Withrespect to the third point, various lessons which the book reads to the nation at large, and which it would be well for the nation to ponder and profit by.
There are many species of nonsense to which the nation is much addicted, and of which the perusal ofLavengroought to give them a wholesome shame. First of all, with respect to the foreign nonsense so prevalent now in England. The hero is a scholar; but, though possessed of a great many tongues, he affects to be neither Frenchman, nor German, nor this or that foreigner; he is one who loves his country, and the language and literature of his country, and speaks up for each and all when there is occasion to do so. Now what is the case with nine out of ten amongst those of the English who study foreign languages? No sooner have they picked up a smattering of this or that speech than they begin to abuse their own country, and everything connected with it, more especially its language. This is particularly the case with those who call themselves German students. It is said, and the writer believes with truth, that when a woman falls in love with a particularly ugly fellow, she squeezes him with ten times more zest than she would a handsome one, if captivated by him. So it is with these German students; no sooner have they taken German in hand than there is nothing like German. Oh, the dear, delightful German! How proud I am that it is now my own, and that its divine literature is within my reach! And all this whilst mumbling the most uncouth speech, and crunching the most crabbed literature in Europe. The writer is not an exclusive admirer of everything English; he does not advise his country people never to go abroad, never to study foreign languages, and he does not wish to persuade them that there is nothing beautiful or valuable in foreign literature; he only wishes that they would not make themselves fools with respect to foreign people, foreign languages or reading; that if they chance to have been in Spain, and have picked up a little Spanish, they would not affect the airs of Spaniards; that if males they would not make Tom-fools of themselves by sticking cigars into their mouths, dressing themselvesinzamarras, and saying,carajo![318]and if females that they would not make zanies of themselves by sticking cigars into their mouths, flinging mantillas over their heads, and by sayingcarai, and perhapscarajotoo; or if they have been in France or Italy, and have picked up a little French or Italian, they would not affect to be French or Italians; and particularly, after having been a month or two in Germany, or picked up a little German in England, they would not make themselves foolish about everything German, as the Anglo-German in the book does—a real character, the founder of the Anglo-German school in England, and the cleverest Englishman who ever talked or wrote encomiastic nonsense about Germany and the Germans. Of all infatuations connected with what is foreign, the infatuation about everything that is German, to a certain extent prevalent in England, is assuredly the most ridiculous. One can find something like a palliation for people making themselves somewhat foolish about particular languages, literatures and people. The Spanish certainly is a noble language, and there is something wild and captivating in the Spanish character, and its literature contains the grand book of the world. French is a manly language. The French are the great martial people in the world; and French literature is admirable in many respects. Italian is a sweet language, and of beautiful simplicity—its literature perhaps the first in the world. The Italians!—wonderful men have sprung up in Italy. Italy is not merely famous for painters, poets, musicians, singers and linguists—the greatest linguist the world ever saw, the late Cardinal Mezzofanti, was an Italian; but it is celebrated for men—men emphatically speaking: Columbus was an Italian, Alexander Farnese was an Italian, so was the mightiest of the mighty, Napoleon Bonaparte; but the German language, German literature, and the Germans! The writer has already stated his opinion with respect to German; he does not speak from ignorance or prejudice; he has heard German spoken, and many other languages. German literature! He does not speak from ignorance, he has read that and many a literature, and he repeats—however, he acknowledges that there is one fine poem in the German language, that poem is theOberon; a poem, by-the-bye, ignored by the Germans—a speaking fact—and of course, by the Anglo-Germanists. The Germans! he has been amongst them, and amongst many other nations, and confesses that his opinion of the Germans, as men, is a very low one. Germany, itis true, has produced one very great man, the monk who fought the Pope, and nearly knocked him down; but this man his country-men—a telling fact—affect to despise, and, of course, the Anglo-Germanists: the father of Anglo-Germanism was very fond of inveighing against Luther.
The madness, or rather foolery, of the English for foreign customs, dresses and languages, is not an affair of to-day, or yesterday—it is of very ancient date, and was very properly exposed nearly three centuries ago by one Andrew Borde, who under the picture of a “Naked man, with a pair of shears in one hand, and a roll of cloth in the other,” inserted the following lines along with others:—[319]
I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here,Musing in my mind what garment I shall weare;For now I will weare this, and now I will weare that,Now I will weare, I cannot tell what.All new fashions be pleasant to mee,I will have them, whether I thrive or thee;What do I care if all the world me fail?I will have a garment [shall] reach to my taile;Then am I a minion, for I weare the new guise.The next yeare after I hope to be wise,Not only in wearing my gorgeous array,For I will go to learning a whole summer’s day,I will learn Latine, Hebrew, Greek, and French,And I will learn Dutch, sitting on my bench.I had no peere if to myself I were true,Because I am not so, divers times do I rue.Yet I lacke nothing, I have all things at willIf I were wise and would hold myself still,And meddle with no matters but to me pertaining,But ever to be true to God and my King.But I have such matters rowling in my pate,That I will and do — — I cannot tell what, etc.
I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here,Musing in my mind what garment I shall weare;For now I will weare this, and now I will weare that,Now I will weare, I cannot tell what.All new fashions be pleasant to mee,I will have them, whether I thrive or thee;What do I care if all the world me fail?I will have a garment [shall] reach to my taile;Then am I a minion, for I weare the new guise.The next yeare after I hope to be wise,Not only in wearing my gorgeous array,For I will go to learning a whole summer’s day,I will learn Latine, Hebrew, Greek, and French,And I will learn Dutch, sitting on my bench.I had no peere if to myself I were true,Because I am not so, divers times do I rue.Yet I lacke nothing, I have all things at willIf I were wise and would hold myself still,And meddle with no matters but to me pertaining,But ever to be true to God and my King.But I have such matters rowling in my pate,That I will and do — — I cannot tell what, etc.
