DEPARTURE FROM HORNCASTLE--RECRUITING SERGEANT--KAULOES AND LOLLOES.
Leaving Horncastle, I bent my steps in the direction of the east. I
walked at a brisk rate, and late in the evening reached a large town,
situate at the entrance of an extensive firth, or arm of the sea, which
prevented my farther progress eastward. Sleeping that night in the
suburbs of the town, I departed early next morning in the direction of
the south. A walk of about twenty miles brought me to another large
town, situated on a river, where I again turned towards the east. At the
end of the town I was accosted by a fiery-faced individual, somewhat
under the middle size, dressed as a recruiting sergeant.
"Young man," said the recruiting sergeant, "you are just the kind of
person to serve the Honourable East India Company."
"I had rather the Honourable Company should serve me," said I.
"Of course, young man. Well, the Honourable East India Company shall
serve you--that's reasonable. Here, take this shilling; 'tis service-
money. The Honourable Company engages to serve you, and you the
Honourable Company; both parties shall be thus served; that's just and
reasonable."
"And what must I do for the Company?"
"Only go to India; that's all."
"And what should I do in India?"
"Fight, my brave boy! fight, my youthful hero!"
"What kind of country is India?"
"The finest country in the world! Rivers, bigger than the Ouse. Hills,
higher than anything near Spalding! Trees--you never saw such trees!
Fruits--you never saw such fruits!"
"And the people--what kind of folk are they?"
"Pah! Kauloes--blacks--a set of rascals not worth regarding."
"Kauloes!" said I; "blacks!"
"Yes," said the recruiting sergeant; "and they call us lolloes, which, in
their beastly gibberish, means reds."
"Lolloes!" said I; "reds!"
"Yes," said the recruiting sergeant, "kauloes and lolloes; and all the
lolloes have to do is to kick and cut down the kauloes, and take from
them their rupees, which mean silver money. Why do you stare so?"
"Why," said I, "this is the very language of Mr. Petulengro."
"Mr. Pet . . .?"
"Yes," said I, "and Tawno Chikno."
"Tawno Chik . . .? I say, young fellow, I don't like your way of
speaking; no, nor your way of looking. You are mad, sir; you are mad;
and what's this? Why, your hair is grey! You won't do for the
Honourable Company--they like red. I'm glad I didn't give you the
shilling. Good day to you."
"I shouldn't wonder," said I, as I proceeded rapidly along a broad
causeway, in the direction of the east, "if Mr. Petulengro and Tawno
Chikno came originally from India. I think I'll go there."
APPENDIX.
CHAPTER I. A WORD FOR LAVENGRO.
Lavengro is the history up to a certain period of one of rather a
peculiar mind and system of nerves, with an exterior shy and cold, under
which lurk much curiosity, especially with regard to what is wild and
extraordinary, a considerable quantity of energy and industry, and an
unconquerable love of independence. It narrates his earliest dreams and
feelings, dwells with minuteness on the ways, words, and characters of
his father, mother, and brother, lingers on the occasional resting-places
of his wandering, half-military childhood, describes the gradual
hardening of his bodily frame by robust exercises, his successive
struggles, after his family and himself have settled down in a small
local capital, to obtain knowledge of every kind, but more particularly
philological lore; his visits to the tent of the Romany chal, and the
parlour of the Anglo-German philosopher; the effect produced upon his
character by his flinging himself into contact with people all widely
differing from each other, but all extraordinary; his reluctance to
settle down to the ordinary pursuits of life; his struggles after moral
truth; his glimpses of God and the obscuration of the Divine Being to his
mind's eye; and his being cast upon the world of London by the death of
his father, at the age of nineteen. In the world within a world, the
world of London, it shows him playing his part for some time as he best
can, in the capacity of a writer for reviews and magazines, and describes
what he saw and underwent whilst labouring in that capacity; it
represents him, however, as never forgetting that he is the son of a
brave but poor gentleman, and that if he is a hack author, he is likewise
a scholar. It shows him doing no dishonourable jobs, and proves that if
he occasionally associates with low characters, he does so chiefly to
gratify the curiosity of a scholar.
In his conversations with the apple-woman of London Bridge, the scholar
is ever apparent, so again in his acquaintance with the man of the table,
for the book is no raker up of the uncleanness of London, and if it gives
what at first sight appears refuse, it invariably shows that a pearl of
some kind, generally a philological one, is contained amongst it; it
shows its hero always accompanied by his love of independence, scorning
in the greatest poverty to receive favours from anybody, and describes
him finally rescuing himself from peculiarly miserable circumstances by
writing a book, an original book, within a week, even as Johnson is said
to have written his "Rasselas," and Beckford his "Vathek," and tells how,
leaving London, he betakes himself to the roads and fields.
In the country it shows him leading a life of roving adventure, becoming
tinker, gypsy, postillion, ostler; associating with various kinds of
people, chiefly of the lower classes, whose ways and habits are
described; but, though leading this erratic life, we gather from the book
that his habits are neither vulgar nor vicious, that he still follows to
a certain extent his favourite pursuits, hunting after strange
characters, or analysing strange words and names. At the conclusion of
Chapter XLVII., which terminates the first part of the history, it hints
that he is about to quit his native land on a grand philological
expedition.
Those who read this book with attention--and the author begs to observe
that it would be of little utility to read it hurriedly--may derive much
information with respect to matters of philology and literature; it will
be found treating of most of the principal languages from Ireland to
China, and of the literature which they contain; and it is particularly
minute with regard to the ways, manners, and speech of the English
section of the most extraordinary and mysterious clan or tribe of people
to be found in the whole world--the children of Roma. But it contains
matters of much more importance than anything in connection with
philology, and the literature and manners of nations. Perhaps no work
was ever offered to the public in which the kindness and providence of
God have been set forth by more striking examples, or the machinations of
priestcraft been more truly and lucidly exposed, or the dangers which
result to a nation when it abandons itself to effeminacy, and a rage for
what is novel and fashionable, than the present.
With respect to the kindness and providence of God, are they not
exemplified in the case of the old apple-woman and her son. These are
beings in many points bad, but with warm affections, who, after an
agonising separation, are restored to each other, but not until the
hearts of both are changed and purified by the influence of affliction.
Are they not exemplified in the case of the rich gentleman, who touches
objects in order to avert the evil chance? This being has great gifts
and many amiable qualities, but does not everybody see that his besetting
sin is selfishness. He fixes his mind on certain objects, and takes
inordinate interest in them, because they are his own, and those very
objects, through the providence of God, which is kindness in disguise,
become snakes and scorpions to whip him. Tired of various pursuits, he
at last becomes an author, and publishes a book, which is very much
admired, and which he loves with his usual inordinate affection; the
book, consequently, becomes a viper to him, and at last he flings it
aside and begins another; the book, however, is not flung aside by the
world, who are benefited by it, deriving pleasure and knowledge from it;
so the man who merely wrote to gratify self, has already done good to
others, and got himself an honourable name. But God will not allow that
man to put that book under his head and use it as a pillow: the book has
become a viper to him, he has banished it, and is about another, which he
finishes and gives to the world; it is a better book than the first, and
every one is delighted with it; but it proves to the writer a scorpion,
because he loves it with inordinate affection; but it was good for the
world that he produced this book, which stung him as a scorpion. Yes;
and good for himself, for the labour of writing it amused him, and
perhaps prevented him from dying of apoplexy; but the book is banished,
and another is begun, and herein, again, is the providence of God
manifested; the man has the power of producing still, and God determines
that he shall give to the world what remains in his brain, which he would
not do, had he been satisfied with the second work; he would have gone to
sleep upon that as he would upon the first, for the man is selfish and
lazy. In his account of what he suffered during the composition of this
work, his besetting sin of selfishness is manifest enough; the work on
which he is engaged occupies his every thought, it is his idol, his
deity, it shall be all his own, he won't borrow a thought from any one
else; and he is so afraid lest, when he publishes it, that it should be
thought that he had borrowed from any one, that he is continually
touching objects, his nervous system, owing to his extreme selfishness,
having become partly deranged. He is left touching, in order to banish
the evil chance from his book, his deity. No more of his history is
given; but does the reader think that God will permit that man to go to
sleep on his third book, however extraordinary it may be? Assuredly not.
God will not permit that man to rest till he has cured him to a certain
extent of his selfishness, which has, however, hitherto been very useful
to the world.
Then, again, in the tale of Peter Williams, is not the hand of Providence
to be seen? This person commits a sin in his childhood, utters words of
blasphemy, the remembrance of which, in after life, preying upon his
imagination, unfits him for quiet pursuits, to which he seems to have
been naturally inclined; but for the remembrance of that sin, he would
have been Peter Williams the quiet, respectable Welsh farmer, somewhat
fond of reading the ancient literature of his country in winter evenings,
after his work was done. God, however, was aware that there was
something in Peter Williams to entitle him to assume a higher calling; he
therefore permits this sin, which, though a childish affair, was yet a
sin and committed deliberately, to prey upon his mind till he becomes at
last an instrument in the hand of God, a humble Paul, the great preacher,
Peter Williams, who, though he considers himself a reprobate and a
castaway, instead of having recourse to drinking in mad desperation, as
many do who consider themselves reprobates, goes about Wales and England
preaching the word of God, dilating on His power and majesty, and
visiting the sick and afflicted, until God sees fit to restore to him his
peace of mind; which He does not do, however, until that mind is in a
proper condition to receive peace, till it has been purified by the pain
of the one idea which has so long been permitted to riot in his brain;
which pain, however, an angel, in the shape of a gentle, faithful wife,
had occasionally alleviated; for God is merciful even in the blows which
He bestoweth, and will not permit any one to be tempted beyond the
measure which he can support. And here it will be as well for the reader
to ponder upon the means by which the Welsh preacher is relieved from his
mental misery: he is not relieved by a text from the Bible, by the words
of consolation and wisdom addressed to him by his angel-minded wife, nor
by the preaching of one yet more eloquent than himself; but by a
quotation made by Lavengro from the life of Mary Flanders, cut-purse and
prostitute, which life Lavengro had been in the habit of reading at the
stall of his old friend the apple-woman, on London Bridge, who had
herself been very much addicted to the perusal of it, though without any
profit whatever. Should the reader be dissatisfied with the manner in
which Peter Williams is made to find relief, the author would wish to
answer, that the Almighty frequently accomplishes His purposes by means
which appear very singular to the eyes of men, and at the same time to
observe that the manner in which that relief is obtained, is calculated
to read a lesson to the proud, fanciful, and squeamish, who are ever in a
fidget lest they should be thought to mix in low society, or to bestow a
moment's attention on publications which are not what is called of a
perfectly unobjectionable character. Had not Lavengro formed the
acquaintance of the old apple-woman on London Bridge, he would not have
had an opportunity of reading the life of Mary Flanders; and,
consequently, of storing in a memory which never forgets anything, a
passage which contained a balm for the agonised mind of poor Peter
Williams. The best medicines are not always found in the finest shops.
