Page images
PDF
EPUB

large octavo, with a preliminary dissertation upon the times in which he lived, also, his washerwoman's bills (unpaid), for several years, and an appendix of original letters, "now first collected, and never before published." The native brass of the autobiographer is transferred in the line manner unto the copper of the engraver, and is exhibited in volume first, "to face the title.”—Volume second is sure to be decorated with a map of his travels, or a perspective view of the house in which his grandmother sold tobacco and groceries. There is no doubt of plenty of "filling up stuff," in the shape of dedication, preface, index, and annotations, each successive annotator giving his predecessor the lie direct, as usual, if you observe, in the performances of these learned elucidators. Now, I scorn this beaten track of autobiography; and therefore thank your stars, gentlemen, that I inflict upon you neither plate nor map, washerwomen's bills, nor letters hitherto unpublished, but a plain honest, straightforward account of my adventures, which, if ever you have the luck to see in print, there is no occasion to call at the trunkmakers. Not a bit of it-you shall see me, sir, not dressed up in the vain, transitory typographical fashion of the day, but ushered into the literary republic in manner and form prescribed by immemorial usage of the incomparable MAGA, from whose columns, more imperishable than basalt, these my lu

cubrations will be transferred into the tablets of the brains of residents in Iceland, and residents in Timbuctoo, by the light of fish-oil lamps, and tropical suns, aye, and be thundered with extasy by the British Consul at Mogadore, and the Company's Superintendent in Japan.

I am a gentleman born.-In Ireland, I need not tell you, gentlemen, we are all gentlemen born-the epic poem attributed erroneously to Turglesius, and which Counsellor O'Rubbishy declares was translated by Tegernach-but I defy him to prove itthe opening stanza descants upon the pedigree of Saint Patrick, whose very existence has been denied by Lelandbut no matter for that-nay, the opening line the "arma virumque cano," is devoted to transmitting to countless ages the information that

"Saint Patrick was a gintleman."

Lest it might be supposed, however, that the word "gentleman," or, as many poets write, "jintleman," was to be construed to imply aristocratic birth merely, not gentleman-like conduct-the poet describes epithetically the class of society from which the Saint derives his origin, thus

"And come of ducent people,” the adjective denoting a large and most respectable class of small proprietors, with unimpeachable characters, including, among others, publicans, tanners, struggling farmers, butterbuyers, and pig-jobbers.-But the poet's anxiety to vindicate the genealogy of his hero does not end here, for, after a couplet devoted to the Saint's performances,

"He built a church in Dublin town, And on it stuck a steeple ".

the pedigree is given with that faithful minuteness, peculiarly the characteristic of the ancient bards or seanachies

"His father was a Hooligan,

His mother was a Brady,
His aunt was one O'Brallighan,

And his wet-nurse Widow Grady."
In the celebrated performance at-
tributed to Mogh-Nuad, the court
bard of the Royal Irish House of Con-
ary, but which Counsellor O'Rub-
bishy has, with success, fastened up-
on a monk of the eighth century,
named Cataldus Tiraboschi, who, my
life for yours, will never deny the
fact, we have the following passage:—
"MacCluskey too,
Good manners knew;
For though he was'nt rich-
He called himself a jintleman,
And still behaved as sich."

Thus, to the truth of the assertion, that in Ireland every man is a "jintleman," or a "gentleman," whichever orthography you prefer, antiquity lends her sanction, nor does the contemporary age refuse its authority.

in the act of "prigging" your pocket-
If you detect a juvenile pickpocket
book, and seize him by the collar, he
indignantly repels your grasp, and in-
forms you that he is ready to walk as
far as the police-office, but expects to
be treated
porter who is employed to carry your
like a gentleman "-the
luggage, is very sorry that he is be-
spoke, but in less than no time at all
will send your honour another gentle-

man-the hackney-coachman,to whose demand of thrice his lawful fare you are inclined to demur, winds up his tornado of imprecations, with a thundering crack of his whip, and a polite intimation to the by-standers, that "you are a scaly blackguard," and "no gentleman.'

Miss Edgeworth divides Irish gentlemen into three great classes-"the half-mounted gentleman," "the gentleman every inch of him ;" and thirdly and lastly, the "gentleman to the back-bone." The only defect of this classification is, that the examination of these several grand classes is not followed up by a sufficient detail of the sub-genera or species. For example, as regards birth merely, the "ould stock" have indisputable pretensions to pre-eminence; next to them the "real bloods" are in highest estimation; in politics, we have the "true blues," and not less in public regard, "the right sort," while equivocal pretenders to gentility are stigmatized by the derogatory epithets of "gingerbread gents," dunghill cocks," "mushrooms," and "fagots." I was born, then, a gentleman-but I must needs confess I am the first of our family whose pretensions to gentle blood were unquestioned, my father's progenitor being unable to trace his pedigree in the ascending, descending, collateral, or indeed, in any other line.