What is gentility? People in different stations in England entertain different ideas of what is genteel,[320]but it must be something gorgeous, glittering or tawdry, to be considered genteel by any of them. The beau-ideal of the English aristocracy, of course with some exceptions, is some young fellow with an imperial title, a military personage of course, for what is military is so particularly genteel, with flaming epaulets, a cocked hat and plume, a prancing charger, and a band of fellows called generals and colonels, with flaming epaulets, cocked hats and plumes, and prancing chargers vapouring behind him. It was but lately that the daughter of an English marquis was heard to say, that the sole remaining wish of her heart—she had known misfortunes, and was not far from fifty—was to be introduced to—whom? The Emperor of Austria! The sole remaining wish of the heart of one who ought to have been thinking of the grave and judgment, was to be introduced to the miscreant who had caused the blood of noble Hungarian females to be whipped out of their shoulders, for no other crime than devotion to their country, and its tall and heroic sons. The middle classes—of course there are some exceptions—admire the aristocracy, and consider them pinks, thearistocracy who admire the Emperor of Austria, and adored the Emperor of Russia, till he became old, ugly and unfortunate, when their adoration instantly terminated; for what is more ungenteel than age, ugliness and misfortune! The beau-ideal with those of the lower classes, with peasants and mechanics, is some flourishing railroad contractor: look, for example, how they worship Mr. Flamson. This person makes his grand début in the year ’thirty-nine, at a public meeting in the principal room of a country inn. He has come into the neighbourhood with the character of a man worth a million pounds, who is to make everybody’s fortune; at this time, however, he is not worth a shilling of his own, though he flashes about dexterously three or four thousand pounds, part of which sum he has obtained by specious pretences, and part from certain individuals who are his confederates. But in the year ’forty-nine, he is really in possession of the fortune which he and his agents pretended he was worth ten years before—he is worth a million pounds. By what means has he come by them? By railroad contracts, for which he takes care to be paid in hard cash before he attempts to perform them, and to carry out which he makes use of the sweat and blood of wretches who, since their organisation, have introduced crimes and language into England to which it was previously almost a stranger—by purchasing, with paper, shares by hundreds in the schemes to execute which he contracts, and which are of his own devising; which shares he sells as soon as they are at a high premium, to which they are speedily forced by means of paragraphs, inserted by himself and agents, in newspapers devoted to his interest, utterly reckless of the terrible depreciation to which they are almost instantly subjected. But he is worth a million pounds, there can be no doubt of the fact—he has not made people’s fortunes, at least those whose fortunes it was said he would make; he has made them away; but his own he has made, emphatically made it; he is worth a million pounds. Hurrah for the millionnaire! The clown who views the pandemonium of red brick which he has built on the estate which he has purchased in the neighbourhood of the place of his grand début in which every species of architecture, Greek, Indian and Chinese, is employed in caricature—who hears of the grand entertainment he gives at Christmas in the principal dining-room, the hundred wax-candles, the waggon-load of plate, and the oceans of wine which form parts of it, and above all the two ostrich poults, one at the head, and the other at the foot of the table, exclaims: “Well! if he a’n’t bang up, I don’t know who be; why he beats my lord hollow!”The mechanic of the borough town, who sees him dashing through the streets in an open landau, drawn by four milk-white horses, amidst its attendant out-riders; his wife, a monster of a woman, by his side, stout as the wife of Tamerlane, who weighed twenty stone, and bedizened out like her whose person shone with the jewels of plundered Persia, stares with silent wonder, and at last exclaims: “That’s the man for my vote!” You tell the clown that the man of the mansion has contributed enormously to corrupt the rural innocence of England; you point to an incipient branch railroad, from around which the accents of Gomorrah are sounding, and beg him to listen for a moment, and then close his ears. Hodge scratches his head and says: “Well, I have nothing to say to that; all I known is that he is bang up, and I wish I were he”; perhaps he will add—a Hodge has been known to add—“He has been kind enough to put my son on that very railroad; ’tis true the company is somewhat queer, and the work rather killing, but he gets there half a crown a day, whereas from the farmers he would only get eighteenpence.” You remind the mechanic that the man in the landau has been the ruin of thousands, and you mention people whom he himself knows, people in various grades of life, widows and orphans amongst them, whose little all he has dissipated, and whom he has reduced to beggary by inducing them to become sharers in his delusive schemes. But the mechanic says: “Well, the more fools they to let themselves be robbed. But I don’t call that kind of thing robbery, I merely call it out-witting; and everybody in this free country has a right to outwit others if he can. What a turn-out he has!” One was once heard to add: “I never saw a more genteel-looking man in all my life except one, and that was a gentleman’s walley, who was much like him. It is true he is rather undersized, but then, madam, you know, makes up for all.”
Inthe last chapter have been exhibited specimens of gentility, so considered by different classes; by one class, power, youth and epaulets are considered thene plus ultraof gentility; by another class, pride, stateliness and title; by another, wealth and flaming tawdriness. But what constitutes a gentleman? It is easy to say at once what constitutes a gentleman, and there are no distinctions in what is gentlemanly,[323]as there are in what is genteel. The characteristics of a gentleman are high feeling—a determination never to take a cowardly advantage of another—a liberal education—absence of narrow views—generosity and courage, propriety of behaviour. Now a person may be genteel according to one or another of the three standards described above, and not possess one of the characteristics of a gentleman. Is the emperor a gentleman, with spatters of blood on his clothes, scourged from the backs of noble Hungarian women? Are the aristocracy gentlefolks, who admire him? Is Mr. Flamson a gentleman, although he has a million pounds? No! cowardly miscreants, admirers of cowardly miscreants, and people who make a million pounds by means compared with which those employed to make fortunes by the getters up of the South Sea Bubble might be called honest dealing, are decidedly not gentlefolks. Now as it is clearly demonstrable that a person may be perfectly genteel according to some standard or other, and yet be no gentleman, so is it demonstrable that a person may have no pretensions to gentility, and yet be a gentleman. For example, there is Lavengro! Would the admirers of the emperor, or the admirers of those who admire the emperor, or the admirers of Mr. Flamson, call him genteel? and gentility with them is everything! Assuredly they would not; and assuredly they would consider him respectively as a being to be shunned, despised, orhooted. Genteel! Why at one time he is a hack author—writes reviewals for eighteenpence a page—edits a Newgate chronicle. At another he wanders the country with a face grimy from occasionally mending kettles; and there is no evidence that his clothes are not seedy and torn, and his shoes down at the heel; but by what process of reasoning will they prove that he is no gentleman? Is he not learned? Has he not generosity and courage? Whilst a hack author, does he pawn the books entrusted to him to review? Does he break his word to his publisher? Does he write begging letters? Does he get clothes or lodgings without paying for them? Again, whilst a wanderer, does he insult helpless women on the road with loose proposals or ribald discourse? Does he take what is not his own from the hedges? Does he play on the fiddle, or make faces in public-houses, in order to obtain pence or beer? or does he call for liquor, swallow it, and then say to a widowed landlady, “Mistress, I have no brass?” In a word, what vice and crime does he perpetrate—what low acts does he commit? Therefore, with his endowments, who will venture to say that he is no gentleman?—unless it be an admirer of Mr. Flamson—a clown—who will, perhaps, shout: “I say he is no gentleman; for who can be a gentleman who keeps no gig?”
The indifference exhibited by Lavengro for what is merely genteel, compared with his solicitude never to infringe the strict laws of honour, should read a salutary lesson. The generality of his countrymen are far more careful not to transgress the customs of what they call gentility, than to violate the laws of honour or morality. They will shrink from carrying their own carpet-bag, and from speaking to a person in seedy raiment, whilst to matters of much higher importance they are shamelessly indifferent. Not so Lavengro; he will do anything that he deems convenient, or which strikes his fancy, provided it does not outrage decency, or is unallied to profligacy; is not ashamed to speak to a beggar in rags, and will associate with anybody, provided he can gratify a laudable curiosity. He has no abstract love for what is low, or what the world calls low. He sees that many things which the world looks down upon are valuable, so he prizes much which the world contemns; he sees that many things which the world admires are contemptible, so he despises much which the world does not; but when the world prizes what is really excellent, he does not contemn it, because the world regards it. If he learns Irish, which all the world scoffs at, he likewise learns Italian, which all the world melts at. If he learns Gypsy, the languageof the tattered tent, he likewise learns Greek, the language of the college hall. If he learns smithery, he also learns—ah! what does he learn to set against smithery?—the law? No; he does not learn the law, which, by the way, is not very genteel. Swimming? Yes, he learns to swim. Swimming, however, is not genteel; and the world—at least the genteel part of it—acts very wisely in setting its face against it; for to swim you must be naked, and how would many a genteel person look without his clothes? Come, he learns horsemanship; a very genteel accomplishment, which every genteel person would gladly possess, though not all genteel people do.
