Chapter IV: Part 4

Alas! ye Coopers--ye Marryats--ye Chamiers--ye historians of storm and sea-fight, how inferior are your triumphs compared with the descriptive eloquence of a law court. Who can pourtray the broken heart of blighted affection, like Charles Phillips in a breach of promise? What was Scott compared to Scarlett?--how inferior is Dickens to Counsellor O'Driscoll?--here are the men, who, without the trickery of trade, ungilt, unlettered, and unillustrated, can move the world to laughter and to tears. They ask no aid from Colburn, nor from Cruikshank--they need not "Brown" nor Longman. Heaven-born warriors, doctors, chemists, and anatomists--deep in every art, learned in every science--mankind is to them an open book, which they read at will, and con over at leisure--happy country, where we have you in abundance, and where your talents are so available, that they can be had for asking.

A NUT FOR THE IRISH.

AN IRISH ENCORE.

We certainly are a very original people, and contrive to do everything after a way of our own! Not content with cementing our friendships by fighting, and making the death of a relative the occasion of a merry evening, we even convert the habits we borrow from other lands into something essentially different from their original intention, and infuse into them a spirit quite national.

The echo which, when asked "How d'ye do, Paddy Blake?" replied, "Mighty well, thank you," could only have been an Irish echo. Any other country would have sulkily responded, "Blake--ake--ake--ake," in _diminuendo_ to the end of the chapter. But there is a courtesy, an attention, a native politeness on our side of the channel, it is in vain to seek elsewhere. A very strong instance in point occurs in a morning paper before me, and one so delightfully characteristic of our habits and customs, it would be unpardonable to pass it without commemoration. At an evening concert at the Rotundo, we are informed that Mr. Knight--I believe his name is--enchanted his audience by the charming manner he sung "Molly Astore." Three distinct rounds of applause followed, and an encore that actually shook the building, and may--though we are not informed of the circumstance--have produced very remarkable effects in the adjacent institution; upon which Mr. Knight, with his habitual courtesy, came forward and sang--what, think ye, good reader? Of course you will say, "Molly Astore," the song he was encored for. Alas! for your ignorance;--that might do very well in Liverpool or Manchester, at Bath, Bristol, or Birmingham--the poor benighted Saxons there might like to get what they asked so eagerly for; but we are men of very different mould, and not accustomed to the jog-trot subserviency of such common-sense notions; and accordingly, Mr. Knight sang "The Soldier Tired"--a piece of politeness on his part that actually convulsed the house with acclamations; and so on to the end of the entertainment, "the gentleman, when encored, invariably sang a new song"--I quote the paper _verbatim_--"which testimony of his anxiety to meet the wishes of the audience afforded universal satisfaction."

Now, I ask--and I ask it in all the tranquillity of triumph--show me the country on a map where such a studied piece of courteous civility could have been practised, or which, if attempted, could have been so thoroughly, so instantaneously appreciated. And what an insight does it give us into some of the most difficult features of our national character. May not this Irish encore explain the success with which Mr. O'Connell consoles our "poverty" by attacks on the clergy, and relieves our years of scarcity by creating forty-shilling freeholders. We ask for bread; and he tells us we are a great people--we beg for work, and he replies, that we must have repeal of the union--we complain of our poverty, and his remedy is--subscribe to the rent. Your heavy-headed Englishman--your clod-hopper from Yorkshire--or your boor from Northumberland, would never understand this, if you gave him a life-long to con over it. Norfolk pudding to his gross and sensual nature would seem better than the new registration bill; and he'd rather hear the simmering music of the boiled beef for his dinner, than all the rabid ruffianism of a repeal meeting.

But to come back to ourselves. What bold and ample views of life do our free-and-easy habits disclose to us, not to speak of the very servant at table, who will often help you to soup, when you ask for sherry, and give you preserves, when you beg for pepper. What amiable cross-purposes are we always playing at--not bigotedly adhering to our own narrow notions, and following out our own petty views of life, but eagerly doing what we have no concern in, and meritoriously performing for our friends, what they had been well pleased, we'd have let alone.

This amiable waywardness--this pleasing uncertainty of purpose--characterises our very climate; and the day that breaks in sunshine becomes stormy at noon, calm towards evening, and blows a hurricane all night. So the Irishman that quits his home brimful of philanthropy is not unlikely to rob a church before his return. But so it is, there is nobody like us in any respect. We commemorate the advent of a sovereign by erecting a testimonial to the last spot he stood on at his departure; and we are enthusiastic in our gratitude when, having asked for one favour, we receive something as unlike it as possible.

Our friends at the other side are beginning to legislate for us in the true spirit of our prejudices; and when we have complained of "a beggared proprietary and a ruined gentry," they have bolstered up our weakness with the new poor law. So much for an Irish encore.

A NUT FOR VICEREGAL PRIVILEGES.

"The sixth of Anne, chap. seventeen, makes it unlawful to
keep gaming-houses in any part of the city except the
'Castle,' and prohibits any game being played even there
except during the residence of the Lord Lieutenant. This act
is still on the statute book."--_Dublin Paper._

One might puzzle himself for a very long time for an explanation of this strange _morceau_ of legislation, without any hope of arriving at a shadow of a reason for it.

