Tales and Novels Volume IV Part 10

"Ingrediturque solo, et caput inter nubila condit."

"Her feet on earth, her head amidst the clouds."

Up they go, continues our orator.

_Music! says he--Skulls! says I._

Metaphor continually: on one side of an Irish halfpenny there is a harp; this is expressed by the general term music, which is finely contrasted with the word skull.

_Down they come, three brown mazards._

Mazards! how the diction of our orator is enriched from the vocabulary of Shakspeare! the word head, instead of being changed for a more general term, is here brought distinctly to the eye by the term mazard, or face, which is more appropriate to his majesty's profile than the word skull or head.

_By the holy! you flesh'd 'em, says he_.

By the holy! is an oath in which more is meant than meets the ear; it is an ellipsis--an abridgment of an oath. The full formula runs thus--By the holy poker of h.e.l.l! This instrument is of Irish invention or imagination. It seems a useful piece of furniture in the place for which it is intended, to stir the devouring flames, and thus to increase the torments of the d.a.m.ned. Great judgment is necessary to direct an orator how to suit his terms to his auditors, so as not to shock their feelings either by what is too much above or too much below common life. In the use of oaths, where the pa.s.sions are warm, this must be particularly attended to, else they lose their effect, and seem more the result of the head than the heart. But to proceed:--

_By the holy! you flesh'd 'em_.

_To flesh_ is another verb of Irish coinage; it means, in s...o...b..ack dialect, to touch a halfpenny, as it goes up into the air, with the fleshy part of the thumb, so as to turn it which way you please, and thus to cheat your opponent. What an intricate explanation saved by one word!

_You lie, says I_.

Here no periphrasis would do the business.

_With that he ups with a lump of a two year old, and lets drive at me_.

_He ups with_.--A verb is here formed of two prepositions--a novelty in grammar. Conjunctions, we all know, are corrupted Anglo-Saxon verbs; but prepositions, according to Horne Tooke, derive only from Anglo-Saxon nouns.

All this time it is possible that the mere English reader may not be able to guess what it is that our orator ups with or takes up. He should be apprised, that a lump of a two year old is a middle-sized stone. This is a metaphor, borrowed partly from the grazier's vocabulary, and partly from the arithmetician's vade-mec.u.m. A stone, to come under the denomination of a lump of a two year old, must be to a less stone as a two year old calf is to a yearling; or it must be to a larger stone than itself, as a two year old calf is to an ox. Here the scholar sees that there must be two statements, one in the rule of three direct and one in the rule of three inverse, to obtain precisely the thing required; yet the untutored Irishman, without suspecting the necessity of this operose process, arrives at the solution of the problem by some short cut of his own, as he clearly evinces by the propriety of his metaphor. To be sure, there seems some incongruity in his throwing this lump of a two year old calf at his adversary. No arm but that of Milo could be strong enough for such a feat. Upon recollection, however, bold as this figure may seem, there are precedents for its use.

"We read in a certain author," says Beattie, "of a giant, who, in his wrath, tore off the top of the promontory, and flung it at the enemy; and so huge was the ma.s.s, that you might, says he, have seen goats browsing on it as it flew through the air." Compared with this, our orator's figure is cold and tame.

"_I outs with my bread-earner_," continues he.

We forbear to comment on _outs with_, because the intelligent critic immediately perceives that it has the same sort of merit ascribed to _ups with_. What our hero dignifies with the name of his bread-earner is the knife with which, by sc.r.a.ping shoes, he earned his bread. Pope's ingenious critic, Mr. Warton, bestows judicious praise upon the art with which this poet, in the Rape of the Lock, has used many "periphrases and uncommon expressions," to avoid mentioning the name of _scissars_, which would sound too vulgar for epic dignity--fatal engine, forfex, meeting-points, &c. Though the metonymy of _bread-earner_ for a s...o...b..ack's knife may not equal these in elegance, it perhaps surpa.s.ses them in ingenuity.

_I gives it him up to Lamprey in the bread-basket._[49]

Homer is happy in his description of wounds, but this surpa.s.ses him in the characteristic choice of circ.u.mstance. _Up to Lamprey_, gives us at once a complete idea of the length, breadth, and thickness of the wound, without the a.s.sistance of the coroner. It reminds us of a pa.s.sage in Virgil--

"Cervice orantis _capulo tenus_ abdidit ensem."

"Up to the hilt his s.h.i.+ning falchion sheathed."

Let us now compare the Irish s...o...b..ack's metaphorical language with the sober _slang_ of an English blackguard, who, fortunately for the fairness of the comparison, was placed somewhat in similar circ.u.mstances.

Lord Mansfield, examining a man who was a witness in the court of King's Bench, asked him what he knew of the defendant.

"Oh, my lord, I knew him. _I was up to him_."

"Up to him!" says his lords.h.i.+p; "what do you mean by being up to him?"

"Mean, my lord! why, _I was down upon him_."

"Up to him, and down upon him!" says his lords.h.i.+p, turning to Counsellor Dunning, "what does the fellow mean?"

"Why, I mean, my lord, as deep as he thought himself, _I stagged him_."

"I cannot conceive, friend," says his lords.h.i.+p, "what you mean by this sort of language; I do not understand it."

