Why do I like so much to write to you? Certainly because it gives you
pleasure to hear from me from afar: but also, because you understand me,
which nobody else does. This alone would suffice to enchain me to you
for ever, for I live _in_ the world, but _with_ you alone,--as much
alone, as if we were on a desert island. Thousands of beings swarm
around me, but I can speak only with you. If I attempt it with others,
my habit and disposition, always to speak the truth, often cost me dear;
or I blunder in some way or other. Worldly wisdom is as decidedly and
unattainably denied to my nature, as to the swan--who in winter waddles
clumsily across the frozen lake before your window--the power of running
races with the sledges that glide over it. However, his time too comes,
when he cleaves his own free and beautiful element, or sails through the
blue æther. Then he is himself again.
But back to Cashel.--I used my good friend's horses, which daily stand
at my disposal, for a second excursion to the ruins of Holy Cross, six
miles off, the worthy rival of the Devil's Rock. We amused ourselves by
riding across the country, and leaping some stone enclosures; and
reached a height from which 'The Rock,' as it is here briefly called,
presents the most imposing aspect. The circle of distant blue mountains
encircling the rock, which stands alone in the midst of the fruitful
plain; the castle, abbey, and cathedral,--which, forming a majestic
group, look down from the summit, and in silent and sublime language
relate the history of successive ages; lastly, the town at its foot, so
wretched, although the seat of two archbishops, (a Protestant and a
Catholic,) and which also tells its own mute but intelligible tale
concerning the present times,--combine to awaken varied and
contradictory emotions.
Holy Cross is of a totally different character.--Cashel stands in
solitary grandeur, all rock and stone, barren and black, with only here
and there a straggling ivy-branch creeping feebly through a crevice.
Holy Cross, on the contrary, lies in a valley on the banks of the Suir,
buried in copsewood, and clothed with ivy of such luxuriant growth that
hardly a wall can be seen: and even the lofty cross, the last which
still remains standing,[141] is so enwreathed with it, that it seems as
if it clung fondly to shelter it from every profane touch. The interior
is magnificent, and contains the beautiful monument of Donough O'Brien,
king of Limerick, who founded this abbey in the twelfth century; and a
canopy, exquisitely carved in stone, under which repose the ashes of the
abbots,--both in perfect preservation. The view from the tower is
beautiful. You are very near the Devil's Bite, whose grotesque form is
too striking not to have furnished matter for legends to the Irish, who
have a story ready fitted to every extraordinary natural object.
We hastened back sooner than I wished, in consequence of an invitation
I had received from the Catholic dean to meet the archbishop and sixteen
other clergymen at dinner: no layman but myself was invited. The table
did honour to a chaplain of the Holy Father. "You never were at a
dinner, I dare say," said the archbishop to me, "at which all the guests
were clerical." "Yes, indeed, my lord," replied I; "and what is more, I
myself was a sort of bishop a little while ago." "How is that possible?"
said he, surprised. I explained to him, that I * * *
* * * * *
"We are, therefore," said I, "eighteen priests here assembled; and I can
assure you, that I make no distinction between Catholics and
Protestants;--that I see in both only Christians."
The conversation then turned on religious subjects, and was in a
perfectly free and impartial spirit. Never did I perceive the least
trace of bigotry or of the disgusting affectation of puritanical rigour.
At the dessert, several sang their national songs, some of which had no
pretension to sanctity. As the one who sat next me remarked some little
surprise on my countenance, he said in my ear, "Here we forget the
foreign * * * *, the archbishop, and the priest,--at table, we are only
gentlemen, and meet to enjoy ourselves." This man was the undisputed
descendant of an Irish royal line; and although no trace of it remained
about him, he was not the less proud of it. "I have a strange abode for
a clergyman," said he; "if ever you visit Ireland again, I hope you will
allow me the pleasure of doing the honours of it to you. It lies
immediately under the Devil's Bite, and a finer view than this same Bite
commands does not exist in all Ireland." He afterwards remarked, that to
be a Catholic in this country is almost a proof of noble blood: as only
the new families are Protestant, the Catholics must of necessity be the
old ones; for since the reformation _they_ have made no proselytes.