Suppose, for example, if, instead of going to London Bridge to read, he
had gone to Albemarle Street, and had received from the proprietors of
the literary establishment in that very fashionable street permission to
read the publications on the tables of the saloons there, does the reader
think he would have met any balm in those publications for the case of
Peter Williams? does the reader suppose that he would have found Mary
Flanders there? He would certainly have found that highly
unobjectionable publication, "Rasselas," and the "Spectator," or "Lives
of Royal and Illustrious Personages," but, of a surety, no Mary Flanders;
so when Lavengro met with Peter Williams, he would have been unprovided
with a balm to cure his ulcerated mind, and have parted from him in a way
not quite so satisfactory as the manner in which he took his leave of
him; for it is certain that he might have read "Rasselas," and all the
other unexceptionable works to be found in the library of Albemarle
Street, over and over again, before he would have found any cure in them
for the case of Peter Williams. Therefore the author requests the reader
to drop any squeamish nonsense he may wish to utter about Mary Flanders,
and the manner in which Peter Williams was cured.
And now with respect to the old man who knew Chinese, but could not tell
what was o'clock. This individual was a man whose natural powers would
have been utterly buried and lost beneath a mountain of sloth and
laziness, had not God determined otherwise. He had in his early years
chalked out for himself a plan of life in which he had his own ease and
self-indulgence solely in view; he had no particular bad passions to
gratify, he only wished to lead an easy, quiet life, just as if the
business of this mighty world could be carried on by innocent people fond
of ease and quiet, or that Providence would permit innocent, quiet drones
to occupy any portion of the earth and to cumber it. God had at any rate
decreed that this man should not cumber it as a drone. He brings a
certain affliction upon him, the agony of which produces that terrible
whirling of the brain which, unless it is stopped in time, produces
madness; he suffers indescribable misery for a period, until one morning
his attention is arrested, and his curiosity is aroused, by certain
Chinese letters on a teapot; his curiosity increases more and more, and,
of course, in proportion as his curiosity is increased with respect to
the Chinese marks, the misery in his brain, produced by his mental
affliction, decreases. He sets about learning Chinese, and after the
lapse of many years, during which his mind subsides into a certain state
of tranquillity, he acquires sufficient knowledge of Chinese to be able
to translate with ease the inscriptions to be found on its singular
crockery. Yes, the laziest of human beings, through the providence of
God, a being too of rather inferior capacity, acquires the written part
of a language so difficult that, as Lavengro said on a former occasion,
none but the cleverest people in Europe, the French, are able to acquire
it. But God did not intend that man should merely acquire Chinese. He
intended that he should be of use to his species, and by the
instrumentality of the first Chinese inscription which he translates, the
one which first arrested his curiosity, he is taught the duties of
hospitality; yes, by means of an inscription in the language of a people
who have scarcely an idea of hospitality themselves, God causes the
slothful man to play a useful and beneficent part in the world, relieving
distressed wanderers, and, amongst others, Lavengro himself. But a
striking indication of the man's surprising sloth is still apparent in
what he omits to do; he has learnt Chinese, the most difficult of
languages, and he practises acts of hospitality, because he believes
himself enjoined to do so by the Chinese inscription, but he cannot tell
the hour of the day by the clock within his house; he can get on, he
thinks, very well without being able to do so; therefore, from this one
omission, it is easy to come to a conclusion as to what a sluggard's part
the man would have played in life, but for the dispensation of
Providence; nothing but extreme agony could have induced such a man to do
anything useful. He still continues, with all he has acquired, with all
his usefulness, and with all his innocence of character, without any
proper sense of religion, though he has attained a rather advanced age.
If it be observed that this want of religion is a great defect in the
story, the author begs leave to observe that he cannot help it. Lavengro
relates the lives of people so far as they were placed before him, but no
farther. It was certainly a great defect in so good a man to be without
religion; it was likewise a great defect in so learned a man not to be
able to tell what was o'clock. It is probable that God, in his loving
kindness, will not permit that man to go out of the world without
religion; who knows but some powerful minister of the Church, full of
zeal for the glory of God, will illume that man's dark mind; perhaps some
clergyman will come to the parish who will visit him and teach him his
duty to his God. Yes, it is very probable that such a man, before he
dies, will have been made to love his God; whether he will ever learn to
know what's o'clock, is another matter. It is probable that he will go
out of the world without knowing what's o'clock. It is not so necessary
to be able to tell the time of day by the clock as to know one's God
through his inspired word; a man cannot get to heaven without religion,
but a man can get there very comfortably without knowing what's o'clock.
But, above all, the care and providence of God are manifested in the case
of Lavengro himself, by the manner in which he is enabled to make his way
in the world up to a certain period, without falling a prey either to
vice or poverty. In his history there is a wonderful illustration of
part of the text quoted by his mother, "I have been young, and now am
old, yet never saw I the righteous forsaken, or his seed begging bread."
He is the son of good and honourable parents, but at the critical period
of life, that of entering into the world, he finds himself without any
earthly friend to help him, yet he manages to make his way; he does not
become a Captain in the Life Guards, it is true, nor does he get into
Parliament, nor does the last chapter conclude in the most satisfactory
and unobjectionable manner, by his marrying a dowager countess, as that
wise man Addison did, or by his settling down as a great country
gentleman, perfectly happy and contented, like the very moral Roderick
Random, or the equally estimable Peregrine Pickle; he is hack author,
gypsy, tinker, and postillion, yet, upon the whole, he seems to be quite
as happy as the younger sons of most earls, to have as high feelings of
honour; and when the reader loses sight of him, he has money in his
pocket honestly acquired, to enable him to commence a journey quite as
laudable as those which the younger sons of earls generally undertake.
Surely all this is a manifestation of the kindness and providence of God:
and yet he is not a religious person; up to the time when the reader
loses sight of him, he is decidedly not a religious person; he has
glimpses, it is true, of that God who does not forsake him, but he prays
very seldom, is not fond of going to church; and, though he admires Tate
and Brady's version of the Psalms, his admiration is rather caused by the
beautiful poetry which that version contains than the religion; yet his
tale is not finished--like the tale of the gentleman who touched objects,
and that of the old man who knew Chinese without knowing what was
o'clock; perhaps, like them, he is destined to become religious, and to
have, instead of occasional glimpses, frequent and distinct views of his
God; yet, though he may become religious, it is hardly to be expected
that he will become a very precise and strait-laced person; it is
probable that he will retain, with his scholarship, something of his
gypsyism, his predilection for the hammer and tongs, and perhaps some
inclination to put on certain gloves, not white kid, with any friend who
may be inclined for a little old English diversion, and a readiness to
take a glass of ale, with plenty of malt in it, and as little hop as may
well be--ale at least two years old--with the aforesaid friend, when the
diversion is over; for, as it is the belief of the writer that a person
may get to heaven very comfortably without knowing what's o'clock, so it
is his belief that he will not be refused admission there because to the
last he has been fond of healthy and invigorating exercises, and felt a
willingness to partake of any of the good things which it pleases the
Almighty to put within the reach of His children during their sojourn
upon earth.
CHAPTER II. ON PRIESTCRAFT.
The writer will now say a few words about priestcraft, and the
machinations of Rome, and will afterwards say something about himself,
and his motives for writing against them.
With respect to Rome and her machinations, much valuable information can
be obtained from particular parts of Lavengro and its sequel. Shortly
before the time when the hero of the book is launched into the world, the
Popish agitation in England had commenced. The Popish propaganda had
determined to make a grand attempt on England; Popish priests were
scattered over the land, doing the best they could to make converts to
the old superstition. With the plans of Rome, and her hopes, and the
reasons on which those hopes are grounded, the hero of the book becomes
acquainted during an expedition which he makes into the country, from
certain conversations which he holds with a priest in a dingle, in which
the hero had taken up his residence; he likewise learns from the same
person much of the secret history of the Roman See, and many matters
connected with the origin and progress of the Popish superstition. The
individual with whom he holds these conversations is a learned,
intelligent, but highly-unprincipled person, of a character however very
common amongst the priests of Rome, who in general are people void of all
religion, and who, notwithstanding they are tied to Rome by a band which
they have neither the power nor wish to break, turn her and her
practices, over their cups with their confidential associates, to a
ridicule only exceeded by that to which they turn those who become the
dupes of their mistress and themselves.
It is now necessary that the writer should say something with respect to
himself, and his motives for waging war against Rome. First of all, with
respect to himself, he wishes to state, that to the very last moment of
his life, he will do and say all that in his power may be to hold up to
contempt and execration the priestcraft and practices of Rome; there is,
perhaps, no person better acquainted than himself, not even among the
choicest spirits of the priesthood, with the origin and history of
Popery. From what he saw and heard of Popery in England, at a very early
period of his life, his curiosity was aroused, and he spared himself no
trouble, either by travel or study, to make himself well acquainted with
it in all its phases, the result being a hatred of it, which he hopes and
trusts he shall retain till the moment when his spirit quits the body.
