't be let up by them English. God bless you, and don't forget to speak for me."
"I will remember to speak about it," said I; but I went down stairs and forgot it.
Mr. M'Leod, whom I found reading the newspaper in the breakfast-room, seemed less affected by my presence than any body I had seen since my arrival. He was a hard-featured, strong-built, perpendicular man, with a remarkable quietness of deportment: he spoke with deliberate distinctness, in an accent slightly Scotch; and, in speaking, he made use of no gesticulation, but held himself surprisingly still. No part of him but his eyes moved, and they had an expression of slow, but determined good sense. He was sparing of his words; but the few that he used said much, and went directly to the point. He pressed for the immediate examination and settlement of his accounts: he enumerated several things of importance, which he had done for my service: but he did this without pretending the slightest attachment to me; he mentioned them only as proofs of his having done his duty to his employer, for which he neither expected nor would accept of thanks. He seemed to be cold and upright in his mind as in his body. I was not influenced in his favour even by his striking appearance of plain-dealing, so strong was the general abhorrence of agents which Crawley's treachery had left in my mind. The excess of credulity, when convinced of its error, becomes the extreme of suspicion. Persons not accustomed to reason often argue absurdly, because, from particular instances, they deduce general conclusions, and extend the result of their limited experience of individuals indiscriminately to whole classes. The labour of thinking was so great to me, that, having once come to a conclusion upon any subject, I would rather persist in it, right or wrong, than be at the trouble of going over the process again to revise and rectify my judgment.
Upon this occasion national prejudice heightened the prepossession which circumstances had raised. Mr. M'Leod was not only an agent, but a Scotchman; and I had a notion that all Scotchmen were crafty: therefore I concluded that his blunt manner was assumed, and his plain-dealing but a more refined species of policy.
After breakfast he laid before me a general statement of my affairs; obliged me to name a day for the examination of his accounts; and then, without expressing either mortification or displeasure at the coldness of my behaviour, or at my evident impatience of his presence, he, unmoved of spirit, rang for his horse, wished me a good morning, and departed.
By this time my castle-yard was filled with a crowd of "great-coated suitors," who were all _come to see—could they see my lordship? _or waiting just to say two words to my honour. In various lounging attitudes, leaning against the walls, or pacing backwards and forwards before the window, to catch my eye, they, with a patience passing the patience of courtiers, waited, hour after hour, the live-long day, for their turn, or their chance, of an audience. I had promised myself the pleasure of viewing my castle this day, and of taking a ride through my grounds; but that was totally out of the question. I was no longer a man with a will of my own, or with time at my own disposal.
"Long may you live to reign over us!" was the signal that I was now to live, like a prince, only for the service of my subjects. How these subjects of mine had contrived to go on for so many years in my absence, I was at a loss to conceive; for, the moment I was present, it seemed evident that they could not exist without me.
One had a wife and six childer, and not a spot in the wide world to live in, if my honour did not let him live under me, in any bit of a skirt of the estate that would feed a cow.
Another had a brother in jail, who could not be got out without me.
Another had three lives dropped in a lase for ever; another wanted a renewal; another a farm; another a house; and one expected my lard would make his son an exciseman; and another that I would make him a policeman; and another was racked, if I did not settle the mearing between him and Corny Corkran; and half a hundred had given in proposials to the agent for lands that would be out next May; and half a hundred more came with legends of traditionary promises from the old lord, my lordship's father that was: and for hours I was forced to listen to long stories out of the face, in which there was such a perplexing and provoking mixture of truth and fiction, involved in language so figurative, and tones so new to my English ears, that, with my utmost patience and strained attention, I could comprehend but a very small portion of what was said to me.
Never were my ears so weary any day of my life as they were this day. I could not have endured the fatigue, if I had not been supported by the agreeable idea of my own power and consequence; a power seemingly next to despotic. This new stimulus sustained me for three days that I was kept a state-prisoner in my own castle, by the crowds who came to do me homage, and to claim my favour and protection. In vain every morning was my horse led about saddled and bridled: I never was permitted to mount. On the fourth morning, when I felt sure of having despatched all my tormentors, I was in astonishment and despair on seeing my levee crowded with a fresh succession of petitioners. I gave orders to my people to say that I was going out, and absolutely could see nobody. I supposed that they did not understand what my English servants said, for they never stirred from their posts. On receiving a second message, they acknowledged that they understood the first; but replied, that they could wait there till my honour came back from my ride. With difficulty I mounted my horse, and escaped from the closing ranks of my persecutors. At night I gave directions to have the gates kept shut, and ordered the porter not to admit any body at his peril. When I got up, I was delighted to see the coast clear; but the moment I went out, lo! at the outside of the gate, the host of besiegers were posted, and in my lawn, and along the road, and through the fields: they pursued me; and when I forbade them to speak to me when I was on horseback, the next day I found parties in ambuscade, who laid wait for me in silence, with their hats off, bowing and bowing, till I could not refrain from saying, "Well, my good friend, what do you stand bowing there for?" Then I was fairly prisoner, and held by the bridle for an hour.