Again as to associates: if he holds communion when a boy with Murtagh, the scarecrow of an Irish academy, he associates in after life with Francis Ardry, a rich and talented young Irish gentleman about town. If he accepts an invitation from Mr. Petulengro to his tent, he has no objection to go home with a rich genius to dinner; who then will say that he prizes a thing or a person because they are ungenteel? That he is not ready to take up with everything that is ungenteel he gives a proof, when he refuses, though on the brink of starvation, to become bonnet to the thimble-man, an office, which, though profitable, is positively ungenteel. Ah! but some sticker-up for gentility will exclaim: “The hero did not refuse this office from an insurmountable dislike to its ungentility, but merely from a feeling of principle”. Well! the writer is not fond of argument, and he will admit that such was the case; he admits that it was a love of principle, rather than an over-regard for gentility, which prevented the hero from accepting, when on the brink of starvation, an ungenteel though lucrative office, an office which, the writer begs leave to observe, many a person with a great regard for gentility, and no particular regard for principle, would in a similar strait have accepted; for when did a mere love for gentility keep a person from being a dirty scoundrel, when the alternatives apparently were “either be a dirty scoundrel or starve?” One thing, however, is certain, which is, that Lavengro did not accept the office, which if a love for what is low had been his ruling passion he certainly would have done; consequently, he refuses to do one thing which no genteel person would willingly do, even as he does many things which every genteel person would gladly do, for example, speaks Italian, rides on horseback, associates with a fashionable young man, dines with a rich genius, et cetera. Yet—and it cannot be minced—he and gentility with regard to many things are at strange divergency; he shrinks from many thingsat which gentility placidly hums a tune, or approvingly simpers, and does some things at which gentility positively shrinks. He will not run into debt for clothes or lodgings, which he might do without any scandal to gentility; he will not receive money from Francis Ardry, and go to Brighton with the sister of Annette Le Noir, though there is nothing ungenteel in borrowing money from a friend, even when you never intend to repay him, and something poignantly genteel in going to a watering-place with a gay young Frenchwoman; but he has no objection, after raising twenty pounds by the sale of that extraordinary workJoseph Sell, to set off into the country, mend kettles under hedge-rows, and make pony and donkey shoes in a dingle. Here, perhaps, some plain, well-meaning person will cry—and with much apparent justice—how can the writer justify him in this act? What motive, save a love for what is low, could induce him to do such things? Would the writer have everybody who is in need of recreation go into the country, mend kettles under hedges, and make pony shoes in dingles? To such an observation the writer would answer, that Lavengro had an excellent motive in doing what he did, but that the writer is not so unreasonable as to wish everybody to do the same. It is not everybody who can mend kettles. It is not everybody who is in similar circumstances to those in which Lavengro was. Lavengro flies from London and hack authorship, and takes to the roads from fear of consumption; it is expensive to put up at inns, and even at public-houses, and Lavengro has not much money; so he buys a tinker’s cart and apparatus, and sets up as tinker, and subsequently as blacksmith; a person living in a tent, or in anything else, must do something or go mad; Lavengro had a mind, as he himself well knew, with some slight tendency to madness, and had he not employed himself, he must have gone wild; so to employ himself he drew upon one of his resources, the only one available at the time. Authorship had nearly killed him, he was sick of reading, and had besides no books; but he possessed the rudiments of an art akin to tinkering; he knew something of smithery, having served a kind of apprenticeship in Ireland to a fairy smith; so he draws upon his smithery to enable him to acquire tinkering, and through the help which it affords him, owing to its connection with tinkering, he speedily acquires that craft, even as he had speedily acquired Welsh, owing to its connection with Irish, which language he possessed; and with tinkering he amuses himself until he lays it aside to resume smithery. A man who has any innocent resource, has quite as much right to draw upon it in need, as he has upona banker in whose hands he has placed a sum; Lavengro turns to advantage, under particular circumstances, a certain resource which he has, but people who are not so forlorn as Lavengro, and have not served the same apprenticeship which he had, are not advised to follow his example. Surely he was better employed in plying the trades of tinker and smith than in having recourse to vice, in running after milk-maids, for example. Running after milk-maids is by no means an ungenteel rural diversion; but let any one ask some respectable casuist (The Bishop of London for example), whether Lavengro was not far better employed, when in the country, at tinkering and smithery than he would have been in running after all the milk-maids in Cheshire, though tinkering is in general considered a very ungenteel employment, and smithery little better, notwithstanding that an Orcadian poet, who wrote in Norse about eight hundred years ago, reckons the latter among nine noble arts which he possessed, naming it along with playing at chess, on the harp, and ravelling runes, or as the original has it, “treading runes”—that is, compressing them into a small compass by mingling one letter with another, even as the Turkish caligraphists ravel the Arabic letters, more especially those who write talismans.
Nine arts have I, all noble;I play at chess so free,At ravelling runes I’m ready,At books and smithery;I’m skill’d o’er ice at skimmingOn skates, I shoot and row,And few at harping match me,Or minstrelsy, I trow.
Nine arts have I, all noble;I play at chess so free,At ravelling runes I’m ready,At books and smithery;I’m skill’d o’er ice at skimmingOn skates, I shoot and row,And few at harping match me,Or minstrelsy, I trow.
But though Lavengro takes up smithery, which, though the Orcadian ranks it with chess-playing and harping, is certainly somewhat of a grimy art, there can be no doubt that, had he been wealthy and not so forlorn as he was, he would have turned to many things, honourable, of course, in preference. He has no objection to ride a fine horse when he has the opportunity: he has his day-dream of making a fortune of two hundred thousand pounds by becoming a merchant and doing business after the Armenian fashion; and there can be no doubt that he would have been glad to wear fine clothes, provided he had had sufficient funds to authorise him in wearing them. For the sake of wandering the country and plying the hammer and tongs, he would not have refused a commission in the service of that illustrious monarch George the Fourth, provided he had thoughtthat he could live on his pay, and not be forced to run in debt to tradesmen, without any hope of paying them, for clothes and luxuries, as many highly genteel officers in that honourable service were in the habit of doing. For the sake of tinkering, he would certainly not have refused a secretaryship of an embassy to Persia, in which he might have turned his acquaintance with Persian, Arabic, and the Lord only knows what other languages, to account. He took to tinkering and smithery, because no better employments were at his command. No war is waged in the book against rank, wealth, fine clothes or dignified employments; it is shown, however, that a person may be a gentleman and a scholar without them. Rank, wealth, fine clothes and dignified employments, are no doubt very fine things, but they are merely externals, they do not make a gentleman, they add external grace and dignity to the gentleman and scholar, but they make neither; and is it not better to be a gentleman without them than not a gentleman with them? Is not Lavengro, when he leaves London on foot with twenty pounds in his pocket, entitled to more respect than Mr. Flamson flaming in his coach with a million? And is not even the honest jockey at Horncastle, who offers a fair price to Lavengro for his horse, entitled to more than the scoundrel lord, who attempts to cheat him of one-fourth of its value.