Popery is the great lie of the world; a source from which more misery and
social degradation have flowed upon the human race, than from all the
other sources from which those evils come. It is the oldest of all
superstitions; and though in Europe it assumes the name of Christianity,
it existed and flourished amidst the Himalayan hills at least two
thousand years before the real Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judaea; in
a word, it is Buddhism; and let those who may be disposed to doubt this
assertion, compare the Popery of Rome, and the superstitious practices of
its followers, with the doings of the priests who surround the grand
Lama; and the mouthings, bellowing, turnings round, and, above all, the
penances of the followers of Buddh with those of Roman devotees. But he
is not going to dwell here on this point; it is dwelt upon at tolerable
length in the text, and has likewise been handled with extraordinary
power by the pen of the gifted but irreligious Volney; moreover, the
_elite_ of the Roman priesthood are perfectly well aware that their
system is nothing but Buddhism under a slight disguise, and the European
world in general has entertained for some time past an inkling of the
fact.
And now a few words with respect to the motives of the writer for
expressing a hatred for Rome.
This expressed abhorrence of the author for Rome might be entitled to
little regard, provided it were possible to attribute it to any
self-interested motive. There have been professed enemies of Rome, or of
this or that system; but their professed enmity may frequently be traced
to some cause which does them little credit; but the writer of these
lines has no motive, and can have no motive, for his enmity to Rome, save
the abhorrence of an honest heart for what is false, base, and cruel. A
certain clergyman wrote with much heat against the Papists in the time of
. . ., who was known to favour the Papists, but was not expected to
continue long in office, and whose supposed successor, the person,
indeed, who did succeed him, was thought to be hostile to the Papists.
This divine, who obtained a rich benefice from the successor of . . .,
who during . . .'s time had always opposed him in everything he proposed
to do, and who, of course, during that time, affected to be very inimical
to Popery--this divine might well be suspected of having a motive equally
creditable for writing against the Papists, as that which induced him to
write for them, as soon as his patron, who eventually did something more
for him, had espoused their cause; but what motive, save an honest one,
can the present writer have for expressing an abhorrence of Popery? He
is no clergyman, and consequently can expect neither benefices nor
bishoprics, supposing it were the fashion of the present, or likely to be
the fashion of any future administration, to reward clergymen with
benefices or bishoprics, who, in the defence of the religion of their
country, write, or shall write, against Popery, and not to reward those
who write, or shall write, in favour of it and all its nonsense and
abominations.
"But if not a clergyman, he is the servant of a certain society, which
has the overthrow of Popery in view, and therefore," etc. This
assertion, which has been frequently made, is incorrect, even as those
who have made it probably knew it to be. He is the servant of no society
whatever. He eats his own bread, and is one of the very few men in
England who are independent in every sense of the word.
It is true he went to Spain with the colours of that society on his
hat--oh! the blood glows in his veins! oh! the marrow awakes in his old
bones when he thinks of what he accomplished in Spain in the cause of
religion and civilisation with the colours of that society on his hat,
and its weapon in his hand, even the sword of the word of God; how with
that weapon he hewed left and right, making the priests fly before him,
and run away squeaking: "Vaya! que demonio es este!" Ay, and when he
thinks of the plenty of bible swords which he left behind him, destined
to prove, and which have already proved, pretty calthrops in the heels of
Popery. "Halloo! Batuschca," he exclaimed the other night, on reading
an article in a newspaper; "what do you think of the present doings in
Spain? Your old friend the zingaro, the gitano who rode about Spain, to
say nothing of Galicia, with the Greek Buchini behind him as his squire,
had a hand in bringing them about; there are many brave Spaniards
connected with the present movement who took bibles from his hands, and
read them and profited by them, learning from the inspired page the
duties of one man towards another, and the real value of a priesthood and
their head, who set at nought the word of God, and think only of their
own temporal interests; ay, and who learned Gitano--their own Gitano--from
the lips of the London Caloro, and also songs in the said Gitano, very
fit to dumbfounder your semi-Buddhist priests when they attempt to
bewilder people's minds with their school-logic and pseudo-ecclesiastical
nonsense, songs such as--
"Un Erajai
Sinaba chibando un sermon . . ."
--But with that society he has long since ceased to have any connection;
he bade it adieu with feelings of love and admiration more than fourteen
years ago; so, in continuing to assault Popery, no hopes of interest
founded on that society can sway his mind--interest! who, with worldly
interest in view, would ever have anything to do with that society? It
is poor, and supported, like its founder Christ, by poor people; and so
far from having political influence, it is in such disfavour, and has
ever been, with the dastardly great, to whom the government of England
has for many years past been confided, that the having borne its colours
only for a month would be sufficient to exclude any man, whatever his
talents, his learning, or his courage may be, from the slightest chance
of being permitted to serve his country either for fee or without. A
fellow who unites in himself the bankrupt trader, the broken author, or
rather book-maker, and the laughed-down single speech spouter of the
House of Commons, may look forward, always supposing that at one time he
has been a foaming radical, to the government of an important colony. Ay,
an ancient fox who has lost his tail may, provided he has a score of
radical friends, who will swear that he can bark Chinese, though Chinese
is not barked but sung, be forced upon a Chinese colony, though it is
well known that to have lost one's tail is considered by the Chinese in
general as an irreparable infamy, whilst to have been once connected with
a certain society, to which, to its honour be it said, all the radical
party are vehemently hostile, would be quite sufficient to keep any one
not only from a government, but something much less, even though he could
translate the rhymed "Sessions of Hariri," and were versed, still
retaining his tail, in the two languages in which Kien-Loung wrote his
Eulogium on Moukden, that piece which, translated by Amyot, the learned
Jesuit, won the applause of the celebrated Voltaire.
No! were the author influenced by hopes of fee or reward, he would,
instead of writing against Popery, write for it; all the trumpery
titled--he will not call them great again--would then be for him, and
their masters the radicals, with their hosts of newspapers, would be for
him, more especially if he would commence maligning the society whose
colours he had once on his hat--a society which, as the priest says in
the text, is one of the very few Protestant institutions for which the
Popish Church entertains any fear, and consequently respect, as it
respects nothing which it does not fear. The writer said that certain
"rulers" would never forgive him for having been connected with that
society; he went perhaps too far in saying "never." It is probable that
they would take him into favour on one condition, which is, that he
should turn his pen and his voice against that society; such a mark "of a
better way of thinking" would perhaps induce them to give him a
government, nearly as good as that which they gave to a certain ancient
radical fox at the intercession of his radical friends (who were bound to
keep him from the pauper's kennel), after he had promised to foam, bark,
and snarl at corruption no more; he might even entertain hopes of
succeeding, nay of superseding, the ancient creature in his government;
but even were he as badly off as he is well off he would do no such
thing. He would rather exist on crusts and water; he has often done so
and been happy; nay, he would rather starve than be a rogue--for even the
feeling of starvation is happiness compared with what he feels who knows
himself to be a rogue, provided he has any feeling at all. What is the
use of a mitre or a knighthood to a man who has betrayed his principles?
What is the use of a gilt collar, nay, even of a pair of scarlet
breeches, to a fox who has lost his tail? Oh! the horror which haunts
the mind of the fox who has lost his tail; and with reason, for his very
mate loathes him, and more especially if, like himself, she has lost her
brush. Oh! the horror which haunts the mind of the two-legged rogue who
has parted with his principles, or those which he professed--for what?
We'll suppose a government. What's the use of a government, if, the next
day after you have received it, you are obliged for very shame to scurry
off to it with the hoot of every honest man sounding in your ears?
"Lightly liar leaped and away ran."
--PIERS PLOWMAN.
But bigotry, it has been said, makes the author write against Popery; and
thorough-going bigotry, indeed, will make a person say or do anything.
But the writer is a very pretty bigot truly! Where will the public find
traces of bigotry in anything he has written? He has written against
Rome with all his heart, with all his mind, with all his soul, and with
all his strength; but as a person may be quite honest and speak and write
against Rome in like manner he may speak and write against her and be
quite free from bigotry; though it is impossible for any one but a bigot
or a bad man to write or speak in her praise; her doctrines, actions, and
machinations being what they are.
Bigotry! The author was born, and has always continued, in the wrong
church for bigotry, the quiet, unpretending Church of England; a church
which, had it been a bigoted church, and not long-suffering almost to a
fault, might with its opportunities, as the priest says in the text, have
stood in a very different position from that which it occupies at
present. No! let those who are in search of bigotry seek for it in a
church very different from the inoffensive Church of England, which never
encourages cruelty or calumny. Let them seek for it amongst the members
of the Church of Rome, and more especially amongst those who have
renegaded to it. There is nothing, however false and horrible, which a
pervert to Rome will not say for his church, and which his priests will
not encourage him in saying; and there is nothing, however horrible--the
more horrible indeed and revolting to human nature, the more eager he
would be to do it--which he will not do for it, and which his priests
will not encourage him in doing.
Of the readiness which converts to Popery exhibit to sacrifice all the
ties of blood and affection on the shrine of their newly-adopted religion
there is a curious illustration in the work of Luigi Pulci. This man,
who was born at Florence in the year 1432, and who was deeply versed in
the Bible, composed a poem, called the "Morgante Maggiore," which he
recited at the table of Lorenzo de Medici, the great patron of Italian
genius. It is a mock-heroic and religious poem, in which the legends of
knight-errantry, and of the Popish Church, are turned to unbounded
ridicule. The pretended hero of it is a converted giant, called
Morgante; though his adventures do not occupy the twentieth part of the
poem, the principal personages being Charlemagne, Orlando, and his cousin
Rinaldo of Montalban. Morgante has two brothers, both of them giants,
and, in the first canto of the poem, Morgante is represented with his
brothers as carrying on a feud with the abbot and monks of a certain
convent, built upon the confines of heathenesse; the giants being in the
habit of flinging down stones, or rather huge rocks, on the convent.
