“In this melancholy state, with respect to myself, things continued a long time, when suddenly there was a report that his Holiness the Pope intended to pay a visit to the religious house in order to examine into its state of discipline. When I heard this I was glad, for I determined, after the Pope had done what he had come to do, to fall upon my knees before him, and make a regular complaint of the treatment I had received, to tell him of the chating at cards of the rector, and to beg him to make the ould thaif give me back my pack again. So the day of the visit came, and his Holiness made his appearance with his attendants, and, having looked over the religious house, he went into the rector’s room with the rector, the sub-rector, and the almoner. I intended to have waited until his Holiness came out, but finding he stayed a long time I thought I would e’en go into him, so I went up to the door without anybody observing me—his attendants being walking about the corridor—and opening it I slipped in, and there what do you think I saw? Why, his Holiness the Pope, and his reverence the rector, and the sub-rector, and the almoner seated at cards; and the ould thaif of a rector was dealing out the cards which ye had given me, Shorsha, to his Holiness the Pope, the sub-rector, the almoner, and himself.”
In this part of his history I interrupted Murtagh, saying that I was afraid he was telling untruths, and that it was highly improbable that the Pope would leave the Vatican to play cards with Irish at their religious house, and that I was sure, if on his, Murtagh’s authority, I were to tell the world so, the world would never believe it.
“Then the world, Shorsha, would be a fool, even as you were just now saying you had frequently believed it to be; the grand thing, Shorsha, is to be able to believe oneself; if ye can do that, it matters very little whether the world believes ye or no. But a purty thing for you and the world to stickle at the Pope’s playing at cards at a religious house of Irish; och! if I were to tell you and the world what the Pope has been sometimes at, at the religious house of English thaives, I would excuse you and the world for turning up your eyes. However, I wish to say nothing against the Pope. I am a son of the Church, and if the Pope don’t interfere with my cards divil a bit will I have to say against him; but I sawthe Pope playing, or about to play, with the pack which had been taken from me, and when I told the Pope, the Pope did not—ye had better let me go on with my history, Shorsha; whether you or the world belave it or not, I am sure it is quite as true as your tale of the snake, or saying that Finn got his burnt finger from the thaives of Loughlin; and whatever you may say, I am sure the world will think so too.”
I apologised to Murtagh for interrupting him, and telling him that his history, whether true or not, was infinitely diverting, begged him to continue it.
“Iwastelling ye, Shorsha, when ye interrupted me, that I found the Pope, the rector, the sub-rector and the almoner seated at the table, the rector with my pack of cards in his hands, about to dale out to the Pope and the rest, not forgetting himself, for whom he intended all the trump-cards, no doubt. No sooner did they perceive me than they seemed taken all aback; but the rector, suddenly starting up with the cards in his hand, asked me what I did there, threatening to have me well disciplined if I did not go about my business; ‘I am come for my pack,’ said I, ‘ye ould thaif, and to tell his Holiness how I have been treated by ye’; then going down on my knees before his Holiness, I said, ‘Arrah, now, your Holiness! will ye not see justice done to a poor boy who has been sadly misused? The pack of cards which that ould ruffian has in his hand are my cards, which he has taken from me, in order to chate with. Arrah! don’t play with him, your Holiness, for he’ll only chate ye—there are dirty marks upon the cards which bear the trumps, put there in order to know them by; and the ould thaif in dealing out will give himself all the good cards, and chate ye of the last farthing in your pocket; so let them be taken from him, your Holiness and given back to me; and order him to lave the room, and then, if your Holiness be for an honest game, don’t think I am the boy to baulk ye. I’ll take the ould ruffian’s place, and play with ye till evening, and all night besides, and divil an advantage will I take of the dirty marks, though I know them all, having placed them on the cards myself.’ I was going on in this way when the ould thaif of a rector, flinging down the cards, made at me as if to kick me out of the room, whereupon I started up and said: ‘If ye are for kicking, sure two can play at that’; and then I kicked at his reverence, and his reverence at me, and there was a regular scrimmage between us, which frightened the Pope, who, getting up, said some words which I did not understand, but which the cook afterwards told me were, ‘English extravagance, and this is the second edition’; for it seems that, a little time before, his Holiness had been frightened in St. Peter’s Church by the servant of an English family, which those thaivesof the English religious house had been endeavouring to bring over to the Catholic faith, and who didn’t approve of their being converted. Och! his Holiness did us all sore injustice to call us English, and to confound our house with the other; for however dirty our house might be, our house was a clane house compared with the English house, and we honest people compared with those English thaives. Well, his Holiness was frighted, and the almoner ran out, and brought in his Holiness’s attendants, and they laid hold of me, but I struggled hard, and said: ‘I will not go without my pack; arrah, your Holiness! make them give me back my pack, which Shorsha gave me in Dungarvon times of old’; but my struggles were of no use. I was pulled away and put in the ould dungeon, and his Holiness went away sore frighted, crossing himself much, and never returned again.
“In the ould dungeon I was fastened to the wall by a chain, and there I was disciplined once every other day for the first three weeks, and then I was left to myself, and my chain, and hunger; and there I sat in the dungeon, sometimes screeching, sometimes holloing, for I soon became frighted, having nothing in the cell to divert me. At last the cook found his way to me by stealth, and comforted me a little, bringing me tidbits out of the kitchen; and he visited me again and again—not often, however, for he dare only come when he could steal away the key from the custody of the thaif of a porter. I was three years in the dungeon, and should have gone mad but for the cook, and his words of comfort, and his tidbits, and nice books which he brought me out of the library, which were theCalendars of Newgateand theLives of Irish Rogues and Raparees, the only English books in the library. However, at the end of three years, the ould thaif of a rector, wishing to look at them books, missed them from the library, and made a perquisition about them, and the thaif of a porter said that he shouldn’t wonder if I had them, saying that he had once seen me reading; and then the rector came with others to my cell, and took my books from me, from under my straw, and asked me how I came by them; and on my refusal to tell, they disciplined me again till the blood ran down my back; and making more perquisition they at last accused the cook of having carried the books to me, and the cook not denying, he was given warning to leave next day, but he left that night, and took me away with him, for he stole the key, and came to me and cut my chain through, and then he and I escaped from the religious house through a window—the cook with a bundle, containing what things he had. No sooner had we got out than the honest cookgave me a little bit of money and a loaf, and told me to follow a way which he pointed out, which he said would lead to the sea; and then, having embraced me after the Italian way, he left me, and I never saw him again. So I followed the way which the cook pointed out, and in two days reached a seaport called Chiviter Vik, terribly foot foundered, and there I met a sailor who spoke Irish, and who belonged to a vessel just ready to sail for France; and the sailor took me on board his vessel, and said I was his brother, and the captain gave me a passage to a place in France called Marseilles; and when I got there, the captain and sailor got a little money for me and a passport, and I travelled across the country towards a place they directed me to called Bayonne, from which they said I might, perhaps, get to Ireland. Coming, however, to a place called Pau, all my money being gone, I enlisted into a regiment called the Army of the Faith, which was going into Spain, for the King of Spain had been dethroned and imprisoned by his own subjects, as perhaps you may have heard; and the King of France, who was his cousin, was sending an army to help him, under the command of his own son, whom the English called Prince Hilt, because when he was told that he was appointed to the command, he clapped his hand on the hilt of his sword. So I enlisted into the regiment of the Faith, which was made up of Spaniards, many of them priests who had run out of Spain, and broken Germans, and foot-foundered Irish like myself. It was said to be a blackguard regiment, that same regiment of the Faith; but, ’faith, I saw nothing blackguardly going on in it, for you would hardly reckon card-playing, and dominoes, and pitch and toss blackguardly, and I saw nothing else going on in it. There was one thing in it which I disliked—the priests drawing their Spanish knives occasionally, when they lost their money. After we had been some time at Pau, the Army of the Faith was sent across the mountains into Spain, as the vanguard of the French; and no sooner did the Spaniards see the Faith than they made a dash at it, and the Faith ran away, myself along with it, and got behind the French army, which told it to keep there, and the Faith did so, and followed the French army, which soon scattered the Spaniards, and in the end placed the king on his throne again. When the war was over the Faith was disbanded; some of the foreigners, however, amongst whom I was one, were put into a Guard regiment, and there I continued for more than a year.
