Tales and Novels Volume IV Part 13

"It is surprising," said the Englishman, "how ignorant we English in general are of Ireland: to be sure we do not now, as in the times of Bacon and Spenser, believe that wild Irishmen have wings; nor do we all of us give credit, to Mr. Twiss's a.s.sertion, that if you look at an Irish lady, she answers, '_port if you please_.'"

_Scotchman_.--"That traveller seems to be almost as liberal as he who defined _oats_--food for horses in England, and for men in Scotland: such illiberal notions die away of themselves."

_Irishman_.--"Or they are contradicted by more liberal travellers. I am sure my country has great obligations to the gallant English and Scotch military, not only for so readily a.s.sisting to defend and quiet us, but for spreading in England a juster notion of Ireland. Within these few months, I suppose, more real knowledge of the state and manners of that kingdom has been diffused in England by their means, than had been obtained during a whole century."

_Scotchman_.--"Indeed, I do not recollect having read any author of note who has given me a notion of Ireland since Spenser and Davies, except Arthur Young."

_Englishman_.--"What little knowledge I have of Ireland has been drawn more from observation than from books. I remember when I first went over there, I did not expect to see twenty trees in the whole island: I imagined that I should have nothing to drink but whiskey, that I should have nothing to eat but potatoes, that I should sleep in mud-walled cabins; that I should, when awake, hear nothing but the Irish howl, the Irish brogue, Irish answers, and Irish bulls; and that if I smiled at any of these things, a hundred pistols would fly from their holsters to _give_ or _demand_ satisfaction. But experience taught me better things: I found that the stories I had heard were _tales of other times_. Their hospitality, indeed, continues to this day."

_Irishman_.--"It does, I believe; but of later days, as we have been honoured with the visits of a greater number of foreigners, our hospitality has become less extravagant."

_Englishman_.--"Not less agreeable: Irish hospitality, I speak from experience, does not now consist merely in pus.h.i.+ng about the bottle; the Irish are convivial, but their conviviality is seasoned with wit and humour; they have plenty of good conversation as well as good cheer for their guests; and they not only have wit themselves, but they love it in others; they can take as well as give a joke. I never lived with a more good-humoured, generous, open-hearted people than the Irish."

_Irishman_.--"I wish Englishmen, in general, were half as partial to poor Ireland as you are, sir."

_Englishman_.--"Or rather you wish that they knew the country as well, and then they would do it as much justice."

_Irishman_.--"You do it something more than justice, I fear. There are little peculiarities in my countrymen which will long be justly the subject of ridicule in England."

_Scotchman._--"Not among well-bred and well-informed people: those who have seen or read of great varieties of customs and manners are never apt to laugh at all that may differ from their own. As the sensible author of the Government of the Tongue says, 'Half-witted people are always the bitterest revilers.'"

_Irishman._--"You are very indulgent, gentlemen; but in spite of all your politeness, you must allow, or, at least, I must confess, that there are little defects in the Irish government of the tongue at which even _whole_-witted people must laugh."

_Scotchman._--"The well-educated people in all countries, I believe, escape the particular accent, and avoid the idiom, that are characteristic of the vulgar."

_Irishman._--"But even when we escape Irish brogue, we cannot escape Irish bulls."

_Englishman._--"You need not say _Irish_ bulls with such emphasis; for bulls are not peculiar to Ireland. I have been informed by a person of unquestionable authority, that there is a town in Germany, Hirschau, in the Upper Palatinate, where the inhabitants are famous for making bulls."

_Irishman._--"I am truly glad to hear we have companions in disgrace.

Numbers certainly lessen the effect of ridicule as well as of shame: but, after all, the Irish idiom is peculiarly unfortunate, for it leads perpetually to blunder."

_Scotchman._--"I have heard the same remarked of the Hebrew. I am told that the Hebrew and Irish idiom are much alike."

