He comes from Erin's speechful shoreLike fervid kettle, bubbling o'erWith hot effusions—hot and weak;Sound, Humbug, all your hollowest drums,He comes, of Erin's martyrdomsTo Britain's well-fed Church to speak.
Puff him, ye Journals of the Lord,[1]Twin prosers,WatchmanandRecord!Journals reserved for realms of bliss,Being much too good to sell in this,Prepare, ye wealthier Saints, your dinners,Ye Spinsters, spread your tea and crumpets;And you, ye countless Tracts for Sinners,Blow all your little penny trumpets.He comes, the reverend man, to tellTo all who still the Church's part take,Tales of parsonic woe, that wellMight make even grim Dissenter's heart ache:—Of ten whole bishops snatched awayFor ever from the light of day;(With God knows, too, how many more,For whom that doom is yet in store)—Of Rectors cruelly compelledFrom Bath and Cheltenham to haste home,Because the tithes, by Pat withheld,Willnotto Bath or Cheltenham come;Nor will the flocks consent to payTheir parsons thus to stay away;—Tho' withsuchparsons, one may doubtIf 'tisn't money well laid out;—Of all, in short, and each degreeOf that once happy Hierarchy,Which used to roll in wealth so pleasantly;But now, alas! is doomed to seeIts surplus brought to nonplus presently!
Such are the themes this man of pathos,Priest of prose and lord of bathos,Will preach and preach t'ye, till you're dull again;Then, hail him, Saints, with joint acclaim,Shout to the stars his tuneful name,Which Murtaghwas, ere known to fame,But now isMortimerO'Mulligan!
All true, Dick, true as you're alive—I've seen him, some hours since, arrive.Murtagh is come, the great Itinerant—And Tuesday, in the market-place,Intends, to every saint and sinner in't,To state whathecalls Ireland's Case;Meaning thereby the case ofhisshop,-Of curate, vicar, rector, bishop,And all those other grades seraphic,That make men's souls their special traffic,Tho' caring not a pinwhichwayThe erratic souls go, so theypay.—Just as some roguish country nurse,Who takes a foundling babe to suckle,First pops the payment in her purse,Then leaves poor dear to—suck its knuckle:Even so these reverend rigmarolesPocket the money—starve the souls.Murtagh, however, in his glory,Will tell, next week, a different story;Will make out all these men of barter,As each a saint, a downright martyr,Brought to thestake—i.e. abeefone,Of all their martyrdoms the chief one;Tho' try them even at this, they'll bear it,If tender and washt down with claret.
Meanwhile Miss Fudge, who loves all lions.Your saintly,nextto great and high 'uns—(A Viscount, be he what he may,Would cut a Saint out any day,)Has just announced a godly rout,Where Murtagh's to be first brought out,And shown in his tame,week-daystate:—"Prayers, half-past seven, tea at eight."Even so the circular missive orders—Pink cards, with cherubs round the borders.
Haste, Dick—you're lost, if you lose time;—Spinsters at forty-five grow giddy,And Murtagh with his tropes sublimeWill surely carry off old Biddy,Unless some spark at once propose,And distance him by downright prose.That sick, rich squire, whose wealth and landsAll pass, they say, to Biddy's hands,(The patron, Dick, of three fat rectories!)Is dying ofangina pectoris;—So that, unless you're stirring soon.Murtagh, that priest of puff and pelf,May come in for a honey-moon,And be themanof it, himself!
As forme, Dick—'tis whim, 'tis folly,But this young niece absorbs me wholly.'Tis true, the girl's a vile verse-maker—Would rhyme all nature, if you'd let her;—But even her oddities, plague take her,But made me love her all the better.Tootrue it is, she's bitten sadlyWith this new rage for rhyming badly,Which late hath seized all ranks and classes,Down to that new Estate, "the masses ";Till one pursuit all tastes combines—One common railroad o'er Parnassus,Where, sliding in those tuneful grooves,Called couplets, all creation moves,And the whole world runs madin lines.Add to all this—what's even still worse,As rhyme itself, tho' still a curse,Sounds better to a chinking purse—Scarce sixpence hath my charmer got,While I can muster just a groat;So that, computing self and Venus,Tenpence would clear the amount between us.However, things may yet prove better:—Meantime, what awful length of letter!And how, while heaping thus with gibesThe Pegasus of modern scribes,My own small hobby of farragoHath beat the pace at which eventheygo!
[1] "Our anxious desire is to be found on the side of the Lord."—Record Newspaper.
