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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Nuts and Nutcrackers, by Charles James Lever
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Nuts and Nutcrackers
+
+Author: Charles James Lever
+
+Illustrator: Phiz.
+
+Release Date: March 18, 2010 [EBook #31685]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NUTS AND NUTCRACKERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Irma Spehar and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+                            [Illustration]
+
+                         NUTS AND NUTCRACKERS.
+
+
+    “The world’s my filbert which with my crackers I will open.”
+
+                                      SHAKSPEARE.
+
+
+    “The priest calls the lawyer a cheat,
+      And the lawyer beknaves the divine;
+    And the statesman, because he’s so great,
+      Thinks his trade’s as honest as mine.”
+
+                                      BEGGAR’S OPERA.
+
+
+    “Hard texts are _nuts_ (I will not call them cheaters,)
+    Whose shells do keep their kernels from the eaters;
+    Open the shells, and you shall have the meat:
+    They here are brought for you to crack and eat.”
+
+                                      JOHN BUNYAN.
+
+
+                        ILLUSTRATED BY “PHIZ.”
+
+                            Second Edition.
+
+                                LONDON:
+                 WM. S. ORR AND CO., PATERNOSTER ROW;
+                 WILLIAM CURRY, JUN., AND CO., DUBLIN.
+
+                               MDCCCXLV.
+
+
+                                LONDON:
+              BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                       PAGE
+
+AN OPENING NUT                                          vii
+
+A NUT FOR MEN OF GENIUS                                   1
+
+A NUT FOR CORONERS                                       15
+
+A NUT FOR “TOURISTS”                                     19
+
+A NUT FOR LEGAL FUNCTIONARIES                            22
+
+A NUT FOR “ENDURING AFFECTION”                           31
+
+A NUT FOR THE POLICE AND SIR PETER                       37
+
+A NUT FOR THE BUDGET                                     44
+
+A NUT FOR REPEAL                                         49
+
+A NUT FOR NATIONAL PRIDE                                 55
+
+A NUT FOR DIPLOMATISTS                                   64
+
+A NUT FOR FOREIGN TRAVEL                                 71
+
+A NUT FOR DOMESTIC HAPPINESS                             77
+
+A NUT FOR LADIES BOUNTIFUL                               82
+
+A NUT FOR THE PRIESTS                                    85
+
+A NUT FOR LEARNED SOCIETIES                              87
+
+A NUT FOR THE LAWYERS                                    92
+
+A NUT FOR THE IRISH                                      99
+
+A NUT FOR VICEREGAL PRIVILEGES                          102
+
+RICH AND POOR--POUR ET CONTRE                           109
+
+A NUT FOR ST. PATRICK’S NIGHT                           114
+
+A NUT FOR “GENTLEMAN JOCKS”                             119
+
+A NUT FOR YOUNGER SONS                                  123
+
+A NUT FOR THE PENAL CODE                                128
+
+A NUT FOR THE OLD                                       131
+
+A NUT FOR THE ART UNION                                 133
+
+A NUT FOR THE KINGSTOWN RAILWAY                         137
+
+A NUT FOR THE DOCTORS                                   141
+
+A NUT FOR THE ARCHITECTS                                145
+
+A NUT FOR A NEW COLONY                                  148
+
+A “SWEET” NUT FOR THE YANKEES                           153
+
+A NUT FOR THE SEASON--JULLIEN’S QUADRILLES              157
+
+A NUT FOR “ALL IRELAND”                                 163
+
+A NUT FOR “A NEW COMPANY”                               168
+
+A NUT FOR “THE POLITICAL ECONOMISTS”                    175
+
+A NUT FOR “GRAND DUKES”                                 180
+
+A NUT FOR THE EAST INDIA DIRECTORS                      183
+
+A FILBERT FOR SIR ROBERT PEEL                           185
+
+“THE INCOME TAX”                                        186
+
+A NUT FOR THE “BELGES”                                  189
+
+A NUT FOR WORKHOUSE CHAPLAINS                           192
+
+A NUT FOR THE “HOUSE”                                   197
+
+A NUT FOR “LAW REFORM”                                  200
+
+A NUT FOR “CLIMBING BOYS”                               203
+
+A NUT FOR “THE SUBDIVISION OF LABOUR”                   206
+
+A NUT FOR A “NEW VERDICT”                               212
+
+A NUT FOR THE REAL “LIBERATOR”                          216
+
+A NUT FOR “HER MAJESTY’S SERVANTS”                      221
+
+A NUT FOR THE LANDLORD AND TENANT COMMISSION            225
+
+A NUT FOR THE HUMANE SOCIETY                            228
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR MEN OF GENIUS.
+
+
+If Providence, instead of a vagabond, had made me a justice of the
+peace, there is no species of penalty I would not have enforced
+against a class of offenders, upon whom it is the perverted taste of
+the day to bestow wealth, praise, honour, and reputation; in a word,
+upon that portion of the writers for our periodical literature whose
+pastime it is by high-flown and exaggerated pictures of society,
+places, and amusements, to mislead the too credulous and believing
+world; who, in the search for information and instruction, are but
+reaping a barren harvest of deceit and illusion.
+
+Every one is loud and energetic in his condemnation of a bubble
+speculation; every one is severe upon the dishonest features of
+bankruptcy, and the demerits of un-trusty guardianship; but while the
+law visits these with its pains and penalties, and while heavy
+inflictions follow on those breaches of trust, which affect our
+pocket, yet can he “walk scatheless,” with port erect and visage high
+who, for mere amusement--for the passing pleasure of the moment--or,
+baser still, for certain pounds per sheet, can, present us with the
+air-drawn daggers of a dyspeptic imagination for the real woes of
+life, or paint the most common-place and tiresome subjects with
+colours so vivid and so glowing as to persuade the unwary reader that
+a paradise of pleasure and enjoyment, hitherto unknown, is open before
+him. The treadmill and the ducking-stool, “_me judice_,” would no
+longer be tenanted by rambling gipsies or convivial rioters, but would
+display to the admiring gaze of an assembled multitude the
+aristocratic features of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, the dark whiskers
+of D’Israeli, the long and graceful proportions of Hamilton Maxwell,
+or the portly paunch and melo-dramatic frown of that right pleasant
+fellow, Henry Addison himself.
+
+You cannot open a newspaper without meeting some narrative of what, in
+the phrase of the day, is denominated an “attempted imposition.” Count
+Skryznyzk, with black moustachoes and a beard to match, after being
+the lion of Lord Dudley Stuart’s parties, and the delight of a certain
+set of people in the West-end--who, when they give a tea-party, call
+it a _soirée_, and deem it necessary to have either a Hindoo or a
+Hottentot, a Pole, or a Piano-player, to interest their guests--was
+lately brought up before Sir Peter Laurie, charged by 964 with
+obtaining money under false pretences, and sentenced to three months’
+imprisonment and hard labour at the treadmill.
+
+The charge looks a grave one, good reader, and perhaps already some
+notion is trotting through your head about forgery or embezzlement;
+you think of widows rendered desolate, or orphans defrauded; you
+lament over the hard-earned pittance of persevering industry lost to
+its possessor; and, in your heart, you acknowledge that there may have
+been some cause for the partition of Poland, and that the Emperor of
+the Russias, like another monarch, may not be half so black as he is
+painted. But spare your honest indignation; our unpronounceable friend
+did none of these. No; the head and front of his offending was simply
+exciting the sympathies of a feeling world for his own deep wrongs;
+for the fate of his father, beheaded in the Grand Place at Warsaw; for
+his four brothers, doomed never to see the sun in the dark mines of
+Tobolsk; for his beautiful sister, reared in the lap of luxury and
+wealth, wandering houseless and an outcast around the palaces of St.
+Petersburg, wearying heaven itself with cries for mercy on her
+banished brethren; and last of all, for himself--he, who at the battle
+of Pultowa led heaven-knows how many and how terrific charges of
+cavalry,--whose breast was a galaxy of orders only outnumbered by his
+wounds--that he should be an exile, without friends, and without home!
+In a word, by a beautiful and highly-wrought narrative, that drew
+tears from the lady and ten shillings from the gentleman of the house,
+he became amenable to our law as a swindler and an impostor, simply
+because his narrative was a fiction.
+
+In the name of all justice, in the name of truth, of honesty, and fair
+dealing, I ask you, is this right? or, if the treadmill be the fit
+reward for such powers as his, what shall we say, what shall we do,
+with all the popular writers of the day? How many of Bulwer’s stories
+are facts? What truth is there in James? Is that beautiful creation of
+Dickens, “Poor Nell,” a real or a fictitious character? And is the
+offence, after all, merely in the manner, and not the matter, of the
+transgression? Is it that, instead of coming before the world printed,
+puffed, and hot-pressed by the gentlemen of the Row, he ventured to
+edite himself, and, instead of the trade, make his tongue the medium
+of publication? And yet, if speech be the crime, what say you to
+Macready, and with what punishment are you prepared to visit him who
+makes your heart-strings vibrate to the sorrows of _Virginius_, or
+thrills your very blood with the malignant vengeance of _Iago_? Is
+what is permissible in Covent Garden, criminal in the city? or,
+stranger still, is there a punishment at the one place, and praise at
+the other? Or is it the costume, the foot-lights, the orange-peel, and
+the sawdust--are they the terms of the immunity? Alas, and alas! I
+believe they are.
+
+Burke said, “The age of chivalry is o’er;” and I believe the age of
+poetry has gone with it; and if Homer himself were to chant an Iliad
+down Fleet Street, I’d wager a crown that 964 would take him up for a
+ballad-singer.
+
+But a late case occurs to me. A countryman of mine, one Bernard
+Cavanagh, doubtless, a gentleman of very good connections, announced
+some time ago that he had adopted a new system of diet, which was
+neither more nor less than going without any food. Now, Mr. Cavanagh
+was a stout gentleman, comely and plump to look at, who conversed
+pleasantly on the common topics of the day, and seemed, on the whole,
+to enjoy life pretty much like other people. He was to be seen for a
+shilling--children half-price; and although Englishmen have read of
+our starving countrymen for the last century and a-half, yet their
+curiosity to see one, to look at him, to prod him with their
+umbrellas, punch him with their knuckles, and otherwise test his
+vitality, was such, that they seemed just as much alive as though the
+phenomenon was new to them. The consequence was, Mr. Cavanagh, whose
+cook was on board wages, and whose establishment was of the least
+expensive character, began to wax rich. Several large towns and
+cities, in different parts of the empire, requested him to visit them;
+and Joe Hume suggested that the corporation of London should offer him
+ten thousand pounds for his secret, merely for the use of the livery.
+In fact, Cavanagh was now the cry, and as Barney appeared to grow fat
+on fasting, his popularity knew no bounds. Unfortunately, however,
+ambition, the bane of so many other great men, numbered him also among
+its victims. Had he been content with London as the sphere of his
+triumphs and teetotalism, there is no saying how long he might have
+gone on starving with satisfaction. Whether it is that the people are
+less observant there, or more accustomed to see similar exhibitions,
+I cannot tell; but true it is they paid their shillings, felt his
+ribs, walked home, and pronounced Barney a most exemplary Irishman.
+But not content with the capital, he must make a tour in the
+provinces, and accordingly went starring it about through Leeds,
+Birmingham, Manchester, and all the other manufacturing towns, as if
+in mockery of the poor people who did not know the secret how to live
+without food.
+
+Mr. Cavanagh was now living--if life it can be called--in one of the
+best hotels, when, actuated by that spirit of inquiry that
+characterises the age, a respectable lady, who kept a boarding-house,
+paid him a visit, to ascertain, if possible, how far his system might
+be made applicable to her guests, who, whatever their afflictions,
+laboured under no such symptoms as his.
+
+She was pleased with Barney,--she patted him with her hand; he was
+round, and plump, and fat, much more so, indeed, than many of her
+daily dinner-party; and had, withal, that kind of joyous, rollicking,
+devil-may-care look, that seems to bespeak good condition;--but this
+the poor lady, of course, did not know to be an inherent property in
+Pat, however poor his situation.
+
+After an interview of an hour long she took her leave, not exhibiting
+the usual satisfaction of other visitors, but with a dubious look and
+meditative expression, that betokened a mind not made up, and a heart
+not at ease; she was clearly not content, perhaps the abortive effort
+to extract a confession from Mr. Cavanagh might be the cause, or
+perhaps she felt like many respectable people whose curiosity is only
+the advanced guard to their repentance, and who never think that in
+any exhibition they get the worth of their money. This might be the
+case, for as fasting is a negative process, there is really little to
+see in the performer. Had it been the man that eats a sheep; “_à la
+bonne heure!_” you have something for your money there: and I can even
+sympathize with the French gentleman who follows Van Amburgh to this
+day, in the agreeable hope, to use his own words, of “assisting at the
+_soirée_, when the lions shall eat Mr. Van Amburgh.” This, if not
+laudable is at least intelligible. But to return, the lady went her
+way, not indeed on hospitable thoughts intent, but turning over in her
+mind various theories about abstinence, and only wishing she had the
+whole of the Cavanagh family for boarders at a guinea a-week.
+
+Late in the evening of the same day this estimable lady, whose
+inquiries into the properties of gastric juice, if not as scientific,
+were to the full as enthusiastic as those of Bostock or Tiedeman
+himself, was returning from an early tea, through an unfrequented
+suburb of Manchester, when suddenly her eye fell upon Bernard
+Cavanagh, seated in a little shop--a dish of sausages and a plate of
+ham before him, while a frothing cup of porter ornamented his right
+hand. It was true, he wore a patch above his eye, a large beard, and
+various other disguises, but they served him not: she knew him at
+once. The result is soon told: the police were informed; Mr. Cavanagh
+was captured; the lady gave her testimony in a crowded court, and he
+who lately was rolling on the wheel of fortune, was now condemned to
+foot it on a very different wheel, and all for no other cause than
+that he could not live without food.
+
+The magistrate, who was eloquent on the occasion, called him an
+impostor; designating by this odious epithet, a highly-wrought and
+well-conceived work of imagination. Unhappy Defoe, your Robinson
+Crusoe might have cost you a voyage across the seas; your man Friday
+might have been a black Monday to you had you lived in our days. 964
+is a severer critic than _The Quarterly_, and his judgment more
+irrevocable.
+
+[Illustration: The Man of Genius.]
+
+We have never heard of any one who, discovering the fictitious
+character of a novel he had believed as a fact, waited on the
+publisher with a modest request that his money might be returned to
+him, being obtained under false pretences; much less of his applying
+to his worship for a warrant against G. P. R. James, Esq., or Harrison
+Ainsworth, for certain imaginary woes and unreal sorrows depicted in
+their writings: yet the conduct of the lady towards Mr. Cavanagh was
+exactly of this nature. How did his appetite do her any possible
+disservice? what sins against her soul were contained in his sausages?
+and yet she must appeal to the justice as an injured woman: Cavanagh
+had imposed upon her--she was wronged because he was hungry. All his
+narrative, beautifully constructed and artfully put together, went for
+nothing; his look, his manner, his entertaining anecdotes, his
+fascinating conversation, his time--from ten in the morning till eight
+in the evening--went all for nothing: this really is too bad. Do we
+ask of every author to be the hero he describes? Is Bulwer, Pelham,
+and Paul Clifford, Eugene Aram, and the Lady of Lyons? Is James, Mary
+of Burgundy, Darnley, the Gipsy, and Corse de Leon? Is Dickens, Sam
+Weller, Quilp, and Barnaby Rudge?--to what absurdities will this lead
+us! and yet Bernard Cavanagh was no more guilty than any of these
+gentlemen. He was, if I may so express it, a pictorial--an ideal
+representation of a man that fasted: he narrated all the sensations
+want of food suggests; its dreamy debility, its languid stupor, its
+painful suffering, its stage of struggle and suspense, ending in a
+victory, where the mind, the conqueror over the baser nature, asserts
+its proud and glorious supremacy in the triumph of volition; and for
+this beautiful creation of his brain he is sent to the treadmill, as
+though, instead of a poet, he had been a pickpocket.
+
+If Bulwer be a baronet; if Dickens’ bed-room be papered with
+bank-debentures; then do I proclaim it loudly before the world,
+Bernard Cavanagh is an injured man: you are either absurd in one case,
+or unjust in the other; take your choice. Ship off Sir Edward to the
+colonies; send James to Swan River; let Lady Blessington card wool, or
+Mrs. Norton pound oyster-shells; or else we call upon you, give Mr.
+Cavanagh freedom of the guild; call him the author of “The Hungry
+One;” let him be courted and _fêted_--you may ask him to dinner with
+an easy conscience, and invite him to tea without remorse. Let a
+Whig-radical borough solicit him to represent it; place him at the
+right hand of Lord John; let his picture be exhibited in the
+print-shops, and let the cut of his coat and the tie of his cravat be
+so much in vogue, that bang-ups _à la_ Barney shall be the only things
+seen in Bond-street: one course or the other you must take. If the
+mountain will not go to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain: or
+in other words, if Bulwer descend not to Barney, Barney must mount up
+to Bulwer. It is absurd, it is worse than absurd, to pretend that he
+who so thoroughly sympathises with his hero, as to embody him in his
+own thoughts and acts, his look, his dress, and his demeanour, that
+he, I say, who so penetrated with the impersonation of a part, finds
+the pen too weak, and the press too slow, to picture forth his vivid
+creations, should be less an object of praise, of honour, and
+distinction, than the indolent denizen of some drawing-room, who, in
+slippered ease, dictates his shadowy and imperfect conceptions--visions
+of what he never felt, dreamy representations of unreality.
+
+“The poet,” as the word implies, is the maker or the creator; and
+however little of the higher attributes of what the world esteems as
+poetry the character would seem to possess, he who invents a
+personage, the conformity of whose traits to the rule of life is
+acknowledged for its truth, he, I say, is a poet. Thus, there is
+poetry in Sancho Panza, Falstaff, Dugald Dalgetty, and a hundred other
+similar impersonations; and why not in Bernard Cavanagh?
+
+Look for a moment at the effects of your system. The Caraccis, we are
+told, spent their boyish years drawing rude figures with chalk on the
+doors and even the walls of the palaces of Rome: here the first germs
+of their early talent displayed themselves; and in those bold
+conceptions of youthful genius were seen the first dawnings of a power
+that gave glory to the age they lived in. Had Sir Peter Laurie been
+their cotemporary, had 964 been loose in those days, they would have
+been treated with a trip to the mill, and their taste for design
+cultivated by the low diet of a penitentiary. You know not what
+budding genius you have nipped with this abominable system: you think
+not of the early indications of mind and intellect you may be
+consigning to prison: or is it after all, that the matter-of-fact
+spirit of the age has sapped the very vitals of our law-code, and that
+in your utilitarian zeal you have doomed to death all that bears the
+stamp of imagination? if this be indeed your object, have a good
+heart, encourage 964, and you’ll not leave a novelist in the land.
+
+Good reader, I ask your pardon for all this honest indignation; I know
+it is in vain: I cannot reform our jurisprudence; and our laws, like
+the Belgian revolution, must be regarded “_comme un fait accompli_;”
+in other words, what can’t be cured must be endured. Let us leave then
+our friend the Pole to perform his penance; let us say adieu to
+Barney, who is at this moment occupying a suite of apartments in the
+Penitentiary, and let us turn to the reverse of the medal, I mean to
+those who would wile us away by false promises and flattering speeches
+to entertain such views of life as are not only impossible but
+inconsistent, thus rendering our path here devoid of interest and of
+pleasure, while compared with the extravagant creations of their own
+erring fancies. Yes, princes may be trusted, but put not your faith in
+periodicals. Let no pictorial representations of Alpine scenery, under
+the auspices of Colburn or Bentley, seduce you from the comforts of
+your hearth and home: let no enthusiastic accounts of military
+greatness, no peninsular pleasures, no charms of campaigning life,
+induce you to change your garb of country gentleman for the livery of
+the Horse-Guards,--“making the green one red.”
+
+Be not mystified by Maxwell, nor lured by Lorrequer; let no panegyrics
+of pipe-clay and the brevet seduce you from the peaceful path in life;
+let not Marryat mar your happiness by the glories of those who dwell
+in the deep waters; let not Wilson persuade you that the “Lights and
+Shadows of Scottish Life” have any reference to that romantic people,
+who betake themselves to their native mountains with a little oatmeal
+for food and a little sulphur for friction; do not believe one
+syllable about the girls of the west; trust not in the representations
+of their blue eyes, nor of their trim ankles peering beneath a jupe of
+scarlet--we can vouch it is true, for the red petticoat, but the rest
+is apocryphal. Fly, we warn you, from Summers in Germany, Evenings in
+Brittany, Weeks on the Rhine; away with tours, guide-books, and all
+the John Murrayisms of travels. A plague upon Egypt! travellers have a
+proverbial liberty of conscience, and the farther they go, the more
+does it seem to stretch; not that near home matters are much better,
+for our “Wild Sports” in Achill are as romantic as those in Africa,
+and the Complete Angler is a complete humbug.
+
+There is no faith--no principle in any of these men. The grave writer,
+the stern moralist, the uncompromising advocate of the inflexible rule
+of right, is a dandy with essenced locks, loose trousers, and looser
+morals, who breakfasts at four in the afternoon, and spends his
+evenings among the side scenes of the opera; the merry writer of whims
+and oddities, who shakes his puns about like pepper from a
+pepper-castor, is a misanthropic, melancholy gentleman, of mournful
+look and unhappy aspect: the advocate of field-sports, of all the
+joyous excitement of the hunting-field, and the bold dangers of the
+chase, is an asthmatic sexagenarian, with care in his heart and gout
+in his ankles; and lastly, he who lives but in the horrors of a
+charnel-house, whose gloomy mind finds no pleasure save in the dark
+and dismal pictures of crime and suffering, of lingering agony, or
+cruel death, is a fat, round, portly, comely gentleman, with a laugh
+like Falstaff, and a face whose every lineament and feature seems to
+exhale the merriment of a jocose and happy temperament. I speak not of
+the softer sex, many of whose productions would seem to have but
+little sympathy with themselves; but once for all, I would ask you
+what reliance, what faith can you place in any of them? Is it to the
+denizen of a coal mine you apply for information about the Nassau
+balloon? Do you refer a disputed point in dress to an Englishman, in
+climate to a Laplander, in politeness to a Frenchman, or in
+hospitality to a Belgian? or do you not rather feel that these are not
+exactly their attributes, and that you are moving the equity for a
+case at common law? exactly in the same way, and for the same reason,
+we repeat it, put not your faith in periodicals, nor in the writers
+thereof.
+
+How ridiculous would it appear if the surgeon-general were to open a
+pleading, or charge a jury in the Queen’s Bench, while the
+solicitor-general was engaged in taking up the femoral artery! What
+would you say if the Archbishop of Canterbury were to preside over the
+artillery-practice at Woolwich, while the Commander of the Forces
+delivered a charge to the clergy of the diocese? How would you look if
+Justice Pennefather were to speak at a repeal meeting, and Daniel
+O’Connell to conduct himself like a loyal and discreet citizen? Would
+you not at once say the whole world is in masquerade? and would you
+not be justified in the remark? And yet this it is which is exactly
+taking place before your eyes in the wide world of letters. The
+illiterate and unreflecting man of under-bred habits and degenerate
+tastes will write nothing but a philosophic novel; the denizen of the
+Fleet, or the Queen’s Bench, publishes an ascent of Mont Blanc, with
+a glowing description of the delights of liberty; the nobleman writes
+slang; the starving author, with broken boots and patched
+continuations, will not indite a name undignified by a title; and
+after all this, will you venture to tell me that these men are not
+indictable by the statute for obtaining money under false pretences?
+
+I have run myself out of breath; and now, if you will allow me a few
+moments, I will tell you what, perhaps, I ought to have done earlier
+in this article, namely, its object.
+
+It is a remarkable feature in the complex and difficult machinery of
+our society, that while crime and the law code keep steadily on the
+increase, moving in parallel lines one beside the other, certain
+prejudices, popular fallacies--nuts, as we have called them at the
+head of this paper--should still disgrace our social system; and that,
+however justice may be administered in our courts of law, in the
+private judicature of our own dwellings we observe an especial system
+of jurisprudence, marked by injustice and by wrong. To endeavour to
+depict some instances of this, I have set about my present
+undertaking. To disabuse the public mind as to the error, that what is
+punishable in one can be praiseworthy in another; and what is
+excellent in the court can be execrable in the city. Such is my
+object, such my hope. Under this title I shall endeavour to touch upon
+the undue estimation in which we hold certain people and places--the
+unfair depreciation of certain sects and callings. Not confining
+myself to home, I shall take the habits of my countrymen on the
+Continent, whether in their search for climate, economy, education, or
+enjoyment; and, as far as my ability lies, hold the mirror up to
+nature, while I extend the war-cry of my distinguished countrymen,
+not asking “justice for Ireland” alone, but “justice for the whole
+human race.” For the gaoler as for the guardsman, for the steward of
+the Holyhead as for him of the household; from the Munster
+king-at-arms to the monarch of the Cannibal Island--“_nihil à me
+alienum puto_;” from the priest to the plenipotentiary; from Mr.
+Arkins to Abd-el-Kader: my sympathy extends to all.
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR CORONERS.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+I had nearly attained to man’s estate before I understood the nature
+of a coroner. I remember, when a child, to have seen a coloured print
+from a well-known picture of the day, representing the night-mare. It
+was a horrible representation of a goblin shape of hideous aspect,
+that sat cowering upon the bosom of a sleeping figure, on whose white
+features a look of painful suffering was depicted, while the clenched
+hands and drawn-up feet seemed to struggle with convulsive agony.
+Heaven knows how or when the thought occurred to me, but I clearly
+recollect my impression that this goblin was a coroner. Some confused
+notion about sitting on a corpse as one of his attributes had,
+doubtless, suggested the idea; and certainly nothing contributed to
+increase the horror of suicide in my eyes so much as the reflection,
+that the grim demon already mentioned had some function to discharge
+on the occasion.
+
+When, after the lapse of years, I heard that the eloquent and gifted
+member for Finsbury was a being of this order, although I knew by that
+time the injustice of my original prejudices, yet, I confess I could
+not look at him in the house, without a thought of my childish
+fancies, and an endeavour to trace in his comely features some faint
+resemblance to the figure of the night-mare.
+
+This strange impression of my infancy recurred strongly to my mind a
+few days since, on reading a newspaper account of a sudden death.--The
+case was simply that of a gentleman who, in the bosom of his family,
+became suddenly seized with illness, and after a few hours expired.
+What was their surprise! what their horror! to find, that no sooner
+was the circumstance known, than the house was surrounded by a mob,
+policemen were stationed at the doors, and twelve of the great
+unwashed, with a coroner at their head, forced their entry into the
+house of mourning, to deliberate on the cause of death. I can
+perfectly understand the value of this practice in cases where either
+suspicion has attached, or where the circumstances of the decease, as
+to time and place, would indicate a violent death; but where a person,
+surrounded by his children, living in all the quiet enjoyment of an
+easy and undisturbed existence, drops off by some one of the ills that
+flesh is heir to, only a little more rapidly than his neighbour at
+next door, why this should be a case for a coroner and his gang, I
+cannot, for the life of me, conceive. In the instance I allude to, the
+family offered the fullest information: they explained that the
+deceased had been liable for years to an infirmity likely to terminate
+in this way. The physician who attended him corroborated the
+statement; and, in fact, it was clear the case was one of those almost
+every-day occurrences where the thread of life is snapped, not
+unravelled. This, however, did not satisfy the coroner, who had, as he
+expressed it, a “duty to perform,” and, who, certainly had five
+guineas for his fee: he was a “medical coroner,” too, and therefore he
+would examine for himself. Thus, in the midst of the affliction and
+bereavement of a desolate family, the frightful detail of an inquest,
+with all its attendant train of harrowing and heart-rending inquiries,
+is carried on, simply because it is permissible by the law, and the
+coroner may enter where the king cannot.
+
+We are taught in the litany to pray against sudden death; but up to
+this moment I never knew it was illegal. Dreadful afflictions as
+apoplexy and aneurism are, it remained for our present civilisation to
+make them punishable by a statute. The march of intellect, not
+satisfied with directing us in life, must go a step farther and teach
+us how to die. Fashionable diseases the world has been long acquainted
+with, but an “illegal inflammation,” and a “criminal hemorrhage” have
+been reserved for the enlightened age we live in.
+
+Newspapers will no longer inform us, in the habitual phrase, that Mr.
+Simpkins died suddenly at his house at Hampstead; but, under the head
+of “Shocking outrage,” we shall read, “that after a long life of great
+respectability and the exhibition of many virtues, this unfortunate
+gentleman, it is hoped in a moment of mental alienation, went off with
+a disease of the heart. The affliction of his surviving relatives at
+this frightful act may be conceived, but cannot be described. His
+effects, according to the statute, have been confiscated to the crown,
+and a deodand of fifty shillings awarded on the apothecary who
+attended him. It is hoped, that the universal execration which attends
+cases of this nature may deter others from the same course; and, we
+confess, our observations are directed with a painful, but we trust, a
+powerful interest to certain elderly gentlemen in the neighbourhood of
+Islington.” _Verb. sat._
+
+Under these sad circumstances it behoves us to look a little about,
+and provide against such a contingency. It is then earnestly
+recommended to heads of families, that when registering the birth of a
+child, they should also include some probable or possible malady of
+which he may, could, would, should, or ought to die, in the course of
+time. This will show, by incontestable evidence, that the event was at
+least anticipated, and being done at the earliest period of life, no
+reproach can possibly lie for want of premeditation. The register
+might run thus:--
+
+Giles Tims, son of Thomas and Mary Tims, born on the 9th of June, Kent
+street, Southwark--dropsy, typhus, or gout in the stomach.
+
+It by no means follows, that he must wait for one or other of these
+maladies to carry him off. Not at all; he may range at will through
+the whole practice of physic, and adopt his choice. The registry only
+goes to show, that he does not mean to sneak out of the world in any
+under-bred way, nor bolt out of life with the abrupt precipitation of
+a Frenchman after a dinner party. I have merely thrown out this hint
+here as a warning to my many friends, and shall now proceed to other
+and more pleasing topics.
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR “TOURISTS.”
+
+
+Among the many incongruities of that composite piece of architecture,
+called John Bull, there is nothing more striking than the contrast
+between his thorough nationality and his unbounded admiration for
+foreigners. Now, although we may not entirely sympathize with, we can
+understand and appreciate this feature of his character, and see how
+he gratifies his very pride itself, in the attentions and civilities
+he bestows upon strangers. The feeling is intelligible too, because
+Frenchmen, Germans, and even Italians, notwithstanding the many points
+of disparity between us, have always certain qualities well worthy of
+respect, if not of imitation. France has a great literature, a name
+glorious in history, a people abounding in intelligence, skill, and
+invention; in fact, all the attributes that make up a great nation.
+Germany has many of these, and though she lack the brilliant fancy,
+the sparkling wit of her neighbour, has still a compensating fund in
+the rich resources of her judgment, and the profound depths of her
+scholarship. Indeed, every continental country has its lesson for our
+benefit, and we would do well to cultivate the acquaintance of
+strangers, not only to disseminate more just views of ourselves and
+our institutions, but also for the adoption of such customs as seem
+worthy of imitation, and such habits as may suit our condition in
+life; while such is the case as regards those countries high in the
+scale of civilisation, we would, by no means, extend the rule to
+others less happily constituted, less benignly gifted. The Carinthian
+boor with his garment of sheep-wool, or the Laplander with his snow
+shoes and his hood of deerskin, may be both very natural objects of
+curiosity, but by no means subjects of imitation. This point will
+doubtless be conceded at once; and now, will any one tell me for what
+cause, under what pretence, and with what pretext are we civil to the
+Yankees?--not for their politeness, not for their literature, not for
+any fascination of their manner, nor any charm of their address, not
+for any historic association, not for any halo that the glorious past
+has thrown around the common-place monotony of the present, still less
+for any romantic curiosity as to their lives and habits--for in this
+respect all other savage nations far surpass them. What then is, or
+what can be the cause?
+
+Of all the lions that caprice and the whimsical absurdity of a
+second-rate set in fashion ever courted and entertained, never had any
+one less pretensions to the civility he received than the author of
+‘Pencillings by the Way’--poor in thought, still poorer in expression,
+without a spark of wit, without a gleam of imagination--a fourth-rate
+looking man, and a fifth-rate talker, he continued to receive the
+homage we were wont to bestow upon a Scott, and even charily extended
+to a Dickens. His writings the very slip-slop of “commerage,” the
+tittle-tattle of a Sunday paper, dressed up in the cant of Kentucky;
+the very titles, the contemptible affectation of unredeemed twaddle,
+‘Pencillings by the Way!’ ‘Letters from under a Bridge!’ Good lack!
+how the latter name is suggestive of eaves-dropping and listening; and
+how involuntarily we call to mind those chance expressions of his
+partners in the dance, or his companions at the table, faithfully
+recorded for the edification of the free-born Americans, who, while
+they ridicule our institutions, endeavour to pantomime our manners.
+
+For many years past a number of persons have driven a thriving trade
+in a singular branch of commerce, no less than buying up cast court
+dresses and second-hand uniforms for exportation to the colonies. The
+negroes, it is said, are far prouder of figuring in the tattered and
+tarnished fragments of former greatness, than of wearing the less
+gaudy, but more useful garb, befitting their condition. So it would
+seem our trans-Atlantic friends prefer importing through their agents,
+for that purpose, the abandoned finery of courtly gossip, to the more
+useful but less pretentious apparel, of common-place information. Mr.
+Willis was invaluable for this purpose; he told his friends every
+thing that he heard, and he heard every thing that he could; and, like
+mercy, he enjoyed a duplicate of blessings--for while he was delighted
+in by his own countrymen, he was dined by ours. He scattered his
+autographs, as Feargus O’Connor did franks; he smiled; he ogled; he
+read his own poetry, and went the whole lion with all his might; and
+yet, in the midst of this, a rival starts up equally desirous of court
+secrets, and fifty times as enterprising in their search; he risks his
+liberty, perhaps his life, in the pursuit, and what is his reward? I
+need only tell you his name, and you are answered--I mean the boy
+Jones; not under a bridge, but under a sofa; not in Almacks, obtaining
+it at second-hand, but in Buckingham Palace--into the very apartment
+of the Queen--the adventurous youth has dared to insinuate himself. No
+lady however sends her album to him for some memento of his genius.
+His temple is not defrauded of its curls to grace a locket or a
+medallion; and his reward, instead of a supper at Lady Blessington’s,
+is a voyage to Swan River. For my part, I prefer the boy Jones: I like
+his singleness of purpose: I admire his steady perseverance; still,
+however, he had the misfortune to be born in England--his father lived
+near Wapping, and he was ineligible for a lion.
+
+To what other reason than his English growth can be attributed the
+different treatment he has experienced at the hands of the world. The
+similarity between the two characters is most striking. Willis had a
+craving appetite for court gossip, and the tittle-tattle of a palace:
+so had the boy Jones. Willis established himself as a listener in
+society: so did the boy Jones. Willis obtruded himself into places,
+and among people where he had no possible pretension to be seen: so
+did the boy Jones. Willis wrote letters from under a bridge: the boy
+Jones eat mutton chops under a sofa.
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR LEGAL FUNCTIONARIES.
+
+
+The pet profession of England is the bar, and I see many reasons why
+this should be the case. Our law of primogeniture necessitates the
+existence of certain provisions for younger children independently of
+the pittance bestowed on them by their families. The army and the
+navy, the church and the bar, form then the only avenues to fortune
+for the highly born; and one or other of these four roads must be
+adopted by him who would carve out his own career. The bar, for
+many reasons, is the favourite--at least among those who place
+reliance in their intellect. Its estimation is high. It is not
+incompatible but actually favourable to the pursuits of parliament.
+Its rewards are manifold and great; and while there is a sufficiency
+of private ease and personal retirement in its practice, there is also
+enough of publicity for the most ambitiously-minded seeker of the
+world’s applause and the world’s admiration. Were we only to look back
+upon our history, we should find perhaps that the profession of the
+law would include almost two-thirds of our very greatest men. Astute
+thinkers, deep politicians, eloquent debaters, profound scholars, men
+of wit, as well as men of wisdom, have abounded in its ranks, and
+there is every reason why it should be, as I have called it, the pet
+profession.
+
+[Illustration: Legal Functionaries.]
+
+Having conceded so much, may I now be permitted to take a nearer view
+of those men so highly distinguished: and for this purpose let me turn
+my reader’s attention to the practice of a criminal trial. The first
+duty of a good citizen, it will not be disputed, is, as far as in him
+lies, to promote obedience to the law, to repress crime, and bring
+outrage to punishment. No walk in life--no professional career--no
+uniform of scarlet or of black--no freemasonry of craft or calling can
+absolve him from this allegiance to his country. Yet, what do we see?
+The wretch stained with crime--polluted with iniquity--for which,
+perhaps, the statute-book contains neither name nor indictment--whose
+trembling lips are eager to avow that guilt which, by confessing, he
+hopes may alleviate the penalty--this man, I say, is checked in his
+intentions--he is warned not, by any chance expression, to hazard a
+conviction of his crime, and told in the language of the law not to
+criminate himself. But the matter stops not here--justice is an
+inveterate gambler--she is not satisfied when her antagonist throws
+his card upon the table confessing that he has not a trump nor a trick
+in his hand--no, like the most accomplished swindler of Baden or
+Boulogne, she assumes a smile of easy and courteous benignity, and
+says, pooh, pooh! nonsense, my dear friend; you don’t know what may
+turn up; your cards are better than you think; don’t be faint-hearted;
+don’t you see you have the knave of trumps, _i. e._, the cleverest
+lawyer for your defender; a thousand things may happen; I may revoke,
+that is, the indictment may break down; there are innumerable chances
+in your favour, so pluck up your courage and play the game out.
+
+He takes the advice, and however faint-hearted before, he now assumes
+a look of stern courage, or dogged indifference, and resolves to play
+for the stake. He remembers, however, that he is no adept in the game,
+and he addresses himself in consequence to some astute and subtle
+gambler, to whom he commits his cards and his chances. The trepidation
+or the indifference that he manifested before, now gradually gives
+way; and however hopeless he had deemed his case at first, he now
+begins to think that all is not lost. The very way his friend, the
+lawyer, shuffles and cuts the cards, imposes on his credulity and
+suggests a hope. He sees at once that he is a practised hand, and
+almost unconsciously he becomes deeply interested in the changes and
+vacillations of the game he believed could have presented but one
+aspect of fortune.
