In spite, however, of the utter contempt with which Don Juan treats

her,--in spite of his dissolute courses, which must shock her

virtue,--and his impolite neglect, which must wound her vanity, the poor

creature (who, from having been accustomed to better company, might have

been presumed to have had better taste), the unfortunate angel, feels a

certain inclination for the Don, and actually flies up to heaven to ask

permission to remain with him on earth.

And when the curtain draws up, to the sound of harps, and discovers

white-robed angels walking in the clouds, we find the angel of Marana

upon her knees, uttering the following address:--

‘LE BON ANGE

Vierge, à qui le calice à la liqueur amère

Fut si souvent offert,

Mère, que l’on nomma la douloureuse mère,

Tant vous avez souffert!

Vous, dont les yeux divins, sur la terre des hommes,

Ont versé plus de pleurs

Que vos pieds n’ont depuis, dans le ciel où nous sommes,

Fait éclore de fleurs!

Vase d’élection, étoile matinale,

Miroir de pureté,

Vous qui priez pour nous, d’une voix virginale,

La suprême bonté;

A mon tour, aujourd’hui, bienheureuse Marie,

Je tombe à vos genoux;

Daignez donc m’écouter, car c’est vous que je prie,

Vous qui priez pour nous.’

Which may be thus interpreted:--

‘O Virgin blest! by whom the bitter draught

So often has been quaffed,

That, for thy sorrow, thou art named by us

The Mother Dolorous!

Thou, from whose eyes have fallen more tears of woe,

Upon the earth below,

Than ‘neath thy footsteps, in this heaven of ours,

Have risen flowers!

O beaming morning star! O chosen vase!

O mirror of all grace!

Who, with thy virgin voice, dost ever pray

Man’s sins away;

Bend down thine ear, and list, O blessed saint!

Unto my sad complaint;

Mother! to thee I kneel, on thee I call,

Who hearest all.’

She proceeds to request that she may be allowed to return to earth, and

follow the fortunes of Don Juan;--and as there is one difficulty, or, to

use her own words,--

‘Mais, comme vous savez qu’aux voûtes éternelles,

Malgré moi, tend mon vol,

_Soufflez sur mon étoile et détachez mes ailes,

Pour m’enchaîner au sol_;’

her request is granted, her star is _blown out_ (O poetic allusion!),

and she descends to earth to love, and to go mad, and to die for Don

Juan!

The reader will require no further explanation, in order to be satisfied

as to the moral of this play; but is it not a very bitter satire upon

the country, which calls itself the politest nation in the world, that

the incidents, the indecency, the coarse blasphemy, and the vulgar wit

of this piece, should find admirers among the public, and procure

reputation for the author? Could not the Government, which has

re-established, in a manner, the theatrical censorship, and forbids or

alters plays which touch on politics, exert the same guardianship over

public morals? The honest English reader, who has a faith in his

clergyman, and is a regular attendant at Sunday worship, will not be a

little surprised at the march of intellect among our neighbours across

the Channel, and at the kind of consideration in which they hold their

religion. Here is a man who seizes upon saints and angels, merely to put

sentiments in their mouths which might suit a nymph of Drury Lane. He

shows heaven, in order that he may carry debauch into it; and avails

himself of the most sacred and sublime parts of our creed, as a vehicle

for a scene-painter’s skill, or an occasion for a handsome actress to

wear a new dress.

M. Dumas’s piece of _Kean_ is not quite so sublime; it was brought out

by the author as a satire upon the French critics, who, to their credit

be it spoken, had generally attacked him, and was intended by him, and

received by the public, as a faithful portraiture of English manners. As

such, it merits special observation and praise. In the first act you

find a Countess and an Ambassadress, whose conversation relates purely

to the great actor. All the ladies in London are in love with him,

especially the two present;--as for the Ambassadress, she prefers him to

her husband (a matter of course in all French plays), and to a more

seducing person still--no less a person than the Prince of Wales! who

presently waits on the ladies, and joins in their conversation

concerning Kean. ‘This man,’ says his Royal Highness, ‘is the very pink

of fashion. Brummell is nobody when compared to him; and I myself only

an insignificant private gentleman: he has a reputation among ladies,

for which I sigh in vain; and spends an income twice as great as mine.’

This admirable historic touch at once paints the actor and the Prince;

the estimation in which the one was held, and the modest economy for

which the other was so notorious.

Then we have Kean, at a place called the _Trou de Charbon_, the

‘Coal-hole,’ where, to the edification of the public, he engages in a

fisty combat with a notorious boxer; this scene was received by the

audience with loud exclamations of delight, and commented on, by the

journals, as a faultless picture of English manners. The ‘Coal-hole’

being on the banks of the Thames, a nobleman--_Lord Melbourn!_--has

chosen the tavern as a rendezvous for a gang of pirates, who are to have

their ship in waiting, in order to carry off a young lady, with whom his

lordship is enamoured. It need not be said that Kean arrives at the nick

of time, saves the innocent _Meess Anna_, and exposes the infamy of the

Peer;--a violent tirade against noblemen ensues, and Lord Melbourn

slinks away, disappointed, to meditate revenge. Keen’s triumphs continue

through all the acts; the Ambassadress falls madly in love with him; the

Prince becomes furious at his ill success, and the Ambassador dreadfully

jealous. They pursue Kean to his dressing-room at the theatre; where,

unluckily, the Ambassadress herself has taken refuge. Dreadful quarrels

ensue; the tragedian grows suddenly mad upon the stage, and so cruelly

insults the Prince of Wales, that his Royal Highness determines to send

him _to Botany Bay_. His sentence, however, is commuted to banishment to

New York; whither, of course, Miss Anna accompanies him; rewarding him,

previously, with her hand and twenty thousand a year!

[Illustration: THE GALLERY AT DEBURAU’S THEATRE SKETCHED FROM NATURE]

This wonderful performance was gravely received and admired by the

people of Paris; the piece was considered to be decidedly moral, because

the popular candidate was made to triumph throughout, and to triumph in

the most virtuous manner; for, according to the French code of morals,

success among women is at once the proof and the reward of virtue.

The sacred personage introduced in Dumas’s play, behind a cloud, figures

bodily in the piece of the _Massacre of the Innocents_, represented at

Paris last year. She appears under a different name, but the costume is

exactly that of Carlo-Dolce’s Madonna; and an ingenious fable is

arranged, the interest of which hangs upon the grand Massacre of the

Innocents, perpetrated in the fifth act. One of the chief characters is

Jean le Précurseur, who threatens woe to Herod and his race, and is

beheaded by the orders of that sovereign.

In the _Festin de Balthazar_ we are similarly introduced to Daniel, and

the first scene is laid by the waters of Babylon, where a certain number

of captive Jews is seated in melancholy postures; a Babylonian officer

enters, exclaiming, ‘Chantez nous quelques chansons de Jérusalem,’ and

the request is refused in the language of the Psalm. Belshazzar’s Feast

is given in a grand tableau, after Martin’s picture. That painter, in

like manner, furnished scenes for the _Déluge_. Vast numbers of

schoolboys and children are brought to see these pieces; the lower

classes delight in them. The famous _Juif Errant_, at the theatre of the

Porte St. Martin, was the first of the kind, and its prodigious success,

no doubt, occasioned the number of imitations which the other theatres

have produced.

The taste of such exhibitions, of course, every English person will

question; but we must remember the manners of the people among whom they

are popular; and, if I may be allowed to hazard such an opinion, there

is, in every one of these Boulevard mysteries, a kind of rude moral. The

Boulevard writers don’t pretend to ‘tabernacles’ and divine gifts, like

Madame Sand and Dumas, before mentioned. If they take a story from the

sacred books, they garble it without mercy, and take sad liberties with

the text; but they do not deal in descriptions of the agreeably wicked,

or ask pity and admiration for tender-hearted criminals and

philanthropic murderers, as their betters do. Vice is vice on the

Boulevard; and it is fine to hear the audience, as a tyrant king roars

out cruel sentences of death, or a bereaved mother pleads for the life

of her child, making their remarks on the circumstances of the scene.

‘Ah, le gredin!’ growls an indignant countryman. ‘Quel monstre!’ says a

grisette, in a fury. You see very fat old men crying like babies; and,

like babies, sucking enormous sticks of barley-sugar. Actors and

audience enter warmly into the illusion of the piece; and so especially

are the former affected, that, at Franconi’s, where the battles of the

Empire are represented, there is as regular gradation in the ranks of

the mimic army, as in the real imperial legions. After a man has served,

with credit, for a certain number of years in the line, he is promoted

to be an officer--an acting officer. If he conducts himself well, he may

rise to be a Colonel, or a General of Division; if ill, he is degraded

to the ranks again; or, worst degradation of all, drafted into a

regiment of Cossacks or Austrians. Cossacks is the lowest depth,

however; nay, it is said that the men who perform these Cossack parts

receive higher wages than the mimic grenadiers and old guard. They will

not consent to be beaten every night, even in play; to be pursued in

hundreds, by a handful of French; to fight against their beloved

Emperor. Surely there is fine hearty virtue in this, and pleasant

childlike simplicity.

So that while the drama of Victor Hugo, Dumas, and the enlightened

classes is profoundly immoral and absurd, the drama of the common people

is absurd, if you will, but good and right-hearted. I have made notes of

one or two of these pieces, which all have good feeling and kindness in

them, and which turn, as the reader will see, upon one or two favourite

points of popular morality. A drama that obtained a vast success at the

Porte St. Martin was _La Duchesse de la Vauballière_. The Duchess is the

daughter of a poor farmer, who was carried off in the first place, and

then married by M. le Duc de la Vauballière, a terrible _roué_, the

farmer’s landlord, and the intimate friend of Philippe d’Orléans, the

Regent of France.

Now, the Duke, in running away with the lady, intended to dispense

altogether with ceremony, and make of Julie anything but his wife; but

Georges, her father, and one Morisseau, a notary, discovered him in his

dastardly act, and pursued him to the very feet of the Regent, who

compelled the pair to marry and make it up.

Julie complies; but though she becomes a Duchess, her heart remains

faithful to her old flame, Adrian, the doctor; and she declares that,

beyond the ceremony, no sort of intimacy shall take place between her

husband and herself.

Then the Duke begins to treat her in the most ungentleman-like manner:

he abuses her in every possible way; he introduces improper characters

into her house; and, finally, becomes so disgusted with her, that he

determines to make away with her altogether.

For this purpose, he sends forth into the highways and seizes a doctor,

bidding him, on pain of death, to write a poisonous prescription for

Madame la Duchesse. She swallows the potion; and, oh, horror! the doctor

turns out to be Dr. Adrian; whose woe may be imagined, upon finding that

he has been thus committing murder on his true love!

Let not the reader, however, be alarmed as to the fate of the heroine;

no heroine of a tragedy ever yet died in the third act; and,

accordingly, the Duchess gets up perfectly well again in the fourth,

through the instrumentality of Morisseau, the good lawyer.

And now it is that vice begins to be really punished. The Duke, who,

after killing his wife, thinks it necessary to retreat, and take refuge

in Spain, is tracked to the borders of that country by the virtuous

notary, and there receives such a lesson as he will never forget to his

dying day.

Morisseau, in the first instance, produces a deed (signed by his

Holiness the Pope), which annuls the marriage of the Duke de la

Vauballière; then another deed, by which it is proved that he was not

the eldest son of old La Vauballière, the former Duke; then another

deed, by which he shows that old La Vauballière (who seems to have been

a disreputable old fellow) was a bigamist, and that, in consequence, the

present man, styling himself Duke, is illegitimate; and, finally,

Morisseau brings forward another document, which proves that the

_reg’lar_ Duke is no other than Adrian, the doctor!

Thus it is that love, law, and physic, combined, triumph over the horrid

machinations of this star-and-gartered libertine.

_Hermann l’Ivrogne_ is another piece of the same order; and, though not

very refined, yet possesses considerable merit. As in the case of the

celebrated Captain Smith, of Halifax, who ‘took to drinking ratafia, and

thought of poor Miss Bailey,’--a woman and the bottle have been the

cause of Hermann’s ruin. Deserted by his mistress, who has been seduced

from him by a base Italian Count, Hermann, a German artist, gives

himself entirely up to liquor and revenge: but when he finds that force,

and not infidelity, has been the cause of his mistress’s ruin, the

reader can fancy the indignant ferocity with which he pursues the

_infâme ravisseur_. A scene, which is really full of spirit, and

excellently well acted, here ensues: Hermann proposes to the Count, on

the eve of their duel, that the survivor should bind himself to espouse

the unhappy Marie; but the Count declares himself to be already married,

and the student, finding a duel impossible (for his object was to

restore, at all events, the honour of Marie), now only thinks of his

revenge, and murders the Count. Presently, two parties of men enter

Hermann’s apartment; one is a company of students, who bring him the

news that he has obtained the prize of painting; the other the

policemen, who carry him to prison, to suffer the penalty of murder.

I could mention many more plays in which the popular morality is

similarly expressed. The seducer, or rascal of the piece, is always an

aristocrat,--a wicked Count, or licentious Marquis,--who is brought to

condign punishment just before the fall of the curtain. And too good

reason have the French people had to lay such crimes to the charge of

the aristocracy, who are expiating now, on the stage, the wrongs which

they did a hundred years since. The aristocracy is dead now; but the

theatre lives upon traditions; and don’t let us be too scornful at such

simple legends that are handed down by the people, from race to race.