Millions, however, seem to think otherwise, by their servile adoration of people whom without rank, wealth and fine clothes they would consider infamous, but whom possessed of rank, wealth and glittering habiliments they seem to admire all the more for their profligacy and crimes. Does not a blood-spot, or a lust-spot, on the clothes of a blooming emperor, give a kind of zest to the genteel young god? Do not the pride, superciliousness and selfishness of a certain aristocracy make it all the more regarded by its worshippers? and do not the clownish and gutter-blood admirers of Mr. Flamson like him all the more because they are conscious that he is a knave? If such is the case—and alas! is it not the case?—they cannot be too frequently told that fine clothes, wealth and titles adorn a person in proportion as he adorns them; that if worn by the magnanimous and good they are ornaments indeed, but if by the vile and profligate they are merelysan benitos, and only serve to make their infamy doubly apparent; and that a person in seedy raiment and tattered hat, possessed of courage, kindness and virtue, is entitled to more respect from those to whom his virtues are manifested than any cruel profligate emperor, selfish aristocrat, or knavish millionnaire in the world.
The writer has no intention of saying that all in England are affected with the absurd mania for gentility; nor is such a statement made in the book; it is shown therein that individuals of various classes can prize a gentleman, notwithstanding seedy raiment, dusty shoes or tattered hat—for example, the young Irishman, the rich genius, the postillion, and his employer. Again, when the life of the hero is given to the world, amidst the howl about its lowness and vulgarity, raised by the servile crew whom its independence of sentiment has stung, more than one powerful voice has been heard testifying approbation of its learning and the purity of its morality. That there is some salt in England, minds not swayed by mere externals, he is fully convinced; if he were not, he would spare himself the trouble of writing; but to the fact that the generality of his countrymen are basely grovelling before the shrine of what they are pleased to call gentility, he cannot shut his eyes.
Oh! what a clever person that Cockney was, who, travelling in the Aberdeen railroad carriage, after edifying the company with his remarks on various subjects, gave it as his opinion that Lieutenant P— would, in future, be shunned by all respectable society! And what a simple person that elderly gentleman was, who, abruptly starting, asked in rather an authoritative voice, “And why should Lieutenant P— be shunned by respectable society?” and who, after entering into what was said to be a masterly analysis of the entire evidence of the case, concluded by stating, “that having been accustomed to all kinds of evidence all his life, he had never known a case in which the accused had obtained a more complete and triumphant justification than Lieutenant P— had done in the late trial”.
Now the Cockney, who is said to have been a very foppish Cockney, was perfectly right in what he said, and therein manifested a knowledge of the English mind and character, and likewise of the modern English language, to which his catechist, who, it seems, was a distinguished member of the Scottish bar, could lay no pretensions. The Cockney knew what the Lord of Session knew not, that the British public is gentility crazy, and he knew, moreover, that gentility and respectability are synonymous. No one in England is genteel or respectable that is “looked at,” who is the victim of oppression; he may be pitied for a time, but when did not pity terminate in contempt? A poor harmless young officer—but why enter into the details of the infamous case? they are but too well known, and if ever cruelty, pride and cowardice, and things much worse than even cruelty, cowardice and pride werebrought to light, and, at the same time, countenanced, they were in that case. What availed the triumphant justification of the poor victim? There was at first a roar of indignation against his oppressors, but how long did it last? He had been turned out of the service, they remained in it with their red coats and epaulets; he was merely the son of a man who had rendered good service to his country; they were, for the most part, highly connected—they were in the extremest degree genteel, he quite the reverse; so the nation wavered, considered, thought the genteel side was the safest after all, and then with the cry of “Oh! there is nothing like gentility,” ratted bodily. Newspaper and public turned against the victim, scouted him, apologised for the—what should they be called?—who were not only admitted into the most respectable society, but courted to come, the spots not merely of wine on their military clothes, giving them a kind of poignancy. But there is a God in heaven; the British glories are tarnished—Providence has never smiled on British arms since that case—oh! Balaklava! thy name interpreted is net of fishes, and well dost thou deserve that name. How many a scarlet golden fish has of late perished in the mud amidst thee, cursing the genteel service, and the genteel leader which brought him to such a doom.
Whether the rage for gentility is most prevalent amongst the upper, middle or lower classes it is difficult to say; the priest in the text seems to think that it is exhibited in the most decided manner in the middle class; it is the writer’s opinion, however, that in no class is it more strongly developed than in the lower: what they call being well-born goes a great way amongst them, but the possession of money much farther, whence Mr. Flamson’s influence over them. Their rage against, and scorn for, any person who by his courage and talents has advanced himself in life, and still remains poor, are indescribable; “he is no better than ourselves,” they say, “why should he be above us?”—for they have no conception that anybody has a right to ascendency over themselves except by birth or money. This feeling amongst the vulgar has been, to a certain extent, the bane of the two services, naval and military. The writer does not make this assertion rashly; he observed this feeling at work in the army when a child, and he has good reason for believing that it was as strongly at work in the navy at the same time, and is still as prevalent in both. Why are not brave men raised from the ranks? is frequently the cry, why are not brave sailors promoted? the Lord help brave soldiers and sailors who are promoted; they have less to undergo from thehigh airs of their brother officers, and those are hard enough to endure, than from the insolence of the men. Soldiers and sailors promoted to command are said to be in general tyrants; in nine cases out of ten, when they are tyrants, they have been obliged to have recourse to extreme severity in order to protect themselves from the insolence and mutinous spirit of the men,—“He is no better than ourselves: shoot him, bayonet him, or fling him overboard!” they say of some obnoxious individual raised above them by his merit. Soldiers and sailors in general, will bear any amount of tyranny from a lordly sot, or the son of a man who has “plenty of brass”—their own term—but will mutiny against the just orders of a skilful and brave officer who “is no better than themselves”. There was the affair of theBounty, for example: Bligh was one of the best seamen that ever trod deck, and one of the bravest of men; proofs of his seamanship he gave by steering, amidst dreadful weather, a deeply laden boat for nearly four thousand miles over an almost unknown ocean—of his bravery, at the fight of Copenhagen, one of the most desperate ever fought, of which after Nelson he was the hero: he was, moreover, not an unkind man; but the crew of theBounty, mutinied against him, and set him half naked in an open boat, with certain of his men who remained faithful to him, and ran away with the ship. Their principal motive for doing so was an idea, whether true or groundless the writer cannot say, that Bligh was “no better than themselves”; he was certainly neither a lord’s illegitimate, nor possessed of twenty thousand pounds. The writer knows what he is writing about, having been acquainted in his early years with an individual who was turned adrift with Bligh, and who died about the year ’22, a lieutenant in the navy, in a provincial town in which the writer was brought up. The ringleaders in the mutiny were two scoundrels, Christian and Young, who had great influence with the crew, because they were genteelly connected. Bligh, after leaving theBounty, had considerable difficulty in managing the men who had shared his fate, because they considered themselves “as good men as he,” notwithstanding, that to his conduct and seamanship they had alone to look, under Heaven, for salvation from the ghastly perils that surrounded them. Bligh himself, in his journal, alludes to this feeling. Once, when he and his companions landed on a desert island, one of them said, with a mutinous look, that he considered himself “as good a man as he”; Bligh, seizing a cutlass, called upon him to take another and defend himself, whereupon the man said that Bligh was going to kill him, and made all manner of concessions; now why did thisfellow consider himself as good a man as Bligh? Was he as good a seaman? no, nor a tenth part as good. As brave a man? no, nor a tenth part as brave; and of these facts he was perfectly well aware, but bravery and seamanship stood for nothing with him, as they still stand with thousands of his class; Bligh was not genteel by birth or money, therefore Bligh was no better than himself. Had Bligh, before he sailed, got a twenty-thousand pound prize in the lottery, he would have experienced no insolence from this fellow, for there would have been no mutiny in theBounty. “He is our betters,” the crew would have said, “and it is our duty to obey him.”