Dear Judy, I sind you this bit of a letther,By mail-coach conveyance—for want of a betther—To tell you what luck in this world I have hadSince I left the sweet cabin, at Mullinafad.Och, Judy, that night!—when the pig which we meantTo dry-nurse in the parlor, to pay off the rent,Julianna, the craythur—that name was the death of her—[1]Gave us the shlip and we saw the last breath of her!Andtherewere the childher, six innocent sowls,For their nate little play-fellow turning up howls;While yourself, my dear Judy (tho' grievin's a folly),Stud over Julianna's remains, melancholy—Cryin', half for the craythur and half for the money,"Arrah, why did ye die till we'd sowled you, my honey?"
But God's will be done!—and then, faith, sure enough,As the pig was desaiced, 'twas high time to be off.So we gothered up all the poor duds we could catch,Lock the owld cabin-door, put the kay in the thatch,Then tuk laave of each other's sweet lips in the dark,And set off, like the Chrishtians turned out of the Ark;The six childher with you, my dear Judy, ochone!And poor I wid myself, left condolin' alone.
How I came to this England, o'er say and o'er lands,And what cruel hard walkin' I've had on my hands,Is, at this present writin', too tadious to speak,So I'll mintion it all in a postscript, next week:—Only starved I was, surely, as thin as a lath,Till I came to an up-and-down place they call Bath,Where, as luck was, I managed to make a meal's meat,By dhraggin' owld ladies all day thro' the street—Which their docthors (who pocket, like fun, the pound starlins,)Have brought into fashion to plase the owld darlins.Divil a boy in all Bath, tho'Isay it, could carryThe grannies up hill half so handy as Larry;And the higher they lived, like owld crows, in the air,The moreIwas wanted to lug them up there.
But luck has two handles, dear Judy, they say,And mine hasbothhandles put on the wrong way.For, pondherin', one morn, on a drame I'd just hadOf yourself and the babbies, at Mullinafad,Och, there came o'er my sinses so plasin' a flutther,That I spilt an owld Countess right clane in the gutther,Muff, feathers and all!—the descint was most awful,And—what was still worse, faith—I knew'twas unlawful:For, tho', with merewomen, no very great evil,'Tupset an owldCountessin Bath is the divil!So, liftin' the chair, with herself safe upon it,(for nothin' about her—waskilt, but her bonnet,)Without even mentionin' "By your lave, ma'am,"I tuk to my heels and—here, Judy, I am!
What's the name of this town I can't say very well,But your heart sure will jump when you hear what befellYour own beautiful Larry, the very first day,(And a Sunday it was, shinin' out mighty gay,)When his brogues to this city of luck found their way.Bein' hungry, God help me and happenin' to stop,Just to dine on the shmell of a pasthry-cook's shop,I saw, in the window, a large printed paper.And read there a name, och! that made my heart caper—Though printed it was in some quare ABC,That might bother a schoolmaster, let aloneme.By gor, you'd have laughed Judy, could you've but listened,As, doubtin', I cried, "why is it!—no, itisn't:"But itwas, after all—for, by spellin' quite slow,First I made out "Rev. Mortimer"—then a great "O";And, at last, by hard readin' and rackin' my skull again,Out it came, nate as imported, "O'Mulligan!"
Up I jumpt like a sky-lark, my jewel, at that name,—Divil a doubt on my mind, but itmustbe the same"Master Murthagh, himself," says I, "all the world over!My own fosther-brother—by jinks, I'm in clover.Tho'there, in the play-bill, he figures so grand,One wet-nurse it was brought us both up by hand,And he'll not let me shtarve in the inemy's land!"
Well, to make a long hishtory short, niver doubtBut I managed, in no time, to find the lad out:And the joy of the meetin' bethuxt him and me,Such a pair of owld cumrogues—was charmin' to see.Nor is Murthagh less plased with the evint thanIam,As he just then was wanting a Valley-de-sham;And, fordressin'a gintleman, one way or t'other,Your nate Irish lad is beyant every other.
But now, Judy, comes the quare part of the case;And, in throth, it's the only drawback on my place.'Twas Murthagh's ill luck to be crost, as you know,With an awkward mishfortune some short time ago;That's to say, he turned Protestant—why, I can'tlarn;But, of coorse, he knew best, an' it's notmyconsarn.All I know is, we both were good Catholics, at nurse,And myself am so still—nayther better not worse.Well, our bargain was all right and tight in a jiffy,And lads more contint never yet left, the Liffey,When Murthagh—or Morthimer, as he'snowchrishened,Hisnamebeing convarted, at laist, ifheisn't—Lookin' sly at me (faith, 'twas divartin' to see)"Of coorse, you're a Protestant, Larry," says he.Upon which says myself, wid a wink just as shly,"Is't a Protestant?—oh yes,I am, sir," says I;—And there the chat ended, and divil a more wordControvarsial between us has since then occurred.
