able to equal in ingenuity the conceptions of a farce-writer?
Meanwhile, it is plain that political dissensions, and the rivalries
of party, will prevent that mutual good understanding which might
prove so beneficial to all. Reconciliations are but flimsy things at
best; and whether the attempt be made to conciliate two rival
churches, two opposite factions, or two separate interests of any kind
whatever, it is usually a failure. It, therefore, becomes the duty of
every good subject, and, _a fortiori_, of every good Conservative, to
bestir himself at the present moment, and see what can be done to
retrieve the sinking fortune of the state. Taxation, like flogging in
the army, never comes on the right part of the back. Sometimes too
high, sometimes too low. There is no knowing where to lay it on.
Besides that, we have by this time got such a general raw all over us,
there isn't a square inch of sound flesh that presents itself for a
new infliction. Since the first French Revolution, the ingenuity of
man has been tortured on the subject of finance; and had Dionysius
lived in our days, instead of offering a bounty for the discovery of a
new pleasure, he would have proposed a reward to the man who devised a
new tax.
Without entering at any length into this subject, the consideration of
which would lead me into all the details of our every-day habits, I
pass on at once to the question which has induced this inquiry, while
I proclaim to the world loudly, fearlessly, and resolutely,
"Eureka!"--I've found it. Yes, my fellow-countrymen, I have found a
remedy to supply the deficient income of the nation, not only without
imposing a new tax, or inflicting a new burden upon the suffering
community, but also without injuring vested rights, or thwarting the
activity of commercial enterprise. I neither mulct cotton or corn; I
meddle not with parson or publican, nor do I make any portion of the
state, by its own privations, support the well-being of the rest. On
the contrary, the only individual concerned in my plan, will not be
alone benefited in a pecuniary point of view, but the best feelings of
the heart will be cultivated and strengthened, and the love of home,
so characteristically English, fostered in their bosoms. I could
almost grow eloquent upon the benefits of my discovery; but I fear,
that were I to give way to this impulse, I should become so fascinated
with myself, I could scarcely turn to the less seductive path of
simple explanation. Therefore, ere it be too late, let me open my mind
and unfold my system:
"What great effects from little causes spring."
Any one who ever heard of Sir Isaac Newton and his apple will
acknowledge this, and something of the same kind led me to the very
remarkable fact I am about to speak of.
One of the Bonaparte family--as well as I remember, Jerome--was one
night playing whist at the same table with Talleyrand, and having
dropped a crown piece upon the floor, he interrupted the game, and
deranged the whole party to search for his money. Not a little
provoked by a meanness which he saw excited the ridicule of many
persons about, Talleyrand deliberately folded up a bank-note which lay
before him, and, lighting it at the candle, begged, with much
courtesy, that he might be permitted to assist in the search. This
story, which is authentic, would seem an admirable parody on a portion
of our criminal law. A poor man robs the community, or some member of
it (for that comes to the same thing) to the amount of one penny. He
is arrested by a policeman, whose salary is perhaps half-a-crown
a-day, and conveyed to a police-office, that cost at least five
hundred pounds to build it. Here are found three or four more
officials, all salaried--all fed, and clothed by the State. In due
course of time he is brought up before a magistrate, also well paid,
by whom the affair is investigated, and by him he is afterwards
transmitted to the sessions, where a new army of stipendiaries all
await him. But his journey is not ended. Convicted of his offence, he
is sentenced to seven years' transportation to one of the most remote
quarters of the globe. To convey him thither the government have
provided a ship and a crew, a supercargo and a surgeon; and, to sum up
in one word, before he has commenced the expiation of his crime, that
penny has cost the country something about three hundred pounds. Is
not this, I ask you, very like Talleyrand and the Prince?--the only
difference being, that we perform in sober earnest, what he merely
exhibited in sarcasm.
Now, my plan is, and I prefer to develop it in a single word, instead
of weakening its force by circumlocution. In lieu of letting a poor
man be reduced to his theft of one penny--give him two pence. _He_
will be a gainer by double the amount--not to speak of the
inappreciable value of his honesty--and _you_ the richer by 71,998
pence, under your present system expended upon policemen, magistrates,
judges, gaolers, turnkeys, and transports. Examine for a moment the
benefits of this system. Look at the incalculable advantages it
presents--the enormous revenue, the pecuniary profit, and the
patriotism, all preserved to the State, not to mention the additional
pleasure of disseminating happiness while you transport men's hearts,
not their bodies.
Here is a plan based upon the soundest philanthropy, the most rigid
economy, and the strictest common sense. Instead of training up a race
of men in some distant quarter of the globe, who may yet turn your
bitterest enemies, you will preserve to the country so many true-born
Britons, bound to you by a debt of gratitude. Upon what ground--on
what pretext--can you oppose the system? Do you openly confess that
you prefer vice to poverty, and punishment to prevention? Or is it
your pleasure to manufacture roguery for exportation, as the French do
politeness, and the Irish linen?