The melodies which were sung had a striking resemblance to those of the
Wendish nations. This is one of the many features of similarity which
strike me between those nations and the Irish. Both manufacture, and
have an exclusive taste for, spirit distilled from corn; both live
almost entirely on potatoes; both have the bagpipe; both are passionate
lovers of singing and dancing, and yet their national airs are of a
melancholy character; both are oppressed by a foreign nation, and speak
a gradually expiring language, which is rich and poetical, though
possessed of no literature; both honour the descendants of their ancient
princes, and cherish the principle that what is not renounced is not
utterly lost; both are superstitious, cunning, and greatly given to
exaggeration; rebellious where they can, but somewhat cringing to
decided and established power; both _like_ to go ragged, even when they
have the means of dressing better; and lastly, spite of their miserable
living, both are capable of great exertion, though they prefer indolence
and loitering; and both alike enjoy a fertile soil, which the Wendish
phrase calls "the roast meat of poor people." The better qualities which
distinguish the Irish are theirs alone.
I took advantage of the acquaintance I made to-day, to gain more
information respecting the actual proportion in number between Catholics
and Protestants. I found all I had heard fully confirmed, and have
gained some further details: among others, the official list of a part
of the present parishes and livings in the diocese of Cashel, which is
too remarkable not to send it to you, though the matter is somewhat dry,
and seems almost too pedantic for our correspondence.
Catholics. Protestants.
Thurles has 12,000 250}
Cashel 11,000 700}
Clonoughty 5,142 82}
Cappawhyte 2,800 76}
Killenaule 7,040 514}
Boherlahan 5,000 25}
Feathard 7,600 400} Military included.
Kilcummin 2,400 --}
Mickarty 7,000 80}
Golden 4,000 120}
Anacarty 4,000 12}
Doniskeath 5,700 90}
New Erin 4,500 30}
In thirteen districts, 78,182 Catholics and 2,379 Protestants.
Each of these districts has only one Catholic priest, but often four or
five Protestant clergymen; so that, on an average, there are scarcely
twenty persons to each Protestant congregation. Kilcummin is the place I
mentioned to you where there is not a single parishioner, and the
service, which according to law must be performed once a year, is
enacted in the ruin with the help of a Catholic clerk. In another,
called Tollamane, the same farce takes place. But not a whit the less
must the non-attending parishioners pay the uttermost farthing of their
tithes and other dues; and no claims are so bitterly enforced as those
of this Christian church:--there is no pity, at least none for
Catholics. A man who cannot pay the rent of the church-land he farms, or
his tithes to the parson, inevitably sees his cow and his pig sold,
(furniture, bed, &c. he has long lost,) and himself, his wife, and
probably a dozen children, ('car rien n'engendre comme les pommes de
terre et la misère,') thrust out into the road, where he is left to the
mercy of that Providence who feeds the fowls of the air and clothes the
lilies of the field. 'Quelle excellente chose qu'une religion d'état!'
So long as such exist, and every individual is not permitted, as in the
United States, to worship God in his own way, without any civil
disability or loss,--so long the age of barbarism has not ceased. The
time must come when in the state, as in nature, laws alone must rule.
Religion will then be left to her appropriate functions: she will
console us in misfortune, and heighten our pleasures; but she will cease
to wield the sceptre or the sword. The laws alone should employ
inflexible restraint; opinion should enjoy unbounded freedom. The
civilized portion of mankind have a right to demand this at the stage to
which they have attained, and to which they have fought their way
through so much suffering and blood. What frantic folly, to want to
prescribe to men what is to become of them after death, or what they
shall believe about it! It is bad enough that here on earth the best
institutions, the wisest laws, must ever be defective;--let the
invisible future at least shape itself out to every mind according to
that mind's power and comprehension! And yet have great and wise and
good men thought themselves justified in exercising this sort of
despotism. But such is human frailty! the same individual will prove
himself sublime in eleven things, and in the twelfth think and act like
an idiot.
While Cardinal Richelieu afforded to all succeeding ages the model of a
great and sagacious minister, his chief solicitude was to be thought a
good poet; and he tortured himself to write wretched tragedies, which
after his death were waste paper. The great Louis, who might be called
the absolute king 'par excellence,' seriously exclaimed after the battle
of Malplaquet, 'Et Dieu, a-t-il donc oublié ce que j'ai fait pour lui?'