What Murthagh could mane, and, in troth, Judy dear,WhatI myselfmeant, doesn'tseem mighty clear;But the truth is, tho' still for the Owld Light a stickler,I was just then too shtarved to be over partic'lar:—And, God knows, between us, a comic'ler pairOf twin Protestants couldn't be seenanywhere.
Next Tuesday (as towld in the play-bills I mintioned,Addrest to the loyal and godly intintioned,)His Riverence, my master, comes forward to preach,—Myself doesn'tknow whether sarmon or speech,But it's all one to him, he's a dead hand at each;Like us Paddys in gin'ral, whose skill in orationsQuite bothers the blarney of all other nations.
But, whisht!—there's his Riverence, shoutin' out "Larry,"And sorra a word more will this shmall paper carry;So, here, Judy, ends my short bit of a letther,Which, faix, I'd have made a much bigger and betther.But divil a one Post-office hole in this townFit to swallow a dacent sized billy-dux down.So good luck to the childer!—tell Molly, I love her;Kiss Oonagh's sweet mouth, and kiss Katty all over—Not forgettin' the mark of the red-currant whiskeyShe got at the fair when yourself was so frisky.The heavens be your bed!—I will write, when I can again,Yours to the world's end,
[1] The Irish peasantry are very fond of giving fine names to their pigs. I have heard of one instance in which a couple of young pigs were named, at their birth, Abelard and Eloisa.
How I grieve you're not with us!—pray, come, if you can,Ere we're robbed of this dear, oratorical man,Who combines in himself all the multiple gloryOf, Orangeman, Saint,quondamPapist and Tory;—(Choice mixture! like that from which, duly confounded,The best sort ofbrasswas, in old times, compounded.)—The sly and the saintly, the worldly and godly,All fused down, in brogue so deliciously oddly!In short, he's adear—andsuchaudiences draws,Such loud peals of laughter and shouts of applause,Ascan'tbut do good to the Protestant cause.
Poor dear Irish Church!—he today sketched a viewOf her history and prospect, tomeat least new,And which (if ittakesas it ought) must arouseThe whole Christian world her just rights to espouse.As toreasoning—you know, dear, that's now of no use,People still will theirfactsand dryfiguresproduce,As if saving the souls of a Protestant flock wereA thing to be managed "according to Cocker!"In vain do we say, (when rude radicals hectorAt paying some thousands a year to a Rector,In places where Protestantsnever yet were,)"Who knows but young Protestantsmaybe born there?"And granting such accident, think, what a shame,If they didnt find Rector and Clerk when they came!It is clear that, without such a staff on full pay,These little Church embryosmustgo astray;And, while fools are computing what Parsons would cost,Precious souls are meanwhile to the Establishment lost!
In vain do we put the case sensibly thus;—They'll still with their figures and facts make a fuss,And ask "if, while all, choosing each his own road,Journey on, as we can, towards the Heavenly Abode,It is right thatseveneighths of the travellers should payForoneeighth that goes quite a different way?"—Just as if, foolish people, this wasn't, in reality,A proof of the Church's extreme liberality,That tho' hating Popery inotherrespects,She to Catholicmoneyin no way objects;And so liberal her very best Saints, in this sense,That they even go to heaven at the Catholic's expense.
But tho' clear toourminds all these arguments be,People cannot orwillnot their cogency see;And I grieve to confess, did the poor Irish ChurchStand on reasoning alone, she'd be left in the lurch.It was therefore, dear Lizzy, with joy most sincere,That I heard this nice Reverend O'somethingwe've here,Produce, from the depths of his knowledge and reading,A view of that marvellous Church, far exceeding,In novelty, force, and profoundness of thought,All that Irving himself in his glory e'er taught.
Looking thro' the whole history, present and past,Of the Irish Law Church, from the first to the last;Considering how strange its original birth—Such a thing havingneverbefore been on earth—How opposed to the instinct, the law and the forceOf nature and reason has been its whole course;Thro' centuries encountering repugnance, resistance,Scorn, hate, execration—yet still in existence!Considering all this, the conclusion he drawsIs that Nature exempts this one Church from her laws—That Reason, dumb-foundered, gives up the dispute,And before the portentous anomaly stands mute;That in short 'tis a Miracle! and,oncebegun,And transmitted thro' ages, from father to son,For the honor of miracles,ought to go on.