In short, I found that I was now placed in a situation where I could hope neither for privacy nor leisure; but I had the joys of power, my rising passion for which would certainly have been extinguished in a short time by my habitual indolence, if it had not been kept alive by jealousy of Mr. M'Leod.
One day, when I refused to hear an importunate tenant, and declared that I had been persecuted with petitioners ever since my arrival, and that I was absolutely tired to death, the man answered, "True for ye, my lard; and it's a shame to be troubling you this way. Then, may be, it's to Mr. M'Leod I'll go? Sure the agent will do as well, and no more about it. Mr. M'Leod will do every thing the same way as usual."
"Mr. M'Leod will do every thing!" said I, hastily: "no, by no means."
"Who will we speak to, then?" said the man.
"To myself," said I, with as haughty a tone as Louis XIV. could have assumed, when he announced to his court his resolution to be his own minister. After this intrepid declaration to act for myself, I could not yield to my habitual laziness. So much had my pride been hurt, as well as my other feelings, by Captain Crawley's conduct, that I determined to show the world I was not to be duped a second time by an agent.
When, on the day appointed, Mr. M'Leod came to settle accounts with me, I, with an air of self-important capability, as if I had been all my life used to look into my own affairs, sat down to inspect the papers; and, incredible as it may appear, I went through the whole at a sitting, without a single yawn; and, for a man who never before had looked into an account, I understood the nature of debtor and creditor wonderfully well: but, with my utmost desire to evince my arithmetical sagacity, I could not detect the slightest error in the accounts; and it was evident that Mr. M'Leod was not Captain Crawley; yet, rather than believe that he could be both an agent and an honest man, I concluded, that if he did not cheat me out of my money, his aim was to cheat me out of power; and, fancying that he wished to be a man of influence and consequence in the county, I transferred to him instantly the feelings that were passing in my own mind, and took it for granted that he must be actuated by a love of power in every thing that he did apparently for my service.
About this time I remember being much disturbed in my mind, by a letter which Mr. M'Leod received in my presence, and of which he read to me only a part: I never rested till I saw the whole. The epistle proved well worth the trouble of deciphering: it related merely to the paving of my chicken-yard. Like the King of Prussia,[79] who was said to be so jealous of power, that he wanted to regulate all the mousetraps in his dominions, I soon engrossed the management of a perplexing multiplicity of minute insignificant details. Alas! I discovered to my cost, that trouble is the inseparable attendant upon power: and many times, in the course of the first ten days of my reign, I was ready to give up my dignity from excessive fatigue.
Early one morning, after having passed a feverish night, tortured in my dreams by the voices and faces of the people who had surrounded me the preceding day, I was awakened by the noise of somebody lighting my fire. I thought it was Ellinor; and the idea of the disinterested affection of this poor woman came full into my mind, contrasted in the strongest manner with the recollection of the selfish encroaching people by whom, of late, I had been worried.
"How do you do, my good Ellinor?" said I; "I have not seen any thing of you this week past."
"It's not Ellinor at all, my lard," said a new voice.
"And why so? Why does not Ellinor light my fire?"
"Myself does not know, my lard."
"Go for her directly."
"She's gone home these three days, my lard."
"Gone! is she sick?"
"Not as I know on, my lard. Myself does not know what ailed her, except she would be jealous of my lighting the fire. But I can't say what ailed her; for she went away without a word good or bad, when she seen me lighting this fire, which I did by the housekeeper's orders."
I now recollected poor Ellinor's request, and reproached myself for having neglected to fulfil my promise, upon an affair which, however trifling in itself, appeared of consequence to her. In the course of my morning's ride I determined to call upon her at her own house, and make my apologies: but first I satisfied my curiosity about a prodigious number of parks and towns which I had heard of upon my estate. Many a ragged man had come to me, with the modest request that I would let him one of the parks near the town. The horse-park, the deer-park, the cow-park, were not quite sufficient to answer the ideas I had attached to the word park: but I was quite astonished and mortified when I beheld the bits and corners of land near the town of Glenthorn, on which these high-sounding titles had been bestowed:—just what would feed a cow is sufficient in Ireland to constitute a park.
When I heard the names of above a hundred towns on the Glenthorn estate, I had an exalted idea of my own territories; and I was impatient to make a progress through my dominions: but, upon visiting a few of these places, my curiosity was satisfied. Two or three cabins gathered together were sufficient to constitute a town, and the land adjoining thereto is called a town-land. The denominations of these town-lands having continued from generation to generation, according to ancient surveys of Ireland, it is sufficient to show the boundaries of a town-land, to prove that there must be a town; and a tradition of a town continues to be satisfactory, even when only a single cabin remains. I turned my horse's head away in disgust from one of these traditionary towns, and desired a boy to show me the way to Ellinor O'Donoghoe's house.
"So I will, plase your honour, my lard; sure I've a right to know, for she's my own granny."
