_HUMOUR SERIES_
EDITED BY W. H. DIRCKS
THE HUMOUR OF IRELAND
ALREADY ISSUED
_FRENCH HUMOUR_
_GERMAN HUMOUR_
_ITALIAN HUMOUR_
_AMERICAN HUMOUR_
_DUTCH HUMOUR_
_IRISH HUMOUR_
_SPANISH HUMOUR_
_RUSSIAN HUMOUR_
[Illustration: “AND EACH GIRL HE PASSED BID ‘GOD BLESS HIM’ AND
SIGHED.”--P. 276.]
THE
HUMOUR OF IRELAND
SELECTED, WITH INTRODUCTION,
BIOGRAPHICAL
INDEX AND NOTES, BY
D. J. O’DONOGHUE: THE
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
OLIVER PAQUE
[Illustration]
THE WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO., LTD.,
PATERNOSTER SQUARE, LONDON, E.C.
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS,
153–157 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
1908.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION xi
EXORCISING THE DEMON OF VORACITY--_From the Irish_ 1
THE ROMAN EARL--_From the Irish_ 7
THE FELLOW IN THE GOAT-SKIN--_Folk-Tale_ 9
OFTEN-WHO-CAME AND SELDOM-WHO-CAME--_From the Irish_ 22
THE OLD CROW AND THE YOUNG CROW--_From the Irish_ 23
ROGER AND THE GREY MARE--_Folk-Poem_ 23
WILL O’ THE WISP--_Folk-Tale_ 25
EPIGRAMS AND RIDDLES--_From the Irish_ 32
DONALD AND HIS NEIGHBOURS--_Folk-Tale_ 34
THE WOMAN OF THREE COWS--_From the Irish_ 39
IN PRAISE OF DIGRESSIONS--_Jonathan Swift_ 41
A RHAPSODY ON POETRY--_Jonathan Swift_ 45
LETTER FROM A LIAR--_Sir Richard Steele_ 50
EPIGRAMS--_John Winstanley_ 55
A FINE LADY--_George Farquhar_ 56
THE BORROWER--_George Farquhar_ 60
WIDOW WADMAN’S EYE--_Laurence Sterne_ 67
BUMPERS, SQUIRE JONES--_Arthur Dawson_ 70
JACK LOFTY--_Oliver Goldsmith_ 73
BEAU TIBBS--_Oliver Goldsmith_ 84
THE FRIAR OF ORDERS GREY--_John O’Keeffe_ 93
THE TAILOR AND THE UNDERTAKER--_John O’Keeffe_ 94
TOM GROG--_John O’Keeffe_ 97
BULLS--_Sir Boyle Roche_ 101
THE MONKS OF THE SCREW--_J. P. Curran_ 102
ANA--_J. P. Curran_ 103
THE CRUISKEEN LAWN--_Anonymous_ 105
THE SCANDAL-MONGERS--_R. B. Sheridan_ 108
CAPTAIN ABSOLUTE’S SUBMISSION--_R. B. Sheridan_ 115
ANA--_R. B. Sheridan_ 124
MY AMBITION--_Edward Lysaght_ 126
A WAREHOUSE FOR WIT--_George Canning_ 127
CONJUGAL AFFECTION--_Thomas Cannings_ 130
WHISKY, DRINK DIVINE!--_Joseph O’Leary_ 130
TO A YOUNG LADY BLOWING A TURF FIRE WITH HER
PETTICOAT--_Anonymous_ 132
EPIGRAMS, ETC.--_Henry Luttrell_ 133
LETTER FROM MISS BETTY FUDGE--_Thomas Moore_ 134
MONTMORENCI AND CHERUBINA--_E. S. Barrett_ 137
MODERN MEDIÆVALISM--_E. S. Barrett_ 141
THE NIGHT BEFORE LARRY WAS STRETCHED--_William Maher(?)_ 145
DARBY DOYLE’S VOYAGE TO QUEBEC--_Thomas Ettingsall_ 148
ST. PATRICK OF IRELAND, MY DEAR!--_Dr. William Maginn_ 160
THE LAST LAMP OF THE ALLEY--_Dr. William Maginn_ 164
THOUGHTS AND MAXIMS--_Dr. William Maginn_ 166
THE GATHERING OF THE MAHONYS--_Dr. William Maginn_ 173
DANIEL O’ROURKE--_Dr. William Maginn_ 175
THE HUMOURS OF DONNYBROOK FAIR--_Charles O’Flaherty_ 184
THE NIGHT-CAP--_T. H. Porter_ 187
KITTY OF COLERAINE--_Anonymous_ 188
GIVING CREDIT--_William Carleton_ 190
BRIAN O’LINN--_Anonymous_ 198
THE TURKEY AND THE GOOSE--_J. A. Wade_ 200
WIDOW MACHREE--_Samuel Lover_ 202
BARNEY O’HEA--_Samuel Lover_ 204
MOLLY CAREW--_Samuel Lover_ 206
HANDY ANDY AND THE POSTMASTER--_Samuel Lover_ 209
THE LITTLE WEAVER OF DULEEK GATE--_Samuel Lover_ 213
BELLEWSTOWN HILL--_Anonymous_ 228
THE PEELER AND THE GOAT--_Jeremiah O’Ryan_ 231
THE LOQUACIOUS BARBER--_Gerald Griffin_ 234
NELL FLAHERTY’S DRAKE--_Anonymous_ 239
ELEGY ON HIMSELF--_F. S. Mahony_ (“_Father Prout_”) 242
BOB MAHON’S STORY--_Charles Lever_ 243
THE WIDOW MALONE--_Charles Lever_ 253
THE GIRLS OF THE WEST--_Charles Lever_ 255
THE MAN FOR GALWAY--_Charles Lever_ 256
HOW CON CREGAN’S FATHER LEFT HIMSELF A BIT OF
LAND--_Charles Lever_ 257
KATEY’S LETTER--_Lady Dufferin_ 264
DANCE LIGHT, FOR MY HEART IT LIES UNDER YOUR FEET,
LOVE--_Dr. J. F. Waller_ 266
FATHER TOM’S WAGER WITH THE POPE--_Sir Samuel Ferguson_ 267
THE OULD IRISH JIG--_James McKowen_ 271
MOLLY MULDOON--_Anonymous_ 273
THE QUARE GANDER--_J. S. Lefanu_ 279
TABLE-TALK--_Dr. E. V. H. Kenealy_ 288
ADVICE TO A YOUNG POET--_R. D. Williams_ 290
SAINT KEVIN AND KING O’TOOLE--_Thomas Shalvey_ 291
THE SHAUGHRAUN--_Dion Boucicault_ 294
RACKRENTERS ON THE STUMP--_T. D. Sullivan_ 298
LANIGAN’S BALL--_Anonymous_ 306
THE WIDOW’S LAMENT--_Anonymous_ 308
WHISKY AND WATHER--_Anonymous_ 310
THE THRUSH AND THE BLACKBIRD--_C. J. Kickham_ 314
IRISH ASTRONOMY--_C. G. Halpine_ 320
PADDY FRET, THE PRIEST’S BOY--_J. F. O’Donnell_ 322
O’SHANAHAN DHU--_J. J. Bourke_ 329
SHANE GLAS--_J. J. Bourke_ 332
AN IRISH STORY-TELLER--_Patrick O’Leary_ 333
THE HAUNTED SHEBEEN--_C. P. O’Conor_ 337
FAN FITZGERL--_A. P. Graves_ 341
FATHER O’FLYNN--_A. P. Graves_ 343
PHILANDERING--_William Boyle_ 344
HONIED PERSUASION--_J. De Quincey_ 345
THE FIRST LORD LIFTINANT--_W. P. French_ 347
THE AMERICAN WAKE--_F. A. Fahy_ 355
HOW TO BECOME A POET--_F. A. Fahy_ 358
THE DONOVANS--_F. A. Fahy_ 368
PETTICOATS DOWN TO MY KNEES--_F. A. Fahy_ 371
MUSICAL EXPERIENCES AND IMPRESSIONS--_G. B. Shaw_ 373
FROM PORTLAW TO PARADISE--_Edmund Downey_ 382
THE DANCE AT MARLEY--_P. J. McCall_ 393
FIONN MACCUMHAIL AND THE PRINCESS--_P. J. McCall_ 397
TATTHER JACK WELSH--_P. J. McCall_ 403
THEIR LAST RACE--_Frank Mathew_ 405
IN BLARNEY--_P. J. Coleman_ 409
BINDIN’ THE OATS--_P. J. Coleman_ 411
SELECTED IRISH PROVERBS, ETC. 414
BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX 423
NOTES 433
INTRODUCTION.
That the Irish people have a wide reputation for wit and humour is a
fact which will not be disputed. Irish humour is no recent growth, as
may be seen by the folk-lore, the proverbs, and the other traditional
matter of the country. It is one of Ireland’s ancient characteristics,
as some of its untranslated early literature would conclusively prove.
The curious twelfth-century story of “The Vision of McConglinne” is a
sample of this early Celtic humour. As the melancholy side of older
Celtic literature has been more often emphasised and referred to, it
is usually thought that the most striking features of that literature
is its sadness. The proverbs, some of which are very ancient, are
characteristic enough to show that the early Irish were of a naturally
joyous turn, as a primitive people should be, for sadness generally
comes with civilisation and knowledge; and the fragments of folk-lore
that have so far been rescued impress us with the idea that its
originators were homely, cheerful, and mirthful. The proverbs are so
numerous and excellent that a good collection of them would be very
valuable--yet to judge by Ray’s large volume, devoted to those of
many nations, Ireland lacks wise sayings of this kind. He only quotes
seven, some of which are wretched local phrases, and not Irish at
all. The early humour of the Irish Celts is amusing in conception
and in expression, and, when it is soured into satire, frequently of
marvellous power and efficacy.
Those who possessed the gift of saying galling things were much
dreaded, and it is not absolutely surprising that Aengus O’Daly
and other satirists met with a retribution from those whom they had
rendered wild with rage. In the early native literature the Saxon
of course came in for his share of ridicule and scorn; but there is
much less of it than might have been fairly expected, and if the
bards railed at the invader, they quite as often assailed their own
countrymen. One reason for the undoubted existence of a belief that
the old Celts had little or no humour is that the reading of Irish
history suggests it, and people may perhaps be forgiven for presuming
it to be impossible to preserve humour under the doleful circumstances
recorded by historians. And indeed if there was little to laugh at
even before the English invasion, there was assuredly less after it.
Life suddenly became tragic for the bards and the jesters. In place
of the primitive amusements, the elementary pranks of the first ages,
more serious matters were forced upon their attention, but appearances
notwithstanding, the humorist thrived, and probably improved in the
gloom overcasting the country; at any rate the innate good humour of
the Irish refused to be completely stifled or restricted. Personalities
were not the most popular subjects for ridicule, and the most detested
characters, though often attacked in real earnest, were not the
favourite themes with the wits. Cromwell’s name suggested a curse
rather than a joke, and it is only your moderns--your Downeys and
Frenches--who make a jest of him.
It being impossible to define humour or wit exactly, it is hardly wise
to add another to the many failures attached to the attempt. But Irish
humour, properly speaking, is, one may venture to say, more imaginative
than any other. And it is probably less ill-natured than that of any
other nation, though the Irish have a special aptness in the saying
of things that wound, and the most illiterate of Irish peasants can
put more scorn into a retort than the most highly educated of another
race. There is sometimes a half-pathetic strain in the best Irish
humorous writers, and just as in their saddest moments the people
are inclined to joke, so in many writings where pathos predominates,
the native humour gleams. If true Irish humour is not easily defined
with precision, it is at least easily recognisable, there is so much
buoyancy and movement in it, and usually so much expansion of heart.
An eminent French writer described humour as a fusion of smiles and
tears, but clearly that defines only one kind, and there are many
varieties, almost as many, one might say, as there are humorists. The
distinguishing between wit and humour is not so simple a matter as it
looks, but one might hazard the opinion that while the one expresses
indifference and irreverence, the other is redolent of feeling and
sincerity. Humour and satire are extremes--the more barbed and keen
a shaft, the more malicious and likely to hurt, whereas the genuine
quality of humour partakes of tenderness and gentleness. Sheridan is
an admirable example of a wit, while Lover represents humour in its
most confiding aspect. There are intermediate kinds, however, and the
malice of Curran’s repartees is not altogether akin to the rasping
personalities of “Father Prout.” Irish humour is mainly a store of
merriment pure and simple, without much personal taint, and does not
profess to be philosophical. Human follies or deformities are rarely
touched upon, and luckily Irish humorous writers do not attempt the
didactic. In political warfare, however, many bitter taunts are heard,
and it is somewhat regrettable that Irish politics should have absorbed
so great a part of Irish wit, and turned what might have been pleasant
reading into a succession of biting sarcasms. The Irish political
satirists of the last and present centuries have often put themselves
out of court by the ephemeral nature of their gibes no less than by the
extra-ferocious tone they adopted. There is no denying the _verve_
and point in the writings of Watty Cox, Dr. Brenan, William Norcott,
and so on, but who can read them to-day with pleasure? Eaton Stannard
Barrett’s “All the Talents,” after giving a nickname to a ministry,
destroyed it; it served its purpose, and would be out of place if
resurrected and placed in a popular collection, where the student of
political history--to whom alone it is interesting and amusing--will
hardly meet with it. Consequently political satire finds no place
in this work, and even T. D. Sullivan, who particularly excels in
personal and political squibs in verse, is shown only as the author
of a prose sketch of more general application. Besides what has been
wasted in this way, from a literary point of view, a good deal of the
native element of wit has been dissipated as soon as uttered. After
fulfilling its mission in enlivening a journey or in circling the
festive board, it is forgotten and never appears in print. How many of
Lysaght’s and Curran’s best quips are passed beyond recall? It cannot
be that men like these obtained their great fame as wits on the few
sample witticisms that have been preserved for us. Their literary
remains are so scanty and inconsiderable, and their reputation so
universal, that one can only suppose them to have been continuously
coining jokes and squandering them in every direction.
Irish humour has been and is so prevalent, however, that in spite
of many losses, there is abundant material for many volumes. It is
imported into almost every incident and detail of Irish life--it
overflows in the discussions of the local boards, is bandied about by
carmen (who have gained much undeserved repute among tourists), comes
down from the theatre galleries, is rife in the law courts, and chronic
in the clubs, at the bar-dinners, and wherever there is dulness to be
exorcised. Jokes being really as plentiful as blackberries, no one
cares to hoard so common a product. A proof of the contempt into which
the possession of wit or humour has fallen may be observed in the fact
that no professedly comic paper has been able to survive for long the
indifference of the Irish public. There have been some good ones in
Dublin--notably, _Zoz_, _Zozimus_, _Pat_, and _The Jarvey_--but they
have pined away in a comparatively short space of time, the only note
of pathos about their brief existence being the invariable obituary
announcement in the library catalogues--“No more published.” But their
lives, if short, were merry ones. It was not their fault if the people
did not require such aids to vivacity, being in general able to strike
wit off the corners of any topic, no matter how unpromising it might
appear. Naturally enough, the chief themes of the Irish humorist have
been courting and drinking, with the occasional relief of a fight.
The amativeness of the poets is little short of marvellous. Men like
Lover (who has never been surpassed perhaps as a humorous love-poet)
usually confined their humour in that groove; others, like Maginn,
kept religiously to the tradition that liquor is the chief attraction
in life, and the only possible theme for a wit after exhausting his
pleasantries about persons. Maginn, however, was very much in earnest
and did not respect the tradition simply because it was one, but solely
on account of his belief in its wisdom. There can be no question,
it seems to me, of Ireland’s supremacy in the literature devoted to
Bacchus. It is another affair, of course, whether any credit attaches
to the distinction. All the bards were not so fierce as Maginn in their
likes and dislikes when the liquor was on the table. It may indeed be
said of them in justice that their enthusiasm for the god of wine was
often enough mere boastfulness. It is difficult to believe Tom Moore in
his raptures about the joys of the bowl. He was no roysterer, and there
is wanting in his Bacchanalian effusions, as in others of his light and
graceful school, that reckless _abandon_ of the more bibulous school.
A glance at the lives of the Irish poets shows that a goodly number
of them lived up to their professions. The glorification of the joys
of the bottle by so many of our poets, their implication that from no
other source is genius to be drawn, suggests that the Irish inclination
to wit was induced by drinking long and deep. Sallies flowed therefrom,
and the taciturn man without an idea developed under the genial
influence into a delightful conversationalist. Yet as the professional
humorist is often pictured as a very gloomy personage, gnawed by
care and tortured by remorse, his pleasantries probably strike more
in consequence of their vivid contrast to his dismal appearance. But
to return to the bards’ love of liquor. One and all declare of the
brown jug that “there’s inspiration in its foaming brim,” and what
more natural than that they should devote the result to eulogy of the
source. It may be somewhat consoling to reflect that often they were
less reckless than they would have us believe. Something else besides
poetic inspiration comes from the bowl, which, after all, only brings
out the natural qualities.
As a rule, Irish poets have not extracted a pessimistic philosophy
from liquor; they are “elevated,” not depressed, and do not deem it
essential to the production of a poem that its author should be a cynic
or an evil prophet. One of the best attributes of Irish poetry is its
constant expression of the natural emotions. Previous to the close of
the seventeenth century, it is said, drunkenness was not suggested by
the poets as common in Ireland--the popularity of Bacchanalian songs
since that date seems to prove that the vice soon became a virtue.
Maginn is the noisiest of modern revellers, and easily roars the others
down.
Not a small portion of the humour of Ireland is the unconscious variety
in the half-educated local poets. Sometimes real wit struggles for
adequate expression in English with ludicrous and unlooked-for results.
A goodly number of the street ballads are very comic in description,
phraseology, or vituperation, and “Nell Flaherty’s Drake” may be
taken as a fair specimen of the latter class. Occasionally there is
coarseness, usually absent from genuine Irish songs; sometimes a
ghastly sort of _grotesquerie_, as in “The Night before Larry was
Stretched.” Only a few examples of such are necessary to form an idea
of the whole. Maginn’s great service in exposing the true character of
the wretched rubbish often palmed off on the English public as Irish
songs deserves to be noticed here. He proved most conclusively that
the stuff thus styled Irish, with its unutterable refrains of the
“Whack Bubbaboo” kind, was of undoubted English origin, topography,
phraseology, rhymes, and everything else being utterly un-Irish. The
internal evidence alone convicts their authors. No Irishman rhymes
_O’Reilly_ to _bailie_, for instance, and certainly he would never
introduce a priest named “Father Quipes” into a song, even if driven
to desperation for rhymes to “swipes.” Any compiler who gives a place
in a collection of Irish songs to such trash as “Looney Mac*-twolter,”
“Dennis Bulgruddery,” or any other of the rather numerous effusions of
their kind, with their Gulliverian nomenclature and their burlesque
of Irish manners, is an accomplice in the crime of their authors. In
this connection it may be pointed out that not only in songs, but in
many stories and other writings purporting to be Irish, the phraseology
is anything but Irish. Irishmen do not, and never did, speak of their
spiritual guardian as the _praste_. The Irishman never mispronounces
the sound of _ie_, and if he says _tay_ for tea and _mate_ for meat he
is simply conforming to the old and correct English pronunciation, as
may be seen by consulting the older English poets, who always rhymed
_sea_ with _day_, etc. To this hour, the original sound is preserved
by English people in _great_ and _break_.
To leave the anonymous, the hybrid, and the spurious, it will be well
to consider the continuity of the humour of Ireland. The long line of
humorous writers who have appeared in our literary history has never
been broken, despite many intervals of tribulation. In Anglo-Irish
literature they commence practically with Farquhar, whose method of
treating the follies of fine ladies and “men of honour” is anticipatory
of that of the _Spectator_. Swift’s irony, unsurpassable as it is, is
cruel to excess, and has little that is Irish about it. A contemporary
and countryman, Dean Smedley, said he was “always in jest, but most
so in prayer,” but that is an exaggeration, for Swift was mostly in
grim earnest. The charge implies that many of his contemporaries, like
several moderns, had a difficulty in satisfying themselves as to when
he joked and when he did not. Smedley is also responsible for another
poem directed against Swift, which was posted upon the door of St.
Patrick’s, Dublin, when the great writer was appointed its Dean, and of
which the following is the best stanza:--
“This place he got by wit and rhyme,
And many ways most odd,
And might a bishop be in time,
Did he believe in God.”
The impassive and matter-of-fact way in which Swift, using the
deadliest of weapons, ridicule, reformed the abuses of his time,
deceived a good many. He never moved a muscle, and his wit shone by
contrast with his moody exterior as a lightning-flash illuminates a
gloomy sky. It has that element of unexpectedness which goes far to
define the nature of wit.
Real drollery in Anglo-Irish literature seems to have begun with
Steele. In the case of Steele there is rarely anything to offend
modern taste. His tenderness is akin to Goldsmith’s, and the natural
man is clearly visible in his writings. A direct contrast is seen
in Sterne, who was more malicious and sly, full of unreality and
misplaced sentiment, and depending chiefly upon his constant supply of
_doubles entendres_ and the morbid tastes of his readers. Writers
like Derrick and Bickerstaffe were hardly witty in the modern sense,
but rather in the original literal meaning of the term. There are
many wits, highly popular in their own day, who are no longer readable
with any marked degree of pleasure. Wit depends so largely upon the
manner of its delivery for the effect produced that the dramatists
are not so numerously represented in this collection as might be
expected from the special fecundity and excellence of the Irish in
that branch of literature. To extract the wit or humour from some of
the eighteenth-century plays is no easy task. In men like Sheridan, it
is superabundant, over-luxuriant, and easily detachable; but others,
like Kane O’Hara, Hugh Kelly, William O’Brien, James Kenney, and so on,
whose plays were famous at one time and are not yet forgotten, find no
place in this work on account of the difficulty of bringing the wit of
their plays to a focus.
There never was a writer, perhaps, concerning whose merits there has
been less dispute than Goldsmith. Sheridan, with all his brilliance,
has not been so fortunate. Lysaght and Millikin were and are both
greatly overrated as poets and wits, if we are to judge by the
fragments they have left. Lysaght, however, must have been considered
a genuine wit, for we find a number of once popular songs wrongly
attributed to him. He most unquestionably did not write “The Sprig
of Shillelagh,” “Donnybrook Fair,” “The Rakes of Mallow,” or “Kitty
of Coleraine,” though they have all been put down as his. The first
two were written by H. B. Code and Charles O’Flaherty respectively.
Millikin’s fame is due to one of those literary accidents which now
and then occur. Henry Luttrell in his verse had something of the
sprightliness and point of Moore.
Very few specimens of parody have been included in this collection.
Two extracts are here given from Eaton Stannard Barrett’s burlesque
romance, which ridiculed a school of writers whose mannerisms were
once very prevalent. Maginn was a much better parodist. He was a great
humorist in every way, and may be claimed as the earliest writer who
showed genuine rollicking Irish humour. “Daniel O’Rourke” is here
given to him for the first time, probably, in a collection; though it
appeared in Crofton Croker’s “Fairy Legends” it was known to their
contemporaries as Maginn’s. He could be both coarse and refined; his
boisterous praise of the bottle was not a sham, but his occasional
apparent delight in savage personal criticism was really quite foreign
to his character, as he was a most amiable man, much loved by those
who knew him. It was different with “Father Prout,” who was one of the
venomous order of wits, and certainly not a personal favourite with
his colleagues. His frequent and senseless attacks on O’Connell and
other men, dragged into all his essays, are blots on his work. His wit
is too often merely abusive, like that of Dr. Kenealy, who, almost
as learned as “Prout,” was quite as unnecessarily bitter. It is from
Lover that we get the cream, not the curds of Irish humour. He is the
Irish arch-humorist, and it is difficult to exaggerate the excellence
of his lovesongs. Others may be more classical, more polished, more
subtle, but there is no writer more irresistible. Among his earlier
contemporaries Ettingsall was his nearest counterpart in one notable
story. It must not be forgotten, either, that “Darby Doyle’s Voyage
to Quebec” appeared in print before Lover’s “Barney O’Reirdon.”
Carleton and Lever were admirable humorists, but only incidentally so,
whereas Lover was nothing if not a humorist before all. There are many
excellent comic passages in the novels of both, as also in one or two
of Lefanu’s works, and if it should be thought that proportionately
they are under-represented, it need only be pointed out that though a
large volume might easily be made up of examples of their humour alone,
other writers also have a good claim to a considerable amount of space.
It has been thought preferable to restrict the selections from such
famous novelists in order to give a place to no less admirable but much
less familiar work.
O’Leary and the other Bacchanalians who came after Maginn were worthy
followers of the school which devoted all its lyrical enthusiasm to
the praise of drink, while Marmion Savage showed rather the acid wit
of Moore. Ferguson and Wade are better known by their verse than as
humorous storytellers. We find true Irish humour again in Kickham
and Halpine. The Irish humorists of the present day hardly need any
introduction to the reader.
The treatment of sacred subjects by Irish wits is similar to that
in most Catholic countries. St. Patrick is hardly regarded as a
conventional saint by Irish humorists, and it is curious that St. Peter
is accepted by the wits of all nationalities as a legitimate object
of pleasantry. If, however, Irish writers occasionally seem to lack
reverence for things which in their eyes are holy, “it is only their
fun,” as Lamb would say. Only those who are in the closest intimacy
with sacred objects venture to treat them familiarly, and the Irish
peasant often speaks in an offhand manner of that which is dearest to
him. Few nations could have produced such a harvest of humour under
such depressing and unfavourable influences as Ireland has experienced.
And it may be asserted with truth that many countries with far more
reason for uninterrupted good-humour, with much less cause for sadness,
would be hard put to it to show an equally valuable contribution to the
world’s lighter literature.