“One day, being at a place called the Escurial, I took stock, as the tradesmen say, and found I possessed the sum of eighty dollars won by playing at cards, for though I could not play sowell with the foreign cards as with the pack ye gave me, Shorsha, I had yet contrived to win money from the priests and soldiers of the Faith. Finding myself possessed of such a capital I determined to leave the service, and to make the best of my way to Ireland; so I deserted, but coming in an evil hour to a place they calls Torre Lodones, I found the priest playing at cards with his parishioners. The sight of the cards made me stop, and then, fool like, notwithstanding the treasure I had about me, I must wish to play, so not being able to speak their language, I made signs to them to let me play, and the priest and his thaives consented willingly; so I sat down to cards with the priest and two of his parishioners, and in a little time had won plenty of their money, but I had better never have done any such a thing, for suddenly the priest and all his parishioners set upon me and bate me, and took from me all I had, and cast me out of the village more dead than alive. Och! it’s a bad village that; and if I had known what it was I would have avoided it, or run straight through it, though I saw all the card-playing in the world going on in it. There is a proverb about it, as I was afterwards told, old as the time of the Moors, which holds good to the present day—it is, that in Torre Lodones there are twenty-four housekeepers, and twenty-five thieves, maning that all the people are thaives, and the clergyman to boot, who is not reckoned a housekeeper; and troth I found the clergyman the greatest thaif of the lot. After being cast out of that village I travelled for nearly a month, subsisting by begging tolerably well, for though most of the Spanish are thaives, they are rather charitable; but though charitable thaives they do not like their own being taken from them without leave being asked, as I found to my cost; for on my entering a garden near Seville, without leave, to take an orange, the labourer came running up and struck me to the ground with a hatchet, giving me a big wound in the arm. I fainted with loss of blood, and on reviving I found myself in a hospital at Seville, to which the labourer and the people of the village had taken me. I should have died of starvation in that hospital had not some English people heard of me and come to see me; they tended me with food till I was cured, and then paid my passage on board a ship to London, to which place the ship carried me.
“And now I was in London with five shillings in my pocket—all I had in the world—and that did not last for long; and when it was gone I begged in the streets, but I did not get much by that, except a month’s hard labour in the correction-house; andwhen I came out I knew not what to do, but thought I would take a walk in the country, for it was springtime, and the weather was fine, so I took a walk about seven miles from London, and came to a place where a great fair was being held; and there I begged, but got nothing but a halfpenny, and was thinking of going farther when I saw a man with a table, like that of mine, playing with thimbles, as you saw me. I looked at the play, and saw him win money, and run away, and hunted by constables more than once. I kept following the man, and at last entered into conversation with him; and learning from him that he was in want of a companion to help him, I offered to help him if he would pay me; he looked at me from top to toe, and did not wish at first to have anything to do with me, as he said my appearance was against me. ’Faith, Shorsha, he had better have looked at home, for his appearance was not much in his favour: he looked very much like a Jew, Shorsha. However, he at last agreed to take me to be his companion or bonnet as he called it; and I was to keep a look-out, and let him know when constables were coming, and to spake a good word for him occasionally, whilst he was chating folks with his thimbles and his pea. So I became his bonnet, and assisted him in the fair, and in many other fairs beside; but I did not like my occupation much, or rather my master, who, though not a big man, was a big thaif, and an unkind one, for do all I could I could never give him pleasure; and he was continually calling me fool and bogtrotter, and twitting me because I could not learn his thaives’ Latin, and discourse with him in it, and comparing me with another acquaintance, or bit of a pal of his, whom he said he had parted with in the fair, and of whom he was fond of saying all kinds of wonderful things, amongst others, that he knew the grammar of all tongues. At last, wearied with being twitted by him with not being able to learn his thaives’ Greek, I proposed that I should teach him Irish, that we should spake it together when we had anything to say in secret. To that he consented willingly; but, och! a purty hand he made with Irish, ’faith, not much better than did I with his thaives’ Hebrew. Then my turn came, and I twitted him nicely with dulness, and compared him with a pal that I had in ould Ireland, in Dungarvon times of yore, to whom I teached Irish, telling him that he was the broth of a boy, and not only knew the grammar of all human tongues, but the dialects of the snakes besides; in fact, I tould him all about your own swate sell; Shorsha, and many a dispute and quarrel had we together about our pals, which was the cleverest fellow, his or mine.
“Well, after having been wid him about two months, I quitted him without noise, taking away one of his tables, and some peas and thimbles; and that I did with a safe conscience, for he paid me nothing, and was not over free with the meat and the drink, though I must say of him that he was a clever fellow, and perfect master of his trade, by which he made a power of money, and bating his not being able to learn Irish, and a certain Jewish lisp which he had, a great master of his tongue, of which he was very proud; so much so, that he once told me that when he had saved a certain sum of money he meant to leave off the thimbling business, and enter Parliament; into which, he said, he could get at any time, through the interest of a friend of his, a Tory Peer—my Lord Whitefeather, with whom, he said, he had occasionally done business. With the table, and other things which I had taken, I commenced trade on my own account, having contrived to learn a few of his tricks. My only capital was the change for half a guinea, which he had once let fall, and which I picked up, which was all I could ever get from him: for it was impossible to stale any money from him, he was so awake, being up to all the tricks of thaives, having followed the diving trade, as he called it, for a considerable time. My wish was to make enough by my table to enable me to return with credit to ould Ireland, where I had no doubt of being able to get myself ordained as priest; and, in troth, notwithstanding I was a beginner, and without any companion to help me, I did tolerably well, getting my meat and drink, and increasing my small capital, till I came to this unlucky place of Horncastle, where I was utterly ruined by the thaif in the rider’s dress. And now, Shorsha, I am after telling you my history; perhaps you will now be telling me something about yourself?”