+
+But the prisoner is not my object: I turn rather to the lawyer. Here
+then do we not see the accomplished gentleman--the finished
+scholar--the man of refinement and of learning, of character and
+station--standing forth the very embodiment of the individual in the
+dock? possessed of all his secrets--animated by the same
+hopes--penetrated by the same fears--he endeavours by all the subtle
+ingenuity, with which craft and habit have gifted him, to confound the
+testimony--to disparage the truth--to pervert the inferences of all
+the witnesses. In fact, he employs all the stratagems of his calling,
+all the ingenuity of his mind, all the subtlety of his wit for the one
+end--that the man he believes in his own heart guilty, may, on the
+oaths of twelve honest men, be pronounced innocent.
+
+From the opening of the trial to its close, this mental gladiator is
+an object of wonder and dread. Scarcely a quality of the human mind is
+not exhibited by him in the brilliant panorama of his intellect. At
+first, the patient perusal of a complex and wordy indictment occupies him
+exclusively: he then proceeds to cross-examine the witnesses--flattering
+this one--brow-beating that--suggesting--insinuating--amplifying, or
+retrenching, as the evidence would seem to favour or be adverse to his
+client. He is alternately confident and doubtful, headlong and
+hesitating--now hurried away on the full tide of his eloquence he
+expatiates in beautiful generalities on the glorious institution of
+trial by jury, and apostrophizes justice; or now, with broken
+utterance and plaintive voice, he supplicates the jury to be patient,
+and be careful in the decision they may come to. He implores them to
+remember that when they leave that court, and return to the happy
+comforts of their home, conscience will follow them, and the
+everlasting question crave for answer within them--were they sure of
+this man’s guilt? He teaches them how fallacious are all human tests;
+he magnifies the slightest discrepancy of evidence into a broad and
+sweeping contradiction; and while, with a prophetic menace, he
+pictures forth the undying remorse that pursues him who sheds innocent
+blood, he dismisses them with an affecting picture of mental agony so
+great--of suffering so heart-rending, that, as they retire to the
+jury-room, there is not a man of the twelve that has not more or less
+of a _personal_ interest in the acquittal of the prisoner.
+
+However bad, however depraved the human mind, it still leans to mercy:
+the power to dispose of another man’s life is generally sufficient for
+the most malignant spirit in its thirst for vengeance. What then are
+the feelings of twelve calm, and perhaps, benevolent men, at a moment
+like this? The last words of the advocate have thrown a new element
+into the whole case, for independent of their verdict upon the
+prisoner comes now the direct appeal to their own hearts. How will
+they feel when they reflect on this hereafter? I do not wish to pursue
+this further. It is enough for my present purpose that, by the
+ingenuity of the lawyer, criminals have escaped, do escape, and are
+escaping, the just sentence on their crimes. What then is the result?
+the advocate, who up to this moment has maintained a familiar, even a
+friendly, intimacy with his client in the dock, now shrinks from the
+very contamination of his look. He cannot bear that the blood-stained
+fingers should grasp the hem of his garment, and he turns with a sense
+of shame from the expressions of a gratitude that criminate him in his
+own heart. However, this is but a passing sensation; he divests
+himself of his wig and gown, and overwhelmed with congratulations for
+his brilliant success, he springs into his carriage and goes home to
+dress for dinner--for on that day he is engaged to the Chancellor, the
+Bishop of London, or some other great and revered functionary--the
+guardian of the church, or the custodian of conscience.
+
+Now, there is only one thing in all this I would wish to bring
+strikingly before the mind of my readers, and that is, that the
+lawyer, throughout the entire proceeding, was a free and a willing
+agent. There was neither legal nor moral compulsion to urge him on.
+No; it was no intrepid defence against the tyranny of a government or
+the usurpation of power--it was the assertion of no broad and
+immutable principle of truth or justice--it was simply a matter of
+legal acumen and persuasive eloquence, to the amount of fifty pounds
+sterling.
+
+This being admitted, let me now proceed to consider another
+functionary, and observe how far the rule of right is consulted in the
+treatment _he_ meets with--I mean the hangman. You start, good reader,
+and your gesture of impatience denotes the very proposition I would
+come to. I need scarcely remind you, that in our country this
+individual has a kind of prerogative of detestation. All other ranks
+and conditions of men may find a sympathy, or at least a pity,
+somewhere, but for him there is none. No one is sufficiently debased
+to be his companion,--no one so low as to be his associate! Like a
+being of another sphere, he appears but at some frightful moments of
+life, and then only for a few seconds. For the rest he drags on
+existence unseen and unheard of, his very name a thing to tremble at.
+Yet this man, in the duties of his calling, has neither will nor
+choice. The stern agent of the law, he has but one course to follow;
+his path, a narrow one, has no turning to the right or to the left,
+and, save that his ministry is more proximate, is less accessory to
+the death of the criminal than he who signs the warrant for execution.
+In fact, he but answers the responses of the law, and in the loud amen
+of his calling, he only consummates its recorded assertion. How then
+can you reconcile yourself to the fact, that while you overwhelm the
+advocate who converts right into wrong and wrong into right, who
+shrouds the guilty man, and conceals the murderer, with honour, and
+praise, and rank, and riches, and who does this for a brief marked
+fifty pounds, yet have nothing but abhorrence and detestation for the
+impassive agent whose fee is but one. One can help what he does--the
+other cannot. One is an amateur--the other practices in spite of
+himself. One employs every energy of his mind and every faculty of his
+intellect--the other only devotes the ingenuity of his fingers. One
+strains every nerve to let loose a criminal upon the world--the other
+but closes the grave over guilt and crime!
+
+The king’s counsel is courted. His society sought for. He is held in
+high esteem, and while his present career is a brilliant one in the
+vista before him, his eyes are fixed upon the ermine. Jack Ketch, on
+the other hand, is shunned. His companionship avoided, and the only
+futurity he can look to, is a life of ignominy, and after it an
+unknown grave. Let him be a man of fascinating manners, highly gifted,
+and agreeable; let him be able to recount with the most melting pathos
+the anecdotes and incidents of his professional career, throwing light
+upon the history of his own period--such as none but himself could
+throw;--let him speak of the various characters that have _passed
+through his hands_, and so to say, “dropped off before him”--yet the
+prejudice of the world is an obstacle not to be overcome; his calling
+is in disrepute, and no personal efforts of his own, no individual
+pre-eminence he may arrive at in his walk, will ever redeem it. Other
+men’s estimation increases as they distinguish themselves in life;
+each fresh display of their abilities, each new occasion for the
+exercise of their powers, is hailed with renewed favour and increasing
+flattery; not so he,--every time he appears on his peculiar stage, the
+disgust and detestation is but augmented,--_vires acquirit
+eundo_,--his countenance, as it becomes known, is a signal for the
+yelling execrations of a mob, and the very dexterity with which he
+performs his functions, is made matter of loathing and horror. Were
+his duties such as might be carried on in secret, he might do good by
+stealth and blush to find it fame; but no, his attributes demand the
+noon-day and the multitude--the tragedy he performs in, must be played
+before tens of thousands, by whom his every look is scowled at, his
+every gesture scrutinized. But to conclude,--this man is a necessity
+of our social system. We want him--we require him, and we can’t do
+without him. Much of the machinery of a trial might be dispensed with
+or retrenched. His office, however, has nothing superfluous. He is
+part of the machinery of our civilisation, and on what principle do we
+hunt him down like a wild beast to his lair?
+
+Men of rank and title are daily to be found in association, and even
+intimacy with black legs and bruisers, grooms, jockeys, and swindlers;
+yet we never heard that even the Whigs paid any attention to a
+hangman, nor is his name to be found even in the list of a Radical
+viceroy’s levee. However, we do not despair. Many prejudices of this
+nature have already given way, and many absurd notions have been
+knocked on the head by a wag of great Daniel’s tail. And if our friend
+of Newgate, who is certainly anti-union in his functions, will only
+cry out for Repeal, the justice that is entreated for all Ireland may
+include him in the general distribution of its favours. Poor Theodore
+Hook used to say, that marriage was like hanging, there being only the
+difference of an aspirate between halter and altar.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR “ENDURING AFFECTION.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+My dear reader, if it does not insult your understanding by the
+self-evidence of the query, will you allow me to ask you a
+question--which of the two is more culpable, the man who, finding
+himself in a path of dereliction, arrests himself in his downward
+career, and, by a wonderful effort of self-restraint, stops dead
+short, and will suffer no inducement, no seduction, to lead him one
+step further; or he, who, floating down the stream of his own vicious
+passions, takes the flood-tide of iniquity, and, indifferent to every
+consequence, deaf to all remonstrance, seeks but the indulgence of his
+own egotistical pleasure with a stern determination to pursue it to
+the last? Of course you will say, that he who repents is better than
+he who persists; there is hope for the one, there is none for the
+other. Yet would you believe it, our common law asserts directly the
+reverse, pronouncing the culpability of the former as meriting heavy
+punishment, while the latter is not assailable even by implication.
+
+That I may make myself more clear, I shall give an instance of my
+meaning. Scarcely a week passes over without a trial for breach of
+promise of marriage. Sometimes the gay Lothario, to use the phrase of
+the newspapers, is nineteen, sometimes ninety. In either case his
+conduct is a frightful tissue of perjured vows and base deception. His
+innumerable letters breathing all the tenderness of affectionate
+solicitude, intended but for the eyes of her he loves, are read in
+open court; attested copies are shown to the judge, or handed up to
+the jury-box. The course of his true love is traced from the bubbling
+fountain of first acquaintance to the broad river of his passionate
+devotion. Its rapids and its whirlpools, its placid lakes, its frothy
+torrents, its windings and its turnings, its ebbs and flows, are
+discussed, detailed, and descanted on with all the hacknied precision
+of the craft, as though his heart was a bill of exchange, or the
+current of his affection a disputed mill-stream. And what, after all,
+is this man’s crime? knowing that love is the great humanizer of our
+race, and feeling probably how much he stands in need of some
+civilizing process, he attaches himself to some lovely and attractive
+girl, who, in the reciprocity of her affection, is herself benefited
+in a degree equal to him. If the soft solicitude of the tender
+passion, if its ennobling self-respect, if its purifying influence on
+the heart, be good for the man, how much more so is it for the woman.
+If _he_ be taught to feel how the refined enjoyments of an attractive
+girl’s mind are superior to the base and degenerate pursuits of
+every-day pleasure, how much more will _she_ learn to prize and
+cultivate those gifts which form the charm of her nature, and breathe
+an incense of fascination around her steps. Here is a compact where
+both parties benefit, but that they may do so to the fullest extent,
+it is necessary that no self-interest, no mean prospect of individual
+advantage, should interfere: all must be pure and confiding.
+Love-making should not be like a game of _écarté_ with a black leg,
+where you must not rise from the table, till you are ruined. No! it
+should rather resemble a party at picquet with your pretty cousin,
+when the moment either party is tired, you may throw down the cards
+and abandon the game.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+This, then, is the case of the man; he either discovers that on
+further acquaintance the qualities he believed in were not so palpable
+as he thought, or, if there, marred in their exercise by opposing and
+antagonist forces, of whose existence he knew not, he thinks he
+detects discrepancies of temperament, disparities of taste; he
+foresees that in the channel where he looked for deep water there are
+so many rocks, and shoals, and quicksands, that he fears the bark of
+conjugal happiness may be shipwrecked upon them; and, like a prudent
+mariner, he resolves to lighten the craft by “throwing over the lady.”
+Had this man married with all these impending suspicions on his mind,
+there is little doubt he would have made a most execrable husband; not
+to mention the danger that his wife should not be all amiable as she
+ought. He stops short--that is, he explains in one, perhaps in a
+series of letters, the reasons of his new course. He expects in return
+the admiration and esteem of her, for whose happiness he is
+legislating, as well as for his own; and oh, base ingratitude! he
+receives a letter from her attorney. The gentlemen of the long
+robe--newspaper again--are in ecstasies. Like devils on the arrival of
+a new soul, they brighten up, rub their hands, and congratulate each
+other on a glorious case. The damages are laid at five thousand
+pounds; and, as the lady is pretty, and can be seen from the jury-box,
+being fathers themselves, they award every sixpence of the money.
+
+I can picture to myself the feeling of the defendant at such a moment
+as this. As he stands alone in conscious honesty, ruminating on his
+fate--alone, I say, for, like Mahomet’s coffin, he has no
+resting-place; laughed at by the men, sneered at by the women, mulcted
+of perhaps half his fortune, merely because for the last three years
+of his life he represented himself in every amiable and attractive
+trait that can grace and adorn human nature. Who would wonder, if,
+like the man in the farce, he would register a vow never to do a
+good-natured thing again as long as he lives; or what respect can he
+have for a government or a country, where the church tells him to love
+his neighbour, and the chief justice makes him pay five thousand for
+his obedience.
+
+I now come to the other case, and I shall be very brief in my
+observations. I mean that of him, who equally fond of flirting as the
+former, has yet a lively fear of an action at law. Love-making with
+him is a necessity of his existence--he is an Irishman, perhaps, and
+it is as indispensable to his temperament as train-oil to a Russian.
+He likes sporting, he likes billiards, he likes his club, and he likes
+the ladies; but he has just as much intention of turning a huntsman at
+the one, or a marker at the other, as he has of matrimony. He knows
+life is a chequered table, and that there could be no game if all the
+squares were of one colour. He alternates, therefore, between love and
+sporting, between cards and courtship, and as the pursuit is a
+pleasant one, he resolves never to give up. He waxes old, therefore,
+with young habits, adapting his tastes to his time of life; he does
+not kneel so often at forty as he did at twenty, but he ogles the
+more, and is twice as good-tempered. Not perhaps as ready to fight for
+the lady, but ten times more disposed to flatter her. She may love
+him, or she may not; she may receive him as of old, or she may marry
+another. What matters it to him? All his care is that _he_ shouldn’t
+change. All his anxiety is, to let the rupture, if there must be one,
+proceed from _her_ side. He knows in his heart the penalty of breach
+of promise, but he also knows that the Chancellor can issue no
+injunction compelling a man to marry, and that in the courts of love
+the bills are payable at convenience.
+
+Here, then, are the two cases, which, in conformity with the world’s
+opinion, I have dignified with every possible term of horror and
+reproach. In the one, the measure of iniquity is but half filled; in
+the other, the cup is overflowing at the brim. For the lesser offence,
+the law awards damages and defamation: for the greater, society
+pronounces an eulogy upon the enduring fidelity of the man thus
+faithful to a first love.
+
+If a person about to buy a horse should, on trying him for an hour or
+two, discover that his temper did not suit him, or that his paces were
+not pleasant, and should in consequence restore him to the owner: and
+if another, on the same errand, should come day after day for weeks,
+or months, or even years, cantering him about over the pavement, and
+scouring over the whole country; his answer being, when asked if he
+intended to purchase, that he liked the horse exceedingly, but that he
+hadn’t got a stable, or a saddle, or a curb-chain, or, in fact, some
+one or other of the little necessaries of horse gear; but that when he
+had, that was exactly the animal to suit him--he never was better
+carried in his life. Which of these two, do you esteem the more honest
+and more honourable?
+
+When you make up your mind, please also to make the application.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR THE POLICE AND SIR PETER.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+When the Belgians, by their most insane revolution, separated from the
+Dutch, they assumed for their national motto the phrase “_L’union fait
+la force_.” It is difficult to say whether their rebellion towards the
+sovereign, or this happy employment of a bull, it was, that so
+completely captivated our illustrious countryman, Dan, and excited so
+warmly his sympathies for that beer-drinking population. After all,
+why should one quarrel with them? Nations, like individuals, have
+their coats-of-arms, their heraldic insignia, their blazons, and their
+garters, frequently containing the sharpest sarcasm and most poignant
+satire upon those who bear them; and in this respect Belgium is only
+as ridiculous as the attorney who assumed for his motto “_Fiat
+justitia_.” Time was when the chivalrous line of our own garter,
+“_Honi soit qui mal y pense_,” brought with it, its bright
+associations of kingly courtesy and maiden bashfulness: but what
+sympathy can such a sentiment find in these degenerate days of
+railroads and rack-rents, canals, collieries, and chain-bridges? No,
+were we now to select an inscription, much rather would we take it
+from the prevailing passion of the age, and write beneath the arms of
+our land the emphatic phrase, “Push along, keep moving.”
+
+If Englishmen have failed to exhibit in machinery that triumphant El
+Dorado called perpetual motion, in revenge for their failure, they
+resolved to exemplify it in themselves. The whole nation, from John o’
+Groat to Land’s End, from Westport to Dover, are playing
+cross-corners. Every body and every thing is on the move. A
+dwelling-house, like an umbrella, is only a thing used on an
+emergency; and the inhabitants of Great Britain pass their lives amid
+the smoke of steam-boats, or the din and thunder of the
+Grand-Junction. From the highest to the lowest, from the peer to the
+peasant, from the lord of the treasury to the Irish haymaker, it is
+one universal “_chassée croissée_.” Not only is this fashionable--for
+we are told by the newspapers how the Queen walks daily with Prince
+Albert on “the slopes”--but stranger still, locomotion is a law of the
+land, and standing still is a statutable offence. The hackney
+coachman, with wearied horses, blown and broken-winded, dares not
+breathe his jaded beasts by a momentary pull-up, for the implacable
+policeman has his eye upon him, and he must simulate a trot, though
+his pace but resemble a stage procession, where the legs are lifted
+without progressing, and some fifty Roman soldiers, in Wellington
+boots, are seen vainly endeavouring to push forward. The
+foot-passenger is no better off--tired perhaps with walking or
+attracted by the fascinations of a print-shop, he stops for an
+instant: alas, that luxury may cost him dear, and for the momentary
+pleasure he may yet have to perform a quick step on the mill. “Move
+on, sir. Keep moving, if you please,” sayeth the gentleman in blue;
+and there is something in his manner that won’t be denied. It is
+useless to explain that you have nowhere particular to go to, that you
+are an idler and a lounger. The confession is a fatal one; and however
+respectable your appearance, the idea of shoplifting is at once
+associated with your pursuits. Into what inconsistencies do we fall
+while multiplying our laws, for while we insist upon progression, we
+announce a penalty for vagrancy. The first principle of the British
+constitution, however, is “keep moving,” and “I would recommend you to
+go with the tide.”
+
+Thank heaven, I have reached to man’s estate--although with a heavy
+heart I acknowledge it is the only estate I have or ever shall attain
+to; for if I were a child I don’t think I should close my eyes at
+night from the fear of one frightful and terrific image. As it is, I
+am by no means over courageous, and it requires all the energy I can
+summon to combat my terrors. You ask me, in all likelihood, what this
+fearful thing can be? Is it the plague or the cholera? is it the dread
+of poverty and the new poor-law? is it that I may be impressed as a
+seaman, or mistaken for a Yankee? or is it some unknown and visionary
+terror, unseen, unheard of, but foreshadowed by a diseased
+imagination; No; nothing of the kind. It is a palpable, sentient,
+existent thing--neither more nor less than the worshipful Sir Peter
+Laurie.
+
+Every newspaper you take up announces that Sir Peter, with a hearty
+contempt for the brevity of the fifty folio volumes that contain the
+laws of our land, in the plenitude of his power and the fulness of his
+imagination, keeps adding to the number; so that if length of years be
+only accorded to that amiable individual in proportion to his merits,
+we shall find at length that not only will every contingency of our
+lives be provided for by the legislature, but that some standard for
+personal appearance will also be adopted, to which we must conform as
+rigidly as to our oath of allegiance.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A few days ago a miserable creature, a tailor we believe, some decimal
+fraction of humanity, was brought up before Sir Peter on a trifling
+charge of some kind or other. I forget his offence, but whatever it
+was, the penalty annexed to it was but a fine of half-a-crown. The
+prisoner, however, who behaved with propriety and decorum, happened to
+have long black hair, which he wore somewhat “_en jeune France_” upon
+his neck and shoulders; his locks, if not ambrosial, were tastefully
+curled, and bespoke the fostering hand of care and attention. The
+Rhadamanthus of the police-office, however, liked them not: whether it
+was that he wore a Brutus himself, or that his learned cranium had
+resisted all the efficacy of Macassar, I cannot say; but certain it
+is, that the tailor’s ringlets gave him the greatest offence, and he
+apostrophised the wearer in the most solemn manner:
+
+“I have sat,” said he, “for ----,” as I quote from memory I sha’n’t
+say how many, “years upon the bench, and I never yet met an honest man
+with long hair. The worst feature in your case is your ringlets. There
+is something so disgusting to me in the odious and abominable vice you
+have indulged in, that I feel myself warranted in applying to you the
+heaviest penalty of the law.”
+
+The miserable man, we are told, fell upon his knees, confessed his
+delinquency, and, being shorn of his locks in the presence of a
+crowded court, his fine was remitted, and he was liberated.
+
+Now, perhaps, you will suppose that all this is a mere matter of
+invention. On the faith of an honest man I assure you it is not. I
+have retrenched considerably the pathetic eloquence of the magistrate,
+and I have left altogether untouched the poor tailor’s struggle
+between pride and poverty--whether, on the one hand, to suffer the
+loss of his _half_-crown, or, on the other, to submit to the
+desecration of his _entire_ head. We hear a great deal about a law for
+the rich, and another for the poor; and certainly in this case I am
+disposed to think the complaint might not seem without foundation.
+Suppose for a moment that the prisoner in this case had been the
+Honourable Augustus Somebody, who appeared before his worship
+fashionably attired, and with hair, beard, and moustache far
+surpassing in extravagance the poor tailor’s; should we then have
+heard this beautiful apostrophe to “the croppies,” this thundering
+denunciation of ringlets? I half fear not. And yet, under what pretext
+does a magistrate address to one man, the insulting language he would
+not dare apply to another? Or let us suppose the rule of justice to be
+inflexible, and look at the result. What havoc would Sir Peter make
+among the Guards? ay, even in the household of her Majesty how many
+delinquents would he find? what a scene would not the clubs present,
+on the police authorities dropping suddenly down amongst them with
+rule and line to determine the statute length of their whiskers, or
+the legal cut of their eye-brows? Happy King of Hanover, were you
+still amongst us, not even the Alliance would insure your mustachoes.
+As for Lord Ellenborough, it is now clear enough why he accepted the
+government of India, and made such haste to get out of the country.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Now we will suppose that as Sir Peter Laurie’s antipathy is long hair,
+Sir Frederick Roe may also have his dislikes. It is but fair, you will
+allow, that the privileges of the bench should be equal. Well, for
+argument’s sake, I will imagine that Sir Frederick Roe has not the
+same horror of long hair as his learned brother, but has the most
+unconquerable aversion to long noses. What are we to do here? Heaven
+help half our acquaintance if this should strike him! What is to be
+done with Lord Allen if he beat a watchman! In what a position will he
+stand if he fracture a lamp? One’s hair may be cut to any length,--it
+may be even shaved clean off; but your nose.--And then a few weeks,--a
+few months at farthest, and your hair has grown again: but your nose,
+like your reputation, can only stand one assault. This is really a
+serious view of the subject; and it is a somewhat hard thing that the
+face you have shown to your acquaintances for years past, with
+pleasure to yourself and satisfaction to them, should be pronounced
+illegal, or curtailed in its proportions. They have a practice in
+banks if a forged note be presented for payment, to mark it in a
+peculiar manner before restoring it to the owner. This is technically
+called “raddling.” Something similar, I suppose, will be adopted at
+the police-office, and in case of refusal to conform your features to
+the rule of Roe, you will be raddled by an officer appointed for the
+purpose, and sent forth upon the world the mere counterfeit of
+humanity.
+
+What a glorious thing it would be for this great country, if, having
+equalized throughout the kingdom the weights, the measures, the miles,
+and the currency, we should, at length attain to an equalization in
+appearance. The “facial angle” will then have its application in
+reality, and, instead of the tiresome detail of an Old Bailey trial,
+we shall hear a judge sum up on the externals of a prisoner, merely
+directing the attention of the jury to the atrocious irregularity of
+his teeth, or the assassin-like sharpness of his under-jaw. Honour to
+you, Sir Peter, should this great improvement grow out of your
+innovation; and proud may the country well be, that acknowledges you
+among its lawgivers!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Let men no longer indulge in that absurd fiction which represents
+justice as blind. On the contrary, with an eye like Canova’s, and a
+glance quick, sharp, and penetrating as Flaxman’s, she traces every
+lineament and every feature; and Landseer will confess himself
+vanquished by Laurie. “The pictorial school of judicial investigation”
+will now become fashionable, and if Sir Peter’s practice be but
+transmitted, surgeons will not be the only professional men who will
+commence their education with the barbers.
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR THE BUDGET.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+I remember once coming into Matlock, on the top of the “Peveril of the
+Peak,” when the coachman who drove our four spanking thorough-breds
+contrived, in something less than five minutes, to excite his whole
+team to the very top of their temper, lifting the wheelers almost off
+the ground with his heavy lash, and, thrashing his leaders till they
+smoked with passion, he brought them up to the inn door trembling with
+rage, and snorting with anger. What the devil is all this for, thought
+I. He guessed at once what was passing in my mind, and, with a knowing
+touch of his elbow, whispered:--
+
+“There’s a new coachman a-going to try ’em, and I’ll leave him a
+precious legacy.”
+
+This is precisely what the Whigs did in their surrender of power to
+the Tories. They, indeed, left them a precious legacy:--without an
+ally abroad, with discontent and starvation at home, distant and
+expensive wars, depressed trade, and bankrupt speculation, form some
+portion of the valuable heritage they bequeathed to their heirs in
+power. The most sanguine saw matter of difficulty, and the greater
+number of men were tempted to despair at the prospects of the
+Conservative party; for, however happily all other questions may have
+terminated, they still see, in the corn-law, a point whose subtle
+difficulty would seem inaccessible to legislation. Ah! could the two
+great parties, that divide the state, only lay their heads together
+for a short time, and carry out that beautiful principle that Scribe
+announces in one of his vaudevilles:--
+
+    “Que le blé se vend chèr, et le pain bon marché.”
+
+And why, after all, should not the collective wisdom of England be
+able to equal in ingenuity the conceptions of a farce-writer?
+Meanwhile, it is plain that political dissensions, and the rivalries
+of party, will prevent that mutual good understanding which might
+prove so beneficial to all. Reconciliations are but flimsy things at
+best; and whether the attempt be made to conciliate two rival
+churches, two opposite factions, or two separate interests of any kind
+whatever, it is usually a failure. It, therefore, becomes the duty of
+every good subject, and, _à fortiori_, of every good Conservative, to
+bestir himself at the present moment, and see what can be done to
+retrieve the sinking fortune of the state. Taxation, like flogging in
+the army, never comes on the right part of the back. Sometimes too
+high, sometimes too low. There is no knowing where to lay it on.
+Besides that, we have by this time got such a general raw all over us,
+there isn’t a square inch of sound flesh that presents itself for a
+new infliction. Since the first French Revolution, the ingenuity of
+man has been tortured on the subject of finance; and had Dionysius
+lived in our days, instead of offering a bounty for the discovery of a
+new pleasure, he would have proposed a reward to the man who devised a
+new tax.
+
+Without entering at any length into this subject, the consideration of
+which would lead me into all the details of our every-day habits, I
+pass on at once to the question which has induced this inquiry, while
+I proclaim to the world loudly, fearlessly, and resolutely,
+“Eureka!”--I’ve found it. Yes, my fellow-countrymen, I have found a
+remedy to supply the deficient income of the nation, not only without
+imposing a new tax, or inflicting a new burden upon the suffering
+community, but also without injuring vested rights, or thwarting the
+activity of commercial enterprise. I neither mulct cotton or corn; I
+meddle not with parson or publican, nor do I make any portion of the
+state, by its own privations, support the well-being of the rest. On
+the contrary, the only individual concerned in my plan, will not be
+alone benefited in a pecuniary point of view, but the best feelings of
+the heart will be cultivated and strengthened, and the love of home,
+so characteristically English, fostered in their bosoms. I could
+almost grow eloquent upon the benefits of my discovery; but I fear,
+that were I to give way to this impulse, I should become so fascinated
+with myself, I could scarcely turn to the less seductive path of
+simple explanation. Therefore, ere it be too late, let me open my mind
+and unfold my system:
+
+    “What great effects from little causes spring.”
+
+Any one who ever heard of Sir Isaac Newton and his apple will
+acknowledge this, and something of the same kind led me to the very
+remarkable fact I am about to speak of.
+
+One of the Bonaparte family--as well as I remember, Jerome--was one
+night playing whist at the same table with Talleyrand, and having
+dropped a crown piece upon the floor, he interrupted the game, and
+deranged the whole party to search for his money. Not a little
+provoked by a meanness which he saw excited the ridicule of many
+persons about, Talleyrand deliberately folded up a bank-note which lay
+before him, and, lighting it at the candle, begged, with much
+courtesy, that he might be permitted to assist in the search. This
+story, which is authentic, would seem an admirable parody on a portion
+of our criminal law. A poor man robs the community, or some member of
+it (for that comes to the same thing) to the amount of one penny. He
+is arrested by a policeman, whose salary is perhaps half-a-crown
+a-day, and conveyed to a police-office, that cost at least five
+hundred pounds to build it. Here are found three or four more
+officials, all salaried--all fed, and clothed by the State. In due
+course of time he is brought up before a magistrate, also well paid,
+by whom the affair is investigated, and by him he is afterwards
+transmitted to the sessions, where a new army of stipendiaries all
+await him. But his journey is not ended. Convicted of his offence, he
+is sentenced to seven years’ transportation to one of the most remote
+quarters of the globe. To convey him thither the government have
+provided a ship and a crew, a supercargo and a surgeon; and, to sum up
+in one word, before he has commenced the expiation of his crime, that
+penny has cost the country something about three hundred pounds. Is
+not this, I ask you, very like Talleyrand and the Prince?--the only
+difference being, that we perform in sober earnest, what he merely
+exhibited in sarcasm.
+
+Now, my plan is, and I prefer to develop it in a single word, instead
+of weakening its force by circumlocution. In lieu of letting a poor
+man be reduced to his theft of one penny--give him two pence. _He_
+will be a gainer by double the amount--not to speak of the
+inappreciable value of his honesty--and _you_ the richer by 71,998
+pence, under your present system expended upon policemen, magistrates,
+judges, gaolers, turnkeys, and transports. Examine for a moment the
+benefits of this system. Look at the incalculable advantages it
+presents--the enormous revenue, the pecuniary profit, and the
+patriotism, all preserved to the State, not to mention the additional
+pleasure of disseminating happiness while you transport men’s hearts,
+not their bodies.
+
+Here is a plan based upon the soundest philanthropy, the most rigid
+economy, and the strictest common sense. Instead of training up a race
+of men in some distant quarter of the globe, who may yet turn your
+bitterest enemies, you will preserve to the country so many true-born
+Britons, bound to you by a debt of gratitude. Upon what ground--on
+what pretext--can you oppose the system? Do you openly confess that
+you prefer vice to poverty, and punishment to prevention? Or is it
+your pleasure to manufacture roguery for exportation, as the French do
+politeness, and the Irish linen?
+
+I offer the suggestion generously, freely, and spontaneously. If the
+heads of the government choose to profit by the hint, I only ask in
+return, that when the Chancellor of the Exchequer announces in his
+place the immense reduction of expenditure, that he will also give
+notice of a motion for a bill to reward me by a government
+appointment. I am not particular as to where, or what: I only bargain
+against being Secretary for Ireland, or Chief Justice at Cape Coast
+Castle.
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR REPEAL.
+
+
+When the cholera first broke out in France, a worthy prefect in a
+district of the south published an edict to the people, recommending
+them by all means to eat well-cooked and nutritious food, and drink
+nothing but _vin de Bourdeaux_, Anglice, claret. The advice was
+excellent, and I take it upon me to say, would have found very few
+opponents in fact, as it certainly did in principle. When the world,
+however, began to consider that _filets de bœuf à la Marengo_, and
+“_dindes truffées_,” washed down with _Chateau Lafitte_ or _Larose_,
+were not exactly within the reach of every class of the community,
+they deemed the prefect’s counsel more humane than practicable, and as
+they do at every thing in France when the tide of public opinion
+changes, they laughed at him heartily, and wrote pasquinades upon his
+folly. At the same time the ridicule was unjust, the advice was good,
+sound, and based on true principles, the only mistake was, the
+difficulty of its practice. Had he recommended as an antiseptic to
+disease, that the people should play short whist, wear red night-caps,
+or pelt stones at each other, there might have been good ground for
+the disfavour he fell into; such acts, however practicable and easy of
+execution, having manifestly no tendency to avert the cholera. Now
+this is precisely the state of matters in Ireland at this moment:
+distress prevails more or less in every province and in every county.
+The people want employment, and they want food. Had you recommended
+them to eat strawberries and cream in the morning, to drink lemonade
+during the day, take a little chicken salad for dinner, with a light
+bread pudding and a glass of negus afterwards, avoiding all stimulant
+and exciting food--for your Irishman is a feverish subject--you might
+be laughed at perhaps for your dietary, but certes it would bear, and
+bear strongly too, upon the case in question. But what do you do in
+reality? The local papers teem with cases of distress: families are
+starving; the poor, unhoused and unfed, are seen upon the road sides
+exposed to every vicissitude of the season, surrounded by children who
+cry in vain for bread. What, I ask, is the measure of relief you
+propose? not a public subscription; no general outburst of national
+charity--no public work upon a grand scale to give employment to the
+idle, food to the hungry, health to the sick, and hope to all. None of
+these. Your panacea is the Repeal of the Union; you purpose to
+substitute for those amiable jobbers in College-green, who call
+themselves Directors of the Bank of Ireland, another set of jobbers
+infinitely more pernicious and really dishonest, who will call
+themselves Directors of Ireland itself; you talk of the advantage to
+the country, and particularly of the immense benefits that must accrue
+to the capital. Let us examine them a little.
+
+Dublin, you say, will be a flourishing city, inhabited by lords and
+ladies: wealth, rank, and influence will dwell in its houses and
+parade its streets. The glare of lamps, the crash of carriages, all
+the pride, pomp, and circumstances of fashion, will flow back upon the
+long-deserted land, and Paris and London will find a rival to compete
+with them, in this small city of the west. Would that this were so;
+would that it could be! This, however, is the extent of what you
+promise yourselves: you may ring the changes as you please, but the
+“refrain” of your song is, that Dublin shall “have its own again.”
+Well, for argument’s sake, I say, be it so. The now silenced squares
+shall wake to the echoes of thundering equipages, peers and prelates
+shall again inhabit the dwellings long since the residence of
+hotel-keepers, or still worse, those little democracies of social
+life, called boarding-houses. Your theatre shall be crowded, your
+shops frequented, and every advantage of wealth diffused through all
+the channels of society, shall be yours. As far as Dublin is
+concerned, I say--for, mark me, I keep you to this original point, in
+the land of your promise you have strictly limited the diffusion of
+your blessings by the boundary of the Circular road; even the people
+at Ringsend and Ballybough bridge are not to be included, unless a
+special bill be brought in for their benefit. Still the picture is a
+brilliant one: it would be a fine thing to see all the pomp and
+ceremony of proud popery walk the land at noon-day, with its saints in
+gold, and its relics in silver; for of course this is included in the
+plan. Prosperous Ireland must be Catholic Ireland, and even Spain and
+Belgium will hide their diminished heads when compared with the
+gorgeous homage rendered to popery at home. The “gentlemen of
+Liffey-street chapel,” far better-looking fellows than any foreign
+priest you’ll meet with from Trolhatten to Tivoli, will walk about _in
+pontificalibus_; and all the exciting enthusiasm that Romanism so
+artfully diffuses through every feature of life, will introduce itself
+among a people who have all the warm temper and hot blood of the
+south, with the stern determination and headlong impulse of the north
+of Europe. By all of which I mean to say, that in points of strong
+popery, Dublin will beat the world, and that before a year of such
+prosperity be past, she will have the finest altars, the fattest
+priests, and the longest catalogue of miracles in Europe. Lord
+Shrewsbury need not then go to the Tyrol for an “estatica,” he’ll find
+one nearer home worth twice the money. The shin-bone of St. Januarius,
+that jumped out of a wooden box in a hackney coach, because a
+gentleman swore, will be nothing to the scenes we’ll witness; and if
+St. Patrick should sport his tibia at an evening party of Daniel
+O’Connell’s, it would not in the least surprise me. These are great
+blessings, and I am fully sensible of them. Now let me pass on to
+another, which perhaps I have kept last as it is the chief of all, or
+as the late Lord Castlereagh would have said, the “fundamental feature
+upon which my argument hinges.”
+
+A very common topic of Irish eloquence is, to lament over the enormous
+exportation of cattle, fowl, and fish, that continually goes forward
+from Ireland into England. I acknowledge the justness of the
+complaint--I see its force, and appreciate its value. It is exactly as
+though a grocer should exclaim against his misery, in being compelled
+to part with his high-flavoured bohea, his sparkling lump sugar, and
+his Smyrna figs, or our publisher his books, for the base lucre of
+gain. It is humiliating, I confess; and I can well see how a
+warm-hearted and intelligent creature, who feels the hardship of an
+export trade in matters of food, must suffer when the principle is
+extended to a matter of genius; for, not content with our mutton from
+Meath, our salmon from Limerick, and our chickens from Carlow; but the
+Saxon must even be gratified with the soul-stirring eloquence of the
+Great Liberator himself, with only the trouble of going near St.
+Stephen’s to hear him. I say near--for among the other tyrannies of
+the land, he is compelled to shout loud enough to be heard in all the
+adjacent streets. Now this is too bad. Take our prog--take even our
+poteen, if you will; but leave us our Penates; this theft, which
+embodies the antithesis of Shakspeare, is not only “trash,” but
+“naught enriches them, and makes us poor indeed.”
+
+Repeal the union, and you remedy this. You’ll have him at home with
+you--not masquerading about in the disguise of a gentleman--not
+restricted by the habits of cultivated and civilised life--not tamed
+down into the semblance and mockery of good conduct--no longer the
+chained-up animal of the menagerie, but the roaring, rampant lion,
+roaming at large in his native forest--not performing antics before
+some political Van Amburgh--not opening his huge jaws, as though he
+would devour the Whigs, and shutting them again at the command of his
+keeper--but howling in all the freedom of his passion, and lashing his
+brawny sides with his vigorous “tail.” Haydn, the composer, had an
+enormous appetite; to gratify which, when dining at a tavern, he
+ordered a dinner for three. The waiter delayed in serving, as he said
+the company hadn’t yet arrived, but Haydn told him to bring it up at
+once, remarking, as he patted complacently his paunch, “I am de
+compagnie myself.” Such will you have the case in your domestic
+parliament--Dan will be the company himself. No longer fighting in the
+ranks of opposition, or among the supporters of a government--no more
+the mere character of a piece, he will then be the Jack Johnson of the
+political world, taking the money at the door--in which he has had
+some practice already--he will speak the prologue, lead the
+orchestra, prompt the performers, and announce a repetition of the
+farce every night of the week for his own benefit. Only think what he
+is in England with his “forty thieves” at his back, and imagine what
+he will be in Ireland without one honest man to oppose him. He will
+indeed then be well worth seeing, and if Ireland had no other
+attraction, foreigners might visit us for a look at the Liberator.