* * * * *
Though it has been sought to make this volume as comprehensive as
possible, some familiar names will be missed; it is believed, however,
that it contains a thoroughly representative collection of humorous
extracts. There are some undoubted humorists whose wit will not bear
transferring or transplanting, and it is as hard to convey their humour
in an extract as it is to bottle a sunbeam. In others, the humour
is beaten out too thin, and spread over too wide an area, to make
selection satisfactory. The absence from this collection of any example
of Mr. Oscar Wilde’s characteristic wit is not the fault of the present
writer or the publishers. I have to thank nearly all the living authors
represented in this collection for permission to use their writings,
the one or two exceptions being those whose writings are uncollected,
and whom I could not reach; and I have also to express my indebtedness
to Mr. Alfred Nutt for allowing me to quote from “The Vision of
McConglinne” and Dr. Hyde’s “Beside the Fire”; to Messrs. Ward & Downey
for the extract from Edmund Downey; to Messrs. James Duffy & Son for
the extract from Kickham; to Messrs. Routledge for poems by Lover;
etc. I am also, deeply obliged to Dr. Douglas Hyde, the eminent Irish
scholar and folk-lorist, for copies of some of the earlier extracts,
and to Messrs. F. A. Fahy and P. J. McCall for some later pieces. For
the proverbs I am chiefly indebted to Dr. Hyde, Mr. Fahy, Mr. T. J.
Flannery, and Mr. Patrick O’Leary.
D. J. O’DONOGHUE.
THE HUMOUR OF IRELAND.
_EXORCISING THE DEMON OF VORACITY._
[Cathal MacFinguine, King of Munster, is possessed by a demon of
gluttony that “used to devour his rations with him to the ruin
of the men of Munster during three half-years; and it is likely
he would have ruined Ireland during another half-year.” Anier
MacConglinne, “a famous scholar” and satirist, undertakes to
banish the demon, whom he entices out of Cathal by marvellous
stories of food and feasting, etc., meanwhile keeping him
fasting.]
And he called for juicy old bacon, and tender corned-beef, and
full-fleshed wether, and honey in the comb, and English salt on a
beautiful polished dish of white silver, along with four perfectly
straight white hazel spits to support the joints. The viands which he
enumerated were procured for him, and he fixed unspeakable huge pieces
on the spits. Then putting a linen apron about him below, and placing a
flat linen cap on the crown of his head, he lighted a fair four-ridged,
four-apertured, four-cleft fire of ash-wood, without smoke, without
fume, without sparks. He stuck a spit into each of the portions, and as
quick was he about the spits and fire as a hind about her first fawn,
or as a roe, or a swallow, or a bare spring wind in the flank of March.
He rubbed the honey and the salt into one piece after another. And big
as the pieces were that were before the fire, there dropped not to
the ground out of theses four pieces as much as would quench a spark
of a candle; but what there was of relish in them went into their very
centre.
It had been explained to Pichán that the reason why the scholar had
come was to save Cathal. Now, when the pieces were ready, MacConglinne
cried out, “Ropes and cords here!” “What is wanted with them?” asked
Pichán. Now that was a “question beyond discretion” for him, since
it had been explained to him before; and hence is the old saying,
“a question beyond discretion.” Ropes and cords were given to
MacConglinne, and to those that were strongest of the warriors. They
laid hands upon Cathal, who was tied in this manner to the side of
the palace. Then MacConglinne came, and was a long time securing the
ropes with hooks and staples. And when this was ended, he came into
the house, with his four spits raised high on his back, and his white
wide-spread cloak hanging behind, its two peaks round his neck, to the
place where Cathal was. And he stuck the spits into the bed before
Cathal’s eyes, and sat himself down in his seat, with his two legs
crossed. Then taking his knife out of his girdle, he cut a bit off the
piece that was nearest to him, and dipped it in the honey that was
on the aforesaid dish of white silver. “Here’s the first for a male
beast,” said MacConglinne, putting the bit into his own mouth. (And
from that day to this the old saying has remained.) He cut a morsel
from the next piece, and dipping it in the honey, put it past Cathal’s
mouth into his own. “Carve the food for us, son of learning!” exclaimed
Cathal. “I will do so,” answered MacConglinne and cutting another bit
of the nearest piece, and dipping it as before, he put it past Cathal’s
mouth into his own. “How long wilt thou carry this on, student?” asked
Cathal. “No more henceforth,” answered MacConglinne, “for, indeed,
thou hast consumed such a quantity and variety of agreeable morsels,
that I shall eat the little that is there myself, and this will be
‘food from mouth’ for thee.” (And that has been a proverb since.) Then
Cathal roared and bellowed, and commanded the killing of the scholar.
But that was not done for him. “Well, Cathal,” said MacConglinne, “a
vision has appeared to me, and I have heard that thou art good at
interpreting a dream.” “By my God’s doom!” exclaimed Cathal, “though
I should interpret the dreams of the men of the world, I would not
interpret thine.” “I vow,” said MacConglinne, “even though thou dost
not interpret it, it shall be related in thy presence.” He then began
his vision, and the way he related it was, whilst putting two morsels
or three at a time past Cathal’s mouth into his own--
“A vision I beheld last night:
I sallied forth with two or three,
When I saw a fair and well-filled house,
In which there was great store of food.
A lake of new milk I beheld
In the midst of a fair plain.
I saw a well-appointed house
Thatched with butter.
As I went all around it
To view its arrangement:
Puddings fresh-boiled,
They were its thatch-rods.
Its two soft door-posts of custard,
Its daïs of curd and butter,
Beds of glorious lard,
Many shields of thin-pressed cheese.
Under the straps of these shields
Were men of soft sweet-smooth cheese,
Men who knew not to wound a Gael,
Spears of old butter had each of them.
A huge caldron full of _luabin_--
(Methought I’d try to tackle it)
Boiled leafy kale, browny-white,
A brimming vessel full of milk.
A bacon-house of two-score ribs,
A wattling of tripe--support of clans--
Of every food pleasant to man,
Meseemed the whole was gathered there.”
* * * * *
(_MacConglinne then narrates a fable concerning the land of
O’Early-Eating, etc._)
Then in the harbour of the lake before me I saw a juicy little coracle
of beef-fat, with its coating of tallow, with its thwarts of curds,
with its prow of lard, with its stern of butter, with its thole-pins of
marrow, with its oars of flitches of old boar in it. Indeed she was a
sound craft in which we embarked. Then we rowed across the wide expanse
of New-Milk Lake, through seas of broth, past river-mouths of mead,
over swelling boisterous waves of butter-milk, by perpetual pools of
gravy, past woods dewy with meat-juice, past springs of savoury lard,
by islands of cheeses, by hard rocks of rich tallow, by headlands of
old curds, along strands of dry-cheese, until we reached the firm level
beach between Butter-Mount and Milk-Lake and Curd-Point, at the mouth
of the pass to the country of O’Early-Eating, in front of the hermitage
of the Wizard Doctor. Every oar we plied in New-Milk Lake would send
its sea-sand of cheese-curds to the surface.... Marvellous, indeed, was
the hermitage in which I then found myself. Around it were seven score
hundred smooth stakes of old bacon, and instead of the thorns above the
top of every long stake was fried juicy lard of choice well-fed boar,
in expectation of a battle against the tribes of Butter-fat and Cheese
that were on New-Milk Lake, warring against the Wizard Doctor. There
was a gate of tallow to it, whereon was a bolt of sausage.
Let an active, white-handed, sensible, joyous woman wait upon thee,
who must be of good repute.... Let this maiden give thee thy thrice
nine morsels, O MacConglinne, each morsel of which shall be as big as
a heathfowl’s egg. Those morsels then must be put in thy mouth with
a swinging jerk, and thine eyes must whirl about in thy skull whilst
thou art eating them. The eight kinds of grain thou must not spare, O
MacConglinne, wheresoever they are offered thee--viz., rye, wild-oats,
beare, buckwheat, wheat, barley, _fidbach_, oats. Take eight cakes
of each fair grain of these, and eight condiments with every cake, and
eight sauces with each condiment; and let each morsel thou puttest in
thy mouth be as big as a heron’s egg. Away now to the smooth panikins
of cheese-curds, O MacConglinne:
to fresh pigs,
to loins of fat,
to boiled mutton,
to the choice easily-discussed thing for which the hosts
contend--the gullet of salted beef;
to the dainty of the nobles, to mead;
to the cure of chest-disease--old bacon;
to the appetite of pottage--stale curds;
to the fancy of an unmarried woman--new milk;
to a queen’s mash--carrots;
to the danger awaiting a guest--ale;
to a broken head--butter roll;
to hand-upon-all--dry bread;
to the pregnant thing of a hearth--cheese;
to the bubble-burster--new ale;
to the priest’s fancy--juicy kale;
to the treasure that is smoothest and sweetest of all food--white
porridge;
to the anchor--broth;
to the double-looped twins--sheep’s tripe;
to the dues of a wall--sides (of bacon);
to the bird of a cross--salt;
to the entry of a gathering--sweet apples;
to the pearls of a household--hen’s eggs;
to the glance of nakedness--kernels.
When he had reckoned me up those many viands, he ordered me my drop of
drink. “A tiny little measure for thee, MacConglinne, not too large,
only as much as twenty men will drink, on the top of those viands: of
very thick milk, of milk not too thick, of milk of long thickness,
of milk of medium thickness, of yellow bubbling milk, the swallowing
of which needs chewing, of the milk the snoring bleat of a ram as it
rushes down the gorge, so that the first draught says to the last
draught, ‘I vow, thou mangy cur, before the Creator, if thou comest
down I’ll go up, for there is no room for the doghood of the pair of us
in this treasure-house.’ ...”
At the pleasure of the recital and the recounting of those many
pleasant viands in the king’s presence, the lawless beast that abode in
the inner bowels of Cathal MacFinguine came forth, until it was licking
its lips outside his head. The scholar had a large fire beside him in
the house. Each of the pieces was put in order to the fire, and then
one after the other to the lips of the king. One time, when one of
the pieces was put to the king’s mouth, the son of malediction darted
forth, fixed his two claws in the piece that was in the student’s hand,
and, taking it with him across the hearth to the other side, bore it
below the caldron that was on the other side of the fire. And the
caldron was overturned on him.
_From an Irish manuscript of the 12th century,
translated by Kuno Meyer._
_THE ROMAN EARL._
No man’s trust let woman claim,
Not the same as men are they;
Let the wife withdraw her face
When ye place the man in clay.
Once there was in Rome an earl,
Cups of pearl held his ale.
Of this wealthy earl’s mate
Men relate a famous tale.
For it chanced that of a day,
As they lay at ease reclined,
He in jest pretends to die,
Thus to try her secret mind.
“Och, ochone! if you should die,
Never I should be myself,
To the poor of God I’d give
All my living, lands and pelf.
“Then in satin stiff with gold
I should fold thy fair limbs still,
Laying thee in gorgeous tomb”--
Said the woman bent on ill.
Soon the earl as if in death
Yielded up his breath to try her;
Not one promise kept his spouse
Of the vows made glibly by her.
Jerked into a coffin hard
With a yard of canvas coarse,--
To his hips it did not come--
To the tomb they drove the corse.
Bravely dressed was she that day,
On her way to mass and grave--
To God’s church and needy men
Not one penny piece she gave.
Up he starts, the coffined man,
Calls upon his wife aloud,
“Why am I thus thrust away
Almost naked, with no shroud?”
Then as women will when caught
In a fault, with ready wit,
Answered she upon the wing--
Not one thing would she admit.
“Winding sheets are out of date,
All men state it--clad like this,
When the judgment trump shall sound
You can bound to God and bliss.
“When in shrouds they trip and stumble,
You’ll be nimble then as erst,
Hence I shaped thee this short vest;
You’ll run best and come in first.”
Trust not to a woman’s faith,
’Tis a breath, a broken stem,
Few whom they do not deceive;
Let him grieve who trusts to them.
Though full her house of linen web,
And sheets of thread spun full and fair--
A warning let it be to us--
She left her husband naked there.
Spake the prudent earl: “In sooth,
Woman’s truth you here behold,
Now let each his coffin buy
Ere his wife shall get his gold.
“When Death wrestles for his life,
Let his wife not hear him moan,
Great though be his pain and fear,
Let her hear nor sigh nor groan.”
_Translated by Dr. Douglas Hyde from an
old Irish manuscript._
_THE FELLOW IN THE GOAT-SKIN._
There was a poor widow living down there near the Iron Forge when the
country was all covered with forests, and you might walk on the tops
of trees from Carnew to the Lady’s Island, and she had one boy. She
was very poor, as I said before, and was not able to buy clothes for
her son. So when she was going out she fixed him snug and combustible
in the ash-pit, and piled the warm ashes about him. The boy knew no
better, and was as happy as the day was long; and he was happier still
when a neighbour gave his mother a kid to keep him company when
herself was abroad. The kid and the lad played like two may-boys; and
when she was old enough to give milk, wasn’t it a godsend to the little
family? You won’t prevent the boy from growing up into a young man, but
not a screed of clothes had he then no more than when he was a gorsoon.
One day as he was sitting comfortably in his pew he heard poor Jin
bleating outside so dismally. It was only one step for him to the door,
another to the middle of the road, and another to the gap going into
the wood; and there he saw a pack of deer hounds tearing the life out
of his poor goat. He snatched a _rampike_ out of the gap, was up
with the dogs while a cat would be licking her ear, and in two shakes
he made _smithereens_ of the whole bilin’ of them. The hunters
spurred their horses to ride him down, but he ran at them with the
terrible club, roaring with rage and grief; and horses and men were out
of sight before he could wink. He then went back, crying, to the poor
goat. Her tongue was hanging out and her legs quivering, and after she
strove to lift her head and lick his hand, she lay down cold and dead.
He lifted the body and carried it into the cabin, and _pullilued_
over it till he fell asleep out of weariness; and then a butcher, that
came in with other neighbours to pity him, took away the body and
dressed the skin so smooth, so soft, and fastened two thongs to two of
the corners. When the boy’s grief was a little mollified, the neighbour
stepped in and fastened the nice skin round his body. It fell to his
knees, and the head skin was in front like a Highlander’s pocket. He
was so proud of his new dress that he walked out with his head touching
the sky, and up and down the town with him two or three times. “Oh,
dear!” says the people, standing at their doors and admiring the great
big boy, “look at the _Gilla na Chreckan Gour_” (_Giolla na
Chroiceann Gobhair_--the fellow in the goat-skin), and that name
remained on him till he went into his coffin. But pride and fine dress
won’t make the pot boil. So his mother says to him next morning, “Tom,”
says she, for that was his real name, “you’re idle long enough; so now
that you are well clad, and needn’t be ashamed to appear before the
neighbours, take that rope and bring in a special good _bresna_
(fagot) of rotten boughs from the forest.” “Never say it twice,” says
Gilla, and off he set into the heart of the wood. He broke off and
gathered up a great big fagot, and was tying it, when he heard a roar
that was enough to split an oak, and up walks a giant a foot taller
than himself; and he was a foot taller than the tallest man you’d see
in a fair.
“What brings you here, you vagabone,” says the giant, says he,
“threspassin’ in my demesne and stealin’ my fire-wood?” “I’m doin’ no
harm,” says Gilla, “but clearin’ your wood, if it is your wood, of
rotten boughs.” “I’ll let you see the harm you’re doin’,” says the
giant, and with that he made a blow at Gilla that would have felled
an ox. “Is that the way you show civility to your neighbours?” says
the other, leaping out of the way of the club; “here’s at you,” and
he leaped in and caught the giant by the body, and gave him such a
heave that his head came within an inch of the ground. But he was as
strong as Goliath, and worked up, and gave Gilla another heave equal
to the one he got himself. So they held at it, tripping, squeezing,
and twisting, and the hard ground became a bog under their feet, and
the bog became like the hard road. At last Gilla gave the giant a
great twist, got his right leg behind _his_ right leg, and flung
him headlong again the root of an oak tree. He caught up the club
from where the giant let it fall at the beginning of the scrimmage,
and said to him, “I am goin’ to knock out your brains; what have you
to say again it?” “Oh, nothin’ at all! But if you spare my life, I’ll
give you a flute that, whenever you play on it, will set your greatest
enemies a-dancing, and they won’t have power to lay their hands on
you, if they were as mad as march hares to kill you.” “Let us have it,”
says Gilla, “and take yourself out of that.” So the giant handed him
the flute out of his oxter-pocket, and home went Gilla as proud as a
paycock, with his fagot on his back and his flute stuck in it.
[Illustration: “THE GIANT HANDED HIM THE FLUTE.”]
In three days’ time he went to get another fagot; and this day he was
attacked by a brother of the same giant; and whatever trouble he had
with the other he had it twice with this one. He levelled him at last,
and only gave him his life on being offered a bottle of soft green wax
of a wonderful nature. If a person only rubbed it on the size of a
crown-piece on his body, fire, nor iron, nor any sharp thing could do
him the least harm for a year and a day after. Home went Gilla with his
bottle, and never stirred out for three days, for he was a little tired
and bruised after his wrestling. The next fagot he went to gather he
met with the third brother, and if they hadn’t the dreadful struggle,
leave it till again! They held at it from noon till night, and then
the giant was forced to give in. What he gave for his life was a club
that he took away once from a hermit, and any one fighting with that
club in a just cause would never be conquered. If Gilla stayed at home
three days after the last struggle, he didn’t stir for a week after
this. It was on a Monday morning he got up, and he heard a blowing of
bugles and a terrible hullabulloo in the street. Himself and his mother
ran to the door, and there was a fine fat man on horseback, with a
jockey’s cap on his head, and a quilt with six times the colours of the
rainbow on it hanging over his shoulders. “Hear, all you good people,”
says he, after another pull at his bugle-horn, “the King of Dublin’s
daughter has not laughed for three years and a half, and her father
promises her in marriage, and his crown after his death, to whoever
makes her laugh three times.” “And here’s the boy,” says Gilla, “will
make her do that, or know the reason why.” If one was to count all the
threads in a coat, it would never come into the tailor’s hands; and
if I was to reckon all that Gilla’s mother and her neighbours said to
him before he set out, and all the steps he took after he set out, I’d
never have him as far as the gates of Dublin; but to Dublin he got at
last, as sure as fate. They were going to stop him at the gates, but he
gave a curl of his club round his shoulder, and said he was coming to
make the princess laugh. So they laughed and let him pass; and maybe
the doors and windows were not crowded with women and children gazing
after the good-natured-looking young giant, with his long black hair
falling on his shoulders, and his goat-skin hanging from his waist to
his knee. There was a great crowd in the palace yard when he reached
there, and ever so many of them playing all sorts of tricks to get
a laugh from the princess; but not a smile, even, could be got from
her. “What is your business?” said the king, “and where do you come
from?” “I come, my liege,” said Gilla, “from the country of the ‘Yellow
Bellies,’[1] and my business is to make the princess, God bless her!
give three hearty laughs.” “God enable you!” said the king. But an
ugly, cantankerous fellow near the king, with a white face and red hair
on him, put in his spoon, and says he to Gilla, “My fine fellow, before
any one is allowed to strive for the princess, he is expected to show
himself a man at all sorts of matches with the champions of the court.”
“Nothing will give me greater pleasure,” says Gilla. So he laid his
club and spit in his fists, and a brave sturdy Galloglach came up and
took him by the shoulder and elbow. If he did, he didn’t keep his hold
long; Gilla levelled him while you’d wink, and then came another and
another till two score were pitched on their heads.
Well, no one gripped him the second time; but at last all were so mad
that they stopped rubbing their heads and hips and shoulders, and made
at Gilla in a body. The princess was looking very much pleased at
Gilla all the time, but now she cried out to her father to stop the
attack. The white-faced fellow said something in the king’s ear and
not a budge did he make. But Gilla didn’t let himself be flurried. He
took up his _kippeen_ (cudgel or club), and gave this fellow a
tap on his left ear, and that fellow a tap on his right ear, and the
other a crack on the ridge pole of his head; and maybe it wasn’t a
purty spectacle to see every soul of two score of them tumbling over
and hether, their heads in the dust and their heels in the air, and
they roaring “Murdher” at the _ling_ of their life. But the best
of it was that the princess, when she saw the confusion, gave a laugh
like the ring of silver on a stone, so sweet and so loud that all the
court heard it; and Gilla struck his club butt-end on the ground, and
says he, “King of Dublin, I have won half of your daughter.” The face
of Red-head turned from white to yellow, but no one minded him, and
the king invited Gilla to dine with himself and the princess and all
the royal family. So that day passed, and while they were at breakfast
next morning Red-head reminded the king that he had nothing to do now
but to send the new champion to kill the wild beast that was murdering
every one that attempted to go a hen’s race beyond the walls. The king
did not say a word one way or the other; but the princess said it was
not right nor kind to send a stranger out to his certain death, for no
one ever escaped the wild beast if it could get near them. “I’ll make
the trial,” says Gilla; “I’d face twenty wild beasts to do any service
to yourself or your subjects.” So he inquired where the beast was to be
found, and White-face was only too ready to give him his directions.
The princess was sorrowful enough when she saw him setting out, but go
he must and would. After he was gone a mile beyond the gates he heard
a terrible roar in the wood and a great cracking of boughs, and out
pounced a terrible beast on him, with great long claws, and a big mouth
open to swallow him, club and all.
When he was at the very last spring Gilla gave him a stroke on the
nose; and crack! he was sprawling on his back in two seconds. Well,
that did not daunt him; he was up, and springing again at Gilla, and
this time the blow came on him between the two eyes. Down and up he was
again and again till his right ear, his left ear, his right shoulder,
and left shoulder were black and blue. Then he sat on his hindquarters
and looked very surprised at Gilla and his club. “Now, my tight
fellow,” says Gilla, “follow your nose to Dublin gates. Do no harm to
any one, and I’ll do no harm to you.” “Waw! waw! waw!” says the beast,
with his long teeth all stripped, and sparks flashing from his eyes;
but when he saw the club coming down on him he put his tail between his
legs and walked on. Now and then he’d turn about and give a growl, but
a flourish of the club would soon set him on the straight road again.
Oh! if there wasn’t racing and tearing through the streets, and roaring
and bawling; but Gilla nor the beast ever drew rein till they came to
the palace yard. Well, if the people in the streets were frightened,
the people in the court were terrified. The king and his daughter were
in a balcony, or something that way, and so were out of danger; but
lord and gentleman, and officer, and soldier, as soon as they laid eye
on the beast, began to run into passages and halls; but those that
got in first shut the doors in their fright; and they that were left
out did not know what to do, and the king cried out to Gilla to take
away the frightful thing. Gilla at once took his flute out of his
goat-skin pocket and began to play, and every one in the court--beast
and body--began to dance. There was the unfortunate beast obliged to
stand on his hind legs and play heel and toe, while he shovelled about
after those that were next him, and he growling fearfully all the
time. The people, striving to keep out of his way, were still obliged
to mind their steps, but that didn’t prevent them from roaring out to
Gilla to free them from their tormentor. The beast kept a steady eye on
Red-head, and was always sliding after him as well as the figures of
the dance would let him; and you may be sure the poor fellow’s teeth
were not strong enough to keep his tongue quiet. Well, it was all a
fearful thing to look at, but it was very comical, too; and as soon as
the princess saw that Gilla’s power over the beast was strong enough to
prevent him doing any hurt, and especially when she heard the roars of
Red-head and looked at his dancing, she burst out laughing the second
time. “Now, King of Dublin,” said Gilla, “I have won two halves of the
princess, and I hope it won’t be long till the third half will fall to
me.” “Oh! for goodness’ sake,” said the king, “never mind halves or
quarters--banish this vagabone beast to Bandon, or Halifax, or Lusk, or
the Red Say, and we’ll see what is to come next.” Gilla took his flute
out of his mouth and the dancing stopped like shot The poor beast was
thrown off his balance and fell on his side, and a good many of the
dancers had a tumble at the same moment. Then said Gilla to the beast,
“You see that street leading straight to the mountain; down that street
with you; don’t let a hare catch you; and if you fall, don’t wait to
get up. And if I hear of you coming within a mile of castle or cabin
within the four seas of Ireland I’ll make an example of you; remember
the club.” He had no need to give his orders twice. Before he was done
speaking the beast was half-way down the street like a frightened dog
with a kettle tied to his tail. He was once after seen in the Devil’s
Glen, in Wicklow, picking a bone, and that’s all was ever heard of him.
Well, that was work enough for one day, and the potatoes were just done
in the big kitchen of the palace. I don’t know what great people take
instead of stirabout and milk before they go to bed. Indeed, people
do be saying that some of them never leave the table from dinner to
bedtime, but I don’t believe it. Anyhow, they took dinner and supper
and went to bed, everything in its own time, and rose in the morning
when the sun was as high as the trees. So when they were at breakfast,
Red-head, who wasn’t at all agreeable to the match, says to the king,
in Gilla’s hearing: “The Danes, ill-luck be in their road! will be
near the city in a day or two; and it is said in an old prophecy book,
that if you could get the flail that’s hanging on the couple under
the ridge pole of Hell, you could drive every enemy you have into the
sea--Dane or divil. I’m sure, sir, Gilla wouldn’t have too much trouble
in getting that flail; nothing seems too hot or too heavy for him!”
“If he goes,” said the princess, “it is against my wish and will.”