"Not understand it!" rejoined the fellow, with surprise: "_Lord, what a flat you must be!_"

Though he undervalued Lord Mansfield, this man does not seem to have been a very bright genius. In his cant words, "_up to him, down upon him, stagged him_," there are no metaphors; and we confess ourselves to be as great _flats_ as his lords.h.i.+p, for we do not understand this sort of language.

"True no meaning puzzles more than wit,"

as we may see in another English example. Proverbs have been called the wisdom of nations; therefore it is fair to have recourse to them in estimating national abilities. Now there is an old English proverb, "Tenterden steeple is the cause of Goodwin sands."

"This proverb," says Mr. Ray, "is used when an absurd and ridiculous reason is given of any thing in question; an account of the original whereof, I find in one of Bishop Latimer's sermons in these words--'Mr.

Moore was once sent with commission into Kent to try out, if it might be, what was the cause of Goodwin sands, and the shelf which stopped up Sandwich haven. Thither cometh Mr. Moore, and calleth all the country before him, such as were thought to be men of experience, and men that could, of all likelihood, best satisfy him of the matter concerning the stopping of Sandwich haven. Among the rest came in before him an old man with a white head, and one that was thought to be little less than a hundred years old. When Mr. Moore saw this aged man, he thought it expedient to hear him say his mind in this matter (for being so old a man, it was likely that he knew the most in that presence or company); so Mr. Moore called this old aged man unto him and said, 'Father,' said he, 'tell me, if you can, what is the cause of the great arising of the sands and shelves here about this haven, which stop it up so that no s.h.i.+ps can arrive here. You are the oldest man I can espy in all the company, so that if any man can tell any cause of it, you, of all likelihood, can say most to it, or, at leastwise, more than any man here a.s.sembled.'

"'Yea, forsooth, good Mr. Moore,' quoth this old man, 'for I am well nigh a hundred years old, and no man here in this company any thing near my age.'

"'Well then,'quoth Mr. Moore, 'how say you to this matter? What think you to be the cause of these shelves and sands which stop up Sandwich haven?'

"'Forsooth, sir,' quoth he, 'I am an old man; I think that, Tenterden steeple is the cause of Goodwin sands. For I am an old man, sir,'

quoth he, 'I may remember the building of Tenterden steeple, and I may remember when there was no steeple at all there; and before that Tenterden or _Totterden_ steeple was in building, there was no manner of talking of any flats or sands that stopped up the haven, and therefore I think that Tenterden steeple is the cause of the decay and destroying of Sandwich haven.'" [50]--Thus far the bishop.

The prolix pertinacity with which this _old aged_ man adheres to the opinion that he had formed, without any intelligible reason, is characteristic of an English peasant; but however absurd his mode of judging may be, and however confused and incongruous his ideas, his species of absurdity surely bears no resemblance to an Hibernian blunder. We cannot even suspect it to be possible that a man of this slow, circ.u.mspect character could be in any danger of making an Irish bull; and we congratulate the English peasantry and populace, as a body, upon their possessing that temper which

"Wisely rests content with sober sense, Nor makes to dangerous wit a vain pretence."

Even the _slang_ of English pickpockets and coiners is, as we may see in Colquhoun's View of the Metropolis, free from all seducing mixture of wit and humour. What Englishman would ever have thought of calling persons in the pillory _the babes in the wood_? This is a common cant phrase amongst Dublin reprobates. Undoubtedly such phrases tend to lessen the power of shame and the effect of punishment, and a witty rogue will lead numbers to the gallows. English morality is not in so much danger as Irish manners must be from these humourous talents in their knights of industry. If, nevertheless, there be frequent executions for capital crimes in England, we must account for this in the words of the old Lord Chief Justice Fortescue--"More men," says his lords.h.i.+p, "are hanged in _Englonde_ in one year than _in Fraunce_ in seven, _because the English have better hartes_; the _Scotchmenne_ likewise never _dare rob_, but only commit larcenies." At all events, the phlegmatic temper of _Englonde_ secures her from making bulls.

The propensity to this species of blunder exists in minds of a totally different cast; in those who are quick and enthusiastic, who are confounded by the rapidity and force with which undisciplined mult.i.tudes of ideas crowd for utterance. Persons of such intellectual characters are apt to make elisions in speaking, which they trust the capacities of their audience will supply: pa.s.sing rapidly over a long chain of thought, they sometimes forget the intermediate links, and no one but those of equally rapid habits can follow them successfully.

We hope that the evidence of the Dublin s...o...b..ack has, in some degree, tended to prove our _minor_, that the Irish are disposed to use figurative language: we shall not, however, rest our cause on a single evidence, however respectable; but before we summon our other witnesses, we beg to relieve the reader's attention, which must have been fatigued by such a chapter of criticism. They shall now have the tale of a mendicant. A specimen of city rhetoric is given in the s...o...b..ack; the country mendicant's eloquence is of a totally different species.

CHAPTER IX.

THE HIBERNIAN MENDICANT.

Perhaps the reader may wish to see as well as hear the pet.i.tioner. At first view you might have taken him for a Spaniard. He was tall; and if he had been a gentleman, you would have said that there was an air of dignity in his figure. He seemed very old, yet he appeared more worn by sorrow than by time. Leaning upon a thick oaken stick as he took off his hat to ask for alms, his white hair was blown by the wind.