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[Illustration]
NUTS AND NUTCRACKERS.
"The world's my filbert which with my crackers I will open."
SHAKSPEARE.
"The priest calls the lawyer a cheat,
And the lawyer beknaves the divine;
And the statesman, because he's so great,
Thinks his trade's as honest as mine."
BEGGAR'S OPERA.
"Hard texts are _nuts_ (I will not call them cheaters,)
Whose shells do keep their kernels from the eaters;
Open the shells, and you shall have the meat:
They here are brought for you to crack and eat."
JOHN BUNYAN.
ILLUSTRATED BY "PHIZ."
Second Edition.
LONDON:
WM. S. ORR AND CO., PATERNOSTER ROW;
WILLIAM CURRY, JUN., AND CO., DUBLIN.
MDCCCXLV.
LONDON:
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
AN OPENING NUT vii
A NUT FOR MEN OF GENIUS 1
A NUT FOR CORONERS 15
A NUT FOR "TOURISTS" 19
A NUT FOR LEGAL FUNCTIONARIES 22
A NUT FOR "ENDURING AFFECTION" 31
A NUT FOR THE POLICE AND SIR PETER 37
A NUT FOR THE BUDGET 44
A NUT FOR REPEAL 49
A NUT FOR NATIONAL PRIDE 55
A NUT FOR DIPLOMATISTS 64
A NUT FOR FOREIGN TRAVEL 71
A NUT FOR DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 77
A NUT FOR LADIES BOUNTIFUL 82
A NUT FOR THE PRIESTS 85
A NUT FOR LEARNED SOCIETIES 87
A NUT FOR THE LAWYERS 92
A NUT FOR THE IRISH 99
A NUT FOR VICEREGAL PRIVILEGES 102
RICH AND POOR--POUR ET CONTRE 109
A NUT FOR ST. PATRICK'S NIGHT 114
A NUT FOR "GENTLEMAN JOCKS" 119
A NUT FOR YOUNGER SONS 123
A NUT FOR THE PENAL CODE 128
A NUT FOR THE OLD 131
A NUT FOR THE ART UNION 133
A NUT FOR THE KINGSTOWN RAILWAY 137
A NUT FOR THE DOCTORS 141
A NUT FOR THE ARCHITECTS 145
A NUT FOR A NEW COLONY 148
A "SWEET" NUT FOR THE YANKEES 153
A NUT FOR THE SEASON--JULLIEN'S QUADRILLES 157
A NUT FOR "ALL IRELAND" 163
A NUT FOR "A NEW COMPANY" 168
A NUT FOR "THE POLITICAL ECONOMISTS" 175
A NUT FOR "GRAND DUKES" 180
A NUT FOR THE EAST INDIA DIRECTORS 183
A FILBERT FOR SIR ROBERT PEEL 185
"THE INCOME TAX" 186
A NUT FOR THE "BELGES" 189
A NUT FOR WORKHOUSE CHAPLAINS 192
A NUT FOR THE "HOUSE" 197
A NUT FOR "LAW REFORM" 200
A NUT FOR "CLIMBING BOYS" 203
A NUT FOR "THE SUBDIVISION OF LABOUR" 206
A NUT FOR A "NEW VERDICT" 212
A NUT FOR THE REAL "LIBERATOR" 216
A NUT FOR "HER MAJESTY'S SERVANTS" 221
A NUT FOR THE LANDLORD AND TENANT COMMISSION 225
A NUT FOR THE HUMANE SOCIETY 228
[Illustration]
A NUT FOR MEN OF GENIUS.
If Providence, instead of a vagabond, had made me a justice of the
peace, there is no species of penalty I would not have enforced
against a class of offenders, upon whom it is the perverted taste of
the day to bestow wealth, praise, honour, and reputation; in a word,
upon that portion of the writers for our periodical literature whose
pastime it is by high-flown and exaggerated pictures of society,
places, and amusements, to mislead the too credulous and believing
world; who, in the search for information and instruction, are but
reaping a barren harvest of deceit and illusion.
Every one is loud and energetic in his condemnation of a bubble
speculation; every one is severe upon the dishonest features of
bankruptcy, and the demerits of un-trusty guardianship; but while the
law visits these with its pains and penalties, and while heavy
inflictions follow on those breaches of trust, which affect our
pocket, yet can he "walk scatheless," with port erect and visage high
who, for mere amusement--for the passing pleasure of the moment--or,
baser still, for certain pounds per sheet, can, present us with the
air-drawn daggers of a dyspeptic imagination for the real woes of
life, or paint the most common-place and tiresome subjects with
colours so vivid and so glowing as to persuade the unwary reader that
a paradise of pleasure and enjoyment, hitherto unknown, is open before
him. The treadmill and the ducking-stool, "_me judice_," would no
longer be tenanted by rambling gipsies or convivial rioters, but would
display to the admiring gaze of an assembled multitude the
aristocratic features of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, the dark whiskers
of D'Israeli, the long and graceful proportions of Hamilton Maxwell,
or the portly paunch and melo-dramatic frown of that right pleasant
fellow, Henry Addison himself.