The boy, or, as he was called, the gossoon, ran across some fields where there was abundance of fern and of rabbits. The rabbits, sitting quietly at the entrance of their holes, seemed to consider themselves as proprietors of the soil, and me and my horse as intruders. The boy apologized for the number of rabbit-holes on this part of the estate: "It would not be so, my lard, if I had a gun allowed me by the gamekeeper, which he would give me if he knew it would be plasing to your honour." The ingenuity with which even the young boys can introduce their requests in a favourable moment sometimes provoked me, and sometimes excited my admiration. This boy made his just at the time he was rolling out of my way a car that stopped a gap in the hedge; and he was so hot and out of breath with running in my service, that I could not refuse him a token to the gamekeeper that he might get a gun as soon as I understood what it meant.
We came to Ellinor's house, a wretched-looking, low, and mud-walled cabin; at one end it was propped by a buttress of loose stones, upon which stood a goat reared on his hind legs, to browse on the grass that grew on the house-top. A dung-hill was before the only window, at the other end of the house, and close to the door was a puddle of the dirtiest of dirty water, in which ducks were dabbling. At my approach there came out of the cabin a pig, a calf, a lamb, a kid, and two geese, all with their legs tied; followed by turkeys, cocks, hens, chickens, a dog, a cat, a kitten, a beggar-man, a beggar-woman with a pipe in her mouth, children innumerable, and a stout girl with a pitchfork in her hand; all together more than I, looking down upon the roof as I sat on horseback, and measuring the superficies with my eye, could have possibly supposed the mansion capable of containing. I asked if Ellinor O'Donoghoe was at home; but the dog barked, the geese cackled, the turkeys gobbled, and the beggars begged, with one accord, so loudly, that there was no chance of my being heard. When the girl had at last succeeded in appeasing them all with her pitchfork, she answered, that Ellinor O'Donoghoe was at home, but that she was out with the potatoes; and she ran to fetch her, after calling to the lays, who was within in the room smoking, to come out to his honour. As soon as they had crouched under the door, and were able to stand upright, they welcomed me with a very good grace, and were proud to see me in the kingdom. I asked if they were all Ellinor's sons?
"All entirely," was the first answer.
"Not one but one," was the second answer. The third made the other two intelligible.
"Plase your honour, we are all her sons-in-law, except myself, who am her lawful son."
"Then you are my foster-brother?"
"No, plase your honour, it's not me, but my brother, and he's not in it."
"Not in it?'
"No, plase your honour; becaase he's in the forge, up abow."
"Abow!" said I; "what does he mean?"
"Sure he's the blacksmith, my lard."
"And what are you?"
"I'm Ody, plase your honour; the short for Owen."
"And what is your trade?"
"Trade, plase your honour! I was bred to none, more than another; but expects, only that my mother's not willing to part with me, to go into the militia next month; and I'm sure she'd let me, if your honour's lordship would spake a word to the colonel, to see to get me made a serjeant immadiately."
As Ody made his request, all his companions came forward in sign of sympathy, and closed round my horse's head to make me sinsible of their expectations; but at this instant Ellinor came up, her old face colouring all over with joy when she saw me.
"So, Ellinor," said I, "you were affronted, I hear, and left the castle in anger?"
"In anger! And if I did, more shame for me—but anger does not last long with me any way; and against you, my lord, dear, how could it? Oh, think how good he is, coming to see me in such a poor place!"
"I will make it a better place for you, Ellinor," said I. Far from being eager to obtain promises, she still replied, that "all was good enough for her." I desired that she would come and live with me at the castle, till a better house than her present habitation could be built for her; but she seemed to prefer this hovel. I assured her that she should be permitted to light my fire.
"Oh, it's better for me not," said she; "better keep out of the way. I could not be asy if I got any one ill-will."
I assured her that she should be at liberty to do just as she liked: and whilst I rode home I was planning a pretty cottage for her near the porter's lodge. I was pleased with myself for my gratitude to this poor woman. Before I slept, I actually wrote a letter, which obtained for Ody the honour of being made a serjeant in the —— militia; and Ellinor, dazzled by this military glory, was satisfied that he should leave home, though he was her favourite.
"Well, let him leave me then," said she; "I won't stand in his light. I never thought of my living to see Ody a serjeant. Now, Ody, have done being wild, honey-dear, and be a credit to your family, and to his honour's commendation—God bless him for ever for it! From the very first I knew it was he that had the kind heart."
I am not sure that it was a very good action to get a man made a serjeant, of whom I knew nothing but that he was son to my nurse. Self-complacency, however, cherished my first indistinct feelings of benevolence. Though not much accustomed to reflect upon my own sensations, I think I remember, at this period, suspecting that the feeling of benevolence is a greater pleasure than the possession of barouches, and horses, and castles, and parks—greater even than the possession of power. Of this last truth, however, I had not as yet a perfectly clear conception. Even in my benevolence I was as impatient and unreasonable as a child. Money, I thought, had the power of Aladdin's lamp, to procure with magical celerity the gratification of my wishes. I expected that a cottage for Ellinor should rise out of the earth at my command. But the slaves of Aladdin's lamp were not Irishmen. The delays, and difficulties, and blunders, in the execution of my orders, provoked me beyond measure; and it would have been difficult for a cool spectator to decide whether I or my workmen were most in fault; they for their dilatory habits, or I for my impatient temper.