Orlando, however, who is banished from the court of Charlemagne, arriving
at the convent, undertakes to destroy them, and accordingly kills
Passamonte and Alabastro, and converts Morgante, whose mind has been
previously softened by a vision, in which the "Blessed Virgin" figures.
No sooner is he converted than, as a sign of his penitence, what does he
do, but hastens and cuts off the hands of his two brothers, saying--
"Io vo' tagliar le mani a tutti quanti
E porterolle a que' monaci santi."
And he does cut off the hands of his brethren, and carries them to the
abbot, who blesses him for so doing. Pulci here is holding up to
ridicule and execration the horrid butchery or betrayal of friends by
Popish converts, and the encouragement they receive from the priest. No
sooner is a person converted to Popery than his principal thought is how
he can bring the hands and feet of his brethren, however harmless they
may be, and different from the giants, to the "holy priests," who, if he
manages to do so, never fail to praise him, saying to the miserable
wretch, as the abbot said to Morgante:--
"Tu sarai or perfetto e vero amico
A Cristo, quanto tu gli eri nemico."
Can the English public deny the justice of Pulci's illustration, after
something which it has lately witnessed? {311} Has it not seen
equivalents for the hands and feet of brothers carried by Popish perverts
to the "holy priests," and has it not seen the manner in which the
offering has been received? Let those who are in quest of bigotry seek
for it amongst the perverts to Rome, and not amongst those who, born in
the pale of the Church of England, have always continued in it.
CHAPTER III. ON FOREIGN NONSENSE.
With respect to the third point, various lessons which the book reads to
the nation at large, and which it would be well for the nation to ponder
and profit by.
There are many species of nonsense to which the nation is much addicted,
and of which the perusal of Lavengro ought to give them a wholesome
shame. First of all, with respect to the foreign nonsense so prevalent
now in England. The hero is a scholar; but, though possessed of a great
many tongues, he affects to be neither Frenchman nor German, nor this or
that foreigner; he is one who loves his country, and the language and
literature of his country, and speaks up for each and all when there is
occasion to do so. Now what is the case with nine out of ten amongst
those of the English who study foreign languages? No sooner have they
picked up a smattering of this or that speech than they begin to abuse
their own country and everything connected with it, more especially its
language. This is particularly the case with those who call themselves
German students. It is said, and the writer believes with truth, that
when a woman falls in love with a particularly ugly fellow, she squeezes
him with ten times more zest than she would a handsome one if captivated
by him. So it is with these German students; no sooner have they taken
German in hand than there is nothing like German. Oh, the dear,
delightful German! How proud am I that it is now my own, and that its
divine literature is within my reach! And all this whilst mumbling the
most uncouth speech, and crunching the most crabbed literature in Europe.
The writer is not an exclusive admirer of everything English; he does not
advise his country-people never to go abroad, never to study foreign
languages, and he does not wish to persuade them that there is nothing
beautiful or valuable in foreign literature; he only wishes that they
would not make themselves fools with respect to foreign people, foreign
languages or reading; that if they chance to have been in Spain, and have
picked up a little Spanish, they would not affect the airs of Spaniards;
that if males they would not make Tom-fools of themselves by sticking
cigars into their mouths, dressing themselves in zamarras, and saying,
carajo! {312} and if females that they would not make zanies of
themselves by sticking cigars into their mouths, flinging mantillas over
their heads, and by saying carai, and perhaps carajo too; or if they have
been in France or Italy, and have picked up a little French or Italian,
they would not affect to be French or Italians; and particularly, after
having been a month or two in Germany, or picked up a little German in
England, they would not make themselves foolish about everything German,
as the Anglo-German in the book does--a real character, the founder of
the Anglo-German school in England, and the cleverest Englishman who ever
talked or wrote encomiastic nonsense about Germany and the Germans. Of
all infatuations connected with what is foreign, the infatuation about
everything that is German, to a certain extent prevalent in England, is
assuredly the most ridiculous. One can find something like a palliation
for people making themselves somewhat foolish about particular languages,
literatures, and people. The Spanish certainly is a noble language, and
there is something wild and captivating in the Spanish character, and its
literature contains the grand book of the world. French is a manly
language. The French are the most martial people in the world; and
French literature is admirable in many respects. Italian is a sweet
language, and of beautiful simplicity--its literature perhaps the first
in the world. The Italians!--wonderful men have sprung up in Italy.
Italy is not merely famous for painters, poets, musicians, singers, and
linguists--the greatest linguist the world ever saw, the late Cardinal
Mezzofanti, was an Italian; but it is celebrated for men--men
emphatically speaking: Columbus was an Italian, Alexander Farnese was an
Italian, so was the mightiest of the mighty, Napoleon Bonaparte;--but the
German language, German literature, and the Germans! The writer has
already stated his opinion with respect to German; he does not speak from
ignorance or prejudice; he has heard German spoken, and many other
languages. German literature! he does not speak from ignorance; he has
read that and many a literature, and he repeats . . . however, he
acknowledges that there is one fine poem in the German language, that
poem is the "Oberon"; a poem, by-the-bye, ignored by the Germans--a
speaking fact--and of course by the Anglo-Germanists. The Germans! he
has been amongst them, and amongst many other nations, and confesses that
his opinion of the Germans, as men, is a very low one. Germany, it is
true, has produced one very great man, the monk who fought the pope, and
nearly knocked him down; but this man his countrymen--a telling
fact--affect to despise, and of course the Anglo-Germanists: the father
of Anglo-Germanism was very fond of inveighing against Luther.
The madness, or rather foolery, of the English for foreign customs,
dresses, and languages, is not an affair of to-day or yesterday--it is of
very ancient date, and was very properly exposed nearly three centuries
ago by one Andrew Borde, who, under the picture of a "Naked man with a
pair of shears in one hand, and a roll of cloth in the other," {313}
inserted the following lines along with others:--
"I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here,
Musing in my mind what garment I shall weare;
For now I will weare this, and now I will weare that,
Now I will weare, I cannot tell what.
All new fashions be pleasant to mee,
I will have them, whether I thrive or thee;
What do I care if all the world me fail?
I will have a garment reach to my taile;
Then am I a minion, for I weare the new guise.
The next yeare after I hope to be wise,
Not only in wearing my gorgeous array,
For I will go to learning a whole summer's day;
I will learn Latine, Hebrew, Greek, and French,
And I will learn Dutch, sitting on my bench.
I had no peere if to myself I were true,
Because I am not so, divers times do I rue.
Yet I lacke nothing, I have all things at will
If I were wise and would hold myself still,
And meddle with no matters but to me pertaining,
But ever to be true to God and my king.
But I have such matters rowling in my pate,
That I will and do . . . I cannot tell what," etc.
CHAPTER IV. ON GENTILITY NONSENSE--ILLUSTRATIONS OF GENTILITY.
What is gentility? People in different stations in England entertain
different ideas of what is genteel, {314} but it must be something
gorgeous, glittering, or tawdry, to be considered genteel by any of them.
The beau-ideal of the English aristocracy, of course with some
exceptions, is some young fellow with an imperial title, a military
personage of course, for what is military is so particularly genteel,
with flaming epaulets, a cocked hat and a plume, a prancing charger, and
a band of fellows called generals and colonels, with flaming epaulets,
cocked hats and plumes, and prancing chargers, vapouring behind him. It
was but lately that the daughter of an English marquis was heard to say,
that the sole remaining wish of her heart--she had known misfortunes, and
was not far from fifty--was to be introduced to--whom? The Emperor of
Austria! The sole remaining wish of the heart of one who ought to have
been thinking of the grave and judgment, was to be introduced to the
miscreant who had caused the blood of noble Hungarian females to be
whipped out of their shoulders, for no other crime than devotion to their
country, and its tall and heroic sons. The middle classes--of course
there are some exceptions--admire the aristocracy, and consider them
pinks, the aristocracy who admire the Emperor of Austria, and adored the
Emperor of Russia, till he became old, ugly, and unfortunate, when their
adoration instantly terminated; for what is more ungenteel than age,
ugliness, and misfortune! The beau-ideal with those of the lower
classes, with peasants and mechanics, is some flourishing railroad
contractor: look, for example, how they worship Mr. Flamson. This person
makes his grand _debut_ in the year thirty-nine, at a public meeting in
the principal room of a country inn. He has come into the neighbourhood
with the character of a man worth a million pounds, who is to make
everybody's fortune; at this time, however, he is not worth a shilling of
his own, though he flashes about dexterously three or four thousand
pounds, part of which sum he has obtained by specious pretences, and part
from certain individuals who are his confederates. But in the year forty-
nine, he is really in possession of the fortune which he and his agents
pretended he was worth ten years before--he is worth a million pounds. By
what means has he come by them? By railroad contracts, for which he
takes care to be paid in hard cash before he attempts to perform them,
and to carry out which he makes use of the sweat and blood of wretches
who, since their organisation, have introduced crimes and language into
England to which it was previously almost a stranger--by purchasing, with
paper, shares by hundreds in the schemes to execute which he contracts,
and which are of his own devising; which shares he sells as soon as they
are at a high premium, to which they are speedily forced by means of
paragraphs, inserted by himself and agents, in newspapers devoted to his
interest, utterly reckless of the terrible depreciation to which they are
almost instantly subjected. But he is worth a million pounds, there can
be no doubt of the fact--he has not made people's fortunes, at least
those whose fortunes it was said he would make; he has made them away:
but his own he has made, emphatically made it; he is worth a million
pounds. Hurrah for the millionaire! The clown who views the pandemonium
of red brick which he has built on the estate which he has purchased in
the neighbourhood of the place of his grand _debut_, in which every
species of architecture, Greek, Indian, and Chinese, is employed in
caricature--who hears of the grand entertainment he gives at Christmas in
the principal dining-room, the hundred wax-candles, the waggon-load of
plate, and the oceans of wine which form parts of it, and above all the
two ostrich poults, one at the head, and the other at the foot of the
table, exclaims, "Well! if he a'n't bang up, I don't know who be; why, he
beats my lord hollow!" The mechanic of the borough town, who sees him
dashing through the streets in an open landau, drawn by four milk-white
horses, amidst its attendant outriders; his wife, a monster of a woman,
by his side, stout as the wife of Tamerlane, who weighed twenty stone,
and bedizened out like her whose person shone with the jewels of
plundered Persia, stares with silent wonder, and at last exclaims,
"That's the man for my vote!" You tell the clown that the man of the
mansion has contributed enormously to corrupt the rural innocence of
England; you point to an incipient branch railroad, from around which the
accents of Gomorrah are sounding, and beg him to listen for a moment, and
then close his ears. Hodge scratches his head and says, "Well, I have
nothing to say to that; all I know is, that he is bang up, and I wish I
were he;" perhaps he will add--a Hodge has been known to add--"He has
been kind enough to put my son on that very railroad; 'tis true the
company is somewhat queer and the work rather killing, but he gets there
half-a-crown a day, whereas from the farmers he would only get eighteen-
pence." You remind the mechanic that the man in the landau has been the
ruin of thousands, and you mention people whom he himself knows, people
in various grades of life, widows and orphans amongst them, whose little
all he has dissipated, and whom he has reduced to beggary by inducing
them to become sharers in his delusive schemes. But the mechanic says,
"Well, the more fools they to let themselves be robbed. But I don't call
that kind of thing robbery, I merely call it outwitting; and everybody in
this free country has a right to outwit others if he can. What a turn-
out he has!" One was once heard to add, "I never saw a more
genteel-looking man in all my life except one, and that was a gentleman's
walley, who was much like him. It is true he is rather undersized, but
then madam, you know, makes up for all."