“If he goes,” said the king, “it is not by my order.” “Go I will,”
said Gilla, “if any one shows me the way.” There was an old gentleman
with a red nose on him sitting at the table, and says he, “Oh! I’ll
show you the way; it lies down Cut Purse Row. You will know it by the
sign of the ‘Cat and Bagpipes’ on one side, and the ‘Ace of Spades’
stuck in the window opposite.” “I’m off,” says Gilla; “pray all of
you for my safe return.” He easily found the “Cat and Bagpipes” and
the “Ace of Spades,” and nothing further is said of him till he was
knocking at Hell’s Gate. It was opened by an old fellow with horns on
him seven feet long, and says he to Gilla, mighty politely, “What is
it you want here, sir?” “I am a great traveller,” said Gilla, “and
wish to see every place worth seeing, inside and outside.” “Oh! if
that’s the case,” says the porter, “walk in. Here, brothers, show
this gentleman-traveller all the curiosities of the place.” With that
they all, big and little, locked and bolted every window and door, and
stuffed every hole, till a midge itself couldn’t find its way out;
and then they surrounded Gilla with their spits, and pitchforks, and
_sprongs_; and if they didn’t whack and prod him, it’s a wonder.
“Gentlemen,” says Gilla, “these are the tricks of clowns. Fairplay
is bonny play; show yourselves gentlemen, if you have a good drop in
you. Hand me a weapon, and let us fight fair. There’s an old flail on
that couple, it will do as well as another.” “Oh, yes! the flail! the
flail!” cried they all; and some little imps climbed up the rafters,
pulled down the flail and handed it to Gilla, expecting to see his
hands burned through the moment it touched them. They knew nothing of
the giant’s balsam that Gilla rubbed on his hands as he was coming
along, but they soon knew and felt the strength of his arm, when he
was knocking them down like nine-pins, and thrashing them, arms, legs,
and bodies, like so much oaten straw. “Oh! murdher! murdher!” says
the big divil of all at last. “Stop your hand, and we’ll give you
anything in our power.” “Well,” says Gilla, “I’ve seen all I want in
your habitation. I don’t like the welcome I’ve got, and will thank
you to open the gate.” Oh! wasn’t there twenty pair of legs tearing
in a moment to let Gilla out. “You don’t mean, I hope, to carry off
the flail?” says the big fellow; “it’s very useful to us in winter.”
“It was the very thing that brought me here,” says Gilla, “to get it,
and I won’t leave without it; but if you look in the black pool of the
Liffey at noon to-morrow, you’ll find it there.” Well, they were very
down in the mouth for the loss of the flail, but a second rib-roasting
wasn’t to be thought of. When they had him fairly locked out they put
out their tongues at him through the bars, and shouted, “Ah! Gilla na
Chreckan Gour! wait till you’re let in here so easy again,” but he
only answered, “You’ll let me in when I ask you.” There was both joy
and terror at court when they saw Gilla coming back with the terrible
flail in his hand. “Now,” says every one, “we care little for the Danes
and all kith and kin. But how did you coax the fellows down below to
give up the implement?” So he told them as much as he chose, and was
very glad to see the welcome that was on the princess’s face. Red-head
thought it would be a fine thing to have the flail in his power. So he
crept over to where Gilla laid it aside after charging no one to touch
it; but his hand did not come within a foot of it, when he thought
he was burned to the bone. He danced about, shook his arm, put his
fist to his mouth, and roared out for water. “Couldn’t you mind what
I said?” says Gilla, “and that wouldn’t have happened.” However, he
took Red-head’s hand within his own two that had the ointment, and he
was freed from the burning at once. Well, the poor rogue looked so
relieved, and so ashamed, and so impudent at the same time, that the
princess joined in the laughing of all about. “Three halves at last,”
said Gilla; “now, my liege,” said he, “I hope that after I give a good
throuncing to the Danes, you will fulfil your promise.” “There are no
two ways about that,” said the king; “Danes or no Danes, you may marry
my daughter to-morrow, if she makes no objection herself.” Red-head,
seeing by the princess’s face that she wasn’t a bit vexed at what her
father said, ran up to his room, thrust his head into a cupboard, and
nearly roared his arm off, but the company downstairs did not seem to
miss him.
Early in the forenoon of next day a soldier came running in all haste
from the bridge that crossed the Liffey, and said the Danes were coming
in thousands from the north, all in brass armour, brass pots on their
heads, and brass pot-lids on their arms, and that the yellow blaze
coming from their ranks was enough to blind a body. Out marched the
king’s troops with the king at their head, to hinder the Danes from
getting into the town over the bridge. First went Gilla, with his flail
in one hand and his club in the other. He crossed the bridge, and when
the enemy were about ten perch away from him, he shouted out, “This
flail belongs to the divil, and who has a better right to it than his
children?” So saying, he swung it round his head, and flung it with
all his power at the front rank. It mowed down every man it met in its
course, and when it cut through the whole column, and the space was
clear before it, it sunk down, and flame and smoke flew up from the
breach it made in the ground. The soldiers at each side of the lane of
dead men ran forward on Gilla, but as every one came within the sweep
of his club he was dashed down on the bridge or into the river. On they
rushed like a snowstorm, but they melted like the same snow falling
into a furnace. Gilla kept before the pile of the dead soldiers, but at
last his arms began to tire. Then the king and his men came over, and
the rest of the Danes were frightened and fled. Often was Gilla tired
in his past life, but that was the greatest and tiresomest exploit he
ever done. He lay on a settle-bed for three days; but if he did, hadn’t
he the princess and all her maids of honour to wait on him, and pity
him, and give him gruel, and toast, and tay of all the colours under
the sun? Red-head did his best to stop the marriage, but once when he
was speaking to the king, one of the body-guard swore he’d open his
skull with his battle-axe if he dared open his mouth again about it. So
married they were, and as strong as Gilla was, if ever his princess and
himself had a _scruting_ (dispute), I know who got the upper hand.
_Kennedy’s Fireside Stories of Ireland._
_OFTEN-WHO-CAME._
There was once a man, and he had a handsome daughter, and every one was
in love with her. There used to be two youths constantly coming to her,
courting her. One of them pleased her and the other did not. The man
she did not care for used often to come to her father’s house to get
a sight of herself, and to be in her company, while the man she liked
used not come but seldom. The father preferred she should marry the boy
who was constantly coming, and he made one day a big dinner and sent
every one an invitation. When every one was gathered he said to his
daughter, “Drink a drink now,” says he, “on the man you like best in
this company,” for he thought she would drink to the man he liked best
himself. She lifted the glass in her hand and stood up and looked round
her, and then said this _rann_:--
“I drink the good health of Often-Who-Came,
Who often comes not I also must name,
Who often comes not I often must blame
That he comes not as often as Often-Who-Came!”
She sat down when she had spoken this quatrain, and said no other word
that evening; but the youth Often-Who-Came did not come as far as her
again, for he understood he was not wanted, and she married the man of
her own choice with her father’s consent.
I heard no more of them since.
_Translated by Dr. Douglas Hyde._
_THE OLD CROW AND THE YOUNG CROW._
There was an old crow teaching a young crow one day, and he said to
him, “Now, my son,” says he, “listen to the advice I’m going to give
you. If you see a person coming near you and stooping, mind yourself,
and be on your keeping; he’s stooping for a stone to throw at you.”
“But tell me,” says the young crow, “what should I do if he had a stone
already down in his pocket?”
“Musha, go ’long out of that,” says the old crow, “you’ve learned
enough; the devil another learning I’m able to give you.”
_Translated by Dr. Douglas Hyde._
_ROGER AND THE GREY MARE._
Roger the miller came coorting of late
A rich farmer’s daughter called Katty by name.
She has to her fortune goold, dimins, and rings;
She has to her fortune fifty fine things;
She has to her fortune a large plot of ground;
She has to her fortune five hundred pounds.
When dinner was over and all things laid down,
It was a nice sight to see five hundred pounds.
The sight of the money and beauty likewise
Tickled his fancy and dazzled his eyes.
“And now, as your daughter is comely and fair,
It’s I that won’t take her,
It’s I that won’t take her,
Without the grey mare.”
Instantly the money was out of his sight,
And so was Miss Katty, his own heart’s delight.
Roger the miller was kicked out the doore,
And Roger was tould not to come there no more.
Roger pulled down his long yalla hair,
Saying, “wishing I never,”
And “wishing I never
Spoke of the grey mare.”
It was in twelve months after, as happened about,
That Roger the miller saw his own true love.
“Good morrow, fair maid, or do you know me?”
“Good morrow, kind sir, I do well,” says she;
“A man of your complexion with long yalla hair,
That wance came a-coorting,
That wance came a-coorting
Me father’s grey mare.”
“It was not to coort the grey mare I came,
But a nice handsome girl called Katty by name.
“I thought that her father would never dispute,
In giving his daughter, the grey mare for boot,
“Before he would lose such a beautiful son;
It’s then I was sorry,
It’s now I am sorry
For what I have done.”
“As for your sorrow, I do value not,
There is men in this town enough to be got.
“If you had the grey mare you would marry me,
But now you have nayther the grey mare nor me.
“The price of the grey mare was never so great,
So fare you well, Roger,
So fare you well, Roger,
Go murn[2] for Kate.”
_Traditional (taken down from a peasant by
Dr. Douglas Hyde)._
_WILL O’ THE WISP._
In old times there was one Will Cooper, a blacksmith who lived in the
parish of Loughile; he was a great lover of the bottle, and all that he
could make by his trade went to that use, so that his family was often
in a starving condition. One day as he was musing in his shop alone
after a fit of drunkenness, there came to him a little old man, almost
naked and trembling with cold. “My good fellow,” said he to Will, “put
on some coals and make a fire, that I may get myself warmed.” Will,
pitying the poor creature, did so, and likewise brought him something
to eat, and told him, if he thought proper, he was welcome to stay
all night. The old man thanked him kindly, and said he had farther
to go; “but,” says he, “as you have been so kind to me, it is in my
power to make you a recompense; make three wishes,” says he, “for
anything you desire most, and let it be what it will you shall obtain
it immediately.” “Well,” says Will, “since that is the case, I wish
that any person who takes my sledge into their hand may never get
free of it till I please to take it from them. Secondly, I have an
armed chair, and I wish that any person sitting down on the same may
never have power to rise until I please to take them off it. I likewise
wish for the last,” says Will, “that whatever money or gold I happen
to put into my purse, no person may have power to take it out again
but myself.” “Ah! unfortunate Will!” cries the old man, “why did not
you wish for Heaven?” With that he went away from the shop, as Will
thought, very pensive and melancholy, and never was heard of more. The
old man’s words opened Will’s eyes; he saw it was in his power to do
well had he made a good use of the opportunity, and when he considered
that the wishes were not of the least use to him, he became worse every
day, both in soul and body, and in a short time he was reduced to great
poverty and distress.
One idle day as he was walking along through the fields he met the
devil in the appearance of a gentleman, who told him if he would go
along with him at the end of seven years, he should have anything he
desired during that time. Will, thinking that it was as bad with him
as it could be, although he suspected it was the devil, for the love
of rising in the world, made bargain to go with him at the end of the
seven years, and requested that he would supply him with plenty of
money for the present. Accordingly, Will had his desire, and dreading
to be observed by his neighbours to get rich on a sudden, he removed
to a distance from where he was then living. However, there was nobody
in distress or in want of money but Will was always ready to relieve,
insomuch that in a short time he became noted, and went in that country
by the name of Bill Money, in regard of the great sums he could always
command. He then began to build houses, and before the seven years were
expired he had built a town, which, in imitation of the name he then
had, was called Ballymoney, and is to this day. However, to disguise
the business, and that nobody might suspect him having any dealings
with Satan, he still did something now and then at his trade. The seven
years being expired, he was making some article for a friend, when the
devil came into the shop in his former appearance. “Well, Will,” says
he, “are you ready to go with me now?” “I am,” says Will, “if I had the
job finished; take that sledge,” says he, “and give me a blow or two,
for it is a friend that is to get it, and then I will go with you where
you please.” The devil took the sledge, and they soon finished the job.
“Now,” says Will, “stay you here till I run to my friend with this, and
I will not stay a minute.” Will then went out and the devil stopped in
the shop till it was near night, but there was no sign of Will coming
near him, nor could he by any means get the sledge out of his hands.
He thought if he was once in his old abode, perhaps there might be
some of the smith trade in it who would disengage him of the sledge,
but all that were in hell could not get it out of his hand, so he had
to retain the shape he was then in as long as the iron remained in his
hand. The devil, seeing he could get nobody to do anything for him,
went in search of Will once more, but somehow or other he could not
get near him for a month. At length he met him coming out of a tavern,
pretty drunk. “Well, Will,” says he, “that was a pretty trick you put
on me!” “Faith, no,” says Will, “it was you that tricked me, for when
I came back to the shop you were away, and stole my sledge with you,
so that I could not get a job done ever since.” “Well, Will,” says
Satan, “I could not help taking the sledge, for I cannot get it out of
my hand; but if you take it from me I will give you seven years more
before I ask you with me.” Will readily took the sledge, and the devil
parted from him well pleased that he had got rid of it. Will having now
seven years to play upon, roved about through the town of Ballymoney,
drinking and sporting, and sometimes doing a little at his trade to
blindfold the people; yet there was many suspected he had dealings with
Satan, or he could not do half of what he had done.
At length the seven years were expired, and the devil came for him
and found him sitting at the fire smoking, in his own house, where he
kept his wonderful chair. “Come, Will,” says he, “are you ready to
go with me now?” “I am,” says Will, “if you sit down a little till I
make my will and settle everything among my family, and then I will go
with you wherever you please.” So, setting the arm-chair to Satan, he
sat down, and Will went into the chamber as if to settle his affairs;
after a little he came up again, bidding the devil come along, for he
had all things completed to his mind, and would ask to stay no longer.
When Will went out the devil made an attempt to rise, but in vain; he
could not stir from the chair, nor even make the least motion one way
or other, so he was as much confounded to think what was the matter, as
when he was first cast into utter darkness. Will, knowing what would
occur to Satan, stayed away a month, during which time he never became
visible in the chair to any of the family, nor do we hear that any one
else ever observed him at any time but Will himself. However, at the
month’s end Will, returning, pretended to be very much surprised that
the devil did not follow him. “What,” says Will, “kept you here all
this time? I believe you are making a fool of me; but if you do not
come immediately I will have the bargain broken, and never go with you
again.” “I cannot help it,” says Satan, “for all I can do I cannot stir
from my seat, but if you could liberate me I will give you seven years
more before I call on you again.” “Well,” says Will, “I will do what
I can.” He then went to Satan and took him by the arm, and with the
greatest ease lifted him out of the chair and set him at liberty once
more. No sooner was Satan gone than Will was ready for his old trade
again; he sported and played, and drank of the best, his purse never
failing, although he sunk all the property and income he had in and
about Ballymoney long before; but he did not care, for he knew he could
have recourse to the purse that never would fail, as I told you before.
However, an accident happened the same purse, that a penny would never
stay in it afterwards, and Will became one of the poorest men to be
found. This was at the end of the seven years of his last bargain, when
Satan came in quest of him again, but was so fearful of a new trick
put upon him by Will that he durst not come near the house. At length
he met him in the fields, and would not give him time to bid as much
as farewell to his wife and children, he was so much afraid of being
imposed upon. Will had at last to go, and travelling along the road
he came to an inn, where many a good glass he had taken in his time.
“Here’s a set of the best rogues,” says Will, “in Ireland; they cheated
me many a time, and I will give all I possess could I put a trick upon
them.” ... “Well,” says Satan, “I do not care if we stop.” “But,” says
Will, “I have no money, and I cannot manage my scheme without it; but
I will tell you what you can do-you can change yourself into a piece
of gold; I will put you in my purse, and then you will see what a
hand I will make for you and me both, before we are at our journey’s
end.” Satan, ever willing to promote evil, consented to change himself
into gold, and when he had done so, Will put the piece into his purse
and returned home. Satan, understanding that Will did not do as he
pretended, strove to deliver himself from confinement, but by the power
of the purse he could never change himself from gold, as long as Will
pleased to keep him in it, and no other person, as I have told you
before, had power to take anything out of it but himself. Will would go
to drink from one ale-house to another, and would pretend to be drunk
when he was not, where he would lay down his purse and bid the waiters
take what they pleased for the reckoning. Every person saw he had money
plenty, yet all they could do they could never get one penny out of the
purse, and he would get so drunk when they would give it back to him
that he would not seem to understand anything, and so would sneak away.
In this manner he cheated both town and country round, until Satan,
weary of confinement, had recourse to a stratagem of his own, and
changed himself from pieces of gold into a solid bar or ingot of the
same metal, but could not get out of the purse.
This, however, put a great damp upon Will’s trade, for when he had no
coin to show he could get nothing from anybody, and how to behave he
did not know. He took a notion that he would perhaps force him into
coin again, and accordingly brought him to an iron forge, where he had
the ingot battered, for the length of an hour, at a fearful rate; but
all they could do they never changed it in the least, neither could
they injure the purse, for the quality of it became miraculous after
his wish, and the people swore the devil was surely in the purse, for
they never saw anything like it. They were compelled at last to give
over, and Will returned home and went to bed, putting the purse under
his head. His wife was asleep, and the devil kept such a hissing,
puffing, and blowing under the bolster that he soon awakened her, and
she, almost frightened out of her wits, awakened Will, telling him that
the devil was under his head. “Well, if he be,” says Will, “I will take
him to the forge, where I assure you he will get a sound battering.”
“Oh, no,” says Satan, “I would rather be in hell than stay here
confined in this manner, and if you let me go I will never trouble you
again.” “With all my heart,” says Will; “on that head you shall have
your freedom,” and opening the purse, gave Satan his liberty.
Will was now free from all dread or fear of anything, and cared not
what he did. But I forgot to mention that at the time Will wished
nobody might take anything out of the purse, he wished he might never
put his hand in it himself but he would find money--but after Satan
being in it he found it empty ever after. By this unlucky accident,
he that had seen so much of the world for such a length of time was
reduced to the most indigent state, and at length forced to beg his
bread. In this miserable condition he spent many years until his glass
was run, and he had to pay that debt to nature which all creatures
have since the fall of Adam. However, his life was so ill-spent and
his actions so bad that it is recorded he could get no entrance to any
place of good after his decease, so that he was destined to follow
his own master. Coming to the gates of hell, he made a horrible noise
to get in; then Satan bid the porter ask who it was that made such a
din, and not to admit him till he would let him know. The porter did
so, and he bade him tell his master that he was his old friend, Will
Cooper, wanting to come to him once more. When Satan had heard who it
was he ordered the gates to be strongly guarded; “for if that villain
gets in,” says he, “we are all undone.” Will pleaded the distress he
was in, that he could not get backward nor forward with the darkness
he was surrounded with, and having lost his guide, if Satan would not
let him in; and being loath to listen to the noise and confusion he
was making at the gate, Satan sent one of his servants to conduct him
back to earth again, and particularly not to quit him until he left
him in Ireland. “Now,” says Satan to Will when he was going away, “you
were a trusty servant to me a long time; now you are going to earth
again, let me see you be busy, and gain all to me that you can; but
remember how you served me when in the purse, and you shall never be
out of darkness. I will give you a light in your hand to allure and
deceive the weary traveller, so that he may become a prey to us.” So
lighting a wisp, he gave it to Will, and he was conducted to earth,
where he wanders from that day to this, under the title of _Will o’
the Wisp_.
_Hibernian Tales (a chap-book)._
_EPIGRAMS._
THE CHURL AND HIS WINE.
To thirst he’ll never own,
His wife’s a stingy crone,
A little bottle, half-filled, _mavrone_,
He keeps locked tight in a corner lone!
ON A SURLY PORTER.
What a pity Hell’s gates are not kept by O’Flinn--
The surly old dog would let nobody in.
_RIDDLES._
There’s a garden that I ken
Full of little gentlemen,
Little caps of blue they wear,
And green ribbons very fair.
(_Flax._)
I threw it up as white as snow,
Like gold on a flag it fell below.
(_Egg._)
I ran and I got,
I sat and I searched,
If I could get it I would not bring it with me,
As I got it not I brought it.
(_A thorn in the foot._)
From house to house he goes,
A messenger small and slight,
And whether it rains or snows
He sleeps outside in the night.
(_Boreen--lane or path._)
On the top of the tree
See the little man red,
A stone in his belly,
A cap on his head.
(_Haw._)
A bottomless barrel,
It’s shaped like a hive,
It is filled full of flesh,
And the flesh is alive.
(_Tailor’s thimble._)
As I went through the garden
I met my uncle Thady,
I cut his head from off his neck
And left his body “aisy.”
(_A head of cabbage._)
Out in the field my daddy grows,
Wearing two hundred suits of clothes.
(_Ditto._)
Snug in the corner I saw the lad lie,
Fire in his heart and a cork in his eye.
(_Bottle of whisky._)
’Tis round as dish was ever known,
And white as snow the look of it,
’Tis food and life of all mankind,
Yet no man e’er partook of it.
(_Breast-milk._)
MY daddy on the warm shelf
Talking, talking to himself.
(_Pot on the hob, simmering._)
Up in the loft the round man lies,
Looking through two hundred eyes.
(_A sieve._)
Out she goes and the priest’s dinner with her.
(_Hen with an egg._)
_Translated by Dr. Hyde and F. A. Fahy._
_DONALD AND HIS NEIGHBOURS._
Hudden and Dudden and Donald O’Nery were near neighbours in the barony
of Balinconlig, and ploughed with three bullocks; but the two former,
envying the present prosperity of the latter, determined to kill his
bullock, to prevent his farm being properly cultivated and laboured,
that going back in the world he might be induced to sell his lands,
which they meant to get possession of. Poor Donald, finding his bullock
killed, immediately skinned it, and throwing the skin over his
shoulder, with the fleshy side out, set off to the next town with it,
to dispose of it to the best of his advantage. Going along the road a
magpie flew on the top of the hide and began picking it, chattering
all the time. The bird had been taught to speak and imitate the human
voice, and Donald, thinking he understood some words it was saying,
put round his hand and caught hold of it. Having got possession of it,
he put it under his great-coat, and so went on to the town. Having
sold the hide, he went into an inn to take a dram, and following the
landlady into the cellar, he gave the bird a squeeze which made it
chatter some broken accents that surprised her very much. “What is
that I hear?” said she to Donald; “I think it is talk, and yet I do
not understand.” “Indeed,” said Donald, “it is a bird I have that
tells me everything, and I always carry it with me to know when there
is any danger. Faith,” says he, “it says you have far better liquor
than you are giving me.” “That is strange,” said she, going to another
cask of better quality, and asking him if he would sell the bird. “I
will,” said Donald, “if I get enough for it.” “I will fill your hat
with silver if you leave it with me.” Donald was glad to hear the news,
and taking the silver, set off, rejoicing at his good luck. He had not
been long at home until he met with Hudden and Dudden. “Mr.,” said he,
“you thought you did me a bad turn, but you could not have done me a
better, for look here what I have got for the hide,” showing them the
hatful of silver; “you never saw such a demand for hides in your life
as there is at present.” Hudden and Dudden that very night killed their
bullocks, and set out the next morning to sell their hides. On coming
to the place they went through all the merchants, but could only get
a trifle for them. At last they had to take what they could get, and
came home in a great rage, and vowing revenge on poor Donald. He had
a pretty good guess how matters would turn out, and he being under the
kitchen window, he was afraid they would rob him, or perhaps kill him
when asleep, and on that account, when he was going to bed he left his
old mother in his place and lay down in her bed, which was on the other
side of the house; and taking the old woman for Donald, they choked her
in her bed, but he making some noise they had to retreat and leave the
money behind them, which grieved them very much. However, by daybreak
Donald got his mother on his back and carried her to town. Stopping at
a well, he fixed his mother with her staff, as if she was stooping for
a drink, and then went into a public-house convenient and called for a
dram. “I wish,” said he to a woman that stood near him, “you would tell
my mother to come in; she is at yon well trying to get a drink, and
she is hard of hearing. If she does not observe you, give her a little
shake and tell her that I want her.” The woman called her several
times, but she seemed to take no notice; at length she went to her and
shook her by the arm, but when she let her go again, she tumbled on her
head into the well, and, as the woman thought, was drowned. She, in
great surprise and fear at the accident, told Donald what had happened.
“Oh, mercy,” said he, “what is this?” He ran and pulled her out of the
well, weeping and lamenting all the time, and acting in such a manner
that you would imagine he had lost his senses. The woman, on the other
hand, was far worse than Donald, for his grief was only feigned, but
she imagined herself to be the cause of the old woman’s death. The
inhabitants of the town, hearing what had happened, agreed to make
Donald up a good sum of money for his loss, as the accident happened
in their place; and Donald brought a greater sum home with him than
he got for the magpie. They buried Donald’s mother, and as soon as he
saw Hudden and Dudden he showed them the last purse of money he had
got. “You thought to kill me last night,” said he, “but it was good for
me it happened on my mother, for I got all that purse for her to make
gunpowder.”
That very night Hudden and Dudden killed their mothers, and the next
morning set off with them to town. On coming to the town with their
burthen on their backs, they went up and down crying, “Who will buy old
wives for gunpowder?” so that every one laughed at them, and the boys
at last clodded them out of the place. They then saw the cheat, and
vowing revenge on Donald, buried the old women, and set off in pursuit
of him. Coming to his house, they found him sitting at his breakfast,
and seizing him, put him in a sack, and went to drown him in a river
at some distance. As they were going along the highway they raised a
hare, which they saw had but three feet, and throwing off the sack, ran
after her, thinking by appearance she would be easily taken. In their
absence there came a drover that way, and hearing Donald singing in the
sack, wondered greatly what could be the matter. “What is the reason,”
said he, “that you are singing, and you confined?” “Oh, I am going to
heaven,” said Donald, “and in a short time I expect to be free from
trouble.” “Oh, dear,” said the drover, “what will I give you if you let
me to your place?” “Indeed, I do not know,” said he; “it would take a
good sum.” “I have not much money,” said the drover, “but I have twenty
head of fine cattle, which I will give you to exchange places with me.”
“Well,” says Donald, “I do not care if I should; loose the sack, and I
will come out.” In a moment the drover liberated him and went into the
sack himself, and Donald drove home the fine heifers, and left them in
his pasture.
