Lavengro Volume II Part 37

"Stop," said I; "you said in the public-house that the Church of England was a persecuting Church, and here in the dingle you have confessed that one section of it is willing to grant perfect freedom to the exercise of all religions, and the other only thinks of leading an easy life."

"Saying a thing in the public-house is a widely different thing from saying it in the dingle," said the man in black; "had the Church of England been a persecuting Church, it would not stand in the position in which it stands at present; it might, with its opportunities, have spread itself over the greater part of the world. I was about to observe that, instead of practising the indolent habits of his High Church brethren, Plat.i.tude would be working for his money, preaching the proper use of fire and f.a.got, or rather of the halter and the whipping-post, encouraging mobs to attack the houses of Dissenters, employing spies to collect the scandal of neighbourhoods, in order that he might use it for sacerdotal purposes, and, in fact, endeavouring to turn an English parish into something like a Jesuit benefice in the south of France."

"He tried that game," said I, "and the parish said 'Pooh, pooh,' and, for the most part, went over to the Dissenters."

"Very true," said the man in black, taking a sip at his gla.s.s, "but why were the Dissenters allowed to preach? why were they not beaten on the lips till they spat out blood, with a dislodged tooth or two? Why, but because the authority of the Church of England has, by its own fault, become so circ.u.mscribed, that Mr. Plat.i.tude was not able to send a host of beadles and sbirri to their chapel to bring them to reason, on which account Mr. Plat.i.tude is very properly ashamed of his Church, and is thinking of uniting himself with one which possesses more vigour and authority."

"It may have vigour and authority," said I, "in foreign lands, but in these kingdoms the day for practising its atrocities is gone by. It is at present almost below contempt, and is obliged to sue for grace _in forma paureris_."

"Very true," said the man in black; "but let it once obtain emanc.i.p.ation, and it will cast its slough, put on its fine clothes, and make converts by thousands. 'What a fine Church!' they'll say; 'with what authority it speaks! no doubts, no hesitation, no sticking at trifles. What a contrast to the sleepy English Church!' They'll go over to it by millions, till it preponderates here over every other, when it will of course be voted the dominant one; and then--and then . . . " and here the man in black drank a considerable quant.i.ty of gin and water.

"What then?" said I.

"What then?" said the man in black; "why, she will be true to herself.

Let Dissenters, whether they be Church of England, as perhaps they may still call themselves, Methodist, or Presbyterian, presume to grumble, and there shall be bruising of lips in pulpits, tying up to whipping-posts, cutting off ears and noses--he! he! the farce of King Log has been acted long enough; the time for Queen Stork's tragedy is drawing nigh;" and the man in black sipped his gin and water in a very exulting manner.

"And this is the Church which, according to your a.s.sertion in the public- house, never persecutes?"

"I have already given you an answer," said the man in black. "With respect to the matter of the public-house, it is one of the happy privileges of those who belong to my Church to deny in the public-house what they admit in the dingle; we have high warranty for such double speaking. Did not the foundation-stone of our Church, Saint Peter, deny in the public-house what he had previously professed in the valley?"

"And do you think," said I, "that the people of England, who have shown aversion to anything in the shape of intolerance, will permit such barbarities as you have described?"

"Let them become Papists," said the man in black; "only let the majority become Papists, and you will see."

"They will never become so," said I; "the good sense of the people of England will never permit them to commit such an absurdity."

"The good sense of the people of England!" said the man in black, filling himself another gla.s.s.

"Yes," said I, "the good sense of not only the upper, but the middle and lower cla.s.ses."

"And of what description of people are the upper cla.s.s?" said the man in black, putting a lump of sugar into his gin and water.

"Very fine people," said I, "monstrously fine people; so, at least, they are generally believed to be."

"He! he!" said the man in black; "only those think them so who don't know them. The male part of the upper cla.s.s are in youth a set of heartless profligates; in old age, a parcel of poor, shaking, nervous paillards.

The female part, worthy to be the sisters and wives of such wretches--unmarried, full of cold vice, kept under by vanity and ambition, but which, after marriage, they seek not to restrain; in old age, abandoned to vapours and horrors; do you think that such beings will afford any obstacle to the progress of the Church in these regions, as soon as her movements are unfettered?"

"I cannot give an opinion; I know nothing of them, except from a distance. But what think you of the middle cla.s.ses?"

"Their chief characteristic," said the man in black, "is a rage for grandeur and gentility; and that same rage makes us quite sure of them in the long-run. Everything that's lofty meets their unqualified approbation; whilst everything humble, or, as they call it, 'low,' is scouted by them. They begin to have a vague idea that the religion which they have hitherto professed is low; at any rate, that it is not the religion of the mighty ones of the earth, of the great kings and emperors whose shoes they have a vast inclination to kiss, nor was used by the grand personages of whom they have read in their novels and romances, their Ivanhoes, their Marmions, and their Ladies of the Lake."