I told Murtagh all about myself that I deemed necessary to relate, and then asked him what he intended to do; he repeated that he was utterly ruined, and that he had no prospect before him but starving, or making away with himself. I inquired “How much would take him to Ireland, and establish him there with credit”. “Five pounds,” he answered, adding, “but who in the world would be fool enough to lend me five pounds, unless it be yourself, Shorsha, who, may be, have not got it; for when you told me about yourself, you made no boast of the state of your affairs.” “I am not very rich,” I replied, “but I think I can accommodate you with what you want. I consider myself under great obligations to you, Murtagh; it was you who instructed me in the language ofOilein nan Naomha, which hasbeen the foundation of all my acquisitions in philology; without you, I should not be what I am—Lavengro! which signifies a philologist. Here is the money, Murtagh,” said I, putting my hand into my pocket, and taking out five pounds, “much good may it do you.” He took the money, stared at it, and then at me—“And you mane to give me this, Shorsha?” “It is no longer mine to give,” said I; “it is yours.” “And you give it to me for the gratitude you bear me?” “Yes,” said I, “and for Dungarvon times of old.” “Well, Shorsha,” said he, “you are a broth of a boy, and I’ll take your benefaction—five pounds! och, Jasus!” He then put the money in his pocket, and springing up, waved his hat three times, uttering some old Irish cry; then, sitting down, he took my hand, and said: “Sure, Shorsha, I’ll be going thither; and when I get there, it is turning over another leaf I will be; I have learnt a thing or two abroad; I will become a priest; that’s the trade, Shorsha! and I will cry out for repale; that’s the cry, Shorsha! and I’ll be a fool no longer.” “And what will you do with your table?” said I. “’Faith, I’ll be taking it with me, Shorsha; and when I gets to Ireland, I’ll get it mended, and I will keep it in the house which I shall have; and when I looks upon it, I will be thinking of all I have undergone.” “You had better leave it behind you,” said I; “if you take it with you, you will, perhaps, take up the thimble trade again before you get to Ireland, and lose the money I am after giving you.” “No fear of that, Shorsha; never will I play on that table again, Shorsha, till I get it mended, which shall not be till I am a priest, and have a house in which to place it.”
Murtagh and I then went into the town, where we had some refreshment together, and then parted on our several ways. I heard nothing of him for nearly a quarter of a century, when a person who knew him well, coming from Ireland, and staying at my humble house, told me a great deal about him. He reached Ireland in safety, soon reconciled himself with his Church, and was ordained a priest; in the priestly office he acquitted himself in a way very satisfactory, upon the whole, to his superiors, having, as he frequently said, learned wisdom abroad. The Popish Church never fails to turn to account any particular gift which its servants may possess; and discovering soon that Murtagh was endowed with considerable manual dexterity—proof of which he frequently gave at cards, and at a singular game which he occasionally played at thimbles—it selected him as a very fit person to play the part of exorcist; and accordingly he travelled through a great part of Ireland, casting out devils from peoplepossessed, which he afterwards exhibited, sometimes in the shape of rabbits, and occasionally birds and fishes. There is a holy island in a lake in Ireland, to which the people resort at a particular season of the year. Here Murtagh frequently attended, and it was here that he performed a cure which will cause his name long to be remembered in Ireland, delivering a possessed woman of two demons, which he brandished aloft in his hands, in the shape of two large eels, and subsequently hurled into the lake, amidst the shouts of an enthusiastic multitude. Besides playing the part of an exorcist, he acted that of a politician with considerable success; he attached himself to the party of the sire of agitation—“the man of paunch,” and preached and hallooed for repeal with the loudest and best, as long as repeal was the cry; as soon, however, as the Whigs attained the helm of Government, and the greater part of the loaves and fishes—more politely termed the patronage of Ireland—was placed at the disposition of the priesthood, the tone of Murtagh, like that of the rest of his brother saggarts, was considerably softened; he even went so far as to declare that politics were not altogether consistent with sacerdotal duty; and resuming his exorcisms, which he had for some time abandoned, he went to the Isle of Holiness, and delivered a possessed woman of six demons in the shape of white mice. He, however, again resumed the political mantle in the year 1848, during the short period of the rebellion of the so-called Young Irelanders. The priests, though they apparently sided with this party, did not approve of it, as it was chiefly formed of ardent young men, fond of what they termed liberty, and by no means admirers of priestly domination, being mostly Protestants. Just before the outbreak of this rebellion, it was determined between the priests and the —, that this party should be rendered comparatively innocuous by being deprived of the sinews of war—in other words, certain sums of money which they had raised for their enterprise. Murtagh was deemed the best qualified person in Ireland to be entrusted with the delicate office of getting their money from them. Having received his instructions, he invited the leaders to his parsonage amongst the mountains, under pretence of deliberating with them about what was to be done. They arrived there just before nightfall, dressed in red, yellow and green, the colours so dear to enthusiastic Irishmen; Murtagh received them with great apparent cordiality, and entered into a long discourse with them, promising them the assistance of himself and order, and received from them a profusion of thanks. After a time Murtagh, observing, in a jocular tone, that consultingwas dull work, proposed a game of cards, and the leaders, though somewhat surprised, assenting, he went to a closet, and taking out a pack of cards, laid it upon the table; it was a strange dirty pack, and exhibited every mark of having seen very long service. On one of his guests making some remarks on the “ancientness” of its appearance, Murtagh observed that there was a very wonderful history attached to that pack; it had been presented to him, he said, by a young gentleman, a disciple of his, to whom, in Dungarvon times of yore, he had taught the Irish language, and of whom he related some very extraordinary things; he added that he, Murtagh, had taken it to —, where it had once the happiness of being in the hands of the Holy Father; by a great misfortune, he did not say what, he had lost possession of it, and had returned without it, but had some time since recovered it; a nephew of his, who was being educated at — for a priest, having found it in a nook of the college, and sent it to him.