Hudden and Dudden having caught the hare, returned, and getting the
sack on one of their backs, carried Donald, as they thought, to the
river, and threw him in, where he immediately sank. They then marched
home, intending to take immediate possession of Donald’s property; but
how great was their surprise when they found him safe at home before
them, with such a fine herd of cattle, whereas they knew he had none
before. “Donald,” said they, “what is all this? We thought you were
drowned, and yet you are here before us.” “Ah,” said he, “if I had but
help along with me when you threw me in, it would have been the best
job ever I met with, for of all the sight of cattle and gold that ever
was seen is there, and no one to own them; but I was not able to manage
more than what you see, and I could show you the spot where you might
get hundreds.” They both swore they would be his friend, and Donald
accordingly led them to a very deep part of the river, and lifted up
a stone. “Now,” said he, “watch this,” throwing it into the stream;
“there is the very place, and go in one of you first, and if you want
help you have nothing to do but call.” Hudden, jumping in and sinking
to the bottom, rose up again, and making a bubbling noise, as those do
that are drowning, attempted to speak, but could not. “What is that he
is saying now?” says Dudden. “Faith,” says Donald, “he is calling for
help; don’t you hear him? Stand about,” said he, running back, “till I
leap in. I know how to do better than any of you.” Dudden, to have the
advantage of him, jumped in off the bank, and was drowned along with
Hudden. And this was the end of Hudden and Dudden.
_Hibernian Tales (a chap-book)._
_THE WOMAN OF THREE COWS._
O Woman of Three Cows, _agragh!_ don’t let your tongue thus rattle!
Oh, don’t be saucy, don’t be stiff, because you may have cattle.
I have seen--and here’s my hand to you, I only say what’s true--
A many a one with twice your stock not half so proud as you.
Good luck to you, don’t scorn the poor, and don’t be their despiser;
For worldly wealth soon melts away, and cheats the very miser:
And death soon strips the proudest wreath from haughty human brows,
Then don’t be stiff, and don’t be proud, good Woman of Three Cows!
See where Momonia’s heroes lie, proud Owen More’s descendants--
’Tis they that won the glorious name, and had the grand attendants!
If _they_ were forced to bow to Fate, as every mortal bows,
Can _you_ be proud, can _you_ be stiff, my Woman of Three Cows?
The brave sons of the Lord of Clare, they left the land to mourning;
_Mavrone!_ for they were banished, with no hope of their returning;
Who knows in what abodes of want those youths were driven to house?
Yet _you_ can give yourself those airs, O Woman of Three Cows!
Oh, think of Donnell of the Ships, the chief whom nothing daunted--
See how he fell in distant Spain, unchronicled, unchanted!
He sleeps, the great O’Sullivan, where thunder cannot rouse--
Then ask yourself, should _you_ be proud, good Woman of Three Cows!
O’Ruark, Maguire, those souls of fire, whose names are shrined in
story--
Think how their high achievements once made Erin’s greatest glory;
Yet now their bones lie mouldering under weeds and cypress boughs,
And so, for all your pride, will you, O Woman of Three Cows!
The O’Carrolls also, famed when fame was only for the boldest,
Rest in forgotten sepulchres with Erin’s best and oldest;
Yet who so great as they of yore in battle or carouse?
Just think of that, and hide your head, good Woman of Three Cows!
Your neighbour’s poor, and you, it seems, are big with vain ideas,
Because, _inagh_,[3] you’ve got three cows, one more, I see, than
_she_ has;
That tongue of yours wags more at times than charity allows--
But if you’re strong, be merciful, great Woman of Three Cows!
THE SUMMING-UP.
Now, there you go! you still, of course, keep up your scornful
bearing,
And I’m too poor to hinder you--but, by the cloak I’m wearing,
If I had but _four_ cows myself, even though you were my spouse,
I’d thrash you well, to cure your pride, my Woman of Three Cows!
_Translated by James Clarence Mangan._
_IN PRAISE OF DIGRESSIONS._
I have sometimes heard of an Iliad in a nut-shell, but it has been my
fortune to have much oftener seen a nut-shell in an Iliad. There is
no doubt that human life has received most wonderful advantages from
both, but to which of the two the world is chiefly indebted I shall
leave among the curious as a problem worthy of their utmost inquiry.
For the invention of the latter I think the commonwealth of learning
is chiefly obliged to the great modern improvement of digressions:
the late refinements in knowledge running parallel to those of diet
in our nation, which, among men of a judicious taste, are dressed up
in various compounds, consisting in soups and olios, fricassees and
ragouts.
It is true, there is a sort of morose, detracting, ill-bred people
who pretend utterly to disrelish these polite innovations; and as to
the similitude from diet, they allow the parallel, but are so bold to
pronounce the example itself a corruption and degeneracy of taste.
They tell us that the fashion of jumbling fifty things together in a
dish was at first introduced in compliance to a depraved and debauched
appetite, as well as to a crazy constitution; and to see a man hunting
through an olio after the head and brains of a goose, a widgeon,
or a woodcock, is a sign he wants a stomach and digestion for more
substantial victuals. Further, they affirm that digressions in a book
are like foreign troops in a state, which argue the nation to want a
heart and hands of its own, and often either subdue the natives or
drive them into the most unfruitful corners.
But after all that can be objected by these supercilious censors,
it is manifest the society of writers would quickly be reduced to a
very inconsiderable number if men were put upon making books with the
fatal confinement of delivering nothing beyond what is to the purpose.
It is acknowledged that were the case the same among us as with the
Greeks and Romans, when learning was in its cradle, to be reared and
fed, and clothed by invention, it would be an easy task to fill up
volumes upon particular occasions, without further expatiating from the
subjects than by moderate excursions, helping to advance or clear the
main design. But with knowledge it has fared as with a numerous army
encamped in a fruitful country, which, for a few days, maintains itself
by the product of the soil it is on; till, provisions being spent, they
are sent to forage many a mile, among friends or enemies, it matters
not. Meanwhile, the neighbouring fields, trampled and beaten down,
become barren and dry, affording no sustenance but clouds of dust.
The whole course of things being thus entirely changed between us and
the ancients, and the moderns wisely sensible of it, we of this age
have discovered a shorter and more prudent method to become scholars
and wits, without the fatigue of reading or of thinking. The most
accomplished way of using books at present is twofold: either, first,
to serve them as some men do lords, learn their titles exactly, and
then brag of their acquaintance; or, secondly, what is indeed the
choicer, the profounder, and politer method, to get a thorough insight
into the index, by which the whole book is governed, and turned like
fishes by the tail. For to enter the palace of learning at the great
gate requires an expense of time and forms; therefore men of much haste
and little ceremony are content to get in by the back door. For the
arts are all in flying march, and therefore more easily subdued by
attacking them in the rear. Thus physicians discover the state of the
whole body by consulting only what comes from behind. Thus men catch
knowledge by throwing their wit into the posteriors of a book, as boys
do sparrows with flinging salt upon their tails. Thus human life is
best understood by the wise man’s rule of regarding the end. Thus are
the sciences found, like Hercules’ oxen, by tracing them backwards.
Thus are old sciences unravelled, like old stockings, by beginning at
the foot. Beside all this, the army of the sciences has been of late,
with a world of martial discipline, drawn into its close order, so that
a view or a muster may be taken of it with abundance of expedition. For
this great blessing we are wholly indebted to systems and abstracts in
which the modern fathers of learning, like prudent usurers, spent their
sweat for the ease of us their children. For labour is the seed of
idleness, and it is the peculiar happiness of our noble age to gather
the fruit.
Now, the method of growing wise, learned and sublime, having become so
regular an affair, and so established in all its forms, the number of
writers must needs have increased accordingly, and to a pitch that has
made it absolutely necessary for them to interfere continually with
each other. Besides, it is reckoned that there is not at this present
a sufficient quantity of new matter left in nature to furnish and adorn
any one particular subject to the extent of a volume. This I am told by
a very skilful computer, who has given a full demonstration of it from
rules of arithmetic.
* * * * *
By these methods, in a few weeks, there starts up many a writer
capable of managing the profoundest and most universal subjects. For
what though his head be empty, provided his commonplace book be full?
and if you will bate him but the circumstances of method, and style,
and grammar, and invention; allow him but the common privileges of
transcribing from others, and digressing from himself, as often as he
shall see occasion; he will desire no more ingredients towards fitting
up a treatise that shall make a very comely figure on a bookseller’s
shelf; there to be preserved neat and clean for a long eternity,
adorned with the heraldry of its title fairly inscribed on a label;
never to be thumbed or greased by students, nor bound to everlasting
chains of darkness in a library; but when the fulness of time is come,
shall happily undergo the trial of purgatory, in order to ascend the
sky.
Without these allowances, how is it possible we modern wits should
ever have an opportunity to introduce our collections, listed under
so many thousand heads of a different nature; for want of which the
learned world would be deprived of infinite delight, as well as
instruction, and we ourselves buried beyond redress in an inglorious
and undistinguished oblivion.
From such elements as these I am alive to behold the day wherein the
corporation of authors can outvie all its brethren in the guild. A
happiness derived to us, with a great many others, from our Scythian
ancestors; among whom the number of pens was so infinite, that the
Grecian eloquence had no other way of expressing it than by saying that
in the regions far to the north it was hardly possible for a man to
travel, the very air was so replete with feathers.
_Jonathan Swift_ (1667–1745).
_A RHAPSODY ON POETRY._
All human race would fain be wits,
And millions miss for one who hits:
Young’s universal passion, Pride,
Was never known to spread so wide.
Say, Britain! could you ever boast,
Three poets in an age at most?
Our chilling climate hardly bears
A sprig of bays in fifty years,
While every fool his claim alleges,
As if it grew in common hedges.
What reason can there be assigned
For this perverseness in the mind?
Brutes find out where their talents lie:
A bear will not attempt to fly:
A foundered horse will oft debate
Before he tries a five-barred gate:
A dog by instinct turns aside,
Who sees the ditch too deep and wide;
But man we find the only creature
Who, led by folly, combats Nature;
Who, where she loudly cries “Forbear,”
With obstinacy fixes there,
And where his genius least inclines,
Absurdly bends his whole designs.
Not empire to the rising sun,
By valour, conduct, fortune, won:
Not highest wisdom in debates,
For framing laws to govern states:
Not skill in sciences profound,
So large to grasp the circle round,
Such heavenly influence require
As how to strike the Muse’s lyre.
* * * * *
Poor starveling bard! how small thy gains!
How unproportioned to thy pains!
And here a simile comes pat in:
A chicken takes a month to fatten,
Tho’ guests in less than half-an-hour
Will more than half-a-score devour.
So after toiling twenty days
To earn a stock of pence and praise,
Thy labours, grown the critic’s prey,
Are swallowed o’er a dish of tea;
Gone to be never heard of more,
Gone where the chickens went before.
How shall a new attempter learn
Of different spirits to discern?
And how distinguish which is which,
The poet’s vein or scribbling itch?
Then hear an old experienced sinner
Instructing thus a young beginner.
Consult yourself, and if you find
A powerful impulse urge your mind,
Impartial judge within your breast,
What subject you can manage best:
Whether your genius most inclines
To satire, praise, or hum’rous lines;
To elegies in mournful tone,
Or prologue sent from hand unknown;
Then rising with Aurora’s light,
The Muse invok’d, sit down to write;
Blot out, correct, insert, refine,
Enlarge, diminish, interline;
Be mindful, when invention fails,
To scratch your head and bite your nails.
Your poem finished, next your care
Is needful to transcribe it fair:
In modern wit all printed trash is
Set off with num’rous breaks--and dashes--
To statesmen would you give a wipe
You print it in _Italic_ type:
When letters are in vulgar shapes,
’Tis ten to one the wit escapes;
But when in CAPITALS exprest,
The dullest reader smokes the jest;
Or else perhaps he may invent
A better than the poet meant,
As learned commentators view
In Homer more than Homer knew.
* * * * *
Be sure at Will’s the foll’wing day,
Lie snug and hear what critics say,
And if you find the general vogue
Pronounces you a stupid rogue,
Damns all your thoughts as low and little,
Sit still, and swallow down your spittle:
Be silent as a politician,
For talking may beget suspicion;
Or praise the judgment of the Town,
And help yourself to run it down;--
Give up your fond paternal pride,
Nor argue on the weaker side:
For poems read without a name
We justly praise or justly blame;
And critics have no partial views,
Except they know whom they abuse;
And since you ne’er provoked their spite,
Depend upon’t, their judgment’s right.
But if you blab you are undone,
Consider what a risk you run;
You lose your credit all at once,
The Town will mark you for a dunce;
The vilest doggerel Grub Street sends
Will pass for yours with foes and friends,
And you must bear the whole disgrace,
Till some fresh blockhead takes your place.
Your secret kept, your poem sunk,
And sent in quires to line a trunk,
If still you be disposed to rhyme,
Go try your hand a second time.
Again you fail; yet safe’s the word;
Take courage, and attempt a third:
But first with care employ your thoughts
Where critics marked your former fau’ts;
The trivial turns, the borrow’d wit,
The similies that nothing fit;
The cant which every fool repeats,
Town-jests and coffee-house conceits;
Descriptions tedious, flat and dry,
And introduced the Lord knows why;
Or where we find your fury set
Against the harmless alphabet;
On A’s and B’s your malice vent
While readers wonder whom you meant;
A public or a private robber,
A statesman or a South Sea jobber;
A pr-l-te, who no God believes;
A p-m-t or den of thieves;
A pickpurse at the bar or bench,
A duchess or a suburb-wench;
“An House of P--rs, a gaming crew,
A griping ---- or a Jew.”
Or oft, when epithets you link
In gaping lines to fill a chink,
Like stepping-stones to save a stride
In streets where kennels are too wide;
Or like a heel-piece to support
A cripple, with one leg too short;
Or like a bridge that joins a marish
To moorlands of a different parish.
So have I seen ill-coupled hounds
Drag diff’rent ways in miry grounds;
So geographers in Afric maps
With savage pictures fill their gaps,
And o’er unhabitable downs
Place elephants for want of towns.
* * * * *
Then, poet! if you mean to thrive,
Employ your muse on kings alive,
With prudence gath’ring up a cluster
Of all the virtues you can muster,
Which, formed into a garland sweet,
Lay humbly at your monarch’s feet,
Who, as the odours reach his throne,
Will smile, and think them all his own:
For law and gospel doth determine
All virtues lodge in royal ermine;
(I mean the oracles of both,
Who shall depose it upon oath);
Your garland, in the following reign,
Change but the names, ’twill do again.
* * * * *
Hobbes clearly proves that ev’ry creature
Lives in a state of war by nature;
The greater for the smaller watch,
But meddle seldom with their match.
A whale of mod’rate size will draw
A shoal of herrings in his maw;
A fox with geese his belly crams;
A wolf destroys a thousand lambs;
But search among the rhyming race,
The brave are worried by the base.
If on Parnassus’ top you sit,
You rarely bite, are always bit.
Each poet of inferior size
On you shall rail and criticize,
And strive to tear you limb from limb,
While others do as much for him.
The vermin only tease and pinch
Their foes superior by an inch,
So nat’ralists observe a flea
Have smaller fleas on him that prey,
And these have smaller still to bite ’em,
And so proceed _ad infinitum_.
_Jonathan Swift._
_LETTER FROM A LIAR._
I shall, without any manner of preface or apology, acquaint you that
I am, and ever have been from my youth upward, one of the greatest
liars this island has produced. I have read all the moralists upon
the subject, but could never find any effect their discourses had
upon me but to add to my misfortune by new thoughts and ideas, and
making me more ready in my language, and capable of sometimes mixing
seeming truths with my improbabilities. With this strong passion
towards falsehood in this kind there does not live an honester man or a
sincerer friend; but my imagination runs away with me, and whatever
is started, I have such a scene of adventures appear in an instant
before me, that I cannot help uttering them, though, to my immediate
confusion, I cannot but know I am liable to be detected by the first
man I meet.
[Illustration: “MY IMAGINATION RUNS AWAY WITH ME.”]
Upon occasion of the mention of the battle of Pultowa I could not
forbear giving an account of a kinsman of mine, a young merchant, who
was bred at Moscow, that had too much mettle to attend books of entries
and accounts when there was so active a scene in the country where he
resided, and followed the Czar as a volunteer. This warm youth, born
at the instant the thing was spoken of, was the man who unhorsed the
Swedish general; he was the occasion that the Muscovites kept their
fire in so soldier-like a manner, and brought up those troops which
were covered from the enemy at the beginning of the day; besides
this, he had at last the good fortune to be the man who took Count
Piper. With all this fire I knew my cousin to be the civilest man in
the world. He never made any impertinent show of his valour, and then
he had an excellent genius for the world in every other kind. I had
letters from him--here I felt in my pockets--that exactly spoke the
Czar’s character, which I knew perfectly well, and I could not forbear
concluding that I lay with his imperial majesty twice or thrice a week
all the while he lodged at Deptford. What is worse than all this, it
is impossible to speak to me but you give me some occasion of coming
out with one lie or other that has neither wit, humour, prospect of
interest, nor any other motive that I can think of in nature. The
other day, when one was commending an eminent and learned divine, what
occasion had I to say, “Methinks he would look more venerable if he
were not so fair a man”? I remember the company smiled. I have seen the
gentleman since, and he is coal black. I have intimations every day
in my life that nobody believes me, yet I am never the better. I was
saying something the other day to an old friend at Will’s coffee-house,
and he made me no manner of answer, but told me that an acquaintance
of Tully the orator, having two or three times together said to him,
without receiving an answer, “That upon his honour he was but that
very month forty years of age,” Tully answered, “Surely you think me
the most incredulous man in the world, if I don’t believe what you
have told me every day these ten years.” The mischief of it is, I find
myself wonderfully inclined to have been present at every encounter
that is spoken of before me; this has led me into many inconveniences,
but indeed they have been the fewer because I am no ill-natured man,
and never speak things to any man’s disadvantage. I never directly
defame, but I do what is as bad in the consequence, for I have often
made a man say such and such a lively expression, who was born a mere
elder brother. When one has said in my hearing, “Such a one is no
wiser than he should be,” I immediately have replied, “Now, faith, I
can’t see that; he said a very good thing to my lord such-a-one, upon
such an occasion,” and the like. Such an honest dolt as this has been
watched in every expression he uttered, upon my recommendation of him,
and consequently been subject to the more ridicule. I once endeavoured
to cure myself of this impertinent quality, and resolved to hold my
tongue for seven days together; I did so, but then I had so many winks
and contortions of my face upon what anybody else said that I found I
only forbore the expression, and that I still lied in my heart to every
man I met with. You are to know one thing, which I believe you will
say is a pity, considering the use I should have made of it. I never
travelled in my life; but I do not know whether I could have spoken
of any foreign country with more familiarity than I do at present, in
company who are strangers too ... though I was never out of this town,
and fifty miles about it.
It were endless to give you particulars of this kind, but I can assure
you, Mr. Spectator, there are about twenty or thirty of us in this town
(I mean by this town the cities of London and Westminster); I say there
are in town a sufficient number to make a society among ourselves; and
since we cannot be believed any longer, I beg of you to print this
letter that we may meet together, and be under such regulation as there
may be no occasion for belief or confidence among us. If you think fit,
we might be called THE HISTORIANS, for liar is become a very
harsh word.
* * * * *
But, alas! whither am I running! While I complain, while I remonstrate
to you, even all this is a lie, for there is no such person of quality,
lover, soldier, or merchant, as I have now described, in the whole
world, that I know of. But I will catch myself once in my life, and
in spite of nature speak one truth, to wit, that I am,--Your humble
servant.
_Sir Richard Steele_ (1672–1729).
[Illustration: “GOD BLESS YOU, SIR!”]
EPIGRAMS.
ON A FAT MAN.
When Fatty walks the street, the paviors cry,
“God bless you, sir!” and lay their rammers by.
ON A STINGY BEAU.
Curio’s rich sideboard seldom sees the light;
Clean is his kitchen, his spits are always bright;
His knives and spoons, all ranged in even rows,
No hands molest, or fingers discompose.
A curious jack, hung up to please the eye,
For ever still, whose flyers never fly;
His plates unsullied, shining on the shelf,
For Curio dresses nothing,--but himself.
ON MARRIAGE.
Cries Celia to a reverend dean,
“What reason can be given,
Since marriage is a holy thing,
That there are none in heaven?”
“There are no women,” he reply’d;
She quick returns the jest;
“Women there are, but I’m afraid
They cannot find a priest.”
_John Winstanley_ (1678–1750).
_A FINE LADY._
_A Lady’s Apartment. Two Chambermaids enter._
_First Chambermaid._ Are all things set in order? The toilette
fixed, the bottles and combs put in form, and the chocolate ready?
_2nd Cham._ ’Tis no greater matter whether they be right or not;
for right or wrong we shall be sure of our lecture. I wish for my part
that my time were out.
_1st Cham._ Nay, ’tis a hundred to one but we may run away before
our time be half expired, and she’s worse this morning than ever. Here
she comes.
LADY LUREWELL _enters_.
_Lure._ Ay, there’s a couple of you indeed! But how, how in the
name of negligence could you two contrive to make a bed as mine was
last night; a wrinkle on one side, and a rumple on t’other; the pillows
awry, and the quilt askew. I did nothing but tumble about and fence
with the sheets all night along. Oh! my bones ache this morning as if
I had lain all night on a pair of Dutch stairs.--Go, bring chocolate.
And, d’ye hear? be sure to stay an hour or two at least.--Well! these
English animals are so unpolished! I wish the persecution would rage a
little harder, that we might have more of these French refugees among
us.
_The Maids enter with chocolate._
These wenches are gone to Smyrna for this chocolate---- And what made
you stay so long?
_Cham._ I thought we did not stay at all, madam.
_Lure._ Only an hour and a half by the slowest clock in
Christendom--and such salvers and dishes too! The lard be merciful to
me! what have I committed to be plagued with such animals? Where are my
new japan salvers? Broke, o’ my conscience! all to pieces, I’ll lay my
life on’t.
_Cham._ No, indeed, madam, but your husband----
_Lure._ How! husband, impudence! I’ll teach you manners. (_Gives
her a box on the ear._) Husband! Is that your Welsh breeding? Ha’n’t
the Colonel a name of his own?
_Cham._ Well, then, the Colonel. He used them this morning, and we
ha’n’t got them since.
_Lure._ How! the Colonel use my things! How dare the Colonel
use any thing of mine? But his campaign education must be pardoned.
And I warrant they were fisted about among his dirty _levée_
of disbanded officers? Faugh! the very thoughts of them fellows,
with their eager looks, iron swords, tied-up wigs, and tucked in
cravats, make me sick as death. Come, let me see. (_Goes to take the
chocolate, and starts back._) Heavens protect me from such a sight!
Lord, girl! when did you wash your hands last? And have you been pawing
me all this morning with them dirty fists of yours? (_Runs to the
glass._) I must dress all over again. Go, take it away, I shall
swoon else. Here, Mrs. Monster, call up my tailor; and d’ye hear? you,
Mrs. Hobbyhorse, see if my company be come to cards yet.
_The Tailor enters._
Oh, Mr. Remnant! I don’t know what ails these stays you have made me;
but something is the matter, I don’t like them.
_Rem._ I am very sorry for that, madam. But what fault does your
ladyship find?
_Lure._ I don’t know where the fault lies; but, in short, I don’t
like them; I can’t tell how; the things are well enough made, but I
don’t like them.
_Rem._ Are they too wide, madam?
_Lure._ No.
_Rem._ Too straight, perhaps?
_Lure._ Not at all! they fit me very well; but--lard bless me;
can’t you tell where the fault lies?
_Rem._ Why, truly, madam, I can’t tell. But your ladyship, I
think, is a little too slender for the fashion.
_Lure._ How! too slender for the fashion, say you?
_Rem._ Yes, madam! there’s no such thing as a good shape worn
among the quality; you fine waists are clear out, madam.
_Lure._ And why did not you plump up my stays to the fashionable
size?
_Rem._ I made them to fit you, madam.
_Lure._ Fit me! fit my monkey. What, d’ye think I wear clothes
to please myself! Fit me! fit the fashion, pray; no matter for me--I
thought something was the matter, I wanted quality-air. Pray, Mr.
Remnant, let me have a bulk of quality, a spreading counter. I do
remember now, the ladies in the apartments, the birth-night, were most
of them two yards about. Indeed, sir, if you contrive my things any
more with your scanty chambermaid’s air, you shall work no more for me.
_Rem._ I shall take care to please your ladyship for the future.
[_Exit._
_A Servant enters._
_Serv._ Madam, my master desires----
_Lure._ Hold, hold, fellow; for gad’s sake, hold; if thou touch
my clothes with that tobacco breath of thine, I shall poison the whole
drawing-room. Stand at the door pray, and speak. (_Servant goes to
the door and speaks._)
_Serv._ My master, madam, desires----
_Lure._ Oh, hideous! Now the rascal bellows so loud that he tears
my head to pieces. Here, awkwardness, go take the booby’s message, and
bring it to me.
(_Maid goes to the door, whispers, and returns._)
_Cham._ My master desires to know how your ladyship rested last
night, and if you are pleased to admit of a visit this morning.
_Lure._ Ay--why this is civil. ’Tis an insupportable toil though
for women of quality to model their husbands to good breeding.
_George Farquhar_ (1678–1707).
_THE BORROWER_.
_Richmore._ You may keep the letter.
_Young Wou’d-be._ But why would you trust it with me? You know I
can’t keep a secret that has any scandal in ’t.
_Rich._ For that reason I communicate it. I know thou art a
perfect Gazette, and will spread the news all over the town; for you
must understand that I am now besieging another, and I would have the
fame of my conquest upon the wing, that the town may surrender the
sooner.