You cannot open a newspaper without meeting some narrative of what, in
the phrase of the day, is denominated an "attempted imposition." Count
Skryznyzk, with black moustachoes and a beard to match, after being
the lion of Lord Dudley Stuart's parties, and the delight of a certain
set of people in the West-end--who, when they give a tea-party, call
it a _soiree_, and deem it necessary to have either a Hindoo or a
Hottentot, a Pole, or a Piano-player, to interest their guests--was
lately brought up before Sir Peter Laurie, charged by 964 with
obtaining money under false pretences, and sentenced to three months'
imprisonment and hard labour at the treadmill.
The charge looks a grave one, good reader, and perhaps already some
notion is trotting through your head about forgery or embezzlement;
you think of widows rendered desolate, or orphans defrauded; you
lament over the hard-earned pittance of persevering industry lost to
its possessor; and, in your heart, you acknowledge that there may have
been some cause for the partition of Poland, and that the Emperor of
the Russias, like another monarch, may not be half so black as he is
painted. But spare your honest indignation; our unpronounceable friend
did none of these. No; the head and front of his offending was simply
exciting the sympathies of a feeling world for his own deep wrongs;
for the fate of his father, beheaded in the Grand Place at Warsaw; for
his four brothers, doomed never to see the sun in the dark mines of
Tobolsk; for his beautiful sister, reared in the lap of luxury and
wealth, wandering houseless and an outcast around the palaces of St.
Petersburg, wearying heaven itself with cries for mercy on her
banished brethren; and last of all, for himself--he, who at the battle
of Pultowa led heaven-knows how many and how terrific charges of
cavalry,--whose breast was a galaxy of orders only outnumbered by his
wounds--that he should be an exile, without friends, and without home!
In a word, by a beautiful and highly-wrought narrative, that drew
tears from the lady and ten shillings from the gentleman of the house,
he became amenable to our law as a swindler and an impostor, simply
because his narrative was a fiction.
In the name of all justice, in the name of truth, of honesty, and fair
dealing, I ask you, is this right? or, if the treadmill be the fit
reward for such powers as his, what shall we say, what shall we do,
with all the popular writers of the day? How many of Bulwer's stories
are facts? What truth is there in James? Is that beautiful creation of
Dickens, "Poor Nell," a real or a fictitious character? And is the
offence, after all, merely in the manner, and not the matter, of the
transgression? Is it that, instead of coming before the world printed,
puffed, and hot-pressed by the gentlemen of the Row, he ventured to
edite himself, and, instead of the trade, make his tongue the medium
of publication? And yet, if speech be the crime, what say you to
Macready, and with what punishment are you prepared to visit him who
makes your heart-strings vibrate to the sorrows of _Virginius_, or
thrills your very blood with the malignant vengeance of _Iago_? Is
what is permissible in Covent Garden, criminal in the city? or,
stranger still, is there a punishment at the one place, and praise at
the other? Or is it the costume, the foot-lights, the orange-peel, and
the sawdust--are they the terms of the immunity? Alas, and alas! I
believe they are.
Burke said, "The age of chivalry is o'er;" and I believe the age of
poetry has gone with it; and if Homer himself were to chant an Iliad
down Fleet Street, I'd wager a crown that 964 would take him up for a
ballad-singer.
But a late case occurs to me. A countryman of mine, one Bernard
Cavanagh, doubtless, a gentleman of very good connections, announced
some time ago that he had adopted a new system of diet, which was
neither more nor less than going without any food. Now, Mr. Cavanagh
was a stout gentleman, comely and plump to look at, who conversed
pleasantly on the common topics of the day, and seemed, on the whole,
to enjoy life pretty much like other people. He was to be seen for a
shilling--children half-price; and although Englishmen have read of
our starving countrymen for the last century and a-half, yet their
curiosity to see one, to look at him, to prod him with their
umbrellas, punch him with their knuckles, and otherwise test his
vitality, was such, that they seemed just as much alive as though the
phenomenon was new to them. The consequence was, Mr. Cavanagh, whose
cook was on board wages, and whose establishment was of the least
expensive character, began to wax rich. Several large towns and
cities, in different parts of the empire, requested him to visit them;
and Joe Hume suggested that the corporation of London should offer him
ten thousand pounds for his secret, merely for the use of the livery.
In fact, Cavanagh was now the cry, and as Barney appeared to grow fat
on fasting, his popularity knew no bounds. Unfortunately, however,
ambition, the bane of so many other great men, numbered him also among
its victims. Had he been content with London as the sphere of his
triumphs and teetotalism, there is no saying how long he might have
gone on starving with satisfaction. Whether it is that the people are
less observant there, or more accustomed to see similar exhibitions,
I cannot tell; but true it is they paid their shillings, felt his
ribs, walked home, and pronounced Barney a most exemplary Irishman.
But not content with the capital, he must make a tour in the
provinces, and accordingly went starring it about through Leeds,
Birmingham, Manchester, and all the other manufacturing towns, as if
in mockery of the poor people who did not know the secret how to live
without food.
Mr. Cavanagh was now living--if life it can be called--in one of the
best hotels, when, actuated by that spirit of inquiry that
characterises the age, a respectable lady, who kept a boarding-house,
paid him a visit, to ascertain, if possible, how far his system might
be made applicable to her guests, who, whatever their afflictions,
laboured under no such symptoms as his.