CHAPTER V. SUBJECT OF GENTILITY CONTINUED.
In the last chapter have been exhibited specimens of gentility, so
considered by different classes; by one class, power, youth, and epaulets
are considered the _ne plus ultra_ of gentility; by another class, pride,
stateliness, and title; by another, wealth and flaming tawdriness. But
what constitutes a gentleman? It is easy to say at once what constitutes
a gentleman, and there are no distinctions in what is gentlemanly, {316}
as there are in what is genteel. The characteristics of a gentleman are
high feeling--a determination never to take a cowardly advantage of
another--a liberal education--absence of narrow views--generosity and
courage, propriety of behaviour. Now a person may be genteel according
to one or another of the three standards described above, and not possess
one of the characteristics of a gentleman. Is the emperor a gentleman,
with spatters of blood on his clothes, scourged from the backs of noble
Hungarian women? Are the aristocracy gentlefolks, who admire him? Is
Mr. Flamson a gentleman, although he has a million pounds? No! cowardly
miscreants, admirers of cowardly miscreants, and people who make a
million pounds by means compared with which those employed to make
fortunes by the getters up of the South Sea Bubble might be called honest
dealing, are decidedly not gentlefolks. Now as it is clearly
demonstrable that a person may be perfectly genteel according to some
standard or other, and yet be no gentleman, so is it demonstrable that a
person may have no pretensions to gentility, and yet be a gentleman. For
example, there is Lavengro! Would the admirers of the emperor, or the
admirers of those who admire the emperor, or the admirers of Mr. Flamson,
call him genteel? and gentility with them is everything! Assuredly they
would not; and assuredly they would consider him respectively as a being
to be shunned, despised, or hooted. Genteel! Why, at one time he is a
hack author--writes reviewals for eighteen-pence a page--edits a Newgate
chronicle. At another he wanders the country with a face grimy from
occasionally mending kettles; and there is no evidence that his clothes
are not seedy and torn, and his shoes down at the heel; but by what
process of reasoning will they prove that he is no gentleman? Is he not
learned? Has he not generosity and courage? Whilst a hack author, does
he pawn the books entrusted to him to review? Does he break his word to
his publisher? Does he write begging letters? Does he get clothes or
lodgings without paying for them? Again, whilst a wanderer, does he
insult helpless women on the road with loose proposals or ribald
discourse? Does he take what is not his own from the hedges? Does he
play on the fiddle, or make faces in public-houses, in order to obtain
pence or beer? or does he call for liquor, swallow it, and then say to a
widowed landlady, "Mistress, I have no brass"? In a word, what vice and
crime does he perpetrate--what low acts does he commit? Therefore, with
his endowments, who will venture to say that he is no gentleman?--unless
it be an admirer of Mr. Flamson--a clown--who will, perhaps, shout--"I
say he is no gentleman; for who can be a gentleman who keeps no gig?"
The indifference exhibited by Lavengro for what is merely genteel,
compared with his solicitude never to infringe the strict laws of honour,
should read a salutary lesson. The generality of his countrymen are far
more careful not to transgress the customs of what they call gentility,
than to violate the laws of honour or morality. They will shrink from
carrying their own carpet-bag, and from speaking to a person in seedy
raiment, whilst to matters of much higher importance they are shamelessly
indifferent. Not so Lavengro; he will do anything that he deems
convenient, or which strikes his fancy, provided it does not outrage
decency or is unallied to profligacy; is not ashamed to speak to a beggar
in rags, and will associate with anybody, provided he can gratify a
laudable curiosity. He has no abstract love for what is low, or what the
world calls low. He sees that many things which the world looks down
upon are valuable, so he prizes much which the world contemns; he sees
that many things which the world admires are contemptible, so he despises
much which the world does not; but when the world prizes what is really
excellent, he does not contemn it, because the world regards it. If he
learns Irish, which all the world scoffs at, he likewise learns Italian,
which all the world melts at. If he learns Gypsy, the language of the
tattered tent, he likewise learns Greek, the language of the college
hall. If he learns smithery, he also learns . . . ah! what does he learn
to set against smithery?--the law? No; he does not learn the law, which,
by the way, is not very genteel. Swimming? Yes, he learns to swim.
Swimming, however, is not genteel; and the world--at least the genteel
part of it--acts very wisely in setting its face against it; for to swim
you must be naked, and how would many a genteel person look without his
clothes? Come! he learns horsemanship; a very genteel accomplishment,
which every genteel person would gladly possess, though not all genteel
people do.
Again as to associates: if he holds communion when a boy with Murtagh,
the scarecrow of an Irish academy, he associates in after life with
Francis Ardry, a rich and talented young Irish gentleman about town. If
he accepts an invitation from Mr. Petulengro to his tent, he has no
objection to go home with a rich genius to dinner; who then will say that
he prizes a thing or a person because they are ungenteel? That he is not
ready to take up with everything that is ungenteel he gives a proof, when
he refuses, though on the brink of starvation, to become bonnet to the
thimble-man, an office which, though profitable, is positively ungenteel.
Ah! but some sticker-up for gentility will exclaim, "The hero did not
refuse this office from an insurmountable dislike to its ungentility, but
merely from a feeling of principle." Well! the writer is not fond of
argument, and he will admit that such was the case; he admits that it was
a love of principle, rather than an over-regard for gentility, which
prevented the hero from accepting, when on the brink of starvation, an
ungenteel though lucrative office, an office which, the writer begs leave
to observe, many a person with a great regard for gentility, and no
particular regard for principle, would in a similar strait have accepted;
for when did a mere love for gentility keep a person from being a dirty
scoundrel, when the alternatives apparently were "either to be a dirty
scoundrel or starve"? One thing, however, is certain, which is, that
Lavengro did not accept the office, which if a love for what is low had
been his ruling passion he certainly would have done; consequently, he
refuses to do one thing which no genteel person would willingly do, even
as he does many things which every genteel person would gladly do, for
example speaks Italian, rides on horseback, associates with a fashionable
young man, dines with a rich genius, et cetera. Yet--and it cannot be
minced--he and gentility with regard to many things are at strange
divergency; he shrinks from many things at which gentility placidly hums
a tune, or approvingly simpers, and does some things at which gentility
positively sinks. He will not run into debt for clothes or lodgings,
which he might do without any scandal to gentility; he will not receive
money from Francis Ardry, and go to Brighton with the sister of Annette
Le Noir, though there is nothing ungenteel in borrowing money from a
friend, even when you never intend to repay him, and something poignantly
genteel in going to a watering-place with a gay young Frenchwoman; but he
has no objection, after raising twenty pounds by the sale of that
extraordinary work "Joseph Sell," to set off into the country, mend
kettles under hedge-rows, and make pony and donkey shoes in a dingle.
Here, perhaps, some plain, well-meaning person will cry--and with much
apparent justice--how can the writer justify him in this act? What
motive, save a love for what is low, could induce him to do such things?
Would the writer have everybody who is in need of recreation go into the
country, mend kettles under hedges, and make pony shoes in dingles? To
such an observation the writer would answer, that Lavengro had an
excellent motive in doing what he did, but that the writer is not so
unreasonable as to wish everybody to do the same. It is not everybody
who can mend kettles. It is not everybody who is in similar
circumstances to those in which Lavengro was. Lavengro flies from London
and hack authorship, and takes to the roads from fear of consumption; it
is expensive to put up at inns, and even at public-houses, and Lavengro
has not much money; so he buys a tinker's cart and apparatus, and sets up
as tinker, and subsequently as blacksmith; a person living in a tent, or
in anything else, must do something or go mad; Lavengro had a mind, as he
himself well knew, with some slight tendency to madness, and had he not
employed himself, he must have gone wild; so to employ himself he drew
upon one of his resources, the only one available at the time. Authorship
had nearly killed him, he was sick of reading, and had besides no books;
but he possessed the rudiments of an art akin to tinkering; he knew
something of smithery, having served a kind of apprenticeship in Ireland
to a fairy smith; so he draws upon his smithery to enable him to acquire
tinkering, and through the help which it affords him, owing to its
connection with tinkering, he speedily acquires that craft, even as he
had speedily acquired Welsh, owing to its connection with Irish, which
language he possessed; and with tinkering he amuses himself until he lays
it aside to resume smithery. A man who has any innocent resource, has
quite as much right to draw upon it in need, as he has, upon a banker in
whose hands he has placed a sum; Lavengro turns to advantage, under
particular circumstances, a certain resource which he has but people who
are not so forlorn as Lavengro, and have not served the same
apprenticeship which he had, are not advised to follow his example.