_Y. W._ But if the report of your cruelty goes along with that of
your valour, you’ll find no garrison of any strength will open their
gates to you.
_Rich._ No, no; women are cowards, terror prevails upon them
more than clemency; my best pretence to my success with the fair is
my using them ill; ’tis turning their own guns upon them, and I have
always found it the most successful battery to assail one reputation by
sacrificing another.
_Y. W._ I could love thee for thy mischief, did I not envy thee
for thy success in it.
_Rich._ You never attempt a woman of figure.
_Y. W._ How can I? This confounded hump of mine is such a burden
to my back that it presses me down here in the dirt and diseases
of Covent Garden, the low suburbs of pleasure. Curst fortune! I
am a younger brother, and yet cruelly deprived of my birthright,
a handsome person; seven thousand a year, in a direct line, would
have straightened my back to some purpose. But I look, in my present
circumstances, like a branch of another kind, grafted only upon the
stock which makes me look so crooked.
_Rich._ Come, come, ’tis no misfortune, your father is so as well
as you.
_Y. W._ Then why should not I be a lord as well as he? Had I the
same title to the deformity I could bear it.
_Rich._ But how does my lord bear the absence of your twin-brother?
_Y. W._ My twin-brother? Ay, ’twas his crowding me that spoiled my
shape, and his coming half-an-hour before me that ruined my fortune. My
father expelled me from his house some two years ago, because I would
have persuaded him that my twin-brother was a bastard. He gave me my
portion, which was about fifteen hundred pounds, and I have spent two
thousand of it already. As for my brother, he don’t care a farthing for
me.
_Rich._ Why so, pray?
_Y. W._ A very odd reason--because I hate him.
_Rich._ How should he know that?
_Y. W._ Because he thinks it reasonable it should be so.
_Rich._ But did your actions ever express any malice to him?
_Y. W._ Yes; I would fain have kept him company; but being aware
of my kindness, he went abroad. He has travelled these five years, and
I am told is a grave, sober fellow, and in danger of living a great
while; all my hope is, that when he gets into his honour and estate
the nobility will soon kill him by drinking him up to his dignity. But
come, Frank, I have but two eyesores in the world, a brother before me
and a hump behind me, and thou art still laying them in my way; let us
assume an argument of less severity. Can’st thou lend me a brace of
hundred pounds?
_Rich._ What would you do with them?
_Y. W._ Do with them? There’s a question indeed. Do you think I
would eat them?
_Rich._ Yes, o’ my troth would you, and drink them together. Look
’e, Mr. Wou’d-be, whilst you kept well with your father, I could have
ventured to have lent you five guineas. But as the case stands, I can
assure you I have lately paid off my sister’s fortune, and----
_Y. W._ Sir, this put-off looks like an affront, when you know I
don’t use to take such things.
_Rich._ Sir, your demand is rather an affront, when you know I
don’t use to give such things.
_Y. W._ Sir, I’ll pawn my honour.
_Rich._ That’s mortgaged already for more than it is worth; you
had better pawn your sword there, ’twill bring you forty shillings.
_Y. W._ ’Sdeath, sir---- [_Takes his sword off the table._
_Rich._ Hold, Mr. Wou’dbe--suppose I put an end to your misfortunes all
at once.
_Y. W._ How, sir?
_Rich._ Why, go to a magistrate and swear you would have robbed
me of two hundred pounds. Look ’e, sir, you have been often told that
your extravagance would some time or other be the ruin of you; and it
will go a great way in your indictment to have turned the pad upon your
friend.
_Y. W._ This usage is the height of ingratitude from you, in whose
company I have spent my fortune.
_Rich._ I’m therefore a witness that it was very ill spent. Why
would you keep company, be at equal expenses with me, that have fifty
times your estate? What was gallantry in me was prodigality in you;
mine was my health, because I could pay for it; yours a disease,
because you could not.
_Y. W._ And is this all I must expect from our friendship?
_Rich._ Friendship! Sir, there can be no such thing without an
equality.
_Y. W._ That is, there can be no such thing when there is occasion
for ’t.
_Rich._ Right, sir--our friendship was over a bottle only; and
whilst you can pay your club of friendship, I’m that way your humble
servant; but when once you come borrowing, I’m this way--your humble
servant. [_Exit._
_Y. W._ Rich, big, proud, arrogant villain! I have been twice his
second, thrice sick of the same love, and thrice cured by the same
physic, and now he drops me for a trifle--that an honest fellow in
his cups should be such a rogue when he is sober! The narrow-hearted
rascal has been drinking coffee this morning. Well, thou dear solitary
half-crown, adieu! Here, Jack, take this, pay for a bottle of wine, and
bid Balderdash bring it himself. [_Exit Servant._] How melancholy
are my poor breeches; not one chink! Thou art a villainous hand, for
thou hast picked my pocket. This vintner now has all the marks of an
honest fellow, a broad face, a copious look, a strutting belly, and a
jolly mien. I have brought him above three pounds a night for these two
years successively. The rogue has money, I’m sure, if he would but lend
it.
_Enter_ BALDERDASH, _with a bottle and glass_.
Oh, Mr. Balderdash, good-morrow.
_Bald._ Noble Mr. Wou’dbe, I’m your most humble servant. I have
brought you a whetting-glass, the best Old Hock in Europe; I know ’tis
your drink in a morning.
_Y. W._ I’ll pledge you, Mr. Balderdash.
_Bald._ Your health, sir. [_Drinks._
_Y. W._ Pray, Mr. Balderdash, tell me one thing, but first sit
down; now tell me plainly what you think of me?
_Bald._ Think of you, sir? I think that you are the honestest,
noblest gentleman that ever drank a glass of wine, and the best
customer that ever came into my house.
_Y. W._ And do you really think as you speak?
_Bald._ May this wine be my poison, sir, if I don’t speak from the
bottom of my heart. [_Drinks._
_Y. W._ And how much money do you think I have spent in your house?
_Bald._ Why, truly, sir, by a moderate computation I do believe
that I have handled of your money the best part of five hundred pounds
within these two years.
_Y. W._ Very well! And do you think that you lie under any
obligation for the trade I have promoted to your advantage?
[Illustration: “I THINK THAT YOU ARE THE HONESTEST, NOBLEST
GENTLEMAN THAT EVER DRANK A GLASS OF WINE.”]
_Bald._ Yes, sir; and if I can serve you in any respect, pray
command me to the utmost of my ability.
_Y. W._ Well! thanks to my stars, there is still some honesty in
wine. Mr. Balderdash, I embrace you and your kindness; I am at present
a little low in cash, and must beg you to lend me a hundred pieces.
_Bald._ Why, truly, Mr. Wou’dbe, I was afraid it would come to
this; I have had it in my head several times to caution you upon your
expenses, but you were so very genteel in my house, and your liberality
became you so very well, that I was unwilling to say anything that
might check your disposition; but truly, sir, I can forbear no longer
to tell you that you have been a little too extravagant.
_Y. W._ But since you reaped the benefit of my extravagance, you
will, I hope, consider my necessity.
_Bald._ Consider your necessity! I do, with all my heart; and must
tell you, moreover, that I will be no longer accessory to it: I desire
you, sir, to frequent my house no more.
_Y. W._ How, sir?
_Bald._ I say, sir, that I have an honour for my good lord your
father, and will not suffer his son to run into any inconvenience. Sir,
I shall order my drawers not to serve you with a drop of wine. Would
you have me connive at a gentleman’s destruction?
_Y. W._ But methinks, sir, that a person of your nice conscience
should have cautioned me before.
_Bald._ Alas! sir, it was none of my business. Would you have me
be saucy to a gentleman that was my best customer? Lack-a-day, sir, had
you money to hold it out still, I had been hanged rather than be rude
to you. But truly, sir, when a man is ruined, ’tis but the duty of a
Christian to tell him of it.
_Y. W._ Will you lend me money, sir?
_Bald._ Will you pay me this bill, sir?
_Y. W._ Lend me the hundred pound, and I’ll pay the bill.
_Bald._ Pay me the bill, and I will--not lend you the hundred
pound, sir. But pray consider with yourself, now, sir; would not you
think me an errant coxcomb to trust a person with money that has always
been so extravagant under my eye? whose profuseness I have seen, I have
felt, I have handled? Have not I known you, sir, throw away ten pounds
a-night upon a covey of pit-partridges and a setting-dog? Sir, you have
made my house an ill house; my very chairs will bear you no longer. In
short, sir, I desire you to frequent the “Crown” no more, sir.
_Y. W._ Thou sophisticated ton of iniquity, have I fattened your
carcass and swelled your bags with my vital blood? Have I made you
my companion to be thus saucy to me? But now I will keep you at your
distance.
[_Kicks him._
_Ser._ Welcome, sir! [_Kicks him._
_Y. W._ Well said, Jack. [_Kicks him again._
_Ser._ Very welcome, sir! I hope we shall have your company
another time. Welcome, sir! [_He is kicked off._
_Y. W._ Pray wait on him downstairs, and give him a welcome at the
door too. (_Exit Servant._) This is the punishment of hell; the
very devil that tempted me to sin, now upbraids me with the crime. I
have villainously murdered my fortune, and now its ghost, in the lank
shape of poverty, haunts me. Is there no charm to conjure down the
fiend?
_George Farquhar._
WIDOW WADMAN’S EYE.
“I am half distracted, Captain Shandy,” said Mrs. Wadman, holding up
her cambric handkerchief to her left eye, as she approached the door of
my uncle Toby’s sentry-box; “a mote--or sand--or something--I know not
what, has got into this eye of mine;--do look into it--it is not in the
white.”
[Illustration: “‘DO LOOK INTO IT,’ SAID SHE.”]
In saying which Mrs. Wadman edged herself close in beside my uncle
Toby, and squeezing herself down upon the corner of his bench, she gave
him an opportunity of doing it without rising up. “Do look into it,”
said she.
Honest soul! thou didst look into it with as much innocency of heart
as ever child looked into a raree show-box; and ’twere as much a sin to
have hurt thee.
If a man will be peeping of his own accord into things of that nature,
I’ve nothing to say to it.
My uncle Toby never did; and I will answer for him that he would have
sat quietly upon a sofa from June to January (which, you know, takes
in both the hot and cold months) with an eye as fine as the Thracian
Rhodope’s beside him, without being able to tell whether it was a black
or a blue one.
The difficulty was to get my uncle Toby to look at one at all.
’Tis surmounted. And--
I see him yonder, with his pipe pendulous in his hand, and the ashes
falling out of it--looking-and looking--then rubbing his eyes--and
looking again, with twice the good nature that ever Galileo looked for
a spot in the sun.
In vain! for, by all the powers which animate the organ--Widow Wadman’s
left eye shines this moment as lucid as her right;--there is neither
mote, nor sand, nor dust, nor chaff, nor speck, nor particle of opaque
matter floating in it. There is nothing, my dear paternal uncle! but
one lambent delicious fire, furtively shooting out from every part of
it, in all directions into thine.
If thou lookest, uncle Toby, in search of this mote one moment longer,
thou art undone.
An eye is, for all the world, exactly like a cannon, in this respect,
that it is not so much the eye or the cannon in themselves, as it is
the carriage of the eye--and the carriage of the cannon; by which both
the one and the other are enabled to do so much execution. I don’t
think the comparison a bad one; however, as ’tis made and placed at
the head of the chapter, as much for use as ornament, all I desire in
return is that whenever I speak of Mrs. Wadman’s eyes (except once in
the next period) that you keep it in your fancy.
“I protest, Madam,” said my uncle Toby, “I can see nothing whatever in
your eye.”
“It is not in the white,” said Mrs. Wadman. My uncle Toby looked with
might and main into the pupil.
Now, of all the eyes which ever were created, from your own, Madam, up
to those of Venus herself, which certainly were as venereal a pair of
eyes as ever stood in a head, there never was an eye of them all so
fitted to rob my uncle Toby of his repose as the very eye at which he
was looking;--it was not, Madam, a rolling eye--a romping, or a wanton
one,--nor was it an eye sparkling, petulant, or imperious--of high
claims and terrifying exactions, which would have curdled at once that
milk of human nature of which my uncle Toby was made up; but ’twas an
eye full of gentle salutations--and soft responses--speaking--not like
the trumpet-stop of some ill-made organ, in which many an eye I talk to
holds coarse converse, but whispering soft--like the last low accents
of an expiring saint-“How can you live comfortless, Captain Shandy, and
alone, without a bosom to lean your head on--or trust your cares to?”
It was an eye----
But I shall be in love with it myself if I say another word about it.
It did my uncle Toby’s business.
_Laurence Sterne_ (1713–1768).
_BUMPERS, SQUIRE JONES._
Ye good fellows all,
Who love to be told where good claret’s in store,
Attend to the call
Of one who’s ne’er frighted,
But greatly delighted
With six bottles more.
Be sure you don’t pass
The good house, Moneyglass,
Which the jolly red god so peculiarly owns,
’Twill well suit your humour--
For, pray, what would you more,
Than mirth with good claret, and bumpers, Squire Jones?
Ye lovers who pine
For lasses that oft prove as cruel as fair,
Who whimper and whine
For lilies and roses,
With eyes, lips, and noses,
Or tip of an ear!
Come hither, I’ll show ye
How Phillis and Chloe
No more shall occasion such sighs and such groans;
For what mortal’s so stupid
As not to quit Cupid,
When called to good claret, and bumpers, Squire Jones?
Ye poets who write,
And brag of your drinking famed Helicon’s brook,--
Though all you get by it
Is a dinner ofttimes,
In reward for your rhymes,
With Humphry the Duke,--
Learn Bacchus to follow,
And quit your Apollo,
Forsake all the Muses, those senseless old crones:
Our jingling of glasses
Your rhyming surpasses
When crowned with good claret, and bumpers, Squire Jones.
Ye soldiers so stout,
With plenty of oaths, though no plenty of coin,
Who make such a rout
Of all your commanders,
Who served us in Flanders,
And eke at the Boyne,--
Come leave off your rattling
Of sieging and battling,
And know you’d much better to sleep in whole bones;
Were you sent to Gibraltar,
Your notes you’d soon alter,
And wish for good claret, and bumpers, Squire Jones.
Ye clergy so wise,
Who mysteries profound can demonstrate so clear,
How worthy to rise!
You preach once a week,
But your tithes never seek
Above once in a year!
Come here without failing,
And leave off your railing
’Gainst bishops providing for dull stupid drones;
Says the text so divine,
“What is life without wine?”
Then away with the claret,--a bumper, Squire Jones!
Ye lawyers so just,
Be the cause what it will, who so learnedly plead,
How worthy of trust!
You know black from white,
You prefer wrong to right,
As you chance to be fee’d:--
Leave musty reports
And forsake the king’s courts,
Where dulness and discord have set up their thrones;
Burn Salkeld and Ventris,[4]
And all your damned entries,
And away with the claret,--a bumper, Squire Jones!
Ye physical tribe
Whose knowledge consists in hard words and grimace,
Whene’er you prescribe,
Have at your devotion,
Pills, bolus, or potion,
Be what will the case;
Pray where is the need
To purge, blister, and bleed?
When, ailing yourselves, the whole faculty owns
That the forms of old Galen
Are not so prevailing
As mirth with good claret,--and bumpers, Squire Jones!
Ye fox-hunters eke,
That follow the call of the horn and the hound,
Who your ladies forsake
Before they’re awake,
To beat up the brake
Where the vermin is found:--
Leave Piper and Blueman,
Shrill Duchess and Trueman,--
No music is found in such dissonant tones!
Would you ravish your ears
With the songs of the spheres,
Hark away to the claret,--a bumper, Squire Jones!
_Arthur Dawson_ (1700?–1775).
_JACK LOFTY._
_Scene_--CROAKER’S HOUSE.
_Present_--MRS. CROAKER _and_ LOFTY.
_Enter_ LOFTY, _speaking to his servant_.
_Lofty._ And if the Venetian ambassador, or that teasing
creature, the marquis, should call, I am not at home. D-- me, I’ll be
a pack-horse to none of them. My dear madam, I have just snatched a
moment--and if the expresses to his Grace be ready, let them be sent
off; they’re of importance. Madam, I ask a thousand pardons.
_Mrs. C._ Sir, this honour----
_Lofty._ And, Dubardieu, if the person calls about the commission,
let him know that it is made out. As for Lord Cumbercout’s stale
request, it can keep cold; you understand me. Madam, I ask ten thousand
pardons. And, Dubardieu, if the man comes from the Cornish borough,
you must do him--you must do him, I say. Madam, I ask you ten thousand
pardons--and if the Russian ambassador calls--but he will scarce call
to-day, I believe. And now, madam, I have just got time to express my
happiness in having the honour of being permitted to profess myself
your most obedient humble servant.
_Mrs. C._ Sir, the happiness and honour are all mine; and yet, I
am only robbing the public while I detain you.
_Lofty._ Sink the public, madam, when the fair are to be attended.
Ah! could all my hours be so charmingly devoted! Thus it is eternally:
solicited for places here; teased for pensions there; and courted
everywhere. I know you pity me.
_Mrs. C._ Excuse me, sir. “Toils of empires, pleasures are,” as
Waller says----
_Lofty._ Waller, Waller! Is he of the house?
_Mrs. C._ The modern poet of that name, sir.
_Lofty._ Oh, a modern! We men of business despise the moderns; and
as for the ancients, we have no time to read them. Poetry is a pretty
thing enough for our wives and daughters; but not for us. Why, now,
here I stand, that know nothing of books; and yet, I believe, upon a
land-carriage fishery, a stamp act, or a jaghire, I can talk my two
hours without feeling the want of them.
_Mrs. C._ The world is no stranger to Mr. Lofty’s eminence in
every capacity.
_Lofty._ I am nothing, nothing, nothing in the world; a mere
obscure gentleman. To be sure, indeed, one or two of the present
ministers are pleased to represent me as a formidable man. I know they
are pleased to bespatter me at all their little dirty levees; yet, upon
my soul, I don’t know what they see in me to treat me so! Measures, not
men, have always been my mark; and I vow, by all that’s honourable, my
resentment has never done the men, as mere men, any manner of harm;
that is, as mere men.
_Mrs. C._ What importance! and yet, what modesty!
_Lofty._ Oh, if you talk of modesty, madam, there, I own, I am
accessible to praise; modesty is my foible. It was so the Duke of
Brentford used to say of me, “I love Jack Lofty,” he used to say; “no
man has a finer knowledge of things, quite a man of information, and
when he speaks upon his legs, by the lord, he’s prodigious! He scouts
them. And yet all men have their faults,--too much modesty is his,”
says his Grace.
[Illustration: “I CAN TALK MY TWO HOURS WITHOUT FEELING THE WANT
OF THEM.”]
_Mrs. C._ And yet, I dare say, you don’t want assurance when you
come to solicit for your friends.
_Lofty._ Oh, there, indeed, I’m in bronze! Apropos, I have just
been mentioning Miss Richland’s case to a certain personage; we must
name no names. When I ask, I am not to be put off, madam. No, no; I
take my friend by the button: a fine girl, sir; great justice in her
case. A friend of mine. Borough interest. Business must be done, Mr.
Secretary. I say, Mr. Secretary, her business must be done, sir. That’s
my way, madam.
_Mrs. C._ Bless me! You said all this to the Secretary of State,
did you?
_Lofty._ I did not say the Secretary, did I? Well, curse it! since
you have found me out, I will not deny it. It was to the Secretary.
_Mrs. C._ This was going to the fountain-head at once; not
applying to the understrappers, as Mr. Honeywood would have had us.
_Lofty._ Honeywood! he, he! He was, indeed, a fine solicitor. I
suppose you have heard what has just happened to him?
_Mrs. C._ Poor, dear man! no accident, I hope.
_Lofty._ Undone, madam, that’s all. His creditors have taken him
into custody. A prisoner in his own house.
_Mrs. C._ A prisoner in his own house? How! I am quite unhappy for
him.
_Lofty._ Why, so am I. This man, to be sure, was immensely
good-natured; but, then, I could never find that he had anything in him.
_Mrs. C._ His manner, to be sure, was excessive harmless; some,
indeed, thought it a little dull. For my part, I always concealed my
opinion.
_Lofty._ It can’t be concealed, madam, the man was dull; dull as
the last new comedy. A poor, impracticable creature! I tried once or
twice to know if he was fit for business; but he had scarce talents to
be groom-porter to an orange-barrow.
_Mrs. C._ How differently does Miss Richland think of him; for, I
believe, with all his faults, she loves him.
_Lofty._ Loves him! Does she? You should cure her of that, by
all means. Let me see, what if she were sent to him this instant, in
his present doleful situation? My life for it, that works her cure.
Distress is a perfect antidote to love. Suppose we join her in the
next room? Miss Richland is a fine girl, has a fine fortune, and must
not be thrown away. Upon my honour, madam, I have a regard for Miss
Richland; and rather than she should be thrown away, I should think it
no indignity to marry her myself.
[_Exeunt._
_Scene_--YOUNG HONEYWOOD’S HOUSE.
_Present_--SIR WILLIAM HONEYWOOD _and_ MISS RICHLAND.
_Sir W._ Do not make any apologies, madam. I only find myself
unable to repay the obligation. And yet, I have been trying my interest
of late to serve you. Having learned, madam, that you had some demands
upon Government, I have, though unasked, been your solicitor there.
_Miss R._ Sir, I am infinitely obliged to your intentions; but my
guardian has employed another gentleman, who assures of success.
_Sir W._ Who? The important little man that visits here? Trust me,
madam, he’s quite contemptible among men in power, and utterly unable
to serve you. Mr. Lofty’s promises are much better known to people of
fashion than his person, I assure you.
_Miss R._ How have we been deceived! As sure as can be, here he
comes.
_Sir W._ Does he? Remember, I am to continue unknown; my return to
England has not as yet been made public. With what impudence he enters!
_Enter_ LOFTY.
_Lofty._ Let the chariot--let my chariot drive off; I’ll visit his
Grace’s in a chair. Miss Richland here before me! Punctual, as usual,
to the calls of humanity. I am very sorry, madam, things of this kind
should happen, especially to a man I have shown everywhere, and carried
amongst us as a particular acquaintance.
_Miss R._ I find, sir, you have the art of making the misfortunes
of others your own.
_Lofty._ My dear madam, what can a private man like me do? One man
can’t do everything--and, then, I do so much in this way every day. Let
me see: something considerable might be done for him by subscription;
it could not fail if I carried the list. I’ll undertake to set down a
brace of dukes, two dozen lords, and half the lower house, at my own
peril.
_Sir W._ And, after all, it is more than probable, sir, he might
reject the offer of such powerful patronage
_Lofty._ Then, madam, what can we do? You know, I never make
promises. In truth, I once or twice tried to do something with him
in the way of business; but, as I often told his uncle, Sir William
Honeywood, the man was utterly impracticable.
_Sir W._ His uncle! Then that gentleman, I suppose, is a
particular friend of yours?
_Lofty._ Meaning me, sir? Yes, madam; as I often said, “My dear
Sir William, you are sensible I would do anything, as far as my poor
interest goes, to serve your family;” but what can be done? There’s no
procuring first-rate places for ninth-rate abilities.
_Miss R._ I have heard of Sir William Honeywood; he’s abroad in
employment; he confided in your judgment, I suppose.
_Lofty._ Why, yes, madam; I believe Sir William had some reason to
confide in my judgment; one little reason, perhaps.
_Miss R._ Pray, sir, what was it?
_Lofty._ Why, madam--but let it go no further; it was I procured
him his place.
_Sir W._ Did you, sir?
_Lofty._ Either you or I, sir.
_Miss R._ This, Mr. Lofty, was very kind, indeed.
_Lofty._ I did love him; to be sure, he had some amusing
qualities; no man was fitter to be toast-master to a club, or had a
better head.
_Miss R._ A better head?
_Lofty._ Ay, at a bottle. To be sure, he was as dull as a choice
spirit; but hang it, he was grateful--very grateful; and gratitude
hides a multitude of faults.
_Sir W._ He might have reason, perhaps. His place is pretty
considerable, I am told.
_Lofty._ A trifle, a mere trifle among us men of business. The
truth is, he wanted dignity to fill up a greater.
_Sir W._ Dignity of person, do you mean, sir? I am told he is much
about my size and figure, sir.
_Lofty._ Ay; tall enough for a marching regiment, but then he
wanted a something; a consequence of form; a kind of a--I believe the
lady perceives my meaning.
_Miss R._ Oh, perfectly; you courtiers can do anything, I see.
_Lofty._ My dear madam, all this is but a mere exchange; we do
greater things for one another every day. Why as thus, now, let me
suppose you the First Lord of the Treasury, you have an employment in
you that I want; I have a place in me that you want; do me here, do you
there; interest of both sides, few words, flat, done and done, and it’s
over.
_Sir W._ A thought strikes me. (_Aside._) Now you mention
Sir William Honeywood, madam, and as he seems, sir, an acquaintance of
yours, you’ll be glad to hear he’s arrived from Italy; I had it from a
friend who knows him as well as he does me, and you may depend on my
information.
_Lofty._ The devil he is. (_Aside._)
_Sir W._ He is certainly returned; and as this gentleman is a
friend of yours, you can be of signal service to us, by introducing me
to him; there are some papers relative to your affairs that require
despatch and his inspection.
_Miss R._ This gentleman, Mr. Lofty, is a person employed in my
affairs; I know you will serve us.
_Lofty._ My dear madam, I live but to serve you. Sir William shall
even wait upon him, if you think proper to command it.
_Sir W._ That would be quite unnecessary.
_Lofty._ Well, we must introduce you, then. Call upon me--let me
see--ay, in two days.
_Sir W._ Now, or the opportunity will be lost for ever.