She was pleased with Barney,--she patted him with her hand; he was
round, and plump, and fat, much more so, indeed, than many of her
daily dinner-party; and had, withal, that kind of joyous, rollicking,
devil-may-care look, that seems to bespeak good condition;--but this
the poor lady, of course, did not know to be an inherent property in
Pat, however poor his situation.
After an interview of an hour long she took her leave, not exhibiting
the usual satisfaction of other visitors, but with a dubious look and
meditative expression, that betokened a mind not made up, and a heart
not at ease; she was clearly not content, perhaps the abortive effort
to extract a confession from Mr. Cavanagh might be the cause, or
perhaps she felt like many respectable people whose curiosity is only
the advanced guard to their repentance, and who never think that in
any exhibition they get the worth of their money. This might be the
case, for as fasting is a negative process, there is really little to
see in the performer. Had it been the man that eats a sheep; "_a la
bonne heure!_" you have something for your money there: and I can even
sympathize with the French gentleman who follows Van Amburgh to this
day, in the agreeable hope, to use his own words, of "assisting at the
_soiree_, when the lions shall eat Mr. Van Amburgh." This, if not
laudable is at least intelligible. But to return, the lady went her
way, not indeed on hospitable thoughts intent, but turning over in her
mind various theories about abstinence, and only wishing she had the
whole of the Cavanagh family for boarders at a guinea a-week.
Late in the evening of the same day this estimable lady, whose
inquiries into the properties of gastric juice, if not as scientific,
were to the full as enthusiastic as those of Bostock or Tiedeman
himself, was returning from an early tea, through an unfrequented
suburb of Manchester, when suddenly her eye fell upon Bernard
Cavanagh, seated in a little shop--a dish of sausages and a plate of
ham before him, while a frothing cup of porter ornamented his right
hand. It was true, he wore a patch above his eye, a large beard, and
various other disguises, but they served him not: she knew him at
once. The result is soon told: the police were informed; Mr. Cavanagh
was captured; the lady gave her testimony in a crowded court, and he
who lately was rolling on the wheel of fortune, was now condemned to
foot it on a very different wheel, and all for no other cause than
that he could not live without food.
The magistrate, who was eloquent on the occasion, called him an
impostor; designating by this odious epithet, a highly-wrought and
well-conceived work of imagination. Unhappy Defoe, your Robinson
Crusoe might have cost you a voyage across the seas; your man Friday
might have been a black Monday to you had you lived in our days. 964
is a severer critic than _The Quarterly_, and his judgment more
irrevocable.
[Illustration: The Man of Genius.]
We have never heard of any one who, discovering the fictitious
character of a novel he had believed as a fact, waited on the
publisher with a modest request that his money might be returned to
him, being obtained under false pretences; much less of his applying
to his worship for a warrant against G. P. R. James, Esq., or Harrison
Ainsworth, for certain imaginary woes and unreal sorrows depicted in
their writings: yet the conduct of the lady towards Mr. Cavanagh was
exactly of this nature. How did his appetite do her any possible
disservice? what sins against her soul were contained in his sausages?
and yet she must appeal to the justice as an injured woman: Cavanagh
had imposed upon her--she was wronged because he was hungry. All his
narrative, beautifully constructed and artfully put together, went for
nothing; his look, his manner, his entertaining anecdotes, his
fascinating conversation, his time--from ten in the morning till eight
in the evening--went all for nothing: this really is too bad. Do we
ask of every author to be the hero he describes? Is Bulwer, Pelham,
and Paul Clifford, Eugene Aram, and the Lady of Lyons? Is James, Mary
of Burgundy, Darnley, the Gipsy, and Corse de Leon? Is Dickens, Sam
Weller, Quilp, and Barnaby Rudge?--to what absurdities will this lead
us! and yet Bernard Cavanagh was no more guilty than any of these
gentlemen. He was, if I may so express it, a pictorial--an ideal
representation of a man that fasted: he narrated all the sensations
want of food suggests; its dreamy debility, its languid stupor, its
painful suffering, its stage of struggle and suspense, ending in a
victory, where the mind, the conqueror over the baser nature, asserts
its proud and glorious supremacy in the triumph of volition; and for
this beautiful creation of his brain he is sent to the treadmill, as
though, instead of a poet, he had been a pickpocket.
If Bulwer be a baronet; if Dickens' bed-room be papered with
bank-debentures; then do I proclaim it loudly before the world,
Bernard Cavanagh is an injured man: you are either absurd in one case,
or unjust in the other; take your choice. Ship off Sir Edward to the
colonies; send James to Swan River; let Lady Blessington card wool, or
Mrs. Norton pound oyster-shells; or else we call upon you, give Mr.
Cavanagh freedom of the guild; call him the author of "The Hungry
One;" let him be courted and _feted_--you may ask him to dinner with
an easy conscience, and invite him to tea without remorse. Let a
Whig-radical borough solicit him to represent it; place him at the
right hand of Lord John; let his picture be exhibited in the
print-shops, and let the cut of his coat and the tie of his cravat be
so much in vogue, that bang-ups _a la_ Barney shall be the only things
seen in Bond-street: one course or the other you must take. If the
mountain will not go to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain: or
in other words, if Bulwer descend not to Barney, Barney must mount up
to Bulwer. It is absurd, it is worse than absurd, to pretend that he
who so thoroughly sympathises with his hero, as to embody him in his
own thoughts and acts, his look, his dress, and his demeanour, that
he, I say, who so penetrated with the impersonation of a part, finds
the pen too weak, and the press too slow, to picture forth his vivid
creations, should be less an object of praise, of honour, and
distinction, than the indolent denizen of some drawing-room, who, in
slippered ease, dictates his shadowy and imperfect conceptions--visions
of what he never felt, dreamy representations of unreality.