Never yet was conclusion so cogent and sound,Or so fitted the Church's weak foes to confound.For observe the more low all her merits they place,The more they make out the miraculous case,And the more all good Christians must deem it profaneTo disturb such a prodigy's marvellous reign.
As for scriptural proofs, he quite placed beyond doubtThat the whole in the Apocalypse may be found out,As clear and well-proved, he would venture to swear,As anything else has beeneverfound there:—While the mode in which, bless the dear fellow, he dealsWith that whole lot of vials and trumpets and seals,And the ease with which vial on vial he strings,Shows him quite afirst-rateat all these sort of things.
So much for theology:—as for the affairsOf this temporal world—the light drawing-room caresAnd gay toils of the toilet, which, God knows, I seek,From no love of such things, but in humbleness meek,And to be, as the Apostle, was, "weak with the weak,"Thou wilt find quite enough (till I'm somewhat less busy)In the extracts inclosed, my dear news-loving Lizzy.
Thursday.
Last night, having naught more holy to do,Wrote a letter to dear Sir Andrew Agnew,About the "Do-nothing-on-Sunday-club,"Which we wish by some shorter name to dub:—As the use of more vowels and ConsonantsThan a Christian on Sundayreallywants,Is a grievance that ought to be done away,And the Alphabet left to rest, that day.
Sunday.
Sir Andrew's answer!—but, shocking to say,Being franked unthinkingly yesterday.To the horror of Agnews yet unborn,It arrived on this blessed Sunday morn!!—How shocking!—the postman's self cried "shame on't,"Seeing the immaculate Andrew's name on't!!What will the Club do?—meet, no doubt.'Tis a matter that touches the Class Devout,And the friends of the Sabbathmustspeak out.
Tuesday.
Saw to-day, at the raffle—and saw it with pain—That those stylish Fitzwigrams begin to dress plain.Even gay little Sophy smart trimmings renounces—She who long has stood by me thro' all sorts of flounces,And showed by upholding the toilet's sweet rites,That we girls may be Christians without being frights.This, I own, much alarms me; for tho' one's religious,And strict and—all that, there's no need to be hideous;And why a nice bonnet should stand in the wayOf one's going to heaven, 'tisn't easy to say.
Then, there's Gimp, the poor thing—if her custom we drop,Pray what's to become of her soul and her shop?If by saints like ourselves no more orders are given,She'll lose all the interest she now takes in heaven;And this nice little "fire-brand, pluckt from the burning,"May fall in again at the very next turning.
Wednesday.
Mem.—To write to the India Mission Society; And send £20—heavy tax upon piety!
Of all Indian luxuries we now-a-days boast,Making "Company's Christians" perhaps costs the most.And the worst of it is, that these converts full grown,Having lived inourfaith mostly die in theirown,[1]Praying hard, at the last, to some god who, they say,When incarnate on earth, used to steal curds and whey.[2]Think, how horrid, my dear!—so that all's thrown away;And (what is still worse) for the rum and the riceThey consumed, while believers, we saints pay the price.
Still 'tis cheering to find that wedosave a few—The Report gives six Christians for Cunnangcadoo;Doorkotchum reckons seven, and four Trevandrum,While but one and a half's left at Cooroopadum.In this last-mentioned place 'tis the barbers enslave 'em,For once they turn Christians no barber will shave 'em.[3]
To atone for this rather small Heathen amount,Some Papists, turned Christians,[4] are tackt to the account.And tho' to catch Papists, one needn't go so far,Such fish are worth hooking, wherever they are;Andnow, when so great of such converts the lack is,OnePapist well caught is worth millions of Blackies.
Friday.
Last night had a dream so odd and funny,I cannot resist recording it here.—Methought that the Genius of MatrimonyBefore me stood with a joyous leer,Leading a husband in each hand,And both forme, which lookt rather queer;—OneI could perfectly understand,But why there weretwowasnt quite so clear.T'was meant however, I soon could see,To afford me achoice—a most excellent plan;And—who should this brace of candidates be,But Messrs. O'Mulligan and Magan:—A thing, I suppose, unheard of till then,To dream, at once, oftwoIrishmen!—That handsome Magan, too, with wings on his shoulders(For all this past in the realms of the Blest.)And quite a creature to dazzle beholders;While even O'Mulligan, feathered and drestAs an elderly cherub, was looking his best.Ah Liz, you, who know me, scarce can doubtAs towhichof the two I singled out.But—awful to tell—when, all in dreadOf losing so bright a vision's charms,I graspt at Magan, his image fled,Like a mist, away, and I found but the headOf O'Mulligan, wings and all, in my arms!The Angel had flown to some nest divine.And the elderly Cherub alone was mine!