The wonderful power of gentility in England is exemplified in nothing more than in what it is producing amongst Jews, Gypsies and Quakers. It is breaking up their venerable communities. All the better, some one will say. Alas! alas! It is making the wealthy Jews forsake the synagogue for the opera-house, or the gentility chapel, in which a disciple of Mr. Platitude, in a white surplice, preaches a sermon at noon-day from a desk, on each side of which is a flaming taper. It is making them abandon their ancient literature, theirMischna, theirGemara, theirZohar, for gentility novels,The Young Duke, the most unexceptionably genteel book ever written, being the principal favourite. It makes the young Jew ashamed of the young Jewess, it makes her ashamed of the young Jew. The young Jew marries an opera dancer, or if the dancer will not have him, as is frequently the case, the cast-off Miss of the honourable Spencer So-and-so. It makes the young Jewess accept the honourable offer of a cashiered lieutenant of the Bengal Native Infantry; or, if such a person does not come forward, the dishonourable offer of a cornet of a regiment of crack hussars. It makes poor Jews, male and female, forsake the synagogue for the sixpenny theatre or penny hop; the Jew to take up with an Irish female of loose character, and the Jewess with a musician of the Guards, or the Tipperary servant of Captain Mulligan. With respect to the gypsies, it is making the women what they never were before—harlots; and the men what they never were before—careless fathers and husbands. It has made the daughter of Ursula, the chaste, take up with the base drummer of a wild-beast show. It makes Gorgiko Brown, the gypsy man, leave his tent and his old wife, of an evening, and thrust himself into society which could well dispense with him. “Brother,” said Mr. Petulengro the other day to the Romany Rye, after telling him many things connected with the decadence of gypsyism, “there is one Gorgiko Brown, who, with a face as black as a tea-kettle, wishesto be mistaken for a Christian tradesman; he goes into the parlour of a third-rate inn of an evening, calls for rum and water, and attempts to enter into conversation with the company about politics and business; the company flout him or give him the cold shoulder, or perhaps complain to the landlord, who comes and asks him what business he has in the parlour, telling him if he wants to drink to go into the tap-room, and perhaps collars him and kicks him out, provided he refuses to move.” With respect to the Quakers, it makes the young people like the young Jews, crazy after gentility diversions, worship, marriages or connections, and makes old Pease do what it makes Gorgiko Brown do, thrust himself into society which could well dispense with him, and out of which he is not kicked, because unlike the gypsy he is not poor. The writer would say much more on these points, but want of room prevents him; he must therefore request the reader to have patience until he can lay before the world a pamphlet, which he has been long meditating, to be entitled “Remarks on the strikingly similar Effects which a Love for Gentility has produced, and is producing, amongst Jews, Gypsies and Quakers”.
The priest in the book has much to say on the subject of this gentility-nonsense; no person can possibly despise it more thoroughly than that very remarkable individual seems to do, yet he hails its prevalence with pleasure, knowing the benefits which will result from it to the Church of which he is the sneering slave. “The English are mad after gentility,” says he; “well, all the better for us; their religion for a long time past has been a plain and simple one, and consequently by no means genteel; they’ll quit it for ours, which is the perfection of what they admire; with which Templars, Hospitalers, mitred abbots, Gothic abbeys, long-drawn aisles, golden censers, incense, et cetera, are connected; nothing, or next to nothing, of Christ, it is true, but weighed in the balance against gentility, where will Christianity be? why, kicking against the beam—ho! ho!” And in connection with the gentility-nonsense, he expatiates largely, and with much contempt, on a species of literature by which the interests of his Church in England have been very much advanced—all genuine priests have a thorough contempt for everything which tends to advance the interests of their Church—this literature is made up of pseudo Jacobitism, Charlie o’er the waterism, or nonsense about Charlie o’er the water. And the writer will now take the liberty of saying a few words about it on his own account.
Ofthe literature just alluded to Scott was the inventor. It is founded on the fortunes and misfortunes of the Stuart family, of which Scott was the zealous defender and apologist, doing all that in his power lay to represent the members of it as noble, chivalrous, high-minded, unfortunate princes; though, perhaps, of all the royal families that ever existed upon earth, this family was the worst. It was unfortunate enough, it is true; but it owed its misfortunes entirely to its crimes, viciousness, bad faith, and cowardice. Nothing will be said of it here until it made its appearance in England to occupy the English throne.
The first of the family which we have to do with, James, was a dirty, cowardly miscreant, of whom the less said the better. His son, Charles the First, was a tyrant—exceedingly cruel and revengeful, but weak and dastardly; he caused a poor fellow to be hanged in London, who was not his subject, because he had heard that the unfortunate creature had once bit his own glove at Cadiz, in Spain, at the mention of his name; and he permitted his own bull-dog, Strafford, to be executed by his own enemies, though the only crime of Strafford was, that he had barked furiously at those enemies, and had worried two or three of them, when Charles shouted, “Fetch ’em”. He was a bitter, but yet a despicable enemy, and the coldest and most worthless of friends; for though he always hoped to be able, some time or other, to hang his enemies, he was always ready to curry favour with them, more especially if he could do so at the expense of his friends. He was the haughtiest, yet meanest of mankind. He once caned a young nobleman for appearing before him in the drawing-room not dressed exactly according to the court etiquette; yet he condescended to flatter and compliment him who, from principle, was his bitterest enemy, namely Harrison, when the republican colonel was conducting him as a prisoner to London. His bad faith was notorious; it was from abhorrence of the first public instance which he gave of his bad faith, his breaking his word to the Infanta of Spain, that the poor Hiberno-Spaniard bit his glove at Cadiz; and it was his notorious bad faith which eventually costhim his head; for the Republicans would gladly have spared him, provided they could put the slightest confidence in any promise, however solemn, which he might have made to them. Of them, it would be difficult to say whether they most hated or despised him. Religion he had none. One day he favoured Popery; the next, on hearing certain clamours of the people, he sent his wife’s domestics back packing to France, because they were Papists. Papists, however, should make him a saint, for he was certainly the cause of the taking of Rochelle.
