If, among those who maybe tempted to peruse my history, there should be
any mere novel readers, let me advise them to throw the book aside at
the commencement of this chapter; for I have no more wonderful incidents
to relate, no more changes at nurse, no more sudden turns of fortune.
I am now become a plodding man of business, poring over law-books from
morning till night, and leading a most monotonous life: yet occupation,
and hope, and the constant sense of approaching nearer to my object,
rendered this mode of existence, dull as it may seem, infinitely more
agreeable than many of my apparently prosperous days, when I had more
money, and more time, than I knew how to enjoy. I resolutely persevered
in my studies.
About a month after I came to town, the doors of my lodging were
blockaded by half a dozen cars, loaded with huge packing-cases, on which
I saw, in the hand-writing which I remembered often to have seen in
my blacksmith’s bills, a direction to _Christopher O’Donoghoe,
Esquire--this side upwards: to be kept dry._
One of the carmen fumbled in what he called his pocket, and at last
produced a very dirty note.
“My dear and honourable foster-brother, larning from Mr. M’Leod that you
are thinking of _studdeing_, I send you inclosed by the bearer, who is
to get nothing for the _carrige_, all the bookes from the big booke-room
at the castle, which I hope, being of not as much use as I could wish to
me, your honour will not scorn to accept, with the true veneration of
“Your ever-loving foster-brother, and grateful humble servant, _to
command_.
“P.S. No name needful, for you will not be astray about the hand.”
This good-natured fellow’s present was highly valuable and useful to me.
Among my pleasures at this studious period of my life, when I had few
events to break the uniform tenor of my days, I must mention letters
which I frequently received from Mr. Devereux and Lady Geraldine, who
still continued in India. Mr. Devereux was acquainted with almost all
the men of eminence at the Irish bar; men who are not mere lawyers, but
persons of literature, of agreeable manners, and gentlemanlike habits.
Mr. Desvereux wrote to his friends so warmly in my favour, that, instead
of finding myself a stranger in Dublin, my only difficulty was how to
avoid the numerous invitations which tempted me from my studies.
Those gentlemen of the bar who were intimate with Mr. Devereux honoured
me with particular attention, and their society was peculiarly useful,
as well as agreeable, to me: they directed my industry to the best and
shortest means of preparing myself for their profession; they put into
my hands the best books; told me all that experience had taught them
of the art of distinguishing, in the mass of law-precedents, the
useful from the useless: instructed me in the methods of indexing
and common-placing; and gave me all those advantages, which solitary
students so often want, and the want of which so often makes the study
of the law appear an endless maze without a plan. When I found myself
surrounded with books, and reading assiduously day and night, I could
scarcely believe in my own identity; I could scarcely imagine that I was
the same person, who, but a few months before this time, lolled upon a
sofa half the day, and found it an intolerable labour to read or think
for half an hour together. Such is the power of motive! During the
whole time I pursued my studies, and kept my terms, in Ireland, the only
relaxation I allowed myself was in the society at Lord Y----‘s house in
Dublin, and, during my vacations, in excursions which I made with
his lordship to different parts of the country. Lord Y---- had two
country-seats in the most beautiful parts of Ireland. How differently
the face of nature appeared to me now! with what different sensations I
beheld the same objects!
“No brighter colours paint th’ enamell’d fields,
No sweeter fragrance now the garden yields;
Whence then this strange increase of joy?
Is it to love these new delights I owe?”
It was not to love that I owed these new delights, for Cecilia was not
there; but my powers of observation were awakened, and the confinement
and labour to which I had lately submitted gave value to the pleasures
of rest and liberty, and to the freshness of country air, and the
beautiful scenes of nature. So true it is, that all our pleasures
must be earned, before they can be enjoyed. When I saw on Lord Y----‘s
estates, and on those of several other gentlemen, which he occasionally
took me to visit, the neat cottages, the well-cultivated farms, the air
of comfort, industry, and prosperity, diffused through the lower classes
of the people, I was convinced that much may be done by the judicious
care and assistance of landlords for their tenantry. I saw this with
mixed sensations of pleasure and of pain--of pain, for I reflected how
little I had accomplished, and how ill I had done even that little,
whilst the means of doing good to numbers had been in my power. For the
very trifling services I did to some of my poor tenants, I am sure I
had abundant gratitude; and I was astonished and touched by instances
of this shown to me after I had lost my fortune, and when I scarcely had
myself any remembrance of the people who came to thank me. Trivial as it
is, I cannot forbear to record one of the many instances of gratitude I
met with from a poor Irishman.