Heigho!—it is certain that foolish MaganEither can'tor wont see that hemightbe the man;And, perhaps, dear—who knows?—if naught better befallBut—O'Mulliganmaybe the man, after all.
Next week mean to have my first scriptural rout,For the special discussion of matters devout;—Like thosesoirées, at Powerscourt, so justly renowned,For the zeal with which doctrine and negus went round;Those theology-routs which the pious Lord Roden,That pink of Christianity, first set the mode in;Where, blessed down-pouring[5]from tea until nine,The subjects lay all in the Prophecy line;—Then, supper—and then, if for topics hard driven,From thence until bed-time to Satan was given;While Roden, deep read in each topic and tome,On all subjects (especially the last) wasat home.
[1] Of such relapses we find innumerable instances in the accounts of the Missionaries.
[2] The god Krishna, one of the incarnations of the god Vishnu. "One day [says the Bhagavata] Krishna's playfellows complained to Tasuda that he had pilfered and ate their curds."
[3] "Roteen wants shaving; but the barber here will not do it. He is run away lest he should be compelled. He says he will not shave Yesoo Kreest's people."—Bapt. Mission Society, vol. ii., p. 498.
[4] In the Reports of the Missionaries, the Roman Catholics are almost always classed along with the Heathen.
[5] "About eight o'clock the Lord began to pour down his spirit copiously upon us—for they had all by this time assembled in my room for the purpose of prayer. This down-pouring continued till about ten o'clock."— Letter from Mary Campbell to the Rev. John Campbell, of Row, dated Feruicary, April 4, 1830, giving an account of her "miraculous cure."
Bring me the slumbering souls of flowers,While yet, beneath some northern sky,Ungilt by beams, ungemmed by showers,They wait the breath of summer hours,To wake to light each diamond eye,And let loose every florid sigh!
Bring me the first-born ocean waves,From out those deep primeval caves,Where from the dawn of Time they've lain—THE EMBRYOS OF A FUTURE MAIN!—Untaught as yet, young things, to speakThe language of their PARENT SEA(Polyphlysbaean named, in Greek),Tho' soon, too soon, in bay and creek,Round startled isle and wondering peak,They'll thunder loud and long as HE!
Bring me, from Hecla's iced abode,Young fires—
I had got, dear, thus far in my ODEIntending to fill the whole page to the bottom,But, having invoked such a lot of fine things,Flowers, billows and thunderbolts, rainbows and wings,Didnt knowwhatto do with 'em, when I had got 'em.The truth is, my thoughts are too full, at this minute,Of Past MSS. any new ones to try.This very night's coach brings my destiny in it—Decides the great question, to live or to die!And, whether I'm henceforth immortal or no,All depends on the answer of Simpkins and Co.!
You'll think, love, I rave, so 'tis best to let outThe whole secret, at once—I have publisht a book!!!Yes, an actual Book:—if the marvel you doubt,You have only in last Monday'sCourierto look,And you'll find "This day publisht by Simpkins and Co.A Romaunt, in twelve Cantos, entitled 'Woe Woe!'By Miss Fanny F——, known more commonly so [symbol: hand]."This I put that my friends mayn't be left in the darkBut may guess at mywritingby knowing mymark.
How I managed, at last, this great deed to achieve,Is itself a "Romaunt" which you'd scarce, dear believe;Nor can I just now, being all in a whirl,Looking out for the Magnet,[1] explain it, dear girl.Suffice it to say, that one half the expenseOf this leasehold of fame for long centuries hence—(Tho' "God knows," as aunt says my humble ambitionAspires not beyond a small Second Edition)—One half the whole cost of the paper and printing,I've managed, to scrape up, this year past, by stintingMy own little wants in gloves, ribands, and shoes,Thus defrauding the toilet to fit out the Muse!
And who, my dear Kitty; would not do the same?What'seau de Cologneto the sweet breath of fame?Yards of riband soon end—but the measures of rhyme,Dipt in hues of the rainbow, stretch out thro' all time.Gloves languish and fade away pair after pair,While couplets shine out, but the brighter for wear,And the dancing-shoe's gloss in an evening is gone,While light-footed lyrics thro' ages trip on.
The remaining expense, trouble, risk—and, alas!My poor copyright too—into other hands pass;And my friend, the Head Devil of the "County Gazette"(The only Mecaenas I've ever had yet),He who set up in type my first juvenile lays,Is now see up by them for the rest of his days;And while Gods (as my "Heathen Mythology" says)Live on naught but ambrosia,hislot how much sweeterTo live, lucky devil, on a young lady's metre!