I offer the suggestion generously, freely, and spontaneously. If the
heads of the government choose to profit by the hint, I only ask in
return, that when the Chancellor of the Exchequer announces in his
place the immense reduction of expenditure, that he will also give
notice of a motion for a bill to reward me by a government
appointment. I am not particular as to where, or what: I only bargain
against being Secretary for Ireland, or Chief Justice at Cape Coast
Castle.
A NUT FOR REPEAL.
When the cholera first broke out in France, a worthy prefect in a
district of the south published an edict to the people, recommending
them by all means to eat well-cooked and nutritious food, and drink
nothing but _vin de Bourdeaux_, Anglice, claret. The advice was
excellent, and I take it upon me to say, would have found very few
opponents in fact, as it certainly did in principle. When the world,
however, began to consider that _filets de boeuf a la Marengo_, and
"_dindes truffees_," washed down with _Chateau Lafitte_ or _Larose_,
were not exactly within the reach of every class of the community,
they deemed the prefect's counsel more humane than practicable, and as
they do at every thing in France when the tide of public opinion
changes, they laughed at him heartily, and wrote pasquinades upon his
folly. At the same time the ridicule was unjust, the advice was good,
sound, and based on true principles, the only mistake was, the
difficulty of its practice. Had he recommended as an antiseptic to
disease, that the people should play short whist, wear red night-caps,
or pelt stones at each other, there might have been good ground for
the disfavour he fell into; such acts, however practicable and easy of
execution, having manifestly no tendency to avert the cholera. Now
this is precisely the state of matters in Ireland at this moment:
distress prevails more or less in every province and in every county.
The people want employment, and they want food. Had you recommended
them to eat strawberries and cream in the morning, to drink lemonade
during the day, take a little chicken salad for dinner, with a light
bread pudding and a glass of negus afterwards, avoiding all stimulant
and exciting food--for your Irishman is a feverish subject--you might
be laughed at perhaps for your dietary, but certes it would bear, and
bear strongly too, upon the case in question. But what do you do in
reality? The local papers teem with cases of distress: families are
starving; the poor, unhoused and unfed, are seen upon the road sides
exposed to every vicissitude of the season, surrounded by children who
cry in vain for bread. What, I ask, is the measure of relief you
propose? not a public subscription; no general outburst of national
charity--no public work upon a grand scale to give employment to the
idle, food to the hungry, health to the sick, and hope to all. None of
these. Your panacea is the Repeal of the Union; you purpose to
substitute for those amiable jobbers in College-green, who call
themselves Directors of the Bank of Ireland, another set of jobbers
infinitely more pernicious and really dishonest, who will call
themselves Directors of Ireland itself; you talk of the advantage to
the country, and particularly of the immense benefits that must accrue
to the capital. Let us examine them a little.
Dublin, you say, will be a flourishing city, inhabited by lords and
ladies: wealth, rank, and influence will dwell in its houses and
parade its streets. The glare of lamps, the crash of carriages, all
the pride, pomp, and circumstances of fashion, will flow back upon the
long-deserted land, and Paris and London will find a rival to compete
with them, in this small city of the west. Would that this were so;
would that it could be! This, however, is the extent of what you
promise yourselves: you may ring the changes as you please, but the
"refrain" of your song is, that Dublin shall "have its own again."
Well, for argument's sake, I say, be it so. The now silenced squares
shall wake to the echoes of thundering equipages, peers and prelates
shall again inhabit the dwellings long since the residence of
hotel-keepers, or still worse, those little democracies of social
life, called boarding-houses. Your theatre shall be crowded, your
shops frequented, and every advantage of wealth diffused through all
the channels of society, shall be yours. As far as Dublin is
concerned, I say--for, mark me, I keep you to this original point, in
the land of your promise you have strictly limited the diffusion of
your blessings by the boundary of the Circular road; even the people
at Ringsend and Ballybough bridge are not to be included, unless a
special bill be brought in for their benefit. Still the picture is a
brilliant one: it would be a fine thing to see all the pomp and
ceremony of proud popery walk the land at noon-day, with its saints in
gold, and its relics in silver; for of course this is included in the
plan. Prosperous Ireland must be Catholic Ireland, and even Spain and
Belgium will hide their diminished heads when compared with the
gorgeous homage rendered to popery at home. The "gentlemen of
Liffey-street chapel," far better-looking fellows than any foreign
priest you'll meet with from Trolhatten to Tivoli, will walk about _in
pontificalibus_; and all the exciting enthusiasm that Romanism so
artfully diffuses through every feature of life, will introduce itself
among a people who have all the warm temper and hot blood of the
south, with the stern determination and headlong impulse of the north
of Europe. By all of which I mean to say, that in points of strong
popery, Dublin will beat the world, and that before a year of such
prosperity be past, she will have the finest altars, the fattest
priests, and the longest catalogue of miracles in Europe. Lord
Shrewsbury need not then go to the Tyrol for an "estatica," he'll find
one nearer home worth twice the money. The shin-bone of St. Januarius,
that jumped out of a wooden box in a hackney coach, because a
gentleman swore, will be nothing to the scenes we'll witness; and if
St. Patrick should sport his tibia at an evening party of Daniel
O'Connell's, it would not in the least surprise me. These are great
blessings, and I am fully sensible of them. Now let me pass on to
another, which perhaps I have kept last as it is the chief of all, or
as the late Lord Castlereagh would have said, the "fundamental feature
upon which my argument hinges."