"Well, plase your honour, when the pratees are set, and the turf cut, we'll fall-to at Ellinor's house."
"Confound the potatoes and the turf! you must fall-to, as you call it, directly."
"Is it without the lime, and plase your honour? Sure that same is not drawn yet, nor the stones quarried, since it is of stone it will be—nor the foundations itself dug, and the horses were all putting out dung."
Then after the bog and the potatoes, came funerals and holidays innumerable. The masons were idle one week waiting for the mortar, and the mortar another week waiting for the stones, and then they were at a stand for the carpenter when they came to the door-case, and the carpenter was looking for the sawyer, and the sawyer was gone to have the saw mended. Then there was a stop again at the window-sills for the stone-cutter, and he was at the quarter-sessions, processing his brother for tin and tinpence, hay-money. And when, in spite of all delays and obstacles, the walls reached their destined height, the roof was a new plague; the carpenter, the slater, and the nailer, were all at variance, and I cannot tell which was the most provoking rogue of the three. At last, however, the house was roofed and slated: then I would not wait till the walls were dry before I plastered, and papered, and furnished it. I fitted it up in the most elegant style of English cottages; for I was determined that Ellinor's habitation should be such as had never been seen in this part of the world. The day when it was finished, and when I gave possession of it to Ellinor, paid me for all my trouble; I tasted a species of pleasure that was new to me, and which was the sweeter from having been earned with some difficulty. And now, when I saw a vast number of my tenants assembled at a rural feast which I gave on Ellinor's installation, my benevolence enlarged, even beyond the possibility of its gratification, and I wished to make all my dependants happy, provided I could accomplish it without much trouble. The method of doing good, which seemed to require the least exertion, and which I, therefore, most willingly practised, was giving away money. I did not wait to inquire, much less to examine into the merits of the claimants; but, without selecting proper objects, I relieved myself from the uneasy feeling of pity, by indiscriminate donations to objects apparently the most miserable.
I was quite angry with Mr. M'Leod, my agent, and considered him as a selfish, hard-hearted miser, because he did not seem to sympathize with me, or to applaud my generosity. I was so much irritated by his cold silence, that I could not forbear pressing him to say something.
"I doubt, then," said he, "since you desire me to speak my mind, my lord, I doubt whether the best way of encouraging the industrious is to give premiums to the idle."
"But, idle or not, these poor wretches are so miserable, that I cannot refuse to give them something; and, surely, when one can do it so easily, it is right to relieve misery. Is it not?"
"Undoubtedly, my lord; but the difficulty is, to relieve present misery, without creating more in future. Pity for one class of beings sometimes makes us cruel to others. I am told that there are some Indian Brahmins so very compassionate, that they hire beggars to let fleas feed upon them: I doubt whether it might not be better to let the fleas starve."
I did not in the least understand what Mr. M'Leod meant: but I was soon made to comprehend it, by crowds of eloquent beggars, who soon surrounded me: many who had been resolutely struggling with their difficulties, slackened their exertions, and left their labour for the easier trade of imposing upon my credulity. The money I had bestowed was wasted at the dram-shop, or it became the subject of family-quarrels; and those whom I had relieved returned to my honour, with fresh and insatiable expectations. All this time my industrious tenants grumbled, because no encouragement was given to them; and, looking upon me as a weak good-natured fool, they combined in a resolution to ask me for long leases, or reduction of rent.
The rhetoric of my tenants succeeded in some instances; and again I was mortified by Mr. M'Leod's silence. I was too proud to ask his opinion. I ordered, and was obeyed. A few leases for long terms were signed and sealed; and when I had thus my own way completely, I could not refrain from recurring to Mr. M'Leod's opinion.
"I doubt, my lord," said he, "whether this measure may be as advantageous as you hope. These fellows, these middle-men, will underset the land, and live in idleness, whilst they rack a parcel of wretched under-tenants."
"But they said they would keep the land in their own hands, and improve it; and that the reason why they could not afford to improve before was, that they had not long leases."
"It may be doubted whether long leases alone will make improving tenants; for in the next county to us, there are many farms of the dowager Lady Ormsby's land let at ten shillings an acre, and her tenantry are beggars: and the land now, at the end of the leases, is worn out, and worse than at their commencement."
I was weary listening to this cold reasoning, and resolved to apply no more for explanations to Mr. M'Leod; yet in my indolence I wanted the support of his approbation, at the very time I was jealous of his interference.
At one time I had a mind to raise the wages of labour; but Mr. M'Leod said, "It might be doubted whether the people would not work less, when they could with less work have money enough to support them."
I was puzzled: and then I had a mind to lower the wages of labour, to force them to work or starve. Still provoking Mr. M'Leod said, "It might be doubted whether it would not be better to leave them alone."