"Do you think that the writings of Scott have had any influence in modifying their religious opinions?"

"Most certainly I do," said the man in black. "The writings of that man have made them greater fools than they were before. All their conversation now is about gallant knights, princesses, and cavaliers, with which his pages are stuffed--all of whom were Papists, or very High Church, which is nearly the same thing; and they are beginning to think that the religion of such nice sweet-scented gentry must be something very superfine. Why, I know at Birmingham the daughter of an ironmonger, who screeches to the piano the Lady of the Lake's hymn to the Virgin Mary, always weeps when Mary Queen of Scots is mentioned, and fasts on the anniversary of the death of that very wise martyr, Charles the First.

Why, I would engage to convert such an idiot to popery in a week, were it worth my trouble. _O Cavaliere Gualtiero avete fatto molto in favore della Santa Sede_!"

"If he has," said I, "he has done it unwittingly; I never heard before that he was a favourer of the popish delusion."

"Only in theory," said the man in black. "Trust any of the clan Mac-Sycophant for interfering openly and boldly in favour of any cause on which the sun does not s.h.i.+ne benignantly. Popery is at present, as you say, suing for grace in these regions _in forma pauperis_; but let royalty once take it up, let old gouty George once patronise it, and I would consent to drink puddle-water if, the very next time the canny Scot was admitted to the royal symposium, he did not say, 'By my faith, yere Majesty, I have always thought, at the bottom of my heart, that popery, as ill-sc.r.a.pit tongues ca' it, was a very grand religion; I shall be proud to follow your Majesty's example in adopting it.'"

"I doubt not," said I, "that both gouty George and his devoted servant will be mouldering in their tombs long before royalty in England thinks about adopting popery."

"We can wait," said the man in black; "in these days of rampant gentility, there will be no want of kings nor of Scots about them."

"But not Walters," said I.

"Our work has been already tolerably well done by one," said the man in black; "but if we wanted literature, we should never lack in these regions hosts of literary men of some kind or other to eulogise us, provided our religion were in the fas.h.i.+on, and our popish n.o.bles chose--and they always do our bidding--to admit the canaille to their tables--their kitchen tables. As for literature in general," said he, "the Santa Sede is not particularly partial to it, it may be employed both ways. In Italy, in particular, it has discovered that literary men are not always disposed to be lick-spittles."

"For example, Dante," said I.

"Yes," said the man in black, "a dangerous personage; that poem of his cuts both ways; and then there was Pulci, that Morgante of his cuts both ways, or rather one way, and that sheer against us; and then there was Aretino, who dealt so hard with the poveri frati; all writers, at least Italian ones, are not lick-spittles. And then in Spain,--'tis true, Lope de Vega and Calderon were most inordinate lick-spittles; the Principe Constante of the last is a curiosity in its way; and then the Mary Stuart of Lope; I think I shall recommend the perusal of that work to the Birmingham ironmonger's daughter--she has been lately thinking of adding 'a slight knowledge of the magneeficent language of the Peninsula' to the rest of her accomplishments, he! he! he! But then there was Cervantes, starving, but straight; he deals us some hard knocks in that second part of his Quixote. Then there were some of the writers of the picaresque novels. No, all literary men are not lick-spittles, whether in Italy or Spain, or, indeed, upon the Continent; it is only in England that all--"

"Come," said I, "mind what you are about to say of English literary men."

"Why should I mind?" said the man in black, "there are no literary men here. I have heard of literary men living in garrets, but not in dingles, whatever philologists may do; I may, therefore, speak out freely. It is only in England that literary men are invariably lick-spittles; on which account, perhaps, they are so despised, even by those who benefit by their dirty services. Look at your fas.h.i.+onable novel writers, he! he!--and, above all, at your newspaper editors, ho!

ho!"

"You will, of course, except the editors of the --- from your censure of the last cla.s.s?" said I.

"Them!" said the man in black; "why, they might serve as models in the dirty trade to all the rest who practise it. See how they bepraise their patrons, the grand Whig n.o.bility, who hope, by raising the cry of liberalism, and by putting themselves at the head of the populace, to come into power shortly. I don't wish to be hard, at present, upon those Whigs," he continued, "for they are playing our game; but a time will come when, not wanting them, we will kick them to a considerable distance: and then, when toleration is no longer the cry, and the Whigs are no longer backed by the populace, see whether the editors of the --- will stand by them; they will prove themselves as expert lick-spittles of despotism as of liberalism. Don't think they will always bespatter the Tories and Austria."