Cromwell, at once an enthusiast and the most audacious and most cunning
of dissemblers, after heaping murder on murder and violence on violence,
found his conscience tranquillized, when in answer to his
interrogatories a clergyman assured him, that a man who had once felt
assured of the motions of grace within him, must be eternally blessed,
let him have done what he would. "Then I am saved," cried the Protector
joyfully, "for I know to a certainty that once, at least, I felt myself
in a state of grace." Such are men! and _therefore_ is it that human
authority will never have weight with me, when it is not confirmed by my
own judgment, exercised to the best of my power after mature reflection.
Nay, were even all mankind opposed to me, it could not alter an opinion
so formed. Thank God! we are all individual minds, and not sheep who
must follow one leader. And what is universal opinion? One is tempted to
think it is only another name for universal error, so frequently does it
alter. It seems to depend only on time and place. If you are born in
Constantinople you swear by Mahomet; in the rest of Europe by Moses or
Christ; in India, by Brama. Had you come into the world a subject of
Augustus, you would have been a Pagan. In the Middle Ages you would have
advocated fist-law (_Faust-recht_;) and now you clamour for the liberty
of the press, as the one thing without which it is impossible to
exist.[142] You yourself, in the course of your short life,--how
different is your being! how different your modes of thinking, as a
child, as a youth, as an old man! Herder was right when he said, "No two
drops of water are alike,--and yet you would give to all mankind the
same belief!" We might add, No atom remains unchanged, and you would bid
the human mind stand still!
Before the archbishop retired, he said to me in a most obliging manner,
"You are, as you tell us, a bishop, consequently you owe obedience to
the archbishop. I employ this my authority to command you to dine here
to-morrow with your colleague the Bishop of Limerick, whom we expect
to-day;--I must hear of no excuse." I answered, taking up the jest, "I
readily confess that it does not beseem me to withstand the discipline
of the Church, and Your Grace[143] and the Dean know so well how to
sweeten obedience, that I submit the more willingly."
I passed the evening in the society of the * * *. I have seldom found
Protestant clergymen so frank and sincere as these Catholics. We came to
the conclusion, that we must either receive blindly the hereditary faith
the Church prescribes; or, if this be not in our power, from our own
religious system as the result of individual thoughts and individual
feelings,--which may rightly be called the religion of philosophers. The
* * * spoke French most fluently, I therefore quote his own words:
"Heureusement on peut en quelque sorte combiner l'un et l'autre; car, au
bout du compte, il faut une religion positive au peuple." "Et dites
surtout," replied I, "qu'il en faut une aux rois et aux prêtres; car
aux uns elle fournit le 'par la grâce de Dieu, et aux autres, de la
puissance, des honneurs, et des richesses; le _peuple_ se contenterait,
peut-être, de bonnes lois et d'un gouvernement libre." "Ah," interrupted
he, "you think like Voltaire,
"Les prêtres ne sont pas ce qu'un vain peuple pense,
Et sa crédulité fait toute notre science."
"Ma foi," said I, "si tous les prêtres vous ressemblaient je penserais
bien autrement."
_October, 13th: Evening._
I was unfortunately unable to keep my word with my friendly Amphitryon.
A 'megrim' confined me all day to my bed. The archbishop sent me word
that he would cure me; and, if I would but bring firm faith, would be
sure to drive away the headache-fiend by a well-applied exorcism. I was,
however, obliged to reply, that this devil was one of the most
tractable, and that he respected no one but Nature, who sends and
recalls him at her pleasure, which, alas! is seldom in less than
four-and-twenty hours. I must therefore cut off even you, dearest Julia,
with a few words.
_October 14th._
'Après la pluie le soleil!' This day has indemnified me for the last. I
was on horseback by six o'clock, on my way to breakfast at Captain S----
's country-house, where the sportsmen were to rendezvous for a
hare-hunt. I found six or seven sturdy squires assembled: they do not
think much, but their life is all the more gay and careless. After we
had eaten and drank the most heterogeneous things,--coffee, tea,
whiskey, wine, eggs, beef-steaks, honey, mutton-kidneys, cakes, and
bread and butter, one after another,--the company seated themselves on
two large cars, and took the direction of the Galtee mountains; where,
at a distance of about eight miles, the hounds and horses were waiting
for us. The weather was fine, and the ride very pleasant, along a ridge
of hills commanding a full view of the fruitful plain, enclosed by
mountains and richly varied by a multitude of gentlemen's seats and
ruins which are scattered over the whole level country. I enjoyed these
beauties, as usual, alone; my companions had only dogs and horses in
their heads. A spot was pointed out to me where a strange phenomenon
took place ten years ago. A bog which lay at a considerable elevation,
forced up probably by subterranean springs, was completely loosened from
its bottom, and travelled on in a mass, sixteen feet high and three or
four acres in extent. It moved on in a continual zigzag, according to
the nature of the objects it encountered; and thus passed over a
distance of nine miles till it reached the nearest river, into which it
slowly discharged itself, causing an overflow of the waters. The rate of
its progress was about three miles an hour. It laid waste every thing in
its course. Houses were levelled with the earth at its touch; trees torn
up at once by the roots; the fields completely covered, and the valleys
filled with bog. An immense multitude had assembled at the end of its
course, without the power of offering the slightest resistance to the
progress of this awful and majestic phenomenon.