That gaming should be suppressed by a government is in no wise unnatural; nor should we feel any surprise at our legislature having been a century in advance of France, in the due restriction of this demoralizing practice. But that the exercise of a vice should be limited to the highest offices of the state is, indeed, singular, and demands no little reflection on our part to investigate the cause.

Had the functions of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland been of that drowsy, tiresome, uninteresting nature, that it was only deemed fair by the legislature to afford him some amusing pastime to distract his "_ennui_" and dispel his melancholy, there might seem to have been then some reason for this extraordinary enactment. On the contrary, however, every one knows that from the remotest times to the present, every viceroy of Ireland has had quite enough on his hands. Some have been saving money to pay off old mortgages, others were farming the Phoenix; some took to the King Cambyses' vein, like poor dear Lord Normanby--raked up all the old properties and faded finery of the Castle, and with such material as they could collect, made a kind of Drury-lane representation of a court. And very lately, and with an originality so truly characteristic of true genius, Lord Ebrington struck out a line of his own, and slept away his time with such a persevering intensity of purpose, that "the least wide-awake" persons of his government became actually ashamed of themselves. But to go back. What, I would ask, was the intention of this act? I know you give it up. Well, now, I have made the matter the subject of long and serious thought, and I think I have discovered it.

Have you ever read, in the laws of the smaller German states, the singular rules and regulations regarding the gaming-table? If so, you will have found how the entire property of the "_rouge et noir_" and "_roulette_" is vested in certain individuals in return for very considerable sums of money, paid by them to the government, for the privilege of robbing the public. These honourable and estimable people farm out iniquity as you would do your demesne, selling the cheatable features of mankind, like the new corn law, on the principle of "a general average." The government of these states, finding--no uncommon thing in Germany--a deficiency in their exchequer, have hit upon this ready method of supplying the gap, by a system which has all the regularity of a tax, with the advantage of a voluntary contribution. These little kingdoms, therefore, of some half-dozen miles in circumference, are nothing more than _rouge et noir_ tables, where the grand duke performs the part of croupier, and gathers in the gold. Now, I am convinced that something of this kind was intended by our lawgivers in the act of parliament to which I have alluded, and that its programme might run thus--that "as the office of Lord Lieutenant in Ireland is one of great responsibility, high trust, and necessarily demanding profuse expenditure; and that, as it may so happen that the same should, in the course of events, be filled by some Whig-Radical viceroy of great pretension and little property; and that as the ordinary sum for maintaining his dignity may be deemed insufficient, we hereby give him the exclusive liberty and privilege of all games of chance, skill, or address, in the kingdom of Ireland, whether the same may be chicken-hazard, blind hookey, head and tail, &c.--thimble-rigging was only known later--to be enjoyed by himself only, or by persons deputed by him; such privilege in nowise to extend to the lords justices, but only to exist during the actual residence and presence of the Lord Lieutenant himself."--_See the Act._

I cannot but admire the admirable tact that dictated this portion of legislation; at the same time, it does seem a little hard that the chancellor, the archbishop, and the other high functionaries, who administer the law in the absence of the viceroy, should not have been permitted the small privilege of a little unlimited loo, or even beggar-my-neighbour, particularly as the latter game is the popular one in Ireland.

There would seem, too, something like an appreciation of our national character in the spirit of this law, which, unhappily for England, and Ireland, too, has not always dictated her enactments concerning us. It is well known that we hate and abhor anything in the shape of a legal debt. Few Irishmen will refuse you the loan of five pounds; still fewer can persuade themselves to pay five shillings. The kingdom of Galway has long been celebrated for its enlightened notions on this subject, showing how much more conducive it is to personal independence and domestic economy, to spend five hundred pounds in resisting a claim, than to satisfy it by the payment of twenty. Accordingly, had any direct taxation of considerable amount been proposed for the support of viceregal dignity, the chances are--much as we like show and glitter, ardently as we admire all that gives us the semblance of a state--we should have buttoned up our pockets, and upon the principle of those economical little tracts, that teach us to do so much for ourselves, every man would have resolved to be "his own Lord Lieutenant;" coming, however, in the shape of an indirect taxation, a voluntary contribution to be withheld at pleasure, the thing was unobjectionable.

You might not like cards, still less the company--a very possible circumstance, the latter, in some times we wot of not long since--Well, then, you saved your cash and your character by staying at home; on the other hand, it was a comfort to know that you could have your rubber of "shorts" or your game at _ecarte_, while at the same time you were contributing to the maintenance of the crown, and discharging the _devoirs_ of a loyal subject. It is useless, however, to speculate upon an obsolete institution; the law has fallen into disuse, and the more is the pity. How one would like to have seen Lord Normanby, with that one curl of infantine simplicity that played upon his forehead, with that eternal leer of self-satisfied loveliness that rested on his features, playing banker at _rouge et noir_, or calling the throws at hazard. I am not quite so sure that the concern would have been so profitable as picturesque. The principal frequenters of his court were "York too;" Lord Plunket was a "downy cove;" and if Anthony Blaek took the box, most assuredly "I'd back the caster." Now and then, to be sure, a stray, misguided country gentleman--a kind of "wet Tory"--used to be found at that court; just as one sees some respectable matronly woman at Ems or Baden, seated in a happy unconsciousness that all the company about her are rogues and swindlers, so _he_ might afford some good sport, and assist to replenish the famished exchequer. Generally speaking, however, the play would not have kept the tables; and his lordship would have been _in_ for the wax-lights, without the slightest chance of return.