Vulgar prejudice against the great it may be; but prejudice against the

great is only a rude expression of sympathy with the poor; long,

therefore, may fat _épiciers_ blubber over mimic woes, and honest

_prolétaires_ shake their fists, shouting--‘Gredin, scélérat, monstre de

Marquis!’ and such republican cries.

Remark, too, another development of this same popular feeling of dislike

against men in power. What a number of plays and legends have we (the

writer has submitted to the public, in the preceding pages, a couple of

specimens; one of French, and the other of Polish origin), in which that

great and powerful aristocrat, the Devil, is made to be miserably

tricked, humiliated, and disappointed! A play of this class, which, in

the midst of all its absurdities and claptraps, had much of good in it,

was called _Le Maudit des Mers_. Le Maudit is a Dutch captain, who, in

the midst of a storm, while his crew were on their knees at prayers,

blasphemed and drank punch; but what was his astonishment at beholding

an archangel with a sword, all covered with flaming resin, who told him

that, as he, in this hour of danger, was too daring, or too wicked, to

utter a prayer, he never should cease roaming the seas until he could

find some being who would pray to Heaven for him!

Once, only, in a hundred years, was the skipper allowed to land for this

purpose; and this piece runs through four centuries, in as many acts,

describing the agonies and unavailing attempts of the miserable

Dutchman. Willing to go any lengths, in order to obtain this prayer,

he, in the second act, betrays a Virgin of the Sun to a follower of

Pizarro; and, in the third, assassinates the heroic William of Nassau;

but ever before the dropping of the curtain, the angel and sword make

their appearance:--‘Treachery,’ says the spirit, ‘cannot lessen thy

punishment;--crime will not obtain thy release! _A la mer! à la mer!_’

and the poor devil returns to the ocean, to be lonely, and

tempest-tossed, and sea-sick, for a hundred years more.

But his woes are destined to end with the fourth act. Having landed in

America, where the peasants on the sea-shore, all dressed in Italian

costumes, are celebrating, in a quadrille, the victories of Washington,

he is there lucky enough to find a young girl to pray for him. Then the

curse is removed, the punishment is over, and a celestial vessel, with

angels on the decks, and ‘sweet little cherubs’ fluttering about the

shrouds and the poop, appears to receive him.

This piece was acted at Franconi’s, where, for once, an angel-ship was

introduced in place of the usual horsemanship.

One must not forget to mention here, how the English nation is satirised

by our neighbours, who have some droll traditions regarding us. In one

of the little Christmas pieces produced at the Palais Royal (satires

upon the follies of the past twelve months, on which all the small

theatres exhaust their wit), the celebrated flight of Messrs. Green and

Monck Mason was parodied, and created a good deal of laughter at the

expense of John Bull. Two English noblemen, Milor Cricri and Milor

Hanneton, appear as descending from a balloon, and one of them

communicates to the public the philosophical observations which were

made in the course of his aërial tour.

‘On leaving Vauxhall,’ says his lordship, ‘we drank a bottle of Madeira,

as a health to the friends from whom we parted, and crunched a few

biscuits to support nature during the hours before lunch. In two hours

we arrived at Canterbury, enveloped in clouds; lunch, bottled porter; at

Dover, carried several miles in a tide of air, bitter cold, cherry

brandy; crossed over the Channel safely, and thought, with pity, of the

poor people who were sickening in the steamboats below; more bottled

porter; over Calais; dinner, roast-beef of Old England; near

Dunkirk,--night falling, lunar rainbow, brandy-and-water; night

confoundedly thick; supper, nightcap of rum-punch, and so to bed. The

sun broke beautifully through the morning mist, as we boiled the kettle,

and took our breakfast over Cologne. In a few more hours we concluded

this memorable voyage, and landed safely at Weilburg, in good time for

dinner.’

The joke here is smart enough; but our honest neighbours make many

better, when they are quite unconscious of the fun. Let us leave plays,

for a moment, for poetry, and take an instance of French criticism,

concerning England, from the works of a famous French exquisite and man

of letters. The hero of the poem addresses his mistress:--

‘Londres, tu le sais trop, en fait de capitale,

Est ce que fit le ciel de plus froid et plus pâle,

C’est la ville du gaz, des marins, du brouillard;

On s’y couche à minuit, et l’on s’y lève tard;

Ses raouts tant vantés ne sont qu’une boxade,

Sur ses grands quais jamais échelle ou sérénade,

Mais de volumineux bourgeois pris de porter

Qui passent sans lever le front à Westminster;

Et n’était sa forêt de mâts perçant la brume,

Sa tour dont à minuit le vieil œil s’allume,

Et tes deux yeux, Zerline, illuminés bien plus,

Je dirais que, ma foi, des romans que j’ai lus,

Il n’en est pas un seul, plus lourd, plus léthargique

Que cette nation qu’on nomme Britannique!’

The writer of the above lines (which let any man who can translate) is

Monsieur Roger de Beauvoir, a gentleman who actually lived many months

in England, as an _attaché_ to the embassy of M. de Polignac. He places

the heroine of his tale in a _petit réduit près le Strand_, ‘with a

green and fresh jalousie, and a large blind, let down all day; you

fancied you were entering a bath of Asia, as soon as you had passed the

perfumed threshold of this charming retreat!’ He next places her--

‘Dans un Square écarté, morne et couverte de givre,

Où se cache un Hôtel, aux vieux lions de cuivre;’

and the hero of the tale, a young French poet, who is in London, is

truly unhappy in that village.

‘Arthur dessèche et meurt.--Dans la ville de Sterne,

Rien qu’en voyant le peuple il a le mal de mer;

Il n’aime ni le Parc, gai comme une citerne,

Ni le tir au pigeon, ni le _soda-water_.[12]

_Liston_ ne le fait plus sourciller! Il rumine

Sur les trottoirs du Strand, droit comme un échiquier,

Contre le peuple anglais, les nègres, la vermine

Et les mille _cokneys_ du peuple boutiquier,

Contre tous les bas-bleus, contre les pâtissières,

Les parieurs d’Epsom, le gin, le parlement,

La _quaterly_, le roi, la pluie et les libraires,

il ne touche plus, hélas! un sou d’argent!

Et chaque gentleman lui dit: L’heureux poète!

‘L’heureux poète’ indeed! I question if a poet in this wide world is so

happy as M. de Beauvoir, or has made such wonderful discoveries. ‘The

bath of Asia, with green jalousies,’ in which the lady dwells; ‘the old

hotel, with copper lions, in a lonely square;’--were ever such things

heard of, or imagined, but by a Frenchman? The sailors, the negroes, the

vermin, whom he meets in the street,--how great and happy are all these

discoveries! Liston no longer makes the happy poet frown; and ‘gin,’

‘cokneys,’ and the ‘quaterly’ have not the least effect upon him! And

this gentleman has lived many months amongst us; admires _Williams

Shakspear_, the ‘grave et vieux prophète,’ as he calls him, and never,

for an instant, doubts that his description contains anything absurd.

I don’t know whether the great Dumas has passed any time in England; but

his plays show a similar intimate knowledge of our habits. Thus in Kean

the stage-manager is made to come forward and address the pit, with a

speech beginning, ‘_My Lords and Gentlemen_;’ and a company of

Englishwomen are introduced (at the memorable Coal-hole), and they all

wear _pinafores_; as if the British female were in the invariable habit

of wearing this outer garment, or slobbering her gown without it. There

was another celebrated piece, enacted some years since, upon the subject

of Queen Caroline, where our late adored sovereign, George, was made to

play a most despicable part; and where Signor Bergami fought a duel with

Lord Londonderry. In the last act of this play, the House of Lords was

represented, and Sir Brougham made an eloquent speech in the Queen’s

favour. Presently the shouts of the mob were heard without; from

shouting they proceed to pelting; and pasteboard brickbats and cabbages

came flying among the representatives of our hereditary legislature. At

this unpleasant juncture, _Sir Hardinge_, the Secretary at War, rises

and calls in the military; the act ends in a general row, and the

ignominious fall of Lord Liverpool, laid low by a brickbat from the mob!

The description of these scenes is, of course, quite incapable of

conveying any notion of their general effect. You must have the

solemnity of the actors, as they Meess and Milor one another, and the

perfect gravity and good faith with which the audience listen to them.

Our stage Frenchman is the old Marquis, with sword, and pig-tail, and

spangled court coat. The Englishman of the French theatre has,

invariably, a red wig, and almost always leather gaiters, and a long

white upper Benjamin: he remains as he was represented in the old

caricatures, after the peace, when Vernet designed him somewhat after

the following fashion.

[Illustration]

And to conclude this catalogue of blunders: in the famous piece of the

_Naufrage de la Méduse_, the first act is laid on board an English

ship-of-war, all the officers of which appeared in light blue, or green,

coats (the lamp-light prevented our distinguishing the colour

accurately), in little blue coats, and TOP-BOOTS!

* * * * *

Let us not attempt to deaden the force of this tremendous blow by any

more remarks. The force of blundering can go no farther. Would a

playwright or painter of the Chinese empire have stranger notions about

the barbarians than our neighbours, who are separated from us but by two

hours of salt water?

MEDITATIONS AT VERSAILLES

The palace of Versailles has been turned into a bric-à-brac shop of late

years; and its time-honoured walls have been covered with many thousand

yards of the worst pictures that eye ever looked on. I don’t know how

many leagues of battles and sieges the unhappy visitor is now obliged to

march through, amidst a crowd of chattering Paris cockneys, who are

never tired of looking at the glories of the Grenadier Français; to the

chronicling of whose deeds this old palace of the old kings is now

altogether devoted. A whizzing, screaming steam-engine rushes hither

from Paris, bringing shoals of _badauds_ in its wake. The old _coucous_

are all gone, and their place knows them no longer. Smooth asphaltum

terraces, tawdry lamps, and great hideous Egyptian obelisks, have

frightened them away from the pleasant station which they used to occupy

under the trees of the Champs Elysées; and though the old _coucous_ were

just the most uncomfortable vehicles that human ingenuity ever

constructed, one can’t help looking back to the days of their existence

with a tender regret, for there was pleasure, then, in the little trip

of three leagues; and who ever had pleasure in a railroad journey?--Does

any reader of this venture to say that, on such a voyage, he ever dared

to be pleasant? Do the most hardened stokers joke with one another?--I

don’t believe it. Look into every single car of the train, and you will

see that every single face is solemn. They take their seats gravely, and

are silent, for the most part, during the journey; they dare not look

out of window, for fear of being blinded by the smoke that comes

whizzing by, or of losing their heads in one of the windows of the down

train: they ride for miles in utter damp and darkness; through awful

pipes of brick, that have been run pitilessly through the bowels of

gentle mother earth, the cast-iron Frankenstein of an engine gallops on,

puffing and screaming. Does any man pretend to say that he _enjoys_ the

journey?--he might as well say that he enjoyed having his hair cut; he

bears it, but that is all: he will not allow the world to laugh at him,

for any exhibition of slavish fear; and pretends, therefore, to be at

his ease; but he is afraid, nay, ought to be, under the circumstances. I

am sure Hannibal or Napoleon would, were they locked suddenly into a

car; there kept close prisoners for a certain number of hours, and

whirled along at this dizzy pace. You can’t stop, if you would;--you may

die, but you can’t stop; the engine may explode upon the road, and up

you go along with it; or, may be a bolter, and take a fancy to go down a

hill, or into a river: all this you must bear, for the privilege of

travelling twenty miles an hour.

This little journey, then, from Paris to Versailles, that used to be so

merry of old, has lost its pleasures since the disappearance of the

cuckoos; and I would as lieve have for companions the statues that

lately took a coach from the bridge opposite the Chamber of Deputies,

and stepped out in the Court of Versailles, as the most part of the

people who now travel on the railroad. The stone figures are not a whit

more cold and silent than these persons, who used to be, in the old

cuckoos, so talkative and merry. The prattling grisette and her swain

from the Ecole de Droit; the huge Alsacian carabinier, grim smiling

under his sandy moustaches and glittering brazen helmet; the jolly

nurse, in red calico, who had been to Paris to show mamma her darling

Lolo, or Guguste;--what merry companions used one to find squeezed into

the crazy old vehicles that formerly performed the journey! But the age

of horseflesh is gone--that of engineers, economists, and calculators

has succeeded; and the pleasure of coucoudom is extinguished for ever.

Why not mourn over it, as Mr. Burke did over his cheap defence of

nations, and unbought grace of life; that age of chivalry, which he

lamented, _à propos_ of a trip to Versailles, some half a century back?

Without stopping to discuss (as might be done, in rather a neat and

successful manner) whether the age of chivalry was cheap or dear, and

whether, in the time of the unbought grace of life, there was not more

bribery, robbery, villainy, tyranny, and corruption, than exists even in

our own happy days,--let us make a few moral and historical remarks upon

the town of Versailles, where, between railroad and _coucou_, we are

surely arrived by this time.

The town is, certainly, the most moral of towns. You pass, from the

railroad station, through a long, lonely suburb, with dusty rows of

stunted trees on either side, and some few miserable beggars, idle boys,

and ragged old women, under them. Behind the trees are gaunt, mouldy

houses, palaces once, where (in the days of the unbought grace of life)

the cheap defence of nations gambled, ogled, swindled, intrigued; whence

highborn duchesses used to issue, in old times, to act as chambermaids

to lovely Du Barri, and mighty princes rolled away, in gilt caroches,

hot for the honour of lighting his Majesty to bed, or of presenting his

stockings when he rose, or of holding his napkin when he dined. Tailors,

chandlers, tinmen, wretched hucksters, and greengrocers are now

established in the mansions of the old peers; small children are yelling

at the doors, with mouths besmeared with bread and treacle; damp rags

are hanging out of every one of the windows, steaming in the sun;

oyster-shells, cabbage-stalks, broken crockery, old papers, lie basking

in the same cheerful light. A solitary water-cart goes jingling down the

wide pavement, and spirts a feeble refreshment over the dusty, thirsty

stones.