+
+He is a droll fellow, is Dan, and there is a strong dash of native
+humour in his notion of repeal. What strange scenes, to be sure, it
+would conjure up. Only think for a moment of the absentee lord, an
+exiled peer, coming back to Dublin after an absence of half his
+lifetime, vainly endeavouring to seem pleased with his condition, and
+appear happy with his home. Like an insolvent debtor affecting to joke
+with the jailer, watch him simulating so much as he can of habits he
+has long forgotten, while his ignorance of his country is such, that
+he cannot direct his coachman to a street in the capital. What a
+ludicrous view of life would this open to our view! While all these
+men, who have been satisfied hitherto to send their sympathies from
+Switzerland, and their best wishes for Ireland by an ambassador’s bag,
+should now come back to writhe beneath the scourge of a demagogue, and
+the tyranny of a man who wields irresponsible power.
+
+All Ireland would present the features of a general election--every
+one would be fascinating, courteous, affable, and dishonest. The
+unpopular debater in England might have his windows smashed. With us,
+it would be his neck would be broken. The excitement of the people
+will be felt within the Parliament; and then, fostered by all the
+rancour of party hate, will be returned to them with interest. The
+measure discussed out of doors by the Liberator, will find no one
+hardy enough to oppose it within the House, and the opinions of the
+Corn Exchange will be the programme for a committee. A notice of a
+motion will issue from Merrion-square, and not from a seat in
+Parliament; and wherever he moves through the country, great Daniel,
+like a snail, will carry “his house” on his back. “Rob me the
+Exchequer, Hal!” will be the cry of the priesthood, and no men are
+better deserving of their hire; and thus, wielding every implement of
+power, if Ireland be not happy, he can only have himself to blame for
+it.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR NATIONAL PRIDE.
+
+
+National Pride must be a strong feeling, and one of the very few
+sentiments which are not exhausted by the drain upon them; and it is a
+strange thing, how the very fact upon which one man plumes himself,
+another would regard as a terrible reproach. A thorough John Bull, as
+he would call himself, thinks he has summed up, in those few emphatic
+words, a brief description of all that is excellent in humanity. And
+as he throws out his chest, and sticks his hand with energy in his
+breeches pocket, seems to say, “I am not one of your frog-eating
+fellows, half-monkey, half-tiger, but a true Briton.” The Frenchman,
+as he proclaims his nation, saying, “_Je suis F-r-r-r-rançais_,” would
+indicate that he is a very different order of being, from his blunt
+untutored neighbour, “_outre mer_;” and so on to the end of the
+chapter. Germans, Italians, and Spaniards, and even Americans, think
+there is some magic in the name of their fatherland--some inherent
+nobility in the soil: and it was only lately I read in a French paper
+an eloquent appeal from a general to his soldiers, which concluded by
+his telling them, to remember, that they were “Mexicans.” I devoutly
+trust that they understood the meaning of his phrase, and were able,
+without difficulty, to call to mind the bright prerogative alluded to;
+for upon my conscience, as an honest man, it would puzzle me sorely to
+say what constitutes a Mexican.
+
+But the absurdity goes further still: for, not satisfied with the
+bounties of Providence in making us what we are, we must indulge a
+rancorous disposition towards our neighbours for their less-favoured
+destiny. “He behaved like a Turk,” is an every-day phrase to indicate
+a full measure of moral baseness and turpidity. A Frenchman’s abuse
+can go no further than calling a man a Chinese, and when he says, “_tu
+es un Pekin_,” a duel is generally the consequence. I doubt not that
+the Turks and the Chinese make use of retributive justice, and treat
+us no better than we behave to them.
+
+Civilisation would seem rather to have fostered than opposed this
+prejudice. In the feudal ages, the strength of a brawny right arm, the
+strong hand that could wield a mace, the firm seat in a saddle, were
+the qualities most in request; and were physical strength more
+estimated than the gifts of a higher order, the fine distinctions of
+national character either did not exist, or were not attended to. Now,
+however, the tournament is not held on a cloth of gold, but on a broad
+sheet of paper; the arms are not the lance and the dagger, but the
+printing-press. No longer a herald in all the splendour of his tabard
+proclaims the lists, but a fashionable publisher, through the medium
+of the morning papers, whose cry for largess is to the full as loud.
+The result is, nations are better known to each other, and, by the
+unhappy law of humanity, are consequently less esteemed. What
+signifies the dislike our ancestors bore the French at Cressy or
+Agincourt compared to the feeling we entertain for them after nigh
+thirty years of peace? Then, indeed, it was the strong rivalry between
+two manly natures: now, the accumulated hate of ages is sharpened and
+embittered by a thousand petty jealousies that have their origin in
+politics, military glory, society, or literature; and we detest each
+other like quarterly reviewers. The Frenchman visits England as a Whig
+commissioner would a Tory institution--only anxious to discover abuses
+and defects--with an obliquity of vision that sees everything
+distorted, or a fecundity of imagination that can conjure up the ills
+he seeks for. He finds us rude, inhospitable, and illiterate; our
+habits are vulgar, our tastes depraved; our House of Commons is a
+riotous mob of under-bred debaters; our army an aristocratic _lounge_,
+where merit has no chance against money; and our literature--God
+wot!--a plagiarism from the French. The Englishman is nearly as
+complimentary. The coarseness of French habits is to him a theme of
+eternal reprobation; the insolence of the men, the indelicacy of the
+women, the immorality of all, overwhelm him with shame and disgust:
+the Chamber of Deputies he despises, as a contemptible parody on a
+representative body, and a speech from the tribune a most absurd
+substitute for the freedom of unpremeditated eloquence: the army he
+discovers to be officered by men, to whom the new police are
+accomplished gentlemen; and, in fact, he sums up by thinking that if
+we had no other competitors in the race of civilisation than the
+French, our supremacy on land, is to the full as safe, as our
+sovereignty over the ocean. Here lie two countries, separated by a
+slip of sea not much broader than an American river, who have gone on
+for ages repeating these and similar puerilities, without the most
+remote prospect of mutual explanation and mutual good-will.
+
+“I hate prejudice, I hate the French,” said poor Charles Matthews, in
+one of his inimitable representations, and really the expression was
+no bad summary of an Englishman’s faith. On the other hand, to hate
+and detest the English is the _sine quâ non_ of French nationality,
+and to concede to them any rank in literature, morals, or military
+greatness, is to derogate from the claims of his own country. Now the
+question is, are the reproaches on either side absolutely just? They
+are not. Secondly, if they be unfair, how comes it that two people
+pre-eminently gifted with intelligence and information, should not
+have come to a better understanding, and that many a long year ago?
+Simply from this plain fact, that the opinions of the press have
+weighed against those of individuals, and that the published satires
+on both sides have had a greater currency and a greater credit than
+the calm judgment of the few. The leading journals in Paris and in
+London have pelted each other mercilessly for many a year. One might
+forgive this, were the attacks suggested by such topics as stimulate
+and strengthen national feeling; but no, the controversy extends to
+every thing, and, worse than all, is carried on with more bitterness
+of spirit, than depth of information. The reviewer “par excellence” of
+our own country makes a yearly incursion into French literature, as an
+Indian would do into his hunting-ground. Resolved to carry death and
+carnage on every side, he arms himself for the chase, and whets his
+appetite for slaughter by the last “_bonne bouche_” of the day. We
+then have some half introductory pages of eloquent exordium on the
+evil tendency of French literature, and the contamination of those
+unsettled opinions in politics, religion, and morals, so copiously
+spread through the pages of every French writer. The revolution of
+1797 is adduced for the hundredth time as the origin of these evils;
+and all the crime and bloodshed of that frightful period is denounced
+as but the first step of the iniquity which has reached its pinnacle,
+in the novels of Paul de Kock. To believe the reviewer, French
+literature consists in the productions of this writer, the works of
+George Sand, Balzac, Frédéric Soulié, and a few others of equal note
+and mark. According to him, intrigue, seduction, and adultery, are the
+staple of French romance: the whole interest of every novel turning on
+the undiscovered turpitude of domestic life; and the great rivalry
+between writers, being, to try which can invent a new future of
+depravity and a new fashion of sin. Were this true, it were indeed a
+sad picture of national degradation; was it the fact that such books,
+and such there are in abundance, composed the light literature of the
+day--were to be found in every drawing-room--to be seen in every
+hand--to be read with interest and discussed with eagerness--to have
+that wide-spread circulation which must ever carry with it a strong
+influence upon the habits of those who read. Were all this so, I say
+it would be, indeed, a deplorable evidence of the low standard of
+civilisation among the French. What is the fact, however? Simply that
+these books have but a limited circulation, and that, only among an
+inferior class of readers. The _modiste_ and the _grisette_ are,
+doubtless, well read in the mysteries of Paul de Kock and Madame du
+Deffant; but in the cultivated classes of the capital, such books have
+no more currency than the scandalous memoirs of our own country have
+in the drawing-rooms of Grosvenor-square or St. James’s. Balzac has,
+it is true, a wide-spread reputation; but many of his books are no
+less marked by a powerful interest than a touching appeal to the fine
+feelings of our nature. Alfred de Vigny, Eugéne Sue, Victor Hugo, Leon
+Gozlan, Paul de Muset, Alexandre Dumas, and a host of others, are all
+popular, and, with the exception of a few works, unexceptionable on
+every ground of morality; but these, after all, are but the
+skirmishers before the army. What shall we say of Guizot, Thiers,
+Augustin Thierry, Toqueville, Mignet, and many more, whose
+contributions to history have formed an era in the literature of the
+age?
+
+The strictures of the reviewers are not very unlike the opinions of
+the French prisoner, who maintained that in England every one eat with
+his knife, and the ladies drank gin, which important and veracious
+facts he himself ascertained, while residing in that fashionable
+quarter of the town called St. Martin’s-lane. This sweeping mode of
+argument, _à particulari_, is fatal when applied to nations. Even the
+Americans have suffered in the hands of Mrs. Trollope and others; and
+gin twist, bowie knives, tobacco chewing, and many similarly amiable
+habits, are not universal. Once for all, then, be it known, there is
+no more fallacious way of forming an opinion regarding France and
+Frenchmen, than through the pages of our periodical press, except by a
+_short_ residence in Paris--I say short, for if a little learning be a
+dangerous thing, a little travelling is more so; and it requires long
+experience of the world, and daily habit of observation, to enable any
+man to detect in the ordinary routine of life the finer and more
+distinctive traits that have escaped his neighbour; besides, however
+palpable and self-evident the proposition, it demands both tact and
+time to see that no general standard of taste can be erected for all
+nations, and, that to judge of others by your own prejudices and
+habits, is both unfair and absurd. To give an instance. No English
+traveller has commented on the French Chamber of Deputies, without
+expending much eloquence and a great deal of honest indignation on the
+practice of speaking from a tribune, written orations being in their
+opinion a ludicrous travestie on the freedom of debate. Now what is
+the fact; in the whole French Chamber there are not ten, there are not
+five men who could address the house extempore; not from any
+deficiency of ability--not from any want of information, logical
+force, and fluency--the names of Thiers, Guizot, Lamartine, Dupin,
+Arago, &c. &c. are quite sufficient to demonstrate this--but simply
+from the intricacy and difficulty of the French language. A worthy
+alderman gets up, as the phrase is, and addresses a speech of some
+three quarters of an hour to the collective wisdom of the livery; and
+although he may be frequently interrupted by thunders of applause, he
+is never checked for any solecisms in his grammar: he may drive a
+coach and six through Lindley Murray; he may inflict heaven knows how
+many fractures on poor Priscian’s head, yet to criticise him on so
+mean a score as that of mere diction, would not be thought of for a
+moment. Not so in France: the language is one of equivoque and
+subtlety; the misplacement of a particle, the change of a gender, the
+employment of any phrase but the exact one, might be at any moment
+fatal to the sense of the speaker, and would inevitably be so to his
+success. It was not very long since, that a worthy deputy interrupted
+M. Thiers by alleging the non-sequitur of some assertion, “_Vous n’est
+pas consequent_,” cried the indignant member, using a phrase not only
+a vulgarism in itself, but inapplicable at the time. A roar of
+laughter followed his interruption. In all the journals of the next
+day, he was styled the deputy _consequent_; and when he returned to
+his constituency the ridicule attached to his blunder still traced his
+steps, and finally lost him his election.
+
+“Thank God I am a Briton,” said Nelson; a phrase, doubtless, many more
+of us will re-echo with equal energy; but while we are expressing our
+gratitude let our thankfulness extend to this gratifying fact, that
+the liberty of our laws is even surpassed by the licence of our
+language. No obscure recess of our tongue is so deep that we cannot by
+_habeas corpus_ right bring up a long-forgotten phrase, and provided
+the speaker have a meaning and be able to convey it to the minds of
+his hearers, we are seldom disposed to be critical on the manner, if
+the matter be there. Besides this, there are styles of eloquence so
+imbued with the spirit of certain eras in French history, that the
+discussion of any subject of ancient or modern days, will always have
+its own peculiar character of diction. Thus, there is the rounded
+period and flowing sententiousness of Louis XIV., the more polished
+but less forcible phraseology of the regency itself, succeeded by the
+epigrammatic taste and pointed brevity introduced by Voltaire. The
+empire left its impress on the language, and all the literature of the
+period wore the _esprit soldatesque_; and so on down to the very days
+of the barricades, each changing phase of political life had its
+appropriate expression. To assume these with effect, was not of course
+the gift of every man, and yet to have erred in their adoption, would
+have been palpable to all; here then is one important difference
+between us, and on this subject alone I might cite at least twenty
+more. The excitable Frenchman scarcely uses any action while speaking,
+and that, of the most simple and subdued kind. The phlegmatic
+Englishman stamps and gesticulates with all the energy of a madman. We
+esteem humour; they prefer wit: we like the long consecutive chain of
+proof that leads us step by step to inevitable conviction; they like
+better some brief but happy illustration that, dispensing with the
+tedium of argument, presents a question at one glance before them.
+They have that general knowledge of their country and its changes,
+that an illustration from the past is ever an effective weapon of the
+orator; while with us the force would be entirely lost from the
+necessity of recounting the incident to which reference was made.
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR DIPLOMATISTS.
+
+
+Man is the most imitative of all animals: nothing can surpass the
+facility he possesses of simulating his neighbour; and I question much
+if the press, in all the plentitude of its power, has done as much for
+the spread of good or evil, as the spirit of mimicry so inherent in
+mankind. The habits of high life are transmitted through every grade
+of society: and the cheesemonger keeps his hunters, and damns his
+valet, like my lord; while his wife rolls in her equipage, and affects
+the graces of my lady. So long as wealth is present, the assumption of
+the tastes and habitudes of a different class, can merely be looked
+upon as one of those outbreaks of vanity in which rich but vulgar
+people have a right, if they like, to indulge. Why shouldn’t they have
+a villa at Twickenham--why not a box at the opera--a white bait dinner
+at Blackwall--a yacht at Southampton? They have the money to indulge
+their caprice, and it is no one’s affair but their own. They make
+themselves ridiculous, it is true; but the pleasure they experience
+counterbalances the ridicule, and they are the best judges on which
+side lies the profit. Wealth is power: and although the one may be
+squandered, and the other abused, yet in their very profusion, there
+is something that demands a kind of reverence from the world; and we
+have only to look to France to see, that when once you abolish an
+hereditary _noblesse_, your banker is then your great man.
+
+We may smile, if we please, at the absurd pretensions of the wealthy
+alderman and his lady, whose pompous mansion and splendid equipage
+affect a princely grandeur; yet, after all, the knowledge that he is
+worth half a million of money, that his name alone can raise the
+credit of a new colony, or call into existence the dormant energy of a
+new region of the globe, will always prevent our sarcasm degenerating
+into contempt. Not so, however, when poverty unites itself to these
+aspirings, you feel in a moment that the poor man has nothing to do
+with such vanities; his poverty is a scanty garment, that, dispose it
+as he will, he can never make it hang like a toga; and we have no
+compassion for him, who, while hunger gnaws his vitals, affects a sway
+and dominion his state has denied him. Such a line of conduct will
+often be offensive--it will always be absurd--and the only relief
+presented by its display, is in the ludicrous exhibition of trick and
+stratagem by which it is supported. Jeremy Diddler, after all, is an
+amusing person; but the greater part of the pleasure he affords us is
+derived from the fact, that, cunning as he is in all his efforts to
+deceive us, we are still more so, for we have found him out.
+
+Were I to characterise the leading feature of the age, I should
+certainly say it is this pretension. Like the monkeys at Exeter
+’Change, who could never bear to eat out of their own dish, but must
+stretch their paws into that of their neighbour, so every man
+now-a-days wishes to be in that place most unsuitable to him by all
+his tastes, habits, and associations, and where once having attained
+to, his life is one of misery and constraint. The hypocrisy of
+simulating manners he is not used to, is not more subversive of his
+self-respect, than his imitation is poor, vulgar, and unmeaning.
+
+Curran said that a corporation was, a “thing that had neither a body
+to be kicked, nor a soul to be damned.” And, verily, I begin to think
+that masses of men are even more contemptible than individuals. A
+nation is a great household; and if it have not all the _prestige_ of
+rank, wealth, and power, it is a poor and miserable thing. England and
+France, Germany and Russia, are the great of the earth; and we look up
+to them in the political world, as in society we do to those whose
+rank and station are the guarantees of their power. Many other
+countries of Europe have also their claims upon us, but still smaller
+in degree. Italy, with all its association of classical
+elegance--Spain, whose history shines with the solemn splendour of an
+illuminated missal, where gold and purple are seen blending their
+hues, scarce dimmed by time; but what shall we say of those
+newly-created powers, which springing up like mushroom families, give
+themselves all the airs of true nobility, and endeavour by a strange
+mockery of institutions and customs of their greater neighbours, to
+appear of weight and consequence before the world. Look, for instance,
+to Belgium the _bourgeois gentilhomme_ of politics, which, having
+retired from its partnership with Holland, sets up for a gentleman on
+its private means. What can be more ludicrous than its attempts at
+high-life, its senate, its ministry, its diplomacy; for strange enough
+the ridicule of the individual can be traced extending to a nation,
+and when your city lady launched into the world, displays upon her
+mantelpiece the visiting cards of her high neighbours, so the first
+act of a new people is, to open a visiting acquaintance with their
+rich neighbours, and for this purpose the first thing they do is to
+establish a corps of diplomacy.
+
+Now your city knight may have a fat and rosy coachman, he may have a
+tall and portly footman, a grave and a respectable butler; but
+whatever his wealth, whatever his pretension, there is one functionary
+of a great household he can never attain to--he can never have a groom
+of the chambers. This, like the “chasseur” abroad, is the appendage of
+but one class, by constant association with whom its habits are
+acquired, its tastes engendered, and it would be equally absurd to see
+the tall Hungarian in all the glitter of his hussar costume, behind
+the caleche of a pastrycook, as to hear the low-voiced and courteous
+minion of Devonshire House announce the uncouth, unsyllabled names,
+that come east of St. Dunstan’s.
+
+So, in the same way, your new nations may get up a king and a court, a
+senate, an army, and a ministry, but let them not meddle with
+diplomacy--the moment they do this they burn their fingers: your
+diplomate is like your chasseur, and your groom of the chambers; if he
+be not well done, he is a miserable failure. The world has so many
+types to refer to on this head, there can be no mistake. Talleyrand,
+Nesselrode, Metternich, Lord Whitworth, and several more, have too
+long given the tone to this peculiar walk to admit of any error
+concerning it; however, your little folk will not be denied the
+pleasures of their great acquaintance. They will have their diplomacy,
+and they will be laughed at: look at the Yankees. There is not a
+country in Europe, there is not a state however small, there is not a
+Coburgism with three thousand inhabitants and three companies of
+soldiers, where _they_ haven’t a minister resident with
+plenipotentiary powers extending to every relation political and
+commercial, although all the while the Yankees would be sorely
+puzzled to point out on the map the _locale_ of their illustrious
+ally, and the Germans no less so to find out a reason for their
+embassy. Happily on this score, the very bone and marrow of diplomacy
+is consulted, and secrecy is inviolable; for, as your American knows
+no other tongue save that spoken on the Alleghanies, he keeps his own
+counsel and theirs also.
+
+Have you never in the hall of some large country house, cast your eye,
+on leave-taking, at the strange and motley crew of servants awaiting
+their masters--some well fed and handsomely clothed, with that look of
+reflected importance my lord’s gentleman so justly wears; others, in
+graver, but not less respectable raiment, have that quiet and
+observant demeanour so characteristic of a well-managed household.
+While a third class, strikingly unlike the other two, wear their
+livery with an air of awkwardness and constraint, blushing at
+themselves even a deeper colour than the scarlet of their breeches.
+They feel themselves in masquerade--they were at the plough but
+yesterday, though they are in powder now. With the innate
+consciousness of their absurdity, they become fidgetty and uneasy, and
+would give the world for “a row” to conceal the defaults of their
+breeding. Just so, your petty “diplomate” suffers agony in all the
+quiet intercourse of life. The limited opportunities of small states
+have circumscribed his information. He is not a man of the world, nor
+is he a political character, for he represents nothing; nothing,
+therefore, can save him from oblivion or contempt, save some political
+convulsion where any meddler may become prominent; he has thus a bonus
+on disturbance: so long as the company behave discreetly, he must stay
+in his corner, but the moment they smash the lamps and shy the
+decanters, he emerges from his obscurity and becomes as great as his
+neighbour. For my part, I am convinced that the peace and quietness of
+Europe as much depends on the exclusion of such persons from the
+councils of diplomacy, as the happiness of every-day life does upon
+the breeding and good manners of our associates.
+
+And what straits, to be sure, are they reduced to, to maintain this
+absurd intercourse, screwing the last shilling from the budget to pay
+a _Chargé d’affaires_, with an embroidered coat, and a decoration in
+his button-hole.
+
+The most amusing incidents might be culled from such histories, if one
+were but disposed to relate them.
+
+Balzac mentions, in one of his novels, the story of a physician who
+obtained great practice, merely by sending throughout Paris a
+gaudily-dressed footman, who rang at every door, as it were, in search
+of his master; so quick were the fellow’s movements, so rapid his
+transitions, from one part of the city to the other, nobody believed
+that a single individual could ever have sufficed for so many calls;
+and thus, the impression was, not only that the doctor was greatly
+sought after, but that his household was on a splendid footing. The
+Emperor of the Brazils seems to have read the story, and profited by
+the hint, for while other nations are wasting their thousands in
+maintaining a whole corps of diplomacy, he would appear like the
+doctor to have only one footman, whom he keeps moving about Europe
+without ceasing: thus _The Globe_ tells us one day that the Chevalier
+de L----, the Brazilian ambassador, has arrived in London to resume
+his diplomatic functions; _The Handelsbad of the Hague_ mentions his
+departure from the Dutch Court; _The Allgemeine Zeitung_ announces
+the prospect of his arrival at Vienna, and _The Moniteur Parisien_ has
+a beautiful article on the prosperity of their relations with Mexico,
+under the auspices of the indefatigable Chevalier: “_non regio
+terræ_,” exempt from his labours. Unlike Sir Boyle Roche, he has
+managed to be not only in two, but twenty places at once, and I should
+not be in the least surprised to hear of his negotiations for sulphur
+at Naples, at the same moment that he was pelting snowballs in Norway.
+Whether he travels in a balloon or on the back of a pelican, he is a
+wonderful man, and a treasure to his government.
+
+The multiplicity of his duties, and the pressing nature of his
+functions, may impart an appearance of haste to his manner, but it
+looks diplomatic to be peremptory, and he has no time for trifling.
+
+Truly, Chevalier de L----, thou art a great man--the wandering Jew was
+but a type of thee.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A NUT FOR FOREIGN TRAVEL.
+
+
+Of all the popular delusions that we labour under in England, I
+scarcely know of one more widely circulated, and less founded in fact,
+than the advantages of foreign travel. Far be it from me to undervalue
+the benefits men of education receive by intercourse with strangers,
+and the opportunities of correcting by personal observation the
+impressions already received by study. No one sets a higher price on
+this than I do; no one estimates more fully the advantages of
+tempering one’s nationality by the candid comparison of our own
+institutions with those of other countries; no one values more highly
+the unbiassed frame of mind produced by extending the field of our
+observation, and, instead of limiting our experience by the details of
+a book, reading from the wide-spread page of human nature itself. So
+conscious, indeed, am I of the importance of this, that I look upon
+his education as but very partial indeed who has not travelled. It is
+not, therefore, against the benefits of seeing the world I would
+inveigh--it is rather against the general application of the practice
+to the whole class of our countrymen and countrywomen who swarm on the
+continent. Unsuited by their tastes--unprepared by previous
+information--deeming a passport and a letter of credit all-sufficient
+for their purpose--they set out upon their travels. From their
+ignorance of a foreign language, their journey is one of difficulty
+and embarrassment at every step. They understand little of what they
+see, nothing of what they hear. The discomforts of foreign life have
+no palliation, by their being enabled to reason on, and draw
+inferences from them. All the sources of information are hermetically
+sealed against them, and their tour has nothing to compensate for its
+fatigue, and expense, save the absurd detail of adventure to which
+their ignorance has exposed them.
+
+It is not my intention to rail in this place against the injury done
+to the moral feeling of our nation, by intimate association with the
+habits of the Continent. Reserving this for a more fitting time, I
+shall merely remark at present, that, so far as the habits of virtue
+are concerned, more mischief is done among the middle class of our
+countrymen, than those of a more exalted sphere.
+
+Scarcely does the month of May commence, when the whole tide of
+British population sets in upon the coast of France and Flanders. To
+watch the crowded steamers as they arrive in Antwerp, or Boulogne, you
+would say that some great and devastating plague had broken out in
+London, and driven the affrighted inhabitants from their homes. Not
+so, however: they have come abroad for pleasure. With a credit on
+Coutts, and the inestimable John Murray for a guide, they have devoted
+six weeks to France, Belgium, and the Rhine, in which ample time they
+are not only to learn two languages, but visit three nations,
+exploring into cookery, customs, scenery, literature, and the arts,
+with the same certainty of success that they would pay a visit to
+Astley’s. Scarcely are they launched upon their travels when they
+unite into parties for personal protection and assistance. The
+“_morgue Britannique_,” so much spoken of by foreigners, they appear
+to have left behind them; and sudden friendships, and intimacies,
+spring up between persons whose only feeling in common is that of
+their own absurd position. Away they go sight-seeking in clusters.
+They visit cathedrals, monuments, and galleries; they record in their
+journals the vulgar tirades of a hired _commissionaire_; they eat food
+they detest, and they lie down to sleep discontented and unhappy. The
+courteous civility of foreigners, the theme of so much eulogy in
+England, they now find out to be little more than selfishness,
+libertinism, and impertinence. They see the country from the window
+of a diligence, and society from a place at the _table d’hôte_, and
+truly both one and the other are but the vulgar high roads of life.
+Their ignorance of the language alone protects them from feeling
+insulted at the impertinences directed at themselves and their
+country; and the untutored simplicity of their nature saves them the
+mortification of knowing that the ostentatious politeness of some
+moustached acquaintance is an exhibition got up by him for the
+entertainment of his friends.
+
+Poor John Bull, you have made great sacrifices for this tour. You have
+cut the city, and the counting-house, that your wife may become
+enamoured of dress, and your daughter of a dancing-master--that your
+son may learn to play roulette and smoke cigars, and that you yourself
+may ramble some thousand miles over paved roads, without an object to
+amuse, without an incident to attract you. While this is a gloomy
+picture enough, there is another side to the medal still worse. John
+Bull goes home generally sick of what he has seen, and much more
+ignorant of the Continent than when he set out. His tour, however, has
+laid in its stock of foreign affectation, that renders his home
+uncomfortable; his daughters pine after the flattering familiarities
+of their whiskered acquaintances at Ems, or Wiesbaden; and his sons
+lose all zest for the slow pursuit of competence, by reflecting on the
+more decisive changes of fortune, that await on _rouge et noir_. Yet
+even this is not the worst. What I deplore most of all, is the false
+and erroneous notions continental nations procure of our country, and
+its habits, from such specimens as these. The Englishman who, seen at
+home, at the head of his counting-house, or in the management of his
+farm, presents a fine example of those national traits we are so
+justly proud of--honest, frank, straightforward in all his dealings,
+kind and charitable in his affections; yet see him abroad, the sphere
+of his occupations exists no longer--there is no exercise for the
+manly habits of his nature: his honesty but exposes him to be duped;
+his frankness degenerates into credulity; the unsuspecting openness of
+his character makes him the butt of every artful knave he meets with;
+and he is laughed at from Rotterdam to Rome for qualities which,
+exercised in their fitting sphere, have made England the greatest
+country of the universe. Hence we have the tone of disparagement now
+so universally maintained about England, and Englishmen, from one end
+of the Continent to the other. It is not that our country does not
+send forth a number of men well qualified to induce different
+impressions of their nation; but unfortunately, such persons move only
+in that rank of foreign society where these prejudices do not exist;
+and it is among a different class, and unhappily a more numerous one
+also, that these undervaluing opinions find currency and belief.
+
+There is nothing more offensive than the continual appeal made by
+Frenchmen, Germans, and others, to English habits, as seen among this
+class of our countrymen. It is in vain that you explain to them that
+these people are neither among the more educated nor the better ranks
+of our country. They cannot comprehend your distinction. The habits of
+the Continent have produced a kind of table-land of good-breeding,
+upon which all men are equals. Thus, if you rarely meet a foreigner
+ignorant of the every-day _convenances_ of the world, you still more
+rarely meet with one unexceptionably well-bred. The _table d’hôte_,
+like the mess in our army, has the effect of introducing a certain
+amount of decorum that is felt through every relation of life; and,
+although the count abroad is immeasurably beneath the gentleman at
+home, here, I must confess, that the foreign cobbler is a more
+civilized person than his type in England. This is easily understood:
+foreign breeding is not the outward exhibition of an inward
+principle--it is not the manifestation of a sense of mingled kindness,
+good taste, and self-respect--it is merely the rigid observance of a
+certain code of behaviour that has no reference whatever to any thing
+felt within; it is the mere popery of politeness, with its
+saint-worship, its penances, and its privations. An Englishman makes
+way for you to accommodate your passage; a foreigner--a Frenchman I
+should say--does so for an opportunity to flourish his hat or to
+exhibit an attitude. The same spirit pervades every act of both; duty
+in one case, display in the other, are the ruling principles of life;
+and, where persons are so diametrically different, there is little
+likelihood of much mutual understanding or mutual esteem. To come
+back, however, the great evil of this universal passion for travelling
+lies in the opportunity afforded to foreigners, of sneering at our
+country, and ridiculing our habits. It is in vain that our
+institutions are models of imitation for the world--in vain that our
+national character stands pre-eminent for good-faith and fidelity--in
+vain the boast that the sun never sets upon a territory that girths
+the very globe itself, so long as we send annually our tens of
+thousands out upon the Continent, with no other failing than mere
+unfitness for foreign travel, to bring down upon us the sneer, and the
+ridicule, of every ignorant and unlettered Frenchman, or Belgian, they
+meet with.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A NUT FOR DOMESTIC HAPPINESS.
+
+
+Our law code would, were its injunctions only carried out in private
+life, effect most extraordinary reformations in our customs and
+habits. The most singular innovations in our tastes and opinions would
+spring out of the statutes. It was only a few days ago where a man
+sought reparation for the greatest injury one could inflict on
+another, the great argument of the defendant’s counsel was based on
+the circumstance that the plaintiff and his wife had not been proved
+to have lived happily together, except on the testimony of their
+servants. Great stress was laid upon this fact by the advocate; and
+such an impression did it make on the minds of the jury, that the
+damages awarded were a mere trifle. Now, only reflect for a moment on
+the absurdity of such a plea, and think how many persons there are
+whose quiet and unobtrusive lives are unnoticed beyond the precincts
+of their own door--nay, how many estimable and excellent people who
+live less for the world than for themselves, and although, probably
+for this very reason, but little exposed to the casualty in question,
+would yet deem the injustice great that placed them beyond the pale of
+reparation because they had been homely and domestic.
+
+Civilisation and the march of mind are fine things, and doubtless it
+is a great improvement that the criminal is better lodged, and fed, in
+the prison, than the hungry labourer in the workhouse. It is an
+admirable code that makes the debt of honour, the perhaps swindled
+losses of the card-table, an imperative obligation, while the money
+due to toiling, working industry, may be evaded or escaped from.
+Still, it is a bold step to invade the privacy of domestic life, to
+subvert the happiness we deem most national, and to suggest that the
+world has no respect for, nor the law no belief in, that peaceful
+course in life, which, content with its own blessings, seeks neither
+the gaze of the crowd, nor the stare of fashion. Under the present
+system, a man must appear in society like a candidate on the
+hustings--profuse in protestations of his happiness and redolent of
+smiles; he must lead forth his wife like a blooming _debutante_, and,
+while he presents her to his friends, must display, by every endeavour
+in his power, the angelic happiness of their state. The _coram
+publico_ endearments, so much sneered at by certain fastidious people,
+are now imperative; and, however secluded your habits, however
+retiring your tastes, it is absolutely necessary you should appear a
+certain number of times every year before the world, to assure that
+kind-hearted and considerate thing, how much conjugal felicity you are
+possessed of.
+
+It is to no purpose that your man-servant and your maid-servant, and
+even the stranger within your gates, have seen you in the apparent
+enjoyment of domestic happiness: it is the crowd of a ball-room must
+testify in your favour--it is the pit of a theatre--it is the company
+of a steam-boat, or the party on a railroad, you must adduce in
+evidence. They are the best--they are the only judges of what you, in
+the ignorance of your heart, have believed a secret for your own
+bosom.
+
+Your conduct within-doors is of little moment, so that your bearing
+without satisfy the world. What a delightful picture of universal
+happiness will England then present to the foreigner who visits our
+salons! With what ecstasy will he contemplate the angelic felicity of
+conjugal life! Instead of the indignant coldness of a husband,
+offended by some casual levity of his wife, he will now redouble his
+attentions, and take an opportunity of calling the company to witness
+that they live together like turtle-doves. He knows not how soon, if
+he mix much in fashionable life, their testimony may avail him; and
+the loving smile he throws his spouse across the supper-table is
+worth three thousand pounds before any jury in Middlesex.
+
+Romance writers will now lose one stronghold of sentiment. Love in a
+cottage will possess as little respect as it ever did attraction for
+the world. The pier at Brighton, a Gravesend steamer, Hyde Park on a
+Sunday, will be the appropriate spheres for the interchange of
+conjugal vows. No absurd notions of solitude will then hold sway.
+Alas! how little prophetic spirit is there in poetry! But a few years
+ago, and one of our sirens of song said,
+
+    “When should lovers breathe their vows?
+      When should ladies hear them?
+    When the dew is on the boughs--
+      When none else is near them.”
+
+Not a word of it! The appropriate place is amid the glitter of jewels,
+the glare of lamps, the crush of fashion, and the din of conversation.
+The private boxes of the opera are even too secluded, and your
+happiness is no more genuine, until recognised by society, than is an
+exchequer bill with the mere signature of Lord Monteagle.
+
+The benefits of this system will be great. No longer will men be
+reduced to the cultivation of those meeker virtues that grace and
+adorn life; no more will they study those accomplishments that make
+home happy and their hearth cheerful. A winter at Paris and a box at
+the Varietés will be more to the purpose. Scribe’s farces will teach
+them more important lessons, and they will obtain an instructive
+example in the last line of a vaudeville, where an injured husband
+presents himself at the fall of the curtain, and, as he bows to the
+audience, embraces both his wife and her lover, exclaiming,
+“_Maintenant je suis heureux--ma femme--mon meilleur ami!_” He then
+may snap his fingers at Charles Phillips and Adolphus: he has not only
+proved his affection to his wife, but his confidence in his friend.
+Let him lay the damages at ten thousand, and, with a counsel that can
+cry, he’ll get every shilling of the money.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR LADIES BOUNTIFUL.
+
+
+Jean Jacques tells us, that when his wife died every farmer in the
+neighbourhood offered to console him by one of their daughters; but
+that a few weeks afterwards his cow having shared the same fate, no
+one ever thought of replacing his loss by the offer of another;
+thereby proving the different value people set upon their cows and
+children--this seems absurd enough, but is it a bit more so, than what
+is every day taking place in professional life? How many parsons are
+there who would not lend you five pounds, would willingly lend you
+their pulpit, and the commonest courtesy from a hospital surgeon is,
+to present his visitor with a knife and entreat him to carve a
+patient. He has never seen the individual before, he doesn’t know
+whether he be short-sighted, or nervous, or ignorant, or rash, all he
+thinks of, is doing the honours of the institution; and although like
+a hostess, who sees the best dish at her table mangled by an unskilful
+carver, he suffers in secret, yet is she far too well-bred to evince
+her displeasure, but blandly smiles at her friend, and says “No
+matter, pray go on.” This, doubtless, is highly conducive to science;
+and as medicine is declared to be a science of experiment, great
+results occasionally arise from the practice. Now that I am talking of
+doctors--what a strange set they are, and what a singular position do
+they hold in society; admitted to the fullest confidence of the world,
+yet by a strange perversion, while they are the depositaries of
+secrets that hold together the whole fabric of society, their
+influence is neither fully recognised, nor their power acknowledged.
+The doctor is now what the monk once was, with this additional
+advantage, that from the nature of his studies and the research of his
+art, he reads more deeply in the human heart, and penetrates into its
+most inmost recesses. For him, life has little romance; the grosser
+agency of the body re-acting ever on the operations of the mind,
+destroy many a poetic daydream and many a high-wrought illusion. To
+him alone does a man speak “_son dernier mot_:” while to the lawyer
+the leanings of self-respect will make him always impart a favourable
+view of his case. To the physician he will be candid, and even more
+than candid--yes, these are the men who, watching the secret workings
+of human passion, can trace the progress of mankind in virtue and in
+vice; while ministering to the body they are exploring the mind, and
+yet, scarcely is the hour of danger passed, scarcely the shadow of
+fear dissipated, when they fall back to their humble position in life,
+bearing with them but little gratitude, and, strange to say, no fear!
+
+The world expects them to be learned, well-bred, kind, considerate,
+and attentive, patient to their querulousness, and enduring under
+their caprice; and, after all this, the humbug of homœopathy, the
+preposterous absurdity of the water cure, or the more reprehensible
+mischief of Mesmerism, will find more favour in their sight than the
+highest order of ability accompanied by great natural advantages.