"The poet," as the word implies, is the maker or the creator; and
however little of the higher attributes of what the world esteems as
poetry the character would seem to possess, he who invents a
personage, the conformity of whose traits to the rule of life is
acknowledged for its truth, he, I say, is a poet. Thus, there is
poetry in Sancho Panza, Falstaff, Dugald Dalgetty, and a hundred other
similar impersonations; and why not in Bernard Cavanagh?
Look for a moment at the effects of your system. The Caraccis, we are
told, spent their boyish years drawing rude figures with chalk on the
doors and even the walls of the palaces of Rome: here the first germs
of their early talent displayed themselves; and in those bold
conceptions of youthful genius were seen the first dawnings of a power
that gave glory to the age they lived in. Had Sir Peter Laurie been
their cotemporary, had 964 been loose in those days, they would have
been treated with a trip to the mill, and their taste for design
cultivated by the low diet of a penitentiary. You know not what
budding genius you have nipped with this abominable system: you think
not of the early indications of mind and intellect you may be
consigning to prison: or is it after all, that the matter-of-fact
spirit of the age has sapped the very vitals of our law-code, and that
in your utilitarian zeal you have doomed to death all that bears the
stamp of imagination? if this be indeed your object, have a good
heart, encourage 964, and you'll not leave a novelist in the land.
Good reader, I ask your pardon for all this honest indignation; I know
it is in vain: I cannot reform our jurisprudence; and our laws, like
the Belgian revolution, must be regarded "_comme un fait accompli_;"
in other words, what can't be cured must be endured. Let us leave then
our friend the Pole to perform his penance; let us say adieu to
Barney, who is at this moment occupying a suite of apartments in the
Penitentiary, and let us turn to the reverse of the medal, I mean to
those who would wile us away by false promises and flattering speeches
to entertain such views of life as are not only impossible but
inconsistent, thus rendering our path here devoid of interest and of
pleasure, while compared with the extravagant creations of their own
erring fancies. Yes, princes may be trusted, but put not your faith in
periodicals. Let no pictorial representations of Alpine scenery, under
the auspices of Colburn or Bentley, seduce you from the comforts of
your hearth and home: let no enthusiastic accounts of military
greatness, no peninsular pleasures, no charms of campaigning life,
induce you to change your garb of country gentleman for the livery of
the Horse-Guards,--"making the green one red."
Be not mystified by Maxwell, nor lured by Lorrequer; let no panegyrics
of pipe-clay and the brevet seduce you from the peaceful path in life;
let not Marryat mar your happiness by the glories of those who dwell
in the deep waters; let not Wilson persuade you that the "Lights and
Shadows of Scottish Life" have any reference to that romantic people,
who betake themselves to their native mountains with a little oatmeal
for food and a little sulphur for friction; do not believe one
syllable about the girls of the west; trust not in the representations
of their blue eyes, nor of their trim ankles peering beneath a jupe of
scarlet--we can vouch it is true, for the red petticoat, but the rest
is apocryphal. Fly, we warn you, from Summers in Germany, Evenings in
Brittany, Weeks on the Rhine; away with tours, guide-books, and all
the John Murrayisms of travels. A plague upon Egypt! travellers have a
proverbial liberty of conscience, and the farther they go, the more
does it seem to stretch; not that near home matters are much better,
for our "Wild Sports" in Achill are as romantic as those in Africa,
and the Complete Angler is a complete humbug.
There is no faith--no principle in any of these men. The grave writer,
the stern moralist, the uncompromising advocate of the inflexible rule
of right, is a dandy with essenced locks, loose trousers, and looser
morals, who breakfasts at four in the afternoon, and spends his
evenings among the side scenes of the opera; the merry writer of whims
and oddities, who shakes his puns about like pepper from a
pepper-castor, is a misanthropic, melancholy gentleman, of mournful
look and unhappy aspect: the advocate of field-sports, of all the
joyous excitement of the hunting-field, and the bold dangers of the
chase, is an asthmatic sexagenarian, with care in his heart and gout
in his ankles; and lastly, he who lives but in the horrors of a
charnel-house, whose gloomy mind finds no pleasure save in the dark
and dismal pictures of crime and suffering, of lingering agony, or
cruel death, is a fat, round, portly, comely gentleman, with a laugh
like Falstaff, and a face whose every lineament and feature seems to
exhale the merriment of a jocose and happy temperament. I speak not of
the softer sex, many of whose productions would seem to have but
little sympathy with themselves; but once for all, I would ask you
what reliance, what faith can you place in any of them? Is it to the
denizen of a coal mine you apply for information about the Nassau
balloon? Do you refer a disputed point in dress to an Englishman, in
climate to a Laplander, in politeness to a Frenchman, or in
hospitality to a Belgian? or do you not rather feel that these are not
exactly their attributes, and that you are moving the equity for a
case at common law? exactly in the same way, and for the same reason,
we repeat it, put not your faith in periodicals, nor in the writers
thereof.