Surely he was better employed in plying the trades of tinker and smith
than in having recourse to vice, in running after milk-maids for example.
Running after milk-maids is by no means an ungenteel rural diversion; but
let any one ask some respectable casuist (the Bishop of London for
example), whether Lavengro was not far better employed, when in the
country, at tinkering and smithery than he would have been in running
after all the milkmaids in Cheshire, though tinkering is in general
considered a very ungenteel employment, and smithery little better,
notwithstanding that an Orcadian poet, who wrote in Norse about eight
hundred years ago, reckons the latter amongst nine noble arts which he
possessed, naming it along with playing at chess, on the harp, and
ravelling runes, or as the original has it, "treading runes"--that is,
compressing them into a small compass by mingling one letter with
another, even as the Turkish caligraphists ravel the Arabic letters, more
especially those who write talismans.
"Nine arts have I, all noble;
I play at chess so free,
At ravelling runes I'm ready,
At books and smithery;
I'm skill'd o'er ice at skimming
On skates, I shoot and row,
And few at harping match me,
Or minstrelsy, I trow."
But though Lavengro takes up smithery, which, though the Orcadian ranks
it with chess-playing and harping, is certainly somewhat of a grimy art,
there can be no doubt that, had he been wealthy and not so forlorn as he
was, he would have turned to many things, honourable, of course, in
preference. He has no objection to ride a fine horse when he has the
opportunity: he has his day-dream of making a fortune of two hundred
thousand pounds by becoming a merchant and doing business after the
Armenian fashion; and there can be no doubt that he would have been glad
to wear fine clothes, provided he had had sufficient funds to authorise
him in wearing them. For the sake of wandering the country and plying
the hammer and tongs he would not have refused a commission in the
service of that illustrious monarch George the Fourth, provided he had
thought that he could live on his pay, and not be forced to run in debt
to tradesmen, without any hope of paying them, for clothes and luxuries,
as many highly genteel officers in that honourable service were in the
habit of doing. For the sake of tinkering he would certainly not have
refused a secretaryship of an embassy to Persia, in which he might have
turned his acquaintance with Persian, Arabic, and the Lord only knows
what other languages, to account. He took to tinkering and smithery,
because no better employments were at his command. No war is waged in
the book against rank, wealth, fine clothes, or dignified employments; it
is shown, however, that a person may be a gentleman and a scholar without
them. Rank, wealth, fine clothes, and dignified employments are no doubt
very fine things, but they are merely externals, they do not make a
gentleman, they add external grace and dignity to the gentleman and
scholar, but they make neither; and is it not better to be a gentleman
without them than not a gentleman with them? Is not Lavengro, when he
leaves London on foot with twenty pounds in his pocket, entitled to more
respect than Mr. Flamson flaming in his coach with a million? And is not
even the honest jockey at Horncastle, who offers a fair price to Lavengro
for his horse, entitled to more than the scoundrel lord, who attempts to
cheat him of one-fourth of its value?
Millions, however, seem to think otherwise, by their servile adoration of
people whom without rank, wealth, and fine clothes they would consider
infamous, but whom possessed of rank, wealth, and glittering habiliments
they seem to admire all the more for their profligacy and crimes. Does
not a blood-spot, or a lust-spot, on the clothes of a blooming emperor,
give a kind of zest to the genteel young god? Do not the pride,
superciliousness, and selfishness of a certain aristocracy make it all
the more regarded by its worshippers? and do not the clownish and gutter-
blood admirers of Mr. Flamson like him all the more because they are
conscious that he is a knave? If such is the case--and alas! is it not
the case?--they cannot be too frequently told that fine clothes, wealth,
and titles adorn a person in proportion as he adorns them; that if worn
by the magnanimous and good they are ornaments indeed, but if by the vile
and profligate they are merely _san benitos_, and only serve to make
their infamy doubly apparent; and that a person in seedy raiment and
tattered hat, possessed of courage, kindness, and virtue, is entitled to
more respect from those to whom his virtues are manifested than any
cruel, profligate emperor, selfish aristocrat, or knavish millionaire in
the world.
The writer has no intention of saying that all in England are affected
with the absurd mania for gentility; nor is such a statement made in the
book; it is shown therein that individuals of various classes can prize a
gentleman, notwithstanding seedy raiment, dusty shoes, or tattered
hat,--for example, the young Irishman, the rich genius, the postillion,
and his employer. Again, when the life of the hero is given to the
world, amidst the howl about its lowness and vulgarity, raised by the
servile crew whom its independence of sentiment has stung, more than one
powerful voice has been heard testifying approbation of its learning and
the purity of its morality. That there is some salt in England, minds
not swayed by mere externals, he is fully convinced; if he were not, he
would spare himself the trouble of writing; but to the fact that the
generality of his countrymen are basely grovelling before the shrine of
what they are pleased to call gentility, he cannot shut his eyes.
Oh! what a clever person that Cockney was, who, travelling in the
Aberdeen railroad carriage, after edifying the company with his remarks
on various subjects, gave it as his opinion that Lieutenant P . . .
would, in future, be shunned by all respectable society! And what a
simple person that elderly gentleman was, who, abruptly starting, asked,
in rather an authoritative voice, "And why should Lieutenant P . . . be
shunned by respectable society?" and who after entering into what was
said to be a masterly analysis of the entire evidence of the case,
concluded by stating, "that having been accustomed to all kinds of
evidence all his life, he had never known a case in which the accused had
obtained a more complete and triumphant justification than Lieutenant
P . . . had done in the late trial."
Now the Cockney, who is said to have been a very foppish Cockney, was
perfectly right in what he said, and therein manifested a knowledge of
the English mind and character, and likewise of the modern English
language, to which his catechist, who, it seems, was a distinguished
member of the Scottish bar, could lay no pretensions. The Cockney knew
what the Lord of Session knew not, that the British public is gentility
crazy, and he knew, moreover, that gentility and respectability are
synonymous. No one in England is genteel or respectable that is "looked
at," who is the victim of oppression; he may be pitied for a time, but
when did not pity terminate in contempt? A poor, harmless young
officer--but why enter into the details of the infamous case? they are
but too well known, and if ever cruelty, pride, and cowardice, and things
much worse than even cruelty, cowardice, and pride, were brought to
light, and at the same time countenanced, they were in that case. What
availed the triumphant justification of the poor victim? There was at
first a roar of indignation against his oppressors, but how long did it
last? He had been turned out of the service, they remained in it with
their red coats and epaulets; he was merely the son of a man who had
rendered good service to his country, they were, for the most part,
highly connected--they were in the extremest degree genteel, he quite the
reverse; so the nation wavered, considered, thought the genteel side was
the safest after all, and then with the cry of, "Oh! there is nothing
like gentility," ratted bodily. Newspaper and public turned against the
victim, scouted him, apologised for the--what should they be called?--who
were not only admitted into the most respectable society, but courted to
come, the spots not merely of wine on their military clothes giving them
a kind of poignancy. But there is a God in heaven; the British glories
are tarnished--Providence has never smiled on British arms since that
case--oh! Balaklava! thy name interpreted is net of fishes, and well dost
thou deserve that name. How many a scarlet golden fish has of late
perished in the mud amidst thee, cursing the genteel service, and the
genteel leader which brought him to such a doom.
Whether the rage for gentility is most prevalent amongst the upper,
middle, or lower classes it is difficult to say; the priest in the text
seems to think that it is exhibited in the most decided manner in the
middle class; it is the writer's opinion, however, that in no class is it
more strongly developed than in the lower: what they call being well born
goes a great way amongst them, but the possession of money much farther,
whence Mr. Flamson's influence over them. Their rage against, and scorn
for, any person who by his courage and talents has advanced himself in
life, and still remains poor, are indescribable; "he is no better than
ourselves," they say, "why should he be above us?"--for they have no
conception that anybody has a right to ascendency over themselves except
by birth or money. This feeling amongst the vulgar has been, to a
certain extent, the bane of the two services, naval and military. The
writer does not make this assertion rashly; he observed this feeling at
work in the army when a child, and he has good reason for believing that
it was as strongly at work in the navy at the same time, and is still as
prevalent in both. Why are not brave men raised from the ranks? is
frequently the cry; why are not brave sailors promoted? The Lord help
brave soldiers and sailors who are promoted; they have less to undergo
from the high airs of their brother officers, and those are hard enough
to endure, than from the insolence of the men. Soldiers and sailors
promoted to command are said to be in general tyrants; in nine cases out
of ten, when they are tyrants, they have been obliged to have recourse to
extreme severity in order to protect themselves from the insolence and
mutinous spirit of the men,--"He is no better than ourselves: shoot him,
bayonet him, or fling him overboard!" they say of some obnoxious
individual raised above them by his merit. Soldiers and sailors, in
general, will bear any amount of tyranny from a lordly sot, or the son of
a man who has "plenty of brass"--their own term--but will mutiny against
the just orders of a skilful and brave officer who "is no better than
themselves." There was the affair of the "Bounty," for example: Bligh
was one of the best seamen that ever trod deck, and one of the bravest of
men; proofs of his seamanship he gave by steering, amidst dreadful
weather, a deeply-laden boat for nearly four thousand miles over an
almost unknown ocean--of his bravery, at the fight of Copenhagen, one of
the most desperate ever fought, of which after Nelson he was the hero: he
was, moreover, not an unkind man; but the crew of the "Bounty" mutinied
against him, and set him half naked in an open boat, with certain of his
men who remained faithful to him, and ran away with the ship. Their
principal motive for doing so was an idea, whether true or groundless the
writer cannot say, that Bligh was "no better than themselves;" he was
certainly neither a lord's illegitimate, nor possessed of twenty thousand
pounds. The writer knows what he is writing about, having been
acquainted in his early years with an individual who was turned adrift
with Bligh, and who died about the year '22, a lieutenant in the navy, in
a provincial town in which the writer was brought up. The ring-leaders
in the mutiny were two scoundrels, Christian and Young, who had great
influence with the crew, because they were genteelly connected. Bligh,
after leaving the "Bounty," had considerable difficulty in managing the
men who had shared his fate, because they considered themselves "as good
men as he," notwithstanding that to his conduct and seamanship they had
alone to look, under Heaven, for salvation from the ghastly perils that
surrounded them. Bligh himself, in his journal, alludes to this feeling.