+
+Every man--and still more, every woman--imagine themselves to be
+doctors. The taste for physic, like that for politics, is born with
+us, and nothing seems easier than to repair the injuries of the
+constitution, whether of the state or the individual. Who has not
+seen, over and over again, physicians of the first eminence put aside,
+that the nostrum of some ignorant pretender, or the suggestion of some
+twaddling old woman, should be, as it is termed, tried? No one is too
+stupid, no one too old, no one too ignorant, too obstinate, or too
+silly, not to be superior to Brodie and Chambers, Crampton and Marsh;
+and where science, with anxious eye and cautious hand, would scarcely
+venture to interfere, heroic ignorance would dash boldly forward and
+cut the Gordian difficulty by snapping the thread of life. How comes
+it that these old ladies, of either sex, never meddle with the law? Is
+the game beneath them, where the stake is only property, and not life?
+or is there less difficulty in the knowledge of an art whose
+principles rest on so many branches of science, than in a study
+founded on the basis of precedent? Would to heaven the “Ladies
+Bountiful” would take to the quarter-sessions and the assizes, in lieu
+of the infirmaries and dispensaries, and make Blackstone their
+aid-de-camp--_vice_ Buchan retired.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR THE PRIESTS.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+There would be no going through this world if one had not an
+India-rubber conscience, and one could no more exist in life without
+what watch-makers call accommodation, in the machinery of one’s heart,
+than a blue-bottle fly could grow fat in the shop of an apothecary.
+Every man’s conscience has, like Janus, two faces--one looks most
+plausibly to the world, with a smile of courteous benevolence, the
+other with a droll leer seems to say, I think we are doing them. In
+fact, not only would the world be impossible, and its business
+impracticable, but society itself would be a bear-garden without
+hypocrisy.
+
+Now, the professional classes have a kind of licence on this subject;
+just as a poet is permitted to invent sunsets, and a painter to
+improvise clouds and cataracts, so a lawyer dilates upon the virtues
+or attractions of his client, and a physician will weep you good round
+substantial tears, at a guinea a drop, for the woes of his patient;
+but the church, I certainly thought, was exempt from this practice. A
+paragraph in a morning paper, however, disabused my ignorance in the
+most remarkable manner. The Roman Catholic hierarchy have unanimously
+decided that all persons following the profession of the stage, are
+to be considered without the pale of the church, they are neither to
+be baptized nor confirmed, married nor buried; they may get a name in
+the streets, and a wife there also, but the church will neither bless
+the one, nor confirm the other; in fact, the sock and the buskin are
+proclaimed in opposition to Christianity, and Madame Lafarge is not a
+bit more culpable than Robert Macaire. A few days since, one of the
+most fashionable churches in Paris was crowded to suffocation by the
+attraction of high mass, celebrated with the assistance of the whole
+opera choir, with Duprez at their head. The sum contributed by the
+faithful was enormous, and the music of Mozart was heard to great
+effect through the vaulted aisles of Notre Dame, yet the very morning
+after, not an individual of the choir could receive the benediction of
+the church--the _rationale_ of all which is, that the Dean of Notre
+Dame, like the Director of the Odeon, likes a good house and a heavy
+benefit. He gets the most attractive company he can secure, and
+although he makes no scruple to say they are the most disreputable
+acquaintances, still they fill the benches, and it will be time enough
+to damn them when the performance is over!
+
+Whenever the respectable Whigs are attacked for their alliance with
+O’Connell, they make the same reply the priest would probably do in
+this circumstance--How can we help it? We want a mob; if he sings, we
+have it--we know his character as well as you; so only let us fill our
+pockets, and then ---- I do not blame them in the least, if the popery
+of their politics has palled upon the appetite; if they can work no
+more miracles of reform and revolution, I do not see how they can help
+calling in aid from without.
+
+Dan, however, will not consent, like Duprez, to be damned when he is
+done with; he insists on a share of the profits, and, moreover, to be
+treated with some respect too. He knows he is the star of the company,
+and can make his own terms; and, even now, when the house is broken
+up, and the manager beggared, and the actors dismissed, like Matthews,
+he can get up a representation all to himself, and make a handsome
+thing of it besides.
+
+If one could see it brought about something in the fashion of Sancho’s
+government of Barrataria, I should certainly like to see O’Connell on
+the throne of Ireland for about twenty-four hours, and to salute King
+Dan, _par la grace de diable_, king of Erin, just for the joke’s sake!
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR LEARNED SOCIETIES.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+We laugh at the middle ages for their trials by ordeal, their jousts,
+their tournaments, their fat monasteries, and their meagre people; but
+I am strongly disposed to think, that before a century pass over,
+posterity will give us as broad a grin for our learned societies. Of
+all the features that characterise the age, I know of none so
+pre-eminently ridiculous, as nine-tenths of these associations would
+prove; supported by great names, aided by large sums, with a fine
+house, a library and a librarian, they do the honours of science
+pretty much as the yeomen of the guard do those of a court on a levee
+day, and they bear about the same relation to literature and art, that
+do the excellent functionaries I have mentioned, to the proceedings
+around the throne.
+
+An old gentleman, hipped by celibacy, and too sour for society, has
+contracted a habit of looking out of his window every morning, to
+observe the weather: he sees a cloud very like a whale, or he fancies
+that when the wind blows in a particular direction, and it happens to
+rain at the same time, that the drops fall in a peculiarly slanting
+manner. He notes down the facts for a month or two, and then
+establishes a meteorological society, of which he is the perpetual
+president, with a grant from Parliament to extend its utility. Another
+takes to old volumes on a book-stall; and becoming, as most men are
+who have little knowledge of life, fascinated with his own
+discoveries, thinks he has ascertained some curious details of ancient
+history, and communicating his results to others as stupid and old as
+himself, they dub themselves antiquarians, or archæologists, and
+obtain a grant also.
+
+Now, one half of these societies are neither more nor less than most
+impertinent sarcasms on the land we live in. The man who sets himself
+down deliberately to chronicle the clouds in our atmosphere, and jot
+down the rainy days in our calendar, is, to my thinking, performing
+about as grateful a task, as though he were to count the carbuncles on
+his friend’s nose. We have, it is true, a most abominable climate: the
+sun rarely shows himself, and, when he does, it is through a tattered
+garment of clouds, dim and disagreeable; but why throw it in our
+teeth? and, still more, why pay a body of men to publish the slander?
+Then again, as to history, all the world knows that since the Flood
+the Irish have never done any thing else than make love, illicit
+whiskey, and beat each other. What nonsense, then, to talk about the
+ancient cultivation of the land, of its high rank in literature, and
+its excellence in art. A stone bishop, with a nose like a negro, and a
+crosier like a garden-rake, are the only evidences of our ancestors’
+taste in sculpture; and some doggrel verses in Irish, explaining how
+King Phelim O’Toole cheated a brother monarch out of his
+small-clothes, are about the extent of our historic treasures. But,
+for argument’s sake, suppose it otherwise; imagine for a moment that
+our ancestors were all that Sir William Betham and Mr. Petrie would
+make them--I do not know how other people may feel, but I myself deem
+it no pleasant reflection to think of _their_ times and look at _our
+own_. What! we were poets and painters, architects, historians, and
+musicians! What have we now among us to represent these great and
+mighty gifts? I am afraid, except our Big Beggarman, we have not a
+single living celebrity; and is this a comfortable reflection, is this
+a pleasing thought, that while, fourteen hundred years ago, some Irish
+Raphael and some Galway Grisi were the delight of our illustrious
+ancestors--that while the splendour of King Malachi, with his collar
+of gold, astonished the ladies in the neighbourhood of Trim--we have
+nothing to boast of, save Dan for Lord Mayor, and Burton Bindon’s
+oysters? Once more, I say, if what these people tell us be facts, they
+are the most unpalatable facts could be told to a nation; and I see no
+manner of propriety or good-breeding in replying to a gipsy who begs
+for a penny, by the information, that “his ancestors built the
+Pyramids.”
+
+Again, if our days are dark, our nights are worse; and what, in
+Heaven’s name, have we to do with an observatory and a telescope as
+long as the _Great Western_? The planets are the most expensive
+vagabonds to the Budget, and the fixed stars are a fixed imposition.
+Were I Chancellor of the Exchequer, I’d pension the Moon, and give the
+Great Bear a sum of money as compensation. Do not tell me of the
+distresses of the people, arising from cotton, or corn, China, or
+Chartists--it is our scientific institutions are eating into the
+national resources. There is not an egg-saucepan of antiquity that
+does not cost the country a plum, and every wag of a comet’s tail may
+be set down at half-a-million. I warrant me the people in the Moon
+take us a deuced deal more easily, and give themselves very little
+trouble to make out the size of Ireland’s eye or the height of
+Croaghpatrick. No, no; let the Chancellor of the Exchequer come down
+with a slapping measure of retrenchment, and make a clear stage of all
+of them. Every man with money to buy a cotton umbrella is his own
+meteorologist; and a pocket telescope, price eight-and-fourpence, is
+long enough, in all conscience, for any man in a climate like ours;
+or, if such a course seem too peremptory, call on these people for
+their bill, and let there be a stated sum for each item. At Dolly’s
+chop-house, you know to the exact farthing how much your beefsteak and
+glass of ale will cost you; and if you wish, in addition, a slice of
+Stilton with your XX, you consult your pocket before you speak. Let
+not the nation be treated worse than the individual: let us first look
+about us, and see if a year of prosperity and cheap potatoes will
+permit us the indulgence of obtaining a new luminary or an old
+chronicle; then, when we know the cost, we may calculate with safety.
+Suppose a fixed star, for instance, be set down at ten pounds; a
+planet at five; Saturn has so many belts, I would not give more than
+half-a-crown for a new one; and, as for an eclipse of the sun, I had
+rather propose a reward for the man who could tell us when we could
+see him palpably.
+
+For the present I merely throw out these suggestions in a brief,
+incomplete manner, intending, however, to return to the subject on
+another occasion.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR THE LAWYERS.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+Authors have long got the credit of being the most accomplished
+persons going--thoroughly conversant not only with the features of
+every walk and class in life, but also with their intimate sentiments,
+habits of thought, and modes of expression. Now, I have long been of
+opinion, that in all these respects, lawyers are infinitely their
+superiors. The author chooses his characters as you choose your dish,
+or your wine at dinner--he takes what suits, and leaves what is not
+available to his purpose. He then fashions them to his hand--finishing
+off this portrait, sketching that one--now bringing certain figures
+into strong light, anon throwing them into shadow: they are his
+creatures, who must obey him while living, and even die at his
+command. Now, the lawyer is called on for all the narrative and
+descriptive powers of his art, at a moment’s notice, without time for
+reading or preparation; and worse than all, his business frequently
+lies among the very arts and callings his taste is most repugnant to.
+One day he is to be found creeping, with a tortoise slowness through
+all the wearisome intricacy of an equity case--the next he is borne
+along in a torrent of indignant eloquence, in defence of some Orange
+processionist or some Ribbon associate: now he describes, with the
+gravity of a landscape gardener, the tortuous windings of a
+mill-stream; now expatiating in Lytton Bulwerisms over the desolate
+hearth and broken fortunes of some deserted husband. In one court he
+attempts to prove that the elderly gentleman whose life was insured
+for a thousand at the Phœnix, was instrumental to his own decease, for
+not eating Cayenne with his oysters; in another, he shows, with
+palpable clearness, that being stabbed in the body, and having the
+head fractured, is a venial offence, and merely the result of
+“political excitement” in a high-spirited and warm-hearted people.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+These are all clever efforts, and demand consummate powers, at the
+hand of him who makes them; but what are they to that deep and
+critical research with which he seems, instinctively, to sound the
+depths of every scientific walk in life, and every learned profession.
+Hear him in a lunacy case--listen to the deep and subtle distinctions
+he draws between the symptoms of mere eccentricity and erring
+intellect--remark how insignificant the physician appears in the case,
+who has made these things the study of a life long--hear how the
+barrister confounds him with a hail-storm of technicals--talking of
+the pineal gland as if it was an officer of the court, and of atrophy
+of the cerebral lobes, as if he was speaking of an attorney’s clerk.
+Listen to him in a trial of supposed death by poison; what a triumph
+he has there, particularly if he be a junior barrister--how he walks
+undismayed among all the tests for arsenic--how little he cares for
+Marsh’s apparatus and Scheele’s discoveries--hydro-sulphates,
+peroxydes, iodurates, and proto-chlorides are familiar to him as
+household words. You would swear that he was nursed at a glass
+retort, and sipped his first milk through a blow-pipe. Like a child
+who thumps the keys of a pianoforte, and imagines himself a Liszt or
+Moschelles, so does your barrister revel amid the phraseology of a
+difficult science--pelting the witnesses with his insane blunders, and
+assuring the jury that their astonishment means ignorance. Nothing in
+anatomy is too deep--nothing in chemistry too subtle--no fact in
+botany too obscure--no point in metaphysics too difficult. Like
+Dogberry, these things are to him but the gift of God; and he knows
+them at his birth. Truly, the chancellor is a powerful magician; and
+the mystic words by which he calls a gentleman to the bar, must have
+some potent spell within them. The youth you remember as if it were
+yesterday, the lounger at evening parties, or the chaperon of riding
+damsels to the Phœnix, comes forth now a man of deep and consummate
+acquirement--he whose chemistry went no further than the composition
+of a “tumbler of punch,” can now perform the most difficult
+experiments of Orfila or Davy, or explain the causes of failure in a
+test that has puzzled the scientific world for half a century. He
+knows the precise monetary value of a deserted maiden’s affections--he
+can tell you the exact sum, in bank notes, that a widow will be
+knocked down for, when her heart has been subject to but a feint
+attack of Cupid. With what consummate skill, too, he can show that an
+indictment is invalid, when stabbing is inserted for cutting; and when
+the crown prosecutor has been deficient in his descriptive anatomy,
+what a glorious field for display is opened to him. Then, to be sure,
+what droll fellows they are!--how they do quiz the witness as he sits
+trembling on the table--what funny allusions to his habits of
+life--his age--his station--turning the whole battery of their powers
+of ridicule against him--ready, if he venture to retort, to throw
+themselves on the protection of the court. And truly, if a little
+Latin suffice for a priest, a little wit goes very far in a law court.
+A joke is a universal blessing: the judge, who, after all, is only “an
+old lawyer,” loves it from habit: the jury, generally speaking, are
+seldom in such good company, and they laugh from complaisance; and the
+bar joins in the mirth, on that great reciprocity principle, which
+enables them to bear each other’s dulness, and dine together
+afterwards. People are insane enough to talk of absenteeism as one of
+the evils of Ireland, and regret that we have no resident aristocracy
+among us--rather let us rejoice that we have them not, so long as the
+lawyers prove their legitimate successors.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+How delightful in a land where civilization has still some little
+progress before it, and where the state of crime is not quite
+satisfactory--to know that we have those amongst us who know all
+things, feel all things, explain all things, and reconcile all
+things--who can throw such a Claude Lorraine light over right and
+wrong, that they are both mellowed into a sweet and hallowed softness,
+delightful to gaze on. How the secret of this universal acquirement is
+accomplished I know not--perhaps it is the wig.
+
+What set me first on this train of thought, was a trial I lately read,
+where a cross action was sustained for damage at sea--the owners of
+the brig Durham against the Aurora, a foreign vessel, and _vice
+versâ_, for the result of a collision at noon, on the 14th of October.
+It appeared that both vessels had taken shelter in the Humber from
+stress of weather, nearly at the same time--that the Durham, which
+preceded the Prussian vessel, “clewed up her top-sails, and dropped
+her anchor _rather_ suddenly; and the Aurora being in the rear, the
+vessels came in collision.” The question, therefore, was, whether the
+Durham came to anchor too precipitately, and in an unseamanlike
+manner; or, in other words, whether, when the “Durham clewed up
+top-sails and let go her anchor, the Aurora should not have luffed up,
+or got sternway on her,” &c. Nothing could possibly be more
+instructive, nor anything scarcely more amusing, than the lucid
+arguments employed by the counsel on both sides. The learned Thebans,
+that would have been sick in a ferry-boat, spoke as if they had
+circumnavigated the globe. Stay-sails, braces, top-gallants, clews,
+and capstans they hurled at each other like _bon bons_ at a carnival;
+and this naval engagement lasted from daylight to dark. Once only,
+when the judge “made it noon,” for a little refection, did they cease
+conflict, to renew the strife afterwards with more deadly daring, till
+at last so confused were the witnesses--the plaintiff, defendant, and
+all, that they half wished, they had gone to the bottom, before they
+thought of settling the differences in the Admiralty Court. This was
+no common occasion for the display of these powers so peculiarly the
+instinctive gift of the bar, and certainly they used it with all the
+enthusiasm of a _bonne bouche_.
+
+How I trembled for the Aurora, when an elderly gentleman, with a wart
+on his nose, assured the court that the Durham had her top-sail backed
+ten minutes before the anchor fell; and then, how I feared again for
+the Durham, as a thin man in spectacles worked the Prussian about in a
+double-reefed mainsail, and stood round in stays so beautifully. I
+thought myself at sea, so graphic was the whole description--the waves
+splashed and foamed around the bulwarks, and broke in spray upon the
+deck--the wind rattled amid the rigging--the bulkheads creaked, and
+the good ship heaved heavily in the trough of the sea, like a mighty
+monster in his agony. But my heart quailed not--I knew that Dr.
+Lushington was at the helm, and Dr. Haggard had the look-out a-head--I
+felt that Dr. Robinson stood by the lee braces, and Dr. Addison
+waited, hatchet in hand, to cut away the mainmast. These were
+comforting reflections, till I was once more enabled to believe myself
+in her Majesty’s High Court of Admiralty.
+
+Alas! ye Coopers--ye Marryats--ye Chamiers--ye historians of storm and
+sea-fight, how inferior are your triumphs compared with the
+descriptive eloquence of a law court. Who can pourtray the broken
+heart of blighted affection, like Charles Phillips in a breach of
+promise? What was Scott compared to Scarlett?--how inferior is Dickens
+to Counsellor O’Driscoll?--here are the men, who, without the trickery
+of trade, ungilt, unlettered, and unillustrated, can move the world to
+laughter and to tears. They ask no aid from Colburn, nor from
+Cruikshank--they need not “Brown” nor Longman. Heaven-born warriors,
+doctors, chemists, and anatomists--deep in every art, learned in every
+science--mankind is to them an open book, which they read at will, and
+con over at leisure--happy country, where we have you in abundance,
+and where your talents are so available, that they can be had for
+asking.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR THE IRISH.
+
+AN IRISH ENCORE.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+We certainly are a very original people, and contrive to do everything
+after a way of our own! Not content with cementing our friendships by
+fighting, and making the death of a relative the occasion of a merry
+evening, we even convert the habits we borrow from other lands into
+something essentially different from their original intention, and
+infuse into them a spirit quite national.
+
+The echo which, when asked “How d’ye do, Paddy Blake?” replied,
+“Mighty well, thank you,” could only have been an Irish echo. Any
+other country would have sulkily responded, “Blake--ake--ake--ake,” in
+_diminuendo_ to the end of the chapter. But there is a courtesy, an
+attention, a native politeness on our side of the channel, it is in
+vain to seek elsewhere. A very strong instance in point occurs in a
+morning paper before me, and one so delightfully characteristic of our
+habits and customs, it would be unpardonable to pass it without
+commemoration. At an evening concert at the Rotundo, we are informed
+that Mr. Knight--I believe his name is--enchanted his audience by the
+charming manner he sung “Molly Astore.” Three distinct rounds of
+applause followed, and an encore that actually shook the building, and
+may--though we are not informed of the circumstance--have produced
+very remarkable effects in the adjacent institution; upon which Mr.
+Knight, with his habitual courtesy, came forward and sang--what, think
+ye, good reader? Of course you will say, “Molly Astore,” the song he
+was encored for. Alas! for your ignorance;--that might do very well in
+Liverpool or Manchester, at Bath, Bristol, or Birmingham--the poor
+benighted Saxons there might like to get what they asked so eagerly
+for; but we are men of very different mould, and not accustomed to the
+jog-trot subserviency of such common-sense notions; and accordingly,
+Mr. Knight sang “The Soldier Tired”--a piece of politeness on his part
+that actually convulsed the house with acclamations; and so on to the
+end of the entertainment, “the gentleman, when encored, invariably
+sang a new song”--I quote the paper _verbatim_--“which testimony of
+his anxiety to meet the wishes of the audience afforded universal
+satisfaction.”
+
+Now, I ask--and I ask it in all the tranquillity of triumph--show me
+the country on a map where such a studied piece of courteous civility
+could have been practised, or which, if attempted, could have been so
+thoroughly, so instantaneously appreciated. And what an insight does
+it give us into some of the most difficult features of our national
+character. May not this Irish encore explain the success with which
+Mr. O’Connell consoles our “poverty” by attacks on the clergy, and
+relieves our years of scarcity by creating forty-shilling freeholders.
+We ask for bread; and he tells us we are a great people--we beg for
+work, and he replies, that we must have repeal of the union--we
+complain of our poverty, and his remedy is--subscribe to the rent.
+Your heavy-headed Englishman--your clod-hopper from Yorkshire--or
+your boor from Northumberland, would never understand this, if you
+gave him a life-long to con over it. Norfolk pudding to his gross and
+sensual nature would seem better than the new registration bill; and
+he’d rather hear the simmering music of the boiled beef for his
+dinner, than all the rabid ruffianism of a repeal meeting.
+
+But to come back to ourselves. What bold and ample views of life do
+our free-and-easy habits disclose to us, not to speak of the very
+servant at table, who will often help you to soup, when you ask for
+sherry, and give you preserves, when you beg for pepper. What amiable
+cross-purposes are we always playing at--not bigotedly adhering to our
+own narrow notions, and following out our own petty views of life, but
+eagerly doing what we have no concern in, and meritoriously performing
+for our friends, what they had been well pleased, we’d have let alone.
+
+This amiable waywardness--this pleasing uncertainty of
+purpose--characterises our very climate; and the day that breaks in
+sunshine becomes stormy at noon, calm towards evening, and blows a
+hurricane all night. So the Irishman that quits his home brimful of
+philanthropy is not unlikely to rob a church before his return. But so
+it is, there is nobody like us in any respect. We commemorate the
+advent of a sovereign by erecting a testimonial to the last spot he
+stood on at his departure; and we are enthusiastic in our gratitude
+when, having asked for one favour, we receive something as unlike it
+as possible.
+
+Our friends at the other side are beginning to legislate for us in the
+true spirit of our prejudices; and when we have complained of “a
+beggared proprietary and a ruined gentry,” they have bolstered up our
+weakness with the new poor law. So much for an Irish encore.
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR VICEREGAL PRIVILEGES.
+
+     “The sixth of Anne, chap. seventeen, makes it unlawful to
+     keep gaming-houses in any part of the city except the
+     ‘Castle,’ and prohibits any game being played even there
+     except during the residence of the Lord Lieutenant. This act
+     is still on the statute book.”--_Dublin Paper._
+
+
+One might puzzle himself for a very long time for an explanation of
+this strange _morceau_ of legislation, without any hope of arriving at
+a shadow of a reason for it.
+
+That gaming should be suppressed by a government is in no wise
+unnatural; nor should we feel any surprise at our legislature having
+been a century in advance of France, in the due restriction of this
+demoralizing practice. But that the exercise of a vice should be
+limited to the highest offices of the state is, indeed, singular, and
+demands no little reflection on our part to investigate the cause.
+
+Had the functions of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland been of that drowsy,
+tiresome, uninteresting nature, that it was only deemed fair by the
+legislature to afford him some amusing pastime to distract his
+“_ennui_” and dispel his melancholy, there might seem to have been
+then some reason for this extraordinary enactment. On the contrary,
+however, every one knows that from the remotest times to the present,
+every viceroy of Ireland has had quite enough on his hands. Some have
+been saving money to pay off old mortgages, others were farming the
+Phœnix; some took to the King Cambyses’ vein, like poor dear Lord
+Normanby--raked up all the old properties and faded finery of the
+Castle, and with such material as they could collect, made a kind of
+Drury-lane representation of a court. And very lately, and with an
+originality so truly characteristic of true genius, Lord Ebrington
+struck out a line of his own, and slept away his time with such a
+persevering intensity of purpose, that “the least wide-awake” persons
+of his government became actually ashamed of themselves. But to go
+back. What, I would ask, was the intention of this act? I know you
+give it up. Well, now, I have made the matter the subject of long and
+serious thought, and I think I have discovered it.
+
+Have you ever read, in the laws of the smaller German states, the
+singular rules and regulations regarding the gaming-table? If so, you
+will have found how the entire property of the “_rouge et noir_” and
+“_roulette_” is vested in certain individuals in return for very
+considerable sums of money, paid by them to the government, for the
+privilege of robbing the public. These honourable and estimable people
+farm out iniquity as you would do your demesne, selling the cheatable
+features of mankind, like the new corn law, on the principle of “a
+general average.” The government of these states, finding--no uncommon
+thing in Germany--a deficiency in their exchequer, have hit upon this
+ready method of supplying the gap, by a system which has all the
+regularity of a tax, with the advantage of a voluntary contribution.
+These little kingdoms, therefore, of some half-dozen miles in
+circumference, are nothing more than _rouge et noir_ tables, where the
+grand duke performs the part of croupier, and gathers in the gold.
+Now, I am convinced that something of this kind was intended by our
+lawgivers in the act of parliament to which I have alluded, and that
+its programme might run thus--that “as the office of Lord Lieutenant
+in Ireland is one of great responsibility, high trust, and necessarily
+demanding profuse expenditure; and that, as it may so happen that the
+same should, in the course of events, be filled by some Whig-Radical
+viceroy of great pretension and little property; and that as the
+ordinary sum for maintaining his dignity may be deemed insufficient,
+we hereby give him the exclusive liberty and privilege of all games of
+chance, skill, or address, in the kingdom of Ireland, whether the same
+may be chicken-hazard, blind hookey, head and tail, &c.--thimble-rigging
+was only known later--to be enjoyed by himself only, or by persons
+deputed by him; such privilege in nowise to extend to the lords
+justices, but only to exist during the actual residence and presence
+of the Lord Lieutenant himself.”--_See the Act._
+
+I cannot but admire the admirable tact that dictated this portion of
+legislation; at the same time, it does seem a little hard that the
+chancellor, the archbishop, and the other high functionaries, who
+administer the law in the absence of the viceroy, should not have been
+permitted the small privilege of a little unlimited loo, or even
+beggar-my-neighbour, particularly as the latter game is the popular
+one in Ireland.
+
+There would seem, too, something like an appreciation of our national
+character in the spirit of this law, which, unhappily for England, and
+Ireland, too, has not always dictated her enactments concerning us.
+It is well known that we hate and abhor anything in the shape of a
+legal debt. Few Irishmen will refuse you the loan of five pounds;
+still fewer can persuade themselves to pay five shillings. The kingdom
+of Galway has long been celebrated for its enlightened notions on this
+subject, showing how much more conducive it is to personal
+independence and domestic economy, to spend five hundred pounds in
+resisting a claim, than to satisfy it by the payment of twenty.
+Accordingly, had any direct taxation of considerable amount been
+proposed for the support of viceregal dignity, the chances are--much
+as we like show and glitter, ardently as we admire all that gives us
+the semblance of a state--we should have buttoned up our pockets, and
+upon the principle of those economical little tracts, that teach us to
+do so much for ourselves, every man would have resolved to be “his own
+Lord Lieutenant;” coming, however, in the shape of an indirect
+taxation, a voluntary contribution to be withheld at pleasure, the
+thing was unobjectionable.
+
+You might not like cards, still less the company--a very possible
+circumstance, the latter, in some times we wot of not long
+since--Well, then, you saved your cash and your character by staying
+at home; on the other hand, it was a comfort to know that you could
+have your rubber of “shorts” or your game at _écarté_, while at the
+same time you were contributing to the maintenance of the crown, and
+discharging the _devoirs_ of a loyal subject. It is useless, however,
+to speculate upon an obsolete institution; the law has fallen into
+disuse, and the more is the pity. How one would like to have seen Lord
+Normanby, with that one curl of infantine simplicity that played upon
+his forehead, with that eternal leer of self-satisfied loveliness that
+rested on his features, playing banker at _rouge et noir_, or calling
+the throws at hazard. I am not quite so sure that the concern would
+have been so profitable as picturesque. The principal frequenters of
+his court were “York too;” Lord Plunket was a “downy cove;” and if
+Anthony Blaek took the box, most assuredly “I’d back the caster.” Now
+and then, to be sure, a stray, misguided country gentleman--a kind of
+“wet Tory”--used to be found at that court; just as one sees some
+respectable matronly woman at Ems or Baden, seated in a happy
+unconsciousness that all the company about her are rogues and
+swindlers, so _he_ might afford some good sport, and assist to
+replenish the famished exchequer. Generally speaking, however, the
+play would not have kept the tables; and his lordship would have been
+_in_ for the wax-lights, without the slightest chance of return.
+
+As for his successor, “patience” would have been his only game; and
+indeed it was one he had to practise whilst he remained amongst us.
+Better days have now come: let us, therefore, inquire if a slight
+modification of the act might not be effected with benefit, and an
+amendment, somewhat thus, be introduced into the bill:--“That the
+words ‘Lord Mayor’ be substituted for the words ‘Lord Lieutenant;’ and
+that all the privileges, rights, immunities, &c., aforesaid, be
+enjoyed by him to his sole use and benefit; and also that, in place of
+the word ‘Castle,’ the word ‘Mansion-house’ stand part of this
+bill”--thus reserving to his lordship all monopoly in games of chance
+and address, without in anywise interfering with such practices of the
+like nature exercised by him elsewhere, and always permitted and
+conceded by whatever government in power.
+
+Here, my dear countrymen, is no common suggestion. I am no prophet,
+like Sir Harcourt Lees; but still I venture to predict, that this
+system once legalised at the Mayoralty, the tribute is totally
+unnecessary. The little town of Spa, with scarce 10,000 inhabitants,
+pays the Belgian government 200,000 francs per annum for the liberty:
+what would Dublin--a city so populous and so idle? only think of the
+tail!--how admirably they could employ their little talent as
+“bonnets,” and the various other functionaries so essential to the
+well-being of a gambling-house; and, lastly, think of great Dan
+himself, with his burly look, seated in civic dignity at the green
+cloth, with a rake instead of a mace before him, calling out, “Make
+your game, gentlemen, make your game”--“Never venture, never
+win”--“Faint heart,” &c., &c.
+
+How suitable would the eloquence that has now grown tiresome, even at
+the Corn Exchange, be at the head of a gaming-table; and how well
+would the Liberator conduct a business whose motto is so admirably
+expressed by the phrase, “Heads, _I_ win; tails, _you_ lose.” Besides,
+after all, nothing could form so efficient a bond of union between the
+two contending parties in the country as some little mutual territory
+of wickedness, where both might forget their virtues and their
+grievances together. Here you’d soon have the violent party-man of
+either side, oblivious of everything but his chance of gain; and what
+an energy would it give to the great Daniel to think that, while
+filling his pockets, he was also spoiling the Egyptians! Instead,
+therefore, of making the poor man contribute his penny, and the
+ragged man two-pence, you’d have the Rent supplied without the trouble
+of collection; and all from the affluent and the easy, or at least the
+idle, portion of the community.
+
+This is the second time I have thrown out a suggestion--and all for
+nothing, remember--on the subject of afinance; and little reflection
+will show that both my schemes are undeniable in their benefits. Here
+you have one of the most expensive pleasures a poor country has ever
+ventured to afford itself--a hired agitator, pensioned, without any
+burden on the productive industry of the land; and he himself, so far
+from having anything to complain of, will find that his revenue is
+more than quadrupled.
+
+Look at the question, besides, in another point of view, and see what
+possible advantages may arise from it. Nothing is so admirable an
+antidote to all political excitement as gambling: where it flourishes,
+men become so inextricably involved in its fascinations and
+attractions that they forget everything else. Now, was ever a country
+so urgently in want of a little repose as ours? and would it not be
+well to purchase it, and pension off our great disturbers, at any
+price whatever? Cards are better than carding any day; short whist is
+an admirable substitute for insurrection; and the rattle of a dice-box
+is surely as pleasant music as the ruffian shout for repeal.
+
+
+
+
+RICH AND POOR--POUR ET CONTRE.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+If I was a king upon a throne this minute, an’ I wanted to have a
+smoke for myself by the fireside--why, if I was to do my best, what
+could I smoke but one pen’orth of tobacco, in the night, after
+all?--but can’t I have that just as asy?
+
+“If I was to have a bed with down feathers, what could I do but sleep
+there?--and sure I can do that in the settle-bed above.”
+
+Such is the very just and philosophical reflection of one of Griffin’s
+most amusing characters, in his inimitable story of “The
+Collegians”--a reflection that naturally sets us a thinking, that if
+riches and wealth cannot really increase a man’s capacity for
+enjoyment with the enjoyments themselves, their pursuit is, after all,
+but a poor and barren object of even worldly happiness.
+
+As it is perfectly evident that, so far as mere sensual gratifications
+are concerned, the peer and the peasant stand pretty much on a level,
+let us inquire for a moment in what the great superiority consists
+which exalts and elevates one above the other? Now, without entering
+upon that wild field for speculation that power (and what power equals
+that conferred by wealth?) confers, and the train of ennobling
+sentiment suggested by extended views of philanthropy and
+benevolence--for, in this respect, it is perfectly possible the poor
+man has as amiable a thrill at his heart in sharing his potato with a
+wandering beggar, as the rich one has in contributing his thousand
+pounds’ donation to some great national charity--let us turn rather to
+the consideration of those more tangible differences that leave their
+impress upon character, and mould men’s minds into a fashion so
+perfectly and thoroughly distinct.
+
+To our thinking, then, the great superiority wealth confers lies in
+the seclusion the rich man lives in from all the grosser agency of
+every-day life--its make-shifts, its contrivances, its continued
+warfare of petty provision and continual care, its unceasing effort to
+seem what it is not, and to appear to the world in a garb, and after a
+manner, to which it has no just pretension. The rich man knows nothing
+of all this: life, to him, rolls on in measured tread; and the world,
+albeit the changes of season and politics may affect him, has nothing
+to call forth any unusual effort of his temper or his intellect; his
+life, like his drawing-room, is arranged for him; he never sees it
+otherwise than in trim order; with an internal consciousness that
+people must be engaged in providing for his comforts at seasons when
+he is in bed or asleep, or otherwise occupied, he gives himself no
+farther trouble about them; and, in the monotony of his pleasures,
+attains to a tranquillity of mind the most enviable and most happy.
+
+Hence that perfect composure so conspicuous in the higher ranks, among
+whom wealth is so generally diffused--hence that delightful simplicity
+of manner, so captivating from its total absence of pretension and
+affectation--hence that unbroken serenity that no chances or
+disappointments would seem to interfere with; the knowledge that he is
+of far too much consequence to be neglected or forgotten, supports him
+on every occasion, and teaches that, when anything happens to his
+inconvenience or discomfort, that it could not but be unavoidable.
+
+Not so the poor man: his poverty is a shoe that pinches every hour of
+the twenty-four; he may bear up from habit, from philosophy, against
+his restricted means of enjoyment; he may accustom himself to limited
+and narrow bounds of pleasure; he may teach himself that, when wetting
+his lips with the cup of happiness, that he is not to drink to his
+liking of it: but what he cannot acquire is that total absence of all
+forethought for the minor cares of life, its provisions for the
+future, its changes and contingencies--hence he does not possess that
+easy and tranquil temperament so captivating to all within its
+influence; he has none of the careless _abandon_ of happiness, because
+even when happy he feels how short-lived must be his pleasure, and
+what a price he must pay for it. The thought of the future poisons the
+present, just as the dark cloud that gathers round the mountain-top
+makes the sunlight upon the plain seem cold and sickly.
+
+All the poor man’s pleasures have taken such time and care in their
+preparation that they have lost their freshness ere they are tasted.
+The cook has sipped so frequently at the pottage, he will not eat of
+it when at table. The poor man sees life “_en papillotes_” before he
+sees it “dressed.” The rich man sees it only in the resplendent blaze
+of its beauty, glowing with all the attraction that art can lend it,
+and wearing smiles put on for his own enjoyment. But if such be the
+case, and if the rich man, from the very circumstance of his position,
+imbibe habits and acquire a temperament possessing such charm and
+fascination, does he surrender nothing for all this? Alas! and alas!
+how many of the charities of life lie buried in the still waters of
+his apathetic nature! How many of the warm feelings of his heart are
+chilled for ever, for want of ground for their exercise! How can he
+sympathise who has never suffered? how can he console who has never
+grieved? There is nothing healthy in the placid mirror of that glassy
+lake; uncurled by a breeze, unruffled by a breath of passion, it wants
+the wholesome agitation of the breaking wave--the health-giving,
+bracing power of the conflicting element that stirs the heart within,
+and nerves it for a noble effort.
+
+All that he has of good within him is cramped by _convenance_ and
+fashion; for he who never feared the chance of fortune, trembles, with
+a coward’s dread, before the sneer of the world. The poor man,
+however, only appeals to this test on a very different score. The
+“world” may prescribe to him the fashion of his hat, or the colour of
+his coat--it may dictate the _locale_ of his residence, and the style
+of his household, and he may, so far as in him lies, comply with a
+tyranny so absurd; but with the free sentiments of his nature--his
+honest pride, his feeling sympathy--with the open current of his warm
+affection he suffers no interference: of this no man shall be the
+arbiter. If, then, the shoals and quicksands of the world deprive him
+of that tranquil guise and placid look--the enviable gift of richer
+men--he has, in requital, the unrestricted use of those greater gifts
+that God has given him, untrammelled by man’s opinion, uncurbed by
+the control of “the world.”
+
+Each supports a tyranny after his own kind:--
+
+The rich man--above the dictates of fashion--subjects the thoughts of
+his mind and the meditations of his heart to the world’s rule.
+
+The poor man--below it--keeps these for his prerogative, and has no
+slavery save in form.
+
+Happy the man who, amid all the seductions of wealth, and all the
+blandishments of fortune, can keep his heart and mind in the healthy
+exercise of its warm affections and its generous impulses. But still
+happier he, whose wealth, the native purity of his heart--can limit
+his desires to his means, and untrammelled by ambition, undeterred by
+fear of failure, treads the lowly but peaceful path in life, neither
+aspiring to be great, nor fearing to be humble.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR ST. PATRICK’S NIGHT.
+
+
+There is no cant offends me more than the oft-repeated criticisms on
+the changed condition of Ireland. How very much worse or how very much
+better we have become since this ministry, or that measure--what a
+deplorable falling off!--what a gratifying prospect! how poor! how
+prosperous! &c. &c. Now, we are exactly what and where we used to be:
+not a whit wiser nor better, poorer nor prouder. The union, the relief
+bill, the reform and corporation acts, have passed over us, like the
+summer breeze upon the calm water of a lake, ruffling the surface for
+a moment, but leaving all still and stagnant as before. Making new
+laws for the use of a people who would not obey the old ones, is much
+like the policy of altering the collar or the cuffs of a coat for a
+savage, who insists all the while on going naked. However, it amuses
+the gentlemen of St. Stephen’s; and, I’m sure I’m not the man to
+quarrel with innocent pleasures.