As forpuffing—that first of all literary boons,And essential alike both to bards and balloons,As, unless well supplied with inflation, 'tis foundNeither bards nor balloons budge an inch from the ground;—Inthisrespect, naught could more prosperous befall;As my friend (for no less this kind imp can I call)
Knows the whole would of critics—thehypersand all.I suspect he himself, indeed, dabbles in rhyme,Which, for imps diabolic, is not the first time;As I've heard uncle Bob say, 'twas known among Gnostics,That the Devil on Two Sticks was a devil at Acrostics.
But hark! there's the Magnet just dasht in from Town—How my heart, Kitty, beats! I shall surely drop down.That awfulCourt Journal, Gazette Athenaeum,All full of my book—I shall sink when I see 'em.And then the great point—whether Simpkins and Co.Are actually pleased with their bargain or no!—
Five o'clock.
All's delightful—such praises!—I really fearThat this poor little head will turn giddy, my dear,I've but time now to send you two exquisite scraps—All the rest by the Magnet, on Monday, perhaps.
'Tis known that a certain distinguisht physicianPrescribes, fordyspepsia, a course of light reading;And Rhymes by young Ladies, the first, fresh edition(Ere critics have injured their powers of nutrition,)Are he thinks, for weak stomachs, the best sort of feeding.Satires irritate—love-songs are found calorific;But smooth, female sonnets he deems a specific,And, if taken at bedtime, a sure soporific.Among works of this kind, the most pleasing we know,Is a volume just published by Simpkins and Co.,Where all such ingredients—the flowery, the sweet,And the gently narcotic—are mixtperreceipt,With a hand so judicious, we've no hesitationTo say that—'bove all, for the young generation—'Tis an elegant, soothing and safe preparation.
Nota bene—for readers, whose object'sto sleep, And who read, in their nightcaps, the publishers keep Good fire-proof binding, which comes very cheap.
T' other night, at the Countess of ***'s rout,An amusing event was much whispered about.It was said that Lord —-, at the Council, that day,Had, move than once, jumpt from his seat, like a rocket,And flown to a corner, where—heedless, they say,How the country's resources were squandered away—He kept reading some papers he'd brought in his pocket.Some thought them despatches from Spain or the Turk,Others swore they brought word we had lost the Mauritius;But it turned out 'twas only Miss Fudge's new work,Which his Lordship devoured with such zeal expeditious—Messrs. Simpkins and Co., to avoid all delay,Having sent it in sheets, that his Lordship might say,He had distanced the whole reading world by a day!
[1] A day-coach of that name.
Tuesday evening,
I much regret, dear Reverend Sir,I could not come to * * * to meet you;But this curst gout wont let me stir—Even now I but by proxy greet you;As this vile scrawl, whate'er its sense is,Owes all to an amanuensis.Most other scourges of diseaseReduce men toextremities—But gout wont leave one eventhese.
From all my sister writes, I seeThat you and I will quite agree.I'm a plain man who speak the truth,And trust you'll think me not uncivil,When I declare that from my youthI've wisht your country at the devil:Nor can I doubt indeed from allI've heard of your high patriot fame—From every word your lips let fall—That you most truly wish the same.It plagues one's life out—thirty yearsHave I had dinning in my ears,"Ireland wants this and that and t'other,"And to this hour one nothing hearsBut the same vile, eternal bother.While, of those countless things she wanted,Thank God, but little has been granted,And even that little, if we're menAnd Britons, we'll have back again!
I really think that Catholic questionWas what brought on my indigestion;And still each year, as Popery's curseHas gathered round us, I've got worse;Till even my pint of port a dayCant keep the Pope and bile away.And whereas, till the Catholic bill,I never wanted draught or pill,The settling of that cursed questionHas quite _un_settled my digestion.
Look what has happened since—the ElectOf all the bores of every sect,The chosen triers of men's patience,From all the Three Denominations.Let loose upon us;—even QuakersTurned into speechers and lawmakers,Who'll move no question, stiff-rumpt elves,Till first the Spirit moves themselves;And whose shrill Yeas and Nays, in chorus,Conquering our Ayes and Noes sonorous,Will soon to death's own slumber snore us.Then, too, those Jews!—I really sickenTo think of such abomination;Fellows, who wont eat ham with chicken,To legislate for this great nation!—Depend upon't, when once they've sway,With rich old Goldsmid at the head o' them,The Excise laws will be done away,AndCircumciseones past instead o' them!