As for his successor, "patience" would have been his only game; and indeed it was one he had to practise whilst he remained amongst us. Better days have now come: let us, therefore, inquire if a slight modification of the act might not be effected with benefit, and an amendment, somewhat thus, be introduced into the bill:--"That the words 'Lord Mayor' be substituted for the words 'Lord Lieutenant;' and that all the privileges, rights, immunities, &c., aforesaid, be enjoyed by him to his sole use and benefit; and also that, in place of the word 'Castle,' the word 'Mansion-house' stand part of this bill"--thus reserving to his lordship all monopoly in games of chance and address, without in anywise interfering with such practices of the like nature exercised by him elsewhere, and always permitted and conceded by whatever government in power.

Here, my dear countrymen, is no common suggestion. I am no prophet, like Sir Harcourt Lees; but still I venture to predict, that this system once legalised at the Mayoralty, the tribute is totally unnecessary. The little town of Spa, with scarce 10,000 inhabitants, pays the Belgian government 200,000 francs per annum for the liberty: what would Dublin--a city so populous and so idle? only think of the tail!--how admirably they could employ their little talent as "bonnets," and the various other functionaries so essential to the well-being of a gambling-house; and, lastly, think of great Dan himself, with his burly look, seated in civic dignity at the green cloth, with a rake instead of a mace before him, calling out, "Make your game, gentlemen, make your game"--"Never venture, never win"--"Faint heart," &c., &c.

How suitable would the eloquence that has now grown tiresome, even at the Corn Exchange, be at the head of a gaming-table; and how well would the Liberator conduct a business whose motto is so admirably expressed by the phrase, "Heads, _I_ win; tails, _you_ lose." Besides, after all, nothing could form so efficient a bond of union between the two contending parties in the country as some little mutual territory of wickedness, where both might forget their virtues and their grievances together. Here you'd soon have the violent party-man of either side, oblivious of everything but his chance of gain; and what an energy would it give to the great Daniel to think that, while filling his pockets, he was also spoiling the Egyptians! Instead, therefore, of making the poor man contribute his penny, and the ragged man two-pence, you'd have the Rent supplied without the trouble of collection; and all from the affluent and the easy, or at least the idle, portion of the community.

This is the second time I have thrown out a suggestion--and all for nothing, remember--on the subject of afinance; and little reflection will show that both my schemes are undeniable in their benefits. Here you have one of the most expensive pleasures a poor country has ever ventured to afford itself--a hired agitator, pensioned, without any burden on the productive industry of the land; and he himself, so far from having anything to complain of, will find that his revenue is more than quadrupled.

Look at the question, besides, in another point of view, and see what possible advantages may arise from it. Nothing is so admirable an antidote to all political excitement as gambling: where it flourishes, men become so inextricably involved in its fascinations and attractions that they forget everything else. Now, was ever a country so urgently in want of a little repose as ours? and would it not be well to purchase it, and pension off our great disturbers, at any price whatever? Cards are better than carding any day; short whist is an admirable substitute for insurrection; and the rattle of a dice-box is surely as pleasant music as the ruffian shout for repeal.

RICH AND POOR--POUR ET CONTRE.

If I was a king upon a throne this minute, an' I wanted to have a smoke for myself by the fireside--why, if I was to do my best, what could I smoke but one pen'orth of tobacco, in the night, after all?--but can't I have that just as asy?

"If I was to have a bed with down feathers, what could I do but sleep there?--and sure I can do that in the settle-bed above."

Such is the very just and philosophical reflection of one of Griffin's most amusing characters, in his inimitable story of "The Collegians"--a reflection that naturally sets us a thinking, that if riches and wealth cannot really increase a man's capacity for enjoyment with the enjoyments themselves, their pursuit is, after all, but a poor and barren object of even worldly happiness.

As it is perfectly evident that, so far as mere sensual gratifications are concerned, the peer and the peasant stand pretty much on a level, let us inquire for a moment in what the great superiority consists which exalts and elevates one above the other? Now, without entering upon that wild field for speculation that power (and what power equals that conferred by wealth?) confers, and the train of ennobling sentiment suggested by extended views of philanthropy and benevolence--for, in this respect, it is perfectly possible the poor man has as amiable a thrill at his heart in sharing his potato with a wandering beggar, as the rich one has in contributing his thousand pounds' donation to some great national charity--let us turn rather to the consideration of those more tangible differences that leave their impress upon character, and mould men's minds into a fashion so perfectly and thoroughly distinct.

To our thinking, then, the great superiority wealth confers lies in the seclusion the rich man lives in from all the grosser agency of every-day life--its make-shifts, its contrivances, its continued warfare of petty provision and continual care, its unceasing effort to seem what it is not, and to appear to the world in a garb, and after a manner, to which it has no just pretension. The rich man knows nothing of all this: life, to him, rolls on in measured tread; and the world, albeit the changes of season and politics may affect him, has nothing to call forth any unusual effort of his temper or his intellect; his life, like his drawing-room, is arranged for him; he never sees it otherwise than in trim order; with an internal consciousness that people must be engaged in providing for his comforts at seasons when he is in bed or asleep, or otherwise occupied, he gives himself no farther trouble about them; and, in the monotony of his pleasures, attains to a tranquillity of mind the most enviable and most happy.