How ridiculous would it appear if the surgeon-general were to open a
pleading, or charge a jury in the Queen's Bench, while the
solicitor-general was engaged in taking up the femoral artery! What
would you say if the Archbishop of Canterbury were to preside over the
artillery-practice at Woolwich, while the Commander of the Forces
delivered a charge to the clergy of the diocese? How would you look if
Justice Pennefather were to speak at a repeal meeting, and Daniel
O'Connell to conduct himself like a loyal and discreet citizen? Would
you not at once say the whole world is in masquerade? and would you
not be justified in the remark? And yet this it is which is exactly
taking place before your eyes in the wide world of letters. The
illiterate and unreflecting man of under-bred habits and degenerate
tastes will write nothing but a philosophic novel; the denizen of the
Fleet, or the Queen's Bench, publishes an ascent of Mont Blanc, with
a glowing description of the delights of liberty; the nobleman writes
slang; the starving author, with broken boots and patched
continuations, will not indite a name undignified by a title; and
after all this, will you venture to tell me that these men are not
indictable by the statute for obtaining money under false pretences?
I have run myself out of breath; and now, if you will allow me a few
moments, I will tell you what, perhaps, I ought to have done earlier
in this article, namely, its object.
It is a remarkable feature in the complex and difficult machinery of
our society, that while crime and the law code keep steadily on the
increase, moving in parallel lines one beside the other, certain
prejudices, popular fallacies--nuts, as we have called them at the
head of this paper--should still disgrace our social system; and that,
however justice may be administered in our courts of law, in the
private judicature of our own dwellings we observe an especial system
of jurisprudence, marked by injustice and by wrong. To endeavour to
depict some instances of this, I have set about my present
undertaking. To disabuse the public mind as to the error, that what is
punishable in one can be praiseworthy in another; and what is
excellent in the court can be execrable in the city. Such is my
object, such my hope. Under this title I shall endeavour to touch upon
the undue estimation in which we hold certain people and places--the
unfair depreciation of certain sects and callings. Not confining
myself to home, I shall take the habits of my countrymen on the
Continent, whether in their search for climate, economy, education, or
enjoyment; and, as far as my ability lies, hold the mirror up to
nature, while I extend the war-cry of my distinguished countrymen,
not asking "justice for Ireland" alone, but "justice for the whole
human race." For the gaoler as for the guardsman, for the steward of
the Holyhead as for him of the household; from the Munster
king-at-arms to the monarch of the Cannibal Island--"_nihil a me
alienum puto_;" from the priest to the plenipotentiary; from Mr.
Arkins to Abd-el-Kader: my sympathy extends to all.
A NUT FOR CORONERS.
[Illustration]
I had nearly attained to man's estate before I understood the nature
of a coroner. I remember, when a child, to have seen a coloured print
from a well-known picture of the day, representing the night-mare. It
was a horrible representation of a goblin shape of hideous aspect,
that sat cowering upon the bosom of a sleeping figure, on whose white
features a look of painful suffering was depicted, while the clenched
hands and drawn-up feet seemed to struggle with convulsive agony.
Heaven knows how or when the thought occurred to me, but I clearly
recollect my impression that this goblin was a coroner. Some confused
notion about sitting on a corpse as one of his attributes had,
doubtless, suggested the idea; and certainly nothing contributed to
increase the horror of suicide in my eyes so much as the reflection,
that the grim demon already mentioned had some function to discharge
on the occasion.
When, after the lapse of years, I heard that the eloquent and gifted
member for Finsbury was a being of this order, although I knew by that
time the injustice of my original prejudices, yet, I confess I could
not look at him in the house, without a thought of my childish
fancies, and an endeavour to trace in his comely features some faint
resemblance to the figure of the night-mare.
This strange impression of my infancy recurred strongly to my mind a
few days since, on reading a newspaper account of a sudden death.--The
case was simply that of a gentleman who, in the bosom of his family,
became suddenly seized with illness, and after a few hours expired.
What was their surprise! what their horror! to find, that no sooner
was the circumstance known, than the house was surrounded by a mob,
policemen were stationed at the doors, and twelve of the great
unwashed, with a coroner at their head, forced their entry into the
house of mourning, to deliberate on the cause of death. I can
perfectly understand the value of this practice in cases where either
suspicion has attached, or where the circumstances of the decease, as
to time and place, would indicate a violent death; but where a person,
surrounded by his children, living in all the quiet enjoyment of an
easy and undisturbed existence, drops off by some one of the ills that
flesh is heir to, only a little more rapidly than his neighbour at
next door, why this should be a case for a coroner and his gang, I
cannot, for the life of me, conceive. In the instance I allude to, the
family offered the fullest information: they explained that the
deceased had been liable for years to an infirmity likely to terminate
in this way. The physician who attended him corroborated the
statement; and, in fact, it was clear the case was one of those almost
every-day occurrences where the thread of life is snapped, not
unravelled. This, however, did not satisfy the coroner, who had, as he
expressed it, a "duty to perform," and, who, certainly had five
guineas for his fee: he was a "medical coroner," too, and therefore he
would examine for himself. Thus, in the midst of the affliction and
bereavement of a desolate family, the frightful detail of an inquest,
with all its attendant train of harrowing and heart-rending inquiries,
is carried on, simply because it is permissible by the law, and the
coroner may enter where the king cannot.