[Illustration: THE CHEAP DEFENCE OF NATIONS

A NATIONAL GUARD ON DUTY]

After pacing, for some time, through such dismal streets, we _déboucher_

on the _grand place_; and before us lies the palace dedicated to all the

glories of France. In the midst of the great, lonely plain, this famous

residence of King Louis looks low and mean.--Honoured pile! time was

when tall musketeers and gilded body-guards allowed none to pass the

gate;--fifty years ago, ten thousand drunken women, from Paris, broke

through the charm; and now a tattered commissioner will conduct you

through it for a penny, and lead you up to the sacred entrance of the

palace.

We will not examine all the glories of France, as here they are

portrayed in pictures and marble: catalogues are written about these

miles of canvas, representing all the revolutionary battles, from Valmy

to Waterloo,--all the triumphs of Louis XIV.,--all the mistresses of his

successor,--and all the great men who have flourished since the French

empire began. Military heroes are most of these: fierce constables in

shining steel, marshals in voluminous wigs, and brave grenadiers in

bearskin caps; some dozens of whom gained crowns, principalities,

dukedoms; some hundreds, plunder and epaulets; some millions, death in

African sands, or in icy Russian plains, under the guidance, and for the

good, of that arch-hero, Napoleon. By far the greater part of ‘all the

glories’ of France (as of most other countries) is made up of these

military men: and a fine satire it is on the cowardice of mankind, that

they pay such an extraordinary homage to the virtue called courage,

filling their history-books with tales about it, and nothing but it.

Let them disguise the place, however, as they will, and plaster the

walls with bad pictures as they please, it will be hard to think of any

family but one, as one traverses this vast gloomy edifice. It has not

been humbled to the ground, as a certain palace of Babel was of yore:

but it is a monument of fallen pride, not less awful, and would afford

matter for a whole library of sermons. The cheap defence of nations

expended a thousand millions in the erection of this magnificent

dwelling-place. Armies were employed, in the intervals of their warlike

labours, to level hills, or pile them up; to turn rivers, and to build

aqueducts, and transplant woods, and construct smooth terraces, and long

canals. A vast garden grew up in a wilderness, and a stupendous palace

in the garden, and a stately city round the palace: the city was peopled

with parasites, who daily came to do worship before the creator of these

wonders--the Great King. ‘Dieu seul est grand,’ said courtly Massillon;

but next to him, as the prelate thought, was certainly Louis, his

vicegerent here upon earth--God’s lieutenant-governor of the

world,--before whom courtiers used to fall on their knees, and shade

their eyes, as if the light of his countenance, like the sun, which

shone supreme in heaven, the type of him, was too dazzling to bear.

Did ever the sun shine upon such a king before, in such a palace?--or,

rather, did such a king ever shine upon the sun? When Majesty came out

of his chamber, in the midst of his superhuman splendours, viz. in his

cinnamon-coloured coat, embroidered with diamonds; his pyramid of a

wig;[13] his red-heeled shoes, that lifted him four inches from the

ground, ‘that he scarcely seemed to touch;’ when he came out, blazing

upon the dukes and duchesses that waited his rising,--what could the

latter do but cover their eyes, and wink, and tremble?--And did he not

himself believe, as he stood there, on his high heels, under his

ambrosial periwig, that there was something in him more than

man--something above Fate?

This, doubtless, was he fain to believe; and if, on very fine days, from

his terrace, before his gloomy palace of St. Germains, he could catch a

glimpse, in the distance, of a certain white spire of St. Denis, where

his race lay buried, he would say to his courtiers, with a sublime

condescension, ‘Gentlemen, you must remember that I, too, am mortal.’

Surely the lords in waiting could hardly think him serious, and vowed

that his Majesty always loved a joke. However, mortal or not, the sight

of that sharp spire wounded his Majesty’s eyes; and is said, by the

legend, to have caused the building of the palace of Babel-Versailles.

In the year 1681, then, the great king, with bag and baggage,--with

guards, cooks, chamberlains, mistresses, Jesuits, gentlemen, lackeys,

Fénelons, Molières, Lauzuns, Bossuets, Villars, Villeroys, Louvois,

Colberts,--transported himself to his new palace: the old one being left

for James of England and Jaquette his wife, when their time should come.

And when the time did come, and James sought his brother’s kingdom, it

is on record that Louis hastened to receive and console him, and

promised to restore, incontinently, those islands from which the

_canaille_ had turned him. Between brothers such a gift was a trifle;

and the courtiers said to one another reverently,[14] ‘The Lord said

unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies my

footstool.’ There was no blasphemy in the speech; on the contrary, it

was gravely said, by a faithful believing man, who thought it no shame

to the latter to compare his Majesty with God Almighty. Indeed, the

books of the time will give one a strong idea how general was this

Louis-worship. I have just been looking at one, which was written by an

honest Jesuit and _protégé_ of Père la Chaise, who dedicates a book of

medals to the august Infants of France, which does, indeed, go almost as

far in print. He calls our famous monarch ‘Louis le Grand:--1,

l’invincible; 2, le sage; 3, le conquérant; 4, la merveille de son

siècle; 5, la terreur de sea ennemis; 6, l’amour de ses peuples; 7,

l’arbitre de la paix et de la guerre; 8, l’admiration de l’univers; 9,

et digne d’en être le maître; 10, le modèle d’un héros achevé; 11, digne

de l’immortalité, et de la vénération de tous les siècles!’

A pretty Jesuit declaration, truly, and a good honest judgment upon the

great King! In thirty years more--1. The invincible had been beaten a

vast number of times. 2. The sage was the puppet of an artful old woman,

who was the puppet of more artful priests. 3. The conqueror had quite

forgotten his early knack of conquering. 5. The terror of his enemies

(for 4, the marvel of his age, we pretermit, it being a loose term, that

may apply to any person or thing) was now terrified by his enemies in

turn. 6. The love of his people was as heartily detested by them as

scarcely any other monarch, not even his great-grandson, has been,

before or since. 7. The arbiter of peace and war was fain to send superb

ambassadors to kick their heels in Dutch shopkeepers’ ante-chambers. 8.

Is again a general term. 9. The man fit to be master of the universe,

was scarcely master of his own kingdom. 10. The finished hero was all

but finished, in a very commonplace and vulgar way. And 11. The man

worthy of immortality was just at the point of death, without a friend

to soothe or deplore him; only withered old Maintenon to mutter prayers

at his bedside, and croaking Jesuits to prepare him,[15] with Heaven

knows what wretched tricks and mummeries, for his appearance in that

Great Republic that lies on the other side of the grave. In the course

of his fourscore splendid miserable years, he never had but one friend,

and he ruined and left her. Poor La Vallière, what a sad tale is yours!

‘Look at this Galerie des Glaces,’ cried Monsieur Vatout, staggering

with surprise at the appearance of the room, two hundred and forty-two

feet long, and forty high; ‘here it was that Louis displayed all the

grandeur of Royalty; and such was the splendour of his Court, and the

luxury of the times, that this immense room could hardly contain the

crowd of courtiers that pressed around the monarch.’ Wonderful!

wonderful! Eight thousand four hundred and sixty square feet of

courtiers! Give a square yard to each, and you have a matter of three

thousand of them. Think of three thousand courtiers per day, and all the

chopping and changing of them for near forty years; some of them dying;

some getting their wishes and retiring to their provinces to enjoy their

plunder; some disgraced, and going home to pine away out of the light of

the sun;[16] new ones perpetually arriving,--pushing, squeezing, for

their place, in the crowded Galerie des Glaces. A quarter of a million

of noble countenances, at the very least, must those glasses have

reflected. Rouge, diamonds, ribands, patches upon the faces of smiling

ladies: towering periwigs, sleek shaven crowns, tufted moustaches,

scars, and grizzled whiskers, worn by ministers, priests, dandies, and

grim old commanders.--So many faces, O ye gods! and every one of them

lies! So many tongues, vowing devotion and respectful love to the great

King in his six-inch wig; and only poor La Vallière’s amongst them all

which had a word of truth for the dull ears of Louis of Bourbon.

‘Quand j’aurai de la peine aux Carmélites,’ says unhappy Louise, about

to retire from these magnificent courtiers and their grand Galerie des

Glaces, ‘je me souviendrai de ce que ces gens-là m’ont fait

souffrir!’--A troop of Bossuets inveighing against the vanities of

Courts could not preach such an affecting sermon. What years of anguish

and wrong has the poor thing suffered, before these sad words came from

her gentle lips! How these courtiers have bowed and flattered, kissed

the ground on which she trod, fought to have the honour of riding by her

carriage, written sonnets, and called her goddess: who in the days of

her prosperity was kind and beneficent, gentle and compassionate to all;

then (on a certain day, when it is whispered that his Majesty hath cast

the eyes of his gracious affection upon another) behold the three

thousand courtiers are at the feet of the new divinity.--‘O divine

Athenais! what blockheads have we been to worship any but you.--_That_ a

goddess?--a pretty goddess forsooth;--a witch, rather, who, for a while,

kept our gracious monarch blind! Look at her: the woman limps as she

walks; and, by sacred Venus, her mouth stretches almost to her diamond

earrings!’[17] The some tale may be told of many more deserted

mistresses; and fair Athenais de Montespan was to hear it of herself one

day. Meantime, while La Vallière’s heart is breaking, the model of a

finished hero is yawning; as, on such paltry occasions, a finished hero

should. _Let_ her heart break: a plague upon her tears and repentance;

what right has she to repent? Away with her to her convent! She goes,

and the finished hero never sheds a tear. What a noble pitch of stoicism

to have reached! Our Louis was so great, that the little woes of mean

people were beyond him: his friends died, his mistresses left him; his

children, one by one, were cut off before his eyes, and great Louis is

not moved in the slightest degree! As how, indeed, should a god be

moved?

I have often liked to think about this strange character in the world,

who moved in it, bearing about a full belief in his own infallibility;

teaching his generals the art of war, his ministers the science of

government, his wits taste, his courtiers dress; ordering deserts to

become gardens, turning villages into palaces at a breath; and indeed

the august figure of the man, as he towers upon his throne, cannot fail

to inspire one with respect and awe:--how grand those flowing locks

appear; how awful that sceptre; how magnificent those flowing robes! In

Louis, surely, if in any one, the majesty of kinghood is represented.

But a king is not every inch a king, for all the poet may say; and it is

curious to see how much precise majesty there is in that majestic figure

of Ludovicus Rex. In the plate opposite, we have endeavoured to make the

exact calculation. The idea of kingly dignity is equally strong in the

two outer figures; and you see, at once, that majesty is made out of the

wig, the high-heeled shoes, and cloak, all fleur-de-lis bespangled. As

for the little, lean, shrivelled, paunchy old man, of five feet two, in

a jacket and breeches, there is no majesty in _him_ at any rate; and yet

he has just stept out of that very suit of clothes. Put the wig and

shoes on him, and he is six feet high;--the other fripperies, and he

stands before you majestic, imperial, and heroic! Thus do barbers and

cobblers make the gods that we worship: for do we not all worship him?

Yes; though we all know him to be stupid, heartless, short, of doubtful

personal courage, worship and admire him we must; and have set up, in

our hearts, a grand image of him, endowed with wit, magnanimity, valour,

and enormous heroical stature.

And what magnanimous acts are attributed to him! or, rather, how

differently do we view the actions of heroes and common men, and find

that the same thing shall be a wonderful virtue in the former, which, in

the latter, is only an ordinary act of duty! Look at yonder window of

the King’s chamber;--one morning a Royal cane was seen whirling out of

it, and plumped among the courtiers and guard of honour below. King

Louis had absolutely, and with his own hand, flung his own cane out of

the window, ‘because,’ said he, ‘I won’t demean myself by striking a

gentleman!’ Oh, miracle of magnanimity! Lauzun was not caned, because

he besought Majesty to keep his promise,--only imprisoned for ten years

in Pignerol, along with banished Fouquet;--and a pretty story is

Fouquet’s, too.

[Illustration: AN HISTORICAL STUDY

REX LUDOVICUS LUDOVICUS REX]

Out of the window the King’s august head was one day thrust, when old

Condé was painfully toiling up the steps of the court below. ‘Don’t

hurry yourself, my cousin,’ cries Magnanimity; ‘one who has to carry so

many laurels cannot walk fast.’ At which all the courtiers, lackeys,

mistresses, chamberlains, Jesuits, and scullions clasp their hands and

burst into tears. Men are affected by the tale to this very day. For a

century and three-quarters have not all the books that speak of

Versailles, or Louis Quatorze, told the story?--‘Don’t hurry yourself,

my cousin!’ O admirable King and Christian! what a pitch of

condescension is here, that the greatest King of all the world should go

for to say anything so kind, and really tell a tottering old gentleman,

worn out with gout, age, and wounds, not to walk too fast!

What a proper fund of slavishness is there in the composition of

mankind, that histories like these should be found to interest and awe

them. Till the world’s end, most likely, this story will have its place

in the history-books; and unborn generations will read it, and tenderly

be moved by it. I am sure that Magnanimity went to bed that night

pleased and happy, intimately convinced that he had done an action of

sublime virtue, and had easy slumbers and sweet dreams,--especially if

he had taken a light supper, and not too vehemently attacked his _en cas

de nuit_.