In short, dear sir, look where one will,Things all go on so devilish ill,That, 'pon my soul, I rather fearOur reverend Rector may be right,Who tells me the Millennium's near;Nay, swears he knows the very year,And regulates his leases by 't;—Meaning their terms should end, no doubt,Before the world's own lease is out.He thinks too that the whole thing's endedSo much more soon than was intended,Purely to scourge those men of sinWho brought the accurst Reform Bill in.
However, let's not yet despair;Tho' Toryism's eclipst, at present.And—like myself, in this old chair—Sits in a state by no means pleasant;Feet crippled—hands, in luckless hour,Disabled of their grasping power;And all that rampant glee, which revelledIn this world's sweets, be-dulled, be-deviled—
Yet, tho' condemned to frisk no more,And both in Chair of Penance set,There's something tells me, all's not o'erWith Toryism or Bobby yet;That tho', between us, I allowWe've not a leg to stand on now;Tho' curst Reform andcolchicumHave made us both look deuced glum,Yet still, in spite of Grote and Gout,Again we'll shine triumphant out!
Yes—back again shall come, egad,Ourturn for sport, my reverend lad.And then, O'Mulligan—oh then,When mounted on our nags again,You, on your high-flown Rosinante,Bedizened out, like Show-Gallantee(Glitter great from substance scanty);—While I, Bob Fudge, Esquire, shall rideYour faithful Sancho, by your side;Then—talk of tilts and tournaments!Dam'me, we'll—
* * * * *
'Squire Fudge's clerk presentsTo Reverend Sir his compliments;Is grieved to say an accidentHas just occurred which will preventThe Squire—tho' now a little better—From finishing this present letter.Just when he'd got to "Dam'me, we'll"—His Honor, full of martial zeal,Graspt at his crutch, but not being ableTo keep his balance or his hold,Tumbled, both self and crutch, and rolled,Like ball and bat, beneath the table.
All's safe—the table, chair and crutch;—Nothing, thank God, is broken much,But the Squire's head, which in the fallGot bumped considerably—that's all.At this no great alarm we feel,As the Squire's head can bear a deal.
Wednesday morning
Squire much the same—head rather light—Raved about "Barbers' Wigs" all night.
Our housekeeper, old Mrs. Griggs,Suspects that he meant "barbarous Whigs."
As it was but last week that I sint you a letther,You'll wondher, dear Judy, what this is about;And, throth, it's a letther myself would like betther,Could I manage to lave the contints of it out;For sure, if it makes evenmeonaisy,Who takes things quiet, 'twill dhriveyoucrazy.
Oh! Judy, that riverind Murthagh, bad scran to him!That e'er I should come to've been sarvant-man to him,Or so far demane the O'Branigan blood,And my Aunts, the Diluvians (whom not even the FloodWas able to wash away clane from the earth)[1]As to sarve one whose name, of mere yestherday's birth,Can no more to a great O,beforeit, purtend,Than mine can to wear a great Q at itsend.
But that's now all over—last night I gev warnin,'And, masth'r as he is, will discharge him this mornin'.The thief of the world!—but it's no use balraggin'[2]—All I know is, I'd fifty times rather be draggin'Ould ladies up hill to the ind of my days,
Than with Murthagh to rowl in a chaise, at my aise,And be forced to discind thro' the same dirty ways.Arrah, sure, if I'd heerd where he last showed his phiz,I'd have known what a quare sort of monsthsr he is;For, by gor, 'twas at Exether Change, sure enough,That himself and his other wild Irish showed off;And it's pity, so 'tis, that they hadn't got no manWho knew the wild crathurs to act as their showman—Sayin', "Ladies and Gintlemen, plaze to take notice,"How shlim and how shleek this black animal's coat is;"All by raison, we're towld, that the natur o' the baste"Is to change its coatoncein its lifetime,at laste;"And such objiks, inourcounthry, not bein' common ones,"Arebought up, as this was, by way of Fine Nomenons."In regard of itsname—why, in throth, I'm consarned"To differ on this point so much with the Larned,"Who call it a 'Morthimer,' whereas the craythur"Is plainly a 'Murthagh,' by name and by nathur."
This is how I'd have towld them the righst of it all.HadIbeen their showman at Exether Hail—Not forgettin' that other great wondher of Airin(Of the owld bitther breed which they call Prosbetairin),The famed Daddy Coke—who, by gor, I'd have shown 'emAs proof how such bastes may be tamed, when you've thrown 'emA good frindly sop of the raleRaigin Donem.[3]But throth, I've no laisure just now, Judy dear,For anything, barrin' our own doings here,And the cursin' and dammin' and thund'rin like mad,We Papists, God help us, from Murthagh have had.He says we're all murtherers—divil a bit less—And that even our priests, when we go to confess,Give us lessons in murthering and wish us success!