We are taught in the litany to pray against sudden death; but up to
this moment I never knew it was illegal. Dreadful afflictions as
apoplexy and aneurism are, it remained for our present civilisation to
make them punishable by a statute. The march of intellect, not
satisfied with directing us in life, must go a step farther and teach
us how to die. Fashionable diseases the world has been long acquainted
with, but an "illegal inflammation," and a "criminal hemorrhage" have
been reserved for the enlightened age we live in.
Newspapers will no longer inform us, in the habitual phrase, that Mr.
Simpkins died suddenly at his house at Hampstead; but, under the head
of "Shocking outrage," we shall read, "that after a long life of great
respectability and the exhibition of many virtues, this unfortunate
gentleman, it is hoped in a moment of mental alienation, went off with
a disease of the heart. The affliction of his surviving relatives at
this frightful act may be conceived, but cannot be described. His
effects, according to the statute, have been confiscated to the crown,
and a deodand of fifty shillings awarded on the apothecary who
attended him. It is hoped, that the universal execration which attends
cases of this nature may deter others from the same course; and, we
confess, our observations are directed with a painful, but we trust, a
powerful interest to certain elderly gentlemen in the neighbourhood of
Islington." _Verb. sat._
Under these sad circumstances it behoves us to look a little about,
and provide against such a contingency. It is then earnestly
recommended to heads of families, that when registering the birth of a
child, they should also include some probable or possible malady of
which he may, could, would, should, or ought to die, in the course of
time. This will show, by incontestable evidence, that the event was at
least anticipated, and being done at the earliest period of life, no
reproach can possibly lie for want of premeditation. The register
might run thus:--
Giles Tims, son of Thomas and Mary Tims, born on the 9th of June, Kent
street, Southwark--dropsy, typhus, or gout in the stomach.
It by no means follows, that he must wait for one or other of these
maladies to carry him off. Not at all; he may range at will through
the whole practice of physic, and adopt his choice. The registry only
goes to show, that he does not mean to sneak out of the world in any
under-bred way, nor bolt out of life with the abrupt precipitation of
a Frenchman after a dinner party. I have merely thrown out this hint
here as a warning to my many friends, and shall now proceed to other
and more pleasing topics.
A NUT FOR "TOURISTS."
Among the many incongruities of that composite piece of architecture,
called John Bull, there is nothing more striking than the contrast
between his thorough nationality and his unbounded admiration for
foreigners. Now, although we may not entirely sympathize with, we can
understand and appreciate this feature of his character, and see how
he gratifies his very pride itself, in the attentions and civilities
he bestows upon strangers. The feeling is intelligible too, because
Frenchmen, Germans, and even Italians, notwithstanding the many points
of disparity between us, have always certain qualities well worthy of
respect, if not of imitation. France has a great literature, a name
glorious in history, a people abounding in intelligence, skill, and
invention; in fact, all the attributes that make up a great nation.
Germany has many of these, and though she lack the brilliant fancy,
the sparkling wit of her neighbour, has still a compensating fund in
the rich resources of her judgment, and the profound depths of her
scholarship. Indeed, every continental country has its lesson for our
benefit, and we would do well to cultivate the acquaintance of
strangers, not only to disseminate more just views of ourselves and
our institutions, but also for the adoption of such customs as seem
worthy of imitation, and such habits as may suit our condition in
life; while such is the case as regards those countries high in the
scale of civilisation, we would, by no means, extend the rule to
others less happily constituted, less benignly gifted. The Carinthian
boor with his garment of sheep-wool, or the Laplander with his snow
shoes and his hood of deerskin, may be both very natural objects of
curiosity, but by no means subjects of imitation. This point will
doubtless be conceded at once; and now, will any one tell me for what
cause, under what pretence, and with what pretext are we civil to the
Yankees?--not for their politeness, not for their literature, not for
any fascination of their manner, nor any charm of their address, not
for any historic association, not for any halo that the glorious past
has thrown around the common-place monotony of the present, still less
for any romantic curiosity as to their lives and habits--for in this
respect all other savage nations far surpass them. What then is, or
what can be the cause?
Of all the lions that caprice and the whimsical absurdity of a
second-rate set in fashion ever courted and entertained, never had any
one less pretensions to the civility he received than the author of
'Pencillings by the Way'--poor in thought, still poorer in expression,
without a spark of wit, without a gleam of imagination--a fourth-rate
looking man, and a fifth-rate talker, he continued to receive the
homage we were wont to bestow upon a Scott, and even charily extended
to a Dickens. His writings the very slip-slop of "commerage," the
tittle-tattle of a Sunday paper, dressed up in the cant of Kentucky;
the very titles, the contemptible affectation of unredeemed twaddle,
'Pencillings by the Way!' 'Letters from under a Bridge!' Good lack!
how the latter name is suggestive of eaves-dropping and listening; and
how involuntarily we call to mind those chance expressions of his
partners in the dance, or his companions at the table, faithfully
recorded for the edification of the free-born Americans, who, while
they ridicule our institutions, endeavour to pantomime our manners.