That famous adventure, in which the _en cas de nuit_ was brought into

use, for the sake of one Poquelin, _alias_ Molière:--how often has it

been described and admired? This Poquelin, though King’s _valet de

chambre_, was by profession a vagrant; and as such looked coldly on by

the great lords of the palace, who refused to eat with him. Majesty

hearing of this, ordered his _en cas de nuit_ to be placed on the table,

and positively cut off a wing, with his own knife and fork, for

Poquelin’s use. O thrice happy Jean Baptiste! The King has actually sate

down with him cheek by jowl, had the liver-wing of a fowl, and given

Molière the gizzard; put his imperial legs under the same mahogany, _sub

iisdem trabibus_. A man, after such an honour, can look for little else

in this world: he has tasted the utmost conceivable earthly happiness,

and has nothing to do now but to fold his arms and look up to heaven,

and sing ‘Nunc dimittis’ and die.

Do not let us abuse poor old Louis on account of this monstrous pride;

but only lay it to the charge of the fools who believed and worshipped

it. If, honest man, he believed himself to be almost a god, it was only

because thousands of people had told him so--people only half liars,

too; who did, in the depths of their slavish respect, admire the man

almost as much as they said they did. If, when he appeared in his

five-hundred-million coat, as he is said to have done, before the

Siamese Ambassadors, the courtiers began to shade their eyes and long

for parasols, as if this Bourbonic sun was too hot for them; indeed, it

is no wonder that he should believe that there was something dazzling

about his person; he had half a million of eager testimonies to this

idea. Who was to tell him the truth?--Only in the last years of his life

did trembling courtiers dare whisper to him, after much circumlocution,

that a certain battle had been fought at a place called Blenheim, and

that Eugene and Marlborough had stopped his long career of triumphs.

‘On n’est plus heureux à notre âge,’ says the old man, to one of his old

generals, welcoming Tallard, after his defeat; and he rewards him with

honours, as if he had come from a victory. There is, if you will,

something magnanimous in this welcome to his conquered general, this

stout protest against Fate. Disaster succeeds disaster; armies after

armies march out to meet fiery Eugene and that dogged fatal Englishman,

and disappear in the smoke of the enemies’ cannon. Even at Versailles

you may almost hear it roaring at last; but when courtiers, who have

forgotten their god, now talk of quitting this grand temple of his, old

Louis plucks up heart and will never hear of surrender. All the gold and

silver at Versailles he melts, to find bread for his armies: all the

jewels on his five-hundred-million coat he pawns resolutely; and,

bidding Villars go and make the last struggle but one, promises, if his

general is defeated, to place himself at the head of his nobles, and die

King of France. Indeed, after a man, for sixty years, has been

performing the part of a hero, some of the real heroic stuff must have

entered into his composition, whether he would or not. When the great

Elliston was enacting the part of King George the Fourth, in the play of

_The Coronation_, at Drury Lane, the galleries applauded very loudly his

suavity and majestic demeanour, at which Elliston, inflamed by the

popular loyalty (and by some fermented liquor in which, it is said, he

was in the habit of indulging), burst into tears, and, spreading out his

arms, exclaimed: ‘Bless ye, bless ye, my people!’ Don’t let us laugh at

his Ellistonian majesty, nor at the people who clapped hands and yelled

‘Bravo!’ in praise of him. The tipsy old manager did really feel that he

was a hero at that moment; and the people, wild with delight and

attachment for a magnificent coat and breeches, surely were uttering the

true sentiments of loyalty: which consists in reverencing these and

other articles of costume. In this fifth act, then, of his long Royal

drama, old Louis performed his part excellently; and when the curtain

drops upon him, he lies, dressed majestically, in a becoming kingly

attitude, as a king should.

The King his successor has not left, at Versailles, half so much

occasion for moralising: perhaps the neighbouring Parc aux Cerfs would

afford better illustrations of his reign. The life of his

great-grandsire, the Grand Llama of France, seems to have frightened

Louis the Well-beloved; who understood that loneliness is one of the

necessary conditions of divinity, and, being of a jovial companionable

turn, aspired not beyond manhood. Only in the matter of ladies did he

surpass his predecessor, as Solomon did David. War he eschewed, as his

grandfather bade him; and his simple taste found little in this world to

enjoy beyond the mulling of chocolate and the frying of pancakes. Look,

here is the room called Laboratoire du Roi, where, with his own hands,

he made his mistress’s breakfast--here is the little door through which,

from her apartments in the upper story, the chaste Du Barri came

stealing down to the arms of the weary, feeble, gloomy old man. But of

women he was tired long since, and even pancake-frying had palled upon

him. What had he to do, after forty years of reign;--after having

exhausted everything? Every pleasure that Dubois could invent for his

hot youth, or cunning Lebel could minister to his old age, was flat and

stale; used up to the very dregs; every shilling in the national purse

had been squeezed out, by Pompadour and Du Barri and such brilliant

ministers of state. He had found out the vanity of pleasure, as his

ancestor had discovered the vanity of glory; indeed it was high time

that he should die. And die he did; and round his tomb, as round that of

his grandfather before him, the starving people sang a dreadful chorus

of curses, which were the only epitaphs for good or for evil that were

raised to his memory.

As for the courtiers--the knights and nobles, the unbought grace of

life--they, of course, forgot him in one minute after his death, as the

way is. When the King dies, the officer appointed opens his chamber

window, and calling out into the court below, _Le Roi est mort_, breaks

his cane, takes another and waves it, exclaiming _Vive le Roi!_

Straightway all the loyal nobles begin yelling _Vive le Roi!_ and the

officer goes round solemnly and sets yonder great clock in the Cour de

Marbre to the hour of the King’s death. This old Louis had solemnly

ordained; but the Versailles clock was only set twice: there was no

shouting of _Vive le Roi_ when the successor of Louis XV. mounted to

heaven to join his sainted family.

Strange stories of the deaths of kings have always been very recreating

and profitable to us: what a fine one is that of the death of Louis XV.,

as Madame Campan tells it! One night the gracious monarch came back ill

from Trianon; the disease turned out to be the small-pox; so violent

that ten people of those who had to enter his chamber caught the

infection and died. The whole Court flies from him; only poor old fat

Mesdames the King’s daughters persist in remaining at his bedside, and

praying for his soul’s welfare.

On the 10th May 1774, the whole Court had assembled at the château; the

Œil de Bœuf was full. The Dauphin had determined to depart as soon

as the King had breathed his last. And it was agreed by the people of

the stables, with those who watched in the King’s room, that a lighted

candle should be placed in a window, and should be extinguished as soon

as he had ceased to live. The candle was put out. At that signal,

guards, pages, and squires mounted on horseback, and everything was made

ready for departure. The Dauphin was with the Dauphiness, waiting

together for the news of the King’s demise. _An immense noise, as if of

thunder, was heard in the next room_; it was the crowd of courtiers, who

were deserting the dead King’s apartment in order to pay their court to

the new power of Louis XVI. Madame de Noailles entered, and was the

first to salute the Queen by her title of Queen of France, and begged

their Majesties to quit their apartments to receive the princes and

great lords of the Court desirous to pay their homage to the new

sovereigns. Leaning on her husband’s arm, a handkerchief to her eyes, in

the most touching attitude, Marie Antoinette received these first

visits. On quitting the chamber where the dead King lay, the Duc de

Villequier bade M. Andervillé, first surgeon of the King, to open and

embalm the body: it would have been certain death to the surgeon. ‘I am

ready, sir,’ says he; ‘but, whilst I am operating, you must hold the

head of the corpse: your charge demands it.’ The Duke went away without

a word, and the body was neither opened nor embalmed. A few humble

domestics and poor workmen watched by the remains, and performed the

last offices to their master. The surgeons ordered spirits of wine to be

poured into the coffin.

They huddled the King’s body into a postchaise; and in this deplorable

equipage, with an escort of about forty men, Louis the Well-beloved was

carried, in the dead of night, from Versailles to Saint-Denis, and then

thrown into the tomb of the kings of France!

If any man is curious, and can get permission, he may mount to the roofs

of the palace, and see where Louis XVI. used royally to amuse himself,

by gazing upon the doings of all the townspeople below with a telescope.

Behold that balcony where, one morning, he, his Queen, and the little

Dauphin stood, with Cromwell Grandison Lafayette by their side, who

kissed her Majesty’s hand, and protected her; and then, lovingly

surrounded by his people, the King got into a coach and came to Paris:

nor did his Majesty ride much in coaches after that.

There is a portrait of the King, in the upper galleries, clothed in red

and gold, riding a fat horse, brandishing a sword, on which the word

‘Justice’ is inscribed, and looking remarkably stupid and uncomfortable.

You see that the horse will throw him at the very first fling; and as

for the sword, it never was made for such hands as his, which were good

at holding a corkscrew or a carving-knife, but not clever at the

management of weapons of war. Let those pity him who will: call him

saint and martyr if you please; but a martyr to what principle was he?

Did he frankly support either party in his kingdom, or cheat and tamper

with both? He might have escaped, but he must have his supper, and so

his family was butchered, and his kingdom lost, and he had his bottle of

Burgundy in comfort at Varennes. A single charge upon the fatal tenth of

August, and the monarchy might have been his once more; but he is so

tender-hearted, that he lets his friends be murdered before his eyes

almost: or, at least, when he has turned his back upon his duty and his

kingdom, and has skulked for safety into the reporters’ box at the

National Assembly. There were hundreds of brave men who died that day,

and were martyrs, if you will: poor neglected tenth-rate courtiers, for

the most part, who had forgotten old slights and disappointments, and

left their places of safety to come and die, if need were, sharing in

the supreme hour of the monarchy. Monarchy was a great deal too humane

to fight along with these, and so left them to the pikes of Santerre and

the mercy of the men of the Sections. But we are wandering a good ten

miles from Versailles, and from the deeds which Louis XVI. performed

there.

He is said to have been such a smart journeyman blacksmith, that he

might, if Fate had not perversely placed a crown on his head, have

earned a couple of louis every week by the making of locks and keys.

Those who will, may see the workshop where he employed many useful

hours; Madame Elizabeth was at prayers; meanwhile, the Queen was making

pleasant parties with her ladies; Monsieur the Count d’Artois was

learning to dance on the tight-rope; and Monsieur de Provence was

cultivating _l’eloquence du billet_ and studying his favourite Horace.

It is said that each member of the august family succeeded remarkably

well in his or her pursuits: big Monsieur’s little notes are still

cited. At a minuet or sillabub, poor Antoinette was unrivalled; and

Charles, on the tight-rope, was so graceful and so _gentil_, that Madame

Saqui might envy him. The time only was out of joint. Oh, cursed spite,

that ever such harmless creatures as these were bidden to right it!

A walk to the Little Trianon is both pleasing and moral: no doubt the

reader has seen the pretty fantastical gardens which environ it; the

groves and temples; the streams and caverns (whither, as the guide tells

you, during the heat of summer, it was the custom of Marie Antoinette to

retire, with her favourite, Madame de Lamballe): the lake and Swiss

village are pretty little toys, moreover; and the cicerone of the place

does not fail to point out the different cottages which surround the

piece of water, and tell the names of the Royal masqueraders who

inhabited each. In the long cottage close upon the lake dwelt the

Seigneur du Village, no less a personage than Louis XV.; Louis XVI., the

Dauphin, was the Bailli; near his cottage is that of Monseigneur the

Count d’Artois, who was the Miller; opposite lived the Prince de Condé,

who enacted the part of Gamekeeper (or, indeed, any other _rôle_, for it

does not signify much); near him was the Prince de Roham, who was the

Aumônier; and yonder is the pretty little dairy, which was under the

charge of the fair Marie Antoinette herself.

I forget whether Monsieur, the fat Count of Provence, took any share of

this royal masquerading; but look at the names of the other six actors

of the comedy, and it will be hard to find any person for whom Fate had

such dreadful visitations in store. Fancy the party, in the days of

their prosperity, here gathered at Trianon, and seated under the tall

poplars by the lake, discoursing familiarly together: suppose, of a

sudden, some conjuring Cagliostro of the time is introduced among them,

and foretells to them the woes that are about to come. ‘You, Monsieur

l’Aumônier, the descendant of a long line of princes, the passionate

admirer of that fair Queen who sits by your side, shall be the cause of

her ruin and your own,[18] and shall die in disgrace and exile. You, son

of the Condés, shall live long enough to see your Royal race overthrown,

and shall die by the hands of a hangman.[19] You, oldest son of St.

Louis, shall perish by the executioner’s axe; that beautiful head, O

Antoinette, the same ruthless blade shall sever.’ ‘They shall kill me

first,’ says Lamballe, at the Queen’s side. ‘Yes, truly,’ replies the

soothsayer, ‘for Fate prescribes ruin for your mistress and all who

love her.’[20] ‘And,’ cries Monsieur d’Artois, ‘do I not love my sister

too? I pray you not to omit me in your prophecies.’

To whom Monsieur Cagliostro says scornfully, ‘You may look forward to

fifty years of life, after most of these are laid in the grave. You

shall be a king, but not die one; and shall leave the crown only; not

the worthless head that shall wear it. Thrice shall you go into exile:

you shall fly from the people, first, who would have no more of you and

your race; and you shall return home over half a million of human

corpses, that have been made for the sake of you, and of a tyrant as

great as the greatest of your family. Again driven away, your bitterest

enemy shall bring you back. But the strong limbs of France are not to be

chained by such a paltry yoke as you can put on her; you shall be a

tyrant, but in will only, and shall have a sceptre, but to see it robbed

from your hand.’