Once, when he and his companions landed on a desert island, one of them
said, with a mutinous look, that he considered himself "as good a man as
he;" Bligh, seizing a cutlass, called upon him to take another and defend
himself, whereupon the man said that Bligh was going to kill him, and
made all manner of concessions; now why did this fellow consider himself
as good a man as Bligh? Was he as good a seaman? no, nor a tenth part as
good. As brave a man? no, nor a tenth part as brave; and of these facts
he was perfectly well aware, but bravery and seamanship stood for nothing
with him, as they still stand with thousands of his class; Bligh was not
genteel by birth or money, therefore Bligh was no better than himself.
Had Bligh, before he sailed, got a twenty-thousand pound prize in the
lottery, he would have experienced no insolence from this fellow, for
there would have been no mutiny in the "Bounty." "He is our betters,"
the crew would have said, "and it is our duty to obey him."
The wonderful power of gentility in England is exemplified in nothing
more than in what it is producing amongst Jews, Gypsies, and Quakers. It
is breaking up their venerable communities. All the better, some one
will say. Alas! alas! It is making the wealthy Jews forsake the
synagogue for the opera-house, or the gentility chapel, in which a
disciple of Mr. Platitude, in a white surplice, preaches a sermon at noon-
day from a desk, on each side of which is a flaming taper. It is making
them abandon their ancient literature, their "Mischna," their "Gemara,"
their "Zohar," for gentility novels, "The Young Duke," the most
unexceptionably genteel book ever written, being the principal favourite.
It makes the young Jew ashamed of the young Jewess, it makes her ashamed
of the young Jew. The young Jew marries an opera dancer, or if the
dancer will not have him, as is frequently the case, the cast-off Miss of
the Honourable Spencer So-and-so. It makes the young Jewess accept the
honourable offer of a cashiered lieutenant of the Bengal Native Infantry;
or if such a person does not come forward, the dishonourable offer of a
cornet of a regiment of crack hussars. It makes poor Jews, male and
female, forsake the synagogue for the sixpenny theatre or penny hop; the
Jew to take up with an Irish female of loose character, and the Jewess
with a musician of the Guards, or the Tipperary servant of Captain
Mulligan. With respect to the gypsies, it is making the women what they
never were before--harlots; and the men what they never were
before--careless fathers and husbands. It has made the daughter of
Ursula the chaste take up with the base-drummer of a wild-beast show. It
makes Gorgiko Brown, the gypsy man, leave his tent and his old wife, of
an evening, and thrust himself into society which could well dispense
with him. "Brother," said Mr. Petulengro the other day to the Romany
Rye, after telling him many things connected with the decadence of
gypsyism, "there is one Gorgiko Brown, who, with a face as black as a
teakettle, wishes to be mistaken for a Christian tradesman; he goes into
the parlour of a third-rate inn of an evening, calls for rum and water,
and attempts to enter into conversation with the company about politics
and business; the company flout him or give him the cold shoulder, or
perhaps complain to the landlord, who comes and asks him what business he
has in the parlour, telling him if he wants to drink to go into the tap-
room, and perhaps collars him and kicks him out, provided he refuses to
move." With respect to the Quakers, it makes the young people, like the
young Jews, crazy after gentility diversions, worship, marriages, or
connections, and makes old Pease do what it makes Gorgiko Brown do,
thrust himself into society which could well dispense with him, and out
of which he is not kicked, because unlike the gypsy he is not poor. The
writer would say much more on these points, but want of room prevents
him; he must therefore request the reader to have patience until he can
lay before the world a pamphlet, which he has been long meditating, to be
entitled "Remarks on the strikingly similar Effects which a Love for
Gentility has produced, and is producing, amongst Jews, Gypsies, and
Quakers."
The Priest in the book has much to say on the subject of this gentility
nonsense; no person can possibly despise it more thoroughly than that
very remarkable individual seems to do, yet he hails its prevalence with
pleasure, knowing the benefits which will result from it to the church of
which he is the sneering slave. "The English are mad after gentility,"
says he; "well, all the better for us; their religion for a long time
past has been a plain and simple one, and consequently by no means
genteel; they'll quit it for ours, which is the perfection of what they
admire; with which Templars, Hospitalers, mitred abbots, Gothic abbeys,
long-drawn aisles, golden censers, incense, et cetera, are connected;
nothing, or next to nothing, of Christ, it is true, but weighed in the
balance against gentility, where will Christianity be? why, kicking
against the beam--ho! ho!" And in connection with the gentility
nonsense, he expatiates largely, and with much contempt, on a species of
literature by which the interests of his church in England have been very
much advanced--all genuine priests have a thorough contempt for
everything which tends to advance the interests of their church--this
literature is made up of pseudo-Jacobitism, Charlie o'er the waterism, or
nonsense about Charlie o'er the water. And the writer will now take the
liberty of saying a few words about it on his own account.
CHAPTER VI. ON SCOTCH GENTILITY NONSENSE--CHARLIE O'ER THE WATERISM.
Of the literature just alluded to Scott was the inventor. It is founded
on the fortunes and misfortunes of the Stuart family, of which Scott was
the zealous defender and apologist, doing all that in his power lay to
represent the members of it as noble, chivalrous, high-minded,
unfortunate princes; though, perhaps, of all the royal families that ever
existed upon earth, this family was the worst. It was unfortunate
enough, it is true; but it owed its misfortunes entirely to its crimes,
viciousness, bad faith, and cowardice. Nothing will be said of it here
until it made its appearance in England to occupy the English throne.
The first of the family which we have to do with, James, was a dirty,
cowardly miscreant, of whom the less said the better. His son, Charles
the First, was a tyrant--exceedingly cruel and revengeful, but weak and
dastardly; he caused a poor fellow to be hanged in London, who was not
his subject, because he had heard that the unfortunate creature had once
bit his own glove at Cadiz, in Spain, at the mention of his name; and he
permitted his own bull-dog, Strafford, to be executed by his own enemies,
though the only crime of Strafford was, that he had barked furiously at
those enemies, and had worried two or three of them, when Charles
shouted, "Fetch 'em." He was a bitter, but yet a despicable enemy, and
the coldest and most worthless of friends; for though he always hoped to
be able some time or other to hang his enemies, he was always ready to
curry favour with them, more especially if he could do so at the expense
of his friends. He was the haughtiest, yet meanest of mankind. He once
caned a young nobleman for appearing before him in the drawing-room not
dressed exactly according to the court etiquette; yet he condescended to
flatter and compliment him who, from principle, was his bitterest enemy,
namely, Harrison, when the republican colonel was conducting him as a
prisoner to London. His bad faith was notorious; it was from abhorrence
of the first public instance which he gave of his bad faith, his breaking
his word to the Infanta of Spain, that the poor Hiberno-Spaniard bit his
glove at Cadiz; and it was his notorious bad faith which eventually cost
him his head; for the Republicans would gladly have spared him, provided
they could have put the slightest confidence in any promise, however
solemn, which he might have made to them. Of them, it would be difficult
to say whether they most hated or despised him. Religion he had none.
One day he favoured Popery; the next, on hearing certain clamours of the
people, he sent his wife's domestics back packing to France, because they
were Papists. Papists, however, should make him a saint, for he was
certainly the cause of the taking of Rochelle.
His son, Charles the Second, though he passed his youth in the school of
adversity, learned no other lesson from it than the following one--take
care of yourself, and never do an action, either good or bad, which is
likely to bring you into any great difficulty; and this maxim he acted up
to as soon as he came to the throne. He was a Papist, but took especial
care not to acknowledge his religion, at which he frequently scoffed,
till just before his last gasp, when he knew that he could lose nothing,
and hoped to gain everything by it. He was always in want of money, but
took care not to tax the country beyond all endurable bounds; preferring,
to such a bold and dangerous course, to become the secret pensioner of
Louis, to whom, in return for his gold, he sacrificed the honour and
interests of Britain. He was too lazy and sensual to delight in playing
the part of a tyrant himself; but he never checked tyranny in others,
save in one instance. He permitted beastly butchers to commit
unmentionable horrors on the feeble, unarmed, and disunited Covenanters
of Scotland, but checked them when they would fain have endeavoured to
play the same game on the numerous, united, dogged, and warlike
Independents of England. To show his filial piety, he bade the hangman
dishonour the corpses of some of his father's judges, before whom, when
alive, he ran like a screaming hare; but permitted those who had lost
their all in supporting his father's cause, to pine in misery and want.
He would give to a painted harlot a thousand pounds for a loathsome
embrace, and to a player or buffoon a hundred for a trumpery pun, but
would refuse a penny to the widow or orphan of an old Royalist soldier.
He was the personification of selfishness; and as he loved and cared for
no one, so did no one love or care for him. So little had he gained the
respect or affection of those who surrounded him, that after his body had
undergone an after-death examination, parts of it were thrown down the
sinks of the palace, to become eventually the prey of the swine and ducks
of Westminster.