+
+To me, looking back, as my Lord Brougham would say, from the period of
+a long life, I cannot perceive even the slightest difference in the
+appearance of the land, or the looks of its inhabitants. Dublin is the
+same dirty, ill-cared-for, broken-windowed, tumble-down concern it
+used to be--the country the same untilled, weed-grown, unfenced thing
+I remember it fifty years ago--the society pretty much the same
+mixture of shrewd lawyers, suave doctors, raw subalterns, and fat,
+old, greasy country gentlemen, waiting in town for remittances to
+carry them on to Cheltenham--that paradise of Paddies, and elysium of
+Galway _belles_. Our table-talk the old story, of who was killed last
+in Tipperary or Limerick, with the accustomed seasoning of the
+oft-repeated alibi that figures at every assizes, and is successful
+with every jury. These pleasant topics, tinted with the party colour
+of the speaker’s politics, form the staple of conversation; and,
+“barring the wit,” we are pretty much what our fathers were some half
+century earlier. Father Mathew, to be sure, has innovated somewhat on
+our ancient prejudices; but I find that what are called “the upper
+classes” are far too cultivated and too well-informed to follow a
+priest. A few weeks ago, I had a striking illustration of this fact
+brought before me, which I am disposed to quote the more willingly as
+it also serves to display the admirable constancy with which we adhere
+to our old and time-honoured habits. The morning of St. Patrick’s day
+was celebrated in Dublin by an immense procession of teetotallers,
+who, with white banners, and whiter cheeks, paraded the city,
+evidencing in their cleanly but care-worn countenances, the benefits
+of temperance. On the same evening a gentleman--so speak the morning
+papers--got immoderately drunk at the ball in the Castle, and was
+carried out in a state of insensibility. Now, it is not for the sake
+of contrast I have mentioned this fact--my present speculation has
+another and very different object, and is simply this:--How comes it,
+that since time out of mind the same event has recurred on the
+anniversary of St. Patrick at the Irish court? When I was a boy I
+remember well “the gentleman who became so awfully drunk,” &c. Every
+administration, from the Duke of Rutland downwards, has had its
+drunken gentleman on “St. Patrick’s night.” Where do they keep him all
+the year long?--what do they do with him?--are questions I continually
+am asking myself. Under what name and designation does he figure in
+the pension list? for of course I am not silly enough to suppose that
+a well-ordered government would depend on chance for functionaries
+like these. One might as well suppose they would calculate on some one
+improvising Sir William Betham, or extemporaneously performing “God
+save the Queen,” on the state trumpet, in lieu of that amiable
+individual who distends his loyal cheeks on our great anniversaries.
+No, no. I am well aware he is a member of the household, or at least
+in the pay of the government. When the pope converts his Jew on Holy
+Thursday, the Catholic church have had ample time for preparation: the
+cardinals are on the look-out for weeks before, to catch one for his
+holiness--a good respectable hirsute Israelite, with a strong Judas
+expression to magnify the miracle. But then the Jew is passive in the
+affair, and has only to be converted patiently--whereas “the
+gentleman” has an active duty to discharge; he must imbibe sherry,
+iced punch, and champagne, at such a rate that he can be able to shock
+the company, before the rooms thin, with his intemperate excess.
+Besides, to give the devil--the pope, I mean--his Jew, they snare a
+fresh one every Easter. Now, I am fully persuaded that, at our Irish
+court, the same gentleman has performed the part for upwards of fifty
+years.
+
+At the ancient banquets it was always looked upon as a triumph of
+Amphitryonism when a guest or two died the day after of indigestion,
+from over eating. Now, is it not possible that our classic origin may
+have imparted to us the trait I am speaking of, and that “the
+gentleman” is retained as typical of our exceeding hilarity and
+consummate conviviality--an evidence to the “great unasked” that the
+festivities within doors are conducted on a scale of boundless
+profusion and extravagance--that the fountains from which honour
+flows, run also with champagne, and that punch and the peerage are to
+be seen bubbling from the same source.
+
+It is a sad thing to think that the gifted man, who has served his
+country so faithfully in this capacity for so long a period, must now
+be stricken in years. Time and rum must be telling upon him; and yet,
+what should we do were we to lose him?
+
+In the chapel of Maria Zell, in Styria, there is a portly figure of
+St. Somebody, with more consonants than I find it prudent to venture
+on from mere memory; the priest is rolling his eyes very benignly on
+the frequenters of the chapel, as they pass by the shrine he resides
+in. The story goes, that when the saint ceases winking, some great
+calamity will occur to the commune and its inhabitants. Now, the last
+time I saw him, he was in great vigour, ogled away with his accustomed
+energy, and even, I thought--perhaps it was a suspicion on my
+part--had actually strained his eyeballs into something like a squint,
+from actual eagerness to oblige his votaries--a circumstance happily
+of the less moment in our days, as a gifted countryman of ours could
+have remedied the defect in no time. But to return; my theory is, that
+when we lose our tipsy friend it’s all up with us; “Birnam wood will
+then have come to Dunsinane;” and what misfortunes may befal us, Sir
+Harcourt Lees may foresee, but I confess myself totally unable to
+predicate.
+
+Were I the viceroy, I’d not sleep another night in the island. I’d
+pack up the regalia, send for Anthony Blake to take charge of the
+country, and start for Liverpool in the mail-packet.
+
+Happily, however, such an event may be still distant; and although the
+Austrians have but one Metternich, we may find a successor to our
+“Knight of St. Patrick.”
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR “GENTLEMAN JOCKS.”
+
+
+“The Honourable Fitzroy Shuffleton,” I quote _The Morning Post_, “who
+rode Bees-wing, came in a winner amid deafening cheers. Never was a
+race better contested; and although, when passing the distance-post,
+the Langar colt seemed to have the best of it, yet such was Mr.
+Shuffleton’s tact and jockeyship, that he shot a-head in advance of
+his adversary, and came in first.” I omit the passages descriptive of
+the peculiar cleverness displayed by this gifted gentleman. I omit
+also that glorious outbreak of newspaper eloquence, in which the
+delight of his friends is expressed--the tears of joy from his
+sisters--the cambric handkerchiefs that floated in the air--the
+innumerable and reiterated cries of “Well done!--he’s a trump!--the
+right sort!” &c. &c., so profusely employed by the crowd, because I am
+fully satisfied with what general approbation such proofs of ability
+are witnessed.
+
+[Illustration: Gentlemen Jocks.]
+
+We are a great nation, and nowhere is our greatness more conspicuous
+than in the education of our youth. The young Frenchman seems to
+fulfil his destiny, when, having drawn on a pair of the most
+tight-fitting kid gloves, of that precise shade of colour so approved
+of by Madame Laffarge, he saunters forth on the Boulevard de Gand, or
+lounges in the _coulisse_ of the opera.
+
+The German, whose contempt not only extends to glove-leather, but
+clean hands, betakes himself early in life to the way he should go,
+and from which, to do him justice, he never shows any inclination to
+depart. A meerschaum some three feet long, and a tobacco bag like a
+school-boy’s satchel, supply his wants in life. The dreamy visions of
+the unreal woes, and the still more unreal greatness of his country,
+form the pabulum for his thoughts; and he has no other ambition, for
+some half dozen years of his life, than to boast his utter
+indifference to kings and clean water.
+
+Now, we manage matters somewhat better. Our young men, from the very
+outset of their career, are admirable jockeys; and if by any fatality,
+like the dreadful revolution of France, our nobles should be compelled
+to emigrate from their native land, instead of teaching mathematics
+and music, the small sword and quadrilles, we shall have the
+satisfaction of knowing that we supply stable-boys to the whole of
+Europe.
+
+Whatever other people may say or think, I put a great value on this
+equestrian taste. I speak not here of the manly nature of horse
+exercise--of the noble and vigorous pursuits of the hunting field. No;
+I direct my observations solely to the heroes of Ascot and Epsom--of
+Doncaster and Goodwood. I only speak of those whose pleasure it is to
+read no book save the Racing Calendar, and frequent no lounge but
+Tattersall’s; who esteem the stripes of a racing-jacket more
+honourable than the ribbon of the Bath, and look to a well-timed
+“hustle” or “a shake” as the climax of human ability. These are fine
+fellows, and I prize them. But if it be not only praiseworthy, but
+pleasant, to ride for the Duke’s cup at Goodwood, or the Corinthian’s
+at the Curragh, why not extend the sphere of the utility, and become
+as amiable in private as they are conspicuous in public life?
+
+We have seen them in silk jackets of various hues, with leathers and
+tops of most accurate fitting, turn out amid the pelting of a most
+pitiless storm, to ride some three miles of spongy turf, at the hazard
+of their necks, and the almost certainty of a rheumatic fever; and
+why, donning the same or some similar costume, will they not perform
+the office of postillion, when their fathers, or mayhap, some
+venerated aunt, is returning by the north road to an antiquated
+mansion in Yorkshire? The pace, to be sure, is not so fast--but it
+compensates in safety what it loses in speed--the assemblage around is
+not so numerous, or the excitement so great; but filial tenderness is
+a nobler motive than the acclamations of a mob. In fact, the parallel
+presents all the advantages on one side: and the jockey is as inferior
+to the postillion as the fitful glare of an _ignis-fatuus_ is to the
+steady brilliancy of a gas-lamp.
+
+An Englishman has a natural pride in the navy of his country--our
+wooden walls are a glorious boast; but, perhaps, after all, there is
+nothing more captivating in the whole detail of the service, than the
+fact that even the highest and the noblest in the land has no royal
+road to its promotion, but, beginning at the very humblest step, he
+must work his way through every grade and every rank, like his
+comrades around him. Many there are now living who remember Prince
+William, as he was called--late William the Fourth, of glorious
+memory--sitting in the stern seats of a gig, his worn jacket and
+weather-beaten hat attesting that even the son of a king had no
+immunity from the hardships of the sea. This is a proud thought for
+Englishmen, and well suited to gratify their inherent loyalty and
+their sturdy independence. Now, might we not advantageously extend the
+influence of such examples, by the suggestion I have thrown out above?
+If a foreigner be now struck by hearing, as he walks through the
+dockyard at Plymouth, that the little middy who touches his hat with
+such obsequious politeness, is the Marquis of ----, or the Earl of
+----, with some fifty thousand per annum, how much more astonished
+will he be on learning that he owes the rapidity with which he
+traversed the last stage to his having been driven by Lord Wilton--or
+that the lengthy proportions, so dexterously gathered up in the
+saddle, belong to an ex-ambassador from St. Petersburgh. How surprised
+would he feel, too, that instead of the low habits and coarse tastes
+he would look for in that condition in life, he would now see elegant
+and accomplished gentlemen, sipping a glass of curaçoa at the end of a
+stage; or, mayhap, offering a pinch of snuff from a box worth five
+hundred guineas. What a fascinating conception would he form of our
+country from such examples as this! and how insensibly would not only
+the polished taste and the high-bred depravity of the better classes
+be disseminated through the country; but, by an admirable reciprocity,
+the coarsest vices of the lowest would be introduced among the highest
+in the land. The race-course has done much for this, but the road
+would do far more. Slang is now but the language of the _élite_--it
+would then become the vulgar tongue; and, in fact, there is no
+predicting the amount of national benefit likely to arise from an
+amalgamation of all ranks in society, where the bond of union is so
+honourable in its nature. Cultivate, then, ye youth of England--ye
+scions of the Tudors and the Plantagenets--with all the blood of all
+the Howards in your veins--cultivate the race-course--study the
+stable--read the Racing Calendar. What are the precepts of Bacon or
+the learning of Boyle compared to the pedigree of Grey Momus, or the
+reason that Tramp “is wrong?” “A dark horse” is a far more interesting
+subject of inquiry than an eclipse of the moon, and a judge of pace a
+much more exalted individual than a judge of assize.
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR YOUNGER SONS.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+Douglas Jerrold, in his amusing book, “Cakes and Ale,” quotes an
+exquisite essay written to prove the sufficiency of thirty pounds
+a-year for all a man’s daily wants and comforts--allowing at least
+five shillings a quarter for the conversion of the Jews--and in which
+every outlay is so nicely calculated, that it must be wilful
+eccentricity if the pauper gentleman, at the end of the year, either
+owes a shilling or has one. To say the least of it, this is close
+shaving; and, as I detest experimental philosophy, I’d rather not try
+it. At the same time, in this age of general glut, when all
+professions are overstocked--when you might pave the Strand with
+parsons’ skulls, and thatch your barn with the surplus of the college
+of physicians; when there are neither waste lands to till and give us
+ague and typhus, nor war to thin us--what are we to do? The
+subdivision of labour in every walk in life has been carried to its
+utmost limits: if it takes nine tailors to make a man, it takes nine
+men to make a needle. Even in the learned professions, as they are
+called, this system is carried out; and as you have a lawyer for
+equity, another for the Common Pleas, a third for the Old Bailey, &c.,
+so your doctor, now-a-days, has split up his art, and one man takes
+charge of your teeth, another has the eye department, another the ear,
+a fourth looks after your corns; so that, in fact, the complex
+machinery of your structure strikes you as admirably adapted to give
+employment to an ingenious and anxious population, who, until our
+present civilization, never dreamed of morselling out mankind for
+their benefit.
+
+As to commerce, our late experiences have chiefly pointed to the
+pleasure of trading with nations who will not pay their debts,--like
+the Yankees. There is, then, little encouragement in that quarter.
+What then remains I scarcely know. The United Services are pleasant,
+but poor things by way of a provision for life. Coach-driving, that
+admirable refuge for the destitute, has been smashed by the railroads;
+and there is a kind of prejudice against a man of family sweeping the
+crossings. For my own part, I lean to something dignified and
+respectable--something that does not compromise “the cloth,” and
+which, without being absolutely a sinecure, never exacts any undue or
+extraordinary exertion,--driving a hearse, for instance: even this,
+however, is greatly run upon; and the cholera, at its departure, threw
+very many out of employment. However, the question is, what can a man
+of small means do with his son? Short whist is a very snug thing--if a
+man have natural gifts,--that happy conformation of the fingers, that
+ample range of vision, that takes in everything around. But I must
+not suppose these by any means general--and I legislate for the mass.
+The turf has also the same difficulties,--so has toad-eating; indeed
+these three walks might be included among the learned professions.
+
+As to railroads, I’m sick of hearing of them for the last three years.
+Every family in the empire has at least one civil engineer within its
+precincts; and I’m confident, if their sides were as hard as their
+skulls, you could make sleepers for the whole Grand Junction by merely
+decimating the unemployed.
+
+Tax-collecting does, to be sure, offer some little prospect; but that
+won’t last. Indeed, the very working of the process will limit the
+advantages of this opening,--gradually converting all the payers into
+paupers. Now I have meditated long and anxiously on the subject,
+conversing with others whose opportunities of knowing the world were
+considerable, but never could I find that ingenuity opened any new
+path, without its being so instantaneously overstocked that
+competition alone denied every chance of success.
+
+One man of original genius I did, indeed, come upon, and his career
+had been eminently successful. He was a Belgian physician, who, having
+in vain attempted all the ordinary modes of obtaining practice,
+collected together the little residue of his fortune, and sailed for
+Barbadoes, where he struck out for himself the following singularly
+new and original plan:--He purchased all the disabled, sick, and
+ailing negroes that he could find; every poor fellow whose case seemed
+past hope, but yet to his critical eye was still curable, these he
+bought up; they were, of course, dead bargains. The masters were
+delighted to get rid of them--they were actually “eating their heads
+off;” but the doctor knew, that though they looked somewhat “groggy,”
+still there was a “go” in them yet.
+
+By care, skill, and good management, they recovered under his hands,
+and frequently were re-sold to the original proprietor, who was
+totally unconscious that the sleek and shining nigger before him had
+been the poor, decrepid, sickly creature of some weeks before.
+
+The humanity of this proceeding is self-evident: a word need not be
+said more on that subject. But it was no less profitable than
+merciful. The originator of the plan retired from business with a
+large fortune, amassed, too, in an inconceivably short space of time.
+The shrewdest proprietor of a fast coach never could throw a more
+critical eye over a new wheeler or a broken-down leader, than did he
+on the object of his professional skill; detecting at a glance the
+extent of his ailments, and calculating, with a Babbage-like accuracy,
+the cost of keep, physic, and attendance, and setting them off, in his
+mind, against the probable price of the sound man. What consummate
+skill was here! Not merely, like Brodie or Crampton, anticipating the
+possible recovery of the patient, but estimating the extent of the
+restoration--the time it would take--ay, the very number of basins of
+chicken-broth and barley-gruel that he would devour, _ad interim_.
+This was the cleverest physician I ever knew. The present altered
+condition of West Indian property has, however, closed this opening to
+fortune, in which, after all, nothing short of first-rate ability
+could have ensured success.
+
+I have just read over the preceding “nut” to my old friend, Mr.
+Synnet, of Mulloglass, whose deep knowledge of the world makes him no
+mean critic on such a subject. His words are these:--
+
+“There is some truth in what you remark--the world is too full of us.
+There is, however, a very nice walk in life much neglected.”
+
+“And what may that be?” said I, eagerly.
+
+“The mortgagee,” replied he, sententiously.
+
+“I don’t perfectly comprehend.”
+
+“Well, well! what I mean is this: suppose, now, you have only a couple
+of thousand pounds to leave your son--maybe, you have not more than a
+single thousand--now, my advice is, not to squander your fortune in
+any such absurdity as a learned profession, a commission in the Line,
+or any other miserable existence, but just look about you, in the west
+of Ireland, for the fellow that has the best house, the best cellar,
+the best cook, and the best stable. He is sure to want money, and will
+be delighted to get a loan. Lend it to him: make hard terms, of
+course. For this--as you are never to be paid--the obligation of your
+forbearance will be the greater. Now, mark me, from the day the deed
+is signed, you have snug quarters in Galway, not only in your friend’s
+house, but among all his relations--Blakes, Burkes, Bodkins, Kirwans,
+&c., to no end; you have the run of the whole concern--the best of
+living, great drink, and hunting in abundance. You must talk of the
+loan now and then, just to jog their memory; but be always ‘too much
+the gentleman’ to ask for your money; and it will even go hard, but
+from sheer popularity, they will make you member for the county. This
+is the only new thing, in the way of a career, I know of, and I have
+great pleasure in throwing out the suggestion for the benefit of
+younger sons.”
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR THE PENAL CODE.
+
+
+It has often struck me that the monotony of occupation is a heavier
+infliction than the monotony of reflection. The same dull round of
+duty, which while it demands a certain amount of labour, excludes all
+opportunity of thought, making man no better than the piston of a
+steam-engine, is a very frightful and debasing process. Whereas,
+however much there may be of suffering in solitude, our minds are not
+imprisoned; our thoughts, unchained and unfettered, stroll far away to
+pleasant pasturages; we cross the broad blue sea, and tread the ferny
+mountain-side, and live once more the sunny hours of boyhood; or we
+build up in imagination a peaceful and happy future.
+
+That the power of fancy and the play of genius are not interrupted by
+the still solitude of the prison, I need only quote Cervantes, whose
+immortal work was accomplished during the tedious hours of a
+captivity, unrelieved by one office of friendship, uncheered by one
+solitary ray of hope.
+
+Taking this view of the matter, it will be at once perceived how much
+more severe a penalty solitary confinement must be, to the man of
+narrow mind and limited resources of thought, than to him of
+cultivated understanding and wider range of mental exercise. In the
+one case, it is a punishment of the most terrific kind--and nothing
+can equal that awful lethargy of the soul, that wraps a man as in a
+garment, shrouding him from the bright world without, and leaving him
+nought save the darkness of his gloomy nature to brood over. In the
+other, there is something soothing amid all the melancholy of the
+state, in the unbroken soaring of thought, that, lifting man above the
+cares and collisions of daily life, bear him far away to the rich
+paradise of his mind-made treasures--peopling space with images of
+beauty--and leave him to dream away existence amid the scenes and
+features he loved to gaze on.
+
+Now, to turn for the moment from this picture, let us consider whether
+our government is wise in this universal application of a punishment,
+which, while it operates so severely in one case, may really be
+regarded as a boon in the other.
+
+The healthy peasant, who rises with the sun, and breathes the free air
+of his native hills, may and will feel all the infliction of
+confinement, which, while it chains his limbs, stagnates his
+faculties. Not so the sedentary and solitary man of letters. Your cell
+becomes _his_ study: the window may be somewhat narrower--the lattice,
+that was wont to open to the climbing honeysuckle, may now be barred
+with its iron stanchions; but he soon forgets this. “His mind to him a
+palace is,” wherein he dwells at peace. Now, to put them on something
+of a par, I have a suggestion to make to the legislature, which I
+shall condense as briefly as possible. Never sentence your man of
+education, whatever his offence, to solitary confinement; but condemn
+him to dine out, in Dublin, for seven or fourteen years--or, in murder
+cases, for the term of his natural life. For slight offences, a week’s
+dinners, and a few evening parties might be sufficient--while old
+offenders and bad cases, might be sent to the north side of the city.
+
+It may be objected to this--that insanity, which so often occurs in
+the one case, would supervene in the other; but I rather think not. My
+own experience could show many elderly people of both sexes, long
+inured to this state, who have only fallen into a sullen and apathetic
+fatuity; but who, bating deafness and a look of dogged stupidity, are
+still reasoning beings--what they once were, it is hard to say.
+
+But I take the man who, for some infraction of the law, is suddenly
+carried away from his home and friends--the man of mind, of reading,
+and reflection. Imagine him, day after day, beholding the everlasting
+saddle of mutton--the eternal three chickens, with the tongue in the
+midst of them; the same travesty of French cookery that pervades the
+side-dishes--the hot sherry, the sour Moselle: think of him, eating
+out his days through these, unchanged, unchangeable--with the same
+_cortège_ of lawyers and lawyers’ wives--doctors, male and
+female--surgeons, subalterns, and, mayhap, attorneys: think of the old
+jokes he has been hearing from childhood still ringing in his ears,
+accompanied by the same laugh which he has tracked from its burst in
+boyhood to its last cackle in dotage: behold him, as he sits amid the
+same young ladies, in pink and blue, and the same elderly ones, in
+scarlet and purple; see him, as he watches every sign and pass-word
+that have marked these dinners for the long term of his sentence, and
+say if his punishment be not indeed severe.
+
+Then think how edifying the very example of his suffering, as, with
+pale cheek and lustreless eye--silent, sad, and lonely--he sits there!
+How powerfully such a warning must speak to others, who, from accident
+or misfortune, may be momentarily thrown in his society.
+
+The suggestion, I own, will demand a much more ample detail, and
+considerable modification. Among other precautions, for instance, more
+than one convict should not be admitted to any table, lest they might
+fraternize together, and become independent of the company in mutual
+intercourse, &c.
+
+These may all, however, be carefully considered hereafter: the
+principle is the only thing I would insist on for the present, and now
+leave the matter in the hands of our rulers.
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR THE OLD.
+
+
+Of all the virtues which grace and adorn the inhabitants of these
+islands, I know of none which can in anywise be compared with the deep
+and profound veneration we show to old age. Not content with paying it
+that deference and respect so essentially its due, we go even further,
+and by a courteous adulation would impose upon it the notion, that
+years have not detracted from the gifts which were so conspicuous in
+youth, and that the winter of life is as full of promise and
+performance, as the most budding hours of spring-time.
+
+Walk through the halls of Greenwich and Chelsea--or, if the excursion
+be too far for you, as a Dubliner, stroll down to the Old Man’s
+Hospital, and cast your eyes on those venerable “fogies,” as they are
+sometimes irreverently called, and look with what a critical and
+studious politeness the state has invested every detail of their daily
+life. Not fed, housed, or clothed like the “debris” of humanity, to
+whom the mere necessaries of existence were meted out, but actually a
+species of flattering illusion is woven around them. They are dressed
+in a uniform; wear a strange, quaint military costume; are officered
+and inspected like soldiers; mount guard; answer roll-call, and mess
+as of yore.
+
+They are permitted, from time to time, to clean and burnish pieces of
+ordnance, old, time-worn, and useless as themselves, and are marched
+certain short and suitable distances to and from their dining-hall,
+with all the “pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war.” I like
+all this. There is something of good and kindly feeling in
+perpetuating the delusion that has lasted for so many years of life,
+and making the very resting-place of their meritorious services recall
+to them the details of those duties, for the performance of which they
+have reaped their country’s gratitude.
+
+The same amiable feeling, the same grateful spirit of respect, would
+seem, from time to time, to actuate the different governments that
+wield our destinies, in their promotions to the upper house.
+
+Some old, feeble, partizan of the ministry, who has worn himself to a
+skeleton by late sittings; dried, like a potted herring, by committee
+labour; hoarse with fifty years’ cheering of his party, and deaf from
+the cries of “divide” and “adjourn” that have been ringing in his ears
+for the last cycle of his existence, is selected for promotion to the
+peerage. He was eloquent in his day, too, perhaps; but that day is
+gone by. His speech upon a great question was once a momentous event,
+but now his vote is mumbled in tones scarce audible.--Gratefully
+mindful of his “has been,” his party provide him with an asylum,
+where the residue of his days may be passed in peace and pleasantness.
+
+Careful not to break the spell that has bound him to life, they
+surround him with some semblance of his former state, suited in all
+respects to his age, his decrepitude, and his debility; they pour
+water upon the leaves of his politics, and give him a weak and
+pleasant beverage, that can never irritate his nerves, nor destroy his
+slumbers. Some insignificant bills--some unimportant appeals--some
+stray fragments that fall from the tables of sturdier politicians, are
+his daily diet; and he dozes away the remainder of life, happy and
+contented in the simple and beautiful delusion that he is legislating
+and ruling--just as warrantable the while, as his compeer of Chelsea,
+in deeming his mock parades the forced marches of the Peninsula, and
+his Sunday guards the dispositions for a Toulouse or a Waterloo.
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR THE ART UNION.
+
+
+The battle between the “big and little-endians” in Gulliver, was
+nothing to the fight between the Destructives and Conservatives of the
+Irish Art Union. A few months since the former party deciding that the
+engraved plate of Mr. Burton’s picture should be broken up; the latter
+protesting against the Vandalism of destroying a first-rate work of
+art, and preventing the full triumph of the artist’s genius, in the
+circulation of a print so creditable to himself and to his country.
+
+The great argument of the Destructives was this:--We are the devoted
+friends of art--we love it--we glory in it--we cherish it: yea, we
+even give a guinea a-year a-piece for the encouragement of a society
+established for its protection and promotion;--this society pledging
+themselves that we shall have in return--what think ye?--the immortal
+honour of raising a school of painting in our native country?--the
+conscientious sense of a high-souled patriotism?--the prospect of
+future estimation at the hands of a posterity who are to benefit by
+our labours? Not at all: nothing of all this. We are far too great
+materialists for such shadowy pleasures; we are to receive a plate,
+whose value is in the direct ratio of its rarity, “which shall
+certainly be of more than the amount of our subscription,” and, maybe,
+of five times that sum. The fewer the copies issued, the rarer (_i.
+e._, the dearer) each impression. We are the friends of
+art--therefore, we say, smash the copper-plate, destroy every vestige
+of the graver’s art, we are supplied, and heaven knows to what price
+these engravings may not subsequently rise!
+
+[Illustration: “This is a Rembrandt.”]
+
+Now, I like these people. There is something bold, something masterly,
+something decided, in their coming forward and fighting the battle on
+its true grounds. There is no absurd affectation about the circulation
+of a clever picture disseminating in remote and scarce-visited
+districts the knowledge of a great man and a great work; there is no
+prosy nonsense about encouraging the genius of our own country, and
+showing with pride to her prouder sister, that we are not unworthy to
+contend in the race with her. Nothing of this.--They resolve
+themselves, by an open and candid admission, into a committee of
+printsellers, and they cry with one voice--“No free trade in ‘The
+Blind Girl’--no sliding scale--no fixed duty--nothing save absolute,
+actual prohibition!” It is with pride I confess myself of this party:
+perish art! down with painting! to the ground with every effort of
+native genius! but keep up the price of our engraving, which, with the
+rapid development of Mr. Burton’s talent, may yet reach ten, nay,
+twenty guineas for an impression. But in the midst of my enthusiasm, a
+still small voice of fear is whispering ever:--Mayhap this gifted man
+may live to eclipse the triumphs of his youthful genius: it may be,
+that, as he advances in life, his talents, matured by study and
+cultivation, may ascend to still higher flights, and this, his early
+work, be merely the beacon-light that attracted men in the outset of
+his career, and only be esteemed as the first throes of his intellect.
+What is to be done in this case? It is true we have suppressed “The
+Blind Girl;” we have smashed _that_ plate; but how shall we prevent
+him from prosecuting those studies that already are leading him to the
+first rank of his profession? Disgust at our treatment may do much;
+but yet, his mission may suggest higher thoughts than are assailable
+by us and our measures. I fear, now, that but one course is open; and
+it is with sorrow I confess, that, however indisposed to the shedding
+of blood, however unsuited by my nature and habits to murderous deeds,
+I see nothing for us but--to smash Mr. Burton.
+
+By accepting this suggestion, not only will the engravings, but the
+picture itself, attain an increased value. If dead men are not
+novelists, neither are they painters; and Mr. Burton, it is expected,
+will prove no exception to the rule. Get rid of him, then, at once,
+and by all means. Let this resolution be brought forward at the next
+general meeting, by any leader of the Destructive party, and I pledge
+myself to second and defend it, by every argument, used with such
+force and eloquence for the destruction of the copper-plate. I am sure
+the talented gentleman himself will, when he is put in possession of
+our motives, offer no opposition to so natural a desire on our part,
+but will afford every facility in his power for being, as the war-cry
+of the party has it, “broken up and destroyed.”
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A NUT FOR THE KINGSTOWN RAILWAY.
+
+
+If the wise Calif who studied mankind by sitting on the bridge at
+Bagdad, had lived in our country, and in our times, he doubtless would
+have become a subscriber to the Kingstown railway. There, for the
+moderate sum of some ten or twelve pounds per annum, he might have
+indulged his peculiar vein, while wafted pleasantly through the air,
+and obtained a greater insight into character and individuality,
+inasmuch as the objects of his investigation would be all sitting
+shots, at least for half an hour. Segur’s “Quâtre Ages de la Vie”
+never marked out mankind like the half-hour trains. To the uninitiated
+and careless observer, the company would appear a mixed and
+heterogeneous mass of old and young, of both sexes--some sickly, some
+sulky, some solemn, and some shy. Classification of them would be
+deemed impossible. Not so, however; for, as to the ignorant the
+section of a mountain would only present some confused heap of stone
+and gravel, clay and marl; to the geologist, strata of divers kinds,
+layers of various ages, would appear, all indicative of features, and
+teeming with interests, of which the other knew nothing: so, to the
+studious observer, this seeming commixture of men, this tangled web of
+humanity, unravels itself before him, and he reads them with pleasure
+and with profit.
+
+So thoroughly distinctive are the classes, as marked out by the hour
+of the day, that very little experience would enable the student to
+pronounce upon the travellers--while so striking are the features of
+each class, that “given one second-class traveller, to find out the
+contents of a train,” would be the simplest problem in algebra. As for
+myself, I never work the equation: the same instinct that enabled
+Cuvier, when looking at a broken molar tooth, to pronounce upon the
+habits, the size, the mode of life and private opinions of some
+antediluvian mammoth, enables me at a glance to say--“This is the
+apothecaries’ train--here we are with the Sandycoves.”
+
+You are an early riser--some pleasant proverb about getting a worm for
+breakfast, instilled into you in childhood, doubtless inciting you:
+and you hasten down to the station, just in time to be too late for
+the eight o’clock train to Dublin. This is provoking; inasmuch as no
+scrutiny has ever enabled any traveller to pry into the habits and
+peculiarities of the early voyager. Well, you lounge about till the
+half-after, and then the _conveniency_ snorts by, whisks round at the
+end, takes a breathing canter alone for a few hundred yards, and comes
+back with a grunt, to resume its old drudgery. A general scramble for
+places ensues--doors bang--windows are shut and opened--a bell
+rings--and, snort! snort! ugh, ugh, away you go. Now--would you
+believe it?--every man about you, whatever be his age, his size, his
+features, or complexion, has a little dirty blue bag upon his knees,
+filled with something. They all know each other--grin, smile, smirk,
+but don’t shake hands--a polite reciprocity--as they are none of the
+cleanest: cut little dry jokes about places and people unknown, and
+mix strange phrases here and there through the dialogue, about
+“_demurrers_ and _declarations_, traversing _in prox_ and _quo
+warranto_.” You perceive it at once--it is very dreadful; but they are
+all attorneys. The ways of Providence are, however, inscrutable; and
+you arrive in safety in Dublin.
+
+Now, I am not about to take you back; for at this hour of the morning
+you have nothing to reward your curiosity. But, with your leave, we’ll
+start from Kingstown again at nine. Here comes a fresh, jovial-looking
+set of fellows. They have bushy whiskers, and geraniums in the
+button-hole of their coats. They are traders of various sorts--men of
+sugar, soap, and sassafras--Macintoshes, molasses, mouse-traps--train-oil
+and tabinets. They have, however, half an acre of agricultural
+absurdity, divided into meadow and tillage, near the harbour, and they
+talk bucolic all the way. Blindfold them all, and set them loose, and
+you will catch them groping their way down Dame-street in half an
+hour.
+
+9½.--The housekeepers’ train. Fat, middle-aged women, with cotton
+umbrellas--black stockings with blue _fuz_ on them; meek-looking men,
+officiating as husbands, and an occasional small child, in plaid and
+the small-pox.
+
+10.--The lawyers’ train. Fierce-looking, dictatorial, categorical
+faces look out of the window at the weather, with the stern glance
+they are accustomed to bestow on the jury, and stare at the sun in the
+face, as though to say--“None of your prevarication with _me_; answer
+me, on your oath, is it to rain or not?”
+
+10½.--The return of the doctors. They have been out on a morning beat,
+and are going home merry or mournful, as the case may be. Generally
+the former, as the sad ones take to the third class. These are jocose,
+droll dogs; the restraint of physic over, they unbend, and chat
+pleasantly, unless there happen to be a sickly gentleman present, when
+the instinct of the craft is too strong for them; and they talk of
+their wonderful cures of Mr. Popkins’s knee, or Mr. Murphy’s elbow, in
+a manner very edifying.
+
+11.--The men of wit and pleasure. These are, I confess, difficult of
+detection; but the external signs are very flash waistcoats, and
+guard-chains, black canes, black whiskers, and strong Dublin accents.
+A stray governess or two will be found in this train. They travel in
+pairs, and speak a singular tongue, which a native of Paris might
+suppose to be Irish.
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR THE DOCTORS.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+Should you ask, Who is the greatest tyrant of modern days? Mr.
+O’Connell will tell you--Nicholas, or Espartero. An Irish Whig member
+will reply, Dan himself. An _attaché_ at an embassy would say, Lord
+Palmerston,--“’Tis Cupid ever makes us slaves!” A French _deputé_ of
+the Thiers party will swear it is Louis Philippe. Count D’Orsay will
+say, his tailor. But I will tell you it is none of these: the most
+pitiless autocrat of the nineteenth century is--the President of the
+College of Physicians.
+
+Of all the unlimited powers possessed by irresponsible man, I know of
+nothing at all equal to his, who, _mero motu_, of his own free will
+and caprice, can at any moment call a meeting of the dread body at
+whose head he stands, assemble the highest dignitaries of the
+land--archbishops and bishops, chancellors, chief barons, and chief
+remembrancers--to listen to the minute anatomy of a periwinkle’s
+mustachios, or some singular provision in the physiology of a crab’s
+breeches-pocket: all of whom, _luto non obstante_, must leave their
+peaceful homes and warm hearths to “assist” at a meeting in which,
+nine cases out of ten, they take as much interest as a Laplander does
+in the health of the Grand Lama; or Mehemet Ali in the proceedings of
+Father Mathew.
+
+By nine o’clock the curtain rises, displaying a goodly mob of medical
+celebrities: the old ones characterised by the astute look and
+searching glance, long and shrewd practice in the world’s little
+failings ever confers; the young ones, anxious, wide awake, and
+fidgetty, not quite satisfied with what services they may be called on
+to render in candle-snuffing and crucible work; while between both is
+your transition M.D.--your medical tadpole, with some practice and
+more pretension, his game being to separate from the great unfeed, and
+rub his shoulders among the “dons” of the art, from whose rich board
+certain crumbs are ever falling, in the shape of country jaunts, small
+operations, and smaller consultings. Through these promiscuously walk
+the “_gros bonnets_” of the church and the bar, with now and then--if
+the scene be Ireland--a humane Viceroy, and a sleepy commander of the
+forces. Round the room are glass cases filled with what at first blush
+you might be tempted to believe were the _ci-devant_ professors of the
+college, embalmed, or in spirits; but on nearer inspection you detect
+to be a legion of apes, monkeys, and ourangoutangs, standing or
+sitting in grotesque attitudes. Among them, pleasingly diversified,
+you discover murderers’ heads, parricides’ busts in plaster,
+bicephalous babies, and shapeless monsters with two rows of teeth.
+Here you are regaled with refreshments “with what appetite you may,”
+and chat away the time, until the tinkle of a small bell announces the
+approach of the lecture.
+
+For the most part, this is a good, drowsy, sleep-disposing affair of
+an hour long, written to show, that from some peculiarity lately
+discovered in the cerebral vessels, man’s natural attitude was to
+stand on his head; or that, from chemical analysis just invented, it
+was clear, if we live to the age of four hundred years and upwards,
+part of our duodenum will be coated with a delicate aponeurosis of
+sheet iron.
+
+Now, with propositions of this kind I never find fault. I am satisfied
+to play my part as a biped in this breathing world, and to go out of
+it too, without any rivalry with Methuselah. But I’ll tell you with
+what I am by no means satisfied,--nor shall I ever feel satisfied--nor
+do I entertain any sentiment within a thousand miles of gratitude to
+the man who tells me, that food--beef and mutton, veal, lamb, &c.--are
+nothing but gas and glue. The wretch who found out the animalculæ in
+clean water was bad enough. There are simple-minded people who
+actually take this as a beverage: what must be their feelings now, if
+they reflect on the myriads of small things like lobsters; with claws
+and tails, all fighting and swallowing each other, that are disporting
+in their stomachs? But only think of him who converts your cutlet into
+charcoal, and your steak into starch! It may stick to your ribs after
+that, to be sure; but will it not stick harder to your conscience?