When axed how he daared, by tongue or by pen,To belie, in this way, seven millions of men,Faith, he said'twas all towld him by Docthor Den![4]"And who the divil'she?" was the question that flewFrom Chrishtian to Chrishtian—but not a sowl knew.While on went Murthagh, in iligant style,Blasphaming us Cath'lics all the while,As a pack of desaivers, parjurers, villains,All the whole kit of the aforesaid millions;—Yourself, dear Judy, as well as the rest,And the innocent craythur that's at your breast,All rogues together, in word and deed,Owld Den our insthructor and Sin our creed!
When axed for his proofs again and again,Divil an answer he'd give but Docthor Den.Couldn'the call into coort somelivin'men?"No, thank you"—he'd stick to Docthor Den—An ould gintleman dead a century or two,Who all aboutus, live Catholics, knew;And of coorse was more handy, to call in a hurry,Than Docthor MacHale or Docthor Murray!
But, throth, it's no case to be jokin' upon,Tho' myself, from bad habits, ismakin'it one.Evenyou, had you witnessed his grand climactherics,Which actially threw one owld maid in hysterics—Or, och! had you heerd such a purty remark as his,That Papists are only "Humanity's carcasses,"Risen"—but, by dad, I'm afeared I can't give it ye—"Risen from the sepulchre of—inactivity;"And, like owld corpses, dug up from antikity,"Wandrin' about in all sorts of inikity!!"—[5]Even you, Judy, true as you are to the Owld Light,Would have laught, out and out, at this iligant flightOf that figure of speech called the Blatherumskite.As for me, tho' a funny thought now and then came to me,Rage got the betther at last—and small blame to me,So, slapping my thigh, "by the Powers of Delf,"Says I bowldly "I'll make a noration myself."And with that up I jumps—but, my darlint, the minitI cockt up my head, divil a sinse remained in it.Tho',saited, I could have got beautiful on,When I tuk to my legs, faith, the gab was all gone:—Which was odd, for us, Pats, who, whate'er we've a hand in,At laste in ourlegsshow a sthrong understandin'.
Howsumdever, detarmined the chaps should pursaiveWhat I thought of their doin's, before I tuk lave,"In regard of all that," says I—there I stopt short—Not a word more would come, tho' I shtruggled hard for't.So, shnapping my fingers at what's called the Chair,And the owld Lord (or Lady, I believe) that sat there—"In regard of all that," says I bowldly again—"To owld Nick I pitch Mortimer—andDocthor Den";—Upon which the whole company cried out "Amen";And myself was in hopes 'twas to whatIhad said,But, by gor, no such thing—they were not so well bred:For, 'twas all to a prayer Murthagh just had read out,By way of fit finish to job so devout:That is—aftherwell damning one half the community,To pray God to keep all in pace an' in unity!
This is all I can shtuff in this letter, tho' plintyOf news, faith, I've got to fill more—if 'twas twinty.But I'll add, on theoutside, a line, should I need it,(Writin' "Private" upon it, that no one may read it,)To tell you howMortimer(as the Saints chrishten him)Bears the big shame of his sarvant's dismisshin' him.
(Private outside.)
Just come from his riv'rence—the job is all done—By the powers, I've discharged him as sure as a gun!And now, Judy dear, what on earth I'm to doWith myself and my appetite—both good as new—Without even a single traneen in my pocket,Let alone a good, dacent pound—starlin', to stock it—Is a mysht'ry I lave to the One that's above,Who takes care of us, dissolute sawls, when hard dhrove!
[1] "I am of your Patriarchs, I, a branch of one of your antediluvian families—fellows that the Flood could not wash away."—CONGREVE, "Love for Love."
[2] Tobalragis to abuse—Mr. Lover makes itballyrag, and he is high authority: but if I remember rightly, Curran in his national stories used to employ the word as above.—See Lover's most amusing and genuinely Irish work, the "Legends and Stories of Ireland."
[3] Larry evidently means theRegium Donum;—a sum contributed by the government annually to the support of the Presbyterian churches in Ireland.
[4]Correctly, Dens—Larry not being very particular in his nomenclature.
[5] "But she (Popery) is no longerthe tenant of the sepulchre of inactivity. She has come from the burial-place, walking forth a monster, as if the spirit of evil had corruptedthe carcass of her departed humanity; noxious and noisome an object of abhorrence and dismay to all who are notleagued with her in iniquity."—Report of the Rev. Gentleman's Speech, June 20, in the Record Newspaper.