_Lofty._ Well, if it must be now, now let it be. But, d--n it,
that’s unfortunate; my Lord Grig’s cursed Pensacola business comes on
this very hour, and I’m engaged to attend--another time----
_Sir W._ A short letter to Sir William will do.
_Lofty._ You shall have it; yet, in my opinion, a letter is a very
bad way of going to work; face to face, that’s my way.
_Sir W._ The letter, sir, will do quite as well.
_Lofty._ Zounds, sir! do you pretend to direct me--direct me in
the business of office? Do you know me, sir? Who am I?
_Miss R._ Dear Mr. Lofty, this request is not so much his as mine;
if my commands--but you despise my power.
_Lofty._ Sweet creature! your commands could even control a debate
at midnight; to a power so constitutional, I am all obedience and
tranquillity. He shall have a letter; where is my secretary, Dubardieu?
And yet, I protest, I don’t like this way of doing business. I think if
I spoke first to Sir William---- But you will have it so.
[_Exit with Miss R._
_Scene_--AN INN.
_Present_--SIR WILLIAM HONEYWOOD, HIS NEPHEW,
CROAKER, LOFTY, _and_ MISS RICHLAND.
_Enter_ LOFTY.
_Lofty._ Is the coast clear? None but friends. I have followed you
here with a trifling piece of intelligence; but it goes no further,
things are not yet ripe for a discovery. I have spirits working at a
certain board; your affair at the Treasury will be done in less than--a
thousand years. Mum!
_Miss R._ Sooner, sir, I should hope.
_Lofty._ Why, yes, I believe it may, if it falls into proper
hands, that know where to push and where to parry; that know how the
land lies.
_Miss R._ It is fallen into yours.
_Lofty._ Well, to keep you no longer in suspense, your thing is
done. It is done, I say; that’s all I have just had assurances from
Lord Neverout that the claim has been examined and found admissible.
Quietus is the word, madam.
_Miss R._ But how? his lordship has been at Newmarket these ten
days.
_Lofty._ Indeed! then Sir Gilbert Goose must have been most d--y
mistaken. I had it of him.
_Miss R._ He? Why, Sir Gilbert and his family have been in the
country this month.
_Lofty._ This month? It must certainly be so. Sir Gilbert’s letter
did come to me from Newmarket, so that he must have met his lordship
there; and so it came about. I have his letter about me; I’ll read
it to you. (_Taking out a large bundle._) That’s from Paoli of
Corsica, that from the Marquis of Squilachi. Have you a mind to see
a letter from Count Poniatowski, now King of Poland? Honest Pon----
(_Searching._) Oh, sir, what, are you here too? I’ll tell you
what, honest friend, if you have not absolutely delivered my letter to
Sir William Honeywood, you may return it. The thing will do without him.
_Sir W._ Sir, I have delivered it, and must inform you, it was
received with the most mortifying contempt.
_Croa._ Contempt! Mr. Lofty, what can that mean?
_Lofty._ Let him go on, let him go on, I say. You’ll find it come
to something directly.
_Sir W._ Yes, sir, I believe you’ll be amazed; after waiting some
time in the ante-chamber, after being surveyed with insolent curiosity
by the passing servants, I was at last assured that Sir William
Honeywood knew no such person, and I must certainly have been imposed
upon.
_Lofty._ Good; let me die, very good. Ha, ha, ha!
_Croa._ Now, for my life, I can’t find out half the goodness of it.
_Lofty._ You can’t? Ha, ha!
_Croa._ No, for the soul of me; I think it was as confounded a bad
answer as ever was sent from one private gentleman to another.
_Lofty._ And so you can’t find out the force of the message? Why,
I was in the house at that very time. Ha, ha! It was I that sent that
very answer to my own letter. Ha, ha!
_Croa._ Indeed! How?--why?
_Lofty._ In one word, things between Sir William and me must be
behind the curtain. A party has many eyes. He sides with Lord Buzzard,
I side with Sir Gilbert Goose. So that unriddles the mystery.
_Croa._ And so it does, indeed, and all my suspicions are over.
_Lofty._ Your suspicions! What, then, you have been suspecting,
you have been suspecting, have you? Mr. Croaker, you and I were
friends, we are friends no longer.
_Croa._ As I hope for your favour, I did not mean to offend. It
escaped me. Don’t be discomposed.
_Lofty._ Zounds, sir! but I am discomposed, and will be discomposed. To
be treated thus! Who am I? Was it for this I have been dreaded both by
ins and outs? Have I been libelled in the _Gazetteer_ and praised in
the _St. James’s_? Have I been chaired at Wildman’s, and a speaker at
Merchant Tailors’ Hall? Have I had my hand to addresses, and my head in
the print-shops, and talk to me of suspects!
_Croa._ My dear sir, be pacified. What can you have but asking
pardon?
_Lofty._ Sis, I will not be pacified! Suspects! Who am I? To be
used thus, have I paid court to men in favour to serve my friends, the
Lords of the Treasury, Sir William Honeywood, and the rest of the gang,
and talk to me of suspects! Who am I, I say--who am I?
_Sir W._ Since, sir, you’re so pressing for an answer, I’ll tell
you who you are. A gentleman, as well acquainted with politics as
with men in power; as well acquainted with persons of fashion as with
modesty; with the Lords of the Treasury as with truth; and with all, as
you are with Sir William Honeywood. I am Sir William Honeywood.
[_Discovers his ensigns of the Bath._
_Croa._ Sir William Honeywood!
_Hon._ Astonishment! my uncle! [_Aside._
_Lofty._ So, then, my confounded genius has been all this time
only leading me up to the garret, in order to fling me out of the
window.
_Croa._ What, Mr. Importance, and are these your works? Suspect
you! You who have been dreaded by the ins and outs. You who have had
your hand to addresses, and your head stuck up in print-shops. If you
were served right, you should have your head stuck up in the pillory.
_Lofty._ Ay, stick it where you will; for, by the lord, it cuts
but a very poor figure where it sticks at present.
_Oliver Goldsmith_ (1728–1774).
_BEAU TIBBS._
Attracted by the serenity of the evening, my friend and I lately went
to gaze upon the company in one of the public walks near the city. Here
we sauntered together for some time, either praising the beauty of
such as were handsome, or the dresses of such as had nothing else to
recommend them. We had gone thus deliberately forward for some time,
when, stopping on a sudden, my friend caught me by the elbow and led me
out of the public walk. I could perceive by the quickness of his pace,
and by his frequently looking behind, that he was attempting to avoid
somebody who followed; we now turned to the right, then to the left; as
we went forward, he still went faster, but in vain; the person whom he
attempted to escape hunted us through every doubling, and gained upon
us each moment, so that at last we fairly stood still, resolving to
face what we could not avoid.
[Illustration: “‘YOU KNOW I HATE FLATTERY,--ON MY SOUL, I DO.’”]
Our pursuer soon came up, and joined us with all the familiarity of an
old acquaintance. “My dear Drybone,” cries he, shaking my friend’s
hand, “where have you been hiding this half a century? Positively I
had fancied you were gone to cultivate matrimony and your estate in
the country.” During the reply, I had an opportunity of surveying the
appearance of our new companion: his hat was pinched up with peculiar
smartness; his looks were pale, thin, and sharp; round his neck he wore
a broad black riband, and in his bosom a buckle studded with glass;
his coat was trimmed with tarnished twist; he wore by his side a sword
with a black hilt, and his stockings of silk, though newly washed,
were grown yellow by long service. I was so much engaged with the
peculiarity of his dress, that I attended only to the latter part of
my friend’s reply, in which he complimented Mr. Tibbs on the taste of
his clothes and the bloom in his countenance. “Pshaw, pshaw, Will,”
cried the figure, “no more of that, if you love me; you know I hate
flattery,--on my soul, I do; and yet, to be sure, an intimacy with
the great will improve one’s appearance, and a course of venison will
fatten; and yet, faith, I despise the great as much as you do; but
there are a great many damn’d honest fellows among them, and we must
not quarrel with one half because the other wants weeding. If they were
all such as my Lord Mudler, one of the most good-natured creatures that
ever squeezed a lemon, I should myself be among the number of their
admirers. I was yesterday to dine at the Duchess of Piccadilly’s. My
lord was there. ‘Ned,’ says he to me; ‘Ned,’ says he, ‘I’ll hold gold
to silver I can tell where you were poaching last night?’ ‘Poaching, my
lord?’ says I; ‘faith, you have missed already; for I stayed at home,
and let the girls poach for me. That’s my way: I take a fine woman as
some animals do their prey--stand still, and swoop, they fall into my
mouth.’”
“Ah! Tibbs, thou art a happy fellow,” cried my companion, with looks
of infinite pity; “I hope your fortune is as much improved as your
understanding in such company?” “Improved!” replied the other; “you
shall know,--but let it go no farther--a great secret--five hundred a
year to begin with--my lord’s word of honour for it. His lordship took
me down in his own chariot yesterday, and we had a _tête-à-tête_
dinner in the country, where we talked of nothing else.” “I fancy you
forget, sir,” cried I, “you told us but this moment of your dining
yesterday in town.” “Did I say so?” replied he, coolly; “to be sure,
if I said so, it was so. Dined in town; egad, now I do remember I did
dine in town; but I dined in the country, too; for you must know, my
boys, I eat two dinners. By-the-bye, I am grown as nice as the devil in
my eating. We were a select party of us to dine at Lady Grogram’s,--an
affected piece, but let it go no farther--a secret. Well, there
happened to be no asafœtida in the sauce to a turkey, upon which says
I, ‘I’ll hold a thousand guineas, and say done first, that---- ’ But,
dear Drybone, you are an honest creature; lend me half-a-crown for a
minute or two, or so, just till--but hearkee, ask me for it the next
time we meet, or it may be twenty to one but I forget to pay you.”
* * * * *
My little Beau yesterday overtook me again in one of the public walks,
and, slapping me on the shoulder, saluted me with an air of the most
perfect familiarity. His dress was the same as usual, except that he
had more powder in his hair, wore a dirtier shirt, a pair of temple
spectacles, and his hat under his arm.
As I knew him to be a harmless, amusing little thing, I could not
return his smiles with any degree of severity; so we walked forward
on terms of the utmost intimacy, and in a few minutes discussed all
the usual topics preliminary to particular conversation. The oddities
that marked his character, however, soon began to appear; he bowed to
several well-dressed persons, who, by their manner of returning the
compliment, appeared perfect strangers. At intervals he drew out a
pocket-book, seeming to take memorandums before all the company, with
much importance and assiduity. In this manner he led me through the
length of the whole walk, fretting at his absurdities, and fancying
myself laughed at not less than him by every spectator. When we were
got to the end of our procession, “Blast me,” cries he, with an
air of vivacity, “I never saw the Park so thin in my life before!
There’s no company at all to-day; not a single face to be seen.” “No
company!” interrupted I, peevishly; “no company where there is such a
crowd? why, man, there’s too much. What are the thousands that have
been laughing at us but company?” “Lord, my dear,” returned he with
the utmost good-humour, “you seem immensely chagrined; but, blast
me, when the world laughs at me, I laugh at the world, and so we are
even. My Lord Trip, Bill Squash the Creolian, and I, sometimes make
a party at being ridiculous; and so we say and do a thousand things
for the joke’s sake. But I see you are grave, and if you are for a
fine, grave, sentimental companion, you shall dine with me and my wife
to-day; I must insist on’t. I’ll introduce you to Mrs. Tibbs, a lady of
as elegant qualifications as any in nature; she was bred (but that’s
between ourselves) under the inspection of the Countess of All-Night.
A charming body of voice; but no more of that,--she will give us a
song. You shall see my little girl, too, Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia
Tibbs, a sweet, pretty creature! I design her for my Lord Drumstick’s
eldest son; but that’s in friendship--let it go no farther: she’s but
six years old, and yet she walks a minuet, and plays on the guitar
immensely already. I intend she shall be as perfect as possible in
every accomplishment. In the first place, I’ll make her a scholar; I’ll
teach her Greek myself, and learn that language purposely to instruct
her; but let that be a secret.”
Thus saying, without waiting for a reply, he took me by the arm and
hauled me along. We passed through many dark alleys and winding ways;
for, from some motives to me unknown, he seemed to have a particular
aversion to every frequented street; at last, however, we got to the
door of a dismal-looking house in the outlets of the town, where he
informed me he chose to reside for the benefit of the air. We entered
the lower door, which ever seemed to lie most hospitably open; and I
began to ascend an old and creaking staircase, when, as he mounted
to show me the way, he demanded whether I delighted in prospects; to
which, answering in the affirmative, “Then,” says he, “I shall show you
one of the most charming in the world out of my window; you shall see
the ships sailing and the whole country for twenty miles round, tip
top, quite high. My Lord Swamp would give ten thousand guineas for such
a one; but, as I sometimes pleasantly tell him, I always love to keep
my prospects at home, that my friends may visit me the oftener.”
By this time we were arrived as high as the stairs would permit us to
ascend, till we came to what he was facetiously pleased to call the
first floor down the chimney; and knocking at the door, a voice from
within demanded, “Who’s there?” My conductor answered that it was
him. But this not satisfying the querist, the voice again repeated
the demand; to which he answered louder than before; and now the door
was opened by an old woman with cautious reluctance. When we were got
in, he welcomed me to his house with great ceremony, and turning to
the old woman, asked where was her lady. “Good troth,” replied she
in a peculiar dialect, “she’s washing your twa shirts at the next
door, because they have taken an oath against lending out the tub
any longer.” “My two shirts!” cried he in a tone that faltered with
confusion, “what does the idiot mean?” “I ken what I mean weel enough,”
replied the other; “she’s washing your twa shirts at the next door,
because----” “Fire and fury, no more of thy stupid explanations!”
cried he; “go and inform her we have got company. Were that Scotch
hag,” continued he, turning to me, “to be for ever in my family, she
would never learn politeness, nor forget that absurd poisonous accent
of hers, or testify the smallest specimen of breeding or high life; and
yet it is very surprising, too, as I had her from a parliament man,
a friend of mine from the Highlands, one of the politest men in the
world; but that’s a secret.”
We waited some time for Mrs. Tibbs’ arrival, during which interval I
had a full opportunity of surveying the chamber and all its furniture,
which consisted of four chairs with old wrought bottoms, that he
assured me were his wife’s embroidery; a square table that had been
once japanned; a cradle in one corner, a lumbering cabinet in the
other; a broken shepherdess, and a mandarine without a head, were stuck
over the chimney; and round the walls several paltry unframed pictures,
which, he observed, were all his own drawing. “What do you think, sir,
of that head in the corner, done in the manner of Grisoni? there’s the
true keeping in it; it is my own face, and though there happens to be
no likeness, a Countess offered me a hundred for its fellow; I refused
her, for, hang it, that would be mechanical, you know.”
The wife at last made her appearance, at once a slattern and a
coquette; much emaciated, but still carrying the remains of beauty. She
made twenty apologies for being seen in such odious deshabille, but
hoped to be excused, as she had stayed out all night with the Countess,
who was excessively fond of the horns. “And, indeed, my dear,” added
she, turning to her husband, “his lordship drank your health in a
bumper.” “Poor Jack!” cries he, “a dear, good-natured fellow; I know he
loves me. But I hope, my dear, you have given orders for dinner; you
need make no great preparations neither, there are but three of us;
something elegant, and little, will do,--a turbot, an ortolan, a----”
“Or what do you think, my dear,” interrupts the wife, “of a nice
pretty bit of ox-cheek, piping hot, and dressed with a little of my own
sauce?” “The very thing!” replies he; “it will eat best with some smart
bottled beer; but be sure to let us have the sauce his Grace was so
fond of. I hate your immense loads of meat; that is country all over;
extremely disgusting to those who are in the least acquainted with
high life.” By this time my curiosity began to abate and my appetite
to increase: the company of fools may at first make us smile, but at
last never fails of rendering us melancholy; I therefore pretended
to recollect a prior engagement, and after having shown my respect
to the house, according to the fashion of the English, by giving the
old servant a piece of money at the door, I took my leave; Mrs. Tibbs
assuring me that dinner, if I stayed, would be ready at least in less
than two hours.
_Oliver Goldsmith._
[Illustration: “A CHIRPING CUP IS MY MATIN SONG.”]
_THE FRIAR OF ORDERS GREY._
I am a friar of orders grey:
As down the valley I take my way,
I pull not blackberry, haw, or hip,
Good store of venison does fill my scrip:
My long bead-roll I merrily chaunt,
Where’er I walk, no money I want;
And why I’m so plump the reason I’ll tell--
Who leads a good life is sure to live well.
What baron or squire
Or knight of the shire
Lives half so well as a holy friar!
After supper, of heaven I dream,
But that is fat pullet and clouted cream.
Myself, by denial, I mortify
With a dainty bit of a warden pie:
I’m clothed in sackcloth for my sin:
With old sack wine I’m lined within:
A chirping cup is my matin song,
And the vesper bell is my bowl’s ding dong.
What baron or squire
Or knight of the shire
Lives half so well as a holy friar!
_John O’Keeffe_ (1747–1833).
_THE TAILOR AND THE UNDERTAKER._
(_The two tradesmen call for orders respecting a supposed
corpse._)
_Enter_ SHEARS, _a tailor_, _and_ GRIZLEY, _a servant_.
_Griz._ Mr. Shears, sir,--I’ll tell him, sir.
_Shears._ Yes, Mr. Shears, to take orders for his mourning. (_Exit_
GRIZLEY.) A bailiff shall carry them home, tho’--yet no tailor in
town so complacently suits his own dress to the present humour of his
employer--to a brisk bridegroom, I’m white as a swan, and here, to this
woful widower, I appear black--black as my own goose.
_Enter_ UNDERTAKER.
_Under._ “Hearse--mourning-coaches--scarfs--pall.” Um--ay--if the
cash was plenty this might turn out a pretty sprightly funeral.
_Shears._ Servant, sir.
_Under._ Scarfs--a merry death--coffin--um--ay----
_Shears._ A sudden affair this, sir.
_Under._ Sudden--ah! I’m always prepared for death.
_Shears._ Sign of a good liver.
_Under._ No tradesman within the bills of mortality lives better.
_Shears._ You’ve many customers then, sir?
_Under._ Not one breathing.
_Shears._ You disoblige them, perhaps?
_Under._ Why, the truth is, sir, tho’ my friends would die to
serve me, yet I can’t keep one three days without turning up my nose at
him--Od so! I forgot to take measure of the body.
_Shears_ (_aside_). Oh, oh!--a brother tailor--you measure
nobody here.
_Under._ Yes, I shall--Mr. Sandford’s body.
_Shears._ For what, pray?
_Under._ For a wooden surtout lined with white satin.
_Shears_ (_aside_). Odd sort of mourning!--But, sir, I have
the business of this family.
_Under._ You! I know I have had it since St. James’s churchyard
was set on fire by old Mattack the grave-digger, twenty years last
influenza business. I have nineteen bodies under lock and key this
moment.
_Shears._ You may have bodies, skirts, cuffs, and buttons--my
business!--ask my foreman--I don’t set a stitch--I’m merely an
undertaker.
_Under._ Undertaker! so am I!--and for work----
_Shears._ Now I do no work--I cut out indeed----
_Under._ Cut out! oh, you embowel ’em, perhaps--can you make a
mummy in the Egyptian fashion?
_Shears._ I never made masquerade habits.
_Under._ What! could you stuff a person of rank, to send him sweet
over sea?
_Shears._ Stuff! persons of rank--Irish tabinets are in style for
people of rank.
_Under._ Nothing like sage, thyme, pepper and salt.
_Shears._ Pepper and salt!--thunder and lightning!--for a colour!
_Under._ Thunder and lightning! why, you are in the clouds,
man--in one word, could you pickle a Duke?
_Shears._ I pickle a Duke!
_Under._ Could you place a lozenge over a window, or make out a
coat for a hatchment, without the help of a herald?
_Shears._ Mr. Hatchment! never made a coat for a gentleman of that
name.
_Under._ Mr. Hatchment--you’ve a skull as thick as a tombstone.
_Shears._ Mayhap so, but I’ll let you know no cross-legg’d and
bandy button-making, Bedford-bury, shred-seller shall rip a customer
from me.
_Under._ Friend, depart in peace--or my cane shall make you a
_memento mori_ to all impertinent rascals.
_Shears._ Here’s a cowardly advantage! to attack a naked man--lay
by your cane, and I’ll talk to you.
(_The_ UNDERTAKER _throws down his cane, which_
SHEARS _takes up and beats him with._)
_Under._ Oh, death and treachery! help! murder!
_Enter_ DENNIS.
_Den._ Hey! what’s all this?
[Illustration: “I PERCEIVE THIS MISTAKE.”]
_Under._ A villain!--why, here’s another undertaker insists that
he’s to bury your master.
_Shears._ Oh, thread and needles! I bury a gentleman! but, egad,
you’re a frolicsome tailor.
_Under._ Tailor! oh, you son of a sexton! call you me tailor? a
more capital undertaker than yourself.
_Shears._ Zounds, man, I’m no undertaker! I’m a tailor.
_Under._ And, zounds, man--tailor, I mean--I’m an undertaker.
_Den._ (_aside_). I perceive this mistake. One word, good
gentlemen mechanics--Mr. Tailor!
_Shears._ Sir!
_Den._ My lady is not dead.
_Shears._ Your lady not dead!
_Den._ No, nor my master neither.
_Under._ Your master not dead!
_Den._ No.
_Under._ Then perhaps he don’t want to be buried!
_Den._ Not alive, I believe.
_Under._ The most good-for-nothing family in the parish.
_Shears._ By these shears, parchment of mine shall never cross a
shoulder in it. [_Exit._
_Under._ Zounds, I’ll go home and bury myself for the good of my
family. [_Exit._
_John O’Keeffe._
_TOM GROG._
_Present_--TOM GROG _and_ RUPEE.
_Rupee._ I drink tea at Sir Toby Tacit’s this evening. Tom, you’ll
come--I’ll introduce you to the ladies; you’ll see my intended sposa,
Cornelia.
_Grog._ Ay, give me her little waiting-maid, Nancy. If I can get
her to my berth in the Minories, I shall be as happy as an Admiral.
_Rupee._ Admiral! _apropos_--I shall be married to-morrow--Tom, you’ll
dress to honour my wedding?
_Grog._ Ay, if the tailor brings home my new rigging. But now you
talk of a wife, the first time I ever saw my wife, the pretty Peggy,
was on Portsmouth ramparts, full dress’d, streamers flying, gay as
a commissioner’s yacht at a naval review--What cheer, my heart! says
I--she bore away; love gave signal for chase, so I crowded sail, threw
a salute shot across her fore-foot to make her bring-to; prepared for
an engagement, we came to close quarters, grappled. I threw a volley of
kisses at her round-top, she struck--next day, with a cheer, I took my
prize in tow to Farum Church, and the parson made out my warrant for
command--captain of the Pretty Peggy fifteen years; then she foundered
in Blanket Bay--Death took charge, and left me to swim thro’ life, and
keep my chin above water as long as I cou’d.
_Rupee._ Tom, you may be chin-deep, but water can never reach your
lips unless mixed with brandy--brandy! _apropos_, now for the
ladies.
_Grog._ Well, sheer off; d’ye see, I have business at the
Admiralty, and then I bear away for Tower Hill, to meet some Hearts of
Oak.
_Rupee._ Adieu, my Man of War; my _vis-a-vis_ is at St. James’ Gate,
so, Tom, farewell; and now, hey for the land of love.
[_Exit._
_Grog._ Now must I cruise in the channel of Charing Cross, to look
out for this lubber that affronted me aboard the _Dreadnought_. I
heard he put in at the Admiralty--Hold! is Rupee gone? If he thought I
went to fight, mayhap he’d bring the Master-at-Arms upon me, and have
me in the bilboes--Smite my timbers! there goes the enemy.
_Enter_ STERN (_crossing_).
I’ll hail him--yo! ho!
_Stern._ What cheer?
_Grog._ You’re Sam Stern?
_Stern._ Yes.
_Grog._ Do you remember me?
_Stern._ Remember! Yes, though you’re rich now, you’re still Tom
Grog.
_Grog._ You affronted me aboard the _Dreadnought_; the Spaniards were
then in view, and I didn’t think it time to resent private quarrels
when it is our duty to thrash the enemies of our country; but, Sam
Stern, you are the man that affronted Tom Grog.
_Stern._ Mayhap so.
_Grog._ Mayhap you’ll fight me?
[Illustration: “WHAT CHEER?”]
_Stern._ I will--when and where?
_Grog._ The _where_ is here, and _when_ is now; and slap’s the word.
(_Lays his hand on his hanger._) But hold, we must steer off the open
sea into some creek.
_Stern._ But I’ve neither cutlash nor pistols.
_Grog._ I saw a handsome cutlash and a pretty pair of barking-irons in
a pawnbroker’s window; come, it lies on our way to the War Office.
_Stern._ I should like to touch at the _Victualling_ Office
in our voyage.
_Grog._ Why, ha’n’t you dined?
_Stern._ I’ve none to eat.
_Grog._ A seaman in England without a dinner! that’s hard, d--d
hard! there’s money--pay me when you can. (_Gives a handful of
money._)
_Stern._ How much?
_Grog._ I don’t know--get your dinner--buy the arms--meet me in
two hours at Deptford, and, shiver me like a biscuit, if I don’t blow
your head off.
_Stern._ Then I can’t pay you your money.
_Grog._ True; but mayhap you may take off mine; and if so, I shall
have no occasion for it.
_Stern._ Right, I forgot that.
(_Wipes his eyes with his sleeve._)
_Grog._ What do you snivel for?
_Stern._ What a dog am I to use a man ill, and now be obliged to
him for a meal’s meat.
_Grog._ Then you own you’ve used me ill! Ask my pardon.
_Stern._ I’ll be d--d if I do.