Hence that perfect composure so conspicuous in the higher ranks, among whom wealth is so generally diffused--hence that delightful simplicity of manner, so captivating from its total absence of pretension and affectation--hence that unbroken serenity that no chances or disappointments would seem to interfere with; the knowledge that he is of far too much consequence to be neglected or forgotten, supports him on every occasion, and teaches that, when anything happens to his inconvenience or discomfort, that it could not but be unavoidable.

Not so the poor man: his poverty is a shoe that pinches every hour of the twenty-four; he may bear up from habit, from philosophy, against his restricted means of enjoyment; he may accustom himself to limited and narrow bounds of pleasure; he may teach himself that, when wetting his lips with the cup of happiness, that he is not to drink to his liking of it: but what he cannot acquire is that total absence of all forethought for the minor cares of life, its provisions for the future, its changes and contingencies--hence he does not possess that easy and tranquil temperament so captivating to all within its influence; he has none of the careless _abandon_ of happiness, because even when happy he feels how short-lived must be his pleasure, and what a price he must pay for it. The thought of the future poisons the present, just as the dark cloud that gathers round the mountain-top makes the sunlight upon the plain seem cold and sickly.

All the poor man's pleasures have taken such time and care in their preparation that they have lost their freshness ere they are tasted. The cook has sipped so frequently at the pottage, he will not eat of it when at table. The poor man sees life "_en papillotes_" before he sees it "dressed." The rich man sees it only in the resplendent blaze of its beauty, glowing with all the attraction that art can lend it, and wearing smiles put on for his own enjoyment. But if such be the case, and if the rich man, from the very circumstance of his position, imbibe habits and acquire a temperament possessing such charm and fascination, does he surrender nothing for all this? Alas! and alas! how many of the charities of life lie buried in the still waters of his apathetic nature! How many of the warm feelings of his heart are chilled for ever, for want of ground for their exercise! How can he sympathise who has never suffered? how can he console who has never grieved? There is nothing healthy in the placid mirror of that glassy lake; uncurled by a breeze, unruffled by a breath of passion, it wants the wholesome agitation of the breaking wave--the health-giving, bracing power of the conflicting element that stirs the heart within, and nerves it for a noble effort.

All that he has of good within him is cramped by _convenance_ and fashion; for he who never feared the chance of fortune, trembles, with a coward's dread, before the sneer of the world. The poor man, however, only appeals to this test on a very different score. The "world" may prescribe to him the fashion of his hat, or the colour of his coat--it may dictate the _locale_ of his residence, and the style of his household, and he may, so far as in him lies, comply with a tyranny so absurd; but with the free sentiments of his nature--his honest pride, his feeling sympathy--with the open current of his warm affection he suffers no interference: of this no man shall be the arbiter. If, then, the shoals and quicksands of the world deprive him of that tranquil guise and placid look--the enviable gift of richer men--he has, in requital, the unrestricted use of those greater gifts that God has given him, untrammelled by man's opinion, uncurbed by the control of "the world."

Each supports a tyranny after his own kind:--

The rich man--above the dictates of fashion--subjects the thoughts of his mind and the meditations of his heart to the world's rule.

The poor man--below it--keeps these for his prerogative, and has no slavery save in form.

Happy the man who, amid all the seductions of wealth, and all the blandishments of fortune, can keep his heart and mind in the healthy exercise of its warm affections and its generous impulses. But still happier he, whose wealth, the native purity of his heart--can limit his desires to his means, and untrammelled by ambition, undeterred by fear of failure, treads the lowly but peaceful path in life, neither aspiring to be great, nor fearing to be humble.

A NUT FOR ST. PATRICK'S NIGHT.

There is no cant offends me more than the oft-repeated criticisms on the changed condition of Ireland. How very much worse or how very much better we have become since this ministry, or that measure--what a deplorable falling off!--what a gratifying prospect! how poor! how prosperous! &c. &c. Now, we are exactly what and where we used to be: not a whit wiser nor better, poorer nor prouder. The union, the relief bill, the reform and corporation acts, have passed over us, like the summer breeze upon the calm water of a lake, ruffling the surface for a moment, but leaving all still and stagnant as before. Making new laws for the use of a people who would not obey the old ones, is much like the policy of altering the collar or the cuffs of a coat for a savage, who insists all the while on going naked. However, it amuses the gentlemen of St. Stephen's; and, I'm sure I'm not the man to quarrel with innocent pleasures.

