Bellona_, Mrs. St**f**d; the _Edgeware Diana_, Mrs. S**th; and the
_Water Lily Symmeterian_, Ha**l*y--_all planets_ of the first order,
carriage curiosities. Let us now proceed to make further observations.
The _jolie_ dame yonder, in the phaeton, drawn by two fine bays, is
called the _White Doe_, from her first deer protector; and although
somewhat on the decline, she is yet an exhibit of no mean attraction,
and a lady of fortune. Thanks to the liberality of an old hewer of
stone, and the talismanic powers of the _golden Ball_, deserted by her
last swain since his marriage, she now reclines upon the velvet cushion
of Independence, enjoying in the Kilburn retreat, her _otium cum
dignitate_, secure from the rude winds of adversity, and in the
occasional society of a few old friends. The lovely Thais in the brown
chariot, with a fine Roman countenance, dark hair, and sparkling eyes,
is the favourite elect of a well-known whig member; here she passes by
the name of the _Comic Muse_, the first letter of which will also answer
for the leading initial of her theatrical cognomen. Her, private history
is well-known to every son of _old Etona_ who has taken a _toodle_
over Windsor-bridge on a market-day within the last fifteen years,
her parents being market gardeners in the neighbourhood; and her two
unmarried sisters, both fine girls, are equally celebrated with the Bath
orange-women for the neatness of their dress and comeliness of their
persons. There is a sprightliness and good-humour about the _Comic
Muse_ that turns aside the shafts of ill-nature; and had she made her
selection more in accordance with propriety, and her own age, she might
have escaped our notice; but, alas!" said Crony, "she forgets that
'The rose's age is but a day;
Its bloom, the pledge of its decay,
Sweet in scent, in colour bright,
It blooms at morn and fades at night.
~18~~At this moment a dashing little horsewoman trotted by in great
style, followed by a servant in blue and gold livery; her bust was
perfection itself, but studded with the oddest pair of _ogles_ in the
world, and Crony assured me (report said) her person was supported by
the shortest pair of legs, for an adult, in Christendom. "That is the
_queen_ of the _dandysettes_," said my old friend, "Sophia, Selina, or,
as she is more generally denominated, _Galloping_ W****y, from a _long
Pole_, who settled the interest of five thousand upon her for her
natural life; she is since said to have married her groom, with,
however, this prudent stipulation, that he is still to ride behind
her in public, and answer all demands in _propria persona_. She is
constantly to be seen at all masquerades, and may be easily known by her
utter contempt for the incumbrance of decent costume." "How d'ye do? How
d'ye do?" said a most elegant creature, stretching forth her delicate
white kid-covered arm over the _fenetre_ of Lord Hxxxxxxx*h's _vis a
vis_. "Ah! _bon jour, ma chere amie_," said old Crony, waving his hand
and making one of his best bows in return. "You are a happy dog," said
I, "old fellow, to be upon such pleasant terms with that divinity. No
plebeian blood there, I should think: a peeress, I perceive, by the
coronet on the panels." "_A peine cognoist, ou la femme et le melon_,"
responded Crony, "you shall hear. Among the _ton_ she passes by the name
of Vestina the Titan, from her being such a finished tactician in the
campaigns of Venus;. her ordinary appellation is Mrs. St--h--pe: whether
this be a _nom de guerre or a nom de terre_, I shall not pretend to
decide; if we admit that _la chose est toute_, _et que la nom n'y fait
rien_, the rest is of no consequence. It would be an intricate task to
unravel the family web of our fashionable frail ones, although that of
many frail fashionables stands high in heraldry. The lady in question,
although in 'the sear o' the leaf,' is yet in high request; 'fat, fair,
and forty' shall I say?