I gave marriage-portions to the daughters of my tenants, and rewards to those who had children; for I had always heard that legislators should encourage population. Still Mr. M'Leod hesitated to approve; he observed, "that my estate was so populous, that the complaint in each family was, that they had not land for the sons. It might be doubted whether, if a farm could support but ten people, it were wise to encourage the birth of twenty. It might be doubted whether it were not better for ten to live, and be well fed, than for twenty to be born, and to be half-starved."
To encourage manufactures in my town of Glenthorn, I proposed putting a clause in my leases, compelling my tenants to buy stuffs and linens manufactured at Glenthorn, and no where else. Stubborn M'Leod, as usual, began with, "I doubt whether that will not encourage the manufacturers at Glenthorn to make bad stuffs and bad linen, since they are sure of a sale, and without danger of competition."
At all events, I thought my tenants would grow rich and independent, if they made every thing at home that they wanted: yet Mr. M'Leod perplexed me by his "doubt whether it would not be better for a man to buy shoes, if he could buy them cheaper than he could make them." He added something about the division of labour, and Smith's Wealth of Nations; to which I could only answer—"Smith's a Scotchman."
I cannot express how much I dreaded Mr. M'Leod's I doubt—and—It may be doubted.
From the pain of doubt, and the labour of thought, I was soon most agreeably reprieved by the company of a Mr. Hardcastle, whose visits I constantly encouraged by a most gracious reception. Mr. Hardcastle was the agent of the dowager Lady Ormsby, who had a large estate in my neighbourhood: he was the very reverse of my Mr. M'Leod in his deportment and conversation. Talkative, self-sufficient, peremptory, he seemed not to know what it was to doubt; he considered doubt as a proof of ignorance, imbecility, or cowardice. "Can any man doubt?" was his usual beginning. On every subject of human knowledge, taste, morals, politics, economy, legislation; on all affairs, civil, military, or ecclesiastical, he decided at once in the most confident tone. Yet he "never read, not he!" he had nothing to do with books; he consulted only his own eyes and ears, and appealed only to common sense. As to theory, he had no opinion of theory; for his part, he only pretended to understand practice and experience—and his practice was confined steadily to his own practice, and his experience uniformly to what he had tried at New-town-Hardcastle.
At first I thought him a mighty clever man, and I really rejoiced to see my doubter silenced. After dinner, when he had finished speaking in this decisive manner, I used frequently to back him with a—Very true—very fair—very clear—though I understood what he said as little as he did himself; but it was an ease to my mind to have a disputed point settled—and I filled my glass with an air of triumph, whilst M'Leod never contradicted my assertions, nor controverted Mr. Hardcastle's arguments. There was still an air of content and quiet self-satisfaction in M'Leod's very silence, which surprised and vexed me.
One day, when Hardcastle was laying down the law upon several subjects in his usual dictatorial manner, telling us how he managed his people, and what order he kept them in, I was determined that M'Leod should not enjoy the security of his silence, and I urged him to give us his general opinion, as to the means of improving the poor people in Ireland.
"I doubt," said M'Leod, "whether any thing effectual can be done till they have a better education."
"Education!—Pshaw!—There it is now—these book-men," cried Hardcastle: "Why, my dear sir, can any man alive, who knows this country, doubt that the common people have already too much education, as it is called—a vast deal too much? Too many of them know how to read, and write, and cipher, which I presume is all you mean by education."
"Not entirely," said M'Leod; "a good education comprehends something more."
"The more the worse," interrupted Hardcastle. "The more they know, the worse they are, sir, depend on that; I know the people of this country, sir; I have a good right to know them, sir, being born amongst them, and bred amongst them; so I think I may speak with some confidence on these matters. And I give it as my decided humble opinion, founded on irrefragable experience, which is what I always build upon, that the way to ruin the poor of Ireland would be to educate them, sir. Look at the poor scholars, as they call themselves; and what are they? a parcel of young vagabonds in rags, with a book under their arm instead of a spade or a shovel, sir. And what comes of this? that they grow up the worst-disposed, and the most troublesome seditious rascals in the community. I allow none of them about New-town-Hardcastle—none— banished them all. Useless vagrants—hornets, vipers, sir: and show me a quieter, better-managed set of people than I have made of mine. I go upon experience, sir; and that's the only thing to go upon; and I'll go no farther than New-town-Hardcastle: if that won't bring conviction home to you, nothing will."
"I never was at New-town-Hardcastle," said M'Leod, drily.
"Well, sir, I hope it will not be the case long. But in the mean time, my good sir, do give me leave to put it to your own common sense, what can reading or writing do for a poor man, unless he is to be a bailiff or an exciseman? and you know all men can't expect to be bailiffs or excisemen. Can all the book-learning in the world, sir, dig a poor man's potatoes for him, or plough his land, or cut his turf? Then, sir, in this country, where's the advantage of education, I humbly ask? No, sir, no, trust me—keep the Irish common people ignorant, and you keep 'em quiet; and that's the only way with them; for they are too quiet and smart, as it is, naturally. Teach them to read and write, and it's just adding fuel to fire—fire to gunpowder, sir. Teach them any thing, and directly you set them up: now it's our business to keep them down, unless, sir, you'd wish to have your throat cut. Education, sir! Lord bless your soul, sir! they have a great deal too much; they know too much already, which makes them so refractory to the laws, and so idle. I will go no farther than New-town-Hardcastle, to prove all this. So, my good sir," concluded he, triumphantly, "education, I grant you, is necessary for the rich; but tell me, if you can, what's the use of education to the poor?"