His son, Charles the Second, though he passed his youth in the school of adversity, learned no other lesson from it than the following one—take care of yourself, and never do an action, either good or bad, which is likely to bring you into any great difficulty; and this maxim he acted up to as soon as he came to the throne. He was a Papist, but took especial care not to acknowledge his religion, at which he frequently scoffed, till just before his last gasp, when he knew that he could lose nothing, and hoped to gain everything by it. He was always in want of money, but took care not to tax the country beyond all endurable bounds; preferring to such a bold and dangerous course, to become the secret pensioner of Louis, to whom, in return for his gold, he sacrificed the honour and interests of Britain. He was too lazy and sensual to delight in playing the part of a tyrant himself; but he never checked tyranny in others save in one instance. He permitted beastly butchers to commit unmentionable horrors on the feeble, unarmed and disunited Covenanters of Scotland, but checked them when they would fain have endeavoured to play the same game on the numerous united, dogged and warlike Independents of England. To show his filial piety, he bade the hangman dishonour the corpses of some of his father’s judges, before whom, when alive, he ran like a screaming hare; but permitted those who had lost their all in supporting his father’s cause, to pine in misery and want. He would give to a painted harlot a thousand pounds for a loathsome embrace, and to a player or buffoon a hundred for a trumpery pun, but would refuse a penny to the widow or orphan of an old Royalist soldier. He was the personification of selfishness; and as he loved and cared for no one, so did no one love or care for him. So little had he gained the respect or affection of those who surrounded him, that after his body had undergone an after-death examination, parts of it were thrown down the sinks of the palace, to become eventually the prey of the swine and ducks of Westminster.
His brother, who succeeded him James the Second, was aPapist, but sufficiently honest to acknowledge his Popery, but upon the whole, he was a poor creature; though a tyrant, he was cowardly; had he not been a coward he would never have lost his throne. There were plenty of lovers of tyranny in England who would have stood by him, provided he would have stood by them, and would, though not Papists, have encouraged him in his attempt to bring back England beneath the sway of Rome, and perhaps would eventually have become Papists themselves; but the nation raising a cry against him, and his son-in-law, the Prince of Orange, invading the country, he forsook his friends, of whom he had a host, but for whom he cared little—left his throne, for which he cared a great deal—and Popery in England, for which he cared yet more, to their fate, and escaped to France, from whence, after taking a little heart, he repaired to Ireland, where he was speedily joined by a gallant army of Papists whom he basely abandoned at the Boyne, running away in a most lamentable condition, at the time when by showing a little courage he might have enabled them to conquer. This worthy, in his last will, bequeathed his heart to England, his right arm to Scotland, and his bowels to Ireland. What the English and Scotch said to their respective bequests is not known, but it is certain that an old Irish priest, supposed to have been a great grand-uncle of the present Reverend Father Murtagh, on hearing of the bequest to Ireland, fell into a great passion, and having been brought up at “Paris and Salamanca,” expressed his indignation in the following strain: “Malditas sean tus tripas!teniamos bastante del olor de tus tripas al tiempo de tu huida de la batalla del Boyne!”
His son, generally called the Old Pretender, though born in England, was carried in his infancy to France, where he was brought up in the strictest principles of Popery, which principles, however, did not prevent him becoming (when did they ever prevent any one?) a worthless and profligate scoundrel; there are some doubts as to the reality of his being a son of James, which doubts are probably unfounded, the grand proof of his legitimacy being the thorough baseness of his character. It was said of his father that he could speak well, and it may be said of him that he could write well, the only thing he could do which was worth doing, always supposing that there is any merit in being able to write. He was of a mean appearance, and, like his father, pusillanimous to a degree. The meaness of his appearance disgusted, and his pusillanimity discouraged, the Scotch when he made his appearance amongst them in the year 1715, some time after the standard of rebellion had been hoisted by Mar. Heonly stayed a short time in Scotland, and then, seized with panic, retreated to France, leaving his friends to shift for themselves as they best could. He died a pensioner of the Pope.
The son of this man, Charles Edward, of whom so much in latter years has been said and written, was a worthless, ignorant youth, and a profligate and illiterate old man. When young, the best that can be said of him is, that he had occasionally springs of courage, invariably at the wrong time and place, which merely served to lead his friends into inextricable difficulties. When old, he was loathsome and contemptible to both friend and foe. His wife loathed him, and for the most terrible of reasons; she did not pollute his couch, for to do that was impossible—he had made it so vile; but she betrayed it, inviting to it not only Alfieri the Filthy, but the coarsest grooms. Doctor King, the warmest and almost last adherent of his family, said that there was not a vice or crime of which he was not guilty; as for his foes, they scorned to harm him even when in their power. In the year 1745 he came down from the Highlands of Scotland, which had long been a focus of rebellion. He was attended by certain clans of the Highlands, desperadoes used to free-bootery from their infancy, and, consequently, to the use of arms, and possessed of a certain species of discipline; with these he defeated at Prestonpans a body of men called soldiers, but who were in reality peasants and artisans, levied about a month before, without discipline or confidence in each other, and who were miserably massacred by the Highland army; he subsequently invaded England, nearly destitute of regular soldiers, and penetrated as far as Derby, from which place he retreated on learning that regular forces which had been hastily recalled from Flanders were coming against him, with the Duke of Cumberland at their head; he was pursued, and his rear guard overtaken and defeated by the dragoons of the duke at Clifton, from which place the rebels retreated in great confusion across the Eden into Scotland, where they commenced dancing Highland reels and strathspeys on the bank of the river, for joy at their escape, whilst a number of wretched girls, paramours of some of them, were perishing in the waters of the swollen river in an attempt to follow them; they themselves passed over by eighties and by hundreds, arm in arm, for mutual safety, without the loss of a man, but they left the poor paramours to shift for themselves, nor did any of these canny people after passing the stream dash back to rescue a single female life—no, they were too well employed upon the bank in dancing strathspeys to the tune of “Charlie o’er the water”. It was, indeed, Charlie o’erthe water, and canny Highlanders o’er the water, but where were the poor prostitutes meantime?In the water.
The Jacobite farce, or tragedy, was speedily brought to a close by the battle of Culloden; there did Charlie wish himself back again o’er the water, exhibiting the most unmistakable signs of pusillanimity; there were the clans cut to pieces, at least those who could be brought to the charge, and there fell Giles Mac Bean, or as he was called in Gaelic, Giliosa Mac Beathan, a kind of giant, six feet four inches and a quarter high, “than whom,” as his wife said in acoronachshe made upon him, “no man who stood at Cuiloitr was taller”—Giles Mac Bean the Major of the clan Cattan—a great drinker—a great fisher—a great shooter, and the champion of the Highland host.
The last of the Stuarts was a cardinal.