~19~~Alas! that would have been more suitable ten years since; but,
_n'importe_, she has the science to conceal the ravages of time, and
is yet considered attractive. No one better understands the art of
intrigue; and she is, moreover, a travelled dame, not deficient in
intellect, full of anecdote; and as _conjugation and declension_ go hand
in hand with some men of taste, she has risen into notice when others
usually decline. A sporting colonel is said to have formerly contributed
largely to her comforts, and her tact in matters of business is
notorious; about two hundred per annum she derived from the Stock
Exchange, and her present _peerless protector_ no doubt subscribes
liberally. To be brief, Laura has money in the funds, a splendid house,
carriage, gives her grand parties, and lives proportionably expensive
and elegant; yet with all this she has taken care that the age of gold
may succeed to the age of brass, that the retirement of her latter days
may not be overclouded by the storms of adversity. She had two sisters,
both gay, who formerly figured on the _pave_, Sarah and Louisa; but of
late they have disappeared, report says, to _conjugate_ in private.
Turn your eyes towards the promenade," said Crony, "and observe that
constellation of beauties, three in number, who move along _le verd
gazon_: they are denominated the _Red Rose_, the _Moss Rose_, and the
_Cabbage Rose_. The first is Rose Co*l**d, a dashing belle, who has
long figured in high life; her first appearance was in company with Lord
William F***g***ld, by whom she has a child living; from thence we
trace her to the protection of another peer, Lord Ty*****], and from him
gradually declining to the rich relative of a northern baronet, sportive
little Jack R*****n, whose favourite _lauda finem_ she continued for
some time; but as the law engrossed rather too much of her protector's
affairs, so the fair engrossed rather too much of the law; whether she
has yet given up ~20~~practice in the King's Bench I cannot determine,
but her appearance here signifies that she will accept a fee from any
side; Rose has long since lost every tint of the maiden's blush, and
is now in the full blow of her beauty and maturity, but certainly not
without considerable personal attractions; with some her _nom de guerre_
is _Rosa longa_, and a wag of the day says, that Rose is a beauty in
_spite of her teeth_. The _Moss Rose_ has recently changed her cognomen
with her residence, and is now Mrs. F**, of Beaumout-street; she was
never esteemed a _planet_, and may be now said to have sunk into a
star of the second order, a little _twinkling light_, useful to assist
elderly gentlemen in finding their way to the Paphian temple. The
_Cabbage Rose_ is one of your vulgar beauties, ripe as a peach, and
rich in countenance as the ruby: if she has never figured away with the
peerage, she has yet the credit of being entitled to _three balls_ on
her coronet, and an _old uncle_ to support them: she has lately taken a
snug box in Park-place, Regent's-park, and lives in very good style. The
belle in the brown chariot, gray horses, and blue liveries is now the
lady of a baronet, and one of three _graceless graces_, the Elxxxxx's,
who, because their father kept a livery stable, must needs all go to
_rack_: she has a large family living by Mr. V*l*b***s, whom she left
for the honour of her present connexion. That she is married to the
baronet, there is no doubt; and it is but justice to add, she is one
among the many instances of such compromises in fashionable life who
are admitted into society upon sufferance, and falls into the class of
demi-respectables. Among the park beaux she is known by the appellation
of the _Doldrums_ her two sisters have been missing some time, and it
is said are now rusticating in Paris." My friend Eglantine had evidently
fled away with the white crow, and the fashionables were rapidly
decreasing in the drive, when Crony, whose scent of ~21~~dinner hour is
as staunch as that of an old pointer at game, gave evident symptoms
of his inclination to masticate. "We must take another opportunity to
finish our lecture on the principles of _Citherian astronomy_," said
the old beau, "for as yet we are not half through the list of
constellations. I have a great desire to introduce you to Harriette
Wilson and her sisters, whose true history will prove very entertaining,
particularly as the fair writer has altogether omitted the genuine
anecdotes of herself and family in her recently published memoirs."
At dinner we were joined by Horace Eglantine and Bob Transit, from the
first of whom we learned, that a grand fancy ball was to take place at
the Argyll Rooms in the course of the ensuing week, under the immediate
direction of four fashionable impures, and at the expense of General
Trinket, a broad-shouldered Milesian, who having made a considerable sum
by the commissariat service, had returned home to spend his
Peninsular pennies among the Paphian dames of the metropolis. For this
entertainment we resolved to obtain tickets, and as the ci-devant lady
H***e was to be patroness, Crony assured us there would be no difficulty
in that respect, added to which, he there promised to finish his
sketches of the Citherian beauties of the metropolis, and afford my
friend Transit an opportunity of sketching certain portraits both of
Paphians and their paramours.
