Remarks on Lady Morgan’s novel of “The Wild Irish Girl,” &c.—Prince
O’Sullivan at Killarney—Miss Edgeworth’s “Castle Rackrent”—Memoir of
Jonathan Clerk—“Florence Macarthy”—Comparison between Lady Morgan and
Thomas Moore as writers—The author’s knowledge of both—“Captain Rock”
condemned—The “Irish Melodies” by Moore—The harmonising of them by Sir
John Stevenson injurious to the national music—Anecdote of Mr. Thomas
Moore and Mrs. K * * * y.
It is remarkable that the various gradations of habit and society in
Ireland have been best illustrated by two female authors,—the one of
more imaginative, the other of purer narrative powers; but each, in her
respective line, possessing very considerable merit.
Though a fiction not free from some inaccuracies, much inappropriate
dialogue, and forced incident, it is impossible to peruse “The Wild
Irish Girl” of Lady Morgan without deep interest, or to dispute its
claims as a production of true national feeling as well as literary
talent.
That tale was the first and is perhaps the best of all her novel
writings. Compared with others, it strikingly exhibits the author’s
_falling off_ from the simple touches of unsophisticated nature to the
_less_ refined conceptions of what she herself styles “fashionable
society.”
To persons unacquainted with Ireland, “The Wild Irish Girl” may appear
an ordinary tale of romance and fancy; but to such as understand the
ancient history of that people, it may be considered as a _legend_. The
authoress might perhaps have had somewhat in view the last descendant of
the Irish princes, who did not altogether forget the station of his
forefathers.
O’Sullivan, lineally descended from the King of the Lakes, not many
years since vegetated on a retired spot of his hereditary dominions at
Killarney; and, though overwhelmed by poverty and deprivation, kept up
in his mind a visionary dignity. Surveying from his wretched cottage
that enchanting territory over which his ancestors had reigned for
centuries, I have been told he never ceased to recollect his royal
descent. He was a man of gigantic stature and strength; of uncouth, yet
authoritative mien—not shaming his pretensions by his presence. He was
frequently visited by those who went to view the celebrated lakes, and I
have conversed with many who have seen him: but at a period when
familiar intercourse has been introduced between actual princes and
their subjects, tending undoubtedly to diminish in the latter the sense
of individual respect and distance, so wholesome to royalty, the poor
descendant of the renowned O’Sullivan had no reason to expect much
commiseration from modern sensibility.
The frequent and strange revolutions of the world within the last forty
years, the radical alterations in all the material habits of
society,—announced the commencement of a new era: and the ascendancy of
commerce over rank, and of avarice over every thing, completed the
_regeneration_. But, above all, the loosening of those ties which bound
kindred and families, in one common interest, to uphold their race and
name;—the extinction of that spirit of chivalry which sustained those
ties;—and the common prostitution of the heraldic honours of
antiquity;—have steeled the human mind against the lofty and noble
pretensions of birth and rank; and while we superficially decry the
principles of _equality_, we are travelling toward them, by the shortest
and most dangerous road degeneracy and meanness can point out.
I confess myself to be a determined enemy to the Utopian vision of
political and social equality: in the exercise of justice alone should
the principle of equality be paramount; in any other sense, it never
did, and never can, for any length of time, exist in Europe.
Miss Edgeworth’s “Castle Rackrent” and “Fashionable Tales” are
incomparable in truly depicting several traits of the rather modern
Irish character: they are perhaps on one point a little overcharged;
but, in some parts, may be said to exceed the generality of Lady
Morgan’s Irish novels. Fiction is less perceptible in them: they have a
greater air of reality—of what I have myself often and often observed
and noted in full progress and actual execution throughout my native
country. Nothing is exaggerated: the stories and names are coined, but
the characters and incidents are “from _life_.” The landlord, the agent,
and the attorney of “Castle Rackrent” (in fact every person it
describes) were neither fictitious nor even uncommon characters: and the
changes of landed property in the county where I was born (where perhaps
they have prevailed to the full as widely as in any other of the united
empire) owed, in nine cases out of ten, their origin, progress, and
catastrophe to circumstances in no wise differing from those so
accurately painted in Miss Edgeworth’s narrative.
Though moderate fortunes have frequently and fairly been realised by
agents, yet, to be on the sure side of comfort and security, a country
gentleman who wishes to send down his estate in tolerably good order to
his family should always be _his own receiver_, and compromise any claim
rather than employ an attorney to arrange it.