_Irishman (laughing)._--"That is a great comfort to us, certainly, particularly to those amongst us who are fond of tracing our origin up to the remotest antiquity; but still there are many who would willingly give up the honour of this high alliance to avoid its inconveniences; for my own part, if I could ensure myself and my countrymen from all future danger of making bulls and blunders, I would this instant give up all Hebrew roots; and even the Ogham character itself I would renounce, 'to make a.s.surance doubly sure.'"

_Englishman.--_"'To make _a.s.surance doubly sure._' Now there is an example in our great Shakspeare of what I have often observed, that we English allow our poets and ourselves a licence of speech that we deny to our Hibernian neighbours. If an Irishman, instead of Shakspeare, had talked of making 'a.s.surance doubly sure,' we should have asked how that could be. The vulgar in England are too apt to catch at every slip of the tongue made by Irishmen. I remember once being present when an Irish n.o.bleman, of talents and literature, was actually hissed from the hustings at a Middles.e.x election because in his speech he happened to say, 'We have laid the root to the axe of the tree of liberty,' instead of 'we have laid the axe to the root of the tree.'"

Scotchman,--"A lapsus linguae, that might have been made by the greatest orators, ancient or modern; by Cicero or Chatham, by Burke, or by 'the fluent Murray.'"

Englishman,--"Upon another occasion I have heard that an Irish orator was silenced with '_inextinguishable_ laughter' merely for saying, 'I am sorry to hear my honourable friend stand mute.'"

Scotchman.--"If I am not mistaken, that very same Irish orator made an allusion at which no one could laugh. 'The protection,' said he, 'which Britain affords to Ireland in the day of adversity, is like that which the oak affords to the ignorant countryman, who flies to it for shelter in the storm; it draws down upon his head the lightning of heaven:' may be I do not repeat the words exactly, but I could not forget the idea."

Englishman.--"I would with all my heart bear the ridicule of a hundred blunders for the honour of having made such a simile: after all, his saying, 'I am sorry to hear my honourable friend stand _mute_,' if it be a bull, is justified by Homer; one of the charms in the cestus of Venus is,

'Silence that speaks, and eloquence of eyes.'"

Scotchman.--"Silence that speaks, sir, is, I am afraid, an English, not a Grecian charm. It is not in the Greek; it is one of those beautiful liberties which Mr. Pope has taken with his original. But silence that speaks can be found in France as well as in England. Voltaire, in his chef-d'oeuvre, his Oedipus, makes Jocasta say,

'Tout parle centre nous jusqu'a notre _silence_.'" [59]

_Englishman_.--"And in our own Milton, Samson Agonistes makes as good, indeed a better bull; for he not only makes the mute speak, but speak loud:--

'The deeds themselves, though _mute, spoke loud_ the doer.'

And in Paradise Lost we have, to speak in _fas.h.i.+onable_ language, two _famous_ bulls. Talking of Satan, Milton says,

'G.o.d and his Son except, Created thing nought valued he nor shunn'd.'

And speaking of Adam and Eve, and their sons and daughters, he confounds them all together in a manner for which any Irishman would have been laughed to scorn:--

'Adam, the goodliest man of men since born, His sons; the fairest of her daughters Eve.'

Yet Addison, who notices these blunders, calls them only little blemishes."

_Scotchman_.--"He does so; and he quotes Horace, who tells us we should impute such venial errors to a pardonable inadvertency; and, as I recollect, Addison makes another very just remark, that the ancients, who were actuated by a spirit of candour, not of cavilling, invented a variety of figures of speech, on purpose to palliate little errors of this nature."

"Really, gentlemen," interrupted the Hibernian, who had sat all this time in silence that spoke his grateful sense of the politeness of his companions, "you will put the finis.h.i.+ng stroke to my obligations to you, if you will prove that the ancient figures of speech were invented to palliate Irish blunders."

_Englishman_.--"No matter for what purpose they were invented; if we can make so good a use of them we shall be satisfied, especially if you are pleased. I will, however, leave the burden of the proof upon my friend here, who has detected me already in quoting from Pope's Iliad instead of Homer's. I am sure he will manage the ancient figures of rhetoric better than I should; however, if I can fight behind his s.h.i.+eld I shall not shun the combat."