[Illustration: page021]
THE WAKE;
OR,
TEDDY O'RAFFERTY'S LAST APPEARANCE.
A SCENE IN THE HOLY LAND.
~22~~
'Twas at Teddy O'Rafferty's wake,
Just to comfort ould Judy, his wife,
The lads of the hod had a frake.
And kept the thing up to the life.
There was Father O'Donahoo, Mr. Delany,
Pat Murphy the doctor, that rebel O'Shaney,
Young Terence, a nate little knight o' the hod,
And that great dust O'Sullivan just out o' quod;
Then Florence the piper, no music is riper,
To all the sweet cratures with emerald fatures
Who came to drink health to the dead.
Not Bryan Baroo had a louder shaloo
When he gave up his breath, to that tythe hunter death,
Than the howl over Teddy's cowld head:
'Twas enough to have rais'd up a saint.
All the darlings with whiskey so faint,
And the lads full of fight, had a glorious night,
When ould Teddy was wak'd in his shed.
--Original.
He who has not travelled in Ireland should never presume to offer an
opinion upon its natives. It is not from the wealthy absentees, who
since the union have abandoned their countrymen to wretchedness, for the
advancement of their own ambitious views, that we can form a judgment
of the exalted Irish: nor is it from the lowly race, who driven forth
by starving penury, crowd our more prosperous shores, ~23~~that we can
justly estimate the true character of the peasantry of that unhappy
country. The Memoirs of Captain Rock may have done something towards
removing the national prejudices of Englishmen; while the frequent and
continued agitation of that important question, the Emancipation of the
Catholics, has roused a spirit of inquiry in every worthy bosom that
will much advantage the oppressed, and, eventually, diffuse a more
general and generous feeling towards the Irish throughout civilized
Europe. I have been led into this strain of contemplation, by observing
the ridiculous folly and wasteful expenditure of the nobility and
fashionables of Great Britain; who, neglecting their starving tenantry
and kindred friends, crowd to the shores of France and Italy in search
of scenery and variety, without having the slightest knowledge of the
romantic beauties and delightful landscapes, which abound in the three
kingdoms of the Rose, the Shamrock, and the Thistle. How much good
might be done by the examples of a few illustrious, noble, and wealthy
individuals, making annual visits to Ireland and Scotland! what a field
does it afford for true enjoyment! how superior, in most instances, the
accommodations and security; and how little, if at all inferior, to the
scenic attractions of foreign countries. Then too the gratification
of observing the progress of improvement in the lower classes, of
administering to their wants, and consoling with them under their
patient sufferings from oppressive laws, rendered perhaps painfully
necessary by the political temperature of the times or the unforgiving
suspicions of the past. But I am becoming sentimental when I ought to be
humorous, contemplative when I should be characteristic, and seriously
sententious when I ought to be playfully satirical. Forgive me, gentle
reader, if from the collapse of the spirit, I have for a moment turned
aside from the natural gaiety of my ~24~~style, to give utterance to the
warm feelings of an eccentric but generous heart. But, _allons_ to the
wake.
"Plaze ye'r honor," said Barney O'Finn (my groom of the chambers), "may
I be _axing_ a holiday to-night?" "It will be very inconvenient, Barney;
but------" "But, your honor's not the jontleman to refuse a small trate
o' the sort," said Barney, anticipating the conclusion of my objection.