In short, gentlemen, my grandfather never had any father-nor for that matter, any mother either, for he was discovered on a cobbler's bulk, in a state of primitive innocence and nudity, and was spoon-fed into a happy maturity, an out-pensioner of the Hôpital des Enfans 'Trouvés, or in the vernacular of the lawfully-wedded gossips of the neighbourhood, "the brat-house." This was often heard to fall indirectly from his own lips, which were seldom opened without a pious ejaculation of thanksgiving that he had never refused to assist his kinsmen in distress;" a piece of selfgratulation he might have sworn to with a clear conscience.

If the discipline of the Foundling Hospital, and the subsequent experience of a charity school, produced in my grandfather a premature ossification of the heart, in all that related to any other numeral than that expressed by the integral quantity or unit

number one, he used to say invariably, was the first law of nature it no less gave a fine edge to an intellect naturally dull and obtuse, and quickened a little leaden eye into all the liveliness of precocious avarice. He wrote a good hand, ciphered tolerably, and his holidays, when he had them, were spent at an auction room, the weighhouse, or, what he liked better than both, a sheriff's sale. His earliest occupation was as "inventory-man," and when a decease ora distress was in the wind, Little Joey, for Joey, gentlemen, was my grandfather's name, flitted here and there, with the animation of a grasshopper, an ink-horn pendant from his buttonhole, and a quill projecting behind his right ear, the impersonification to the life of an embryo pettifogger. He was faithful to an excess, in all instances wherein there was no safe opportunity to cheat on his own account, and had a good word for everybody, except where he knew a bad one would serve his turn. Subservient and sycophantic, but withal as vindictive as a tiger, he never showed his teeth but when he knew he could bite, nor ever bit without being sure of bringing away the piece

at the same time he could take cold potatoes, buttons, half-pence, or kicks, of which last he had in his youth an abundant variety, without any ostensible emotion, reserving for himself his right to settle the account with mankind, when he should be in a condition to strike a balance in his own favour.

Strange enough that one who stood with his fellow men in such a position, that it is difficult to say whether they feared or hated him most, should become a rising and a prosperous man ; but so it was with Joey, who was employed indiscriminately by all the rogues who were anxious to cheat, and by the honest poor devils who were afraid of being cheated. Nothing presented itself amiss to my grandfather that smacked of money-making: rebellion itself became palatable to him; for, although he declined the honour of fighting the royal forces in the capacity of general of the United Irishmen, he jumped at the offer of being cashier and treasurer of a district, and on the eve of the outbreak ran away to Dublin with his military chest, to which he contrived to unite a very handsome sum in the nature of blood-money, by giving in

formation to the Government of the whereabouts of his old colleagues in the insurrection, by which timely assistance, several of the "generals," who, to do them justice, were as cowardly in the field as their treasurer was faithless in the cabinet, were, after leading their unhappy followers to defeat and death, conducted to the gallows, being pulled out by the tail from the pig-sties in which they had concealed themselves, or extracted with pitchforks from beneath greater dunghills than themselves.

When the rebellion was extinguished, and all hostile operations, as well as the greater number of the "generals," suspended, my grandfather made his appearance once more in the country, in the novel character of captain of a yeomanry corps, in which distinguished arm of the service, it is incredible the number of sides of salt beef and flitches of bacon he succeeded in capturing, and the multitudes of turkey-cocks, geese, ducks, and fine peasantry he put to the sword. Perhaps no other country in the world can match Ireland in the concentration, (which, begging your pardon, Mistress Martineau, is the antagonist expression to division of labour) in one and the same individual: my grandfather, in addition to his military avocations in the yeomanry, as aforesaid, united in his own proper person the various and apparently incompatible functions of sub-agent to an absentee proprietor, collector of county cess for the barony, lay impropriator, hotel-keeper, grain merchant, miller, master extraordinary in Chancery, and “land-shark." The last occupation he pursued with extra ordinary energy and success-he would bid for any quantity of arable, town park pasture, or turbary, over the head of the occupying tenant, without remorse, and, as he was known to be solvent, usually commanded a preference. If, however, the landlord happened to be a humane man, or demurred at turning out an old occupier, my grandfather would tempt his avarice by the offer to take it as yearly tenant, at fifty per cent above the present rent, and at the year's end would threaten to throw it up if he did not get an abatement to something less than any other solvent tenant would give; so that at last he became lessee of a whole country side, and by the ex