+With what pleasure do you help yourself to your haunch, when the
+conviction is staring you in the face, that what seems venison is but
+adipose matter and azote? That you are only making a great Nassau
+balloon of yourself when you are dreaming of hard condition, and
+preparing yourself for the fossil state when blowing the froth off
+your porter.
+
+Of latter years the great object of science would appear to be an
+earnest desire to disenchant us from all the agreeable and pleasant
+dreams we have formed of life, and to make man insignificant without
+making him humble. Thus, one class of philosophers labour hard to
+prove that manhood is but monkeyhood--that a slight adaptation of the
+tail to the customs of civilized life has enabled us to be seated;
+while the invention of looking-glasses, bear’s grease, cold cream, and
+macassar, have cultivated our looks into the present fashion.
+
+Another, having felt over our skulls, gravely asserts, “There is a
+_vis à tergo_ of wickedness implanted in us, that must find vent in
+murder and bloodshed.” While the magnetic folk would make us believe
+that we are merely a kind of ambulating electric-machine, to be
+charged at will by the first M. Lafontaine we meet with, and mayhap
+explode from over-pressure.
+
+While such liberties are taken with us without, the case is worse
+within. Our circulation is a hydraulic problem; our stomach is a
+mill--a brewing vat--a tanner’s yard--a crucible, or a retort. You
+yourself, in all the resplendent glory of your braided frock, and your
+decoration of the Guelph, are nothing but an aggregate of mechanical
+and chemical inventions, as often going wrong as right; and your wife,
+in the pride of her Parisian bonnet, and robe _à la Victorine_, is
+only gelatine and adipose substance, phosphate of lime, and a little
+arsenic.
+
+Now, let me ask, what remains to us of life, if we are to be robbed of
+every fascination and charm of existence in this fashion? And
+again--has medical science so exhausted all the details of practical
+benefit to mankind, that it is justified in these far-west
+explorations into the realms of soaring fancy, or the gloomy depths of
+chemical analysis? Hydrophobia, consumption, and tetanus are not so
+curable that we can afford to waste our sympathies on chimpanzees:
+nor is this world so pleasant that we must deny ourselves the
+advantage of all its illusions, and throw away the garment in which
+Nature has clothed her nakedness. No, no. There was sound philosophy
+in Peter, in the “Tale of a Tub,” who assured his guests that whatever
+their frail senses might think to the contrary, the hard crusts were
+excellent and tender mutton; but I see neither rhyme nor reason in
+convincing us, that amid all the triumphs of turtle and white bait,
+Ardennes ham and _pâté de Strasbourg_, our food is merely coke and
+glue, roach, lime, starch, and magnesia.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR THE ARCHITECTS.
+
+
+“God made the country,” said the poet: but in my heart I believe he
+might have added--“The devil made architects.” Few cities--I scarcely
+know of one--can boast of such environs as Dublin. The scenery,
+diversified in its character, possesses attraction for almost every
+taste: the woody glade--the romantic river--the wild and barren
+mountain--the cultivated valley--the waving upland--the bold and
+rocky coast, broken with promontory and island--are all to be found,
+even within a few miles of the capital; while, in addition, the nature
+of our climate confers a verdure and a freshness unequalled, imparting
+a depth and colour to the landscape equal to the beauty of its
+outline.
+
+Whether you travel inland or coastwise, the country presents a
+succession of sites for building, there being no style of house for
+which a suitable spot cannot readily be found; and yet, with all this,
+the perverse taste of man has contrived, by incongruous and
+ill-conceived architecture, to mar almost every point of view, and
+destroy every picturesque feature of the landscape.
+
+The liberty of the subject is a bright and glorious prerogative; and
+nowhere should its exercise be more freely conceded than in those
+arrangements an individual makes for his own domestic comfort, and the
+happiness of his home.
+
+That one man likes a room in which three people form a crowd, and that
+another prefers an apartment spacious as Exeter Hall, is a matter of
+individual taste, with which the world has nothing whatever to do.
+Your neighbour in the valley may like a cottage not larger than a
+sugar-hogshead, with rats for company and beetles for bed-fellows;
+your friend on the hill-side may build himself an imaginary castle,
+with armour for furniture, and antique weapons for ornaments;--with
+all this you have no concern--no more than with his banker’s book, or
+the thoughts of his bosom: but should the one or the other, either by
+a thing like a piggery, or an incongruous mass like a jail, destroy
+all the beauty and mar all the effect of the scenery for miles round,
+far beyond the precincts of his own small tenure--should he outrage
+all the principles of taste, and violate every sentiment of landscape
+beauty, by some poor and contemptible, or some pretentious and vulgar
+edifice--then, do I say, you are really aggrieved; and against such a
+man you have a just and equitable complaint, as one interfering with
+the natural pleasures and just enjoyments to which, as a free citizen
+of a free state, you have an indubitable, undeniable right.
+
+That waving, undulating meadow, hemmed in with its dark woods, and
+mirrored in the fair stream that flows peacefully beneath it, was
+never, surely, intended to be disfigured with a square house like a
+salt-box, and a verandah like a register-grate: the far-stretching
+line of yellow coast that you see yonder, where the calm sea is
+sleeping, land-locked by those jutting headlands, was never meant to
+be pock-marked with those vile bathing lodges, with green baize
+draperies drying before them.
+
+Was that bold and granite-sided mountain made thus to be hewed out
+into parterres for polyanthuses, and stable-lanes for Cockneys’
+carmen?--or is the margin of our glorious bay, the deep frame-work of
+the bright picture, to be carved into little terraces, with some
+half-dozen slated cabins, or a row of stiff-looking, Leeson-street-like
+houses, with brass knockers and a balcony? Forbid it, heaven! We have
+a board of wide and inconvenient streets, who watch over all the
+irregularities of municipal architecture, and a man is no more
+permitted to violate the laws of good taste, than he is suffered to
+transgress those of good morals. Why not have a similar body to
+protect the fairer part of the created globe? Is Pill-lane more sacred
+than Bray-head? Has Copper-alley stronger claims than the
+Glen-of-the-Downs? Is the Cross-poddle more classic ground than
+Poolaphuca?
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR A NEW COLONY.
+
+
+If you happen to pass by Dodd’s auction-room, on any Wednesday,
+towards the hour of three in the afternoon, the chances are about
+seven to one that you hear a sharp, smart voice articulating, somewhat
+in this fashion:--“A very handsome tea-service, ladies. What shall I
+say for this remarkably neat pattern? One tea-pot, one sugar-bowl, one
+slop-basin, and twelve cups and saucers.--Show them round, Tim,” &c.
+
+Now it is with no intention of directing the public eye to the “willow
+pattern,” that I have alluded to this circumstance. It is simply,
+because that thereby hangs an association, and I have never heard the
+eloquent expatiator on china, without thinking of the Belgian navy,
+which consists of--“One gun-boat, one pinnace, one pilot, one
+commodore, and twelve little sailors.” Unquestionably, there never was
+a cheaper piece of national extravagance than this, nor do I believe
+that any public functionary enjoys a more tranquil and undisturbed
+existence than the worthy “_ministre de la marine_,” whose duty it is
+to preside over the fleet I have mentioned. Once, and once only do I
+remember that his quiet life was shaken by the rude assault of
+political events: it was when the imposing force under his sway
+undertook a voyage of discovery some miles down the Scheldt, which
+they did alike to the surprise and admiration of the whole land.
+
+After a day’s peaceful drifting with the river’s current, they reached
+the fort of Lillo, where, _more majorum_, as night was falling, they
+prudently dropped anchor, having a due sense of the danger that might
+accrue “from running down a continent in the dark.” There was,
+besides, a feeling of high-souled pride in anchoring within sight,
+under the guns, as it were, of the Dutch fort--the insolent Dutch,
+whom they, with some aid from France--as the Irishman said of his
+marriage, for love, and a trifle of money--had driven from their
+country; and, although the fog rendered everything invisible, and the
+guns were spiked, still the act of courage was not disparaged; and
+they fell to, and sang the Brabançon, and drank Flemish beer till
+bed-time.
+
+Happy and patriotic souls! little did you know, that amid your dreams
+of national greatness, some half-dozen imps of Dutch middies were
+painting out the magnificent tricolor streaks that adorned your good
+craft, and making the whole one mass of dirty black.
+
+Such was the case, however; and when day broke, those brilliant
+emblems of Belgian independence had vanished, and in their place a
+murky line of pitch now stood.
+
+Homeward they bent their course, sadder and wiser men; and, to their
+credit be it spoken, having told their sorrows to their sage minister,
+they have lived a life of happy retirement, and never strayed beyond
+the peaceful limits of the Antwerp basin.
+
+Far be from me the unworthy object of drawing before the public gaze
+the blissful and unpretending service, that shuns the noontide glitter
+of the world’s applause, and better loves the quiet solitude of their
+own unobtrusive waters; and had they thus remained, nothing would have
+tempted me to draw them from their obscurity. But alas! national
+ambition has visited even the seclusion of this service. Not content
+with coasting voyages, some twelve miles down their muddy river--not
+satisfied with lording it over fishing smacks and herring wherries,
+this great people have resolved on becoming a maritime power in blue
+water, and running a race of rivalry with England, France, and Russia;
+and to it they have set in right earnest.
+
+They began by purchasing a steam-vessel, which happens to turn out on
+such a scale of size, as to be inadmissible into any harbour they
+possess. By dint of labour, time, cost, and great outlay, they
+succeeded, after four months, in getting her into dock. But alas! if
+it took that time to admit her, it takes six months to let her out
+again; and, when out, what are they to do with her?
+
+When Admiral Dalrymple turned farmer, he mentions in one of his
+letters, the sufferings his unhappy ignorance of all agricultural
+pursuits involved him in, and feelingly tells us: “I have given ten
+pounds for a dunghill, and would now willingly give any man twenty, to
+tell me what to do with it.” This was exactly the case with the
+Belgians. They had bought a steam-ship, they put coals in her, and a
+crew; and then, for the life and soul of them, they did not know what
+to do with them.
+
+They desired an export trade--a _débouché_ for their Namur cutlery and
+Verviers’ frieze. But where could they go? They had no colonies.
+Holland had, to be sure: but then, they had quarrelled with Holland,
+and there was no use repining. “What can’t be cured,” &c. Besides, if
+they had lost a colony, they had gained a cardinal; and if they had no
+merchantmen, they had at least high-mass; and if they were excluded
+from Batavia, why they had free access to the “Abbé Boon.”
+
+There were, however, some impracticable people engaged in traffic,
+who would not listen to these great advantages, and who were obstinate
+enough to suppose that the country was as prosperous when it had a
+market for its productions, as it was when it had none. And although
+the priests, who have multiplied some hundredfold since the
+revolution, were willing “to consume” to any extent, yet, unhappily,
+they were not as profitable customers as their _ci-devant_ friends
+beyond sea.
+
+Nothing then remained but to have a colony, and after much
+consideration, long thought, and anxious deliberation, it was
+announced to the chamber that the Belgians had a colony, and that the
+colony was called “Guatemala.”
+
+When Sancho Panza appealed to Don Quixote, to realise his promised
+dream of greatness, you may remember, he always asked for an island:
+“Make me governor of an island!” There was something defined,
+accurate, and tangible, as it were, in the sea-girt possession, that
+suggested to the honest squire’s mind the idea of perfect, independent
+rule. And in the same way, the Belgians desired to have an island.
+
+Some few, less imaginative, suspected, however, that an island must
+always have its limit to importation quicker attained than a
+continent, and they preferred some vast, unexplored tract, like India,
+or Central America, where the consumption of corduroy and cast-iron
+might have an unexhausted traffic for centuries.
+
+Now, it is a difficult condition to find out that spot on a map which
+should realise both expectations. Happily, however, M. Van de Weyer
+had to deal with a kind and confiding people, whose knowledge of
+geography is about equal to a blind man’s appreciation of scarlet or
+sky-blue. Not only, therefore, did he represent to one party, the
+newly-acquired possession as an island, and to the other as a vast
+continent, but he actually shifted its _locale_ about the globe, from
+the tropics to the north-pole, with such admirable dexterity, that not
+only is all cavil silenced about its commercial advantages, but its
+very climate has an advocate in every taste, and an admirer in every
+household. Steam-engines, therefore, are fabricated; cannon are cast;
+railroads are in preparation; broadcloth is weaving; flax is growing;
+lace is in progress, all through the kingdom, for the new colony of
+Guatemala,--whose only inhabitants are little grateful for the
+profound solicitude they are exciting, inasmuch as, being but rats and
+sea-gulls, their modes of living and thinking give them a happy
+indifference about steam-travelling, and the use of fine linen.
+
+No matter;--the country is prospering--shares are rising--speculations
+are rife--loans are effected every day in the week, and M. Van de
+Weyer sleeps in the peaceful composure of a man who knows in his
+heart, that even if they get their unwieldy craft to sea, there is not
+a man in the kingdom who could, by any ingenuity, discover the
+whereabout of the far-famed Guatemala.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+A “SWEET” NUT FOR THE YANKEES.
+
+
+Lord Chesterfield once remarked that a thoroughly vulgar man could not
+speak the most common-place word, nor perform the most ordinary act,
+without imparting to the one and the other a portion of his own inborn
+vulgarity. And exactly so is it with the Yankees; not a question can
+arise, no matter how great its importance, nor how trivial its
+bearings, upon which, the moment they express an opinion, they do not
+completely invest with their own native coarseness, insolence, and
+vulgarity. The boundary question was made a matter of violent
+invective and ruffian abuse; the right of search was treated with the
+same powers of ribaldry towards England; and now we have these amiable
+and enlightened citizens defending the wholesale piracy of British
+authors, not on the plausible but unjust pretext of the benefit to be
+derived from an extended acquaintance with English literature; but,
+only conceive! because, if “English authors were invested with any
+control over the republication of their own books, it would be no
+longer possible for American editors to alter and adapt them as they
+do now to the American taste.” However incredible this may seem, the
+passage formed part of a document actually submitted to congress, and
+favourably received by that body. This is not the place for me to
+dwell on the unprincipled usurpation by which men who have contributed
+nothing to the production of a work, assume the power of reaping its
+benefits, and profiting by its success. The wholesale robbery of
+English authors has been of late well and ably exposed. The gifted
+and accomplished author of “Darnley” and “The Gipsy” has devoted his
+time and his talents to the subject; and although the world at large
+have few sympathies with the wrongs of those who live to please them,
+yet the day is not distant when the rights of a large and influential
+body, who stamp the age with the image of their own minds, can be no
+longer neglected, and the security of literary property must become at
+least as great as of mining scrip, or the shares in a railroad.
+
+My present business is with the Yankee declaration, that English
+authors to be readable in America must be passed through the ordeal of
+re-writing. I scarcely think that the annals of impertinence and
+ignorance could equal this. What! is it seriously meant that Scott and
+Byron, Wordsworth, Southey, Rogers, Bulwer, James, Dickens, and a host
+of others, must be converted into the garbage of St. Giles, or the
+fœtid slang of Wapping, before they can pass muster before an American
+public? Must the book reek of “gin twist,” “cock tail,” and fifty
+other abominations, ere it reach an American drawing-room? Must the
+“bowie-knife and the whittling-stick” mark its pages; and the coarse
+jest of some tobacco-chewing, wild-cat-whipping penny-a-liner
+disfigure and sully the passages impressed with the glowing brilliancy
+of Scott, or the impetuous torrent of Byron’s genius? Is this a true
+picture of America? Is her reading public indeed degraded to this
+pass? I certainly have few sympathies with brother Jonathan. I like
+not his spirit of boastful insolence, his rude speech, or his
+uncultivated habits; but I confess I am unwilling to credit this. I
+hesitate to believe in such an amount of intellectual depravity as can
+turn from the cultivated writings of Scott and Bulwer to revel in the
+coarseness and vulgarity of a Yankee editor, vamping up his stolen
+wares with oaths from the far west, or vapid jests from life in the
+Prairies. Again, what shall I say of those who follow this traffic? Is
+it not enough to steal that which is not theirs, to possess themselves
+of what they have no right or claim to? Must they mangle the corpse
+when they have extinguished life? Must they, while they cheat the
+author of his gain, rob him also of his fair fame? “He who steals my
+purse steals trash,” but how shall I characterise that extent of
+baseness that dares to step in between an author and his
+reputation--inserting between him and posterity their own illiterate
+degeneracy and insufferable stupidity?
+
+Would not the ghost of Sir Walter shudder in his grave at the thought
+of the fair creations of his mind--Jeanie Deans and Rebecca--Yankeefied
+into women of Long Island, or damsels from Connecticut? Is Childe
+Harold to be a Kentucky-man? and are the vivid pictures of life
+Bulwer’s novels abound in, to be converted into the prison-discipline
+school of manners, that prevail in New York and Boston, where, as
+Hamilton remarks, “the men are about as like gentlemen, as are our new
+police?” What should we say of the person who having stolen a
+Rembrandt or a Vandyke from its owner, would seek to legalise his
+theft by daubing over the picture with his own colours--obliterating
+every trace of the great master, and exulting that every stroke of his
+brush defaced some touch of genius, and that beneath the savage
+vandalism of his act, every lineament of the artist was obliterated? I
+ask you, would not mere robbery be a virtue beside such a deed as
+this? Who could compare the sinful promptings to which want and
+starvation give birth to, to the ruffian profligacy of such
+barbarity? And now, when I tell you, that not content with this, not
+satisfied to desecrate the work, the wretch goes a step farther and
+stabs its author--what shall I say of him now, who, when he had
+defaced the picture, marred every effect, distorted all drawing, and
+rendered the whole a chaotic mass of indistinguishable nonsense, goes
+forth to the world, and announces, “This is a Rembrandt, this is a
+Vandyke: ay, look at it and wonder: but with all its faults, and all
+its demerits, it is cried up above our native artists; it has got the
+seal of the old world’s approval upon it, and in vain we of younger
+origin shall dare to dissent from its judgments.” Now, once more, I
+say, can you show the equal of this moral turpitude? and such I pledge
+myself is the conduct of your transatlantic pirates with respect to
+British literature. Mr. Dickens, no mean authority, asserts that in
+the same sheet in which they boast the sale of many thousand copies of
+an English reprint, they coarsely attack the author of that very book,
+and heap scurrility and slander on his head.
+
+Yes, such is the fact; not satisfied with robbery, they murder
+reputation also. And then we find them expatiating in most moving
+terms over the superiority of their own neglected genius!
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR THE SEASON--JULLIEN’S QUADRILLES.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+A very curious paper might be made by any one who, after an absence of
+some years from Ireland, should chronicle his new impressions of the
+country, and compare them with his old ones. The changes time works
+everywhere, even in a brief space, are remarkable, but particularly so
+in a land where everything is in a state of transition--where the
+violence with which all subjects are treated, the excited tone people
+are wont to assume on every topic, are continually producing their
+effects on society--dismembering old alliances--begetting new
+combinations. Such is the case with us here; and every year evidences
+by the strange anomalies it presents in politics, parties, public
+feeling, and private habits, how little chance there is for a prophet
+to make a character by his predictions regarding Ireland. He would,
+indeed, be a skilful chemist who would attempt the analysis of our
+complex nature; but far greater and more gifted must he be, who, from
+any consideration of the elements, would venture to pronounce on the
+probable results of their action and re-action, and declare what we
+shall be some twenty years hence.
+
+Oh, for a good Irish “Rip van Winkle,” who would at least let us look
+on the two pictures--what we were, and what we are. He should be a
+Clare man--none others have the same shrewd insight into character,
+the same intuitive knowledge of life; none others detect, like them,
+the flaws and fractures in human nature. There may be more
+mathematical genius in Cork, and more classic lore in Kerry; there may
+be, I know there is, a more astute and patient pains-taking spirit of
+calculation in the northern counties; but for the man who is only to
+have one rapid glance at the game, and say how it fares--to throw a
+quick _coup-d’œil_ on the board, and declare the winner, Clare for
+ever!
+
+Were I a lawgiver, I would admit any attorney to practise who should
+produce sufficient evidence of his having served half the usual time
+of apprenticeship in Ennis. The Pontine marshes are not so prolific of
+fever, as the air of that country of ready-witted intelligence and
+smartness; and now, ere I return from my digression, let me solemnly
+declare, that, for the opinion here expressed, I have not received any
+money or moneys, nor do I expect to receive such, or any place,
+pension, or other reward, from Tom Steele or any one else concerned.
+
+Well, we have not got this same western “Rip van Winkle,” nor do I
+think we are likely to do so, for this simple reason, that if he were
+a Clare man, he’d never have been caught “napping;” so, now, let us
+look about us and see if, on the very surface of events, we shall not
+find something to our purpose. But where to begin, that’s the
+question: no clue is left to the absentee of a few years by which to
+guide his path. He may look in vain even for the old landmarks which
+he remembered in boyhood; for somehow he finds them all in
+masquerade. The goodly King William he had left in all the effulgence
+of his Orange livery, is now a cross between a river-god and one of
+Dan’s footmen. Let him turn to the Mansion-house to revive his memory
+of the glorious hip, hip, hurra’s he has shouted in the exuberance of
+his loyalty, and straightway he comes plump against Lord Mayor
+O’Connell, proceeding in state to Marlborough-street chapel. He asks
+who are these plump gentlemen with light blue silk collars, and
+well-rounded calves, whose haughty bearing seems to awe the beholders,
+and he is told that he knew them of old, as wearing dusky black coats
+and leather shorts; pleasant fellows in those days, and well versed in
+punch and polemics. The hackney-coaches have been cut down into
+covered cars, and the “bulky” watchmen reduced to new police. Let him
+turn which way he will--let it be his pleasure to hear the popular
+preacher, the eloquent lawyer, or the scientific lecturer, and if his
+memory be only as accurate as his hearing, he will confess “time’s
+changes;” and when he learns who are deemed the fashionable
+entertainers of the day--at whose boards sit lords and baronets most
+frequently, he will exclaim with the poet--
+
+    “Pritchard’s genteel, and Garrick’s six feet high.”
+
+Well, well, it’s bad philosophy, and bad temper, too, to quarrel with
+what is; nowhere is the wisdom of Providence more seen than in the
+universal law, by which everything has its place somewhere; the
+gnarled and bent sapling that would be rejected by the builder, is
+exactly the piece adapted for the knee timber of a frigate; the
+jagged, ill-formed rock that would ill suit the polished portico, is
+invaluable in a rustic arch; and, perhaps, on the same principle,
+dull lawyers make excellent judges, and the people who cannot speak
+within the limits of Lindley Murray, are admirable public writers and
+excellent critics; and as Doctor Pangloss was a good man “because he
+knew what wickedness was,” so nothing contributes to the detection of
+faults in others, like the daily practice of their commission by
+ourselves; and never can any man predict failure to another with such
+eloquence and impressiveness, as when he himself has experienced what
+it is to “be damned.”
+
+Here I am in another digression, and sorry am I not to follow it out
+further; but for the present I must not--so now, to try back: I will
+suppose my absentee friend to have passed his “day in town,” amazed
+and surprised at the various changes about him; I will not bewilder
+him with any glance at our politics, nor puzzle him with that game of
+cross corners by which every one seems to have changed his place; nor
+attempt any explanation of the mysterious doctrine by which the party
+which affects the strongest attachment to the sovereign should exult
+in any defeat to her armies; nor how the supporters of the government
+contribute to its stability, by rabid attacks on its members, and
+absurd comparisons of their own fitness for affairs, with the heads of
+our best and wisest. These things he must have remembered long ago,
+and with respect to them, we are pretty much as we were; but I will
+introduce him to an evening party--a society where the _élite_ of
+Dublin are assembled; where, amid the glare of wax lights, and the
+more brilliant blaze of beauty, our fairest women and most gifted and
+exalted men are met together for enjoyment. At first blush there will
+appear to him to have been no alteration nor change here. Even the
+very faces he will remember are the same he saw a dozen years ago:
+some pursy gentlemen with bald foreheads or grey whiskers who danced
+before, are now grown whisters; a few of the ladies, who then figured
+in the quadrille, have assumed the turban, and occupy an ottoman; the
+gay, laughing, light-hearted youth he formerly hobnobbed with at
+supper, is become a rising barrister, and has got up a look of learned
+pre-occupation, much more imposing to his sister than to Sir Edward
+Sugden; the wild, reckless collegeman, whose name was a talisman in
+the “Shades,” is now a soft-voiced young physician, vibrating in his
+imitation of the two great leaders in his art, and alternately
+assuming the “Epic or the Lake” school of physic. All this may amuse,
+but cannot amaze him: such is the natural current of events, and he
+ought to be prepared for it. The evening wears on, however; the frigid
+politeness and ceremonious distance which we have for some years back
+been borrowing from our neighbours, and which seem to suit our warmer
+natures pretty much as a suit of plate armour would a _danseuse_ in a
+ballet--this begins to wear off, and melt away before the genial heat
+of Irish temperament; “the mirth and fun grow fast and furious;” and a
+new dance is called for. What, then, is the amazement, shall I say the
+horror, of our friend to hear the band strike up a tune which he only
+remembered as associated with everything base, low, and disgraceful;
+which, in the days of his “libertine youth,” he only heard at riotous
+carousals and roistering festivals; whose every bar is associated with
+words--ay, there’s the rub--which, in his maturer years, he blushes to
+have listened to! he stares about him in wonderment; for a moment he
+forgets that the young lady who dances with such evident enjoyment of
+the air, is ignorant of its history; he watches her sparkling eye and
+animated gesture, without remembering that _she_ knows nothing of the
+associations at which her partner is, perhaps, smirking; he sees her
+_vis-à-vis_ exchanging looks with his friend, that denote _their_
+estimation of the music; and in very truth, so puzzled is he, he
+begins to distrust his senses. The air ceases, and is succeeded by
+another no less known, no less steeped in the same class of
+associations, and so to the conclusion. These remembrances of past
+wickedness go on “crescendo,” till the _finale_ caps the whole with a
+melody, to which even the restraints of society are scarcely able to
+prevent a humming accompaniment of concurring voices, and--these are
+the Irish Quadrilles! What can account for this? What special pleading
+will find an argument in its favour? When Wesley objected to all the
+good music being given to the devil, he only excused his adoption of
+certain airs which, in their popular form, had never been connected
+with religious words and feelings; and in his selection of them, was
+rigidly mindful to take such only as in their character became easily
+convertible to his purpose: he never enlisted those to which, by an
+unhappy destiny, vulgarising and indelicate associations have been so
+connected as to become inseparably identified; and although the object
+is widely different, I cannot see how, for the purposes of social
+enjoyment, we should have diverged from his example. If we wished a
+set of Irish quadrilles, how many good and suitable airs had we not
+ready at our hands? Is not our national music proverbially rich, and
+in the very character of music that would suit us? Are there not airs
+in hundreds, whose very names are linked with pleasing and poetic
+memories, admirably adapted to the purpose? Why commit the choice, as
+in this case, to a foreigner who knew nothing of them, nor of us? And
+why permit him to introduce into our drawing-rooms, through the means
+of a quadrille band, a class of reminiscences which suggest levity in
+young men, and shame in old ones? No, no; if the Irish quadrilles are
+to be fashionable, let it be in those classic precincts where their
+merits are best appreciated, and let Monsieur Jullien’s popularity be
+great in Barrack-street!
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR “ALL IRELAND.”
+
+
+From Carrickfergus to Cape Clear, the whole island is on the “_qui
+vive_” as to whether her gracious majesty the queen will vouchsafe to
+visit us in the ensuing summer. The hospitable and magnificent
+reception which awaited her in Scotland has given a more than ordinary
+impulse to every plan by which we might evince our loyalty, and
+exhibit ourselves to our sovereign in a point of view not less
+favourable than our worthy neighbours across the sea.
+
+At first blush, nothing would seem more easy to accomplish than this.
+A very cursory glance at Mr. O’Connell’s speeches will convince any
+one that a land more favourably endowed by nature, or blessed with a
+finer peasantry, never existed: with features of picturesque beauty
+dividing the attention of the traveller, with the fertility of the
+soil; and, in fact, presenting such a panorama of loveliness, peace,
+plenty, and tranquillity, that a very natural doubt might occur to Sir
+Robert Peel’s mind in recommending this excursion to her majesty,
+lest the charms of such an Arcadia should supersede the more homely
+attractions of England, and “our ladye the queene” preferring the
+lodge in the Phœnix to the ancient towers of Windsor, fix her
+residence amongst us, and thus at once repeal the Union.
+
+It were difficult to say if some vision of this kind did not float
+across the exalted imagination of the illustrious Daniel, amid that
+shower of fortune’s favours such a visit would inevitably bring
+down--baronetcies, knighthood, deputy-lieutenancies would rain upon
+the land, and a general epidemic of feasting and festivity raise every
+heart in the island, and nearly break Father Mathew’s.
+
+If the Scotch be warm in their attachment, our affections stand at a
+white heat; if they be enthusiastic, we can go clean mad; and for that
+one bepraised individual who boasted he would never wash the hand
+which had the honour to touch that of the queen, we could produce a
+round ten thousand whose loyalty, looking both ways, would enable
+them, under such circumstances, to claim superiority, as they had
+never washed theirs since the hour of their birth.
+
+Notwithstanding all these elements of hospitality, a more mature
+consideration of the question would show how very difficult it would
+be to compete successfully with the visit to Scotland. Clanship, the
+remains of feudalism, and historical associations, whose dark colours
+have been brought out into glowing brightness under the magic pencil
+of Scott--national costume and national customs--the wild sports of
+the wilder regions--all conspired to give a peculiar interest to this
+royal progress; and from the lordly Baron of Breadalbane to the kilted
+Highlander upon the hills, there was something of ancient splendour
+and by-gone homeliness mixed up together that may well have evoked the
+exclamation of our queen, who, standing on the terrace at Drummond,
+and gazing on the scene below her, uttered--“HOW GRAND!”
+
+Now, unfortunately in many, if not in all these advantages, we have no
+participation. Clanship is unknown amongst us,--only one Irishman has
+a tail, and even that is as ragged an appendage as need be. Our
+national costume is nakedness; and of our national customs, we may
+answer as the sailor did, who, being asked what he had to say in his
+defence against a charge of stealing a quadrant, sagely replied--“Your
+worship, it’s a damn’d ugly business, and the less that’s said about
+it the better.”
+
+Two doubts press upon us--who is to receive her Majesty; and how are
+they to do it? They who have large houses generally happen to have
+small fortunes, and among the few who have adequate means, there is
+scarcely one who could accommodate one half of the royal suite. In
+Scotland, everything worthy of being seen lies in a ring-fence. The
+Highlands comprise all that is remarkable in the country; and thus the
+tour of them presents a quick succession of picturesque beauty without
+the interval of even half a day’s journey devoid of interest. Now, how
+many weary miles must her Majesty travel in Ireland from one
+remarkable spot to another--what scenes of misery and want must she
+wade through from the south to the west. Would any charms of
+scenery--would any warmth of hospitality--repay her for the anguish
+such misery must inflict upon her, as her eye would range over the
+wild tract of country where want and disease seem to have fixed their
+dwelling, and where the only edifice that rises above the mud-cabin
+of the way-side presents the red brick front of a union poor-house?
+These, however, are sad topics--what are we to do with the Prince? His
+Royal Highness loves sporting: we have scarcely a pheasant--we have
+not one capercailzie in the island; but then we have our national
+pastimes. If we cannot turn out a stag to amuse him, why we can
+enlarge a tithe-proctor; and, instead of coming home proud that he has
+bagged a roe, he shall exult in having brought down a rector. How poor
+and insignificant would any _battue_ be in comparison with a good
+midnight burning--how contemptible the pursuit of rabbits and hares,
+when compared with a “tithe affray,” or the last collision with the
+military in Tipperary. I have said that the Scotch have a national
+costume; but if _semi_-nakedness be a charm in them, what shall be
+said of us, who go the “whole hog?” The details of their ancient
+dress--their tartan, their kilt, their philabeg, that offered so much
+interest to the royal suite--how shall they vie with the
+million-coloured patches of an Irishman’s garment? or what bonnet that
+ever flaunted in the breeze is fit to compare with the easy jauntiness
+of Paddy’s _caubeen_, through which, in lieu of a feather, a lock of
+his hair is floating?
+
+    “Nor clasp nor nodding plume was there;
+    But for feather he wore one lock of hair.”
+
+                                        _Marmion._
+
+
+Then, again, how will the watch-fires that blazed upon the mountains
+pale before the glare of a burning haggard; and what cheer that ever
+rose from Highland throats will vie with the wild yell of ten thousand
+Black-feet on the march of a midnight marauding? No, no; it is quite
+clear the Scotch have no chance with us. Her Majesty may not have all
+her expectations fulfilled by a visit to Ireland; but most assuredly a
+“touch of our quality” will show her many things no near country could
+present, and the probability is, she will neither have time nor
+leisure for a trip to New Zealand.
+
+Everything that indicates nationality will then have its reward. Grave
+dignitaries of the Church will practise the bagpipes, and
+prothonotaries will refresh their jig-dancing; whatever is Irish, will
+be _la vogue_; and, instead of reading that her Majesty wore a shawl
+of the Gordon tartan, manufactured at Paisley, we shall find that the
+Queen appeared in a novel pattern of rags, devised at Mud Island;
+while his Royal Highness will compliment the mildness of our climate
+by adopting our national dress. What a day for Ireland that will
+be!--we shall indeed be “great, glorious, and free;” and if the
+evening only concludes with the Irish Quadrilles, I have little doubt
+that her Majesty will repeat her exclamation of “How grand!” as she
+beholds the members of the royal suite moving gracefully to the air of
+“Stonybatter.”
+
+Let us, then, begin in time. Let there be an order of council to
+preserve all the parsons, agents, tithe-proctors, and landlords till
+June; let there be no more shooting in Tipperary for the rest of the
+season; let us “burke” Father Mathew, and endeavour to make our heads
+for the approaching festivities; and what between the new poor-law and
+the tariff, I think we shall be by that time in as picturesque a state
+of poverty as the most critical stickler for nationality would
+desire.
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR “A NEW COMPANY.”
+
+
+By no one circumstance in our social condition is a foreigner more
+struck than by the fact that there is not a want, an ailing, an
+incapacity for which British philanthropy has not supplied its remedy
+of some sort or other. A very cursory glance at the advertising
+columns of the _Times_ will be all-sufficient to establish this
+assertion. Mental and bodily infirmities, pecuniary difficulties,
+family afflictions, natural defects, have all their separate _corps_
+of comforters; and there is no suffering condition in life that has
+not a benevolent paragraph specially addressed to its consolation. To
+the “afflicted with gout;” to “all with corns and bunions;” to “the
+friends of a nervous invalid”--who is, by the bye, invariably a
+vicious madman; to “the childless;” to “those about to marry.” Such
+are the headings of various little crumbs of comfort by which the
+active philanthropy of England sustains its reputation, and fills its
+pocket. From tooth-powder to tea-trays--from spring-mattrasses to
+fictitious mineral waters--from French blacking to the Widow Welch’s
+Pills--all have their separate votaries; and it would be difficult to
+conceive any real or imaginary want unsupplied in this prolific age of
+contrivance.
+
+A gentleman might descend from the moon, like our clever friend, “The
+Commissioner,” and, by a little attention to these plausible
+paragraphs, become as thoroughly John Bull in all his habits and
+observances as though he were born within St. Pancras. “A widow lady
+with two daughters would take a gentleman to board, where all the
+advantages and comforts of a private family might be found, within ten
+minutes’ walk from Greenwich. Unexceptionable references will be given
+and expected on either side.” Here, without a moment’s delay, he might
+be domiciled in an English family; here he might retire from all the
+cares and troubles of life, enjoying the tranquil pleasures of the
+widow’s society, with no other risk or danger, save that of falling in
+love with one or both of the fair daughters, who have “a taste for
+music,” and “speak French.”
+
+It is said that few countries offer less resources to the stranger
+than England; which I stoutly deny, and assert that no land has set up
+so many sign-posts by which to guide the traveller--so many directions
+by which to advise his course. With us there is no risk of doing
+anything inappropriate, or incompatible with your station, if you will
+only suffer yourself to be borne along on the current. Your tailor
+knows not only the precise shade of colour which suits your
+complexion, but, as if by intuition, he divines the exact cut that
+suits your condition in life. Your coachmaker, in the same way, augurs
+from the tone of your voice, and the _contour_ of your features, the
+shade of colour for your carriage; and should you, by any misfortune,
+happen to be knighted, the Herald’s-office deduce, from the very
+consonants of your name, the _quantum_ of emblazonry they can bestow
+on you, and from how far back among the burglars and highwaymen of
+antiquity they can venture to trace you. Should you, however, still
+more unfortunately, through any ignorance of etiquette, or any
+inattention to those minor forms of breeding with which every native
+is conversant, offer umbrage, however slight and unintentional, to
+those dread functionaries, the “new police;” were you by chance to
+gaze longer into a jeweller’s window than is deemed decorous; were you
+to fall into any reverie which should induce you to slacken your pace,
+perchance to hum a tune, and thus be brought before the awful “Sir
+Peter,” charged by “G 743” with having impeded the passengers--collected
+a crowd--being of suspicious appearance, and having refused “to tell
+who your friends were”--the odds are strongly against you that you
+perform a hornpipe upon the treadmill, or be employed in that very
+elegant chemical analysis, which consists in the extraction of
+magnesia from oyster-shells.
+
+Now, let any man consider for a moment what a large, interesting, and
+annually-increasing portion of our population there is, who, from
+certain peculiarities attending their early condition, have never been
+blessed with relatives or kindred--who, having no available father and
+mother, have consequently no uncles, aunts, or cousins, nor any good
+friends. Here the law presses with a fearful severity upon the
+suffering and the afflicted, not upon the guilty and offending. The
+state has provided no possible contingencies by which such persons are
+to escape. A man can no more create a paternity than he can make a new
+planet. I have already said that with wealth at his disposal, ancestry
+and forefathers are easily procured. He can have them of any age, of
+any country, of any condition in life--churchmen or laymen--dignitaries
+of the law or violators of it;--’tis all one, they are made to order.
+But let him be in ever such urgent want of a near relative; let it be
+a kind and affectionate father, an attached and doting mother, that he
+stands in need of--he may study _The Times_ and _The Herald_--he may
+read _The Chronicle_ and _The Globe_, in vain! No benevolent society
+has directed its philanthropy in this channel; and not even a
+cross-grained uncle or a penurious aunt can be had for love or money.
+
+Now this subject presents itself in two distinct views--one as regards
+its humanity, the other its expediency. As the latter, in the year of
+our Lord, 1844, would seem to offer a stronger claim on our attention,
+let us examine it first. Consider them how you will, these people form
+the most dangerous class of our population--these are the “waifs and
+strays” of mankind. Like snags and sawyers in the Mississippi, having
+no voyage to perform in life, their whole aim and destiny seems to be
+the shipwreck of others. With one end embedded in the mud of uncertain
+parentage, with the other they keep bobbing above the waves of life;
+but let them rise ever so high, they feel they cannot be extricated.