His brother, who succeeded him, James the Second, was a Papist, but
sufficiently honest to acknowledge his Popery, but, upon the whole, he
was a poor creature; though a tyrant, he was cowardly, had he not been a
coward he would never have lost his throne. There were plenty of lovers
of tyranny in England who would have stood by him, provided he would have
stood by them, and would, though not Papists, have encouraged him in his
attempt to bring back England beneath the sway of Rome, and perhaps would
eventually have become Papists themselves; but the nation raising a cry
against him, and his son-in-law, the Prince of Orange invading the
country, he forsook his friends, of whom he had a host, but for whom he
cared little--left his throne, for which he cared a great deal--and
Popery in England, for which he cared yet more, to their fate, and
escaped to France, from whence, after taking a little heart, he repaired
to Ireland, where he was speedily joined by a gallant army of Papists
whom he basely abandoned at the Boyne, running away in a most lamentable
condition, at the time when by showing a little courage he might have
enabled them to conquer. This worthy, in his last will, bequeathed his
heart to England--his right arm to Scotland--and his bowels to Ireland.
What the English and Scotch said to their respective bequests is not
known, but it is certain that an old Irish priest, supposed to have been
a great grand-uncle of the present Reverend Father Murtagh, on hearing of
the bequest to Ireland, fell into a great passion, and having been
brought up at "Paris and Salamanca," expressed his indignation in the
following strain:--"Malditas sean tus tripas! teniamos bastante del olor
de tus tripas al tiempo de tu nuida dela batalla del Boyne!"
His son, generally called the Old Pretender, though born in England, was
carried in his infancy to France, where he was brought up in the
strictest principles of Popery, which principles, however, did not
prevent him becoming (when did they ever prevent any one?) a worthless
and profligate scoundrel; there are some doubts as to the reality of his
being a son of James, which doubts are probably unfounded, the grand
proof of his legitimacy being the thorough baseness of his character. It
was said of his father that he could speak well, and it may be said of
him that he could write well, the only thing he could do which was worth
doing, always supposing that there is any merit in being able to write.
He was of a mean appearance, and, like his father, pusillanimous to a
degree. The meanness of his appearance disgusted, and his pusillanimity
discouraged the Scotch when he made his appearance amongst them in the
year 1715, some time after the standard of rebellion had been hoisted by
Mar. He only stayed a short time in Scotland, and then, seized with
panic, retreated to France, leaving his friends to shift for themselves
as they best could. He died a pensioner of the Pope.
The son of this man, Charles Edward, of whom so much in latter years has
been said and written, was a worthless, ignorant youth, and a profligate
and illiterate old man. When young, the best that can be said of him is,
that he had occasionally springs of courage, invariably at the wrong time
and place, which merely served to lead his friends into inextricable
difficulties. When old, he was loathsome and contemptible to both friend
and foe. His wife loathed him, and for the most terrible of reasons; she
did not pollute his couch, for to do that was impossible--he had made it
so vile; but she betrayed it, inviting to it not only Alfieri the Filthy,
but the coarsest grooms. Dr. King, the warmest and almost last adherent
of his family, said that there was not a vice or crime of which he was
not guilty; as for his foes, they scorned to harm him even when in their
power. In the year 1745 he came down from the Highlands of Scotland,
which had long been a focus of rebellion. He was attended by certain
clans of the Highlands, desperadoes used to freebootery from their
infancy, and consequently to the use of arms, and possessed of a certain
species of discipline; with these he defeated at Prestonpans a body of
men called soldiers, but who were in reality peasants and artisans,
levied about a month before, without discipline or confidence in each
other, and who were miserably massacred by the Highland army; he
subsequently invaded England, nearly destitute of regular soldiers, and
penetrated as far as Derby, from which place he retreated on learning
that regular forces which had been hastily recalled from Flanders were
coming against him, with the Duke of Cumberland at their head; he was
pursued, and his rear guard overtaken and defeated by the dragoons of the
duke at Clifton, from which place the rebels retreated in great confusion
across the Eden into Scotland, where they commenced dancing Highland
reels and strathspeys on the bank of the river, for joy at their escape,
whilst a number of wretched girls, paramours of some of them, were
perishing in the waters of the swollen river in an attempt to follow
them; they themselves passed over by eighties and by hundreds, arm in
arm, for mutual safety, without the loss of a man, but they left the poor
paramours to shift for themselves, nor did any of these canny people
after passing the stream dash back to rescue a single female life,--no,
they were too well employed upon the bank in dancing strathspeys to the
tune of "Charlie o'er the water." It was, indeed, Charlie o'er the
water, and canny Highlanders o'er the water, but where were the poor
prostitutes meantime? _In the water_.
The Jacobite farce, or tragedy, was speedily brought to a close by the
battle of Culloden; there did Charlie wish himself back again o'er the
water, exhibiting the most unmistakable signs of pusillanimity; there
were the clans cut to pieces, at least those who could be brought to the
charge, and there fell Giles Mac Bean, or as he was called in Gaelic,
Giliosa Mac Beathan, a kind of giant, six feet four inches and a quarter
high, "than whom," as his wife said in a coronach she made upon him, "no
man who stood at Cuiloitr was taller"--Giles Mac Bean the Major of the
clan Cattan--a great drinker--a great fisher--a great shooter, and the
champion of the Highland host.
The last of the Stuarts was a cardinal.
Such were the Stuarts, such their miserable history. They were dead and
buried in every sense of the word until Scott resuscitated them--how? by
the power of fine writing, and by calling to his aid that strange
divinity, gentility. He wrote splendid novels about the Stuarts, in
which he represents them as unlike what they really were as the graceful
and beautiful papillon is unlike the hideous and filthy worm. In a word,
he made them genteel, and that was enough to give them paramount sway
over the minds of the British people. The public became Stuart-mad, and
everybody, especially the women, said, "What a pity it was that we hadn't
a Stuart to govern." All parties, Whig, Tory, or Radical, became
Jacobite at heart, and admirers of absolute power. The Whigs talked
about the liberty of the subject, and the Radicals about the rights of
man still, but neither party cared a straw for what it talked about, and
mentally swore that, as soon as by means of such stuff they could get
places, and fill their pockets, they would be as Jacobite as the Jacobs
themselves. As for the Tories, no great change in them was necessary;
everything favouring absolutism and slavery being congenial to them. So
the whole nation, that is, the reading part of the nation, with some
exceptions, for thank God there has always been some salt in England,
went over the water to Charlie. But going over to Charlie was not
enough, they must, or at least a considerable part of them, go over to
Rome too, or have a hankering to do so. As the Priest sarcastically
observes in the text, "As all the Jacobs were Papists, so the good folks
who through Scott's novels admire the Jacobs must be Papists too." An
idea got about that the religion of such genteel people as the Stuarts
must be the climax of gentility, and that idea was quite sufficient. Only
let a thing, whether temporal or spiritual, be considered genteel in
England, and if it be not followed it is strange indeed; so Scott's
writings not only made the greater part of the nation Jacobite, but
Popish.
Here some people will exclaim--whose opinions remain sound and
uncontaminated--what you say is perhaps true with respect to the Jacobite
nonsense at present so prevalent being derived from Scott's novels, but
the Popish nonsense, which people of the genteeler class are so fond of,
is derived from Oxford. We sent our sons to Oxford nice honest lads,
educated in the principles of the Church of England, and at the end of
the first term they came home puppies, talking Popish nonsense, which
they had learned from the pedants to whose care we had entrusted them;
ay, not only Popery, but Jacobitism, which they hardly carried with them
from home, for we never heard them talking Jacobitism before they had
been at Oxford; but now their conversation is a farrago of Popish and
Jacobite stuff--"Complines and Claverse." Now, what these honest folks
say is, to a certain extent, founded on fact; the Popery which has
overflowed the land during the last fourteen or fifteen years, has come
immediately from Oxford, and likewise some of the Jacobitism, Popish and
Jacobite nonsense, and little or nothing else, having been taught at
Oxford for about that number of years. But whence did the pedants get
the Popish nonsense with which they have corrupted youth? Why, from the
same quarter from which they got the Jacobite nonsense with which they
have inoculated those lads who were not inoculated with it before--Scott's
novels. Jacobitism and Laudism, a kind of half Popery, had at one time
been very prevalent at Oxford, but both had been long consigned to
oblivion there, and people at Oxford cared as little about Laud as they
did about the Pretender. Both were dead and buried there, as everywhere
else, till Scott called them out of their graves, when the pedants of
Oxford hailed both--ay, and the Pope, too, as soon as Scott had made the
old fellow fascinating, through particular novels, more especially the
"Monastery" and "Abbot." Then the quiet, respectable, honourable Church
of England would no longer do for the pedants of Oxford; they must belong
to a more genteel Church--they were ashamed at first to be downright
Romans--so they would be Lauds. The pale-looking, but exceedingly
genteel non-juring clergyman in "Waverley" was a Laud; but they soon
became tired of being Lauds, for Laud's Church, gewgawish and idolatrous
as it was, was not sufficiently tinselly and idolatrous for them, so they
must be Popes, but in a sneaking way, still calling themselves Church of
England men, in order to batten on the bounty of the Church which they
were betraying, and likewise have opportunities of corrupting such lads
as might still resort to Oxford with principles uncontaminated. So the
respectable people, whose opinions are still sound, are, to a certain
extent, right when they say that the tide of Popery, which has flowed
over the land, has come from Oxford. It did come immediately from
Oxford, but how did it get to Oxford? Why, from Scott's novels. Oh!
that sermon which was the first manifestation of Oxford feeling, preached
at Oxford some time in the year '38 by a divine of a weak and confused
intellect, in which Popery was mixed up with Jacobitism? The present
writer remembers perfectly well, on reading some extracts from it at the
time in a newspaper, on the top of a coach, exclaiming--"Why, the
simpleton has been pilfering from Walter Scott's novels!"