A very common topic of Irish eloquence is, to lament over the enormous
exportation of cattle, fowl, and fish, that continually goes forward
from Ireland into England. I acknowledge the justness of the
complaint--I see its force, and appreciate its value. It is exactly as
though a grocer should exclaim against his misery, in being compelled
to part with his high-flavoured bohea, his sparkling lump sugar, and
his Smyrna figs, or our publisher his books, for the base lucre of
gain. It is humiliating, I confess; and I can well see how a
warm-hearted and intelligent creature, who feels the hardship of an
export trade in matters of food, must suffer when the principle is
extended to a matter of genius; for, not content with our mutton from
Meath, our salmon from Limerick, and our chickens from Carlow; but the
Saxon must even be gratified with the soul-stirring eloquence of the
Great Liberator himself, with only the trouble of going near St.
Stephen's to hear him. I say near--for among the other tyrannies of
the land, he is compelled to shout loud enough to be heard in all the
adjacent streets. Now this is too bad. Take our prog--take even our
poteen, if you will; but leave us our Penates; this theft, which
embodies the antithesis of Shakspeare, is not only "trash," but
"naught enriches them, and makes us poor indeed."
Repeal the union, and you remedy this. You'll have him at home with
you--not masquerading about in the disguise of a gentleman--not
restricted by the habits of cultivated and civilised life--not tamed
down into the semblance and mockery of good conduct--no longer the
chained-up animal of the menagerie, but the roaring, rampant lion,
roaming at large in his native forest--not performing antics before
some political Van Amburgh--not opening his huge jaws, as though he
would devour the Whigs, and shutting them again at the command of his
keeper--but howling in all the freedom of his passion, and lashing his
brawny sides with his vigorous "tail." Haydn, the composer, had an
enormous appetite; to gratify which, when dining at a tavern, he
ordered a dinner for three. The waiter delayed in serving, as he said
the company hadn't yet arrived, but Haydn told him to bring it up at
once, remarking, as he patted complacently his paunch, "I am de
compagnie myself." Such will you have the case in your domestic
parliament--Dan will be the company himself. No longer fighting in the
ranks of opposition, or among the supporters of a government--no more
the mere character of a piece, he will then be the Jack Johnson of the
political world, taking the money at the door--in which he has had
some practice already--he will speak the prologue, lead the
orchestra, prompt the performers, and announce a repetition of the
farce every night of the week for his own benefit. Only think what he
is in England with his "forty thieves" at his back, and imagine what
he will be in Ireland without one honest man to oppose him. He will
indeed then be well worth seeing, and if Ireland had no other
attraction, foreigners might visit us for a look at the Liberator.
He is a droll fellow, is Dan, and there is a strong dash of native
humour in his notion of repeal. What strange scenes, to be sure, it
would conjure up. Only think for a moment of the absentee lord, an
exiled peer, coming back to Dublin after an absence of half his
lifetime, vainly endeavouring to seem pleased with his condition, and
appear happy with his home. Like an insolvent debtor affecting to joke
with the jailer, watch him simulating so much as he can of habits he
has long forgotten, while his ignorance of his country is such, that
he cannot direct his coachman to a street in the capital. What a
ludicrous view of life would this open to our view! While all these
men, who have been satisfied hitherto to send their sympathies from
Switzerland, and their best wishes for Ireland by an ambassador's bag,
should now come back to writhe beneath the scourge of a demagogue, and
the tyranny of a man who wields irresponsible power.