_Grog._ Then take it without asking. You’re cursed saucy, but
you’re a good seaman; and hark ye, Sam, the brave man, though he
scorns the fear of punishment, is always afraid to deserve it. Come,
when you’ve stowed your bread-room, a bowl of punch shall again set
friendship afloat. (_Shake hands._)
_Stern._ Oh, I’m a lubber!
_Grog._ Avast! Swab the spray from your bows! poor fellow! don’t
heed, my soul! whilst you’ve the heart of a lion, never be ashamed of
the feelings of a man.
_John O’Keeffe._
_BULLS._
In a speech on the threatened French invasion into Ireland, made, like
the rest, in the Irish House of Commons, Sir Boyle Roche said--
“Mr. Speaker, if we once permitted the villainous French masons to
meddle with the buttresses and walls of our ancient constitution, they
would never stop nor stay, sir, till they brought the foundation-stones
tumbling down about the ears of the nation.... Here, perhaps, sirs,
the murderous Marshellaw men (Marseillais) would break in, cut us to
mincemeat, and throw our bleeding heads upon that table, to stare us in
the face.”
When a member had committed a breach of privilege, and the
sergeant-at-arms was censured for letting him escape, he said--
“How could the sergeant-at-arms stop him in the rear, while he was
catching him in the front? Could he, like a bird, be in two places at
once?”
In opposing a proposed grant for some public works, he said--
“What, Mr. Speaker, and so we are to beggar ourselves for the fear of
vexing posterity? Now, I would ask the honourable gentleman, and this
still more honourable house, why we should put ourselves out of our
way to do anything for posterity; for what has posterity done for us!
(Laughter.) I apprehend gentlemen have entirely mistaken my words. I
assure the house that by posterity I do not mean my ancestors, but
those who are to come immediately after them.”
_Sir Boyle Roche_ (1740?--1807).
[Illustration]
_THE MONKS OF THE SCREW._
When St. Patrick this order established,
He called us the “Monks of the Screw”;
Good rules he revealed to our abbot
To guide us in what we should do.
But first he replenished our fountain
With liquor the best from on high;
And he said, on the word of a saint,
That the fountain should never run dry.
Each year, when your octaves approach,
In full chapter convened let me find you;
And when to the convent you come,
Leave your favourite temptation behind you.
And be not a glass in your convent--
Unless on a festival--found;
And, this rule to enforce, I ordain it
One festival all the year round.
My brethren, be chaste--till you’re tempted;
While sober, be grave and discreet;
And humble your bodies with fasting,
As oft as you’ve nothing to eat.
Yet, in honour of fasting, one lean face
Among you I’d always require;
If the abbot should please, he may wear it,
If not, let it come to the prior.
Come, let each take his chalice, my brethren,
And with due devotion, prepare,
With hands and with voices uplifted,
Our hymn to conclude with a prayer.
May this chapter oft joyously meet,
And this gladsome libation renew,
To the saint, and the founder, and abbot,
And prior, and Monks of the Screw.
_John Philpot Curran_ (1750–1817).
_ANA._
One day, when out riding with Lord Norbury, they came to a gallows, and
pointing to it the judge said, “Where would you be, Curran, if that
scaffold had its due?” “Riding alone, my lord,” was Curran’s prompt
reply.
The same judge (noted for his merciless severity) was seated opposite
Curran at dinner on another occasion, and asked, “Is that _hung_
beef before you, Curran?” “Do you try it, my lord,” replied the
advocate, “and it is sure to be.”
A blustering Irish barrister once told the little man he would put him
in his pocket if he provoked him further. “Egad, if you do, you’ll
have more law in your pocket than ever you had in your head.”
“Do you see anything ridiculous in my wig, Curran?” asked a vain
barrister, whose displaced head-gear had caused some merriment in
court. “Nothing, _except the head_, sir,” answered Curran.
Another judge had the habit of continually shaking his head during
Curran’s addresses to the jury, and the counsel, fearing the jury
might be influenced, assured them that the judge was not expressing
dissent--“when he shakes his head, _there’s nothing in it_.”
When he had to meet a notorious duellist named Bully Egan, whose girth
was twice that of Curran’s, Egan complained that the advantages were
all on one side, inasmuch as he could barely see Curran’s diminutive
person, while Curran could hardly fail to hit him. “Oh!” said Curran,
“we can soon arrange that. Let the size of my body be chalked on Mr.
Egan’s, and I am willing all shots outside the marks should not be
counted.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
_THE CRUISKEEN LAWN._
Let the farmer praise his grounds,
Let the huntsman praise his hounds,
The farmer his sweet-scented lawn;
While I, more blest than they,
Spend each happy night and day
With my smiling little cruiskeen lawn.
_Gra-ma-chree-ma cruiskeen,
Slainte geal ma vourneen,
Gra-ma-chree a coolin bawn, bawn, bawn,
Gra-ma-chree a coolin bawn!_
Immortal and divine,
Great Bacchus, god of wine,
Create me by adoption your son,
In hope that you’ll comply
That my glass shall ne’er run dry,
Nor my smiling little cruiskeen lawn.
Gra-ma-chree, etc.
And when grim Death appears,
After few but happy years,
And tells me my glass it is run,
I’ll say, “Begone, you slave!
For great Bacchus gave me leave
Just to fill another cruiskeen lawn.”
Gra-ma-chree, etc.
Then fill your glasses high,
Let’s not part with lips a-dry,
Though the lark now proclaims it is dawn;
And since we can’t remain,
May we shortly meet again
To fill another cruiskeen lawn.
Gra-ma-chree, etc.
_Anonymous._
[Illustration]
_THE SCANDAL-MONGERS._
_Scene_--LADY SNEERWELL’S HOUSE.
_Present_--LADY SNEERWELL, MARIA, MRS. CANDOUR, _and_
JOSEPH SURFACE.
_Mrs. C._ My dear Lady Sneerwell, how have you been this century?
Mr. Surface, what news do you hear? though indeed it is no matter, for
I think one hears nothing else but scandal.
_Joseph._ Just so, indeed, ma’am.
_Mrs. C._ (_to Maria_). Oh, Maria! child, what! is the whole
affair off between you and Charles? His extravagance, I presume; the
town talks of nothing else.
_Maria._ I am very sorry, ma’am, the town has so little to do.
_Mrs. C._ True, true, child; but there’s no stopping people’s
tongues. I own I was hurt to hear it, as I indeed was to learn, from
the same quarter, that your guardian, Sir Peter, and Lady Teazle, have
not agreed lately as well as could be wished.
_Maria._ ’Tis strangely impertinent for people to busy themselves
so.
_Mrs. C._ Very true, child; but what’s to be done? People will
talk, there’s no preventing it. Why, it was but yesterday I was told
that Miss Gadabout had eloped with Sir Filigree Flirt. But, lord!
there’s no minding what one hears; though, to be sure, I had this from
very good authority.
_Maria._ Such reports are highly scandalous.
_Mrs. C._ So they are, child; shameful, shameful! But the world
is so censorious, no character escapes. Lord, now, who would have
suspected your friend, Miss Prim, of an indiscretion? Yet such is the
ill-nature of people that they say her uncle stopped her last week,
just as she was stepping into the York mail with her dancing-master.
_Maria._ I’ll answer for’t, there are no grounds for that report.
_Mrs. C._ Ay, no foundation in the world, I dare swear; no more,
probably, than for the story circulated last month of Mrs. Festino’s
affair with Colonel Cassino; though, to be sure, that matter was never
rightly cleared up.
_Joseph._ The licence of invention some people take is monstrous,
indeed.
_Maria._ ’Tis so; but, in my opinion, those who report such things
are equally culpable.
_Mrs. C._ To be sure they are; tale-bearers are as bad as
tale-makers; ’tis an old observation, and a very true one; but what’s
to be done, as I said before? how will you prevent people from talking?
To-day, Mrs. Clackit assured me Mr. and Mrs. Honeymoon were at last
become mere man and wife, like the rest of their acquaintance. She
likewise hinted that a certain widow in the next street had got rid of
her dropsy, and recovered her shape in a most surprising manner. And
at the same time Miss Tattle, who was by, affirmed that Lord Buffalo
had discovered his lady at a house of no extraordinary fame; and that
Sir Harry Bouquet and Tom Saunter were to measure swords on a similar
provocation. But, lord! do you think I would report these things? No,
no! tale-bearers, as I said before, are just as bad as tale-makers.
_Joseph._ Ah! Mrs. Candour, if everybody had your forbearance and
good nature!
_Mrs. C._ I confess, Mr. Surface, I cannot bear to hear people attacked
behind their backs; and when ugly circumstances come out against our
acquaintance, I own I always love to think the best. (LADY SNEERWELL
_and_ MARIA _retire_.) By-the-bye, I hope ’tis not true that your
brother is absolutely ruined?
_Joseph._ I am afraid his circumstances are very bad, indeed,
ma’am.
_Mrs. C._ Ah! I heard so. But you must tell him to keep up his
spirits; everybody almost is in the same way. Lord Spindle, Sir Thomas
Splint, and Mr. Nickit--all up, I hear, within this week; so if Charles
be undone, he’ll find half his acquaintance ruined, too; and that, you
know, is a consolation.
_Joseph._ Doubtless, ma’am: a very great one.
_Enter_ SERVANT.
_Serv._ Mr. Crabtree and Sir Benjamin Backbite. [_Exit._
_Lady S._ So, Maria, you see your lover pursues you; positively,
you shan’t escape.
_Enter_ CRABTREE _and_ SIR BENJAMIN BACKBITE.
_Crab._ Lady Sneerwell, I kiss your hand! Mrs. Candour, I don’t
believe you are acquainted with my nephew, Sir Benjamin Backbite? Egad,
ma’am, he has a pretty wit, and is a pretty poet, too; isn’t he, Lady
Sneerwell?
_Sir B._ Oh, fie, uncle!
_Crab._ Nay, egad! it is true; I back him at a rebus or a charade
against the best rhymer in the kingdom. Has your ladyship heard the
epigram he wrote last week on Lady Frizzle’s feather catching fire.
Do, Benjamin, repeat it, or the charade you made last night extempore
at Mrs. Drowzie’s conversazione. Come now; your first is the name of a
fish, your second a great naval commander, and----
_Sir B._ Uncle, now--pr’ythee----
_Crab._ I’faith, ma’am, ’twould surprise you to hear how ready he
is at these things.
_Lady S._ I wonder, Sir Benjamin, you never publish anything.
_Sir B._ To say the truth, ma’am, ’tis very vulgar to print; and
as my little productions are mostly satires and lampoons on particular
people, I find they circulate more by giving copies in confidence to
the friends of the parties. However, I have some love elegies, which,
when favoured with this lady’s smiles, I mean to give the public.
_Crab._ ’Fore heaven, ma’am, they’ll immortalise you! you will be
handed down to posterity, like Petrarch’s Laura, or Waller’s Sacharissa.
_Sir B._ Yes, madam, I think you will like them, when you shall
see them on a beautiful quarto page, where a neat rivulet of text shall
meander through a meadow of margin. ’Fore gad! they will be the most
elegant things of their kind.
_Crab._ But, ladies, have you heard the news?
_Mrs. C._ What, sir, do you mean the report of----
_Crab._ No, ma’am, that’s not it--Miss Nicely is going to be
married to her own footman.
_Mrs. C._ Impossible!
_Crab._ Ask Sir Benjamin.
_Sir B._ ’Tis very true, ma’am; everything is fixed, and the
wedding liveries bespoke.
_Crab._ Yes; and they do say there were very pressing reasons for
it.
_Lady S._ Why, I have heard something of this before.
_Mrs. C._ It can’t be; and I wonder any one should believe such a
story of so prudent a lady as Miss Nicely.
_Sir B._ Oh, lud! ma’am, that’s the very reason ’twas believed at
once. She has always been so cautious and so reserved, that everybody
was sure there was some reason for it at bottom.
_Mrs. C._ Why, to be sure, a tale of scandal is as fatal to the
credit of a prudent lady of her stamp, as a fever is generally to
those of the strongest constitutions. But there is a sort of puny
sickly reputation that is always ailing, yet will outlive the robuster
characters of a hundred prudes.
_Sir B._ True, madam; there are true valetudinarians in reputation
as well as constitution; who, being conscious of their weak part, avoid
the least breath of air, and supply their want of stamina by care and
circumspection.
_Mrs. C._ Well, but this may be all a mistake. You know, Sir
Benjamin, very trifling circumstances often give rise to the most
injurious tales.
_Crab._ That they do, I’ll be sworn, ma’am. Did you ever hear how
Miss Piper came to lose her lover and her character last summer at
Tunbridge? Sir Benjamin, you remember it?
_Sir B._ Oh, to be sure; the most whimsical of circumstances.
_Lady S._ How was it, pray?
_Crab._ Why, one evening at Miss Ponto’s assembly, the conversation
happened to turn on the breeding Nova Scotia sheep in this country.
Says a young lady in company, I have known instances of it; for Miss
Letitia Piper, a first cousin of mine, had a Nova Scotia sheep that
produced her twins. What! cries the lady dowager Dundizzy (who you know
is as deaf as a post), has Miss Piper had twins? This mistake, as you
may imagine, threw the whole company into a fit of laughter. However,
’twas the next day everywhere reported, and in a few days believed by
the whole town, that Miss Letitia Piper had actually been brought to
bed of a fine boy and girl; and in less than a week there were some
people who could name the father, and the farmhouse where the babies
were put to nurse.
_Lady S._ Strange, indeed!
_Crab._ Matter of fact, I assure you. Oh, lud! Mr. Surface, pray
is it true that your uncle, Sir Oliver, is coming home?
_Joseph._ Not that I know of, indeed, sir.
_Crab._ He has been in the East Indies a long time. You can
scarcely remember him, I believe? Sad comfort, whenever he returns, to
hear how your brother has gone on.
_Joseph._ Charles has been imprudent, sir, to be sure; but I hope
no busy people have already prejudiced Sir Oliver against him. He may
reform.
_Sir B._ To be sure he may; for my part, I never believed him to
be so utterly void of principle as people say; and though he has lost
all his friends, I am told nobody is better spoken of by the Jews.
_Crab._ That’s true, egad! nephew. If the Old Jewry were a ward, I
believe Charles would be an alderman: no man more popular there, ’fore
gad! I hear he pays as many annuities as the Irish tontine; and that
whenever he is sick, they have prayers for the recovery of his health
in all the synagogues.
_Sir B._ Yet no man lives in greater splendour. They tell me,
when he entertains his friends, he will sit down to dinner with a
dozen of his own securities; have a score of tradesmen waiting in the
ante-chamber, and an officer behind every guest’s chair.
_Joseph._ This may be entertainment to you, gentlemen, but you pay
very little regard to the feelings of a brother.
_Maria._ Their malice is intolerable. Lady Sneerwell, I must wish
you a good morning. I’m not very well. [_Exit._
_Mrs. C._ Oh, dear! she changes colour very much.
_Lady S._ Do, Mrs. Candour, follow her: she may want your
assistance.
_Mrs. C._ That I will, with all my soul, ma’am. Poor dear girl,
who knows what her situation may be? [_Exit._
_Lady S._ ’Twas nothing but that she could not bear to hear
Charles reflected on, notwithstanding their difference.
_Sir B._ The young lady’s _penchant_ is obvious.
_Crab._ But, Benjamin, you must not give up the pursuit for that;
follow her, and put her into good humour. Repeat her some of your own
verses. Come, I’ll assist you.
_Sir B._ Mr. Surface, I did not mean to hurt you; but depend on’t,
your brother is utterly undone.
_Crab._ Oh, lud! ay, undone as ever man was. Can’t raise a guinea!
_Sir B._ And everything sold, I’m told, that was movable.
[Illustration: “POOR DEAR GIRL, WHO KNOWS WHAT HER SITUATION MAY
BE?”]
_Crab._ I have seen one that was at his house. Not a thing left
but some empty bottles that were overlooked, and the family pictures,
which I believe are framed in the wainscot!
_Sir B._ And I’m very sorry, also, to hear some bad stories
against him.
_Crab._ Oh! he has done many mean things, that’s certain.
_Sir B._ But, however, as he’s your brother----
_Crab._ We’ll tell you all another opportunity.
[_Exit with_ SIR BENJAMIN.
_R. B. Sheridan_ (1751–1816).
_CAPTAIN ABSOLUTE’S SUBMISSION._
_Scene_--CAPTAIN ABSOLUTE’S LODGINGS.
_Present_--CAPTAIN ABSOLUTE AND HIS FATHER.
_Capt. Absolute._ Now for a parental lecture. I hope he has heard
nothing of the business that has brought me here. I wish the gout had
held him fast in Devonshire, with all my soul!
_Enter_ SIR ANTHONY.
Sir, I am glad to see you here, and looking so well!--your sudden
arrival at Bath made me apprehensive for your health.
_Sir Anth._ Very apprehensive, I dare say, Jack. What, you are
recruiting here, eh?
_Capt. A._ Yes, sir, I am on duty.
_Sir Anth._ Well, Jack, I am glad to see you, though I did not
expect it; for I was going to write to you on a little matter of
business. Jack, I have been considering that I grow old and infirm, and
shall probably not trouble you long.
_Capt. A._ Pardon me, sir, I never saw you look more strong and
hearty, and I pray fervently that you may continue so.
_Sir Anth._ I hope your prayers may be heard with all my heart.
Well then, Jack, I have been considering that I am so strong and hearty
I may continue to plague you a long time. Now, Jack, I am sensible that
the income of your commission, and what I have hitherto allowed you, is
but a small pittance for a lad of your spirit.
_Capt. A._ Sir, you are very good.
_Sir Anth._ And it is my wish, while yet I live, to have my boy
make some figure in the world. I have resolved, therefore, to fix you
at once in a noble independence.
_Capt. A._ Sir, your kindness overpowers me. Yet, sir, I presume
you would not wish me to quit the army?
_Sir Anth._ Oh! that shall be as your wife chooses.
_Capt. A._ My wife, sir!
_Sir Anth._ Ay, ay, settle that between you; settle that between
you.
_Capt. A._ A wife, sir, did you say?
_Sir Anth._ Ay, a wife; why, did not I mention her before?
_Capt. A._ Not a word of her, sir.
_Sir Anth._ Od so! I mustn’t forget her though--Yes, Jack, the
independence I was talking of is by a marriage; the fortune is saddled
with a wife; but I suppose that makes no difference.
_Capt. A._ Sir, sir, you amaze me!
_Sir Anth._ Why, what the devil’s the matter with the fool? Just
now you were all gratitude and duty.
_Capt. A._ I was, sir; you talked to me of independence and a
fortune, but not a word of a wife.
_Sir Anth._ Why, what difference does that make? Ods life, sir! if
you have the estate, you must take it with the live stock on it, as it
stands.
_Capt. A._ Pray, sir, who is the lady?
_Sir Anth._ What’s that to you, sir? Come, give me your promise to
love, and to marry her directly.
_Capt. A._ Sure, sir, this is not very reasonable, to summon my
affections for a lady I know nothing of!
_Sir Anth._ I am sure, sir, ’tis more unreasonable in you to
object to a lady you know nothing of.
_Capt. A._ You must excuse me, sir, if I tell you, once for all,
that in this point I cannot obey you.
_Sir Anth._ Harkye, Jack! I have heard you for some time with
patience, I have been cool, quite cool; but take care; you know I
am compliance itself,--when I am not thwarted! No one more easily
led,--when I have my own way; but don’t put me in a frenzy.
_Capt. A._ Sir, I must repeat it,--in this I cannot obey you.
_Sir Anth._ Now, d--n me! if ever I call you Jack again, while I
live!
_Capt. A._ Nay, sir, but hear me.
_Sir Anth._ Sir, I won’t hear a word, not a word; not one word: so
give me your promise by a nod; and I’ll tell you what, Jack (I mean,
you dog!), if you don’t, by----
_Capt. A._ What, sir, promise to link myself to some mass of
ugliness!----
_Sir Anth._ Zounds, sirrah! the lady shall be as ugly as I choose:
she shall have a hump on each shoulder; she shall be as crooked as the
crescent; her one eye shall roll like the bull’s in Cox’s museum; she
shall have a skin like a mummy, and the beard of a Jew; she shall be
all this, sirrah! yet, I’ll make you ogle her all day, and sit up all
night to write sonnets on her beauty.
_Capt. A._ This is reason and moderation, indeed!
_Sir Anth._ None of your sneering, puppy! no grinning, jackanapes!
_Capt. A._ Indeed, sir, I never was in a worse humour for mirth in
my life.
_Sir Anth._ ’Tis false, sir; I know you are laughing in your
sleeve! I know you’ll grin when I am gone, sirrah!
_Capt. A._ Sir, I hope I know my duty better.
_Sir Anth._ None of your passion, sir! none of your violence, if
you please; it won’t do with me, I promise you.
_Capt. A._ Indeed, sir, I never was cooler in my life.
_Sir Anth._ ’Tis a confounded lie! I know you are in a passion at
your heart; I know you are, you hypocritical young dog; but it won’t
do.
_Capt. A._ Nay, sir, upon my word----
_Sir Anth._ So you will fly out! Can’t you be cool, like me? What
the devil good can passion do? passion is of no service, you impudent,
insolent, overbearing reprobate! There, you sneer again! don’t provoke
me! but you rely upon the mildness of my temper; you do, you dog! you
play upon the meekness of my disposition! Yet, take care; the patience
of a saint may be overcome at last. But mark!--I give you six hours and
a half to consider of this: if you then agree, without any condition,
to do every thing on earth that I choose, why--confound you! I may in
time forgive you. If not, zounds! don’t enter into the same hemisphere
with me! don’t dare to breathe the same air, or use the same light with
me; but get an atmosphere and a sun of your own! I’ll strip you of your
commission! I’ll lodge a five-and-threepence in the hands of trustees,
and you shall live on the interest. I’ll disown you, I’ll disinherit
you, I’ll unget you! and d--n me! if ever I call you Jack again!
[_Exit_.]
_Capt. A._ Mild, gentle, considerate father! I kiss your hands.
_Enter_ FAG.
_Fag._ Assuredly, sir, your father is wroth to a degree; he comes
downstairs eight or ten steps at a time, muttering, growling, or
thumping the banisters all the way; I and the cook’s dog stand bowing
at the door--rap! he gives me a stroke on the head with his cane; bids
me carry that to my master; then kicking the poor turnspit into the
area, d--ns us all for a puppy triumvirate! Upon my credit, sir, were
I in your place, and found my father such very bad company, I should
certainly drop his acquaintance.
_Capt. A._ Cease your impertinence, sir; did you come in for
nothing more? Stand out of the way.
[_Pushes him aside, and exit._
_Fag._ So! Sir Anthony trims my master; he is afraid to reply to
his father, then vents his spleen on poor Fag! When one is vexed by one
person, to revenge one’s self on another who happens to come in the
way, shows the worst of temper, the basest----
_Enter_ ERRAND BOY.
_Boy._ Mr. Fag! Mr. Fag! your master calls you.
_Fag._ Well, you little, dirty puppy, you needn’t bawl so: the
meanest disposition, the----
_Boy._ Quick, quick, Mr. Fag!
[Illustration: “YOU LITTLE, IMPERTINENT, INSOLENT,
KITCHEN-BRED----”]
_Fag._ Quick, quick, you impudent jackanapes! am I to be commanded
by you, too? you little, impertinent, insolent, kitchen-bred----
[_Kicks him off, and exit._
_Scene_--THE NORTH PARADE.
_Enter_ CAPTAIN ABSOLUTE.
_Capt. A._ ’Tis just as Fag told me, indeed. Whimsical enough,
’faith. My father wants to force me to marry the very girl I am
plotting to run away with. He must not know of my connection with her
yet awhile. He has too summary a method of proceeding in these matters;
however, I’ll read my recantation instantly. My conversion is something
sudden, indeed; but, I can assure him, it is very sincere. So, so, here
he comes; he looks plaguy gruff. (_Steps aside._)
_Enter_ SIR ANTHONY.
_Sir Anth._ No--I’ll sooner die than forgive him! Die, did I say?
I’ll live these fifty years to plague him. At our last meeting, his
impudence had almost put me out of temper; an obstinate, passionate,
self-willed boy! Who can he take after? This is my return for getting
him before all his brothers and sisters! for putting him at twelve
years old into a marching regiment, and allowing him fifty pounds
a year, besides his pay, ever since! But I’ve done with him; he’s
anybody’s son for me: I never will see him more, never, never; never,
never.
_Capt. A._ Now for a penitential face! (_Advances._)
_Sir Anth._ Fellow, get out of the way!
_Capt. A._ Sir, you see a penitent before you.
_Sir Anth._ I see an impudent scoundrel before me.
_Capt. A._ A sincere penitent. I am come, sir, to acknowledge my
error, and to submit entirely to your will.
_Sir Anth._ What’s that?
_Capt. A._ I have been revolving, and reflecting, and considering
on your past goodness, and kindness, and condescension to me.
_Sir Anth._ Well, sir?
_Capt. A._ I have been likewise weighing and balancing what you
were pleased to mention concerning duty, and obedience, and authority.
_Sir Anth._ Well, puppy?
_Capt. A._ Why, then, sir, the result of my reflections is,
a resolution to sacrifice every inclination of my own to your
satisfaction.
_Sir Anth._ Why, now you talk sense, absolute sense; I never heard
anything more sensible in my life. Confound you! you shall be Jack
again.
[Illustration: “SIR, YOU SEE A PENITENT BEFORE YOU.”]
_Capt. A._ I am happy in the appellation.
_Sir Anth._ Why then, Jack, my dear Jack, I will now inform you
who the lady really is. Nothing but your passion and violence, you
silly fellow, prevented me telling you at first. Prepare, Jack, for
wonder and rapture--prepare. What think you of Miss Lydia Languish?