On our arrival at the appointed place of meeting, the horses were there,
but no dogs. There were, however, a great many gentlemen, and instead
of hunting hares we now all traversed the fields in every direction in
search of the stray hounds. The sort of riding on these occasions is a
thing of which people in our country can form no idea. Although most of
the fields are enclosed by stone hedges from three to six feet high, and
either piled loosely together or regularly cemented, and some of them
edged by ditches; or strong walls of earth and stones pointed at the
top, from five to seven feet high, with a ditch on one, sometimes on
both sides;--all this is not admitted as any pretext whatever for the
riders to deviate from a straight line. If I mistake not, I have already
described to you how wonderfully the horses here leap; the sagacity is
also admirable with which they distinguish a loose hedge from a firm
one; one recently thrown up, from one hardened by time. The loose ones
they spring over at one leap,--'clear them,' according to the technical
expression; but they take the firm ones more easily, making a sort of
halt at the top. All this takes place equally well in a full gallop, or,
with the utmost coolness, at a foot pace, or with a very short run. Some
gentlemen fell, but were only laughed at; for a man who does not break
his neck on the spot must look for no pity, but on the contrary,
ridicule. Others dismounted at very bad places, and their docile steeds
leaped without them, and then stood still, grazing while their riders
climbed over. I can assure you I very often thought I should be
compelled to follow their example; but Captain S----, who knew the
excellent horse on which he had mounted me, and was always by my side,
encouraged me to trust with perfect security to the admirable creature;
so that at the end of the day I had acquired a very considerable
reputation even among 'fox-hunters.' Certainly it is only in Ireland one
sees all that horses are capable of; the English are far behind them in
this respect. Wherever a man could get through, my horse found means to
do so in one way or other, leaping, crawling, or scrambling. Even in
swampy places where he sank up to his girths, he laboured through
without the least hurry or agitation, where a more lively and timorous
horse, though equally strong, would certainly never have made his way.
Such a horse on a field of battle would be beyond all price: but only
very early and perfect training, joined to the excellence of the breed,
can produce such an one. Experience shows that a peculiar bent of
education, continued through centuries, ends in rendering the
superinduced qualities natural even in animals. I saw pointers in
England, which without any training, stood still and pointed as
decidedly the first time they were taken out shooting, as if they had
been ever so carefully trained.
The price of these admirable horses was extremely reasonable ten years
ago, but since the English have begun to buy them for hunting, it is
greatly raised, and an Irish hunter of the quality of the one I rode
to-day, would fetch from a hundred and fifty to two hundred guineas. At
the Galway races I saw a celebrated blood-hunter, for which Lord Cl----
had given the latter sum. He had won every 'steeple-chase' he had ever
run; was as light as he was powerful, swift as the wind, a child could
manage him, and no hedge was too high, no ditch too wide for him.
At length we found the dogs: the men who had the care of them having got
completely drunk. Our hunt did not end till the approach of twilight. It
was become excessively cold, and the flickering fire, with the table
spread before it, shone most agreeably upon us on our arrival at Captain
S----'s house. A genuine sportsman's and bachelor's feast followed.
There was no attempt at show or elegance. Glasses, dishes, and all the
furniture of the table, were of every variety of form and date: one man
drank his wine out of a liqueur glass, another out of a champagne
glass, the more thirsty out of tumblers. One ate with his
great-grandfather's knife and fork, his neighbour with a new
green-handled one which the servant had just bought at Cashel fair.