‘And pray, Sir Conjurer, who shall be the robber?’ asked Monsieur the

Count d’Artois.

* * * * *

This I cannot say, for here my dream ended. The fact is, I had fallen

asleep on one of the stone benches in the Avenue de Paris, and at this

instant was awakened by a whirling of carriages and a great clattering

of national guards, lancers, and outriders, in red. HIS MAJESTY LOUIS

PHILIPPE was going to pay a visit to the palace, which contains several

pictures of his own glorious actions, and which has been dedicated, by

him, to All the Glories of France.

THE END

THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK

OF 1842

TO DR.

CHARLES LEVER

OF TEMPLEOGUE HOUSE, NEAR DUBLIN

MY DEAR LEVER,

Harry Lorrequer needs no complimenting in a dedication; and I would not

venture to inscribe these volumes to the Editor of the _Dublin

University Magazine_, who, I fear, must disapprove of a great deal which

they contain.

But allow me to dedicate my little book to a good Irishman (the hearty

charity of whose visionary redcoats, some substantial personages in

black might imitate to advantage), and to a friend from whom I have

received a hundred acts of kindness and cordial hospitality.

Laying aside for a moment the travelling title of Mr. Titmarsh, let me

acknowledge these favours in my own name, and subscribe myself, my dear

Lever,

Most sincerely and gratefully yours,

W. M. THACKERAY.

LONDON, _April 27, 1843_.

THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK

CHAPTER I

A SUMMER DAY IN DUBLIN, OR THERE AND THEREABOUTS

The coach that brings the passenger by wood and mountain, by brawling

waterfall and gloomy plain, by the lonely lake of Festiniog, and across

the swinging world’s-wonder of a Menai Bridge, through dismal Anglesea

to dismal Holyhead--the Birmingham mail,--manages matters so cleverly,

that after ten hours’ ride the traveller is thrust incontinently on

board the packet, and the steward says there’s no use in providing

dinner on board because the passage is so short.

That is true; but why not give us half-an-hour on shore? Ten hours spent

on a coach-box render the dinner question one of extreme importance; and

as the packet reaches Kingstown at midnight, when all the world is

asleep, the inn-larders locked up, and the cook in bed; and as the mail

is not landed until five in the morning (at which hour the passengers

are considerately awakened by a great stamping and shouting overhead),

might not Lord Lowther give us one little half-hour? Even the steward

agreed that it was a useless and atrocious tyranny; and, indeed, after a

little demur, produced a half-dozen of fried eggs, a feeble makeshift

for a dinner.

Our passage across from the Head was made in a rain so pouring and

steady, that sea and coast were entirely hidden from us, and one could

see very little beyond the glowing tip of the cigar which remained

alight nobly in spite of the weather. When the gallant exertions of that

fiery spirit were over for ever, and, burning bravely to the end, it had

breathed its last in doing its master service, all became black and

cheerless around; the passengers had dropped off one by one, preferring

to be dry and ill below rather than wet and squeamish above; even the

mate, with his gold-laced cap (who is so astonishingly like Mr. Charles

Dickens, that he might pass for that gentleman)--even the mate said he

would go to his cabin and turn in. So there remained nothing for it but

to do as all the world had done.

Hence it was impossible to institute the comparison between the Bay of

Naples and that of Dublin (the Bee of Neeples the former is sometimes

called in this country), where I have heard the likeness asserted in a

great number of societies and conversations. But how could one see the

Bay of Dublin in the dark? and how, supposing one could see it, should a

person behave who has never seen the Bay of Naples? It is but to take

the similarity for granted, and remain in bed till morning.

When everybody was awakened at five o’clock by the noise made upon the

removal of the mail-bags, there was heard a cheerless dribbling and

pattering overhead, which led one to wait still further until the rain

should cease. At length the steward said the last boat was going ashore,

and receiving half a crown for his own services (the regular tariff),

intimated likewise that it was the custom for gentlemen to compliment

the stewardess with a shilling, which ceremony was also complied with.

No doubt she is an amiable woman, and deserves any sum of money. As for

inquiring whether she merited it or not in this instance, that surely is

quite unfair. A traveller who stops to inquire the deserts of every

individual claimant of a shilling on his road, had best stay quiet at

home. If we only got what we _deserved_,--Heaven save us!--many of us

might whistle for a dinner.

A long pier, with a steamer or two at hand, and a few small vessels

lying on either side of the jetty; a town irregularly built, with many

handsome terraces, some churches, and showy-looking hotels; a few people

straggling on the beach; two or three cars at the railroad station,

which runs along the shore as far as Dublin; the sea stretching

interminably eastward; to the north the Hill of Howth, lying grey behind

the mist; and, directly under his feet, upon the wet, black, shining,

slippery deck, an agreeable reflection of his own legs, disappearing

seemingly in the direction of the cabin from which he issues; are the

sights which a traveller may remark on coming on deck at Kingstown pier

on a wet morning--let us say on an _average_ morning; for according to

the statement of well-informed natives, the Irish day is more often

rainy than otherwise. A hideous obelisk, stuck upon four fat balls, and

surmounted with a crown on a cushion (the latter were no bad emblems

perhaps of the monarch in whose honour they were raised), commemorates

the sacred spot at which George IV. _quitted_ Ireland: you are landed

here from the steamer; and a carman, who is dawdling in the

neighbourhood, with a straw in his mouth, comes leisurely up to ask

whether you’ll go to Dublin? Is it natural indolence, or the effect of

despair because of the neighbouring railroad, which renders him so

indifferent?--He does not even take the straw out of his mouth as he

proposes the question, and seems quite careless as to the answer.

He said he would take me to Dublin ‘in three quarthers,’ as soon as we

began a parley; as to the fare, he would not hear of it--he said he

would leave it to my honour; he would take me for nothing. Was it

possible to refuse such a genteel offer? The times are very much changed

since those described by the facetious Jack Hinton, when the carmen

tossed up for the passenger, and those who won him took him; for the

remaining cars on the stand did not seem to take the least interest in

the bargain, or offer to overdrive or underbid their comrade in any way.

Before that day, so memorable for joy and sorrow, for rapture at

receiving its monarch and tearful grief at losing him, when George IV.

came and left the maritime resort of the citizens of Dublin, it bore a

less genteel name than that which it owns at present, and was called

Dunleary. After that glorious event Dunleary disdained to be Dunleary

any longer, and became Kingstown henceforward and for ever. Numerous

terraces and pleasure-houses have been built in the place--they stretch

row after row along the banks of the sea, and rise one above another on

the hill. The rents of these houses are said to be very high; the Dublin

citizens crowd into them in summer; and a great source of pleasure and

comfort must it be to them to have the fresh sea-breezes and prospects

so near to the metropolis.

The better sort of houses are handsome and spacious; but the fashionable

quarter is yet in an unfinished state, for enterprising architects are

always beginning new roads, rows and terraces; nor are those already

built by any means complete. Besides the aristocratic part of the town

is a commercial one, and nearer to Dublin stretch lines of low cottages

which have not a Kingstown look at all, but are evidently of the

Dunleary period. It is quite curious to see in the streets where the

shops are, how often the painter of the signboards begins with big

letters, and ends, for want of space, with small; and the Englishman

accustomed to the thriving neatness and regularity which characterise

towns, great and small, in his own country, can’t fail to notice the

difference here. The houses have a battered rakish look, and seem going

to ruin before their time. As seamen of all nations come hither who have

made no vow of temperance, there are plenty of liquor-shops still, and

shabby cigar-shops, and shabby milliners’ and tailors’ with fly-blown

prints of old fashions. The bakers and apothecaries make a great brag of

their calling, and you see MEDICAL HALL, or PUBLIC BAKERY, _BALLYRAGGET

FLOUR-STORE_ (or whatever the name may be) pompously inscribed over very

humble tenements. Some comfortable grocers’ and butchers’ shops, and

numbers of shabby sauntering people, the younger part of whom are

bare-legged and bareheaded, make up the rest of the picture which the

stranger sees as his car goes jingling through the street.

After the town come the suburbs of pleasure-houses; low, one-storied

cottages for the most part; some neat and fresh; some that have passed

away from the genteel state altogether, and exhibiting downright

poverty; some in a state of transition, with broken windows and pretty

romantic names upon tumbledown gates. Who lives in them? One fancies

that the chairs and tables inside are broken, and the teapot on the

breakfast-table has no spout, and the tablecloth is ragged and sloppy,

and the lady of the house is in dubious curl-papers, and the gentleman

with an imperial to his chin and a flaring dressing-gown all ragged at

the elbows.

To be sure, a traveller who in ten minutes can see not only the outsides

of houses, but the interiors of the same, must have remarkably keen

sight; and it is early yet to speculate. It is clear, however, that

these are pleasure-houses for a certain class; and looking at the

houses, one can’t but fancy the inhabitants resemble them somewhat. The

car, on its road to Dublin, passes by numbers of these--by more

shabbiness than a Londoner will see in the course of his home

peregrinations for a year.

The capabilities of the country, however, are very, very great, and in

many instances have been taken advantage of; for you see, besides the

misery, numerous handsome houses and parks along the road, having fine

lawns and woods, and the sea in our view, at a quarter of an hour’s ride

from Dublin. It is the continual appearance of this sort of wealth which

makes the poverty more striking; and thus between the two (for there is

no vacant space of fields between Kingstown and Dublin) the car reaches

the city. There is but little commerce on this road, which was also in

extremely bad repair. It is neglected for the sake of its thriving

neighbour the railroad, on which a dozen pretty little stations

accommodate the inhabitants of the various villages through which we

pass.

The entrance to the capital is very handsome. There is no bustle and

throng of carriages, as in London; but you pass by numerous rows of neat

houses, fronted with gardens, and adorned with all sorts of gay-looking

creepers. Pretty market-gardens, with trim beds of plants and shining

glass-houses, give the suburbs a _riante_ and cheerful look; and,

passing under the arch of the railway, we are in the city itself. Hence

you come upon several old-fashioned, well-built, airy, stately streets,

and through Fitzwilliam Square, a noble place, the garden of which is

full of flowers and foliage. The leaves are green, and not black as in

similar places in London; the red-brick houses tall and handsome.

Presently the car stops before an extremely big red house, in that

extremely large square, Stephen’s Green, where Mr. O’Connell says there

is one day or other to be a Parliament. There is room enough for that,

or for any other edifice which fancy or patriotism may have a mind to

erect, for part of one of the sides of the square is not yet built, and

you see the fields and the country beyond.

* * * * *

This then is the chief city of the aliens.--The hotel to which I had

been directed is a respectable old edifice, much frequented by families

from the country, and where the solitary traveller may likewise find

society. For he may either use the Shelburne as an hotel or a

boarding-house, in which latter case he is comfortably accommodated at

the very moderate daily charge of six-and-eight-pence. For this charge a

copious breakfast is provided for him in the coffee-room, a perpetual

luncheon is likewise there spread, a plentiful dinner is ready at six

o’clock; after which, there is a drawing-room and a rubber of whist,

with _tay_ and coffee and cakes in plenty to satisfy the largest

appetite. The hotel is majestically conducted by clerks and other

officers; the landlord himself does not appear, after the honest

comfortable English fashion, but lives in a private mansion hard by,

where his name may be read inscribed on a brass-plate, like that of any

other private gentleman.

A woman melodiously crying ‘Dublin Bay herrings’ passed just as we came

up to the door, and as that fish is famous throughout Europe, I seized

the earliest opportunity and ordered a broiled one for breakfast. It

merits all its reputation: and in this respect I should think the Bay of

Dublin is far superior to its rival of Naples. Are there any herrings in

Naples Bay? Dolphins there may be; and Mount Vesuvius, to be sure, is

bigger than even the Hill of Howth: but a dolphin is better in a sonnet

than at a breakfast, and what poet is there that, at certain periods of

the day, would hesitate in his choice between the two?

With this famous broiled herring the morning papers are served up; and a

great part of these, too, gives opportunity of reflection to the

new-comer, and shows him how different this country is from his own.

Some hundred years hence, when students want to inform themselves of the

history of the present day, and refer to files of _Times_ and

_Chronicle_ for the purpose, I think it is possible that they will

consult, not so much those luminous and philosophical leading articles

which call our attention at present both by the majesty of their

eloquence and the largeness of their type, but that they will turn to

those parts of the journals into which information is squeezed into the

smallest possible print, to the advertisements, namely, the law and

police reports, and to the instructive narratives supplied by that

ill-used body of men who transcribe knowledge at the rate of a penny a

line.

The papers before me (the _Morning Register_, Liberal and Roman

Catholic; _Saunders’s News-Letter_, neutral and Conservative) give a

lively picture of the movement of city and country on this present

fourth day of July, and the Englishman can scarcely fail, as he reads

them, to note many small points of difference existing between his own

country and this. How do the Irish amuse themselves in the capital? The

love for theatrical exhibitions is evidently not very great. Theatre

Royal--Miss Kemble and the Sonnambula, an Anglo-Italian importation.

Theatre Royal, Abbey Street--The Temple of Magic and the Wizard, last

week. Adelphi Theatre, Great Brunswick Street--The Original Seven

Lancashire Bell-ringers: a delicious excitement indeed! Portobello

Gardens--‘THE LAST ERUPTION BUT SIX,’ says the advertisement in

capitals. And, finally, ‘Miss Hayes will give her first and farewell

concert at the Rotunda, previous to leaving her native country.’ Only

one instance of Irish talent do we read of, and that, in a desponding

tone, announces its intention of quitting its native country. All the

rest of the pleasures of the evening are importations from cockney-land.