Whilst I was in Dublin, as I was paying a morning visit to Lord Y----,
sitting with him in his library, we heard some disturbance in the inner
court; and looking out of the window, we saw a countryman with a basket
on his arm, struggling with the porter and two footmen.
“He is here; I know to a certainty he is here, and I _shall_ see him,
say what you plase now!”
“I tell you my lord is not at home,” said the porter.
“What’s the matter?” said Lord Y----, opening the window.
“See, there’s my lord himself at the window: are not you ashamed of
yourself now?” said the footman.
“And why would I be ashamed that am telling no lies, and hindering no
one?” said the countryman, looking up to us with so sudden a motion that
his hat fell of. I knew his face, but could not recollect his name.
“Oh! there he is, his own honour; I’ve found him, and _axe_ pardon for
my boldness; but it’s because I’ve been all day yesterday, and this day,
running through Dublin after _yees_; and when certified by the lady
of the lodgings you was in it here, I could not lave town without my
errand, which is no more than a cheese from my wife of her own making,
to be given to your honour’s own hands, and she would not see me if I
did not do it.”
“Let him come up,” said Lord Y----. “This,” continued his lordship,
turning to me, “reminds me of Henry the Fourth, and the Gascon peasant
with his _fromages de boeuf_.”
“But our countryman brings his offering to an abdicated monarch,” said
I.
The poor fellow presented his wife’s cheese to me with as good a grace
as any courtier could have made his offering. Unembarrassed, his manners
and his words gave the natural and easy expression of a grateful heart.
He assured me that he and his wife were the happiest couple in all
Ireland; and he hoped I would one day be as happy myself in a wife as
I _desarved_, who had made others so; and there were many on the estate
remembered as well as he did the good I did to the poor during _my
reign_.
Then stepping up closer to me, he said, in a lower voice, “I’m Jimmy
Riley, that married _ould_ Noonan’s daughter; and now that it is all
over I may tell you a bit of a _secret_, which made me so eager to
get to the speech of your honour, that I might tell it to your own ear
alone--no offence to this gentleman, before whom I’d as soon say it as
yourself, _becaase_ I see he is all as one as another yourself. Then
the thing is--does your honour remember the boy with the cord round his
body, looking for the birds’ eggs in the rock, and the ‘nonymous bit of
a letter that you got? ‘Twas I wrote it, and the _gossoon_ that threw
it to your honour was a cousin of my own that I sent, that nobody, nor
yourself even, might not know him: and the way I got the information
I never can tell till I die, and then only to the priest, _becaase_ I
swore I would not never. But don’t go for to think it was by being
a _rubble_ any way; no man can, I thank my God, charge me with
indifferency. So rejoiced to see you the same, I wish you a good morrow,
and long life, and a happy death--when it comes.”
About this time I frequently used to receive presents to a considerable
amount, and of things which were most useful to me, but always without
any indication by which I could discover to whom I was indebted for
them: at last, by means of my Scotch landlady, I traced them to Mr.
M’Leod. His kindness was so earnest and peremptory, that it would admit
neither thanks nor refusals; and I submitted to be obliged to a man for
whom I felt such high esteem. I looked upon it as not the least of his
proofs of regard, that he gave me what I knew he valued more than any
thing else--his time. Whenever he came to Dublin, though he was always
hurried by business, so that he had scarcely leisure to eat or sleep,
he used constantly to come to see me in my obscure lodgings; and when
in the country, though he hated all letter-writing, except letters of
business, yet he regularly informed me of every thing that could be
interesting to me. Glenthorn Castle he described as a scene of
riotous living, and of the most wasteful vulgar extravagance. My poor
foster-brother, the best-natured and most generous fellow in the world,
had not sufficient prudence or strength of mind to conduct his
own family; his wife filled the castle with tribes of her vagabond
relations; she chose to be descended from one of the kings of Ireland;
and whoever would acknowledge her high descent, and whoever would claim
relationship with her, were sure to have their claims allowed, and were
welcome to live in all the barbaric magnificence of Glenthorn Castle.