Murtagh and the leaders then played various games with this pack, more especially one called by the initiated “blind hookey,” the result being that at the end of about two hours the leaders found they had lost one-half of their funds; they now looked serious, and talked of leaving the house, but Murtagh begging them to stay supper, they consented. After supper, at which the guests drank rather freely, Murtagh said that, as he had not the least wish to win their money, he intended to give them their revenge; he would not play at cards with them, he added, but at a funny game of thimbles, at which they would be sure of winning back their own; then going out, he brought in a table, tall and narrow, on which placing certain thimbles and a pea, he proposed that they should stake whatever they pleased on the almost certainty of finding the pea under the thimbles. The leaders, after some hesitation, consented, and were at first eminently successful, winning back the greater part of what they had lost; after some time, however, Fortune, or rather Murtagh, turned against them, and then, instead of leaving off, they doubled and trebled their stakes, and continued doing so until they had lost nearly the whole of their funds. Quite furious, they now swore that Murtagh had cheated them, and insisted on having their property restored to them. Murtagh, without a word of reply, went to the door, and shouting into the passage something in Irish, the room was instantly filled with bogtrotters, each at least six feet high, with a stout shillelah in his hand. Murtagh then turning to his guests, asked them what they meant by insulting an anointed priest; telling them that it was not for the likes of them to avenge thewrongs of Ireland. “I have been clane mistaken in the whole of ye,” said he, “I supposed ye Irish, but have found, to my sorrow, that ye are nothing of the kind; purty fellows to pretend to be Irish, when there is not a word of Irish on the tongue of any of ye, divil a ha’porth; the illigant young gentleman to whom I taught Irish, in Dungarvon times of old, though not born in Ireland, has more Irish in him than any ten of ye. He is the boy to avenge the wrongs of Ireland, if ever foreigner is to do it.” Then saying something to the bogtrotters, they instantly cleared the room of the young Irelanders, who retired sadly disconcerted; nevertheless, being very silly young fellows, they hoisted the standard of rebellion; few, however, joining them, partly because they had no money, and partly because the priests abused them with might and main, their rebellion ended in a lamentable manner; themselves being seized and tried, and though convicted, not deemed of sufficient importance to be sent to the scaffold, where they might have had the satisfaction of saying—
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
My visitor, after saying that of the money won, Murtagh retained a considerable portion, that a part went to the hierarchy for what were called church purposes, and that the — took the remainder, which it employed in establishing a newspaper, in which the private characters of the worthiest and most loyal Protestants in Ireland were traduced and vilified, concluded his account by observing, that it was the common belief that Murtagh, having by his services, ecclesiastical and political, acquired the confidence of the priesthood and favour of the Government, would, on the first vacancy, be appointed to the high office of Popish Primate of Ireland.
LeavingHorncastle I bent my steps in the direction of the east. I walked at a brisk rate, and late in the evening reached a large town, situate at the entrance of an extensive firth, or arm of the sea, which prevented my farther progress eastward. Sleeping that night in the suburbs of the town, I departed early next morning in the direction of the south. A walk of about twenty miles brought me to another large town, situated on a river, where I again turned towards the east. At the end of the town I was accosted by a fiery-faced individual, somewhat under the middle size, dressed as a recruiting sergeant.
“Young man,” said the recruiting sergeant, “you are just the kind of person to serve the Honourable East India Company.”
“I had rather the Honourable Company should serve me,” said I.
“Of course, young man. Well, the Honourable East India Company shall serve you—that’s reasonable. Here, take this shilling; ’t is service-money. The Honourable Company engages to serve you, and you the Honourable Company; both parties shall be thus served; that’s just and reasonable.”
“And what must I do for the Company?”
“Only go to India; that’s all.”
“And what should I do in India?”
“Fight, my brave boy! fight, my youthful hero!”
“What kind of country is India?”
“The finest country in the world! Rivers, bigger than the Ouse. Hills, higher than anything near Spalding! Trees—you never saw such trees! Fruits—you never saw such fruits!”
“And the people—what kind of folk are they?”
“Pah! Kauloes—blacks—a set of rascals not worth regarding.”
“Kauloes!” said I; “blacks!”
“Yes,” said the recruiting sergeant; “and they call us lolloes, which in their beastly gibberish, means reds.”
“Lolloes!” said I; “reds!”
“Yes,” said the recruiting sergeant, “kauloes and lolloes; and all the lolloes have to do is to kick and cut down the kauloes, andtake from them their rupees, which mean silver money. Why do you stare so?”
“Why,” said I, “this is the very language of Mr. Petulengro.”
“Mr. Pet—?”
“Yes,” said I, “and Tawno Chikno.”
“Tawno Chik—? I say, young fellow, I don’t like your way of speaking; no, nor your way of looking. You are mad, sir; you are mad; and what’s this? Why your hair is grey! You won’t do for the Honourable Company—they like red. I’m glad I didn’t give you the shilling. Good-day to you.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said I as I proceeded rapidly along a broad causeway, in the direction of the east, “if Mr. Petulengro and Tawno Chikno came originally from India. I think I’ll go there.”
[End of Vol. II.,and of the fifth and last of the Autobiography.]
[Shortly after the publication of the first three volumes of the present work, the author received various letters from individuals, in which he was requested to state what might be the drift and tendency ofLavengro. The author cannot help thinking it somewhat extraordinary, that, after a preface in which he was particularly careful to tell the public what the book was, and the object with which it was written, any fresh information with respect to it should be required of him. As, however, all the letters which he has received have been written in a friendly spirit, he will now endeavour to be a little more explicit than on a former occasion.]
Lavengrois the history up to a certain period of one of rather a peculiar mind and system of nerves, with an exterior shy and cold, under which lurk much curiosity, especially with regard to what is wild and extraordinary, a considerable quantity of energy and industry, and an unconquerable love of independence. It narrates his earliest dreams and feelings, dwells with minuteness on the ways, words and characters of his father, mother and brother, lingers on the occasional resting-places of his wandering half-military childhood, describes the gradual hardening of his bodily frame by robust exercises, his successive struggles, after his family and himself have settled down in a small local capital, to obtain knowledge of every kind, but more particularly philological lore; his visits to the tent of the Romany chal, and the parlour of the Anglo-German philosopher; the effect produced upon his character by his flinging himself into contact with people all widely differing from each other, but all extraordinary; his reluctance to settle down to the ordinary pursuits of life; his struggles after moral truth; his glimpses of God and the obscuration of the Divine Being, to his mind’s eye; and his being cast upon the world of London by the death of his father, at the age of nineteen. In the world within a world, the world of London, it shows himplaying his part for some time as he best can, in the capacity of a writer for reviews and magazines, and describes what he saw and underwent whilst labouring in that capacity; it represents him, however, as never forgetting that he is the son of a brave but poor gentleman, and that if he is a hack author, he is likewise a scholar. It shows him doing no dishonourable jobs, and proves that if he occasionally associates with low characters, he does so chiefly to gratify the curiosity of a scholar. In his conversations with the apple-woman of London Bridge, the scholar is ever apparent, so again in his acquaintance with the man of the table; for the book is no raker up of the uncleanness of London, and if it gives what at first sight appears refuse, it invariably shows that a pearl of some kind, generally a philological one, is contained amongst it; it shows its hero always accompanied by his love of independence, scorning in the greatest poverty to receive favours from anybody, and describes him finally rescuing himself from peculiarly miserable circumstances by writing a book, an original book, within a week, even as Johnson is said to have written hisRasselas, and Beckford hisVathek, and tells how, leaving London, he betakes himself to the roads and fields.