For many years past a number of persons have driven a thriving trade
in a singular branch of commerce, no less than buying up cast court
dresses and second-hand uniforms for exportation to the colonies. The
negroes, it is said, are far prouder of figuring in the tattered and
tarnished fragments of former greatness, than of wearing the less
gaudy, but more useful garb, befitting their condition. So it would
seem our trans-Atlantic friends prefer importing through their agents,
for that purpose, the abandoned finery of courtly gossip, to the more
useful but less pretentious apparel, of common-place information. Mr.
Willis was invaluable for this purpose; he told his friends every
thing that he heard, and he heard every thing that he could; and, like
mercy, he enjoyed a duplicate of blessings--for while he was delighted
in by his own countrymen, he was dined by ours. He scattered his
autographs, as Feargus O'Connor did franks; he smiled; he ogled; he
read his own poetry, and went the whole lion with all his might; and
yet, in the midst of this, a rival starts up equally desirous of court
secrets, and fifty times as enterprising in their search; he risks his
liberty, perhaps his life, in the pursuit, and what is his reward? I
need only tell you his name, and you are answered--I mean the boy
Jones; not under a bridge, but under a sofa; not in Almacks, obtaining
it at second-hand, but in Buckingham Palace--into the very apartment
of the Queen--the adventurous youth has dared to insinuate himself. No
lady however sends her album to him for some memento of his genius.
His temple is not defrauded of its curls to grace a locket or a
medallion; and his reward, instead of a supper at Lady Blessington's,
is a voyage to Swan River. For my part, I prefer the boy Jones: I like
his singleness of purpose: I admire his steady perseverance; still,
however, he had the misfortune to be born in England--his father lived
near Wapping, and he was ineligible for a lion.
To what other reason than his English growth can be attributed the
different treatment he has experienced at the hands of the world. The
similarity between the two characters is most striking. Willis had a
craving appetite for court gossip, and the tittle-tattle of a palace:
so had the boy Jones. Willis established himself as a listener in
society: so did the boy Jones. Willis obtruded himself into places,
and among people where he had no possible pretension to be seen: so
did the boy Jones. Willis wrote letters from under a bridge: the boy
Jones eat mutton chops under a sofa.
A NUT FOR LEGAL FUNCTIONARIES.
The pet profession of England is the bar, and I see many reasons why
this should be the case. Our law of primogeniture necessitates the
existence of certain provisions for younger children independently of
the pittance bestowed on them by their families. The army and the
navy, the church and the bar, form then the only avenues to fortune
for the highly born; and one or other of these four roads must be
adopted by him who would carve out his own career. The bar, for
many reasons, is the favourite--at least among those who place
reliance in their intellect. Its estimation is high. It is not
incompatible but actually favourable to the pursuits of parliament.
Its rewards are manifold and great; and while there is a sufficiency
of private ease and personal retirement in its practice, there is also
enough of publicity for the most ambitiously-minded seeker of the
world's applause and the world's admiration. Were we only to look back
upon our history, we should find perhaps that the profession of the
law would include almost two-thirds of our very greatest men. Astute
thinkers, deep politicians, eloquent debaters, profound scholars, men
of wit, as well as men of wisdom, have abounded in its ranks, and
there is every reason why it should be, as I have called it, the pet
profession.
[Illustration: Legal Functionaries.]
Having conceded so much, may I now be permitted to take a nearer view
of those men so highly distinguished: and for this purpose let me turn
my reader's attention to the practice of a criminal trial. The first
duty of a good citizen, it will not be disputed, is, as far as in him
lies, to promote obedience to the law, to repress crime, and bring
outrage to punishment. No walk in life--no professional career--no
uniform of scarlet or of black--no freemasonry of craft or calling can
absolve him from this allegiance to his country. Yet, what do we see?
The wretch stained with crime--polluted with iniquity--for which,
perhaps, the statute-book contains neither name nor indictment--whose
trembling lips are eager to avow that guilt which, by confessing, he
hopes may alleviate the penalty--this man, I say, is checked in his
intentions--he is warned not, by any chance expression, to hazard a
conviction of his crime, and told in the language of the law not to
criminate himself. But the matter stops not here--justice is an
inveterate gambler--she is not satisfied when her antagonist throws
his card upon the table confessing that he has not a trump nor a trick
in his hand--no, like the most accomplished swindler of Baden or
Boulogne, she assumes a smile of easy and courteous benignity, and
says, pooh, pooh! nonsense, my dear friend; you don't know what may
turn up; your cards are better than you think; don't be faint-hearted;
don't you see you have the knave of trumps, _i. e._, the cleverest
lawyer for your defender; a thousand things may happen; I may revoke,
that is, the indictment may break down; there are innumerable chances
in your favour, so pluck up your courage and play the game out.
He takes the advice, and however faint-hearted before, he now assumes
a look of stern courage, or dogged indifference, and resolves to play
for the stake. He remembers, however, that he is no adept in the game,
and he addresses himself in consequence to some astute and subtle
gambler, to whom he commits his cards and his chances. The trepidation
or the indifference that he manifested before, now gradually gives
way; and however hopeless he had deemed his case at first, he now
begins to think that all is not lost. The very way his friend, the
lawyer, shuffles and cuts the cards, imposes on his credulity and
suggests a hope. He sees at once that he is a practised hand, and
almost unconsciously he becomes deeply interested in the changes and
vacillations of the game he believed could have presented but one
aspect of fortune.