To me, looking back, as my Lord Brougham would say, from the period of a long life, I cannot perceive even the slightest difference in the appearance of the land, or the looks of its inhabitants. Dublin is the same dirty, ill-cared-for, broken-windowed, tumble-down concern it used to be--the country the same untilled, weed-grown, unfenced thing I remember it fifty years ago--the society pretty much the same mixture of shrewd lawyers, suave doctors, raw subalterns, and fat, old, greasy country gentlemen, waiting in town for remittances to carry them on to Cheltenham--that paradise of Paddies, and elysium of Galway _belles_. Our table-talk the old story, of who was killed last in Tipperary or Limerick, with the accustomed seasoning of the oft-repeated alibi that figures at every assizes, and is successful with every jury. These pleasant topics, tinted with the party colour of the speaker's politics, form the staple of conversation; and, "barring the wit," we are pretty much what our fathers were some half century earlier. Father Mathew, to be sure, has innovated somewhat on our ancient prejudices; but I find that what are called "the upper classes" are far too cultivated and too well-informed to follow a priest. A few weeks ago, I had a striking illustration of this fact brought before me, which I am disposed to quote the more willingly as it also serves to display the admirable constancy with which we adhere to our old and time-honoured habits. The morning of St. Patrick's day was celebrated in Dublin by an immense procession of teetotallers, who, with white banners, and whiter cheeks, paraded the city, evidencing in their cleanly but care-worn countenances, the benefits of temperance. On the same evening a gentleman--so speak the morning papers--got immoderately drunk at the ball in the Castle, and was carried out in a state of insensibility. Now, it is not for the sake of contrast I have mentioned this fact--my present speculation has another and very different object, and is simply this:--How comes it, that since time out of mind the same event has recurred on the anniversary of St. Patrick at the Irish court? When I was a boy I remember well "the gentleman who became so awfully drunk," &c. Every administration, from the Duke of Rutland downwards, has had its drunken gentleman on "St. Patrick's night." Where do they keep him all the year long?--what do they do with him?--are questions I continually am asking myself. Under what name and designation does he figure in the pension list? for of course I am not silly enough to suppose that a well-ordered government would depend on chance for functionaries like these. One might as well suppose they would calculate on some one improvising Sir William Betham, or extemporaneously performing "God save the Queen," on the state trumpet, in lieu of that amiable individual who distends his loyal cheeks on our great anniversaries. No, no. I am well aware he is a member of the household, or at least in the pay of the government. When the pope converts his Jew on Holy Thursday, the Catholic church have had ample time for preparation: the cardinals are on the look-out for weeks before, to catch one for his holiness--a good respectable hirsute Israelite, with a strong Judas expression to magnify the miracle. But then the Jew is passive in the affair, and has only to be converted patiently--whereas "the gentleman" has an active duty to discharge; he must imbibe sherry, iced punch, and champagne, at such a rate that he can be able to shock the company, before the rooms thin, with his intemperate excess. Besides, to give the devil--the pope, I mean--his Jew, they snare a fresh one every Easter. Now, I am fully persuaded that, at our Irish court, the same gentleman has performed the part for upwards of fifty years.

At the ancient banquets it was always looked upon as a triumph of Amphitryonism when a guest or two died the day after of indigestion, from over eating. Now, is it not possible that our classic origin may have imparted to us the trait I am speaking of, and that "the gentleman" is retained as typical of our exceeding hilarity and consummate conviviality--an evidence to the "great unasked" that the festivities within doors are conducted on a scale of boundless profusion and extravagance--that the fountains from which honour flows, run also with champagne, and that punch and the peerage are to be seen bubbling from the same source.

It is a sad thing to think that the gifted man, who has served his country so faithfully in this capacity for so long a period, must now be stricken in years. Time and rum must be telling upon him; and yet, what should we do were we to lose him?

In the chapel of Maria Zell, in Styria, there is a portly figure of St. Somebody, with more consonants than I find it prudent to venture on from mere memory; the priest is rolling his eyes very benignly on the frequenters of the chapel, as they pass by the shrine he resides in. The story goes, that when the saint ceases winking, some great calamity will occur to the commune and its inhabitants. Now, the last time I saw him, he was in great vigour, ogled away with his accustomed energy, and even, I thought--perhaps it was a suspicion on my part--had actually strained his eyeballs into something like a squint, from actual eagerness to oblige his votaries--a circumstance happily of the less moment in our days, as a gifted countryman of ours could have remedied the defect in no time. But to return; my theory is, that when we lose our tipsy friend it's all up with us; "Birnam wood will then have come to Dunsinane;" and what misfortunes may befal us, Sir Harcourt Lees may foresee, but I confess myself totally unable to predicate.

Were I the viceroy, I'd not sleep another night in the island. I'd pack up the regalia, send for Anthony Blake to take charge of the country, and start for Liverpool in the mail-packet.

Happily, however, such an event may be still distant; and although the Austrians have but one Metternich, we may find a successor to our "Knight of St. Patrick."

A NUT FOR "GENTLEMAN JOCKS."

"The Honourable Fitzroy Shuffleton," I quote _The Morning Post_, "who rode Bees-wing, came in a winner amid deafening cheers. Never was a race better contested; and although, when passing the distance-post, the Langar colt seemed to have the best of it, yet such was Mr. Shuffleton's tact and jockeyship, that he shot a-head in advance of his adversary, and came in first." I omit the passages descriptive of the peculiar cleverness displayed by this gifted gentleman. I omit also that glorious outbreak of newspaper eloquence, in which the delight of his friends is expressed--the tears of joy from his sisters--the cambric handkerchiefs that floated in the air--the innumerable and reiterated cries of "Well done!--he's a trump!--the right sort!" &c. &c., so profusely employed by the crowd, because I am fully satisfied with what general approbation such proofs of ability are witnessed.