In the country it shows him leading a life of roving adventure, becoming tinker, gypsy, postillion, ostler; associating with various kinds of people, chiefly of the lower classes, whose ways and habits are described; but, though leading this erratic life, we gather from the book that his habits are neither vulgar nor vicious, that he still follows to a certain extent his favourite pursuits, hunting after strange characters, or analysing strange words and names. At the conclusion of the fifth volume, which terminates the first part of the history, it hints that he is about to quit his native land on a grand philological expedition.
Those who read this book with attention—and the author begs to observe that it would be of little utility to read it hurriedly—may derive much information with respect to matters of philology and literature; it will be found treating of most of the principal languages from Ireland to China, and of the literature which they contain; and it is particularly minute with regard to the ways, manners and speech of the English section of the most extraordinary and mysterious clan or tribe of people to be found in the whole world—the children of Roma. But it contains matters of much more importance than anything in connection with philology, and the literature and manners of nations. Perhaps no work was ever offered to the public in which the kindness and providence of God have been set forth by more strikingexamples, or the machinations of priestcraft been more truly and lucidly exposed, or the dangers which result to a nation when it abandons itself to effeminacy, and a rage for what is novel and fashionable, than the present.
With respect to the kindness and providence of God, are they not exemplified in the case of the old apple-woman and her son? These are beings in many points bad, but with warm affections, who, after an agonising separation, are restored to each other, but not until the hearts of both are changed and purified by the influence of affliction. Are they not exemplified in the case of the rich gentleman, who touches objects in order to avert the evil chance? This being has great gifts and many amiable qualities, but does not everybody see that his besetting sin is selfishness? He fixes his mind on certain objects, and takes inordinate interest in them, because they are his own, and those very objects, through the providence of God, which is kindness in disguise, become snakes and scorpions to whip him. Tired of various pursuits, he at last becomes an author, and publishes a book, which is very much admired, and which he loves with his usual inordinate affection; the book, consequently becomes a viper to him, and at last he flings it aside and begins another; the book, however, is not flung aside by the world, who are benefited by it, deriving pleasure and knowledge from it: so the man who merely wrote to gratify self, has already done good to others, and got himself an honourable name. But God will not allow that man to put that book under his head and use it as a pillow: the book has become a viper to him, he has banished it, and is about another, which he finishes and gives to the world; it is a better book than the first, and every one is delighted with it; but it proves to the writer a scorpion, because he loves it with inordinate affection; but it was good for the world that he produced this book, which stung him as a scorpion. Yes; and good for himself, for the labour of writing it amused him, and perhaps prevented him from dying of apoplexy; but the book is banished, and another is begun, and herein, again, is the providence of God manifested; the man has the power of producing still, and God determines that he shall give to the world what remains in his brain, which he would not do, had he been satisfied with the second work; he would have gone to sleep upon that as he would upon the first, for the man is selfish and lazy. In his account of what he suffered during the composition of this work, his besetting sin of selfishness is manifest enough; the work on which he is engaged occupies his every thought, it is his idol, his deity, it shall be all his own,he won’t borrow a thought from any one else, and he is so afraid lest, when he publishes it, that it should be thought that he had borrowed from any one, that he is continually touching objects, his nervous system, owing to his extreme selfishness, having become partly deranged. He is left touching, in order to banish the evil chance from his book, his deity. No more of his history is given; but does the reader think that God will permit that man to go to sleep on his third book, however extraordinary it may be? Assuredly not. God will not allow that man to rest till he has cured him to a certain extent of his selfishness, which has, however, hitherto been very useful to the world.
Then, again, in the tale of Peter Williams, is not the hand of Providence to be seen? This person commits a sin in his childhood, utters words of blasphemy, the remembrance of which, in after life, preying upon his imagination, unfits him for quiet pursuits, to which he seems to have been naturally inclined; but for the remembrance of that sin, he would have been Peter Williams the quiet, respectable Welsh farmer, somewhat fond of reading the ancient literature of his country in winter evenings, after his work was done. God, however, was aware that there was something in Peter Williams to entitle him to assume a higher calling; he therefore permits this sin, which, though a childish affair, was yet a sin, and committed deliberately, to prey upon his mind till he becomes at last an instrument in the hand of God, a humble Paul, the great preacher, Peter Williams, who, though he considers himself a reprobate and a castaway, instead of having recourse to drinking in mad desperation, as many do who consider themselves reprobates, goes about Wales and England preaching the word of God, dilating on his power and majesty, and visiting the sick and afflicted, until God sees fit to restore to him his peace of mind; which he does not do, however, until that mind is in a proper condition to receive peace, till it has been purified by the pain of the one idea which has so long been permitted to riot in his brain; which pain, however, an angel, in the shape of a gentle, faithful wife, had occasionally alleviated; for God is merciful even in the blows which He bestoweth, and will not permit any one to be tempted beyond the measure which he can support. And here it will be as well for the reader to ponder upon the means by which the Welsh preacher is relieved from his mental misery: he is not relieved by a text from the Bible, by the words of consolation and wisdom addressed to him by his angel-minded wife, nor by the preaching of one yet more eloquent than himself; but by a quotation made by Lavengro from the life of MaryFlanders, cut-purse and prostitute, which life Lavengro had been in the habit of reading at the stall of his old friend the apple-woman, on London Bridge, who had herself been very much addicted to the perusal of it, though without any profit whatever. Should the reader be dissatisfied with the manner in which Peter Williams is made to find relief, the author would wish to answer, that the Almighty frequently accomplishes his purposes by means which appear very singular to the eyes of men, and at the same time to observe that the manner in which that relief is obtained, is calculated to read a lesson to the proud, fanciful and squeamish, who are ever in a fidget lest they should be thought to mix with low society or to bestow a moment’s attention on publications which are not what is called of a perfectly unobjectionable character. Had not Lavengro formed the acquaintance of the old apple-woman on London Bridge, he would not have had an opportunity of reading the life of Mary Flanders; and, consequently, of storing in a memory, which never forgets anything, a passage which contained a balm for the agonised mind of poor Peter Williams. The best medicines are not always found in the finest shops. Suppose, for example, if, instead of going to London Bridge to read, he had gone to Albemarle Street, and had received from the proprietors of the literary establishment in that very fashionable street, permission to read the publications on the tables of the saloons there, does the reader think he would have met any balm in those publications for the case of Peter Williams? does the reader suppose that he would have found Mary Flanders there? He would certainly have found that highly unobjectionable publicationRasselas, and theSpectator, orLives of Royal and Illustrious Personages, but, of a surety, no Mary Flanders; so when Lavengro met with Peter Williams, he would have been unprovided with a balm to cure his ulcerated mind, and have parted from him in a way not quite so satisfactory as the manner in which he took his leave of him; for it is certain that he might have readRasselas, and all the other unexceptionable works to be found in the library of Albemarle Street, over and over again, before he would have found any cure in them for the case of Peter Williams. Therefore the author requests the reader to drop any squeamish nonsense he may wish to utter about Mary Flanders, and the manner in which Peter Williams was cured.