Every instance that she could hear of the former Lady Glenthorn’s
extravagance or of mine--and, alas! there were many upon record, she
determined to exceed. Her diamonds, and her pearls, and her finery,
surpassed every thing but the extravagance of some of the Russian
favourites of fortune. Decked out in the most absurd manner, this
descendant of kings, as Mr. M’Leod assured me, often indulged in the
pleasures of the banquet, till, no longer able to support the regal
diadem, she was carried by some of the meanest of her subjects to her
bed. The thefts committed during these interregnums were amazing in
their amount, and the jewels of the crown were to be replaced as fast
as they were stolen. Poor Christy all this time was considered as a
mean-spirited _cratur_, who had no notion of living like a prince; and
whilst his wife and her relations were revelling in this unheard-of
manner, he was scarcely considered as the master of the house: he lived
by the fireside disregarded in winter, and in summer he spent his time
chiefly in walking up and down his garden, and picking fruit. He once
made an attempt to amuse himself by mending the lock of his own room
door; but he was detected in the fact, and exposed to such loud ridicule
by his lady’s favourites, that he desisted, and sighing said to Mr.
M’Leod--“And isn’t it now a great hardship upon a man like me to have
nothing to do, or not to be let do any thing? If it had not been for my
son Johnny’s sake, I never would have quit the forge; and now all will
be spent in _coshering_, and Johnny, at the last, will never be a penny
the better, but the worse for my consinting to be lorded; and what
grieves me more than all the rest, _she_ is such _a negre_,[85] that I
haven’t a guinea I can call my own to send, as I’d always laid out to
do at odd times, such little tokens of my love and duty, as would be
becoming to my dear foster-brother there in Dublin. And now, you tell
me, he is going away too, beyond sea to England, to finish making
a lawyer of himself in London; and what friends will he find there,
without money in his pocket? and I had been thinking this while past,
ever since you gave me notice of his being to quit Ireland, that I would
go up to Dublin myself to see him, and wish him a good journey kindly
before he would go; and I had a little _compliment_ here, in a private
drawer, that I had collected _unknownst_ to my wife; but here last
night she _lit_ upon it, and now that her hand has closed upon it, not a
guinea of it shall I ever see more, nor a farthing the better of it
will my dear foster-brother ever be, for it or for me; and this is what
grieves me more than all, and goes to the quick of my heart.”
When Mr. M’Leod repeated to me these lamentations of poor Christy, I
immediately wrote to set his heart at ease, as much as I could, by the
assurance that I was in no distress for money; and that my three hundred
a year would support me in perfect comfort and independence, while “I
was making a lawyer of myself in London.” I farther assured my good
foster-brother, that I was so well convinced of his affectionate and
generous disposition towards me, that it would be quite unnecessary ever
to send me tokens of his regard. I added a few words of advice about
his wife and his affairs, which, like most words of advice, were, as I
afterwards found, absolutely thrown away.
Though I had taken care to live with so much economy, that I was not
in any danger of being in pecuniary embarrassments, yet I felt much
distress of another kind in leaving Ireland. I left Miss Delamere
surrounded with admirers; her mother using her utmost art and parental
influence to induce Cecilia to decide in favour of one of these
gentlemen, who was a person of rank and of considerable fortune. I had
seen all this going on, and was bound in honour the whole time to
remain passive, not to express my own ardent feelings, not to make the
slightest attempt to win the affections of the woman who was the object
of all my labours, of all my exertions. The last evening that I saw her
at Lord Y----‘s, just before I sailed for England, I suffered more than
I thought it was in my nature to feel, especially at the moment when I
went up to make my bow, and take leave of her with all the cold ceremony
of a common acquaintance. At parting, however, in the presence of her
mother and of Lord Y----, Cecilia, with her sweet smile, and, I think,
with a slight blush, said a few words, upon which I lived for months
afterwards.
“I sincerely wish you, sir, the success your perseverance so well
deserves.”
The recollection of these words was often my solace in my lonely
chambers in the Temple; and often, after a day’s hard study, the
repeating them to myself operated as a charm that dissipated all
fatigue, and revived at once my exhausted spirits. To be sure, there
were moments when my fire was out, and my candle sinking in the socket,
and my mind over-wearied saw things in the most gloomy point of view;
and at these times I used to give an unfavourable interpretation to
Cecilia’s words, and I fancied that they were designed to prevent my
entertaining fallacious hopes, and to warn me that she must yield to
her mother’s authority, or perhaps to her own inclinations, in favour
of some of her richer lovers. This idea would have sunk me into utter
despondency, and I should have lost, with my motive, all power of
exertion, had not I opposed to this apprehension the remembrance of Lord
Y----‘s countenance, at the moment Cecilia was speaking to me. I then
felt assured, that his lordship, at least, understood the words in a
favourable sense, else he would have suffered for me, and would not
certainly have allowed me to go away with false hopes. Re-animated by
this consideration, I persevered--for it was by perseverance alone that
I could have any chance of success.