We are a great nation, and nowhere is our greatness more conspicuous than in the education of our youth. The young Frenchman seems to fulfil his destiny, when, having drawn on a pair of the most tight-fitting kid gloves, of that precise shade of colour so approved of by Madame Laffarge, he saunters forth on the Boulevard de Gand, or lounges in the _coulisse_ of the opera.

The German, whose contempt not only extends to glove-leather, but clean hands, betakes himself early in life to the way he should go, and from which, to do him justice, he never shows any inclination to depart. A meerschaum some three feet long, and a tobacco bag like a school-boy's satchel, supply his wants in life. The dreamy visions of the unreal woes, and the still more unreal greatness of his country, form the pabulum for his thoughts; and he has no other ambition, for some half dozen years of his life, than to boast his utter indifference to kings and clean water.

Now, we manage matters somewhat better. Our young men, from the very outset of their career, are admirable jockeys; and if by any fatality, like the dreadful revolution of France, our nobles should be compelled to emigrate from their native land, instead of teaching mathematics and music, the small sword and quadrilles, we shall have the satisfaction of knowing that we supply stable-boys to the whole of Europe.

Whatever other people may say or think, I put a great value on this equestrian taste. I speak not here of the manly nature of horse exercise--of the noble and vigorous pursuits of the hunting field. No; I direct my observations solely to the heroes of Ascot and Epsom--of Doncaster and Goodwood. I only speak of those whose pleasure it is to read no book save the Racing Calendar, and frequent no lounge but Tattersall's; who esteem the stripes of a racing-jacket more honourable than the ribbon of the Bath, and look to a well-timed "hustle" or "a shake" as the climax of human ability. These are fine fellows, and I prize them. But if it be not only praiseworthy, but pleasant, to ride for the Duke's cup at Goodwood, or the Corinthian's at the Curragh, why not extend the sphere of the utility, and become as amiable in private as they are conspicuous in public life?

We have seen them in silk jackets of various hues, with leathers and tops of most accurate fitting, turn out amid the pelting of a most pitiless storm, to ride some three miles of spongy turf, at the hazard of their necks, and the almost certainty of a rheumatic fever; and why, donning the same or some similar costume, will they not perform the office of postillion, when their fathers, or mayhap, some venerated aunt, is returning by the north road to an antiquated mansion in Yorkshire? The pace, to be sure, is not so fast--but it compensates in safety what it loses in speed--the assemblage around is not so numerous, or the excitement so great; but filial tenderness is a nobler motive than the acclamations of a mob. In fact, the parallel presents all the advantages on one side: and the jockey is as inferior to the postillion as the fitful glare of an _ignis-fatuus_ is to the steady brilliancy of a gas-lamp.

An Englishman has a natural pride in the navy of his country--our wooden walls are a glorious boast; but, perhaps, after all, there is nothing more captivating in the whole detail of the service, than the fact that even the highest and the noblest in the land has no royal road to its promotion, but, beginning at the very humblest step, he must work his way through every grade and every rank, like his comrades around him. Many there are now living who remember Prince William, as he was called--late William the Fourth, of glorious memory--sitting in the stern seats of a gig, his worn jacket and weather-beaten hat attesting that even the son of a king had no immunity from the hardships of the sea. This is a proud thought for Englishmen, and well suited to gratify their inherent loyalty and their sturdy independence. Now, might we not advantageously extend the influence of such examples, by the suggestion I have thrown out above? If a foreigner be now struck by hearing, as he walks through the dockyard at Plymouth, that the little middy who touches his hat with such obsequious politeness, is the Marquis of ----, or the Earl of ----, with some fifty thousand per annum, how much more astonished will he be on learning that he owes the rapidity with which he traversed the last stage to his having been driven by Lord Wilton--or that the lengthy proportions, so dexterously gathered up in the saddle, belong to an ex-ambassador from St. Petersburgh. How surprised would he feel, too, that instead of the low habits and coarse tastes he would look for in that condition in life, he would now see elegant and accomplished gentlemen, sipping a glass of curacoa at the end of a stage; or, mayhap, offering a pinch of snuff from a box worth five hundred guineas. What a fascinating conception would he form of our country from such examples as this! and how insensibly would not only the polished taste and the high-bred depravity of the better classes be disseminated through the country; but, by an admirable reciprocity, the coarsest vices of the lowest would be introduced among the highest in the land. The race-course has done much for this, but the road would do far more. Slang is now but the language of the _elite_--it would then become the vulgar tongue; and, in fact, there is no predicting the amount of national benefit likely to arise from an amalgamation of all ranks in society, where the bond of union is so honourable in its nature. Cultivate, then, ye youth of England--ye scions of the Tudors and the Plantagenets--with all the blood of all the Howards in your veins--cultivate the race-course--study the stable--read the Racing Calendar. What are the precepts of Bacon or the learning of Boyle compared to the pedigree of Grey Momus, or the reason that Tramp "is wrong?" "A dark horse" is a far more interesting subject of inquiry than an eclipse of the moon, and a judge of pace a much more exalted individual than a judge of assize.

A NUT FOR YOUNGER SONS.