There were as many dogs as guests in the room: every man waited on
himself; and the meats and potables were pushed on the table in
abundance by an old woman and a heavy-fisted groom. The fare was by no
means to be despised, nor the wine either, nor the potheen clandestinely
distilled in the mountains, which I here tasted for the first time
genuine and unadulterated. For sweetening a pudding, two large lumps of
sugar were handed about, and we rubbed them together as the savages do
sticks for kindling the fire. That the drinking was on a vast and
unlimited scale you may safely presume: but though many at last could
not speak very articulately, yet no one attempted any thing indecorous
or ill-bred; and the few who were much excited, enhanced the merriment
by many a 'bon mot' or droll story.
I am indebted for the great cordiality, I might say enthusiasm, with
which I am received here, to my visit to the 'Man of the People,' with
whom the curious believe me to be in God-knows-what connection. I am
greeted with hurrahs in every village I ride through; and in Cashel, the
market-place, in which my inn stands, is daily filled with people, who
congregate at an early hour, and cheer me every time I go out. Many
press forward and ask leave to shake my hand, (a no very gentle
operation,) and are quite happy when they have accomplished this.
We rose from table very late. I was packed into my host's car with
another gentleman, and set off for Cashel through an icy fog. Every
individual ran out to my assistance. One would draw a pair of furred
gloves on my hands; another lent me a cloak; a third tied a handkerchief
round my neck;--every man insisted on doing me some little service: and
with many a 'God bless his Highness!' I was at length suffered to
depart. The gentleman with me, Mr. O'R--, was the most original, and the
most drunk of any. Equally bent on doing me some kindness, he invariably
made the matter worse than he found it. He unfastened my cloak, in
trying to fasten it; tore off my handkerchief, instead of tying it; and
fell upon me, in his efforts to make room. His poetical humour displayed
itself as characteristically when we reached the Rock of Cashel. It was
dreadfully cold, and the cloudless firmament twinkled and glittered as
if bestrewn with diamonds. Between the road and the rock, however, a
thick mist lay along the earth, and covered the whole surrounding
country as with a veil, though it did not rise higher than to the foot
of the ruin. Its base was invisible, and it appeared as if it stood
built on a cloud in the blue æther, and in the midst of the stars. I had
been admiring this striking night-scene some time, when my neighbour,
whom I thought asleep, suddenly cried aloud, "Ah, there is my glorious
rock! look, how grand! and above all, the sacred place where all my
ancestors repose, and where I too shall lie in peace!" After a pause he
tried in a fit of greater ecstasy to stand up, which but for me would
probably have ended in his falling from the carriage. As soon as he was
firm on his legs, he took off his hat reverently, and with a sort of
devotion, at once affecting and burlesque, called out with tears in his
eyes, "God bless Almighty God, and glory to him!" Notwithstanding the
nonsense, I was touched by the feeling which broke through it, and in
this at least I sympathized with my whole soul.
_October 15th._
Lord H----, whom I knew in London, invited me to spend some days at his
beautiful residence in this neighbourhood. This invitation I was obliged
to refuse, but went to-day to dine with him. The well-kept
pleasure-ground, and the excavation of a hollow for a little lake,
recalled to me but too strongly the castle where you, my dear! are now
living, to be able to look at it without emotion. When shall we see each
other again! when shall we breakfast under the three lime-trees with the
swans who so trustingly fed out of our hands, while your tame doves
picked up the crumbs at our feet, and the little coco, surprised and
jealous, looked at the audacious birds with his wise eyes,--a picture at
which the '_blasé_' man of the world shrugs his shoulders
contemptuously, but which touches our hearts in all its native
simplicity.
Lord H---- is not one of those Irish nobles who withdraw the whole of
their revenues from their country: he sometimes resides there: but he
understands his interest so ill, that instead of placing himself at the
head of the people, he sets himself in opposition to them. The natural
consequence ensues: Lord Llandall, though a Protestant, is
beloved:--Lord H---- is hated, though personally he does not appear to
me to deserve it. I heard much of his excessive cruelties towards the
Catholics, and I was indeed witness to his violent temper on this
subject. I think, however, that in this case, as in so many others, the
mere change of one's own point of view alters all the relations of
things. This is a grand rule of the practical philosophy of life, and
the effect is certain: for the objects are only raw material matter;
every thing depends on the manner in which the individual understands
and shapes them. How many situations may thus be transformed from black
into rose-coloured, as soon as one resolutely takes off the black
spectacles, or puts on the rose-coloured ones. With what spectacles will
you read my letter?--I hear your answer, and kiss you for it.
Heaven guard you, and keep you in this mind!