It was fortunate for me, that, stimulated by a great motive, I thus
devoted my whole time and thoughts to my studies, otherwise I must, on
returning to London, have felt the total neglect and desertion of all
my former associates in the fashionable world; of all the vast number
of acquaintance who used to lounge away their hours in my company, and
partake of the luxuries of my table and the festivities of my house.
Some, whom I accidentally met in the street, just at my re-appearance in
town, thought proper, indeed, to know me again at first, that they might
gratify their curiosity about the paragraphs which they had seen in the
papers, and the reports which they had heard of my extraordinary change
of fortune; but no sooner had they satisfied themselves that all they
had heard was true, than their interest concerning me ceased. When they
found, that, instead of being Earl of Glenthorn, and the possessor of
a large estate, I was now reduced to three hundred a year, lodging in
small chambers in the Temple, and studying the law, they never more
thought me worthy of their notice. They affected, according to their
different humours, either to pity me for my misfortunes, or to blame
me for my folly in giving up my estate; but they unanimously expressed
astonishment at the idea of my becoming a member of any active
profession. They declared that it was impossible that I could ever
endure the labour of the law, or succeed in such an arduous career.
Their prophecies intimidated me not; I was conscious that these people
did not in the least know me; and I hoped and believed that I had powers
and a character which they were incapable of estimating: their contempt
rather excited than depressed my mind, and their pity I returned
with more sincerity than it was given. I had lived their life, knew
thoroughly what were its pleasures and its pains; I could compare the
ennui I felt when I was a Bond-street lounger with the self-complacency
I enjoyed now that I was occupied in a laborious but interesting and
honourable pursuit. I confess, I had sometimes, however, the weakness
to think the worse of human nature, for what I called the desertion and
ingratitude of these my former companions and flatterers; and I could
not avoid comparing the neglect and solitude in which I lived in London,
where I had lavished my fortune, with the kindness and hospitalities
I had received in Dublin, where I lived only when I had no fortune to
spend. After a little time, however, I became more reasonable and just;
for I considered that it was my former dissipated mode of life,
and imprudent choice of associates, which I should blame for the
mortifications I now suffered from the desertion of companions, who
were, in fact, incapable of being friends. In London I had lived with
the most worthless, in Dublin with the best company; and in each place I
had been treated as, in fact, I deserved. But, leaving the history of my
feelings, I must proceed with my narrative.
One night, after I had dined with an Irish gentleman, a friend of Lord
Y----‘s, at the west end of the town, as I was returning late to my
lodgings, I was stopped for some time by a crowd of carriages, in one
of the fashionable streets. I found that there was a masquerade at
the house of a lady, with whom I had been intimately acquainted.
The clamours of the mob, eager to see the dresses of those who were
alighting from their carriages, the gaudy and fantastic figures which I
beheld by the light of the flambeaux, the noise and the bustle, put me
in mind of various similar nights of my past life, and it seemed to
me like a dream, or reminiscence of some former state of existence.
I passed on as soon as the crowd would permit, and took my way down a
narrow street, by which I hoped to get, by a shorter way than usual,
to my quiet lodgings. The rattling of the carriages, the oaths of the
footmen, and the shouts of the mob still sounded in my ears; and the
masquerade figures had scarcely faded from my sight, when I saw, coming
slowly out of a miserable entry, by the light of a few wretched candles
and lanterns, a funeral. The contrast struck me: I stood still to make
way for the coffin; and I heard one say to another, “What matter how
she’s buried! I tell you, be at as little expense as possible, for he’ll
never pay a farthing.” I had a confused recollection of having heard the
voice before: as one of the bearers lifted his lantern, I saw the face
of the woman who spoke, and had a notion of having seen her before.
I asked whose funeral it was; and I was answered, “It is one Mrs.