"Much the same, I apprehend, as to the rich," answered M'Leod. "The use of education, as I understand it, is to teach men to see clearly, and to follow steadily, their real interests. All morality, you know, is comprised in this definition; and—"
"Very true, sir; but all this can never apply to the poor in Ireland."
"Why, sir; are they not men?"
"Men, to be sure; but not like men in Scotland. The Irish know nothing of their interests; and as to morality, that's out of the question: they know nothing about it, my dear sir."
"That is the very thing of which I complain," said M'Leod. "They know nothing, because they have been taught nothing."
"They cannot be taught, sir."
"Did you ever try?"
"I did, sir, no later than last week. A fellow that I caught stealing my turf, instead of sending him to jail, I said to him, with a great deal of lenity, My honest fellow, did you never hear of the eighth commandment, 'Thou shalt not steal?' He confessed he had; but did not know it was the eighth. I showed it to him, and counted it to him myself; and set him, for a punishment, to get his whole catechism. Well, sir, the next week I found him stealing my turf again! and when I caught him by the wrist in the fact, he said, it was because the priest would not let him learn the catechism I gave him, because it was a Protestant one. Now you see, sir, there's a bar for ever to all education."
Mr. M'Leod smiled, said something about time and patience, and observed, "that one experiment was not conclusive against a whole nation." Any thing like a general argument Mr. Hardcastle could not comprehend. He knew every blade of grass within the reach of his tether, but could not reach an inch beyond. Any thing like an appeal to benevolent feelings was lost upon him; for he was so frank in his selfishness, that he did not even pretend to be generous. By sundry self-complacent motions he showed whilst his adversary spoke, that he disdained to listen almost as much as to read: but, as soon as M'Leod paused, he said, "What you observe, sir, may possibly be very true; but I have made up my mind." Then he went over and over again his assertions, in a louder and a louder voice, ending with a tone of interrogation that seemed to set all answer at defiance, "What have you to answer to me now, sir?—Can any man alive doubt this, sir?"
M'Leod was perfectly silent. The company broke up; and, as we were going out of the room, I maliciously asked M'Leod, why he, who could say so much in his own defence, had suffered himself to be so completely silenced? He answered me, in his low, deliberate voice, in the words of Moiré—"'Qu'est-ce que la raison avec un filet de voix contre une gueule comme celle-là?' At some other time," added Mr. M'Leod, "my sentiments shall be at your lordship's disposal."
Indolent persons love positive people, when they are of their own opinion; because they are saved the trouble of developing their thoughts, or supporting their assertions: but the moment the positive differs in sentiment from the indolent man, there is an end of the friendship. The indolent man then hates his pertinacious adversary as much as he loved his sturdy friend. So it happened between Mr. Hardcastle and me. This gentleman was a prodigious favourite with me, so long as his opinions were not in opposition to my own; but an accident happened, which brought his love of power and mine into direct competition, and then I found his peremptory mode of reasoning and his ignorance absurd and insufferable.
Before I can do justice to my part of this quarrel, I must explain the cause of the interest which I took in behalf of the persons aggrieved. During the time that my first hot fit of benevolence was on me, I was riding home one evening after dining with Mr. Hardcastle, and I was struck with the sight of a cabin, more wretched than any I had ever before beheld: the feeble light of a single rush-candle through the window revealed its internal misery.
"Does any body live in that hovel?" said I
"Ay, sure, does there: the Noonans, plase your honour," replied a man on the road. Noonans! I recollected the name to be that of the pugilist, who had died in consequence of the combat at which I had been present in London; who had, with his dying breath, besought me to convey his only half-guinea and his silk handkerchief to his poor father and sister. I alighted from my horse, asking the man, at the same time, if the son of this Noonan had not died in England.
"He had, sir, a son in England, Mick Noonan, who used to send him odd guineas, I mind, and was a good lad to his father, though wild; and there's been no account of him at-all-at-all this long while: but the old man has another boy, a sober lad, who's abroad with the army in the East Indies; and it's he that is the hope of the family. And there's the father—and old as he is, and poor, and a cripple, I'd engage there is not a happier man in the three counties at this very time speaking: for it is just now I seen young Jemmy Riley, the daughter's bachelor, go by with a letter. What news? says I. 'Great news!' says he: 'a letter from Tom Noonan to his father; and I'm going in to read it for him.'"
By the time my voluble informant had come to this period, I had reached the cabin door. Who could have expected to see smiles and hear exclamations of joy under such a roof?