Douglas Jerrold, in his amusing book, "Cakes and Ale," quotes an exquisite essay written to prove the sufficiency of thirty pounds a-year for all a man's daily wants and comforts--allowing at least five shillings a quarter for the conversion of the Jews--and in which every outlay is so nicely calculated, that it must be wilful eccentricity if the pauper gentleman, at the end of the year, either owes a shilling or has one. To say the least of it, this is close shaving; and, as I detest experimental philosophy, I'd rather not try it. At the same time, in this age of general glut, when all professions are overstocked--when you might pave the Strand with parsons' skulls, and thatch your barn with the surplus of the college of physicians; when there are neither waste lands to till and give us ague and typhus, nor war to thin us--what are we to do? The subdivision of labour in every walk in life has been carried to its utmost limits: if it takes nine tailors to make a man, it takes nine men to make a needle. Even in the learned professions, as they are called, this system is carried out; and as you have a lawyer for equity, another for the Common Pleas, a third for the Old Bailey, &c., so your doctor, now-a-days, has split up his art, and one man takes charge of your teeth, another has the eye department, another the ear, a fourth looks after your corns; so that, in fact, the complex machinery of your structure strikes you as admirably adapted to give employment to an ingenious and anxious population, who, until our present civilization, never dreamed of morselling out mankind for their benefit.

As to commerce, our late experiences have chiefly pointed to the pleasure of trading with nations who will not pay their debts,--like the Yankees. There is, then, little encouragement in that quarter. What then remains I scarcely know. The United Services are pleasant, but poor things by way of a provision for life. Coach-driving, that admirable refuge for the destitute, has been smashed by the railroads; and there is a kind of prejudice against a man of family sweeping the crossings. For my own part, I lean to something dignified and respectable--something that does not compromise "the cloth," and which, without being absolutely a sinecure, never exacts any undue or extraordinary exertion,--driving a hearse, for instance: even this, however, is greatly run upon; and the cholera, at its departure, threw very many out of employment. However, the question is, what can a man of small means do with his son? Short whist is a very snug thing--if a man have natural gifts,--that happy conformation of the fingers, that ample range of vision, that takes in everything around. But I must not suppose these by any means general--and I legislate for the mass. The turf has also the same difficulties,--so has toad-eating; indeed these three walks might be included among the learned professions.

As to railroads, I'm sick of hearing of them for the last three years. Every family in the empire has at least one civil engineer within its precincts; and I'm confident, if their sides were as hard as their skulls, you could make sleepers for the whole Grand Junction by merely decimating the unemployed.

Tax-collecting does, to be sure, offer some little prospect; but that won't last. Indeed, the very working of the process will limit the advantages of this opening,--gradually converting all the payers into paupers. Now I have meditated long and anxiously on the subject, conversing with others whose opportunities of knowing the world were considerable, but never could I find that ingenuity opened any new path, without its being so instantaneously overstocked that competition alone denied every chance of success.

One man of original genius I did, indeed, come upon, and his career had been eminently successful. He was a Belgian physician, who, having in vain attempted all the ordinary modes of obtaining practice, collected together the little residue of his fortune, and sailed for Barbadoes, where he struck out for himself the following singularly new and original plan:--He purchased all the disabled, sick, and ailing negroes that he could find; every poor fellow whose case seemed past hope, but yet to his critical eye was still curable, these he bought up; they were, of course, dead bargains. The masters were delighted to get rid of them--they were actually "eating their heads off;" but the doctor knew, that though they looked somewhat "groggy," still there was a "go" in them yet.

By care, skill, and good management, they recovered under his hands, and frequently were re-sold to the original proprietor, who was totally unconscious that the sleek and shining nigger before him had been the poor, decrepid, sickly creature of some weeks before.

The humanity of this proceeding is self-evident: a word need not be said more on that subject. But it was no less profitable than merciful. The originator of the plan retired from business with a large fortune, amassed, too, in an inconceivably short space of time. The shrewdest proprietor of a fast coach never could throw a more critical eye over a new wheeler or a broken-down leader, than did he on the object of his professional skill; detecting at a glance the extent of his ailments, and calculating, with a Babbage-like accuracy, the cost of keep, physic, and attendance, and setting them off, in his mind, against the probable price of the sound man. What consummate skill was here! Not merely, like Brodie or Crampton, anticipating the possible recovery of the patient, but estimating the extent of the restoration--the time it would take--ay, the very number of basins of chicken-broth and barley-gruel that he would devour, _ad interim_. This was the cleverest physician I ever knew. The present altered condition of West Indian property has, however, closed this opening to fortune, in which, after all, nothing short of first-rate ability could have ensured success.

I have just read over the preceding "nut" to my old friend, Mr. Synnet, of Mulloglass, whose deep knowledge of the world makes him no mean critic on such a subject. His words are these:--

"There is some truth in what you remark--the world is too full of us. There is, however, a very nice walk in life much neglected."

"And what may that be?" said I, eagerly.

"The mortgagee," replied he, sententiously.

"I don't perfectly comprehend."