I recollect to have seen in Queen’s County a Mr. Clerk, who had been a
working carpenter, and when making a bench for the session justices at
the court-house, was laughed at for taking peculiar pains in planing and
smoothing the seat of it. He smilingly observed, that he did so to make
it _easy for himself_, as he was resolved he would never die till he had
a right to sit thereupon: and he kept his word:—he was an industrious
man, and became an agent; honest, respectable, and kind-hearted, he
succeeded in all his efforts to accumulate an independence: he did
accumulate it, and uprightly: his character kept pace with the increase
of his property, and he lived to sit as a magistrate on that very bench
that he sawed and planed.
I will not quit the subject without saying a word about another of Lady
Morgan’s works—“Florence Macarthy,” which, “errors excepted,” possesses
an immensity of talent in the delineation of the genuine Irish
character. The judges, though no one can mistake them, are totally
caricatured; but the Crawleys are _superlative_, and suffice to bring
before my vision, in their full colouring, and almost without a
variation, persons and incidents whom and which I have many a time
encountered. Nothing is _exaggerated_ as to _them_; and Crawley himself
is the perfect and plain model of the combined agent, attorney, and
magistrate—a sort of mongrel functionary whose existence I have
repeatedly reprobated, and whom I pronounce to be at this moment the
greatest nuisance and mischief experienced by my unfortunate country,
and only to be abated by the residence of the great landlords on their
estates. No people under heaven could be so easily tranquillised and
governed as the Irish: but that desirable end is alone attainable by the
personal endeavours of a liberal, humane, and resident aristocracy.
A third writer on Ireland I allude to with more pride on some points,
and with less pleasure on others; because, though dubbed “The bard of
Ireland,” I have not yet seen many literary productions of his on
national subjects that have afforded me unalloyed gratification.
He must not be displeased with the observations of perhaps a truer
friend than those who have led him to forget himself. His “Captain Rock”
(though, I doubt not, well intended), coming at the time it did and
under the sanction of his name, is the most exceptionable publication,
in all its bearings as to Ireland, that I have yet seen. Doctor Beattie
says, in his _Apology for Religion_, “if it does no good, it can do no
harm:” but, on the contrary, if “Captain Rock” does no harm, it could
certainly do no good.
Had it been addressed to, or calculated for, the better orders, the book
would have been less noxious: but it is _not_ calculated to instruct
those whose influence, example, or residence could either amend or
reform the abuses which the author certainly exaggerates. It is _not_
calculated to remedy the great and true cause of Irish ruin—the
absenteeism of the great landed proprietors: so much the reverse, it is
directly adapted to increase and confirm the real grievance, by scaring
every landlord who retains a sense of personal danger, and I know none
of them who are exempt from _abundance_ of it, from returning to a
country where “Captain Rock” is _proclaimed_ by the “Bard of Ireland” to
be an _Immortal Sovereign_. The work is, in fact, _dangerous_: it is an
effusion of _party_, not a remonstrance of _patriotism_. It is a work
better fitted for vulgar _éclat_ than for rational approbation. Its
effects were not calculated on; and it appears to me, in itself, to
offer one of the strongest arguments against bestowing on the lower
orders in Ireland the power of reading. Could reading _Captain Rock_ be
of service to the peasantry?
Perhaps I write warmly myself.[27] I write not however for distracted
cottagers, but for proprietors and legislators; and I have endeavoured
honestly to express my unalterable conviction that it is by encouraging,
conciliating, reattaching, and recalling the higher, and not by
confusing and inflaming the lower orders of society, that Ireland can be
eventually tranquillised.
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Footnote 27:
In my Memoirs of Ireland.
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Most undoubtedly Mr. Thomas Moore and Lady Morgan are among the most
distinguished modern writers of our country: indeed, I know of none
(except Miss Edgeworth) who has at present a right to be named with
either.
But I can never repeat too often that I am _not_ a literary _critic_,
although I choose to speak my mind strongly and freely. I hope neither
my friend Moore nor her ladyship will be displeased at my stating thus
candidly my opinion of their _public_ merits: they would perhaps scout
me as an adulator were I to tell them what I thought of their _private_
ones. I dare say some of the periodical writers will announce, that my
telling the world I am a very inefficient critic is mere work of
_supererogation_: at any rate, it must be owned that making the
confession in advance is to the full as creditable as leaving the thing
to be stated for me.