+
+If rich, their happiness is crossed by their sense of isolation; for
+them there are no plum-pudding festivals at Christmas, no family
+goose-devourings at Michaelmas. They have none of those hundred little
+ties and torments which weary and diversify life. They have acres, but
+they have no uncles--they have gardens and graperies, but they cannot
+raise a grandfather--they may have a future, but they have scarcely a
+present; and they have no past.
+
+Should they be poor, their solitary state suggests recklessness and
+vice. It is the restraint of early years that begets submission to the
+law later on, and he who has not learned the lesson of obedience when
+a child, is not an apt scholar when he becomes a man. This, however,
+is a part of the moral and humane consideration of the question, and
+like most other humane considerations, involves expense. With that we
+have nothing to do; our present business is with the rich; for their
+comfort and convenience our hint is intended, and our object to
+supply, on the shortest notice, and the most reasonable terms, such
+relatives of either sex as the applicant shall stand in need of.
+
+Let there be, therefore, established a new joint stock company to be
+called the “GRAND UNITED ANCESTRAL, KINDRED, AND BLOOD RELATION
+SOCIETY”--capital any number of pounds sterling. Actuaries--Messrs.
+Oliver Twist and Jacob Faithful.
+
+Only think of the benefits of such a company! Reflect upon the numbers
+who leave their homes every morning without parentage, and who might
+now possess any amount of relatives they desire before night. Every
+one knows that a respectable livelihood is made by a set of persons
+whose occupation it is to become bails at the different police
+offices, for any class of offence, and to any amount. They exercise
+their calling somewhat like bill-brokers, taking special pains always
+to secure themselves against loss, and make a trifle of money, while
+displaying an unbounded philanthropy. Here then is a class of persons
+most appropriate for our purpose: fathers, uncles, first cousins, even
+grandfathers, might be made out of these at a moment’s notice. What
+affecting scenes, too, might be got up at Bow-street, under such
+circumstances, of penitent sons, and pardoning parents, of unforgiving
+uncles and imploring nephews. How would the eloquence of the
+worshipful bench revel, on such occasions, for its display. What
+admonitions would it not pour forth, what warnings, what
+commiseration, and what condolings. Then what a satisfaction to the
+culprit to know that all these things were managed by a respectable
+company, who were “responsible in every case for the good conduct of
+its servants.” No extortion permitted--no bribery allowed; a regular
+rate of charges being printed, which every individual was bound, like
+a cab-man, to show if required.
+
+So much for a father, if respectable; so much more, if professional;
+or in private life, increased premium. An angry parent, we’ll say two
+and sixpence; sorrowful, three shillings; “deeply afflicted and bound
+to weep,” five shillings.
+
+A widowed mother, in good weeds, one and sixpence; do, do, in a cab,
+half a crown; and so on.
+
+How many are there besides who, not actually in the condition we speak
+of, would be delighted to avail themselves of the benefits of this
+institution. How many moving in the society of the west end, with a
+father a tobacconist or a cheesemonger in the city, would gladly pay
+well for a fashionable parent supposed to live upon his estate in
+Yorkshire, or entertaining, as the _Morning Post_ has it, a
+“distinguished party at his shooting lodge in the Highlands.” What a
+luxury, when dining his friends at the Clarendon, to be able to talk
+of his “Old Governor” hunting his hounds twice a week, while, at the
+same moment, the real individual was engaged in the manufacture of
+soap and short sixes. What happiness to recommend the game-pie, when
+the grouse was sent by his Uncle, while he felt that the only
+individual who stood in that capacity respecting him, had three gilt
+balls over his door, and was more conversant with duplicates than
+double barrels.
+
+But why pursue a theme whose benefits are self-evident, and come home
+to every bosom in the vast community. It is one of “the wants of our
+age,” and we hope ere long to see the “fathers” as much respected in
+Clerkenwell or College-street, as ever they were in Clongowes or
+Maynooth.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A NUT FOR “POLITICAL ECONOMISTS.”
+
+
+This is the age of political economists and their nostrums. Every
+newspaper teems with projects for the amelioration of our working
+classes, and the land is full of farming societies, temperance unions,
+and a hundred other Peter Purcellisms, to improve its social
+condition; the charge to make us
+
+    “Great, glorious, and free,”
+
+remaining with that estimable and irreproachable individual who
+tumbles in Lower Abbey-street.
+
+The Frenchman’s horse would, it is said, have inevitably finished his
+education, and accomplished the faculty of existing without food, had
+he only survived another twenty-four hours. Now, the condition of
+Ireland is not very dissimilar, and I only hope that we may have
+sufficient tenacity of life to outlive the numerous schemes for our
+prosperity and advancement.
+
+Nothing, indeed, can be more singular than the manner of every
+endeavour to benefit his country. We are poor--every man of us is only
+struggling; therefore, we are recommended to build expensive
+poorhouses, and fill them with some of ourselves. We have scarcely
+wherewithal to meet the ordinary demands of life, and straightway are
+told to subscribe to various new societies--repeal funds--agricultural
+clubs--O’Connell tributes--and Mathew testimonials. This, to any
+short-sighted person, might appear a very novel mode of filling our
+own pockets. There are one-idea’d people in the world, who can only
+take up the impression which, at first blush, any subject suggests;
+they, I say, might fancy that a continued system of donation,
+unattended by anything like receipt, is not exactly the surest element
+of individual prosperity. I hope to be able to controvert this
+plausible, but shallow theory, and to show--and what a happy thing it
+is for us--to show that, not only is our poverty the source of our
+greatest prosperity, but that if by any accident we should become
+rich, we must inevitably be ruined; and to begin--
+
+Absenteeism is agreed on all hands to be the bane of Ireland. No one,
+whatever be his party prejudices, will venture to deny this. The
+high-principled and well-informed country gentleman professes this
+opinion in common with the illiterate and rabid follower of
+O’Connell; I need not, therefore, insist further on a proposition so
+universally acknowledged. To proceed--of all people, none are so
+naturally absentees as the Irish; in fact, it would seem that one
+great feature of our patriotism consists in the desire to display, in
+other lands, the ardent attachment we bear our own. How can we tell
+Frenchmen, Italians, Germans, Russians, Swedes, and Swiss, how devoted
+we are to the country of our birth, if we do not go abroad to do so?
+How can we shed tears as exiles, unless we become so? How can we rail
+about the wrongs of Ireland and English tyranny, if we do not go among
+people, who, being perfectly ignorant of both, may chance to believe
+us? These are the patriotic arguments for absenteeism; then come
+others, which may be classed under the head of “expediency reasons,”
+such as debts, duns, outlawries, &c. Thirdly, the temptations of the
+Continent, which, to a certain class of our countrymen, are of the
+very strongest description--Corn Exchange politics, vulgar associates,
+an air of bully, and a voice of brogue, will not form such obstacles
+to success in Paris, as in Dublin. A man can scarcely introduce an
+Irish provincialism into his French, and he would be a clever fellow
+who could accomplish a bull under a twelvemonth. These, then, form the
+social reasons; and from a short revision of all three, it will be
+seen that they include a very large proportion of the land--Mr.
+O’Connell talks of them as seven millions.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It being now proved, I hope, to my reader’s satisfaction, that the
+bent of an Irishman is to go abroad, let us briefly inquire, what is
+it that ever prevents him so doing? The answer is an easy one. When
+Paddy was told by his priest that whenever he went into a
+public-house to drink, his guardian angel stood weeping at the door,
+his ready reply was, “that if he had a tester he’d have been in too;”
+so it is exactly with absenteeism; it is only poverty that checks it.
+The man with five pounds in his pocket starts to spend it in England;
+make it _ten_, and he goes to Paris; _fifteen_, and he’s up the Rhine;
+_twenty_, and Constantinople is not far enough for him! Whereas, if
+the sum of his wealth had been a matter of shillings, he’d have been
+satisfied with a trip to Kingstown, a chop at Jude’s, a place in the
+pit, and a penny to the repeal fund; all of which would redound to his
+patriotism, and the “prosperity of Ireland.”
+
+The same line of argument applies to every feature of expense. If we
+patronise “Irish manufacture,” it is because we cannot afford English.
+If we like Dublin society, it is upon the same principle; and, in
+fact, the cheap pleasures of home, form the sheet-anchor of our
+patriotism, and we are only “guardian angels,” because “we haven’t a
+tester.”
+
+Away then with any flimsy endeavours to introduce English capital or
+Scotch industry. Let us persevere in our present habits of mutual
+dislike, attack, and recrimination; let us interfere with the projects
+of English civilisation, and forward, by every means in our power, the
+enlightened doctrines of popery, and the patriotic pastime of
+parson-shooting, for even in sporting we dispense with a “game
+license;” let no influx of wealth offer to us the seduction of
+quitting home, and never let us feel with our national poet that
+“Ireland is a beautiful country to live out of.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR “GRAND DUKES.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+God help me but I have always looked upon a “grand duke” pretty much
+in the same light that I have regarded the “Great Lama,” that is to
+say, a very singular and curious object of worship in its native
+country. How any thing totally destitute of sovereign attributes could
+ever be an idol, either for religious or political adoration, is
+somewhat singular, and after much pains and reflections on the
+subject, I came to the opinion, that German princes were valued by
+their subjects pretty much on the principle the Indians select their
+idols, and knowing men admire thorough-bred Scotch terriers--viz., not
+their beauty.
+
+Of all the cant this most canting age abounds in, nothing is more
+repulsive and disgusting than the absurd laudation which travellers
+pour forth concerning these people, by the very ludicrous blunder of
+comparing a foreign aristocracy with our own. Now, what is a German
+grand duke? Picture to yourself a very corpulent, moustached, and
+befrogged individual, who has a territory about the size of the Phœnix
+Park, and a city as big and as flourishing as the Blackrock; the
+expenses of his civil list are defrayed by a chalybeate spring, and
+the budget of his army by the license of a gambling-house, and then
+read the following passage from “Howitt’s Life in Germany,” which,
+with that admirable appreciation of excellence so eminently their
+characteristic, the newspapers have been copying this week past--
+
+“You may sometimes see a grand duke come into a country inn, call for
+his glass of ale, drink it, pay for it, and go away as unceremoniously
+as yourself. The consequence of this easy familiarity is, that princes
+are everywhere popular, and the daily occurrence of their presence
+amongst the people, prevents that absurd crush and stare at them,
+which prevails in more luxurious and exclusive countries.”
+
+That princes do go into country inns, call for ale, and drink it, I
+firmly believe; a circumstance, however, which I put the less value
+upon, inasmuch as the inn is pretty much like the prince’s own house,
+the ale very like what he has at home, and the innkeeper as near as
+possible, in breeding, manner, and appearance, his equal. That he
+_pays_ for the drink, which our author takes pains to mention, excites
+all my admiration; but I confess I have no words to express my
+pleasure on reading that “he goes away again,” and, as Mr. Howitt has
+it, “as unceremoniously as yourself,” neither stopping to crack the
+landlord’s crown, smash the pewter, break the till, nor even put a
+star in the looking-glass over the fire-place, a condescension on his
+part which leads to the fact, that “princes are everywhere popular.”
+
+Now, considering that Mr. Howitt is a Quaker, it is somewhat
+remarkable the high estimate he entertains of this “grand ducal”
+forbearance. What he expected his highness to have done when he had
+finished his drink, I am as much at a loss to conjecture, as what
+trait we are called upon to admire in the entire circumstance; when
+the German prince went into the inn, and knocking three times with a
+copper kreutzer on the counter, called for his choppin of beer, he was
+exactly acting up to the ordinary habits of his station, as when the
+Duke of Northumberland, on his arriving with four carriages at the
+“Clarendon,” occupied a complete suite of apartments, and partook of a
+most sumptuous dinner. Neither more nor less. His Grace of Alnwick
+might as well be lauded for his ducal urbanity as the German prince
+for his, each was fulfilling his destiny in his own way, and there was
+not anything a whit more worthy of admiration in the one case, than in
+the other.
+
+But three hundred pounds per annum, even in a cheap country, afford
+few luxuries; and if the Germans are indifferent to cholic, there
+might be, after all, something praiseworthy in the beer-drinking, and
+here I leave it.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR THE EAST INDIA DIRECTORS.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+When the East India Directors recalled Lord Ellenborough, and replaced
+him by Sir Henry Harding, the impression upon the public mind was, as
+was natural it should be, that the course of policy adopted by the
+former, was such as met not their approval, and should not be
+persisted in by his successor.
+
+To supersede one man by another, that he might perform the very same
+acts in the same way, would be something too ludicrous and absurd.
+When John Bull chassées the Tories, and takes to the Whigs, it is
+because he has had enough of Peel, and wants to try a stage with Lord
+John, who handles the ribbons differently, and drives another sort of
+a team; a piebald set of screws they are, to be sure, but they can go
+the pace when they are at it; and, as the road generally lies
+downhill, they get along right merrily. But John would never think of
+a change, if the pace were to be always the same. No; he’d just put up
+with the set he had, and take his chance. Not so your India Directors.
+They are quite satisfied with everything; all is right, orderly, and
+proper; but still they would rather that another man were at the head
+of affairs, to do exactly what had been done before. “What are you
+doing, Peter?”--“Nothing, sir.” “And you, Jem, what are you
+about?”--“Helping Peter, sir.” That is precisely the case, and Sir
+Henry is gone out to help Lord Ellenborough.
+
+Such a line of proceeding is doubtless singular enough, and many
+sensible people there are, who cannot comprehend the object and
+intention of the wise Directors; while, by the press, severe
+imputations have been thrown upon their consistency and intelligence,
+and some have gone so far as to call their conduct unparalleled.
+
+This, however, is unjust. The Old Almanack, as Lord Brougham would
+call it, has registered a not inapplicable precedent; and, in the
+anxious hope of being remembered by the “Old Lady,” I hasten to
+mention it:--
+
+When Louis XIV. grew tired of Madame la Vallière, and desired to
+replace her by another in his favour, he committed the difficult task
+of explanation on the subject, to his faithful friend and confessor,
+Bossuet. The worthy Bishop undertook his delicate mission with
+diffidence; but he executed it with tact. The gentle La Vallière wept
+bitterly; she knew nothing of the misfortune that menaced her. She
+believed that her star still stood in the ascendant, and fancied (like
+Lord Ellenborough) that her blandishments were never more
+acknowledged. “Whence, then, this change?” cried she, in the agony of
+her grief. “How have I offended him?”
+
+“You mistake me, my daughter,” said Mons. de Méaux. “His Majesty is
+most tenderly attached to you; but religious scruples--qualms of
+conscience--have come upon him. ‘C’est par la peur du diable,’ that he
+consents to this separation.”
+
+[Illustration: Honorable Members.]
+
+Poor Louise dried her tears; the case was bad enough, but there was
+one consolation--it was religion, and not a rival, had cost her a
+lover; and so she began her preparations for departure with a heart
+somewhat less heavy. On the day, however, of her leave-taking, a
+carriage, splashed and travel-stained, arrived at the “petite porte”
+of the Palace; and as instantaneously ran the rumour through the
+household that his Majesty’s new mistress had arrived: and true it
+was, Madame de Maintenon had taken her place beside the fauteuil of
+the King.
+
+“So, Mons. de Bossuet,” said La Vallière, as he handed her to her
+carriage--“so, then, his Majesty has exiled me, ‘par la peur du
+diable.’”
+
+The Bishop bowed in tacit submission and acquiescence.
+
+“In that case,” resumed she, “c’est par complaisance au diable, that
+he accepts Madame de Maintenon.”
+
+
+
+
+A FILBERT FOR SIR ROBERT PEEL.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+Sir Robert Peel was never more triumphant than when, in the last
+session of Parliament, he rebuked his followers for a casual defection
+in the support of Government, by asking them what they had to complain
+of. Are _we_ not on the Treasury benches? said the Right Honourable
+Baronet. Do not my friend Graham and myself guide and direct you?--do
+we not distribute the patronage and the honours of the government,--take
+the pay--and rule the kingdom--what more would you have? Ungrateful
+bucolics, you know not what you want! The apostrophe was bold, but not
+original. I remember hearing of a West country farmer having ridden a
+long day’s journey on a poor, ill-fed hack, which, as evening drew
+near, showed many symptoms of a fatal knock-up. The rider himself was
+well tired, too, and stopped at an ale-house for a moment’s
+refreshment, while he left the jaded beast standing at the door. As he
+remounted his saddle, a few minutes after, he seized his reins
+briskly, flourished his whip (both like Sir Robert), and
+exclaimed:--“I’ve had two glasses of spirits.--Let us see if you won’t
+go after that.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+“THE INCOME TAX.”
+
+
+Among the many singular objections which have been made to the new
+property tax, I find Mr. C. Buller stating in the House, that his
+greatest dislike to the project lay in the exceedingly small amount of
+the impost.
+
+    “My wound is great because it is so small,”
+
+might have been the text of the honourable and learned gentleman’s
+oration. After setting forth most eloquently the varied distresses of
+the country--its accumulating debt and heavy taxation--he turns the
+whole weight of his honest indignation against the new imposition,
+because, forsooth, it is so “little burdensome, and will inflict so
+slight an additional load upon the tax-payer.” There is an attempt at
+argument, however, on the subject, which is somewhat amusing; for he
+continues not only to lament the smallness of the new tax, but the
+“slight necessity that exists” even for that. Had we some great
+national loss to make up, the deficiency of which rendered a call on
+the united people necessary, then, quoth he, how happily we should
+stand forward in support of the Constitution. In fact, he deplores, in
+the most moving terms, that ill off as the country is, yet it is not
+one-half so bad as it might be, or as he should like to see it. Ah!
+had we only some disastrous Continental war, devastating our
+commerce--ruining our Colonies, and eating into the very heart of our
+national resources--how gladly I should pay this Income Tax; but to
+remedy a curable evil--to restore, by prompt and energetic measures,
+the growing disease of the State--is a poor, pettifogging practice,
+that has neither heroism nor fame to recommend it. I remember hearing
+that at one of those excellent institutions, so appropriately
+denominated Magdalen Asylums, a poor, but innocent girl, presented
+herself for admission, pleading her lonely and deserted condition, as
+a plea for her reception. The patroness, an amiable and excellent
+person--but somewhat of the complexion of the honourable and learned
+Member for Liskeard--asked at once, whether she had resolved on a
+total reformation of her mode of life. The other replied, that her
+habits had been always chaste and virtuous, and that her character had
+been invariably above reproach. “Ah, in that case,” rejoined the lady,
+“we can’t admit you; this institution is expressly for the reception
+of penitents. If you could only qualify for a week or so, there is no
+objection to your admission.”
+
+Is not this exactly Mr. Buller’s proposition? “Let us have the Whigs
+back for a few years longer; let us return to our admirable foreign
+policy; and when we have successfully embroiled ourselves with
+America, lost Canada, been beaten in China, driven out of our Eastern
+possessions, and provoked a war with France, then I’m your man for an
+Income Tax; lay it on only heavily; let the nation, already bowed down
+under the heavy burden of its calamities, receive in addition the
+gracious boon of enormous taxation.” Homœopathy teaches us that
+nothing is so curative in its agency, as the very cause of our present
+suffering, or something as analogous to it as possible; and, like
+Hahnemann, Mr. Buller administers what the vulgar call “a hair of the
+dog that bit us,” as the most sovereign remedy for all our evils.
+
+The country is like a sick man with a whitlow, for the cure of which
+his physician prescribes a slight, but clearly necessary, operation.
+Another medical Dr. Buller is, however, standing by. He at once
+insinuates his veto; remarks upon the trivial nature of the
+disease--the unpainful character of the remedy; “but wait,” adds
+he--“wait till the inflammation extends higher; have patience till the
+hand becomes swollen and the arm affected; and then, when your agony
+is beyond endurance, and your life endangered, then we’ll amputate the
+limb high up, and mayhap you may recover, after all.”
+
+As for me, it is the only occasion I’m aware of, where a successful
+comparison can be instituted between honour and the Whigs; for
+assuredly neither have “any skill in surgery.”
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR THE “BELGES.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+Every one knows that men in masses, whether the same be called boards,
+committees, aggregate, or repeal meetings, will be capable of
+atrocities and iniquities, to which, as individuals, their natures
+would be firmly repugnant. The irresponsibility of a number is felt by
+every member, and Curran was not far wrong when he said, a
+“corporation was a thing that had neither a body to be kicked, nor a
+soul to be damned.”
+
+It is, indeed, a melancholy fact, that nations partake much more
+frequently of the bad than the good features of the individuals
+composing them, and it requires no small amount of virtue to flavour
+the great caldron of a people, and make its incense rise gratefully to
+heaven. For this reason, we are ever ready to accept with enthusiasm
+anything like a national tribute to high principle and honour. Such
+glorious bursts are a source of pride to human nature itself, and we
+hail with acclamation these evidences of exalted feeling, which make
+men “come nearer to the gods.” The greater the sacrifice to selfish
+interests and prejudices, the more do we prize the effort. Think for a
+moment what a sensation of surprise and admiration, wonderment, awe,
+and approbation it would excite throughout Europe, if, by the next
+arrival from Boston, came the news that “the Americans had determined
+to pay their debts!” That at some great congress of the States,
+resolutions were carried to the effect, “that roguery and cheating
+will occasionally lower a people in the estimation of others, and that
+the indulgences of such national practices may be, in the end,
+prejudicial to national honour;” “that honesty, if not the best, may
+be good policy, even in a go-a-head state of society;” “that smart
+men, however a source of well-founded pride to a people, are now and
+then inconvenient from the very excess of their smartness;” “that
+seeing these things, and feeling all the unhappy results which
+mistrust and suspicion by foreign countries must bring upon their
+commerce, they have determined to pay something in the pound, and go
+a-head once more.” I am sure that such an announcement would be hailed
+with illuminations from Hamburg to Leghorn. American citizens would be
+cheered wherever they were found; pumpkin pie would figure at royal
+tables, and twist and cocktail be handed round with the coffee; our
+exquisites would take to chewing and its consequences; and our belles,
+banishing Rossini and Donizetti, would make the air vocal with the
+sweet sounds of Yankee Doodle. One cannot at a moment contemplate what
+excesses our enthusiasm might not carry us to; and I should not wonder
+in the least if some great publisher of respectable standing might not
+start a pirated reprint of the _New York Herald_.
+
+Let me now go back and explain, if my excitement will permit me, how
+I have been led into such extravagant imaginings. I have already
+remarked, that nations seldom gave evidence of noble bursts of
+feeling; still more rarely, I regret to say, do they evince any sorrow
+for past misconduct--any penitence for by-gone evil.
+
+This would be, indeed, the severest ordeal of a people’s greatness;
+this, the brightest evidence of national purity. Happy am I to say
+such an instance is before us; proud am I to be the man to direct
+public attention to the fact. The following paragraph I copy verbatim
+from the _Times_.
+
+     “On the 18th of June, the anniversary of the battle of
+     Waterloo, a black flag was hoisted by the Belgians at the
+     top of the monument erected on the field where the battle
+     was fought.”
+
+A black flag, the emblem of mourning, the device of sorrow and regret,
+waves over the field of Waterloo! Not placed there by vanquished
+France, whose legions fought with all their chivalry; not hoisted by
+the proud Gaul, on the plain where, in defeat, he bit the dust; but in
+penitence of heart, in deep sorrow and contrition, by the Belgians who
+ran--by the people who fled--by the soldiers who broke their ranks and
+escaped in terror.
+
+What a noble self-abasement is this; how beautifully touching such an
+instance of a people’s sorrow, and how affecting to think, that while
+in the halls of Apsley House the heroes were met together to
+commemorate the glorious day when they so nobly sustained their
+country’s honour, another nation should be in sackcloth and ashes, in
+all the trappings of woe, mourning over the era of their shame, and
+sorrowing over their degradation. Oh, if a great people in all the
+majesty of their power, in all their might of intellect, strength, and
+riches, be an object of solemn awe and wonder, what shall we say of
+one whose virtues partake of the humble features of every-day life,
+whose sacrifice is the tearful offering of their own regrets?
+
+Mr. O’Connell may declaim, and pronounce his eight millions the finest
+peasantry in the world--he may extol their virtues from Cork to
+Carrickfergus--he may ring the changes over their loyalty, their
+bravery, and their patriotism; but when eulogising the men who assure
+him “they are ready to die for their country,” let him blush to think
+of the people who can “cry” for theirs.
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR WORKHOUSE CHAPLAINS.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+The bane and antidote of England is her immense manufacturing
+power--the faculty that enables her to inundate the whole habitable
+globe with the products of her industry, is at once the source of her
+prosperity and poverty--her millionnaire mill-owners and her
+impoverished thousands. Never was the skill of machinery pushed to the
+same wonderful extent--never the results of mechanical invention so
+astoundingly developed. Men are but the presiding genii over the
+wonder-working slaves of their creative powers, and the child, is the
+volition that gives impulse to the giant force of a mighty engine.
+Subdivision of labour, carried to an extent almost incredible, has
+facilitated despatch, and induced a higher degree of excellence in
+every branch of mechanism--human ingenuity is racked, chemical
+analysis investigated, mathematical research explored--and all, that
+Mr. Binns, of Birmingham, may make thirteen minikin pins--while Mr.
+Sims, of Stockport, has been making but twelve. Let him but succeed in
+this, and straightway his income is quadrupled--his eldest son is
+member for a manufacturing borough, his second is a cornet in the Life
+Guards--his daughter, with a fortune of one hundred thousand pounds,
+is married to the heir of a marquisate--and his wife, soaring above
+the murky atmosphere of the factory, breathes the purer air of western
+London, and advertises her _soirées_ in the _Morning Post_. The
+pursuit of wealth is now the grand characteristic of our age and
+country; and the headlong race of money-getting seems the great
+feature of the day. To this end the thundering steamer ploughs the
+white-crested wave of the broad Atlantic--to this end the clattering
+locomotive darts through the air at sixty miles the hour--for this,
+the thousand hammers of the foundry, the ten thousand wheels of the
+factory are at work--and man, toiling like a galley-slave, scarce
+takes time to breathe in his mad career, as with straining eyeballs
+and outstretched hands, he follows in the pursuit of lucre.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Now, men are imitative creatures; and strange enough, too, they are
+oftentimes disposed from the indulgence of the faculty to copy things,
+and adapt them to purposes very foreign to their original destination.
+This manufacturing speed, this steeple-chase of printed calico and
+Paisley wear, is all very well while it is limited to the districts
+where it began. That two hundred and seventy thousand white cotton
+night-caps, with a blue tassel on every one of them, can be made in
+twenty-four hours at Messrs. Twist and Tredlem’s factory, is a very
+gratifying fact, particularly to all who indulge in ornamental
+head-gear--but we see no reason for carrying this dispatch into the
+Court of Chancery, and insisting that every nod of the woolsack is to
+decide a suit at law. Yet have the lawyer and the physician both
+adopted the impetuous practices of the manufacturing world, and
+Haste, red haste! is now the cry.
+
+Lord Brougham’s Chancery practice was only to be equalled by one of
+Lord Waterford’s steeple-chases. He took all before him in a fly--he
+rode straight, plenty of neck, baulked nothing--up leap or down leap,
+sunk fence or double ditch, post and rail, or quickset, stone wall, or
+clay bank, all one to him--go it he would. Others might deny his
+judgment; he wanted to get over the ground, and _that_ he did do.
+
+The West-end physician, in the same way, visits his fifty patients
+daily, walks his hospital, delivers a lecture to old ladies about some
+“curious provision” of nature in the palm of the human hand (for
+fee-taking); and devoting something like three minutes and twelve
+seconds to each sick man’s case, pockets some twenty thousand per
+annum by his dispatch.
+
+Speed is now the _El Dorado_. Jelly is advertised to be made in a
+minute, butter in five, soup seasoned and salted in three seconds of
+time. Even the Quakers--bless their quiet hearts!--couldn’t escape the
+contagion, and actually began to walk and talk with some faint
+resemblance to ordinary mortals. The church alone maintained the even
+tenor of its way, and moved not in the wild career of the whirlwind
+world about it. Such was my gratulation, when my eye fell upon the
+following passage of the _Times_. Need I say with what a heavy heart I
+read it? It is Mr. Rushton who speaks:--
+
+     “In the month of December, 1841, he heard that a man had
+     been found dead in the streets of Liverpool; that all the
+     property he possessed had been taken from his person, and
+     that an attempt to trace his identity had been made in
+     vain. He was taken to the usual repository for the dead,
+     where an inquest had been held upon him, and from the ‘dead
+     house,’ as it was called, he was removed to the workhouse
+     burial-ground. The man who drove the hearse on the occasion
+     was very old, and not very capable of giving evidence. His
+     attendant was an idiot. It had been represented to Mr.
+     Hodgson and himself that the dead man had been taken in the
+     clothes in which he died and put into a coffin which was too
+     small for him; that a shroud was put over him; that the lid
+     of the coffin would not go down; and that he was taken from
+     the dead-house and buried in the parochial ground, no
+     funeral rites having been performed on the occasion. It had
+     also been communicated to Mr. Hodgson and himself that,
+     after two days, the clergyman who was instructed to perform
+     those rites over the paupers, came and performed one service
+     for the dead over all the paupers who had been buried in the
+     intermediate time.”
+
+Now, without stopping to criticise the workhouse equipage, which
+appears to be driven by a man too old to speak, with an idiot for his
+companion; nor even to advert to the scant ceremony of burying a man
+in his daily dress, and in a coffin that would not close on him--what
+shall we say of the “patent parson power” that buries paupers in
+detachments, and reads the service over platoons of dead? The reverend
+chaplain feeling the uncertainty of human life, and knowing how frail
+is our tie to existence, waits in the perfect conviction of a large
+party before he condescends to appear. Knowing that dead men tell no
+tales, he surmises also that they don’t run away, and so he says to
+himself--these people are not pressed for time, they’ll be here when I
+come again--it is a sickly season, and we’ll have a field-day on
+Saturday. Cheap soup for the poor, says Mrs. Fry. Cheap justice, says
+O’Connell. Cheap clothing, says a tailor who makes new clothes from
+old, with a machine called a devil--but cheap burial is the boast of
+the Liverpool chaplain, and he is the most original among them.
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR THE “HOUSE.”
+
+
+I have long been of opinion that a man may attain to a very
+respectable knowledge of Chinese ceremonies and etiquette before he
+can learn one half the usages of the honourable house. Seldom does a
+debate go forward without some absurd interruption taking place in a
+mere matter of form. Now it is a cry of “Order, order,” to some
+gentleman who is subsequently discovered not to have been in the least
+disorderly, but whom the attack has so completely dumfounded, that he
+loses his speech and his self-possession, and sits down in confusion,
+to be sneered at in the morning papers, and hooted by his constituents
+when he goes home.
+
+Now some gifted scion of aristocracy makes an essay in braying and
+cock-crowing, both permitted by privilege, and overwhelms the speaker
+with the uproar. Now it is that intolerable nuisance, old Hume,
+shouting out “divide,” or “adjourn;” or it is Colonel Sibthorpe who
+counts the house. These ridiculous privileges of members to interfere
+with the current of public business because they may be sleepy or
+stupid themselves, are really intolerable, besides being so numerous
+that the first dozen years of a parliamentary life will scarcely teach
+a man a tithe of them. But of all these “rules of the house,” the
+most unjust and tyrannical is that which compels a man to put up with
+any impertinence because he has already spoken. It would seem as if
+each honourable member “went down” with a single ball cartridge in his
+pouch, which, when fired, the best thing he could do was to go home
+and wait for another distribution of ammunition; for by remaining he
+only ran the risk of being riddled without any power to return the
+fire.
+
+A case of this kind happened a few evenings since:--A Mr. Blewitt--I
+suppose the composer--made a very absurd motion, the object of which
+was to inquire “What office the Duke of Wellington held in the present
+government, and whether he was or was not a member of the cabinet.”
+Without referring the learned gentleman to a certain erudite volume
+called the Yearly Almanack and Directory, Sir Robert Peel proceeded to
+explain the duke’s position. He eulogised, as who would not? his
+grace’s sagacity and his wisdom; the importance of his public
+services, and the great value the ministers, his _confrères_, set upon
+a judgment which, in a long life, had so seldom been found mistaken;
+and then he concluded by quoting from one of the duke’s recent replies
+to some secretary or other who addressed him on a matter foreign to
+his department--“That he was one of the few men in the present day who
+did not meddle in affairs over which they have no control.” “A piece
+of counsel,” quoth Sir Robert, “I would strenuously advise the
+honourable member to apply to his own case.”
+
+Now we have already said that we think Blewitt--though an admirable
+musician--seems to be a very silly man. Still, if he really did not
+know what the duke represented in her Majesty’s government--if he
+really were ignorant of what functions he exercised, the information
+might have been bestowed upon him without a retort like this. In the
+first place, his query, if a foolish, was at least a civil one; and in
+the second, it was his duty to understand a matter of this nature: it
+therefore came under his control, and Sir Robert’s application of the
+quotation was perfectly uncalled-for. Well; what followed? Mr. Blewitt
+rose in wrath to reply, when the house called out, “Spoke, spoke!” and
+Blewitt was muzzled; the moral of which is simply this--you ask a
+question in the house, and the individual addressed has a right to
+insult you, you having no power of rejoinder, under the etiquette of
+“spoke.” Any flippancy may overturn a man at this rate; and the words
+“loud laughter,” printed in italics in the _Chronicle_, is sure to
+renew the emotion at every breakfast table the morning after.
+
+Now I am sorry for Blewitt, and think he was badly treated.
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR “LAW REFORM.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+Of all the institutions of England there is scarcely one more lauded,
+and more misunderstood, than trial by jury. At first blush, nothing
+can seem fairer and less objectionable than the unbiassed decision of
+twelve honest men, sworn to do justice. They hear patiently the
+evidence on both sides; and in addition to the light derivable from
+their own intelligence, they have the directing charge of the judge,
+who tells them wherein the question for their decision lies, what are
+the circumstances of which they are to take cognizance, and by what
+features of the case their verdict is to be guided. Yet look at the
+working of this much-boasted privilege. One jury brings in a verdict
+so contrary to all reason and justice, that they are sent back to
+reconsider it by the judge; another, more refractory still, won’t come
+to any decision at all, and get carted to the verge of the county for
+their pains; and a third, improving on all former modes of proceeding,
+has adopted a newer and certainly most impartial manner of deciding a
+legal question. “Court of Common Pleas, London, July 6.--The Chief
+Justice (Tindal) asked the ground of objection, and ten of the jurymen
+answered that in the last case one of their colleagues had suggested
+that the verdict should be decided by tossing up!” Here is certainly a
+very important suggestion, and one which, recognising justice as a
+blind goddess, is strictly in conformity with the impersonation.
+Nothing could possibly be farther removed from the dangers of undue
+influence than decisions obtained in this manner. Not only are all the
+prejudices and party bearings of individual jurors avoided, but an
+honest and manly oblivion of all the evidence which might bias men if
+left to the guidance of their poor and erring faculties, is thus
+secured. It is human to err, says the poet moralist; and so the
+jurymen in question discovered, and would therefore rather refer a
+knotty question to another deity than Justice, whom men call Fortune.
+How much would it simplify our complex and gnarled code, the
+introduction of this system? In the next place, juries need not be any
+longer empannelled, the judge could “sky the copper” himself. The only
+question would be, to have a fair halfpenny. See with what rapidity
+the much-cavilled court would dispatch public business! I think I see
+our handsome Chief of the Common Pleas at home here, with his knowing
+eye watching the vibrations of the coin, and calling out in his
+sonorous tone, “Head--the plaintiff has it. Call another case.” I peep
+into the Court of Chancery, and behold Sir Edward twirling the penny
+with more cautious fingers, and then with his sharp look and sharper
+voice, say, “Tail! Take a rule for the defendant.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+No longer shall we hear objections as to the sufficiency of legal
+knowledge possessed by those in the judgment-seat. There will be no
+petty likings for this, and dislikings for that court; no changes of
+venue; no challenges of the jury; even Lord Brougham himself, of whom
+Sir Edward remarked, “What a pity it was he did not know a little law,
+for then he would have known a little of everything”--even he might be
+a chancellor once more. What a power of patronage it would give each
+succeeding ministry to know that capacity was of no consequence; and
+that the barrister of six years’ standing could turn his penny as well
+as the leader in Chancery. Public business need never be delayed a
+moment; and if the Chief Baron were occupied in chamber, the crier of
+the court could perform his functions till he came back again.
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR “CLIMBING BOYS.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+One man may lead a horse to the water, but ten cannot make him drink,
+sayeth the adage; and so it might be said, any one might devise an act
+of parliament--but who can explain all its intentions and
+provisions--define its powers--and illustrate its meanings? One clause
+will occasionally vitiate another; one section completely contradict
+the preceding one; the very objects of the legislature are often so
+pared away in committee, that a mere shadowy outline remains of what
+the original framer intended; and were it not for the bold hand of
+executive justice, the whole might be inoperative. The judge, happily,
+supplies the deficiency of the lawmaker--and the thing were perfect,
+if judges were not, like doctors, given to differ--and thus,
+occasionally, disseminate somewhat opposite notions of the statutes of
+the land.
+
+Such being the case, it will not be deemed impertinent of one, who
+desires to conform in all respects to the law, to ask, from time to
+time, of our rulers and governors, certain questions, the answers to
+which, should he happily receive them, will be regarded by him as
+though written on tables of brass.
+
+Now, in a late session of parliament, some humane member brought in a
+bill to interdict the sweeping of chimneys by all persons small enough
+for the purpose, and ingeniously suggested supplying their place by
+others, whose size would have inevitably condemned them to perish in a
+flue. Never had philanthropist a greater share of popularity. Little
+sweeps sang his praises along the streets--penny periodicals had
+verses in his honour--the “song of the soot” was set to music--and
+people, in the frenzy of their enthusiasm, so far forgot their
+chimneys, that scarcely a street in town had not, at least, one fire
+every night in the week. Meanwhile, the tender sweeplings had lost
+their occupation, they had pronounced their farewell to the
+brush--what was to become of them? Alas, the legislature had not
+thought of that point; for, they were not influential enough to claim
+compensation. I grieve to think, but there is too much reason to fear,
+that many of them betook themselves to the ancient vocation of
+pickpockets. Yes, as Dr. Watts has it--
+
+    “Satan finds some mischief still
+    For idle hands to do.”
+
+The divisional police-offices were filled each morning with small
+“suttees”--whose researches after handkerchiefs and snuff-boxes were
+of the most active kind; while their full-grown brethren, first
+impacted in a funnel of ten inches by eight, were cursing the Commons,
+and consigning to all manner of misfortune the benevolent framer of
+the bill.