There was some thing unusually anxious about the style of the poor
fellow's request that made me hesitate in the refusal. "It's not myself
that would be craving the favor, but a poor dead cousin o' mine, heaven
rest his sowl!" "And how can the granting of such a request benefit
your departed relation, Barney?" quoth I, not a little puzzled by
the strangeness of the application. "Sure, that's mighty _dare_
of comprehension, your honor. Teddy O'Rafferty was my own mother's
brother's son, and devil o' like o' him there was in all Kilgobbin: we
went to ould Father O'Rourke's school together when we were spalpeens,
and ate our _paraters_ and butter-milk out o' the same platter; many's
the scrape we've been in together: bad luck to the ould schoolmaster,
for he flogged all the _larning_ out o' poor Teddy, and all the liking
for't out of Barney O'Finn, that's myself, your honor--so one dark night
we took advantage of the moon, and having joined partnership in property
put it all into a Limerick silk handkerchief, with which we made
the best of our way to Dublin, travelling stage arter stage by the
ould-fashioned conveyance, Pat Adam's ten-toed machine. Many's the drap
we got on the road to drive away care. All the wide world before us, and
all the fine family estate behind,--pigs, poultry, and relations,--divil
a tenpenny did we ever touch since. It's not your honor that will be
angry to hear a few family misfortins," said Barney, hesitating to
proceed with his narration, "Give me my hat, fellow," said ~25~~I, "and
don't torture me with your nonsense."-- "May be it an't nonsense your
honor means?" "And why not, sirrah?"--"Bekase it's not in your nature
to spake light o' the dead." Up to this point, my attention had been
divided between the Morning Chronicle which lay upon my breakfast table,
and Barney's comical relation; a glance at the narrator, however, as he
finished the last sentence, convinced me that I ought to have treated
him with more feeling. He was holding my hat towards me, when the pearly
drop of affliction burst uncontrollably forth, and hung on the side of
the beaver, like a sparkling crystal gem loosed from the cavern's
roof, to rest upon the jasper stone beneath. I would have given up my
Mastership of Arts to have recalled that word nonsense: I was so
touched with the poor fellow's pathos.--" Shall I tell your onor the
_partikilars_?" "Ay, do, Barney, proceed."--"Well, your onor, we worked
our way to London togither--haymaking and harvesting: 'Taste fashions
the man' was a saw of ould Father O'Rourke's; 'though divil a taste had
he, but for draining the whiskey bottle and bating the boys, bad luck to
his mimory! 'Is it yourself?' said I, to young squire O'Sullivan, from
Scullanabogue, whom good fortune threw in my way the very first day I
was in London.--'Troth, and it is, Barney,' said he: 'What brings you to
the sate of government?' 'I'm seeking sarvice and fortune, your onor,'
said I. 'Come your ways, then, my darling,' said he; and, without more
to do, he made me his _locum tenens_, first clerk, messenger, and man of
all work to a Maynooth Milesian. There was onor enough in all conscience
for me, only it was not vary profitable. For, altho' my master followed
the law, the law wouldn't follow him, and he'd rather more bags than
briefs:--the consequence was, I had more banyan days than the man in the
wilderness. Divil a'care, I got a character by my conduct, and a good
place when I left him, as your ~26~~govonor can testify. As for poor
Teddy, divil a partikle of taste had he for fashionable life, but a
mighty pratty notion of the arts, so he turned operative arkitekt;
engaged himself to a layer of bricks, and skipped nimbly up and down a
five story ladder with a long-tailed box upon his shoulder--pace be to
his ashes! He was rather too fond of the _crature_--many's the slip he
had for his life--one minute breaking a jest, and the next breaking a
joint; till there wasn't a sound limb to his body. Arrah, sure, it
was all the same to Teddy--only last Monday, he was more elevated than
usual, for he had just reached the top of the steeple of one of the new
churches with a three gallon can of beer upon his _knowledge-box_, and,
perhaps a little too much of the _crature_ inside o! it. 'Shout, Teddy,
to the honour of the saint,' said the foreman of the works (for they
had just completed the job). Poor Teddy's religion got the better of
his understanding, for in shouting long life to the dedicatory saint, he
lost his own--missed his footing, and pitched over the scaffold like an
odd chimney-pot in a high wind, and came down smash to the bottom with
a head as flat as a bump. Divil a word has he ever spake since; for when
they picked him up, he was dead as a Dublin bay herring--and now he
lies in his cabin in Dyot-street, St. Giles, as stiff as a poker,--and
to-night, your onor, we are going to _wake_ him, poor sowl! to smoke a
pipe, and spake an _horashon_ over his corpse before we put him dacently
to bed with the shovel. Then, there's his poor widow left childless, and
divil a rap to buy paraters wid--bad luck to the eye that wouldn't drap
a tear to his mimory, and cowld be the heart that refuses to comfort
his widow!" Here poor Barney could no longer restrain his feelings,
and having concluded the family history, blubbered outright. It was a
strange mixture of the ludicrous and the sorrowful; but told with such
an artless simplicity and genuine traits of feeling, that I would
have defied the most ~27~~volatile to have felt uninterested with the
speaker. "You shall go, by all means, Barney," said I: "and here is
a trifle to comfort the poor widow with." "The blessings of the whole
calendar full on your onor!" responded the grateful Irishman. What
a scene, thought I, for the pencil of my friend Bob Transit!"Could a
stranger visit the place," I inquired, without molestation or the
charge of impertinence, Barney?" "Divil a charge, your onor; and as
to impertinence, a wake's like a house-warming, where every guest is
welcome." With this assurance, I apprised Barney of my intention to
gratify curiosity, and to bring a friend with me; carefully noted down
the direction, and left the grateful fellow to pursue his course.