The Sonnambula from Covent Garden, the Wizard from the Strand, the Seven

Lancashire Bell-ringers, from Islington or the City Road, no doubt; and

as for ‘The last Eruption but Six,’ it has _erumped_ near the Elephant

and Castle any time these two years, until the cockneys would wonder at

it no longer.

The commercial advertisements are but few--a few horses and cars for

sale; some flaming announcements of insurance companies; some

‘emporiums’ of Scotch tweeds and English broadcloths; an auction for

damaged sugar; and an estate or two for sale. They lie in the columns

languidly, and at their ease as it were: how different from the throng,

and squeeze, and bustle of the commercial part of a London paper, where

every man (except Mr. George Robins) states his case as briefly as

possible, because thousands more are to be heard besides himself, and as

if he had no time for talking!

The most active advertisers are the schoolmasters. It is now the happy

time of the Midsummer holidays; and the pedagogues make wonderful

attempts to encourage parents, and to attract fresh pupils for the

ensuing half-year. Of all these announcements that of MADAME SHANAHAN (a

delightful name) is perhaps the most brilliant. ‘To Parents and

Guardians.--Paris.--Such parents and guardians as may wish to entrust

their children for education _in its fullest extent_ to MADAME SHANAHAN,

_can have the advantage of being conducted to Paris_ by her brother, the

Rev. J. P. O’Reilly, of Church Street Chapel:’ which admirable

arrangement carries the parents to Paris and leaves the children in

Dublin. Ah, Madame, you may take a French title; but your heart is still

in your country, and you are to the _fullest extent_ an Irishwoman

still!

Fond legends are to be found in Irish books regarding places where you

may now see a round tower and a little old chapel, twelve feet square,

where famous universities are once said to have stood, and which have

accommodated myriads of students. Mrs. Hall mentions Glendalough, in

Wicklow, as one of these places of learning; nor can the fact be

questioned, as the universities existed hundreds of years since, and no

sort of records are left regarding them. A century hence some antiquary

may light upon a Dublin paper, and form marvellous calculations

regarding the state of education in the country. For instance, at

Bective-House seminary, conducted by Dr. J. L. Burke, Ex-Scholar T.C.D.,

no less than _two hundred and three_ young gentlemen took prizes at the

Midsummer examination: nay, some of the most meritorious carried off a

dozen premiums a piece. A Dr. Delamere, Ex-Scholar T.C.D., distributed

three hundred and twenty rewards to his young friends; and if we allow

that one lad in twenty is a prizeman, it is clear that there must be six

thousand four hundred and forty youths under the Doctor’s care.

Other schools are advertised in the same journals, each with its hundred

of prize-bearers; and if other schools are advertised, how many more

must there be in the country which are not advertised! There must be

hundreds of thousands of prizemen, millions of scholars: besides

national schools, hedge schools, infant schools, and the like. The

English reader will see the accuracy of the calculation.

In the _Morning Register_, the Englishman will find something to the

full as curious and startling to him: you read gravely in the English

language how the Bishop of Aureliopolis has just been consecrated; and

that the distinction has been conferred upon him by--the Holy

Pontiff!--the Pope of Rome, by all that is holy! Such an announcement

sounds quite strange _in English_, and in your own country, as it were;

or isn’t it your own country? Suppose the Archbishop of Canterbury were

to send over a clergyman to Rome, and consecrate him Bishop of the

Palatine or the Suburra, I wonder how his Holiness would like _that_?

There is a report of Dr. Miley’s sermon upon the occasion of the new

bishop’s consecration; and the _Register_ happily lauds the discourse

for its ‘refined and fervent eloquence.’ The doctor salutes the Lord

Bishop of Aureliopolis on his admission among the ‘Princes of the

Sanctuary,’ gives a blow _en passant_ at the Established Church, whereof

the revenues, he elegantly says, ‘might excite the zeal of Dives or

Epicurus to become a Bishop,’ and having vented his sly wrath upon the

‘courtly artifice and intrigue’ of the Bench, proceeds to make the most

outrageous comparisons with regard to my Lord of Aureliopolis; his

virtues, his sincerity, and the severe privations and persecutions which

acceptance of the episcopal office entails upon him.

‘That very evening,’ says the _Register_, ‘the new bishop

entertained at dinner, in the Chapel-house, a select number of

friends; amongst whom were the officiating prelates and clergymen

who assisted in the ceremonies of the day. The repast was provided

by Mr. Jude, of Grafton Street, and was served up in a style of

elegance and comfort that did great honour to that gentleman’s

character as a _restaurateur_. _The wines were of the richest and

rarest quality._ It may be truly said to have been an entertainment

where the feast of reason and the flow of soul predominated. The

company broke up at nine.’

And so, my lord is scarcely out of chapel but his privations begin!

Well. Let us hope that, in the course of his episcopacy, he incur no

greater hardships, and that Dr. Miley may come to be a bishop too in his

time; when perhaps he will have a better opinion of the Bench.

The ceremony and feelings described are curious, I think; and more so

perhaps to a person who was in England only yesterday, and quitted it

just as their Graces, Lordships, and Reverences were sitting down to

dinner. Among what new sights, ideas, customs, does the English

traveller find himself after that brief six hours’ journey from

Holyhead!

There is but one part more of the papers to be looked at; and that is

the most painful of all. In the law reports of the Tipperary Special

Commission sitting at Clonmel, you read that Patrick Byrne is brought up

for sentence, for the murder of Robert Hall, Esq.: and Chief Justice

Doherty says: ‘Patrick Byrne, I will not now recapitulate the

circumstances of your enormous crime; but guilty as you are of the

barbarity of having perpetrated with your hand the foul murder of an

unoffending old man--barbarous, cowardly, and cruel as that act

was--there lives one more guilty man, and that is he whose diabolical

mind hatched the foul conspiracy of which you were but the instrument

and the perpetrator. Whoever that may be, I do not envy him his

protracted existence. He has sent that aged gentleman, without one

moment’s warning, to face his God: but he has done more, he has brought

you, unhappy man, with more deliberation and more cruelty, to face your

God, _with the weight of that man’s blood upon you_. I have now only to

pronounce the sentence of the law:’--it is the usual sentence, with the

usual prayer of the judge, that the Lord may have mercy upon the

convict’s soul.

Timothy Woods, a young man of twenty years of age, is then tried for the

murder of Michael Laffan. The Attorney-General states the case:--On the

19th of May last, two assassins dragged Laffan from the house of Patrick

Cummins, fired a pistol-shot at him, and left him dead as they thought.

Laffan, though mortally wounded, crawled away after the fall; when the

assassins, still seeing him give signs of life, rushed after him,

fractured his skull by blows of a pistol, and left him on a dunghill

dead. There Laffan’s body lay for several hours, and _nobody dared to

touch it_. Laffan’s widow found the body there two hours after the

murder, and _an inquest was held on the body as it lay on the dunghill_.

Laffan was driver on the lands of Kilnertin, which were formerly held by

Pat Cummins, _the man who had the charge of the lands before Laffan was

murdered_; and the latter was dragged out of Cummins’s house in the

presence of a witness who refused to swear to the murderers, and was

shot in sight of another witness, James Meara, who with other men was on

the road: and when asked whether he cried out, or whether he went to

assist the deceased, Meara answers, ‘_Indeed I did not; we would not

interfere--it was no business of ours!_’

Six more instances are given of attempts to murder; on which the judge,

in passing sentence, comments in the following way:--

‘The Lord Chief Justice addressed the several persons, and said--It

was now his painful duty to pronounce upon them severally and

respectively the punishment which the law and the court awarded

against them, for the crimes of which they had been convicted.

Those crimes were one and all of them of no ordinary enormity--they

were crimes which, in point of morals, involved the atrocious

guilt of murder; and if it had pleased God to spare their souls

from the pollution of that offence, the court could not still shut

its eyes to the fact, that although death had not ensued in

consequence of the crimes of which they had been found guilty, yet

it was not owing to their forbearance that such a dreadful crime

had not been perpetrated. The prisoner, Michael Hughes, had been

convicted of firing a gun at a person of the name of John Ryan

(Luke); his horse had been killed, and no one could say that the

balls were not intended for the prosecutor himself. The prisoner

had fired one shot himself, and then called on his companion in

guilt to discharge another. One of these shots killed Ryan’s mare,

and it was by the mercy of God that the life of the prisoner had

not become forfeited by his own act. The next culprit was John

Pound, who was equally guilty of the intended outrage perpetrated

on the life of an unoffending individual--that individual a female,

surrounded by her little children, five or six in number. With a

complete carelessness to the probable consequences, while she and

her family were going, or had gone, to bed, the contents of a gun

were discharged through the door, which entered the panel in three

different places. The deaths resulting from this act might have

been extensive, but it was not a matter of any moment how many were

deprived of life. The woman had just risen from her prayers,

preparing herself to sleep under the protection of that arm which

would shield the child and protect the innocent, when she was

wounded. As to Cornelius Flynn and Patrick Dwyer, they likewise

were the subjects of similar imputations and similar observations.

There was a very slight difference between them, but not such as to

amount to any real distinction. They had gone upon a common illegal

purpose, to the house of a respectable individual, for the purpose

of interfering with the domestic arrangements he thought fit to

make. They had no sort of right to interfere with the disposition

of a man’s affairs; and what would be the consequences if the

reverse were to be held? No imputation had ever been made upon the

gentleman whose house was visited, but he was desired to dismiss

another, under the pains and penalties of death, although that

other was not a retained servant, but a friend who had come to Mr.

Hogan on a visit. Because this visitor used sometimes to inspect

the men at work, the lawless edict issued that he should be put

away. Good God! to what extent did the prisoners and such misguided

men intend to carry out their objects? Where was their dictation to

cease? and they, and those in a similar rank, to take upon

themselves to regulate how many and what men a farmer should take

into his employment? Were they to be the judges whether a servant

had discharged his duty to his principal? or was it because a

visitor happened to come, that the host should turn him away, under

the pains and penalties of death? His lordship, after adverting to

the guilt of the prisoners in this case--the last two persons

convicted, Thos. Stapleton and Thos. Gleeson--said their case was

so recently before the public, that it was sufficient to say they

were morally guilty of what might be considered wilful and

deliberate murder. Murder was most awful, because it could only be

suggested by deliberate malice, and the act of the prisoners was

the result of that base, malicious, and diabolical disposition.

What was the cause of resentment against the unfortunate man who

had been shot at, and so desperately wounded? Why, he had dared to

comply with the wishes of a just landlord; and because the

landlord, for the benefit of his tenantry, proposed that the farms

should be squared, those who acquiesced in his wishes were to be

equally the victims of the assassin. What were the facts in this

case? The two prisoners at the bar, Stapleton and Gleeson, sprung

out at the man as he was leaving work, placed him on his knees, and

without giving him a moment of preparation, commenced the work of

blood, intending deliberately to despatch that unprepared and

unoffending individual to eternity. What country was it that they

lived in, in which such crimes could be perpetrated in the open

light of day? It was not necessary that deeds of darkness should be

shrouded in the clouds of night, for the darkness of the deeds

themselves was considered a sufficient protection. He (the Chief

Justice) was not aware of any solitary instance at the present

Commission, to show that the crimes committed were the consequences

of poverty. Poverty should be no justification, however; it might

be some little palliation, but on no trial at this Commission did

it appear that the crime could be attributed to distress. His

lordship concluded a most impressive address, by sentencing the six

prisoners called up to transportation for life.

‘The clock was near midnight as the court was cleared, and the

whole of the proceedings were solemn and impressive in the extreme.

The Commission is likely to prove extremely beneficial in its

results on the future tranquillity of the country.’

I confess, for my part, to that common cant and sickly sentimentality,

which, thank God! is felt by a great number of people nowadays, and

which leads them to revolt against murder, whether performed by a

ruffian’s knife or a hangman’s rope: whether accompanied with a curse

from the thief as he blows his victim’s brains out, or a prayer from my

lord on the bench in his wig and black cap. Nay, is all the cant and

sickly sentimentality on our side, and might not some such charge be

applied to the admirers of the good old fashion? Long ere this is

printed, for instance, Byrne and Woods have been hanged:[21] sent ‘to

face their God,’ as the Chief Justice says, ‘with the weight of their

victim’s blood upon them,’--a just observation; and remember that it is

_we who send them_. It is true that the judge hopes Heaven will have

mercy upon their souls; but are such recommendations of particular

weight because they come from the bench? Psha! If we go on killing

people without giving them time to repent, let us at least give up the

cant of praying for their souls’ salvation. We find a man drowning in a

well, shut the lid upon him, and heartily pray that he may get out. Sin

has hold of him, as the two ruffians of Laffan yonder, and we stand

aloof, and hope that he may escape. Let us give up the ceremony of

condolence, and be honest, like the witness, and say, ‘Let him save

himself or not, it’s no business of ours.’ ... Here a waiter, with a

very broad, though insinuating accent, says, ‘Have you done with the

_Sandthers_, sir, there’s a gentleman waiting for’t these two hours?’

And so he carries off that strange picture of pleasure and pain, trade,

theatres, schools, courts, churches, life and death, in Ireland, which a

man may buy for a fourpenny-piece.