And now with respect to the old man who knew Chinese, but could not tell what was o’clock. This individual was a man whose natural powers would have been utterly buried and lost beneath a mountain of sloth and laziness had not God determinedotherwise. He had in his early years chalked out for himself a plan of life in which he had his own ease and self-indulgence solely in view; he had no particular bad passions to gratify, he only wished to lead an easy, quiet life, just as if the business of this mighty world could be carried on by innocent people fond of ease and quiet, or that Providence would permit innocent, quiet drones to occupy any portion of the earth and to cumber it. God had at any rate decreed that this man should not cumber it as a drone. He brings a certain affliction upon him, the agony of which produces that terrible whirling of the brain which, unless it is stopped in time, produces madness; he suffers indescribable misery for a period, until one morning his attention is arrested, and his curiosity is aroused, by certain Chinese letters on a teapot; his curiosity increases more and more, and, of course, in proportion as his curiosity is increased with respect to the Chinese marks, the misery in his brain, produced by his mental affliction, decreases. He sets about learning Chinese, and after the lapse of many years, during which his mind subsides into a certain state of tranquillity, he acquires sufficient knowledge of Chinese to be able to translate with ease the inscriptions to be found on its singular crockery. Yes, the laziest of human beings, through the providence of God, a being, too, of rather inferior capacity, acquires the written part of a language so difficult that, as Lavengro said on a former occasion, none but the cleverest people in Europe, the French, are able to acquire it. But God did not intend that man should merely acquire Chinese. He intended that he should be of use to his species, and by the instrumentality of the first Chinese inscription which he translates, the one which first arrested his curiosity, he is taught the duties of hospitality; yes, by means of an inscription in the language of a people, who have scarcely an idea of hospitality themselves, God causes the slothful man to play a useful and beneficent part in the world, relieving distressed wanderers, and, amongst others, Lavengro himself. But a striking indication of the man’s surprising sloth is still apparent in what he omits to do; he has learnt Chinese, the most difficult of languages, and he practises acts of hospitality, because he believes himself enjoined to do so by the Chinese inscription, but he cannot tell the hour of the day by the clock within his house; he can get on, he thinks, very well without being able to do so; therefore, from this one omission, it is easy to come to a conclusion as to what a sluggard’s part the man would have played in life, but for the dispensation of Providence; nothing but extreme agony could have inducedsuch a man to do anything useful. He still continues, with all he has acquired, with all his usefulness, and with all his innocence of character, without any proper sense of religion, though he has attained a rather advanced age. If it be observed, that this want of religion is a great defect in the story, the author begs leave to observe that he cannot help it. Lavengro relates the lives of people so far as they were placed before him, but no further. It was certainly a great defect in so good a man to be without religion; it was likewise a great defect in so learned a man not to be able to tell what was o’clock. It is probable that God, in His loving kindness, will not permit that man to go out of the world without religion; who knows but some powerful minister of the Church, full of zeal for the glory of God, will illume that man’s dark mind; perhaps some clergyman will come to the parish who will visit him and teach him his duty to his God. Yes, it is very probable that such a man, before he dies, will have been made to love his God; whether he will ever learn to know what’s o’clock, is another matter. It is probable that he will go out of the world without knowing what’s o’clock. It is not so necessary to be able to tell the time of day by the clock as to know one’s God through His inspired word; a man cannot get to heaven without religion, but a man can get there very comfortably without knowing what’s o’clock.
But, above all, the care and providence of God are manifested in the case of Lavengro himself, by the manner in which he is enabled to make his way in the world up to a certain period, without falling a prey either to vice or poverty. In his history, there is a wonderful illustration of part of the text, quoted by his mother: “I have been young, but now am old, yet never saw I the righteous forsaken, or his seed begging bread”. He is the son of good and honourable parents, but at the critical period of life, that of entering into the world, he finds himself without any earthly friend to help him, yet he manages to make his way; he does not become a Captain in the Life Guards, it is true, nor does he get into Parliament, nor does the last volume conclude in the most satisfactory and unobjectionable manner, by his marrying a dowager countess, as that wise man Addison did, or by his settling down as a great country gentleman, perfectly happy and contented, like the very moral Roderick Random, or the equally estimable Peregrine Pickle; he is hack author, gypsy, tinker and postillion, yet, upon the whole, he seems to be quite as happy as the younger sons of most earls, to have as high feelings of honour; and when the reader loses sight of him, hehas money in his pocket honestly acquired, to enable him to commence a journey quite as laudable as those which the younger sons of earls generally undertake. Surely all this is a manifestation of the kindness and providence of God; and yet he is not a religious person; up to the time when the reader loses sight of him, he is decidedly not a religious person; he has glimpses, it is true, of that God who does not forsake him, but he prays very seldom, is not fond of going to church; and, though he admires Tate and Brady’s version of the Psalms, his admiration is rather caused by the beautiful poetry which that version contains than the religion; yet his tale is not finished—like the tale of the gentleman who touched objects, and that of the old man who knew Chinese without knowing what was o’clock; perhaps, like them, he is destined to become religious, and to have, instead of occasional glimpses frequent and distinct views of his God; yet, though he may become religious, it is hardly to be expected that he will become a very precise and straightlaced person; it is probable that he will retain, with his scholarship, something of his gypsyism, his predilection for the hammer and tongs, and perhaps some inclination to put on certain gloves, not white kid, with any friend who may be inclined for a little old English diversion, and a readiness to take a glass of ale, with plenty of malt in it, and as little hop as may well be—ale at least two years old—with the aforesaid friend, when the diversion is over; for, as it is the belief of the writer that a person may get to heaven very comfortably without knowing what’s o’clock, so it is his belief that he will not be refused admission there, because to the last he has been fond of healthy and invigorating exercises, and felt a willingness to partake of any of the good things which it pleases the Almighty to put within the reach of his children during their sojourn upon earth.