All Ireland would present the features of a general election--every
one would be fascinating, courteous, affable, and dishonest. The
unpopular debater in England might have his windows smashed. With us,
it would be his neck would be broken. The excitement of the people
will be felt within the Parliament; and then, fostered by all the
rancour of party hate, will be returned to them with interest. The
measure discussed out of doors by the Liberator, will find no one
hardy enough to oppose it within the House, and the opinions of the
Corn Exchange will be the programme for a committee. A notice of a
motion will issue from Merrion-square, and not from a seat in
Parliament; and wherever he moves through the country, great Daniel,
like a snail, will carry "his house" on his back. "Rob me the
Exchequer, Hal!" will be the cry of the priesthood, and no men are
better deserving of their hire; and thus, wielding every implement of
power, if Ireland be not happy, he can only have himself to blame for
it.
[Illustration]
A NUT FOR NATIONAL PRIDE.
National Pride must be a strong feeling, and one of the very few
sentiments which are not exhausted by the drain upon them; and it is a
strange thing, how the very fact upon which one man plumes himself,
another would regard as a terrible reproach. A thorough John Bull, as
he would call himself, thinks he has summed up, in those few emphatic
words, a brief description of all that is excellent in humanity. And
as he throws out his chest, and sticks his hand with energy in his
breeches pocket, seems to say, "I am not one of your frog-eating
fellows, half-monkey, half-tiger, but a true Briton." The Frenchman,
as he proclaims his nation, saying, "_Je suis F-r-r-r-rancais_," would
indicate that he is a very different order of being, from his blunt
untutored neighbour, "_outre mer_;" and so on to the end of the
chapter. Germans, Italians, and Spaniards, and even Americans, think
there is some magic in the name of their fatherland--some inherent
nobility in the soil: and it was only lately I read in a French paper
an eloquent appeal from a general to his soldiers, which concluded by
his telling them, to remember, that they were "Mexicans." I devoutly
trust that they understood the meaning of his phrase, and were able,
without difficulty, to call to mind the bright prerogative alluded to;
for upon my conscience, as an honest man, it would puzzle me sorely to
say what constitutes a Mexican.
But the absurdity goes further still: for, not satisfied with the
bounties of Providence in making us what we are, we must indulge a
rancorous disposition towards our neighbours for their less-favoured
destiny. "He behaved like a Turk," is an every-day phrase to indicate
a full measure of moral baseness and turpidity. A Frenchman's abuse
can go no further than calling a man a Chinese, and when he says, "_tu
es un Pekin_," a duel is generally the consequence. I doubt not that
the Turks and the Chinese make use of retributive justice, and treat
us no better than we behave to them.
Civilisation would seem rather to have fostered than opposed this
prejudice. In the feudal ages, the strength of a brawny right arm, the
strong hand that could wield a mace, the firm seat in a saddle, were
the qualities most in request; and were physical strength more
estimated than the gifts of a higher order, the fine distinctions of
national character either did not exist, or were not attended to. Now,
however, the tournament is not held on a cloth of gold, but on a broad
sheet of paper; the arms are not the lance and the dagger, but the
printing-press. No longer a herald in all the splendour of his tabard
proclaims the lists, but a fashionable publisher, through the medium
of the morning papers, whose cry for largess is to the full as loud.
The result is, nations are better known to each other, and, by the
unhappy law of humanity, are consequently less esteemed. What
signifies the dislike our ancestors bore the French at Cressy or
Agincourt compared to the feeling we entertain for them after nigh
thirty years of peace? Then, indeed, it was the strong rivalry between
two manly natures: now, the accumulated hate of ages is sharpened and
embittered by a thousand petty jealousies that have their origin in
politics, military glory, society, or literature; and we detest each
other like quarterly reviewers. The Frenchman visits England as a Whig
commissioner would a Tory institution--only anxious to discover abuses
and defects--with an obliquity of vision that sees everything
distorted, or a fecundity of imagination that can conjure up the ills
he seeks for. He finds us rude, inhospitable, and illiterate; our
habits are vulgar, our tastes depraved; our House of Commons is a
riotous mob of under-bred debaters; our army an aristocratic _lounge_,
where merit has no chance against money; and our literature--God
wot!--a plagiarism from the French. The Englishman is nearly as
complimentary. The coarseness of French habits is to him a theme of
eternal reprobation; the insolence of the men, the indelicacy of the
women, the immorality of all, overwhelm him with shame and disgust:
the Chamber of Deputies he despises, as a contemptible parody on a
representative body, and a speech from the tribune a most absurd
substitute for the freedom of unpremeditated eloquence: the army he
discovers to be officered by men, to whom the new police are
accomplished gentlemen; and, in fact, he sums up by thinking that if
we had no other competitors in the race of civilisation than the
French, our supremacy on land, is to the full as safe, as our
sovereignty over the ocean. Here lie two countries, separated by a
slip of sea not much broader than an American river, who have gone on
for ages repeating these and similar puerilities, without the most
remote prospect of mutual explanation and mutual good-will.