_Capt. A._ Languish! What, the Languishes of Worcestershire?
_Sir Anth._ Worcestershire! no. Did you never meet Mrs. Malaprop
and her niece, Miss Languish, who came into our country just before you
were last ordered to your regiment?
_Capt. A._ Malaprop! Languish! I don’t remember ever to have
heard the names before. Yet stay, I think I do recollect
something--Languish--Languish--She squints, don’t she? A little
red-hair’d girl!
_Sir Anth._ Squints! A red-hair’d girl! Zounds! no!
_Capt. A._ Then I must have forgot; it can’t be the same person.
_Sir Anth._ Jack! Jack! what think you of blooming love-breathing
seventeen?
_Capt. A._ As to that, sir, I am quite indifferent; if I can
please you in the matter, ’tis all I desire.
_Sir Anth._ Nay, but Jack, such eyes! such eyes! so innocently
wild! so bashfully irresolute! Not a glance but speaks and kindles some
thought of love! Then, Jack, her cheeks! her cheeks, Jack! so deeply
blushing at the insinuations of her tell-tale eyes! Then, Jack, her
lips! Oh, Jack, lips, smiling at their own discretion! and, if not
smiling, more sweetly pouting--more lovely in sullenness! Then, Jack,
her neck! Oh, Jack! Jack!
_Capt. A._ And which is to be mine, sir, the niece or her aunt?
_Sir Anth._ Why, you unfeeling, insensible puppy, I despise you.
When I was of your age, such a description would have made me fly like
a rocket! The aunt, indeed! Ods life! when I ran away with your mother,
I would not have touched anything old or ugly to gain an empire.
_Capt. A._ Not to please your father, sir?
_Sir Anth._ To please my father--Zounds! not to please--Oh, my
father--Odso!--yes, yes; if my father, indeed, had desired--that’s
quite another matter. Though he wasn’t the indulgent father that I am,
Jack.
_Capt. A._ I dare say not, sir.
_Sir Anth._ But, Jack, you are not sorry to find your mistress is
so beautiful?
_Capt. A._ Sir, I repeat it, if I please you in this affair, ’tis
all I desire. Not that I think a woman the worse for being handsome;
but, sir, if you please to recollect, you before hinted something
about a hump or two, one eye, and a few more graces of that kind; now,
without being very nice, I own I should rather choose a wife of mine
to have the usual number of limbs, and a limited quantity of back: and
though one eye may be very agreeable, yet, as the prejudice has always
run in favour of two, I should not wish to affect a singularity in that
article.
_Sir Anth._ What a phlegmatic sot it is! Why, sirrah, you are an
anchorite! a vile, insensible stock! You a soldier! You’re a walking
block, fit only to dust the company’s regimentals on! Ods life! I’ve a
great mind to marry the girl myself!
_Capt. A._ I am entirely at your disposal, sir; if you should
think of addressing Miss Languish yourself, I suppose you would have
me marry the aunt; or if you should change your mind, and take the old
lady,--’tis the same to me, I’ll marry the niece.
_Sir Anth._ Upon my word, Jack, thou art either a very great
hypocrite, or--but, come, I know your indifference on such a subject
must be all a lie--I’m sure it must--come now, d--n your demure face;
come, confess, Jack, you have been lying--ha’n’t you? You have been
playing the hypocrite, eh?--I’ll never forgive you, if you ha’n’t been
lying and playing the hypocrite.
_Capt. A._ I’m sorry, sir, that the respect and duty which I bear
to you should be so mistaken.
_Sir Anth._ Hang your respect and duty! But come along with me.
I’ll write a note to Mrs. Malaprop, and you shall visit the lady
directly. Her eyes shall be the Promethean torch to you--come along:
I’ll never forgive you, if you don’t come back stark mad with rapture
and impatience--if you don’t, egad, I’ll marry the girl myself.
[_Exeunt._
_R. B. Sheridan._
_ANA._
When some one proposed to tax milestones, Sheridan protested that
it would not be constitutional or fair, as they could not meet to
remonstrate.
Lord Lauderdale having declared his intention to circulate some
witticism of Sheridan’s, the latter hastily exclaimed, “Pray don’t, my
dear Lauderdale; a joke in your mouth is no laughing matter!”
Lord Erskine on one occasion said that “a wife was only a tin canister
tied to one’s tail.” Lady Erskine was justly annoyed at this remark,
and Sheridan dashed off this impromptu:--
“Lord Erskine, at woman presuming to rail,
Calls a wife a tin canister tied to one’s tail;
And fair Lady Anne, while the subject he carries on,
Seems hurt at his lordship’s degrading comparison.
But wherefore degrading? Considered aright,
A canister’s polished and useful and bright;
And should dirt its original purity hide,
That’s the fault of the puppy to whom it is tied.”
Sheridan met two sprigs of nobility one day in St. James’s Street, and
one of them said to him, “I say, Sherry, we have just been discussing
which you were, a knave or a fool. What is your opinion on the
subject?” Sheridan took each of them by the arm, and replied, “Why,
faith, I believe I am between the two.”
Of his parliamentary opponent, Mr. Dundas, he once said, “The
honourable gentleman is indebted to his imagination for his facts, and
to his memory for his jests.”
[Illustration: “‘WHY, FAITH, I BELIEVE I AM BETWEEN THE TWO.’”]
When he was found intoxicated in the gutter by a night-watchman and was
asked his name, he replied, “Wilberforce,” meaning the eminent teetotal
advocate.
Once at a parliamentary committee he found every seat occupied, and
looking round, asked, “Will any gentleman _move_ that I may
_take the chair_?”
Michael Kelly, the singer and composer, kept a shop at the bottom of
the Haymarket, where he sold wine and music. He asked Sheridan for a
sign, and Sheridan gave him the following:--“Michael Kelly, composer of
wine and importer of music.”
_MY AMBITION._
_Ease_ often visits shepherd-swains,
Nor in the lowly cot disdains
To take a bit of dinner;
But would not for a turtle-treat,
Sit with a miser or a cheat,
Or cankered party sinner.
_Ease_ makes the sons of labour glad,
_Ease_ travels with the merry lad
Who whistles by his waggon;
With me she prattles all day long,
And choruses my simple song,
And shares my foaming flagon.
The lamp of life is soon burnt out;
Then who’d for riches make a rout,
Except a doating blockhead?
When Charon takes ’em both aboard,
Of equal worth’s the miser’s hoard
And spendthrift’s empty pocket.
In such a scurvy world as this
We must not hope for perfect bliss,
And length of life together;
We have no moral liberty
At will to live, at will to die,
In fair or stormy weather.
Many, I see, have riches plenty--
Fine coaches, livery, servants twenty;--
Yet envy never pains me;
My appetite’s as good as theirs,
I sleep as sound, as free from fears;
I’ve only what maintains me!
And while the precious joys I prove
Of Tom’s true friendship--and the love
Of bonny black-ey’d Jenny,--
Ye gods! my wishes are confin’d
To--health of body, peace of mind,
Clean linen, and a guinea!
_Edward Lysaght_ (1763–1810).
_A WAREHOUSE FOR WIT._
It is with men of their wit, as with women of their beauty. Tell a
woman she is fair, and she will not be offended that you tell her she
is cruel. Tell a man that he is a wit, and if you lay to his charge
ill-nature or blasphemy, he will take it as a compliment rather than a
reproach. Thus, too, there is no woman but lays some claim to beauty;
and no man will give up his pretensions to wit. In cases of this
kind, therefore, where so much depends upon opinion, and where every
man thinks himself qualified to be his own judge, there is nothing
so useless to a reader as illustrations; and nothing to an author so
dangerous as definition. Any attempt therefore to decide what true
WIT is must be ineffectual, as not one in a hundred would be
content to abide by the decision; it is impossible to rank all mankind
under the name of wits, and there is scarce one in a hundred who does
not think that he merits the appellation.
Hence it is that every one, how little qualified soever, is fond of
making a display of his fancied abilities; and generally at the expense
of some one to whom he supposes himself infinitely superior. And from
this supposition many mistakes arise to those who commence wags, with
a very small share of wit, and a still smaller of judgment; whose
imaginations are by nature unprolific, and whose minds are uncultivated
by education. These persons, while they are ringing their rounds on
a few dull jests, are apt to mistake the rude and noisy merriment
of illiterate jocularity for genuine humour. They often unhappily
conceive that those laugh _with_ them who laugh _at_ them. The sarcasms
which every one disdains to answer, they vainly flatter themselves
are unanswerable; forgetting, no doubt, that their _good things_
are unworthy the notice of a retort, and below the condescension
of criticism. They know not perhaps that the Ass, whom the fable
represents assuming the playfulness of the lap-dog, is a perfect
picture of jocular stupidity; and that, in like manner, that awkward
absurdity of waggishness which they expect should delight, cannot
but disgust; and instead of laying claim to admiration, must ensure
contempt. But, alas! I am aware that mine will prove a success-less
undertaking; and that though knight-errant-like I sally forth to
engage with the monsters of witticism and waggery, all my prowess will
be inadequate to the achievement of the enterprise. The world will
continue as facetious as ever in spite of all I can do; and people will
be just as fond of their “little jokes and old stories” as if I had
never combated their inclination.
Since then I cannot utterly extirpate this unchristian practice, my
next endeavour must be to direct it properly, and improve it by some
wholesome regulations. I propose, if I meet with proper encouragement,
making application to Parliament for permission to open “_A Licensed
Warehouse for Wit_,” and for a patent, entitling me to the sole vending
and uttering ware of this kind, for a certain term of years. For
this purpose I have already laid in _Jokes_, _Jests_, _Witticisms_,
_Morceaus_, and _Bon-Mots_ of every kind, to a very considerable
amount, well worthy the attention of the public. I have _Epigrams_
that want nothing but the sting; _Conundrums_ that need nothing but an
explanation; _Rebuses_ and _Acrostics_ that will be complete with the
addition of the name only. These being in great request, may be had at
an hour’s warning. _Impromptus_ will be got ready at a week’s notice.
For common and vernacular use, I have a long list of the most palpable
_Puns_ in the language, digested in alphabetical order; for these I
expect good sale at both the universities. _Jokes_ of all kinds, ready
_cut_ and _dry_.
N.B.--Proper allowance made to gentlemen of the law going on circuit;
and to all second-hand vendors of wit and retailers of repartee, who
take large quantities.
N.B.--_Attic Salt_ in any quantity.
N.B.--Most money for old _Jokes_.
_George Canning_ (1770–1827).
_CONJUGAL AFFECTION._
When Elliott (called the Salamander)
Was famed Gibraltar’s stout commander,
A soldier there went to a well
To fetch home water to his Nell;
But fate decreed the youth to fall
A victim to a cannon ball.
One brought the tidings to his spouse,
Which drove her frantic from the house;
On wings of love the creature fled
To seek her dear--she found him dead!
Her husband killed--the water spilt--
Judge, ye fond females, what she felt!
She looked--she sighed--and melting, spoke--
“Thank God, the pitcher is not broke!”
_Thomas Cannings_ (_fl._ 1790–1800).
_WHISKY, DRINK DIVINE!_
Whisky, drink divine!
Why should drivellers bore us
With the praise of wine
While we’ve thee before us?
Were it not a shame,
Whilst we gaily fling thee
To our lips of flame,
If we could not sing thee?
Whisky, drink divine, etc.
Greek and Roman sung
Chian and Falernian--
Shall no harp be strung
To thy praise, Hibernian?
Yes! let Erin’s sons--
Generous, brave, and frisky--
Tell the world at once
They owe it to their whisky--
Whisky, drink divine, etc.
If Anacreon--who
Was the grape’s best poet--
Drank our _mountain-dew_,
How his verse would show it!
As the best then known,
He to wine was civil;
Had he _Inishowen_,
He’d pitch wine to the divil--
Whisky, drink divine, etc.
Bright as beauty’s eye,
When no sorrow veils it:
Sweet as beauty’s sigh,
When young love inhales it:
Come, then, to my lips--
Come, thou rich in blisses!
Every drop I sip
Seems a shower of kisses--
Whisky, drink divine, etc.
Could my feeble lays
Half thy virtues number,
A whole _grove_ of bays
Should my brows encumber.
Be his name adored,
Who summed up thy merits
In one little word,
When he called thee _spirits_--
Whisky, drink divine, etc.
Send it gaily round--
Life would be no pleasure,
If we had not found
This enchanting treasure:
And when tyrant death’s
Arrow shall transfix ye,
Let your latest breaths
Be whisky! whisky! whisky!
Whisky, drink divine, etc.
_Joseph O’Leary_ (17-- -1845?).
_TO A YOUNG LADY BLOWING A TURF FIRE
WITH HER PETTICOAT._
Cease, cease, Amira, peerless maid!
Though we delighted gaze,
While artless you excite the flame,
We perish in the blaze.
Haply you too provoke your harm--
Forgive the bold remark--
Your petticoat may fan the fire,
But, O! beware a _spark_!
_Anonymous_ (1772).
_EPIGRAMS, ETC._
_On Lord Dudley, who was noted for learning all his
speeches by heart._
In vain my affections the ladies are seeking:
If I give up my heart, there’s an end to my speaking.
_On Miss Ellen Tree, the singer._
On this _Tree_ if a nightingale settles and sings,
The _tree_ will return her as good as she brings.
_On Moore the poet’s excuse to his guests that his servant was
ill from the effects of a carousal._
Come, come, for trifles never stick,
Most servants have a failing,
Yours, it is true, are sometimes sick,
But mine are always _aleing_.
On being asked what “on the contrary” meant, when that phrase was used
by a person charged with eating three eggs every morning, Luttrell’s
ready retort was, “Laying them, I daresay.”
I hate the sight of monkeys, they remind one so of poor relations.
_On a man run over by an omnibus._
Killed by an omnibus--why not?
So quick a death a boon is.
Let not his friends lament his lot--
_Mors omnibus communis_.
At one of the crowded receptions at Holland House, Lady Holland
was requested by the guests to “make room.” “It must certainly be
_made_, for it does not exist,” said Luttrell.
_On Samuel Rogers’ poem, “Italy,” which was illustrated by
Turner._
Of Rogers’ “Italy” Luttrell relates
That ’twould have been _dished_, if ’twere not for the _plates_!
_Henry Luttrell_ (1766?-1851.)
_LETTER FROM MISS BETTY FUDGE, IN
PARIS, TO MISS DOROTHY----._
What a time since I wrote!--I’m a sad naughty girl--
For though, like a tee-totum, I’m all in a twirl;--
Yet ev’n (as you wittily say) a tee-totum
Between all its twirls gives a letter to note ’em.
But, Lord, such a place! and then, Dolly, my dresses,
My gowns, so divine!--there’s no language expresses,
Except just the words “superbe,” “magnifique,”
The trimmings of that which I had home last week!
It is call’d--I forget--_à la_--something which sounded
Like _alicampane_--but, in truth, I’m confounded
And bother’d, my dear, ’twixt that troublesome boy’s
(Bob’s) cookery language, and Madame Le Roi’s:
What with fillets of roses and fillets of veal,
Things _garni_ with lace, and things _garni_ with eel,
One’s hair and one’s cutlets both _en popillote_,
And a thousand more things I shall ne’er have by rote,
I can scarce tell the diff’rence, at least as to phrase,
Between beef _à la Psyche_ and curls _à la braise_.--
But, in short, dear, I’m trick’d out quite _à la Française_,
With my bonnet--so beautiful!--high up and poking,
Like things that are put to keep chimneys from smoking.
Where shall I begin with the endless delights
Of this Eden of milliners, monkeys, and sights--
This dear busy place, where there’s nothing transacting
But dressing and dinnering, dancing and acting?
_Imprimis_, the opera--mercy, my ears!
Brother Bobby’s remark, t’other night, was a true one;--
“This must be the music,” said he, “of the spears,
For I’m curst if each note of it doesn’t run through one!”
Pa says (and you know, love, his Book’s to make out,
’Twas the Jacobins brought ev’ry mischief about)
That this passion for roaring has come in of late,
Since the rabble all tried for a _voice_ in the State.--
What a frightful idea, one’s mind to o’erwhelm!
What a chorus, dear Dolly, would soon be let loose of it,
If, when of age, every man in the realm
Had a voice like old Laïs,[5] and chose to make use of it;
No--never was known in this riotous sphere
Such a breach of the peace as their singing, my dear.
So bad, too, you’d swear that the God of both arts,
Of Music and Physic, had taken a frolic
For setting a loud fit of asthma in parts,
And composing a fine rumbling base in a cholic!
But the dancing--ah! _parlez-moi_, Dolly, _de ça_--
There, _indeed_, is a treat that charms all but Papa.
Such beauty--such grace--oh, ye sylphs of romance!
Fly, fly to Titania, and ask her if _she_ has
One light-footed nymph in her train, that can dance
Like divine Bigottini and sweet Fanny Bias!
Fanny Bias in _Flora_--dear creature!--you’d swear,
When her delicate feet in the dance twinkle round,
That her steps are of light, that her home is the air,
And she only _par complaisance_ touches the ground.
And when Bigottini in Psyche dishevels
Her black flowing hair, and by demons is driven,
Oh! who does not envy those rude little devils,
That hold her and hug her, and keep her from Heaven?
Then, the music--so softly its cadences die,
So divinely--oh, Dolly! between you and I,
It’s as well for my peace that there’s nobody nigh
To make love to me then--_you’ve_ a soul, and can judge
What a crisis ’twould be for your friend, Betty Fudge!
The next place (which Bobby has near lost his heart in)
They call it the Play-house--I think--of St. Martin;
Quite charming--and _very_ religious--what folly
To say that the French are not pious, dear Dolly,
When here one beholds, so correctly and rightly,
The Testament turned into _melodrames_ nightly;
And, doubtless, so fond they’re of scriptural facts,
They will soon get the Pentateuch up in five acts.
Here Daniel, in pantomime, bids bold defiance
To Nebuchadnezzar and all his stuff’d lions,
While pretty young Israelites dance round the Prophet,
In very thin clothing, and _but_ little of it;--
Here Bégrand,[6] who shines in the scriptural path,
As the lovely Suzanna, without ev’n a relic
Of drapery round her, comes out of the bath
In a manner that, Bob says, is quite _Eve-angelic_!
But, in short, dear, ’twould take me a month to recite
All the exquisite places we’re at, day and night.
_Thomas Moore_ (1779–1852).
_MONTMORENCI AND CHERUBINA._
[The two extracts which follow are taken from a burlesque novel
which had a great success early in the century. Its ridicule of
the Radcliffian type of romance, full of accumulated horrors and
grotesque affectation, probably did much to extirpate the worst
examples of that unrealistic school.]
This morning, soon after breakfast, I heard a gentle knocking at my
door, and, to my great astonishment, a figure, cased in shining armour,
entered. Oh! ye conscious blushes; it was my Montmorenci! A plume of
white feathers nodded on his helmet, and neither spear nor shield were
wanting. “I come,” cried he, bending on one knee, and pressing my hand
to his lips, “I come in the ancient armour of my family to perform my
promise of recounting to you the melancholy memoirs of my life.” “My
lord,” said I, “rise and be seated. Cherubina knows how to appreciate
the honour that Montmorenci confers.” He bowed; and having laid by his
spear, shield, and helmet, he placed himself beside me on the sofa, and
began his heart-rending history.
“All was dark. The hurricane howled, the hail rattled, and the thunder
rolled. Nature was convulsed, and the traveller inconvenienced. In the
province of Languedoc stood the Gothic castle of Montmorenci. Before
it ran the Garonne, and behind it rose the Pyrenees, whose summits
exhibiting awful forms, seen and lost again, as the partial vapours
rolled along, were sometimes barren, and gleamed through the blue
tinge of air, and sometimes frowned with forests of gloomy fir, that
swept downward to their base. ‘My lads, are your carbines charged, and
your daggers sharpened?’ whispered Rinaldo, with his plume of black
feathers, to the banditti, in their long cloaks. ‘If they an’t,’ said
Bernardo, ‘by St. Jago, we might load our carbines with the hail, and
sharpen our daggers against this confounded north-wind.’ ‘The wind is
east-south-east,’ said Ugo. At this moment the bell of Montmorenci
Castle tolled one. The sound vibrated through the long corridors, the
spiral staircases, the suites of tapestried apartments, and the ears
of the personage who has the honour to address you. Much alarmed, I
started from my couch, which was of exquisite workmanship; the coverlet
of flowered gold, and the canopy of white velvet painted over with
jonquils and butterflies by Michael Angelo. But conceive my horror when
I beheld my chamber filled with banditti! Snatching my faulchion, I
flew to the armoury for my coat of mail; the bravos rushed after me,
but I fought and dressed and dressed and fought, till I had perfectly
completed my unpleasing toilet. I then stood alone, firm, dignified,
collected, and only fifteen years of age.”
“‘Alack! there lies more peril in thine eye,
Than twenty of their swords----’
To describe the horror of the contest that followed were beyond the pen
of an Anacreon. In short, I fought till my silver skin was laced with
my golden blood; while the bullets flew round me, thick as hail,
“‘And whistled as they went for want of thought.’
At length I murdered my way down to my little skiff, embarked in it,
and arrived at this island. As I first touched foot on its chalky
beach, ‘Hail! happy land,’ cried I, ‘hail, thrice hail!’ ‘There is no
hail here, sir,’ said a child running by.... Nine days and nights I
wandered through the country, the rivulet my beverage, and the berry my
repast; the turf my couch, and the sky my canopy.” “Ah!” interrupted
I, “how much you must have missed the canopy of white velvet painted
over with jonquils and butterflies!” “Extremely,” said he, “for during
sixteen long years I had not a roof over my head--I was an itinerant
beggar! One summer’s day, the cattle lay panting under the broad
umbrage, the sun had burst into an immoderate fit of splendour, and
the struggling brook chided the matted grass for obstructing it. I sat
under a hedge, and began eating wild strawberries; when lo! a form,
flexile as the flame ascending from a censer, and undulating with the
sighs of a dying vestal, flitted inaudible by me, nor crushed the
daisies as it trod. What a divinity! she was fresh as the Anadyomene
of Apelles, and beautiful as the Gnidus of Praxiteles, or the Helen of
Zeuxis. Her eyes dipt in heaven’s own hue----” “Sir,” said I, “you
need not mind her eyes; I dare say they were blue enough. But pray, who
was this immortal doll of yours?” “Who?” cried he, “why, who but--shall
I speak it? who but--the LADY CHERUBINA DE WILLOUGHBY!!!”
“I!” “You!” “Ah! Montmorenci!” “Ah! Cherubina! I followed you with
cautious steps,” continued he, “till I traced you into your--you had a
garden, had you not?” “Yes.” “Into your garden. I thought ten thousand
flowerets would have leapt from their beds to offer you a nosegay.
But the age of gallantry is past, that of merchants, placemen, and
fortune-hunters has succeeded, and the glory of Cupid is extinguished
for ever!... But wherefore,” cried he, starting from his seat,
“wherefore talk of the past? Oh! let me tell you of the present and of
the future. Oh! let me tell you how dearly, how deeply, how devotedly
I love you!” “Love me!” cried I, giving such a start as the nature of
the case required. “My Lord, this is so--really now, so----” “Pardon
this abrupt avowal of my unhappy passion,” said he, flinging himself
at my feet; “fain would I have let concealment, like a worm in the
bud, feed on my damask cheek; but, oh! who could resist the maddening
sight of so much beauty?” I remained silent, and, with the elegant
embarrassment of modesty, cast my blue eyes to the ground. I never
looked so lovely.... “I declare,” said I, “I would say anything on
earth to relieve you--only tell me what.” “Angel of light!” exclaimed
he, springing upon his feet, and beaming on me a smile that might
liquefy marble. “Have I then hope? Dare I say it? Dare I pronounce the
divine words, ‘she loves me’?” “I am thine and thou art mine,” murmured
I, while the room swam before me.
_Eaton Stannard Barrett_ (1786–1820).
[Illustration]
_MODERN MEDIÆVALISM._
CHAPTER I.
“Blow, blow, thou wintry wind.”
--_Shakespeare._
“Blow, breezes, blow.”
--_Moore._
It was on a nocturnal night in autumnal October; the wet rain fell in
liquid quantities, and the thunder rolled in an awful and Ossianly
manner. The lowly but peaceful inhabitants of a small but decent
cottage were just sitting down to their homely but wholesome supper,
when a loud knocking at the door alarmed them. Bertram armed himself
with a ladle. “Lack-a-daisy!” cried old Margueritone, and little Billy
seized the favourable moment to fill his mouth with meat. Innocent
fraud! happy childhood!
“The father’s lustre and the mother’s bloom.”
Bertram then opened the door, when, lo! pale, breathless, dripping,
and with a look that would have shocked the Royal Humane Society, a
beautiful female tottered into the room. “Lack-a-daisy! ma’am,” said
Margueritone, “are you wet?” “Wet?” exclaimed the fair unknown,
wringing a rivulet of rain from the corner of her robe; “O ye gods,
wet!” Margueritone felt the justice, the gentleness of the reproof, and
turned the subject, by recommending a glass of spirits.
“Spirit of my sainted sire.”
The stranger sipped, shook her head, and fainted. Her hair was long and
dark, and the bed was ready; so since she seems in distress, we will
leave her there awhile, lest we should betray an ignorance of the world
in appearing not to know the proper time for deserting people.
On the rocky summit of a beetling precipice, whose base was lashed
by the angry Atlantic, stood a moated and turreted structure called
Il Castello di Grimgothico. As the northern tower had remained
uninhabited since the death of its late lord, Henriques de Violenci,
lights and figures were, _par consequence_, observed in it at
midnight. Besides, the black eyebrows of the present baron had a habit
of meeting for several years, and _quelque fois_, he paced the
picture-gallery with a hurried step. These circumstances combined,
there could be no doubt of his having committed murder....