pulsion of poor tenantry, contributed more to emigration in his time, than the Canada Land Company, or the Australian Commissioners. To "cap the climax," my grandfather united his fortunes to those of a lady in the next county town, who had acquired a reputation for amiability, beauty, virtue, and, what weighed not a little in my grandfather's estimation, fortune, without any real pretensions to these very desirable qualifications, by the simple operation of keeping her carriage. Nature had been by no means bountiful to her-fortune had gone rather against her-but with a stroke of genius peculiar to her sex, and a deep knowledge of the people among whom she lived, she boldly attempted, and attempted with success, to retrieve her ground by the daring stroke of setting up a carriage. A few paternal acres afforded her the means of feeding a couple of half-bred cattle, for the purpose of propelling a genteel yellow post-chaise, which was driven by an active postilion, in a frieze jacket and buckskins, the only male attendant she possessed a little girl who served for her food and clothes, being her sole household domestic. In all that related to appearances, my grandmother that was to be, was scrupulous to an excess her hall door was painted once every year, and every year of a new colour-her window-curtains were of the best flowered moreen, and her neat muslin blinds were taken down and renewed every Monday morning. She dined on half a salt herring and potatoes, or a sausage made with her own hands, and laid out every penny at her disposal on her carriage, her carriage horses, and her carriage dress-no living soulever darkened her door as a visitant. But what of that? not an aspiring young maiden in the place who was not ambitious of riding, even by invitation, in a carriage, until the happy opportunity might arrive when she would ride in a carriage of her own. The mothers were delighted to have a carriage drawn up at their doors, and the fathers fatigued their wives and daughters with injunctions to conciliate such a very fine woman, unexceptionable acquaintance, good family, "who kept her carriage."

Nobody hated her but the poor, and nobody cares who the poor hate; she

must be a charitable woman no doubt, for "she kept her carriage "-rich, for "she kept her carriage"-virtuous, for she came to church every fine Sunday, and drove away in "her carriage.

In short, the bait was well chosen and dexterously played. The carriage, set up in a fit of poverty and vanity, became in time to be looked upon as an undubitable proof of riches and respectability, and the meanness that enabled the owner to maintain it was not known, because, unlike the carriage, it was not seen; so that when my grandfather swallowed the hook and proposed for the lady, the wonder of the whole country town and the whole country side was, not that my grandfather took her, but that she took him!

The last act of my grandmother's maiden existence was worthy of her character and talents. She had taken in the old hunks, but was determined that nobody but himself should know it; accordingly, having dressed for church in a bridal costume of great splendour, she went out to the rear of her premises, and set fire with her own hand to a pile of matrasses, old chairs, tables, and the whole irremoveable trumpery of her establishment, her flowered moreen curtains and muslin blinds were packed up with two bandboxes and an imperial, containing the whole of her personal paraphernalia, and placed behind her carriage, into which she inserted herself, having the street-door key in her pocket, and in this order proceeded to be married. When the ceremony was completed, my new grandmother drove home withJoey for the last time of driving "in her carriage," the vehicle, horses, and harness, having been disposed of a fortnight before, the proceeds being converted into the bridal costume aforesaid, which, together with the two band-boxes, the imperial, the flowered moreen window-curtains, and muslin blinds, comprised, as Joey too soon discovered, the whole amount of my grandmother's real and personal property, goods, chattels, and assets; or, as a modern Joey of no mean celebrity, " him of Kilkenny," would elegantly term it, "her tottle."

However deeply my grandfather felt his pecuniary deficit, he was wise enough to keep his vexation to him

self, and became not a little reconciled, after the first burst of disappointment, to find that his helpmate was as mean, hypocritical, stingy, tricky, and as contemptible as himself.. They worked together like lock and key, and were in the fair way to amass a very considerable fortune, being, in process of time, congratulated by each other, for they had neither neighbours, friends, nor acquaintances to wish them joy,-in the possession of two fine boys to inherit the fruits of their joint stinginess and rapacity. This, probably, the young gentlemen might, in the fulness of years, have arrived at, but for a slight accident which happened to one of them, whereby the prosperous current of our family was totally changed, and their fair prospect of arriving at worldly distinction clouded for ever. Το say that my grandfather was disliked, would be to say nothing; he was hated, gentlemen, with a hate surpassing the hate of woman. But perhaps you may form a better idea of the estimation in which he was held, by a billet-doux found under his halldoor, and which to this day is indelibly impressed on my memory. The superscription ran thus-" To Bloody old Joe," and the contents as follow: "Take NOTIS, your grave is dig, an' get cofen for yerSELF-JOEY YOU are DEAD an' berrid this nite week. No more at prisent.