But the prisoner is not my object: I turn rather to the lawyer. Here
then do we not see the accomplished gentleman--the finished
scholar--the man of refinement and of learning, of character and
station--standing forth the very embodiment of the individual in the
dock? possessed of all his secrets--animated by the same
hopes--penetrated by the same fears--he endeavours by all the subtle
ingenuity, with which craft and habit have gifted him, to confound the
testimony--to disparage the truth--to pervert the inferences of all
the witnesses. In fact, he employs all the stratagems of his calling,
all the ingenuity of his mind, all the subtlety of his wit for the one
end--that the man he believes in his own heart guilty, may, on the
oaths of twelve honest men, be pronounced innocent.
From the opening of the trial to its close, this mental gladiator is
an object of wonder and dread. Scarcely a quality of the human mind is
not exhibited by him in the brilliant panorama of his intellect. At
first, the patient perusal of a complex and wordy indictment occupies him
exclusively: he then proceeds to cross-examine the witnesses--flattering
this one--brow-beating that--suggesting--insinuating--amplifying, or
retrenching, as the evidence would seem to favour or be adverse to his
client. He is alternately confident and doubtful, headlong and
hesitating--now hurried away on the full tide of his eloquence he
expatiates in beautiful generalities on the glorious institution of
trial by jury, and apostrophizes justice; or now, with broken
utterance and plaintive voice, he supplicates the jury to be patient,
and be careful in the decision they may come to. He implores them to
remember that when they leave that court, and return to the happy
comforts of their home, conscience will follow them, and the
everlasting question crave for answer within them--were they sure of
this man's guilt? He teaches them how fallacious are all human tests;
he magnifies the slightest discrepancy of evidence into a broad and
sweeping contradiction; and while, with a prophetic menace, he
pictures forth the undying remorse that pursues him who sheds innocent
blood, he dismisses them with an affecting picture of mental agony so
great--of suffering so heart-rending, that, as they retire to the
jury-room, there is not a man of the twelve that has not more or less
of a _personal_ interest in the acquittal of the prisoner.
However bad, however depraved the human mind, it still leans to mercy:
the power to dispose of another man's life is generally sufficient for
the most malignant spirit in its thirst for vengeance. What then are
the feelings of twelve calm, and perhaps, benevolent men, at a moment
like this? The last words of the advocate have thrown a new element
into the whole case, for independent of their verdict upon the
prisoner comes now the direct appeal to their own hearts. How will
they feel when they reflect on this hereafter? I do not wish to pursue
this further. It is enough for my present purpose that, by the
ingenuity of the lawyer, criminals have escaped, do escape, and are
escaping, the just sentence on their crimes. What then is the result?
the advocate, who up to this moment has maintained a familiar, even a
friendly, intimacy with his client in the dock, now shrinks from the
very contamination of his look. He cannot bear that the blood-stained
fingers should grasp the hem of his garment, and he turns with a sense
of shame from the expressions of a gratitude that criminate him in his
own heart. However, this is but a passing sensation; he divests
himself of his wig and gown, and overwhelmed with congratulations for
his brilliant success, he springs into his carriage and goes home to
dress for dinner--for on that day he is engaged to the Chancellor, the
Bishop of London, or some other great and revered functionary--the
guardian of the church, or the custodian of conscience.
Now, there is only one thing in all this I would wish to bring
strikingly before the mind of my readers, and that is, that the
lawyer, throughout the entire proceeding, was a free and a willing
agent. There was neither legal nor moral compulsion to urge him on.
No; it was no intrepid defence against the tyranny of a government or
the usurpation of power--it was the assertion of no broad and
immutable principle of truth or justice--it was simply a matter of
legal acumen and persuasive eloquence, to the amount of fifty pounds
sterling.
This being admitted, let me now proceed to consider another
functionary, and observe how far the rule of right is consulted in the
treatment _he_ meets with--I mean the hangman. You start, good reader,
and your gesture of impatience denotes the very proposition I would
come to. I need scarcely remind you, that in our country this
individual has a kind of prerogative of detestation. All other ranks
and conditions of men may find a sympathy, or at least a pity,
somewhere, but for him there is none. No one is sufficiently debased
to be his companion,--no one so low as to be his associate! Like a
being of another sphere, he appears but at some frightful moments of
life, and then only for a few seconds. For the rest he drags on
existence unseen and unheard of, his very name a thing to tremble at.
Yet this man, in the duties of his calling, has neither will nor
choice. The stern agent of the law, he has but one course to follow;
his path, a narrow one, has no turning to the right or to the left,
and, save that his ministry is more proximate, is less accessory to
the death of the criminal than he who signs the warrant for execution.
In fact, he but answers the responses of the law, and in the loud amen
of his calling, he only consummates its recorded assertion. How then
can you reconcile yourself to the fact, that while you overwhelm the
advocate who converts right into wrong and wrong into right, who
shrouds the guilty man, and conceals the murderer, with honour, and
praise, and rank, and riches, and who does this for a brief marked
fifty pounds, yet have nothing but abhorrence and detestation for the
impassive agent whose fee is but one. One can help what he does--the
other cannot. One is an amateur--the other practices in spite of
himself. One employs every energy of his mind and every faculty of his
intellect--the other only devotes the ingenuity of his fingers. One
strains every nerve to let loose a criminal upon the world--the other
but closes the grave over guilt and crime!