Thewriter will now say a few words about priestcraft, and the machinations of Rome, and will afterwards say something about himself, and his motives for writing against them.
With respect to Rome, and her machinations, much valuable information can be obtained from particular parts ofLavengro, and its sequel. Shortly before the time when the hero of the book is launched into the world, the Popish agitation in England had commenced. The Popish propaganda had determined to make a grand attempt on England; Popish priests were scattered over the land, doing the best they could to make converts to the old superstition. With the plans of Rome, and her hopes, and the reasons on which those hopes are grounded, the hero of the book becomes acquainted, during an expedition which he makes into the country, from certain conversations which he holds with a priest in a dingle, in which the hero had taken up his residence; he likewise learns from the same person much of the secret history of the Roman See, and many matters connected with the origin and progress of the Popish superstition. The individual with whom he holds these conversations is a learned, intelligent, but highly-unprincipled person, of a character however very common amongst the priests of Rome, who in general are people void of all religion, and who, notwithstanding they are tied to Rome by a band which they have neither the power nor wish to break, turn her and her practices, over their cups with their confidential associates, to a ridicule only exceeded by that to which they turn those who become the dupes of their mistress and themselves.
It is now necessary that the writer should say something with respect to himself, and his motives for waging war against Rome. First of all, with respect to himself, he wishes to state, that to the very last moment of his life, he will do and say all that in his power may be to hold up to contempt and execration the priestcraft and practices of Rome; there is, perhaps, no person better acquainted than himself, not even among the choicest spirits of the priesthood, with the origin and history of Popery. Fromwhat he saw and heard of Popery in England, at a very early period of his life, his curiosity was aroused, and he spared himself no trouble, either by travel or study, to make himself well acquainted with it in all its phases, the result being a hatred of it, which he hopes and trusts he shall retain till the moment when his spirit quits the body. Popery is the great lie of the world; a source from which more misery and social degradation have flowed upon the human race, than from all the other sources from which those evils come. It is the oldest of all superstitions; and though in Europe it assumes the name of Christianity, it existed and flourished amidst the Himalayan hills at least two thousand years before the real Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea; in a word, it is Buddhism; and let those who may be disposed to doubt this assertion, compare the Popery of Rome, and the superstitious practices of its followers, with the doings of the priests who surround the grand Lama; and the mouthings, bellowing, turnings round, and, above all, the penances of the followers of Buddh with those of Roman devotees. But he is not going to dwell here on this point; it is dwelt upon at tolerable length in the text, and has likewise been handled with extraordinary power by the pen of the gifted but irreligious Volney; moreover, theéliteof the Roman priesthood are perfectly well aware that their system is nothing but Buddhism under a slight disguise, and the European world in general has entertained for some time past an inkling of the fact.
And now a few words with respect to the motives of the writer for expressing a hatred for Rome.
This expressed abhorrence of the author for Rome might be entitled to little regard, provided it were possible to attribute it to any self-interested motive. There have been professed enemies of Rome, or of this or that system; but their professed enmity may frequently be traced to some cause which does them little credit; but the writer of these lines has no motive, and can have no motive, for his enmity to Rome, save the abhorrence of an honest heart for what is false, base and cruel. A certain clergyman wrote with much heat against the Papists in the time of —[311a]who was known to favour the Papists, but was not expected to continue long in office, and whose supposed successor,[311b]the person, indeed, who did succeed him, was thought to be hostile to the Papists. This divine, who obtained a rich benefice from the successor of —[311c]who during —’s[311d]time had always opposedhim in everything he proposed to do, and who, of course, during that time affected to be very inimical to Popery—this divine might well be suspected of having a motive equally creditable for writing against the Papists, as that which induced him to write for them, as soon as his patron, who eventually did something more for him,[312a]had espoused their cause; but what motive, save an honest one, can the present writer have, for expressing an abhorrence of Popery? He is no clergyman, and consequently can expect neither benefices nor bishoprics, supposing it were the fashion of the present, or likely to be the fashion of any future administration to reward clergymen with benefices or bishoprics, who, in the defence of the religion of their country write, or shall write, against Popery, and not to reward those who write, or shall write, in favour of it, and all its nonsense and abominations.
“But if not a clergyman, he is the servant of a certain society which has the overthrow of Popery in view, and therefore,” etc. This assertion, which has been frequently made, is incorrect, even as those who have made it probably knew it to be. He is the servant of no society whatever. He eats his own bread,[312b]and is one of the very few men in England who are independent in every sense of the word.
It is true he went to Spain with the colours of that society on his hat—oh! the blood glows in his veins! oh! the marrow awakes in his old bones when he thinks of what he accomplished in Spain in the cause of religion and civilisation with the colours of that society in his hat, and its weapon in his hand, even the sword of the word of God; how with that weapon he hewed left and right, making the priests fly before him, and run away squeaking: “Vaya!qué demonio es este!” Ay, and when he thinks of the plenty of Bible swords which he left behind him, destined to prove, and which have already proved, pretty calthrops in the heels of Popery. “Halloo! Batuschca,” he exclaimed the other night on reading an article in a newspaper;[312c]“what do you think of the present doings in Spain? Your old friend the zingaro, the gitano who rode about Spain, to say nothing of Galicia, with the Greek Buchini behind him as his squire, had a hand in bringing them about; there are many brave Spaniards connected with the present movement[312d]who took Bibles from his hands, and read them and profited by them, learning from the inspired page theduties of one man towards another, and the real value of a priesthood and their head, who set at nought the Word of God, and think only of their own temporal interests; ay, and who learned Gitano—their own Gitano—from the lips of the London Caloró, and also songs in the said Gitano, very fit to dumbfounder your semi-Buddhist priests when they attempt to bewilder people’s minds with their school-logic and pseudo-ecclesiastical nonsense, songs such as—
“‘Un ErajaiSinaba chibando un sermon—’.”[313]
“‘Un ErajaiSinaba chibando un sermon—’.”[313]
But with that society he has long since ceased to have any connection; he bade it adieu with feelings of love and admiration more than fourteen years ago, so in continuing to assault Popery, no hopes of interest founded on that society can sway his mind—interest! who, with worldly interest in view, would ever have anything to do with that society? It is poor and supported, like its founder Christ, by poor people; and so far from having political influence, it is in such disfavour, and has ever been, with the dastardly great, to whom the government of England has for many years past been confided, that the having borne its colours only for a month would be sufficient to exclude any man, whatever his talents, his learning, or his courage may be, from the slightest chance of being permitted to serve his country either for fee, or without. A fellow who unites in himself the bankrupt trader, the broken author, or rather book-maker, and the laughed-down single speech spouter of the House of Commons, may look forward, always supposing that at one time he has been a foaming radical, to the government of an important colony. Ay, an ancient fox who has lost his tail may, provided he has a score of radicalfriends, who will swear that he can bark Chinese, though Chinese is not barked but sung, be forced upon a Chinese colony, though it is well known that to have lost one’s tail, is considered by the Chinese in general as an irreparable infamy, whilst to have been once connected with a certain society, to which, to its honour be it said, all the radical party are vehemently hostile, would be quite sufficient to keep any one not only from a government, but something much less, even though he could translate the rhymedSessions of Hariri, and were versed, still retaining his tail, in the two languages in which Kien-Loung wrote his Eulogium on Moukden, that piece which, translated by Amyot, the learned Jesuit, won the applause of the celebrated Voltaire.