CAPTEN ROCK."

So

This polite intimation was accompanied with sundry hieroglyphics, in which Champollion would probably discover some lines indicative of the coffin which my grandfather was invited to prepare, as well as certain characters emblematic of a death's head and cross-bones, to which condition it was the evident intention of the writer to reduce the cranium and femora of the poor unfortunate "landshark." Any doubt that might have remained of the sincerity of Captain Rock's intentions was dispelled by an apparition visible before the door next morning, in the shape of a newly dug grave, wherein reposed a dead dog, as "locum tenens" of the intended permanent tenant, the devoted Joey aforesaid. Now, all these manifestations of Captain Rock, Joey treated with some degree of contempt which was by no means justified in the issue; but

as my grandfather was in the habit of receiving a notification to prepare his coffin at least once every quarter, or four times per annum, which preparation would have put him to great unnecessary expense, besides leaving the second-hand coffins on his hands, Joey, wisely considering that he could die like other gentlemen but once in his life, postponed indefinitely the manufacture of his wooden surtout, and, in the full confidence of finding no immediate occasion for it, confined his defensive operations to the purchase of a large quantity of hand-grenades for house use, and a brace of double-barrelled pistols, which he carried continually about his person. My grandfather, as I told you, gentlemen, had two sons, the eldest an humble, pious, and sincere young man, who rather chose to spend his time idly than to follow at his father's heels in the career of desperate rapacity that characterized the old gentleman; he was good to the poor, humane and generous, which I only mention to show that if he had lived he would have been poor himself his only extravagance was the indulgence of a pony to carry him to the neighbouring hills on an occasional snipe-shooting excursion. You may judge, then, of the surprise and horror of his parents, who loved him, to do them justice, next to their strong-box, on having the intelligence conveyed to them about nine o'clock at night, that their brave son lay butchered among the hills, having been fairly hunted to death by a band of hired assassins, who had lain in ambuscade for his father a whole week, and, failing to destroy him, had pursued his innocent son to the mountains, and slaked their murderous thirstiness in his blood. I recollect, as it were yesterday, the thrill that ran to the tip of every hair upon my boyish head, and the jangling of every nerve within my frame, when my father related the minutiae of this worse than cannibal atrocity,-how the youth was pursuing his innocent sport upon the hills, how that he had called at a cabin with a bottle of wine which he had purloined from his father's cellar (pious theft!), for a poor woman near her down-lying; how that a group of fellows fired several shots at him, how that he pushed his little pony to its utmost speed, how the assassins winded and doubled him through the mosses

and swamps like a hunted leveret, and how at last, when his little horse had spent all its force and came down upon its knees, he awaited his pursuers manfully, and demanded to know "what injury he had ever done them?" how, after loudly recommending several times his soul to God, he stood before his prostrate favourite and fought hardly for his life, and how at last (for all this came out upon the trial of his assassins) his skull was dashed into a thousand pieces, and his murderers returned to refresh themselves at the cabin whose inmates a few hours before had tasted, and prayed the blessings of Heaven upon, his benevolence.

The unfortunate old man, returning home the following day with the mangled remains of his hapless son, thus vicariously butchered for his father's sins, found his house, his stack-yard, and his offices, in flames--all that he had amassed for a series of years from out the subsistence of the widow and the orphan-all that he had grubbed together under the pressure of popular hatred and amid the muttered curses of his fellow-men-his dearly-loved strong-box, with its treasures of gold and silver, its sheaves of bank-notes, its title-deeds, mortgages, bonds, judg ments, promissory-notes, acknowledg ments, IO U's-all, all involved in one hopeless and unpitied conflagration!

The whole country side gathered round about the flames, and, although they refrained from openly insulting the man upon whose grey head such an avalanche of sorrow had descended, it was but too plain, from their refusal to lend a hand, and from their listless complacency, that they regarded the fire and the murder as judgments from Heaven upon a man who had spared no pains to call them down upon his devoted head.

From this day to the day of his death, which was not long deferred, the old man never raised his head ;he looked upon himself as the murderer of his child, and knew but too well that to his cruel rapacity was solely to be ascribed the horrible revenge which prompted the murder of an innocent youth, from no other motive, as the approver swore, while a thrill of horror and a deep groan of lamentation over human nature pervaded the crowded court, than because

« PreviousContinue »