"Well," said I, "I am sorry to find that you entertain so low an opinion of the spirit of English literary men; we will now return, if you please, to the subject of the middle cla.s.ses; I think your strictures upon them in general are rather too sweeping--they are not altogether the foolish people which you have described. Look, for example, at that very powerful and numerous body the Dissenters, the descendants of those st.u.r.dy Patriots who hurled Charles the Simple from his throne."

"There are some st.u.r.dy fellows amongst them, I do not deny," said the man in black, "especially amongst the preachers, clever withal--two or three of that cla.s.s nearly drove Mr. Plat.i.tude mad, as perhaps you are aware, but they are not very numerous; and the old st.u.r.dy sort of preachers are fast dropping off, and, as we observe with pleasure, are generally succeeded by frothy c.o.xcombs, whom it would not be very difficult to gain over. But what we most rely upon as an instrument to bring the Dissenters over to us is the mania for gentility, which amongst them has of late become as great, and more ridiculous than amongst the middle cla.s.ses belonging to the Church of England. All the plain and simple fas.h.i.+ons of their forefathers they are either about to abandon, or have already done so. Look at the most part of their chapels--no longer modest brick edifices, situated in quiet and retired streets, but lunatic- looking erections, in what the simpletons call the modern Gothic taste, of Portland stone, with a cross upon the top, and the site generally the most conspicuous that can be found. And look at the manner in which they educate their children--I mean those that are wealthy. They do not even wish them to be Dissenters--'the sweet dears shall enjoy the advantages of good society, of which their parents were debarred.' So the girls are sent to tip-top boarding-schools, where amongst other trash they read 'Rokeby,' and are taught to sing s.n.a.t.c.hes from that high-flying ditty, the 'Cavalier'--

'Would you match the base Skippon, and Ma.s.sey, and Brown, With the barons of England, who fight for the crown?'--

he! he! their own names. Whilst the lads are sent to those hot-beds of pride and folly--colleges, whence they return with a greater contempt for everything 'low,' and especially for their own pedigree, than they went with. I tell you, friend, the children of Dissenters, if not their parents, are going over to the Church, as you call it, and the Church is going over to Rome."

"I do not see the justice of that latter a.s.sertion at all," said I; "some of the Dissenters' children may be coming over to the Church of England, and yet the Church of England be very far from going over to Rome."

"In the high road for it, I a.s.sure you," said the man in black; "part of it is going to abandon, the rest to lose their prerogative, and when a Church no longer retains its prerogative, it speedily loses its own respect, and that of others."

"Well," said I, "if the higher cla.s.ses have all the vices and follies which you represent, on which point I can say nothing, as I have never mixed with them; and even supposing the middle cla.s.ses are the foolish beings you would fain make them, and which I do not believe them as a body to be, you would still find some resistance amongst the lower cla.s.ses: I have a considerable respect for their good sense and independence of character; but pray let me hear your opinion of them."

"As for the lower cla.s.ses," said the man in black, "I believe them to be the most brutal wretches in the world, the most addicted to foul feeding, foul language, and foul vices of every kind; wretches who have neither love for country, religion, nor anything save their own vile selves. You surely do not think that they would oppose a change of religion! why, there is not one of them but would hurrah for the Pope, or Mahomet, for the sake of a hearty gorge and a drunken bout, like those which they are treated with at election contests."

"Has your Church any followers amongst them?" said I.

"Wherever there happens to be a Romish family of considerable possessions," said the man in black, "our Church is sure to have followers of the lower cla.s.s, who have come over in the hope of getting something in the shape of dole or donation. As, however, the Romish is not yet the dominant religion, and the clergy of the English establishment have some patronage to bestow, the churches are not quite deserted by the lower cla.s.ses; yet, were the Romish to become the established religion, they would, to a certainty, all go over to it; you can scarcely imagine what a self-interested set they are--for example, the landlord of that public-house in which I first met you, having lost a sum of money upon a c.o.c.kfight, and his affairs in consequence being in a bad condition, is on the eve of coming over to us, in the hope that two old popish females of property, whom I confess, will advance a sum of money to set him up again in the world."

"And what could have put such an idea into the poor fellow's head?" said I.

"Oh! he and I have had some conversation upon the state of his affairs,"

said the man in black; "I think he might make a rather useful convert in these parts, provided things take a certain turn, as they doubtless will.

It is no bad thing to have a fighting fellow, who keeps a public-house, belonging to one's religion. He has been occasionally employed as a bully at elections by the Tory party, and he may serve us in the same capacity. The fellow comes of a good stock; I heard him say that his father headed the High Church mob who sacked and burnt Priestley's house at Birmingham, towards the end of the last century."

"A disgraceful affair," said I.