In my rambling estimate of the merits of these two justly celebrated
authors, let me bear in mind that they are of different sexes, and
recollect the peculiar attributes of either.
Both of them are alike unsparing in their use of the bold language of
liberty: but Lady Morgan has improved her ideas of freedom by
_contrasts_ on the European continent; while Thomas Moore has _not_
improved his by the _exemplification_ of freedom in America. Lady Morgan
has succeeded in adulterating her refinement; Thomas Moore has
unsuccessfully endeavoured to refine his grossness: she has abundant
_talent_; he has abundant _genius_; and whatsoever distinction those
terms admit of, indicates, in my mind, their _relative_ merit. This
allowance, however, must be made; that the lady has contented herself
with invoking only substantial beings and things of this sublunary
world, while the gentleman has ransacked both heaven and hell, and “the
half-way house,” for figurative assistance.
I knew them both before they had acquired any celebrity and after they
had attained to much. I esteemed them then, and have reason equally to
esteem them now: it is on their own account that I wish some portion of
their compositions had never appeared; and I really believe, upon due
consideration, they will themselves be of my way of thinking. But let it
be remembered, that my esteem and friendship were never yet increased or
diminished by the success or non-success of any body. Besides, while a
man is necessitated to read much _law_, he cannot read much literature;
and hence I scarcely saw the writings of either until the general buzz
called my attention to them.
I recollect Moore being one night at my house in Merrion Square, during
the spring of his celebrity, touching the piano-forte, in his own unique
way, to “Rosa,” his favourite amatory sonnet: his head leant back;—now
throwing up his ecstatic eyes to heaven, as if to invoke refinement—then
casting them softly sideways, and breathing out his chromatics to
elevate, as the ladies said, their souls above the world, but at the
same moment convincing them that they were completely _mortal_.
A Mrs. K * * * y, a lady then _d’âge mûr_, but moving in the best
society of Ireland, sat on a chair behind Moore: I watched her profile:
her lips quavered in unison with the piano; a sort of amiable
convulsion, now and then raising the upper from the under lip, composed
a smile less pleasing than expressive; her eye softened, glazed,—and
half melting she whispered to herself the following words, which I,
standing at the back of her chair, could not avoid hearing: “Dear,
dear!” lisped Mrs. K * * * y, “Moore, this is not _for the good of my
soul_!”
Almost involuntarily, I ejaculated in the same low tone, “_What_ is not,
Mrs. K * * * y?”
“You know well enough!” she replied (but without blushing, as people
used to do formerly); “how can you ask so silly a question?” and she
turned into the crowd, but never came near the piano again that night.
I greatly admire the national, indeed patriotic idea, of collecting and
publishing the Irish Melodies, so admirably acted on by Mr. T. Moore;
and it were to be wished that some of them had the appearance of having
been written more _enthusiastically_.[28]
Sir John Stevenson, that celebrated warbler, has melodised a good many
of these; but he certainly has forgotten poor Carolan, and has also
_melo-dramatised_ a considerable portion. I think our rants and
planxties would have answered just as well without either symphonies or
chromatics, and that the plaintive national music of Ireland does not
reach the heart a moment the sooner for passing through a crowd of
scientific variations. Tawdry and modern upholstery would not be very
appropriate to the ancient tower of an Irish chieftain; and some of Sir
John’s proceedings in melodising simplicity, remind me of the Rev.
Doctor Hare, who whitewashed the great rock of Cashell to give it a
_genteel_ appearance against the visitation.
As I do not attempt (I ought to say _presume_) to be a literary, so am I
still less a _musical_ critic: but I know what pleases myself, and in
_that_ species of criticism I cannot be expected to yield to any body.
As to my own authorship, I had business more important than writing
books in my early life: but now, in my old days, it is my greatest
amusement, and nothing would give me more satisfaction than hearing the
free and fair remarks of the critics on my _productions_.
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Footnote 28:
I allude to the public trial as to copyright, by Mr. Power, when it
was stated that Mr. Moore wrote the Melodies for _so much a year_.
They are certainly very unequal.
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I cannot omit one word more, in conclusion, as to Lady Morgan. It is to
me delightful to see a woman, solely by the force of her own natural
talent, succeed triumphantly in the line of letters she has adopted, and
in despite of the most virulent, illiberal, and unjust attacks ever yet
made on any author by mercenary reviewers.