* * * * *

The papers being read, it became my duty to discover the town; and a

handsomer town, with fewer people in it, it is impossible to see on a

summer’s day. In the whole wide square of Stephen’s Green, I think there

were not more than two nursery-maids, to keep company with the statue of

George I., who rides on horseback in the middle of the garden, the horse

having his foot up to trot, as if he wanted to go out of town too. Small

troops of dirty children (too poor and dirty to have lodgings at

Kingstown) were squatting here and there upon the sunshiny steps, the

only clients at the thresholds of the professional gentlemen whose names

figure on brass-plates on the doors. A stand of lazy carmen, a policeman

or two with clinking boot-heels, a couple of moaning beggars leaning

against the rails and calling upon the Lord, and a fellow with a toy and

book stall, where the lives of St. Patrick, Robert Emmet, and Lord

Edward Fitzgerald may be bought for double their value, were all the

population of the Green.

At the door of the Kildare Street Club, I saw eight gentlemen looking

at two boys playing at leapfrog: at the door of the University six lazy

porters, in jockey-caps, were sunning themselves on a bench--a sort of

blue-bottle race; and the Bank on the opposite side did not look as if

sixpence-worth of change had been negotiated there during the day. There

was a lad pretending to sell umbrellas under the colonnade, almost the

only instance of trade going on; and I began to think of Juan Fernandez,

or Cambridge in the long vacation. In the courts of the College, scarce

the ghost of a gyp or the shadow of a bed-maker.

In spite of the solitude, the square of the College is a fine sight--a

large ground, surrounded by buildings of various ages and styles, but

comfortable, handsome, and in good repair; a modern row of rooms; a row

that has been Elizabethan once; a hall and senate-house, facing each

other, of the style of George I.; and a noble library, with a range of

many windows, and a fine manly simple façade of cut stone. The library

was shut. The librarian, I suppose, is at the seaside; and the only part

of the establishment which I could see was the museum, to which one of

the jockey-capped porters conducted me, up a wide dismal staircase

(adorned with an old pair of jack-boots, a dusty canoe or two, a few

helmets, and a South Sea Islander’s armour) which passes through a hall

hung round with cobwebs (with which the blue-bottles are too wise to

meddle), into an old mouldy room, filled with dingy glass-cases, under

which the articles of curiosity or science were partially visible. In

the middle was a very _seedy_ camelopard (the word has grown to be

English by this time), the straw splitting through his tight old skin

and the black cobblers’-wax stuffing the dim orifices of his eyes. Other

beasts formed a pleasing group around him, not so tall, but equally

mouldy and old. The porter took me round to the cases, and told me a

great number of fibs concerning their contents: there was the harp of

Brian Borou, and the sword of some one else, and other cheap old

gimcracks with their corollary of lies. The place would have been a

disgrace to Don Saltero. I was quite glad to walk out of it, and down

the dirty staircase again, about the ornaments of which the

jockey-capped gyp had more figments to tell; an atrocious one (I forget

what) relative to the pair of boots; near which--a fine specimen of

collegiate taste--were the shoes of Mr. O’Brien, the Irish giant. If the

collection is worth preserving,--and indeed the mineralogical specimens

look quite as awful as those in the British Museum,--one thing is clear,

that the rooms are worth sweeping. A pail of water costs nothing, a

scrubbing-brush not much, and a charwoman might be hired for a trifle,

to keep the room in a decent state of cleanliness.

Among the curiosities is a mask of the Dean--not the scoffer and giber,

not the fiery politician, nor the courtier of St. John and Harley,

equally ready with servility and scorn; but the poor old man, whose

great intellect had deserted him, and who died old, wild, and sad. The

tall forehead is fallen away in a ruin, the mouth has settled in a

hideous, vacant smile. Well, it was a mercy for Stella that she died

first; it was better that she should be killed by his unkindness than by

the sight of his misery; which, to such a gentle heart as that, would

have been harder still to bear.

The Bank and other public buildings of Dublin are justly famous. In the

former may still be seen the room which was the House of Lords formerly,

and where the Bank directors now sit, under a clean marble image of

George III. The House of Commons has disappeared, for the accommodation

of clerks and cashiers. The interior is light, splendid, airy, well

furnished, and the outside of the building not less so. The Exchange,

hard by, is an equally magnificent structure; but the genius of commerce

has deserted it, for all its architectural beauty. There was nobody

inside when I entered, but a pert statue of George III. in a Roman toga,

simpering and turning out his toes; and two dirty children playing,

whose hoop-sticks caused great clattering echoes under the vacant

sounding dome. The neighbourhood is not cheerful, and has a dingy

poverty-stricken look.

Walking towards the river, you have on either side of you, at Carlisle

Bridge, a very brilliant and beautiful prospect. The Four Courts and

their dome to the left, the Custom-house and its dome to the right; and

in this direction seaward, a considerable number of vessels are moored,

and the quays are black and busy with the cargoes discharged from ships.

Seamen cheering, herring-women bawling, coal-carts loading--the scene is

animated and lively. Yonder is the famous Corn Exchange; but the Lord

Mayor is attending to his duties in Parliament, and little of note is

going on. I had just passed his lordship’s mansion in Dawson Street,--a

queer old dirty brick house, with dumpy urns at each extremity, and

looking as if a story of it had been cut off--a _rasée_ house. Close at

hand, and peering over a paling, is a statue of our blessed sovereign

George II. How absurd these pompous images look, of defunct majesties,

for whom no breathing soul cares a halfpenny! It is not so with the

effigy of William III., who has done something to merit a statue. At

this minute the Lord Mayor has William’s effigy under a canvas, and is

painting him of a bright green picked out with yellow--his lordship’s’

own livery.

The view along the quays to the Four Courts has no small resemblance to

a view along the quays at Paris, though not so lively as are even those

quiet walks. The vessels do not come above-bridge, and the marine

population remains constant about them, and about numerous dirty

liquor-shops, eating-houses, and marine-store establishments, which are

kept for their accommodation along the quay. As far as you can see, the

shining Liffey flows away eastward, hastening (like the rest of the

inhabitants of Dublin) to the sea.

In front of Carlisle Bridge, and not in the least crowded, though in the

midst of Sackville Street, stands Nelson upon a stone pillar. The Post

Office is on his right hand (only it is cut off); and on his left,

Gresham’s and the Imperial Hotel. Of the latter let me say (from

subsequent experience) that it is ornamented by a cook who could dress a

dinner by the side of M. Borel or M. Soyé. Would there were more such

artists in this ill-fated country! The street is exceedingly broad and

handsome; the shops at the commencement, rich and spacious; but in Upper

Sackville Street, which closes with the pretty building and gardens of

the Rotunda, the appearance of wealth begins to fade somewhat, and the

houses look as if they had seen better days. Even in this, the great

street of the town, there is scarcely any one, and it is as vacant and

listless as Pall Mall in October. In one of the streets off Sackville

Street is the house and exhibition of the Irish Academy, which I went to

see, as it was positively to close at the end of the week. While I was

there, two _other_ people came in; and we had, besides, the money-taker

and porter, to whom the former was reading, out of a newspaper, those

Tipperary murders which were mentioned in a former page. The echo took

up the theme, and hummed it gloomily through the vacant place.

The drawings and reputation of Mr. Burton are well known in England: his

pieces were the most admired in the collection. The best draughtsman is

an imitator of Maclise, Mr. Bridgeman, whose pictures are full of

vigorous drawing, and remarkable too for their grace. I gave my

catalogue to the two young ladies before mentioned, and have forgotten

the names of other artists of merit, whose works decked the walls of the

little gallery. Here, as in London, the Art Union is making a stir; and

several of the pieces were marked as the property of members of that

body. The possession of some of these one would not be inclined to

covet; but it is pleasant to see that people begin to buy pictures at

all, and there will be no lack of artists presently, in a country where

nature is so beautiful, and genius so plenty. In speaking of the fine

arts and of views of Dublin, it may be said that Mr. Petrie’s designs

for Curry’s Guide-book of the City are exceedingly beautiful, and,

above all, _trustworthy_: no common quality in a descriptive artist at

present.

Having a couple of letters of introduction to leave, I had the pleasure

to find the blinds down at one house, and the window in papers at

another; and at each place the knock was answered in that leisurely way

by one of those dingy female lieu-tenants who have no need to tell you

that families are out of town. So the solitude became very painful, and

I thought I would go back and talk to the waiter at the Shelburne, the

only man in the whole kingdom that I knew. I had been accommodated with

a queer little room and dressing-room on the ground-floor, looking

towards the Green: a black-faced good-humoured chambermaid had promised

to perform a deal of scouring which was evidently necessary (which fact

she might have observed for six months back, only she is no doubt of an

absent turn), and when I came back from the walk, I saw the little room

was evidently enjoying itself in the sunshine, for it had opened its

window, and was taking a breath of fresh air, as it looked out upon the

Green. Here is a portrait of the little window.

[Illustration]

As I came up to it in the street, its appearance made me burst out

laughing, very much to the surprise of a ragged cluster of idlers

lolling upon the steps next door; and I have drawn it here, not because

it is a particularly picturesque or rare kind of window, but because, as

I fancy, there is a sort of _moral_ in it. You don’t see such windows

commonly in respectable English inns--windows leaning gracefully upon

hearth-brooms for support. Look out of that window without the

hearth-broom and it would cut your head off: how the beggars would start

that are always sitting on the steps next door! Is it prejudice that

makes one prefer the English window, that relies on its own ropes and

ballast (or lead if you like), and does not need to be propped by any

foreign aid? or is this only a solitary instance of the kind, and are

there no other specimens in Ireland of the careless, dangerous,

extravagant hearth-broom system?

In the midst of these reflections (which might have been carried much

farther, for a person with an allegorical turn might examine the entire

country through this window), a most wonderful cab, with an immense

prancing cab-horse, was seen to stop at the door of the hotel, and Pat

the waiter tumbling into the room swiftly with a card in his hand,

says, ‘Sir, the gentleman of this card is waiting for you at the door.’

Mon Dieu! it was an invitation to dinner! and I almost leapt into the

arms of the man in the cab--so delightful was it to find a friend in a

place where, a moment before, I had been as lonely as Robinson Crusoe.

The only drawback, perhaps, to pure happiness, when riding in such a

gorgeous equipage as this, was that we could not drive up Regent Street,

and meet a few creditors, or acquaintances at least. However, Pat, I

thought, was exceedingly awe-stricken by my disappearance in this

vehicle; which had evidently, too, a considerable effect upon some other

waiters at the Shelburne, with whom I was not as yet so familiar. The

mouldy camelopard at the Trinity College ‘Musayum’ was scarcely taller

than the bay horse in the cab; the groom behind was of a corresponding

smallness. The cab was of a lovely olive-green, picked out white, high

on high springs and enormous wheels, which, big as they were, scarcely

seemed to touch the earth. The little tiger swung gracefully up and

down, holding on by the hood, which was of the material of which the

most precious and polished boots are made. As for the _lining_--but here

we come too near the sanctity of private life; suffice that there was a

kind friend inside, who (though by no means of the fairy sort) was as

welcome as any fairy in the finest chariot. W---- had seen me landing

from the packet that morning, and was the very man who in London, a

month previous, had recommended me to the Shelburne. These facts are not

of much consequence to the public, to be sure, except that an

explanation was necessary of the miraculous appearance of the cab and

horse.

Our course, as may be imagined, was towards the seaside; for whither

else should an Irishman at this season go? Not far from Kingstown is a

house devoted to the purpose of festivity: it is called Salt Hill,

stands upon a rising ground, commanding a fine view of the bay and the

railroad, and is kept by persons bearing the celebrated name of

Lovegrove. It is in fact a sea-Greenwich; and though there are no marine

whitebait, other fishes are to be had in plenty, and especially the

famous Bray trout, which does not ill deserve its reputation.

Here we met three young men, who may be called by the names of their

several counties--Mr. Galway, Mr. Roscommon, and Mr. Clare; and it

seemed that I was to complain of solitude no longer: for one straightway

invited me to his county, where was the finest salmon-fishing in the

world; another said he would drive me through the county Kerry in his

four-in-hand drag; and the third had some propositions of sport equally

hospitable. As for going down to some races, on the Curragh of Kildare I

think, which were to be held on the next and the three following days,

there seemed to be no question about _that_. That a man should miss a

race within forty miles, seemed to be a point never contemplated by

these jovial sporting fellows.

[Illustration]

Strolling about in the neighbourhood before dinner, we went down to the

sea-shore, and to some caves which had lately been discovered there; and

two Irish ladies, who were standing at the entrance of one of them,

permitted me to take the following portraits, which were pronounced to

be pretty accurate.

They said they had not acquiesced in the general Temperance movement

that had taken place throughout the country; and, indeed, if the truth

must be known, it was only under promise of a glass of whisky apiece

that their modesty could be so far overcome as to permit them to sit for

their portraits. By the time they were done, a crowd of both sexes had

gathered round and expressed themselves quite ready to sit upon the same

terms. But though there was great variety in their countenances, there

was not much beauty; and besides, dinner was by this time ready, which

has at certain periods a charm even greater than art.

The bay, which had been veiled in mist and grey in the morning, was now

shining under the most beautiful clear sky, which presently became rich

with a thousand gorgeous hues of sunset. The view was as smiling and

delightful a one as can be conceived,--just such a one as should be seen

_à travers_ a good dinner, with no fatiguing sublimity or awful beauty

in it, but brisk, brilliant, sunny, enlivening. In fact, in placing his

banqueting-house here, Mr. Lovegrove had, as usual, a brilliant idea.