Such were the Stuarts, such their miserable history. They were dead and buried in every sense of the word until Scott resuscitated them—how? by the power of fine writing, and by calling to his aid that strange divinity, gentility. He wrote splendid novels about the Stuarts, in which he represents them as unlike what they really were, as the graceful and beautiful papillon is unlike the hideous and filthy worm. In a word, he made them genteel, and that was enough to give them paramount sway over the minds of the British people. The public became Stuart-mad, and everybody, especially the women, said, “What a pity it was that we hadn’t a Stuart to govern”. All parties, Whig, Tory or Radical, became Jacobite at heart, and admirers of absolute power. The Whigs talked about the liberty of the subject, and the Radicals about the rights of man still, but neither party cared a straw for what it talked about, and mentally swore that, as soon as by means of such stuff they could get places, and fill their pockets, they would be as Jacobite as the Jacobs themselves. As for the Tories, no great change in them was necessary; everything favouring absolutism and slavery being congenial to them. So the whole nation, that is, the reading part of the nation, with some exceptions, for thank God there has always been some salt in England, went over the water to Charlie. But going over to Charlie was not enough, they must, or at least a considerable part of them, go over to Rome too, or have a hankering to do so. As the priest sarcastically observes in the text, “As all the Jacobs were Papists, so the good folks who through Scott’s novels admire the Jacobs must be Papists too”. An idea got about that the religion of such genteel people as the Stuarts must be the climax of gentility, and that idea was quite sufficient. Only let a thing,whether temporal or spiritual, be considered genteel in England, and if it be not followed it is strange indeed; so Scott’s writings not only made the greater part of the nation Jacobite, but Popish.
Here some people will exclaim—whose opinions remain sound and uncontaminated—what you say is perhaps true with respect to the Jacobite nonsense at present so prevalent being derived from Scott’s novels, but the Popish nonsense, which people of the genteeler classes are so fond of, is derived from Oxford. We sent our sons to Oxford nice honest lads, educated in the principles of the Church of England, and at the end of the first term they came home puppies, talking Popish nonsense, which they had learned from the pedants to whose care we had entrusted them; ay, not only Popery but Jacobitism, which they hardly carried with them from home, for we never heard them talking Jacobitism before they had been at Oxford; but now their conversation is a farrago of Popish and Jacobite stuff—“Complines and Claverse”. Now, what these honest folks say is, to a certain extent, founded on fact; the Popery which has overflowed the land during the last fourteen or fifteen years, has come immediately from Oxford, and likewise some of the Jacobitism, Popish and Jacobite nonsense, and little or nothing else, having been taught at Oxford for about that number of years. But whence did the pedants get the Popish nonsense with which they have corrupted youth? Why, from the same quarter from which they got the Jacobite nonsense with which they have inoculated those lads who were not inoculated with it before—Scott’s novels. Jacobitism and Laudism, a kind of half Popery, had at one time been very prevalent at Oxford, but both had been long consigned to oblivion there, and people at Oxford cared as little about Laud as they did about the Pretender. Both were dead and buried there, as everywhere else, till Scott called them out of their graves when the pedants of Oxford hailed both—ay, and the Pope, too, as soon as Scott had made the old fellow fascinating, through particular novels, more especially theMonasteryandAbbot. Then the quiet, respectable, honourable Church of England would no longer do for the pedants of Oxford; they must belong to a more genteel Church—they were ashamed at first to be downright Romans—so they would be Lauds. The pale-looking, but exceedingly genteel non-juring clergyman inWaverleywas a Laud; but they soon became tired of being Lauds, for Laud’s Church, gew-gawish and idolatrous as it was, was not sufficiently tinselly and idolatrous for them, so they must be Popes, but in a sneaking way, still calling themselves Church of England men, in order tobatten on the bounty of the Church which they were betraying, and likewise have opportunities of corrupting such lads as might still resort to Oxford with principles uncontaminated.
So the respectable people, whose opinions are still sound, are, to a certain extent, right when they say that the tide of Popery, which has flowed over the land, has come from Oxford. It did come immediately from Oxford, but how did it get to Oxford? Why, from Scott’s novels. Oh! that sermon which was the first manifestation of Oxford feeling, preached at Oxford some time in the year ’38 by a divine of a weak and confused intellect, in which Popery was mixed up with Jacobitism! The present writer remembers perfectly well, on reading some extracts from it at the time in a newspaper, on the top of a coach, exclaiming—“Why, the simpleton has been pilfering from Walter Scott’s novels!”
O Oxford pedants! Oxford pedants! ye whose politics and religion are both derived from Scott’s novels! what a pity it is that some lad of honest parents, whose mind ye are endeavouring to stultify with your nonsense about “Complines and Claverse,” has not the spirit to start up and cry, “Confound your gibberish! I’ll have none of it. Hurrah for the Church, and the principles ofmy father!”
Nowwhat could have induced Scott to write novels tending to make people Papists and Jacobites, and in love with arbitrary power? Did he think that Christianity was a gaudy mummery? He did not, he could not, for he had read the Bible; yet was he fond of gaudy mummeries, fond of talking about them. Did he believe that the Stuarts were a good family, and fit to govern a country like Britain? He knew that they were a vicious, worthless crew, and that Britain was a degraded country as long as they swayed the sceptre; but for those facts he cared nothing, they governed in a way which he liked, for he had an abstract love of despotism, and an abhorrence of everything savouring of freedom and the rights of man in general. His favourite political picture was a joking, profligate, careless king, nominally absolute—the heads of great houses paying court to, but in reality governing, that king, whilst revelling with him on the plunder of a nation, and a set of crouching, grovelling vassals (the literal meaning of vassal is a wretch), who, after allowing themselves to be horsewhipped, would take a bone if flung to them, and be grateful; so that in love with mummery, though he knew what Christianity was, no wonder he admired such a Church as that of Rome, and that which Laud set up; and by nature formed to be the holder of the candle to ancient worm-eaten and profligate families, no wonder that all his sympathies were with the Stuarts and their dissipated insolent party, and all his hatred directed against those who endeavoured to check them in their proceedings, and to raise the generality of mankind something above a state of vassalage, that is, wretchedness. Those who were born great, were, if he could have had his will, always to remain great, however worthless their characters. Those who were born low, were always to remain so, however great their talents; though, if that rule were carried out, where would he have been himself?
In the book which he called theHistory of Napoleon Bonaparte, in which he plays the sycophant to all the legitimate crowned heads in Europe, whatever their crimes, vices or miserable imbecilities, he, in his abhorrence of everything low which by its own vigour makes itself illustrious, calls Murat of the sabre theson of a pastry-cook, of a Marseilleise pastry-cook. It is a pity that people who give themselves hoity-toity airs—and the Scotch in general are wonderfully addicted to giving themselves hoity-toity airs, and checking people better than themselves with their birth[342]and their country—it is a great pity that such people do not look at home—son of a pastry-cook, of a Marseilleise pastry-cook! Well, and what was Scott himself? Why, son of a pettifogger, of an Edinburgh pettifogger. “Oh, but Scott was descended from the old cow-stealers of Buccleuch, and therefore—” descended from old cow-stealers, was he? Well, had he had nothing to boast of beyond such a pedigree, he would have lived and died the son of a pettifogger, and been forgotten, and deservedly so; but he possessed talents, and by his talents rose like Murat, and like him will be remembered for his talents alone, and deservedly so. “Yes, but Murat was still the son of a pastry-cook, and though he was certainly good at the sabre, and cut his way to a throne, still—” Lord! what fools there are in the world; but as no one can be thought anything of in this world without a pedigree, the writer will now give a pedigree for Murat, of a very different character from the cow-stealing one of Scott, but such a one as the proudest he might not disdain to claim. Scott was descended from the old cow-stealers of Buccleuch—was he? Good! and Murat was descended from the old Moors of Spain, from the Abencerages (sons of the saddle) of Granada. The name Murat is Arabic, and is the same as Murad (Le Désiré, or the wished-for one). Scott in his genteelLife of Bonaparte, says that “when Murat was in Egypt, the similarity between the name of the celebrated Mameluke Mourad and that of Bonaparte’sMeilleur Sabreurwas remarked, and became the subject of jest amongst the comrades of the gallant Frenchman”. But the writer of the novel of Bonaparte did not know that the names were one and the same. Now which was the best pedigree, that of the son of the pastry-cook, or that of the son of the pettifogger? Which was the best blood? Let us observe the workings of the two bloods. He who had the blood of the “sons of the saddle” in him, became the wonderful cavalier of the most wonderful host that ever went forth to conquest, won for himself a crownand died the death of a soldier, leaving behind him a son, only inferior to himself in strength, in prowess, and in horsemanship. The descendant of the cow-stealer became a poet, a novel writer, the panegyrist of great folk and genteel people; became insolvent because, though an author, he deemed it ungenteel to be mixed up with the business part of authorship; died paralytic and broken-hearted because he could no longer give entertainments to great folks; leaving behind him, amongst other children, who were never heard of, a son, who, through his father’s interest, had become lieutenant-colonel in a genteel cavalry regiment. A son who was ashamed of his father because his father was an author; a son who—paugh—why ask which was the best blood?