I saw the father, with his hands clasped in ecstasy, and looking up to heaven, with the strong expression of delight in his aged countenance. I saw every line of his face; for the light of the candle was full upon it. The daughter, a beautiful girl, kneeling beside him, held the light for the young man, who was reading her brother's letter. I was sorry to interrupt them.
"Your honour's kindly welcome," said the old man, making an attempt to rise.
"Pray, don't let me disturb you."
"It was only a letter from a boy of mine that's over the seas, we was reading," said the old man. "A better boy to an ould father, that's good for nothing now in this world, never was, plase your honour. See what he has sent me: a draft here for ten guineas out of the little pay he has. God for ever bless him!—as he surely will."
After a few minutes' conversation, the old man's heart was so much opened towards me, that he talked as freely as if he had known me for years. I led to the subject of his other son Michael, who was mentioned in the letter as a wild chap. "Ah! your honour, that's what lies heaviest on my heart, and will, to my dying day, that Mick, before he died, which they say he did surely a twelvemonth ago, over there in England, never so much as sent me one line, good or bad, or his sister a token to remember him by even!"
"Had he but sent us the least bit of a word, or the least token in life, I had been content," said the sister, wiping her eyes: "we don't so much as know how he died."
I took this moment to relate the circumstances of Michael Noonan's death; and when I told them of his dying request about the half-guinea and the silk handkerchief, they were all so much touched, that they utterly forgot the ten-guinea draft, which I saw on the ground, in the dirt, under the old man's feet, whilst he contemplated the half-guinea which his poor Michael had sent him: repeating, "Poor fellow! poor fellow! 'twas all he had in the world. God bless him!—Poor Michael! he was a wild chap! but none better to his parents than he while the life was in him. Poor Michael!"
In no country have I found such strong instances of filial affection as in Ireland. Let the sons go where they may, let what will befall them, they never forget their parents at home: they write to them constantly the most affectionate letters, and send them a share of whatever they earn.
When I asked the daughter of this Noonan, why she had not married? the old man answered, "That's her own fault—if it be a fault to abide by an old father. She wastes her youth here, in the way your honour sees, tending him who has none other to mind him."
"Oh! let alone that," said the girl, with a cheerful smile; "we be too poor to think of marrying yet, by a great deal! so, father dear, you're no hinderance any way. For don't I know, and doesn't Jemmy there know, that it's a sin and a shame, as my mother used to say, for them that have nothing, to marry and set up house-keeping, like the rogue that ruined my father?"
"That's true," said the young man, with a heavy sigh; "but times will mend, or we'll strive and mend them, with the blessing of God."
I left this miserable but in admiration of the generosity of its inhabitants. I desired the girl to come to Glenthorn Castle the next day, that I might give her the silk handkerchief which her poor brother had sent her. The more I inquired into the circumstances of this family, the more cause I found for pity and approbation. The old man had been a good farmer in his day, as the traditions of the aged, and the memories of the young, were ready to witness; but he was unfortunately joined in co-partnership with a drunken rogue, who ran away, and left an arrear of rent, which ruined Noonan. Mr. Hardcastle, the agent, called upon him to pay it, and sold all that the old man possessed; and this being insufficient to discharge the debt, he was forced to give up his farm, and retire, with his daughter, to this hovel; and soon afterwards he lost the use of his side by a paralytic stroke.
I was so much pleased with the goodness of these poor people, that, in despite of my indolent disposition, I bestirred myself the very next day to find a better habitation for them on my own estate. I settled them, infinitely to their satisfaction, in a small farm; and the girl married her lover, who undertook to manage the farm for the old man. To my utter surprise, I found that Mr. Hardcastle was affronted by the part I took in this affair. He complained that I had behaved in a very ungentlemanlike manner, and had spirited the tenants away from Lady Ormsby's estate, against the regulation which he had laid down for all the tenants not to emigrate from the estate. Jemmy Riley, it seems, was one of the cotters on the Ormsby estate, a circumstance with which I was unacquainted; indeed I scarcely at that time understood what was meant by a cotter. Mr. Hardcastle's complaint, in matter and manner, was unintelligible to me; but I was quite content to leave off visiting him, as he left off visiting me—but here the matter did not stop. This over-wise and over-busy gentleman took upon him, amongst other offices, the regulation of the markets in the town of Ormsby; and as he apprehended, for reasons best and only known to himself, a year of scarcity, he thought fit to keep down the price of oats and potatoes. He would allow none to be sold in the market of Ormsby but at the price which he stipulated. The poor people grumbled, and, to remedy the injustice, made private bargains with each other. He had information of this, and seized the corn that was selling above the price he had fixed. Young Riley, Noonan's son-in-law, came to me to complain, that his little oats were seized and detained. I remonstrated. Hardcastle resented the appeal to me, and bid him wait and be damned. The young man, who was rather of a hasty temper, and who did not much like either to wait or be damned, seized his own oats, and was marching off, when they were recaptured by Hardcastle's bailiff, whom young Riley knocked down; and who, as soon as he got up again, went straight and swore examinations against Riley. Then I was offended, as I had a right to be, by the custom of the country, with the magistrate who took an examination against my tenant, without writing first to me. Then there was a race between the examinations of my justice of peace and his justice of peace. My indolence was conquered by my love of power: I supported the contest; the affair came before our grand jury: I conquered, and Mr. Hardcastle was ever after, of course, my enemy. To English ears the possessive pronouns my and his may sound extraordinary, prefixed to a justice of peace; but, in many parts of Ireland, this language is perfectly correct. A great man talks of making a justice of the peace with perfect confidence; a very great man talks with as much certainty of making a sheriff; and a sheriff makes the jury; and the jury makes the law. We must not forget, however, that in England, during the reign of Elizabeth, a member of parliament defined a justice of peace to be "an animal, who for half a dozen chickens will dispense with half a dozen penal statutes." Time is necessary to enforce the sanctions of legislation and civilization—But I am anticipating reflections which I made at a much later period of my life. To return to my history.