You must not have too much view, or a severe one, to give a relish to a

good dinner; nor too much music, nor too quick, nor too slow, nor too

loud; any reader who has dined at a _table-d’hôte_ in Germany will know

the annoyance of this--a set of musicians immediately at your back will

sometimes play you a melancholy polonaise; and a man with a good ear

must perforce eat in time, and your soup is quite cold before it is

swallowed; then, all of a sudden, crash goes a brisk galop! and you are

obliged to gulp your victuals at the rate of ten miles an hour. And in

respect of conversation during a good dinner, the same rules of

propriety should be consulted. Deep and sublime talk is as improper as

sublime prospects. Dante and champagne (I was going to say Milton and

oysters, but that is a pun) are quite unfit themes of dinner-talk. Let

it be light, brisk, not oppressive to the brain. Our conversation was, I

recollect, just the thing. We talked about the last Derby the whole

time, and the state of the odds for the St. Leger; nor was the Ascot Cup

forgotten; and a bet or two was gaily booked.

Meanwhile the sky, which had been blue and then red, assumed, towards

the horizon, as the red was sinking under it, a gentle delicate cast of

green. Howth Hill became of a darker purple, and the sails of the boats

rather dim. The sea grew deeper and deeper in colour. The lamps at the

railroad dotted the line with fire; and the lighthouses of the bay began

to flame. The trains to and from the city rushed flashing and hissing

by--in a word, everybody said it was time to light a cigar, which was

done, the conversation about the Derby still continuing.

‘Put out that candle,’ said Roscommon to Clare; which the latter

instantly did by flinging the taper out of window upon the lawn, which

is a thoroughfare; and where a great laugh arose among half a score of

beggar-boys, who had been under the window for some time past,

repeatedly requesting the company to throw out sixpence between them.

Two other sporting young fellows had now joined the company; and as by

this time claret began to have rather a mawkish taste, whisky-and-water

was ordered, which was drunk upon the _perron_ before the house, whither

the whole party adjourned, and where for many hours we delightfully

tossed for sixpences--a noble and fascinating sport. Nor would these

remarkable events have been narrated, had I not received express

permission from the gentlemen of the party to record all that was said

and done. Who knows but, a thousand years hence, some antiquary or

historian may find a moral in this description of the amusement of the

British youth at the present enlightened time?

HOT LOBSTER

_P.S._--You take a lobster, about three feet long if possible,

remove the shell, cut or break the flesh of the fish in pieces not

too small. Some one else meanwhile makes a mixture of mustard,

vinegar, catsup, and lots of cayenne pepper. You produce a machine

called a _despatcher_, which has a spirit-lamp under it that is

usually illuminated with whisky. The lobster, the sauce, and near

half a pound of butter are placed in the despatcher, which is

immediately closed. When boiling, the mixture is stirred up, the

lobster being sure to heave about in the pan in a convulsive

manner, while it emits a remarkably rich and agreeable odour

through the apartment. A glass and a-half of sherry is now thrown

into the pan, and the contents served out hot, and eaten by the

company. Porter is commonly drunk, and whisky-punch afterwards, and

the dish is fit for an emperor.

* * * * *

_N.B._--You are recommended not to hurry yourself in getting up the next

morning, and may take soda-water with advantage.--_Probatum est._

CHAPTER II

A COUNTRY-HOUSE IN KILDARE--SKETCHES OF AN IRISH FAMILY AND FARM

It had been settled among my friends, I don’t know for what particular

reason, that the Agricultural Show at Cork was an exhibition I was

specially bound to see; when, therefore, a gentleman to whom I had

brought a letter of introduction, kindly offered me a seat in his

carriage, which was to travel by short days’ journeys to that city, I

took an abrupt farewell of Pat the waiter, and some other friends in

Dublin, proposing to renew our acquaintance, however, upon some future

day.

We started then one fine afternoon on the road from Dublin to Naas,

which is the main southern road from the capital to Leinster and

Munster, and met, in the course of the ride of a score of miles, a dozen

of coaches very heavily loaded, and bringing passengers to the city. The

exit from Dublin this way is not much more elegant than the outlet by

way of Kingstown, for though the great branches of the city appear

flourishing enough as yet, the small outer ones are in a sad state of

decay. Houses drop off here and there, and dwindle woefully in size; we

are got into the back premises of the seemingly prosperous place, and it

looks miserable, careless, and deserted. We passed through a street

which was thriving once, but has fallen since into a sort of decay, to

judge outwardly,--St. Thomas’s Street. Emmet was hanged in the midst of

it; and on pursuing the line of street, and crossing the great Canal,

you come presently to a fine tall square building in the outskirts of

the town, which is no more nor less than Kilmainham Jail, or castle.

Poor Emmet is the Irish darling still--his history is on every bookstall

in the city, and yonder trim-looking brick jail a spot where Irishmen

may go and pray. Many a martyr of theirs has appeared and died in front

of it,--found guilty of ‘wearing of the green.’

There must be a fine view from the jail windows, for we presently come

to a great stretch of brilliant green country, leaving the Dublin hills

lying to the left, picturesque in their outline, and of wonderful

colour. It seems to me to be quite a different colour to that in

England--different-shaped clouds--different shadows and lights. The

country is well tilled, well peopled; the hay-harvest on the ground, and

the people taking advantage of the sunshine to gather it in; but in

spite of everything, green meadows, white villages and sunshine, the

place has a sort of sadness in the look of it.

The first town we passed, as appears by reference to the Guide-book, is

the little town of Rathcoole; but in the space of three days Rathcoole

has disappeared from my memory, with the exception of a little low

building which the village contains, and where are the quarters of the

Irish constabulary. Nothing can be finer than the trim, orderly, and

soldierlike appearance of this splendid corps of men.

One has glimpses all along the road of numerous gentlemen’s places,

looking extensive and prosperous, of a few mills by streams here and

there; but though the streams run still, the mill-wheels are idle for

the chief part; and the road passes more than one long low village,

looking bare and poor, but neat and whitewashed. It seems as if the

inhabitants were determined to put a decent look upon their poverty. One

or two villages there were evidently appertaining to gentlemen’s seats;

these are smart enough, especially that of Johnstown, near Lord Mayo’s

fine domain, where the houses are of the Gothic sort, with pretty

porches, creepers, and railings. Noble purple hills to the left and

right keep up, as it were, an accompaniment to the road.

As for the town of Naas, the first after Dublin that I have seen, what

can be said of it but that it looks poor, mean, and yet somehow

cheerful? There was a little bustle in the small shops, a few cars were

jingling along the broadest street of the town--some sort of dandies and

military individuals were lolling about right and left; and I saw a fine

Court-house, where the assizes of Kildare county are held.

But by far the finest, and I think the most extensive edifice in Naas,

was a haystack in the inn-yard, the proprietor of which did not fail to

make me remark its size and splendour. It was of such dimensions as to

strike a cockney with respect and pleasure; and here standing just as

the new crops were coming in, told a tale of opulent thrift and good

husbandry. Are there many more such haystacks, I wonder, in Ireland? The

crops along the road seemed healthy, though rather light: wheat and oats

plenty, and especially flourishing; hay and clover not so good; and

turnips (let the important remark be taken at its full value) almost

entirely wanting.

The little town, as they call it, of Kilcullen, tumbles down a hill and

struggles up another; the two being here picturesquely divided by the

Liffey, over which goes an antique bridge. It boasts, moreover, of a

portion of an abbey wall, and a piece of round tower, both on the hill

summit, and to be seen (says the Guide-book) for many miles round. Here

we saw the first public evidences of the distress of the country. There

was no trade in the little place, and but few people to be seen, except

a crowd round a meal-shop, where meal is distributed once a week by the

neighbouring gentry. There must have been some hundreds of persons

waiting about the doors; women for the most part: some of their children

were to be found loitering about the bridge much farther up the street;

but it was curious to note, amongst these undeniably starving people,

how healthy their looks were. Going a little farther, we saw women

pulling weeds and nettles in the hedges, on which dismal sustenance the

poor creatures live, having no bread, no potatoes, no work--well! these

women did not look thinner or more unhealthy than many a well-fed

person. A company of English lawyers, now, look more cadaverous than

these starving creatures.

Stretching away from Kilcullen bridge, for a couple of miles or more,

near the fine house and plantations of the Latouche family, is to be

seen a much prettier sight, I think, than the finest park and mansion in

the world. This is a tract of excessively green land, dotted over with

brilliant white cottages, each with its couple of trim acres of garden,

where you see thick potato ridges covered with blossom, great blue plots

of comfortable cabbages, and such pleasant plants of the poor man’s

garden. Two or three years since, the land was a marshy common, which

had never since the days of the Deluge fed any being bigger than a

snipe, and into which the poor people descended, draining and

cultivating, and rescuing the marsh from the water, and raising their

cabins and setting up their little enclosures of two or three acres upon

the land which they had thus created. ‘Many of ‘em has passed months in

jail for that,’ said my informant (a groom on the back seat of my host’s

phaeton); for it appears that certain gentlemen in the neighbourhood

looked upon the titles of these new colonists with some jealousy, and

would have been glad to depose them; but there were some better

philosophers among the surrounding gentry, who advised that instead of

discouraging the settlers it would be best to help them; and the

consequence has been, that there are now two hundred flourishing little

homesteads upon this rescued land, and as many families in comfort and

plenty.

Just at the confines of this pretty rustic republic, our pleasant

afternoon’s drive ended; and I must begin this tour by a monstrous

breach of confidence by first describing what I saw.

Well, then, we drove through a neat lodge-gate, with no stone lions or

supporters, but riding well on its hinges, and looking fresh and white;

and passed by a lodge, not Gothic, but decorated with flowers and

evergreens, with clean windows and a sound slate roof; and then went

over a trim road, through a few acres of grass, adorned with plenty of

young firs and other healthy trees, under which were feeding a dozen of

fine cows or more. The road led up to a house, or rather a congregation

of rooms, built seemingly to suit the owner’s convenience, and

increasing with his increasing wealth, or whim, or family. This latter

is as plentiful as everything else about the place; and as the arrows

increased, the good-natured lucky father has been forced to multiply the

quivers.

First came out a young gentleman, the heir of the house, who, after

greeting his papa, began examining the horses with much interest; whilst

three or four servants, quite neat and well dressed and, wonderful to

say, without any talking, began to occupy themselves with the carriage,

the passengers, and the trunks. Meanwhile, the owner of the house had

gone into the hall, which is snugly furnished as a morning-room, and

where one, two, three young ladies came in to greet him. The young

ladies having concluded their embraces, performed (as I am bound to say

from experience, both in London and Paris) some very appropriate and

well-finished curtsies to the strangers arriving; and these three young

persons were presently succeeded by some still younger, who came without

any curtsies at all; but, bounding and jumping, and shouting out ‘Papa’

at the top of their voices, they fell forthwith upon that worthy

gentleman’s person, taking possession this of his knees, that of his

arms, that of his whiskers, as fancy or taste might dictate.

‘Are there any more of you?’ says he, with perfect good-humour; and, in

fact, it appeared that there were some more in the nursery, as we

subsequently had occasion to see.

Well, this large happy family are lodged in a house than which a

prettier or more comfortable is not to be seen even in England; of the

furniture of which it may be in confidence said, that each article is

only made to answer one purpose:--thus, that chairs are never called

upon to exercise the versatility of their genius by propping up windows;

that chests of drawers are not obliged to move their unwieldy persons in

order to act as locks to doors; that the windows are not variegated by

paper, or adorned with wafers, as in other places which I have seen; in

fact, that the place is just as comfortable as a place can be.

And if these comforts and reminiscences of three days’ date are enlarged

upon at some length, the reason is simply this:--this is written at what

is supposed to be the best inn at one of the best towns of Ireland,

Waterford. Dinner is just over; it is assize-week, and the

_table-d’hôte_ was surrounded for the chief part by English

attorneys--the cyouncillors (as the bar are pertinaciously called)

dining upstairs in private. Well, on going to the public room, and being

about to lay down my hat on the sideboard, I was obliged to pause--out

of regard to a fine thick coat of dust, which had been kindly left to

gather for some days past, I should think, and which it seemed a shame

to misplace. Yonder is a chair basking quietly in the sunshine; some

round object has evidently reposed upon it (a hat or plate probably),

for you see a clear circle of black horsehair in the middle of the

chair, and dust all round it. Not one of those dirty napkins that the

four waiters carry would wipe away the grime from the chair, and take to

itself a little dust more! The people in the room are shouting out for

the waiters, who cry, ‘Yes, sir,’ peevishly, and don’t come; but stand

bawling and jangling, and calling each other names, at the sideboard.

The dinner is plentiful and nasty--raw ducks, raw peas, on a crumpled

tablecloth, over which a waiter has just spirted a pint of obstreperous

cider. The windows are open, to give free view of a crowd of old

beggar-women, and of a fellow playing a cursed Irish pipe. Presently

this delectable apartment fills with choking peat-smoke; and on asking

what is the cause of this agreeable addition to the pleasures of the

place, you are told that they are lighting a fire in a back-room.

Why should lighting a fire in a back-room fill a whole enormous house

with smoke? Why should four waiters stand and _jaw_ and gesticulate

among themselves, instead of waiting on the guests? Why should ducks be

raw, and dust lie quiet in places where a hundred people pass daily? All

these points make one think very regretfully of neat, pleasant,

comfortable, prosperous H---- town, where the meat was cooked, and the

rooms were clean, and the servants didn’t talk. Nor need it be said

here, that it is as cheap to have a house clean as dirty, and that a raw

leg of mutton costs exactly the same sum as one _cuit à point_. And by

this moral earnestly hoping that all Ireland may profit, let us go back

to H----, and the sights to be seen there.