+
+Now, I cannot help asking myself, was this the intention of the
+legislature--did they really mean that big people should try to
+penetrate where little ones were not small enough to pass?--or was it
+some piece of conciliation to the climbing boys, that they should see
+their masters grilled and wasted, in revenge for “the disabilities
+they had so long laboured under?” This point of great difficulty--and
+after much thought and deliberation, I have come to one solution of
+the whole question, and I only hope it may prove the right one. It is
+this. The bill is a parable--the climbing boy, and the full-grown
+sweep--and the chimney, and the householder, and the machine, are mere
+types which I would interpret thus:--the householder is John Bull, a
+good-natured, easy fellow, liking his ease, and studying his
+comfort--caring for his dinner, and detesting smoke above all things;
+he wishes to have his house neat and orderly, neither confusion nor
+disturbance--but his great dread is fire; the very thought of it sets
+him a-trembling all over. Now, for years past, he has remarked that
+the small sweeps, who mount so glibly to the top of the flue, rarely
+do anything but make a noise--they scream and shout for ten minutes,
+or so, and then come down, with their eyes red, and their noses
+bloody, and cry themselves sick, till they get bread-and-butter. John
+is worried and fretted at all this; he remembers the time a good-sized
+sweep used to go up and rake down all the soot in no time. These were
+the old Tory ministers, who took such wise and safe precautions
+against fire, that an insurance-office was never needed. “Not so now,”
+quoth John; “’od! rabbit it, they’ve got their climbing boys, who are
+always bleating and bawling, for the neighbourhood to look at
+them--and yet, devil a bit of good they do the whole time.”
+
+And now, who are these? you would ask. I’ll tell you--the “Climbing
+Boys” are the Howicks, and the Clements--the Smith O’Briens and the
+D’Israelis, and a host of others, scraping their way upwards, through
+soot and smoke, that they may put out their heads in high places, and
+cry “’weep! ’weep!” and well may they--they’ve had a dirty
+journey--and black enough their hands are, I warrant you, before they
+got there.
+
+To get rid of these, without offending them, John brings in his
+philanthropic bill, making it penal to employ them, or to have any
+other than the old legitimate sweeps, that know every turn of the
+flue, and have gone up and down any time these twenty years. No new
+machine for him--no Whig contrivance, to scrape the bricks and burn
+the house--but the responsible full-grown sweeps--who, if the passage
+be narrow, have strength to force their way, and take good care not to
+get dust in their eyes in the process.
+
+Such is my interpretation of the bill, and I only trust a discerning
+public may agree with me.
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR “THE SUBDIVISION OF LABOUR.”
+
+
+I forget the place, and the occasion also, but I have a kind of misty
+recollection of having once, in these nutting excursions of mine, been
+excessively eloquent on the subject of the advantages derivable from
+division of labour.
+
+Not a walk or condition in life is there to which it has not
+penetrated; and while natural talents have become cultivated from
+finding their most congenial sphere of operation, immense results have
+accrued in every art and science where a higher degree of perfection
+has been thus attained. Your doctor and your lawyer now-a-days select
+the precise portion of your person or property they intend to operate
+on. The oculist and the aurist, and the odontalgist and the
+pedicurist, all are suggestive of various local sufferings, by which
+they bound their skill; and so, the equity lawyer and the common-law
+lawyer, the special pleader and the bar orator, have subdivided
+knavery, without diminishing its amount. Even in literature, there are
+the heavy men who “do” the politics, and the quiet men who do the
+statistics, and the rough-and-ready men, who are a kind of
+servants-of-all-work, and so on. In universities, there is the science
+man and the classical man, the man of simple equations and the man of
+spondees. Painting has its bright colourists and its more
+sombre-loving artists, and so on--the great camps of party would seem
+to have given the impulse to every condition of life, and “speciality”
+is the order of the day.
+
+No sooner is a new discovery made, no matter whether in the skies
+above, or the dark bowels of the earth, than an opportunity of
+disagreement is sure to arise. Two, mayhap three, gentlemen, profess
+diversity of opinion; followers are never lacking, let any one be fool
+enough to turn leader--and straightway there comes out a new sect,
+with a Greek name for a title.
+
+It is only the other day, men began to find out that primitive rocks,
+and basalt, ochre, and sandstone, had lived a long time, and must
+surely know something of antiquity--if they only could tell it. The
+stones, from that hour, had an unhappy time of it--men went about in
+gangs with hammers and crowbars, shivering this and shattering
+that--picking holes in respectable old rocks, that never had a word
+said against them, and peeping into “quarts,”[1] like a policeman.
+
+    [1] Query “quartz.”--_Devil._
+
+Men must be quarrelsome, you’d say, if they could fight about
+paving-stones--but so they did. One set would have it that the world
+was all cinders, and another set insisted it was only slack--and so,
+they called themselves Plutonians and Neptunians, and made great
+converts to their respective opinions.
+
+Gulliver tells us of “Big-endians” and “Little-endians,” who hated
+each other like poison; and thus it is, our social condition is like a
+row in an Irish fair, where one strikes somebody, and nobody thinks
+the other right.
+
+Oh! for the happy days of heretofore, when the two kings of Brentford
+smelled at one nosegay. It couldn’t happen now, I promise you.
+
+One of their majesties would have insisted on the petals, and the
+other been equally imperative regarding the stamina: they’d have
+pushed their claims with all the weight of their influence, and there
+would have been soon little vestige of a nosegay between them.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+But to come back, for all this is digression. The subdivision of
+labour, with all its advantages, has its reverse to the medal. You are
+ill, for instance. You have been dining with the Lord Mayor, and
+hip-hipping to the health of her Majesty’s ministers; or drinking,
+mayhap, nine times nine to the independence of Poland, or civil and
+religious liberty all over the globe--or any other fiction of large
+dinners. You go home, with your head aching from bad wine, bad
+speeches, and bad music; your wife sees you look excessively flushed;
+your eyes have got an odd kind of expression, far too much of the
+white being visible; a half shut-up look, like a pastry-cook’s shop on
+Sunday; there are evident signs, from blackness of the lips, that in
+your English ardour for the navy you have made a “port-hole” of your
+mouth; in fact, you have a species of semi-apoplectic threatening,
+that bodes ill for the insurance company.
+
+A doctor is sent for--he lives near, and comes at once--with a glance
+he recognises your state, and suggests the immediate remedy--the
+lancet.
+
+“Fetch a basin,” says somebody, with more presence of mind than the
+rest.
+
+“Not so fast,” quoth the medico. “I am a pure physician--I don’t
+bleed: that’s the surgeon’s affair. I should be delighted to save the
+gentleman’s life--but we have a bye-law against it in the college.
+Nothing could give me more pleasure than to cure you, if it wasn’t for
+the charter. What a pity it is! I’m sure I wish, with all my heart,
+the cook would take courage to open a vein, or even give you a bloody
+nose with the cleaver.”
+
+Do you think I exaggerate here? Try the experiment--I only ask that.
+
+Sending for the surgeon does not solve the difficulty; he may be a man
+who cuts corns and cataracts--who only operates for strabismus, or
+makes new noses for Peninsular heroes. In fact, if you don’t hit the
+right number--and it’s a large lottery--you may go out of the world
+without even the benefit of physic.
+
+This great system, however, does not end with human life. The
+coroners--resolved not to be behind their age--have made a great
+movement, and shown themselves men worthy of the enlightened era they
+live in. Read this:--
+
+     “On Friday morning last, a man named Patrick Knowlan, a
+     private in the 3rd Buffs, was discovered lying dead close
+     beneath the platform of a wharf at the bottom of
+     Holborn-lane, Chatham. It would appear that deceased had
+     mistaken his way, and fallen from the wharf, which is used
+     for landing coals from the river, a depth of about eight
+     feet, upon the muddy beach below, which was then strewn with
+     refuse coal. There was a large and severe wound upon the
+     left temple, and a piece of coal was sticking in the left
+     cheek, close below the eye. The whole left side of the face
+     was much contracted. He had evidently, from the state of his
+     clothes, been covered with water, which overflows this spot
+     at the period of spring tides. Although nothing certain is
+     known, it is generally supposed that he mistook Holborn-lane
+     for the West-lane, which leads to the barracks, and that
+     walking forward in the darkness he fell from the wharf. Mr.
+     Lewis, the coroner for the city of Rochester, claims
+     jurisdiction over all bodies found in the water at this
+     spot; and as the unfortunate man had evidently been
+     immersed, he thought this a proper case for the exercise of
+     his office, and accordingly summoned a jury to sit upon the
+     body at ten o’clock on Friday morning--but on his going to
+     view the deceased, he found that it was at the King’s Arms,
+     Chatham, in the hands of Bines, the Chatham constable, as
+     the representative of Mr. Hinde, one of the coroners for the
+     eastern division of the county of Kent, who refused to give
+     up the key of the room, but allowed Mr. Lewis and his jury
+     to view the body. They then returned to the Nag’s Head,
+     Rochester, and having heard the evidence of John Shepherd, a
+     fisherman, who deposed that a carter, going on to the beach
+     for coals, at half-past seven o’clock on Friday morning,
+     found the body as already described, the jury returned a
+     verdict of ‘Found dead.’ Mr. Hinde, the county coroner, held
+     another inquest upon the deceased, at the King’s Arms; and
+     after taking the evidence of William Whittingham, the
+     carter who found the body, and Frederick Collins, a corporal
+     of the 3rd Buffs, who stated that he saw the deceased on the
+     evening preceding his death, and he was then sober, the jury
+     returned a verdict of ‘Accidental death;’ each of the
+     coroners issued a warrant for the interment of the body. The
+     disputed jurisdiction, it is believed, will now be submitted
+     to the decision of a higher court, in order to settle what
+     is here considered a _vexata quæstio_.”--_Maidstone
+     Journal._
+
+Is not this perfect? Only think of land coroners and water
+coroners--imagine the law defining the jurisdiction of the Tellurian
+as far forth into the sea as he could sit on a corpse without danger,
+and the Neptunian ruling the waves beyond in absolute sway--conceive
+the “solidist” revelling in all the accidents that befall life upon
+the world’s highways, and the “fluidist” seeking his prey like a pearl
+diver, five fathoms low, beneath “the deep, deep sea.” What a rivalry
+theirs, who divide the elements between them, and have nature’s
+everlasting boundaries to define the limits of their empire.
+
+I hope to see the time when these great functionaries of law shall be
+provided with a suitable costume. I should glory to think of Mr. Hinde
+accoutred in emblems suggestive of earth and its habits--a wreath of
+oak leaves round his brows; and to behold Mr. Lewis in a garment of
+marine plants and sea shells sit upon his corpse, with a trident in
+his right hand. What a comfort for the man about to take French leave
+of life, that he could know precisely the individual he should
+benefit, and be able to go “by land” or “water,” as his taste inclined
+him.
+
+I have no time here to dwell upon the admirable distinctions of the
+two verdicts given in the case I allude to. When the great change I
+suggest is fully carried out, the difficulty of a verdict will at
+once be avoided, for the jury, like boys at play, will only have to
+cry out at each case--“wet or dry.”
+
+There would be probably too much expense incurred in poor localities
+by maintaining two officials; and I should suggest, in such cases, an
+amphibious coroner--a kind of merman, who should enjoy a double
+jurisdiction, and, as they say of half-bred pointers, be able “to take
+the water when required.”
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR A “NEW VERDICT.”
+
+
+Money-getting and cotton-spinning have left us little time for fun of
+any kind in England--no one has a moment to spare, let him be ever so
+droll, and a joke seems now to be esteemed a _bonâ fide_ expenditure;
+and as “a pin a day” is said to be “a groat a year,” there is no
+calculating what an inroad any manner of pleasantry might not make
+into a man’s income. Book-writers have ceased to be laughter-moving--the
+stage has given it up altogether, except now and then in a new
+tragedy--society prefers gravity to gaiety--and, in fact, the spirit
+of comic fun and drollery would seem to have died out in the land--if
+it were not for that inimitable institution called trial by jury.
+Bless their honest hearts! jurymen do indeed relieve the drab-coloured
+look of every-day life--they come out in strong colour from the sombre
+tints of common-place events and people. Queer dogs! nothing can damp
+the warm ardour of their comic vein--all the solemnity of a court of
+justice--the look of the bar and the bench--the voice of the crier--the
+blue bags of briefs--the “terrible show,” has no effect on their
+minds--“ruat cœlum,” they will have their joke.
+
+It is in vain for the judge, let him be ever so rigid in his charge,
+to tell them that their province is simply with certain facts, on
+which they have to pronounce an opinion of yea or nay. They must be
+jurymen, and “something more.” It’s not every day Mr. Sniggins, of
+Pimlico, is called upon to keep company with a chief-justice and
+sergeant learned in the law--Popkins don’t leave his shop once a week
+to discuss Coke upon Littleton with an attorney-general. No: the event
+to them is a great one--there they sit, fawned on, and flattered by
+counsel on both sides--called impartial and intelligent, and all
+that--and while every impertinence the law encourages has been bandied
+about the body of the court, _they_ remain to be lauded and praised by
+all parties, for they have a verdict in their power, and when it
+comes--what a thing it is!
+
+There is a well-known story of an English nobleman, desiring to remain
+_incog._ in Calais, telling his negro servant--“If any one ask who I
+am, Sambo, mind you say, ‘a Frenchman.’” Sambo carried out the
+instruction by saying--“My massa a Frenchman, and so am I.” This
+anecdote exactly exemplifies a verdict of a jury--it cannot stop short
+at sense, but must, by one fatal plunge, involve its decision in
+absurdity.
+
+Hear what lately happened in the north of Ireland. A man was tried and
+found guilty of murder--the case admitted no doubt--the act was a
+cold-blooded, deliberate assassination, committed by a soldier on his
+sergeant, in the presence of many witnesses. The trial proceeded; the
+facts were proved; and--I quote the local newspaper--
+
+     “The jury retired, and were shut up when the judge left the
+     court, at half-past seven. At nine, his lordship returned to
+     court, when the foreman of the jury intimated that they had
+     agreed. They were then called into court, and having
+     answered to their names, returned a verdict of guilty, but
+     recommended the prisoner to mercy upon account of the close
+     intimacy that existed between the parties at the time of the
+     occurrence.”
+
+Now, what ever equalled this? When the jury who tried Madame Laffarge
+for the murder of her husband, returned a verdict of guilty, with that
+recommendation to mercy which is implied by the words “des
+circonstances attenuantes,” Alphonse Karr pronounced the “extenuating
+circumstances,” to be the fact, that she always mixed gum with the
+arsenic, and never gave him his poison “neat.”
+
+But even _they_ never thought of carrying out their humanity farther
+by employing the Belfast plea, that she had been “intimate with him”
+before she killed him. No, it was reserved for our canny northerns to
+find out this new secret of criminal jurisprudence, and to show the
+world that there is a deep philosophy in the vulgar expression, a
+blood relation--meaning thereby that degree of allianceship which
+admits of butchery, and makes killing no murder; for if intimacy be a
+ground of mercy, what must be friendship, what brotherhood, or
+paternity?
+
+Were this plea to become general, how cautious would men become about
+their acquaintances--what a dread they would entertain of becoming
+intimate with gentlemen from Tipperary!
+
+I scarcely think the Whigs would throw out such lures for Dan and his
+followers, if they could consider these consequences; and I doubt
+much--taking everything into consideration, that the “Duke” would see
+so much of Lord Brougham as he has latterly.
+
+“Whom can a man make free with, if not with his friends?” saith
+Figaro; and the Belfast men have studied Beaumarchais, and only
+“carried out his principle,” as the Whigs say, when they speak of
+establishing popery in Ireland, to complete the intention of
+emancipation.
+
+Lawyers must have been prodigiously sick of all the usual arguments in
+defence of prisoners in criminal cases many a year ago. One of the
+cleverest lawyers and the cleverest men I ever knew, says he would
+hang any man who was defended on an _alibi_, and backed by a good
+character. Insanity is worn out; but here comes Belfast to the rescue,
+with its plea of intimacy. Show that your client was no common
+acquaintance--prove clearly habits of meeting and dining
+together--display a degree of friendship between the parties that
+bordered on brotherhood, and all is safe. Let your witness satisfy the
+jury that they never had an altercation or angry word in their lives,
+and depend upon it, killing will seem merely a little freak of
+eccentricity, that may be indulged with Norfolk Island, but not
+punished with the gallows.
+
+“Guilty, my lord, but very intimate with the deceased,” is a new
+discovery in law, and will hereafter be known as “the Belfast
+verdict.”
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR THE REAL “LIBERATOR.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+When Solomon said there was nothing new under the sun, he never knew
+Lord Normanby. That’s a fact, and now to show cause.
+
+No attribute of regal, and consequently it may be inferred of
+viceregal personages, have met such universal praise from the world,
+as the wondrous tact they would seem to possess, regarding the most
+suitable modes of flattering the pride and gratifying the passions of
+those they govern.
+
+It happens not unfrequently, that they leave this blessed privilege
+unused, and give themselves slight pains in its exercise; but should
+the time come when its exhibition may be deemed fit or necessary,
+their instinctive appreciation is said never to fail them, and they
+invariably hit off the great trait of a people at once.
+
+Perhaps it may be the elevated standard on which they are placed,
+gives them this wondrous _coup-d’œil_, and enables them to take wider
+views than mortals less eminently situated; perhaps it is some old
+leaven of privileges derivable from right divine. But no matter, the
+thing is so.
+
+Napoleon well knew the temper of Frenchmen in his day, and how certain
+short words, emblematic of their country’s greatness and glory, could
+fascinate their minds and bend them to his purpose. In Russia, the
+czar is the head of the church, as of the state, and a mere word from
+him to one of his people is a treasure above all price. In Holland, a
+popular monarch taps some forty puncheons of schnapps, and makes the
+people drunk. In Belgium, he gets up a high mass, and a procession of
+virgins. In the States, a rabid diatribe against England, and a spice
+of Lynch Law, are clap-trap. But every land has its own peculiar
+leaning--to be gratified by some one concession or compliment in
+preference to every other.
+
+Now, when Lord Normanby came to Ireland, he must have been somewhat
+puzzled by the very multiplicity of these expectations. It was a
+regular “embarras de richesses.” There was so much to give, and he so
+willing to give it!
+
+First, there was discouragement to be dealt out against
+Protestants--an easy and a pleasant path; then the priests were to be
+brought into fashion--a somewhat harder task; country gentlemen were
+to be snubbed and affronted; petty attorneys were to be petted and
+promoted; all claimants with an “O” to their names were to have
+something--it looked national; men of position and true influence were
+to be pulled down and degraded, and so on. In fact, there was a good
+two years of smart practice in the rupture of all the ties of society,
+and in the overthrow of whatever was respectable in the land, before
+he need cry halt.
+
+Away he went then, cheered by the sweet voices of the mob he loved,
+and quick work he made of it. I need not stop to say, how pleasant
+Dublin became when deserted of all who could afford to quit it; nor
+how peaceful were the streets which no one traversed--_ubi solitudinem
+faciunt pacem appellant_. The people, like Oliver, “asked for more;”
+ungrateful people! not content with Father Glynn at the viceroy’s
+table, and the Bishop of “Mesopotamia” in the council, they cried,
+like the horseleech’s daughters, “Give! give!”
+
+“What would they have, the spalpeens?” said Pierce Mahony; “sure ain’t
+we destroying the place entirely, and nobody will be able to live here
+after us.”
+
+“What do they want?” quoth Anthony Blake; “can’t they have patience?
+Isn’t the church trembling, and property not worth two years’
+purchase?”
+
+“Upon my life!” whispered Lord Morpeth, “I can’t comprehend them. I
+fear we have been only but too good-natured!--don’t you think so?”
+
+And so they pondered over their difficulties, but never a man among
+them could suggest a remedy for their new demand, nor make out a
+concession which had not been already made.
+
+“Did you butter Dan?” said Anthony.
+
+“Ay, and offered him the ‘rolls’ too,” said Sheil.
+
+“It’s no use,” interposed Pierce; “he’s not to be caught.”
+
+“Couldn’t ye make Tom Steele Bishop of Cashel?”
+
+“He wouldn’t take it,” groaned the viceroy.
+
+“Is Mr. Arkins a privy councillor?”
+
+“No; but he might if he liked. There’s no use in these trifles.”
+
+“_Eureka_, gents, I have it!” cried my lord; “order post-horses for me
+this instant--I have it!”
+
+And so he had, and by that act alone he stamped himself as the first
+man of his party.
+
+Swift philosophised on the satiric touch of building a madhouse, as
+the most appropriate charity to Ireland; but what would he have said
+had he heard that the greatest favour its rulers could bestow--the
+most flattering compliment to national feeling--was to open the gaols,
+to let loose robbers and housebreakers, highwaymen and cutthroats--to
+return burglars to their afflicted homes, and bring back felons to
+their weeping families. Some sneering critic will object to it, as
+scarcely complimentary to a country to say--“these gentlemen are only
+thieves--murderers; they cannot hurt _your_ morals. They were
+sentenced to transportation, but why should we spread vice among
+innocent bushmen, and disseminate wickedness through Norfolk Island?
+Let them loose where they are, they know the ways of the place,
+they’ll not murder the ‘wrong man;’ depend upon it, too, the rent
+won’t suffer by their remaining.” And so my lord took off the
+hand-cuffs, and filed the fetters; and the bondsmen, albeit not all
+“hereditary,” went free. Who should be called the Liberator, I ask,
+after this? Is it your Daniel, who promises year after year, and never
+performs; or you, my lord, who strikes off real chains, not
+metaphorical ones, and liberates real captives, not figurative slaves?
+
+It was, indeed, a “great day for Ireland” when the villains got loose;
+and must have been a strong lesson on the score of domestic duty to
+many a roving blade, who preferred spending that evening at home, to
+venturing out after dark. My lord covered himself with laurels, and
+albeit they were gathered, as Lord Wellesley said, in the “Groves of
+Blarney,” they well became the brow they ornamented.
+
+I should scarcely have thought necessary to ring a pæan of praise on
+this great governor, if it were not for a most unaccountable attack
+his magnanimous and stupendous mercy, as Tom Steele would call it,
+has called forth from some organ of the press.
+
+This print, calling itself _The Cork Constitution_, thus
+discourseth:--
+
+     “Why, of 16 whom he pardoned, and of 41 whose sentences he
+     commuted in the gaol of our own city, 13 were re-committed,
+     and of these no fewer than 10 were in due time transported.
+     One of the latter, Mary Lynch, was subsequently five times
+     committed, and at last transported; Jeremiah Twomey, _alias_
+     Old Lock, was subsequently six times committed, and finally
+     transported, while two others were twice committed. These
+     are a specimen of the persons whom his lordship delighted to
+     honour. Of the whole 57 (who were liberated between January,
+     1835, and April, 1839), there were, at the time of their
+     sentences being commuted, or themselves discharged, 34 under
+     sentence of transportation, and two under sentence of death.
+     In the county gaol, 47 prisoners experienced the benefit of
+     viceregal liberality. Of these 18 had been under sentence of
+     transportation, 11 of them for life; but how many of them it
+     became the duty of the government to introduce a second or
+     third time to the notice of the judge, or what was their
+     ultimate destiny, we are, unfortunately, not informed. The
+     recorder, we observe, passed sentence of transportation
+     yesterday on a fellow named Corkery, who had some years ago
+     been similarly sentenced by one of the judges, but for whose
+     release his worship was unable to account. The explanation,
+     however, is easy. Corkery was one of the scoundrels
+     liberated by Lord Normanby, and he has since been living on
+     the plunder of the citizens, on whom that vain and visionary
+     viceroy so inconsiderately let him loose.”
+
+Now I detest figures, and, therefore, I won’t venture to dispute the
+man’s arithmetic about the “ten in due time transported,” nor Corkery,
+nor Mary Lynch, nor any of them.
+
+I take the facts on his own showing, and I ground upon them the most
+triumphant defence of the calumniated viceroy. What was it, I ask, but
+the very prescience of the lord lieutenant we praise in the act? He
+liberated a gaol full of ruffians, not to inundate the world with a
+host of felons and vagabonds, but, simply, to give them a kind of
+day-rule.
+
+“Let them loose,” cried my lord; “take the irons off--devil a long
+they’ll be free. Mark my words, that fellow will murder some one else
+before long. Thank you, Mary Lynch, it is a real pleasure to me to
+restore you to liberty;” and then, _sotto_, “you’ll have a voyage out,
+nevertheless, I see that. Open the gates--pass out, gentlemen
+highwaymen. Don’t be afraid, good people of Cork, these are infernal
+ruffians, they’ll all be back again before six months. It’s no
+consequence to me to see you at large, for I have the heartfelt
+conviction that most of you must be hanged yet.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Here is the true defence of the viceroy, here the real and
+well-grounded explanation of his conduct; and I hope when Lord
+Brougham attacks his noble friend--which of course he will--that the
+marquis will hurl back on him, with proud triumph, this irresistible
+mark of his united foresight and benevolence.
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR “HER MAJESTY’S SERVANTS.”
+
+
+If a fair estimate were at any moment to be taken of the time employed
+in the real business of the country, and that consumed by public
+characters in vindicating their conduct, recapitulating their good
+intentions, and glossing over their bad acts, it would be found that
+the former was to the latter as the ratio of Falstaff’s bread to the
+“sack.”
+
+A British House of Commons is in fact nineteen out of every twenty
+hours employed in the pleasant personalities of attack and defence. It
+is something that the “noble baron” said last session, or the “right
+hon. baronet” didn’t say in the present one, engrosses all their
+attention; and the most animated debates are about certain expressions
+of some “honourable and learned gentleman,” who always uses his words
+in a sense different from the rest of the nation.
+
+If this satisfies the public and stuffs the newspapers, perhaps I
+should not repine at it; but certainly it is very fatiguing and
+tiresome to any man with a moderately good memory to preserve the
+excellent traditions each ministry retains of their own virtues, and
+how eloquently the opposition can hold forth upon the various good
+things they would have done, had they been left quietly on the
+treasury benches. Now how much better and more business-like would it
+be if, instead of leaving these gentlemen to dilate and expatiate on
+their own excellent qualities, some public standards were to be
+established, by which at a glance the world at large could decide on
+their merits and examine into their fitness for office at a future
+period. Your butler and your coachman, when leaving your service, do
+not present themselves to a new master with characters of their own
+inditing, or if they did they would unquestionably require a very
+rigid scrutiny. What would you say if a cook who professes herself a
+perfect treasure of economy and excellence, warrants herself sober,
+amiable, and cleanly--who, without other vouchers for her fitness than
+her own, would dilate on her many virtues and accomplishments, and
+demand to be taken into your service because she has higher taste for
+self-panegyric than her rival. Such a thing would be preposterous in
+the kitchen, but it is exactly what takes place in parliament, and
+there is but one remedy for it. Let her majesty’s servants, when they
+leave their places, receive written characters, like those of less
+exalted persons. These documents would then be on record when the
+applicants sought other situations, and could be referred to with more
+confidence by the nation than if given by the individuals themselves.
+
+How easily would the high-flown sentiments of any of the “outs” be
+tested by a simple comparison with his last character--how clearly
+would pretension be measured by what he had done in his last place. No
+long speeches, no four-hour addresses would be required at the
+hustings then. Show us your character, would be the cry--why did he
+leave his mistress? the question.
+
+The petty subterfuges of party would not stand such a test as this;
+all the little miserable explanations--that it was a quarrel in the
+kitchen, that the cook said this and the footman said that, would go
+for nothing. You were turned out, and why?--that’s the bone and sinew
+of the matter.
+
+To little purpose would my Lord John remind his party that he was
+going to do every thing for every body--to plunder the parsons and
+pay the priests--to swamp the constitution and upset the
+church--respectable people would take time to look at his papers; they
+would see that he was an active little busy man, accustomed to do the
+whole work of a family single-handed; that he was in many respects
+attentive and industrious, but had a following of low Irish
+acquaintances whom he let into the house on every occasion, and that
+then nothing escaped them--they smashed the furniture, broke the
+looking-glasses, and kicked up a regular row: for this he was
+discharged, receiving all wages due.
+
+And then, instead of suffering long-winded panegyrics from the member
+for Tiverton, how easily would the matter be comprehended in one
+line--“a good servant, lively, and intelligent, but self-sufficient,
+and apt to take airs. Turned off for quarrelling with the French valet
+next door, and causing a difference between the families.”
+
+Then again, how decisively the merits of a certain ex-chancellor might
+be measured in reading--“hired as butler, but insisted on cleaning the
+carriage, and scratched the panels; would dress the dinner, and
+spoiled the soup and burned the sauce; never attended to his own
+duties, but spent his time fighting with the other servants, and is in
+fact a most troublesome member of a household. He is, however, both
+smart and intelligent, and is allowed a small pension to wait on
+company days.”
+
+Trust me, this plan, if acted on--and I feel it cannot be long
+neglected--will do more to put pretension on a par with desert, than
+all the adjourned debates that waste the sessions; it would save a
+world of unblushing self-praise and laudation, and protect the country
+from the pushing impertinence of a set of turned-off servants.
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR THE LANDLORD AND TENANT COMMISSION.
+
+
+Every one knows the story of the man who, at the penalty of losing his
+head in the event of failure, promised the caliph of Bagdad that he
+would teach his ass to read in the space of ten years, trusting that,
+ere the time elapsed, either the caliph, or the ass, or he himself,
+would die, and the compact be at an end. Now, it occurs to me that the
+wise policy of this shrewd charlatan is the very essence of all
+parliamentary commissions. First, there is a grievance--then comes a
+debate--a very warm one occasionally, with plenty of invective and
+accusation on both sides--and then they agree to make a drawn game of
+it, and appoint “a Commission.”
+
+Nothing can be more plausible in appearance than such a measure; nor
+could any man, short of Hume himself, object to so reasonable a
+proceeding as a patient and searching inquiry into the circumstances
+and bearings of any disputed question. The Commission goes to work: if
+a Tory one, consisting usually of some dumb country gentlemen, who
+like committee work;--if Whig, the suckling “barristers of six years’
+standing:” and at it they go. The newspapers announce that they are
+“sitting to examine witnesses”--a brief correspondence appears at
+intervals, to show that they have a secretary and a correspondent, a
+cloud then wraps the whole concern in its dark embrace, and not the
+most prying curiosity is ever able afterwards to detect any one fact
+concerning the commission or its labours, nor could you hear in any
+society the slightest allusion ever made to their whereabouts.
+
+It is, in fact, the polite mode of interment applied to the question
+at issue--the Commissioners performing the solemn duties of
+undertakers, and not even the most reckless resurrectionist being
+found to disturb the remains. Before the report should issue, the
+Commissioners die off, or the question has taken a new form; new
+interests have changed all its bearings; a new ministry is in power,
+or some more interesting matter has occupied the place it should fill
+in public attention; and if the Report was even a volume of “Punch,”
+it might pass undetected.
+
+Now and then, however, a Commission will issue for the real object of
+gleaning facts and conveying information; and then the duties are most
+uncomfortable, and but one course is open, which is, to protract the
+inquiry, like the man with the ass, and leave the result to time.
+
+In a country like ours, conflicting interests and opposing currents
+are ever changing the landmarks of party; and the commissioners feel
+that with years something will happen to make their labours of little
+consequence, and that they have only to prolong the period, and all is
+safe.
+
+At this moment, we have what is called a “Landlord and Tenant
+Commission” sitting, or sleeping, as it may be. They have to
+investigate diverse, knotty, and puzzling points, about people who
+want too much for their land, and others who prefer paying nothing for
+it. They are to report, in some fashion, respecting the prospects of
+estated gentlemen burdened with rent-charges and mortgages, and who
+won’t improve properties they can scarcely live on--and a peasantry,
+who must nominally pay an exaggerated rent, depending upon the chance
+of shooting the agent before the gale-day, and thus obtaining easier
+terms for the future.
+
+They are to investigate the capabilities of waste lands, while
+cultivated lands lie waste beside them; they must find out why
+land-owners like money, and tenants hate paying it; and why a people
+hold life very cheap when they possess little means to sustain it.
+
+Now these, take them how you will, are not so easy of solution as you
+may think. The landlord, for his own sake, would like a thriving,
+well-to-do, contented tenantry; the tenants, for their sakes, would
+like a fair-dealing, reasonable landlord, not over griping and
+grabbing, but satisfied with a suitable value for his property. They
+both have no common share of intelligence and acuteness--they have a
+soil unquestionably fruitful, a climate propitious, little taxation,
+good roads, abundant markets; and yet the one is half ruined in his
+house and the other wholly beggared in his hovel--each averring that
+the cause lies in the tithes, the tariff, the poor-rate, or popery,
+the agent or the agitation: in fact, it is something or other which
+one favours and the other opposes--some system or sect, some party or
+measure, which one advocates and the other denounces; and no matter
+though its influence should not, in the remotest way, enter into the
+main question, there is a grievance--that’s something; and as Sir
+Lucius says, “it’s a mighty pretty quarrel as it stands”--not the
+less, that certain partizans on either side assist in the _mêlée_, and
+the House of Commons or the Association Hall interfere with their
+influence.
+
+If, then, the Commissioners can see their way here, they are smart
+fellows, and no small praise is due to them. There are difficulties
+enough to puzzle long heads; and I only hope they may be equal to the
+task. Meanwhile, depopulation goes on briskly--landlords are shot
+every week in Tipperary; and if the report be but delayed for some few
+months longer, a new element will appear in the question--for however
+there may remain some pretenders to perpetuity of tenure, the
+landlords will not be there to grant the leases. Let the
+Commissioners, then, keep a look-out a-head--much of the embarrassment
+of the inquiry will be obviated by only biding their time; and if they
+but delay their report till next November, there will be but one party
+to legislate for in the island.
+
+
+
+
+A NUT FOR THE HUMANE SOCIETY.
+
+
+If my reader will permit me to refer to my own labours, I would wish
+to remind him of an old “Nut” of mine, in which I endeavoured to
+demonstrate the defective morality and economy of our penal code--a
+system, by which the smallest delinquent is made to cost the state
+several hundreds of pounds, for an offence frequently of some few
+pennies in value; and a theft of a loaf is, by the geometrical scale
+of progressive aggrandisement, gradually swelled into a most expensive
+process, in which policemen, station-houses, inspectors, magistrates,
+sessions, assizes, judges, crown prosecutors, gaols, turnkeys, and
+transports, all figure; and the nation is left to pay the cost of this
+terrible array, for the punishment of a crime the prevention of which
+might, perhaps, have been effected for two-pence.
+
+I do not now intend to go over the beaten track of this argument; my
+intention is simply to refer to it, and adduce another instance of
+this strange and short-sighted policy, which prefers waiting to
+acting, and despises cheap, though timely interference with evil, and
+indulges in the somewhat late, but more expensive process of
+reparation.
+
+And to begin. Imagine--unhappily you need exercise no great stretch of
+the faculty, the papers teem with too many instances--imagine a poor,
+woe-begone, miserable creature, destitute and friendless, without a
+home, without a meal; his tattered clothing displaying through every
+rent the shrunken form and wasted limbs to which hunger and want have
+reduced him. See him as night falls, plodding onwards through the
+crowded thoroughfares of the great city; his lack-lustre eye glazed
+and filmy; his pale face and blue lip actually corpse-like in their
+ghastliness. He gazes at the passers-by with the vacant stare of
+idiotcy. Starvation has sapped the very intellect, and he is like one
+in some frightful vision; a vague desire for rest--a dreamy belief
+that death will release him--lives in the place of hope; and as he
+leans over the battlements of the tall bridge, the plash of the dark
+river murmurs softly to his ear. His despair has conjured up a
+thousand strange and flitting fancies, and voices seem to call to him
+from the dull stream, and invite him to lie down and be at peace.
+Meanwhile the crowd passes on. Men in all the worldliness of their
+hopes and fears, their wishes, their expectations, and their dreads,
+pour by. None regard _him_, who at that moment stands on the very
+brink of an eternity, whither his thoughts have gone before him. As he
+gazes, his eye is attracted by the star-like spangle of lights in the
+water. It is the reflection of those in the house of the Humane
+Society; and he suddenly remembers that there is such an institution;
+and he bethinks him, as well as his poor brain will let him, that some
+benevolent people have called this association by this pleasing title,
+and the very word is a balm to his broken heart.
+
+“Humane Society!” Muttering the words, he staggers onwards; a feeling
+too faint for hope still survives; and he bends his wearied steps
+towards the building. It is indeed a goodly edifice; Portland stone
+and granite, massive columns and a portico, are all there; and
+Humanity herself is emblematised in the figures which decorate the
+pedestal. The man of misery stands without and looks up at this
+stately pile; the dying embers emit one spark, and for a second, hope
+brightens into a brief flicker. He enters the spacious hall, on one
+side of which a marble group is seen representing the “good
+Samaritan;” the appeal comes home to his heart, and he could cry, but
+hunger has dried up his tears.
+
+I will not follow him in his weary pilgrimage among the liveried
+menials of the institution, nor shall I harass my reader by the cold
+sarcasm of those who tell him that he has mistaken the object of the
+association: that their care is not with life, but death; that the
+breathing man, alive, but on the verge of dissolution, has no interest
+for _them_; for _their_ humanity waits patiently for his corpse. It
+is true, one pennyworth of bread--a meal your dog would turn
+from--would rescue this man from death and self-murder. But what of
+that--how could such humble, unobtrusive charity inhabit a palace? How
+could it pretend to porters and waiting-men, to scores of officials,
+visiting doctors, and physicians in ordinary? By what trickery could a
+royal patron be brought to head the list of benefactors to a scheme so
+unassuming? Where would be the stomach-pumps and the galvanic
+batteries for science?--where the newspaper reports of a miraculous
+recovery?--where the magazine records of suspended animation?--or
+where that pride and pomp and circumstance of enlightened humanity
+which calls in chemistry to aid charity, and makes electricity the
+test of benevolence? No, no; the hungry man might be fed, and go his
+way unseen, untrumpeted--there would be no need of this specious
+plausibility of humanity which proclaims aloud--Go and drown yourself;
+stand self-accused and condemned before your Creator; and if there be
+but a spark of vitality yet remaining, we’ll call you back to life
+again--a starving suicide! No effort shall be spared--messengers shall
+fly in every direction for assistance--the most distinguished
+physician--processes the most costly--experiments the most
+difficult--care unremitting--zeal untiring, are all yours. Cordials,
+the cost of which had sustained you in life for weeks long, are now
+poured down your unconscious throat--the limbs that knew no other bed
+than straw, are wrapped in heated blankets--the hand stretched out in
+vain for alms, is now rubbed by the jewelled fingers of a west-end
+physician.
+
+Men, men, is this charity?--is the fellow-creature nought?--is the
+corpse everything?--is a penny too much to sustain life?--is a hundred
+pounds too little to restore it? Away with your stuccoed walls and
+pillared corridors--support the starving, and you will need but little
+science to reanimate the suicide.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Nuts and Nutcrackers, by Charles James Lever
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