So, owing to his rage for gentility, Scott must needs become the apologist of the Stuarts and their party; but God made this man pay dearly for taking the part of the wicked against the good; for lauding up to the skies the miscreants and robbers, and calumniating the noble spirits of Britain, the salt of England, and his own country. As God had driven the Stuarts from their throne, and their followers from their estates, making them vagabonds and beggars on the face of the earth, taking from them all they cared for, so did that same God, who knows perfectly well how and where to strike, deprive the apologist of that wretched crew of all that rendered life pleasant in his eyes, the lack of which paralysed him in body and mind, rendered him pitiable to others, loathsome to himself,—so much so, that he once said, “Where is the beggar who would change places with me, notwithstanding all my fame?” Ah! God knows perfectly well how to strike. He permitted him to retain all his literary fame to the very last—his literary fame for which he cared nothing; but what became of the sweetness of life, his fine house, his grand company, and his entertainments? The grand house ceased to be his; he was only permitted to live in it on sufferance, and whatever grandeur it might still retain, it soon became as desolate a looking house as any misanthrope could wish to see—where were the grand entertainments and the grand company? there are no grand entertainments where there is no money; no lords and ladies where there are no entertainments—and there lay the poor lodger in the desolate house, groaning on a bed no longer his, smitten by the hand of God in the part where he was most vulnerable. Of what use telling such a man to take comfort, for he had written theMinstrelandRob Roy,—telling him to think of his literary fame? Literary fame, indeed! he wanted back his lost gentility.—
Retain my altar,I care nothing for it—but, oh! touch not mybeard.—Parny’sWar of the Gods.
Retain my altar,I care nothing for it—but, oh! touch not mybeard.
—Parny’sWar of the Gods.
He dies, his children die too, and then comes the crowning judgment of God on what remains of his race and the house which he had built. He was not a Papist himself, nor did he wish any one belonging to him to be Popish, for he had read enough of the Bible to know that no one can be saved through Popery, yet had he a sneaking affection for it, and would at times in an underhand manner, give it a good word both in writing and discourse, because it was a gaudy kind of worship, and ignorance and vassalage prevailed so long as it flourished—but he certainly did not wish any of his people to become Papists, nor the house which he had built to become a Popish house, though the very name he gave it savoured of Popery; but Popery becomes fashionable through his novels and poems—the only one that remains of his race, a female grandchild, marries a person who, following the fashion, becomes a Papist, and makes her a Papist too. Money abounds with the husband, who buys the house, and then the house becomes the rankest Popish house in Britain. A superstitious person might almost imagine that one of the old Scottish Covenanters, whilst the grand house was being built from the profits resulting from the sale of writings favouring Popery and persecution, and calumniatory of Scotland’s saints and martyrs, had risen from the grave, and banned Scott, his race, and his house, by reading a certain Psalm.
In saying what he has said about Scott, the author has not been influenced by any feeling of malice or ill-will, but simply by a regard for truth, and a desire to point out to his countrymen the harm which has resulted from the perusal of his works; he is not one of those who would depreciate the talents of Scott—he admires his talents, both as a prose writer and a poet; as a poet especially he admires him, and believes him to have been by far the greatest, with perhaps the exception of Mickiewicz, who only wrote for unfortunate Poland, that Europe has given birth to during the last hundred years. As a prose writer he admires him less, it is true, but his admiration for him in that capacity is very high, and he only laments that he prostituted his talents to the cause of the Stuarts and gentility. What book of fiction of the present century can you read twice, with the exception ofWaverleyandRob Roy? There isPelhamit is true, which the writer of these lines has seen a Jewess reading in the steppe of Debreczin, and which a young Prussian Baron, a great traveller, whom he met at Constantinople in ’44 told him he always carriedin his valise. And, in conclusion, he will say, in order to show the opinion which he entertains of the power of Scott as a writer, that he did for the spectre of the wretched Pretender what all the kings of Europe could not do for his body—placed it on the throne of these realms; and for Popery, what Popes and Cardinals strove in vain to do for three centuries—brought back its mummeries and nonsense into the temples of the British Isles.
Scott during his lifetime had a crowd of imitators, who, whether they wrote history so called—poetry so called—or novels—nobody would call a book a novel if he could call it anything else—wrote Charlie o’er the water nonsense; and now that he has been dead nearly a quarter of a century, there are others daily springing up who are striving to imitate Scott in his Charlie o’er the water nonsense—for nonsense it is, even when flowing from his pen. They, too, must write Jacobite histories, Jacobite songs, and Jacobite novels, and much the same figure as the scoundrel menials in the comedy cut when personating their masters, and retailing their masters’ conversation, do they cut as Walter Scotts. In their histories, they too talk about the Prince and Glenfinnan, and the pibroch; and in their songs about “Claverse” and “Bonny Dundee”. But though they may be Scots, they are not Walter Scotts. But it is perhaps chiefly in the novel that you see the veritable hog in armour; the time of the novel is of course the ’15 or ’45; the hero a Jacobite, and connected with one or other of the enterprises of those periods; and the author, to show how unprejudiced he is, and whatoriginalviews he takes of subjects, must needs speak up for Popery, whenever he has occasion to mention it; though with all his originality, when he brings his hero and the vagabonds with which he is concerned before a barricaded house, belonging to the Whigs, he can make them get into it by no other method than that which Scott makes his rioters employ to get into the Tolbooth,burning downthe door.
To express the more than utter foolishness of this latter Charlie o’er the water nonsense, whether in rhyme or prose, there is but one word, and that word a Scotch word. Scotch, the sorriest of jargons, compared with which even Roth-Welsch is dignified and expressive, has yet one word to express what would be inexpressible by any word or combination of words in any language, or in any other jargon in the world; and very properly; for as the nonsense is properly Scotch, so should the word be Scotch which expresses it—that word is “fushionless,” pronouncedfooshionless; and when the writer has called the nonsense fooshionless—and he does call it fooshionless—he has nothing more to say, but leaves the nonsense to its fate.