Crawley’s--Lady Glenthorn that was,” added the woman. I heard no more: I
was so much shocked, that I believe I should have fallen in the street,
if I had not been immediately supported by somebody near me. When I
recovered my recollection, I saw the funeral had moved on some paces,
and the person who supported me, I now found, was a clergyman. In a mild
voice, he told me that his duty called him away from me at present, but
he added, that if I would tell him where I could be found, he would
see me in the morning, and give me any information in his power, as he
supposed that I was interested for this unfortunate woman. I put a card
with my address into his hands, thanked him, and got home as well as I
could. In the morning, the clergyman called upon me--a most benevolent
man, unknown to fame; but known to all the wretched within the reach of
his consolatory religion. He gave me a melancholy account of the last
days of the unhappy woman, whose funeral I had just seen. I told him who
I was, and what she had been to me. She had, almost in her last moments,
as he assured me, expressed her sense of, what she called, my generosity
to her, and had shown deep contrition for her infidelity. She died in
extreme poverty and wretchedness, with no human being who was, or even
seemed, interested for her, but a maid-servant (the woman whose voice I
recollected), whose services were purchased to the last, by presents of
whatever clothes or trinkets were left from the wreck of her mistress’s
fortune. Crawley, it seems, had behaved brutally to his victim. After
having long delayed to perform his promise of marrying her, he declared
that he could never think of a woman who had been divorced in any other
way than a mistress: she, poor weak creature, consented to live with him
on any terms; but, as his passions and his interest soon turned to new
objects, he cast her off without scruple, refusing to pay any of the
tradesmen, who had supplied her while she bore his name. He refused to
pay the expenses even of her funeral, though she had shared with him her
annuity, and every thing she possessed. I paid the funeral expenses,
and some arrears of the maid’s wages, together with such debts for
necessaries as I had reason to believe were justly due: the strict
economy with which I had lived for three years, and the parting with a
watch and some other trinkets too fine for my circumstances, enabled
me to pay this money without material inconvenience, and it was a
satisfaction to my mind. The good clergyman who managed these little
matters became interested for me, and our acquaintance with each other
grew every day more intimate and agreeable. When he found that I was
studying the law, he begged to introduce me to a brother of his, who had
been one of the most eminent special pleaders in London, and who now, on
a high salary, undertook to prepare students for the bar. I was rather
unwilling to accept of this introduction, because I was not rich enough
to become a pupil of this gentleman’s; but my clergyman guessed the
cause of my reluctance, and told me that his brother had charged him to
overrule all such objections. “My brother and I,” continued he, “though
of different professions, have in reality but one mind between us: he
has heard from me all the circumstances I know of you, and they have
interested him so much, that he desires, in plain English, to be of any
service he can to you.”
This offer was made in earnest; and if I had given him the largest
salary that could have been offered by the most opulent of his pupils,
I could not have met with more attention, or have been instructed with
more zeal than I was, by my new friend the special pleader. He was also
so kind as to put me at ease by the assurance, that whenever I should
begin to make money by my profession, he would accept of remuneration.
He jestingly said, that he would make the same bargain with me that was
made by the famous sophist Protagoras of old with his pupil, that he
should have the profits of the first cause I should win--certain that I
would not, like his treacherous pupil Evathlus, employ the rhetorician’s
arms against himself, to cheat him out of his promised reward. My
special pleader was not a mere man of forms and law _rigmaroles_; he
knew the reason for the forms he used: he had not only a technical, but
a rational knowledge of his business; and, what is still more uncommon,
he knew how to teach what he had learnt. He did not merely set me down
at a desk, and leave me skins after skins of parchment to pore over in
bewildered and hopeless stupidity; he did not use me like a mere copying
machine, to copy sheet after sheet for him, every morning from nine till
four, and again every evening from five till ten. Mine was a law tutor
of a superior sort. Wherever he could, he gave me a clue to guide me
through the labyrinth; and when no reason could be devised for what the
law directs, he never puzzled me by attempting to explain what could not
be explained; he did not insist upon the total surrender of my rational
faculties, but with wonderful liberality would allow me to call
nonsense, nonsense; and would, after two or three hours’ hard
scrivening, as the case might require--for this I thank him more than
all the rest--permit me to yawn, and stretch, and pity myself, and
curse the useless repetitions of lawyers, sinking under the weight of
_declarations_, and _replications_, and _double pleas_, and _dilatory,
pleas_;
_“Of horse pleas, traverses, demurrers,
Jeofails, imparlances, and errors.
Averments, bars, and profestandoes.’”_
O! Cecilia, what pains did I endure to win your applause! Yet, that
I may state the whole truth, let me acknowledge, that even these, my
dullest, hardest tasks, were light, compared with the burden I formerly
bore of ennui. At length my period of probation in my pleader’s
office was over; I escaped from the dusky desk, and the smell of musty
parchments, and the close smoky room; I finished _eating my terms_ at
the Temple, and returned, even, as the captain of the packet swore, “in
the face and teeth of the wind,” to Dublin.
But, in my haste to return, I must not omit to notice, for the sake of
poetical equity, that just when I was leaving England, I heard that
slow but sure-paced justice at last overtook that wretch Crawley. He was
detected and convicted of embezzling considerable sums, the property of
a gentleman in Cheshire, who had employed him as his agent. I saw him,
as I passed through Chester, going to prison, amidst the execrations of
the populace.