"Well, well! what I mean is this: suppose, now, you have only a couple of thousand pounds to leave your son--maybe, you have not more than a single thousand--now, my advice is, not to squander your fortune in any such absurdity as a learned profession, a commission in the Line, or any other miserable existence, but just look about you, in the west of Ireland, for the fellow that has the best house, the best cellar, the best cook, and the best stable. He is sure to want money, and will be delighted to get a loan. Lend it to him: make hard terms, of course. For this--as you are never to be paid--the obligation of your forbearance will be the greater. Now, mark me, from the day the deed is signed, you have snug quarters in Galway, not only in your friend's house, but among all his relations--Blakes, Burkes, Bodkins, Kirwans, &c., to no end; you have the run of the whole concern--the best of living, great drink, and hunting in abundance. You must talk of the loan now and then, just to jog their memory; but be always 'too much the gentleman' to ask for your money; and it will even go hard, but from sheer popularity, they will make you member for the county. This is the only new thing, in the way of a career, I know of, and I have great pleasure in throwing out the suggestion for the benefit of younger sons."

A NUT FOR THE PENAL CODE.

It has often struck me that the monotony of occupation is a heavier infliction than the monotony of reflection. The same dull round of duty, which while it demands a certain amount of labour, excludes all opportunity of thought, making man no better than the piston of a steam-engine, is a very frightful and debasing process. Whereas, however much there may be of suffering in solitude, our minds are not imprisoned; our thoughts, unchained and unfettered, stroll far away to pleasant pasturages; we cross the broad blue sea, and tread the ferny mountain-side, and live once more the sunny hours of boyhood; or we build up in imagination a peaceful and happy future.

That the power of fancy and the play of genius are not interrupted by the still solitude of the prison, I need only quote Cervantes, whose immortal work was accomplished during the tedious hours of a captivity, unrelieved by one office of friendship, uncheered by one solitary ray of hope.

Taking this view of the matter, it will be at once perceived how much more severe a penalty solitary confinement must be, to the man of narrow mind and limited resources of thought, than to him of cultivated understanding and wider range of mental exercise. In the one case, it is a punishment of the most terrific kind--and nothing can equal that awful lethargy of the soul, that wraps a man as in a garment, shrouding him from the bright world without, and leaving him nought save the darkness of his gloomy nature to brood over. In the other, there is something soothing amid all the melancholy of the state, in the unbroken soaring of thought, that, lifting man above the cares and collisions of daily life, bear him far away to the rich paradise of his mind-made treasures--peopling space with images of beauty--and leave him to dream away existence amid the scenes and features he loved to gaze on.

Now, to turn for the moment from this picture, let us consider whether our government is wise in this universal application of a punishment, which, while it operates so severely in one case, may really be regarded as a boon in the other.

The healthy peasant, who rises with the sun, and breathes the free air of his native hills, may and will feel all the infliction of confinement, which, while it chains his limbs, stagnates his faculties. Not so the sedentary and solitary man of letters. Your cell becomes _his_ study: the window may be somewhat narrower--the lattice, that was wont to open to the climbing honeysuckle, may now be barred with its iron stanchions; but he soon forgets this. "His mind to him a palace is," wherein he dwells at peace. Now, to put them on something of a par, I have a suggestion to make to the legislature, which I shall condense as briefly as possible. Never sentence your man of education, whatever his offence, to solitary confinement; but condemn him to dine out, in Dublin, for seven or fourteen years--or, in murder cases, for the term of his natural life. For slight offences, a week's dinners, and a few evening parties might be sufficient--while old offenders and bad cases, might be sent to the north side of the city.

It may be objected to this--that insanity, which so often occurs in the one case, would supervene in the other; but I rather think not. My own experience could show many elderly people of both sexes, long inured to this state, who have only fallen into a sullen and apathetic fatuity; but who, bating deafness and a look of dogged stupidity, are still reasoning beings--what they once were, it is hard to say.

But I take the man who, for some infraction of the law, is suddenly carried away from his home and friends--the man of mind, of reading, and reflection. Imagine him, day after day, beholding the everlasting saddle of mutton--the eternal three chickens, with the tongue in the midst of them; the same travesty of French cookery that pervades the side-dishes--the hot sherry, the sour Moselle: think of him, eating out his days through these, unchanged, unchangeable--with the same _cortege_ of lawyers and lawyers' wives--doctors, male and female--surgeons, subalterns, and, mayhap, attorneys: think of the old jokes he has been hearing from childhood still ringing in his ears, accompanied by the same laugh which he has tracked from its burst in boyhood to its last cackle in dotage: behold him, as he sits amid the same young ladies, in pink and blue, and the same elderly ones, in scarlet and purple; see him, as he watches every sign and pass-word that have marked these dinners for the long term of his sentence, and say if his punishment be not indeed severe.

Then think how edifying the very example of his suffering, as, with pale cheek and lustreless eye--silent, sad, and lonely--he sits there! How powerfully such a warning must speak to others, who, from accident or misfortune, may be momentarily thrown in his society.

The suggestion, I own, will demand a much more ample detail, and considerable modification. Among other precautions, for instance, more than one convict should not be admitted to any table, lest they might fraternize together, and become independent of the company in mutual intercourse, &c.

These may all, however, be carefully considered hereafter: the principle is the only thing I would insist on for the present, and now leave the matter in the hands of our rulers.

A NUT FOR THE OLD.

Of all the virtues which grace and adorn the inhabitants of these islands, I know of none which can in anywise be compared with the deep and profound veneration we show to old age. Not content with paying it that deference and respect so essentially its due, we go even further, and by a courteous adulation would impose upon it the notion, that years have not detracted from the gifts which were so conspicuous in youth, and that the winter of life is as full of promise and performance, as the most budding hours of spring-time.