No! were the author influenced by hopes of fee or reward, he would, instead of writing against Popery, write for it; all the trumpery titled—he will not call them great again—would then be for him, and their masters the radicals, with their hosts of newspapers, would be for him, more especially if he would commence maligning the society whose colours he had once on his hat—a society which, as the priest says in the text, is one of the very few Protestant institutions for which the Popish Church entertains any fear, and consequently respect, as it respects nothing which it does not fear. The writer said that certain “rulers” would never forgive him for having been connected with that society; he went perhaps too far in saying “never”. It is probable that they would take him into favour on one condition, which is, that he should turn his pen and his voice against that society; such a mark “of a better way of thinking,” would perhaps induce them to give him a government, nearly as good as that which they gave to a certain ancient radical fox at the intercession of his radical friends (who were bound to keep him from the pauper’s kennel), after he had promised to foam, bark and snarl at corruption no more; he might even entertain hopes of succeeding, nay, of superseding, the ancient creature in his government; but even were he as badly off as he is well off, he would do no such thing. He would rather exist on crusts and water; he has often done so, and been happy; nay, he would rather starve than be a rogue—for even the feeling of starvation is happiness compared with what he feels who knows himself to be a rogue, provided he has any feeling at all. What is the use of a mitre or knighthood to a man who has betrayed his principles? What is the use of a gilt collar, nay, even of a pair of scarlet breeches, to a fox who has lost his tail? Oh! the horror which haunts the mind of the fox who has lost his tail; and with reason, for his very mate loatheshim and more especially if, like himself, she has lost her brush. Oh! the horror which haunts the mind of the two-legged rogue who has parted with his principles, or those which he professed—for what? We’ll suppose a government. What’s the use of a government, if, the next day after you have received it, you are obliged for very shame to scurry off to it with the hoot of every honest man sounding in your ears?
“Lightly liar leaped and away ran.”—Piers Plowman.
“Lightly liar leaped and away ran.”
—Piers Plowman.
But bigotry, it has been said, makes the author write against Popery; and thorough-going bigotry, indeed, will make a person say or do anything. But the writer is a very pretty bigot truly! Where will the public find traces of bigotry in anything he has written? He has written against Rome with all his heart, with all his mind, with all his soul, and with all his strength; but as a person may be quite honest, and speak and write against Rome, in like manner he may speak and write against her, and be quite free from bigotry; though it is impossible for any one but a bigot or a bad man to write or speak in her praise; her doctrines, actions and machinations being what they are.
Bigotry! The author was born, and has always continued, in the wrong Church for bigotry, the quiet, unpretending Church of England; a Church which, had it been a bigoted Church, and not long suffering almost to a fault, might with its opportunities, as the priest says in the text, have stood in a very different position from that which it occupies at present. No! let those who are in search of bigotry, seek for it in a Church very different from the inoffensive Church of England, which never encourages cruelty or calumny. Let them seek for it amongst the members of the Church of Rome, and more especially amongst those who have renegaded to it. There is nothing, however false and horrible, which a pervert to Rome will not say for his Church, and which his priests will not encourage him in saying; and there is nothing, however horrible—the more horrible indeed and revolting to human nature, the more eager he would be to do it—which he will not do for it and which his priests will not encourage him in doing.
Of the readiness which converts to Popery exhibit to sacrifice all the ties of blood and affection on the shrine of their newly-adopted religion, there is a curious illustration in the work of Luigi Pulci. This man, who was born in Florence in the year 1432, and who was deeply versed in the Bible, composed a poem, called theMorgante Maggiore, which he recited at the table ofLorenzo de’ Medici, the great patron of Italian genius. It is a mock-heroic and religious poem, in which the legends of knight-errantry, and of the Popish Church, are turned to unbounded ridicule. The pretended hero of it is a converted giant, called Morgante; though his adventures do not occupy the twentieth part of the poem, the principal personages being Charlemagne, Orlando, and his cousin Rinaldo of Montalban. Morgante has two brothers, both of them giants, and in the first canto of the poem, Morgante is represented with his brothers as carrying on a feud with the abbot and monks of a certain convent, built upon the confines of heathenesse; the giants being in the habit of flinging down stones, or rather huge rocks, on the convent. Orlando, however, who is banished from the court of Charlemagne, arriving at the convent, undertakes to destroy them, and, accordingly, kills Passamonte and Alabastro, and converts Morgante, whose mind had been previously softened by a vision, in which the “Blessed Virgin” figures. No sooner is he converted than, as a sign of his penitence, what does he do, but hastens and cuts off the hands of his two brothers, saying—
“Io vo’ tagliar le mani à tutti quantiE porterolle à que’ monaci santi”.[316a]
“Io vo’ tagliar le mani à tutti quantiE porterolle à que’ monaci santi”.[316a]
And he does cut off the hands of his brethren, and carries them to the abbot, who blesses him for so doing. Pulci here is holding up to ridicule and execration the horrid butchery or betrayal of friends by popish converts, and the encouragement they receive from the priest. No sooner is a person converted to Popery, than his principal thought is how he can bring the hands and feet of his brethren, however harmless they may be, and different from the giants, to the “holy priests,” who, if he manages to do so, never fail to praise him, saying to the miserable wretch, as the abbot said to Morgante:—
“Tu sarai or perfetto e veto amicoA Cristo, quauto tu gli eri nemico”.[316b]
“Tu sarai or perfetto e veto amicoA Cristo, quauto tu gli eri nemico”.[316b]
Can the English public deny the justice of Pulci’s illustration, after something which it has lately witnessed? Has it not seen equivalents for the hands and feet of brothers carried by popish perverts to the “holy priests,” and has it not seen the manner in which the offering has been received? Let those who are in quest of Bigotry seek for it among the perverts to Rome, and not amongst those who, born in the pale of the Church of England, have always continued in it.