My benevolence was soon checked by slight disappointments. Ellinor's cottage, which I had taken so much pains to build, became a source of mortification to me. One day I found my old nurse sitting at her wheel, in the midst of the wreck and litter of all sorts of household furniture, singing her favourite song of
"There was a lady loved a swine:
Honey! says she,
I'll give ye a silver trough.
Hunk! says he!"
Ellinor seemed, alas! to have as little taste for the luxuries with which I had provided her as the pig had for the silver trough. What I called conveniences were to her incumbrances: she had not been used to them; she was put out of her way; and it was a daily torment to one of her habits, to keep her house clean and neat.
There may be, as some philosophers assure us that there is, an innate love of order in the human mind; but of this instinctive principle my poor Ellinor was totally destitute. Her ornamented farm-house became, in a wonderfully short time, a scene of dirt, rubbish, and confusion. There was a partition between two rooms, which had been built with turf or peat, instead of bricks, by the wise economy I had employed. Of course, this was pulled down to get at the turf. The stairs also were pulled down and burned, though there was no scarcity of firing. As the walls were plastered and papered before they were quite dry, the paper grew mouldy, and the plaster fell off. In the hurry of finishing, some of the woodwork had but one coat of paint. In Ireland they have not faith in the excellent Dutch proverb, "Paint costs nothing." I could not get my workmen to give a second coat of paint to any of the sashes, and the wood decayed: divers panes of glass in the windows were broken, and their places filled up with shoes, an old hat, or a bundle of rags. Some of the slates were blown off one windy night: the slater lived at ten miles distance, and before the slates were replaced, the rain came in, and Ellinor was forced to make a bedchamber of the parlour, and then of the kitchen, retreating from corner to corner as the rain pursued, till, at last, when "it would come every way upon her bed," she petitioned me to let her take the slates off and thatch the house; for a slated-house, she said, was never so warm as a tatched cabin; and as there was no smoke, she was kilt with the cowld.
In my life I never felt so angry. I was ten times more angry than when
Crawley ran away with my wife. In a paroxysm of passion, I reproached
Ellinor with being a savage, an Irish-woman, and an ungrateful fool.
"Savage I am, for any thing I know; and fool I am, that's certain; but ungrateful I am not," said she, bursting into tears. She went home and took to her bed; and the next thing I heard from her son was, "that she was lying in the rheumatism, which had kept her awake many a long night, before she would come to complain to my honour of the house, in dread that I should blame myself for sending of her into it afore it was dry."
The rheumatism reconciled me immediately to Ellinor; I let her take her own way, and thatch the house, and have as much smoke as she pleased, and she recovered. But I did not entirely recover my desire to do good to my poor tenants. After forming, in the first enthusiasm of my benevolence, princely schemes for their advantage, my ardour was damped, and my zeal discouraged, by a few slight disappointments.
I did not consider, that there is often, amongst uncultivated people, a mixture of obstinate and lazy content, which makes them despise the luxuries of their richer neighbours; like those mountaineers, who, proud of their own hard fare,[80] out of a singular species of contempt, call the inhabitants of the plains mange-rotis, "eaters of roast meat." I did not consider that it must take time to change local and national habits and prejudices; and that it is necessary to raise a taste for comforts, before they can be properly enjoyed.
In the pettishness of my disappointment, I decided that it was in vain to attempt to improve and civilize such people as the Irish. I did not recollect, perhaps at that time I did not know, that even in the days of the great Queen Elizabeth, "the greatest part of the buildings in the cities and good towns of England consisted only of timber, cast over with thick clay to keep out the wind. The new houses of the nobility were indeed either of brick or stone; and glass windows were then beginning to be used in England:"[81] and clean rushes were strewed over the dirty floors of the royal palace. In the impatience of my zeal for improvement, I expected to do the work of two hundred years in a few months: and because I could not accelerate the progress of refinement in this miraculous manner, I was out of humour with myself and with a whole nation. So easily is the humanity of the rich and great disgusted and discouraged! as if any people could be civilized in a moment, and at the word of command of ignorant pride or despotic benevolence!