_Scotchman_.--"I stand corrected for quoting Greek. Now I will not go to Longinus for my tropes and figures; I have just met with a little book on the subject, which I put into my pocket to-day, intending to finish it on my journey, but I have been better employed."

He drew from his pocket a book, called, "Deinology; or, the Union of Reason and Elegance." "Look," said he, "look at this long list of tropes and figures; amongst them we could find apologies for every species of Irish bulls; but in mercy, I will select, from 'the twenty chief and most moving figures of speech,' only the oxymoron, as it is a favourite with Irish orators. In the oxymoron contradictions meet: to reconcile these, Irish ingenuity delights. I will further spare four out of the seven figures of less note: emphasis, enallage, and the hysteron proteron you must have; because emphasis graces Irish diction, enallage unbinds it from strict grammatical fetters, and hysteron proteron allows it sometimes to put the cart before the horse. Of the eleven grammatical figures, Ireland delights chiefly in the antimeria, or changing one part of speech for another, and in the ellipsis or defect. Of the remaining long list of figures, the Irish are particularly disposed to the epizeuxis, as 'indeed, indeed--at all, at all,' and antanaclasis, or double meaning. The tautotes, or repet.i.tion of the same thing, is, I think, full as common amongst the English. The hyperbole and catachresis are so nearly related to a bull, that I shall dwell upon them with pleasure. You must listen to the definition of a catachresis:--'A catachresis is the boldest of any trope. _Necessity makes it borrow and employ an expression or term contrary to the thing it means to express_.'"

"Upon my word this is something like a description of an Irish bull,"

interrupted the Hibernian.

_Scotchman_.--"For instance, it has been said, _Equitare in arundine longa_, to ride on horseback on a stick. Reason condemns the contradiction, but necessity has allowed it, and use has made it intelligible. The same trope is employed in the following metaphorical expression:--the seeds of the Gospel have been _watered_ by the _blood_ of the martyrs."

_Englishman_.--"That does seem an absurdity, I grant; but you know great orators _trample on impossibilities_." [60]

_Scotchman_.--"And great poets get the letter of them. You recollect Shakspeare says,

'Now bid me run, And I will strive with things _impossible_, Yea, _get the better of them_.'"

_Englishman_.--"And Corneille, in the Cid, I believe, makes his hero a compliment upon his having performed impossibilities--'Vos mains seules ont le droit de vaincre un invincible.'" [61]

_Scotchman_.--"Ay, that would be a bull in an Irishman, but it is only an hyperbole in a Frenchman."

_Irishman_.--"Indeed this line of Corneille's _out-hyperboles_ the hyperbole, considered in any but a prophetic light; as a prophecy, it exactly foretels the taking of Bonaparte's _invincible_ standard by the glorious forty-second regiment of the British: 'Your hands alone _have a right_ to vanquish the invincible.' By-the-by, the phrase _ont le droit_ cannot, I believe, be literally translated into English; but the Scotch and Irish, _have a right_, translates it exactly. But do not let me interrupt my country's defence, gentlemen; I am heartily glad to find Irish blunderers may shelter themselves in such good company in the ancient sanctuary of the hyperbole. But I am afraid you must deny admittance to the poor mason, who said, 'This house will stand as long as the world, and longer.'"

_Scotchman_.--"Why should we 'shut the gates of mercy' upon him when we pardon his betters for more flagrant sins? For instance, Mr. Pope, who, in his Essay on Criticism, makes a blunder, or rather uses an hyperbole, stronger than that of your poor Irish mason:--

'When first young Maro in his n.o.ble mind A work _t'outlast immortal_ Rome design'd.'

And to give you a more modern case, I lately heard an English shopkeeper say to a lady in recommendation of his goods, 'Ma'am, it will wear for ever, and make you a petticoat afterwards.'"