The absurdities of funeral ceremonies have hitherto triumphed over the
advances of civilization, and in many countries are still continued with
almost as much affected solemnity and ridiculous parade as distinguished
the early processions of the Pagans, Heathens, and Druids. The honours
bestowed upon the dead may inculcate a good moral lesson upon the minds
of the living, and teach them so to act in this life that their cold
remains may deserve the after-exordium of their friends; but, in most
instances, funeral pomp has more of worldly vanity in it than true
respect, and it is no unusual circumstance in the meaner ranks of
life, for the survivors to abridge their own comforts by a wasteful
expenditure and useless parade, with which they think to honour the
memory of the dead. The Egyptians carry this folly perhaps to the most
absurd degree; their catacombs and splendid tombs far outrivalling the
habitations of their princes, together with their expensive mode
of embalming, are with us matters of curiosity, and often induce a
sacrilegious transfer of some distinguished mummy to the museums of the
connoisseur. The Athenians, Greeks, and Romans, had each their peculiar
funeral ceremonies in the exhumation, ~28~~sacrifices, and orations
performed on such occasions; and much of the present customs of the
Romish church are, no doubt, derivable from and to be traced to these
last-mentioned nations. In the present times, no race of people are
more superstitious in their veneration for the ancient customs of their
country and funeral rites, than the lower orders of the Irish, and that
folly is often carried to a greater height during their domicile in this
country than when residing at home.
It was about nine o'clock at night when Eglantine, Transit, and myself
sallied forth to St. Giles's in search of the wake, or, as Bob called
it, on a crusade to the holy land. Formerly, such a visit would have
been attended with great danger to the parties making the attempt, from
the number of desperate characters who inhabited the back-slums lying
in the rear of Broad-street: where used to be congregated together,
the most notorious thieves, beggars, and bunters of the metropolis,
amalgamated with the poverty and wretchedness of every country, but more
particularly the lower classes of Irish, who still continue to exist
in great numbers in the neighbourhood. Here was formerly held in a
night-cellar, the celebrated Beggars' Club, at which the dissolute Lord
Barrymore and Colonel George Hanger, afterwards Lord Coleraine, are said
to have often officiated as president and vice-president, attended by
their profligate companions, and surrounded by the most extraordinary
characters of the times; the portraits and biography of whom may be seen
in Smith's 'Vagabondiana,' a very clever and highly entertaining work.
It was on this spot that George Parker collected his materials for
'Life's Painter of Variegated Characters,' and among its varieties, that
Grose and others obtained the flash and patter which form the cream of
their humorous works. Formerly, the Beggars' ordinary, held in a cellar
was a scene worthy ~29~~of the pencil of a Hogarth or a Cruikshank;
notorious impostors, professional paupers, ballad-singers, and blind
fiddlers might here be witnessed carousing on the profits of mistaken
charity, and laughing in their cups at the credulity of mankind; but
the police have now disturbed their nightly orgies, and the Mendicant
Society ruined their lucrative calling. The long table, where the
trenchers consisted of so many round holes turned out in the plank, and
the knives, forks, spoons, candle-sticks, and fire-irons all chained
to their separate places, is no longer to be seen. The night-cellar yet
exists, where the wretched obtain a temporary lodging and straw bed at
twopence per head; but the Augean stable has been cleansed of much of
its former impurities, and scarce a vestige remains of the disgusting
depravity of former times.
[Illustration: page029]