Chapter XVI: P. I

USE AND ABUSE OF STORIES IN REASONING, WITH A WORD IN BEHALF OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS AND IN REPROOF OF THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE.

My particular inclination moves me in controversy especially to approve his choice that said, _fortia mallem quam formosa_.

DR. JACKSON.

I ended that last chapter with a story, and though “I say it who should not say it,” it is a good story well applied. Of what use a story may be even in the most serious debates may be seen from the circulation of old Joes in Parliament, which are as current there as their sterling namesakes used to be in the city some threescore years ago. A jest though it should be as stale as last weeks newspaper, and as flat as Lord Flounder's face, is sure to be received with laughter by the Collective Wisdom of the Nation: nay it is sometimes thrown out like a tub to the whale, or like a trail of carrion to draw off hounds from the scent.

The Bill which should have put an end to the inhuman practice of employing children to sweep chimneys, was thrown out on the third reading in the House of Lords (having passed the Commons without a dissentient voice) by a speech from Lord Lauderdale, the force of which consisted in, literally, a Joe Millar jest. He related that an Irishman used to sweep his chimney by letting a rope down, which was fastened round the legs of a goose, and then pulling the goose after it. A neighbour to whom he recommended this as a convenient mode objected to it upon the score of cruelty to the goose: upon which he replied, that a couple of ducks might do as well. Now if the Bill before the house had been to enact that men should no longer sweep chimneys but that boys should be used instead, the story would have been applicable. It was no otherwise applicable than as it related to chimney-sweeping: but it was a joke, and that sufficed. The Lords laughed; his Lordship had the satisfaction of throwing out the Bill, and the home Negro trade has continued from that time, now seven years, till this day, and still continues. His Lordship had his jest, and it is speaking within compass to say that in the course of those seven years two thousand children have been _sacrificed_ in consequence.

The worst actions of Lord Lauderdale's worst ancestor admit of a better defence before God and Man.

Had his Lordship perused the evidence which had been laid before the House of Commons when the Bill was brought in, upon which evidence the Bill was founded? Was he aware of the shocking barbarities connected with the trade, and inseparable from it? Did he know that children inevitably lacerate themselves in learning this dreadful occupation? that they are frequently crippled by it? frequently lose their lives in it by suffocation, or by slow fire? that it induces a peculiar and dreadful disease? that they who survive the accumulated hardships of a childhood during which they are exposed to every kind of misery, and destitute of every kind of comfort, have at the age of seventeen or eighteen to seek their living how they can in some other employment,—for it is only by children that this can be carried on? Did his Lordship know that girls as well as boys are thus abused? that their sufferings begin at the age of six, sometimes a year earlier? finally that they are sold to this worst and most inhuman of all slaveries, and sometimes stolen for the purpose of being sold to it?

I bear no ill-will towards Lord Lauderdale, either personally or politically: far from it. His manly and honorable conduct on the Queen's trial, when there was such an utter destitution of honor in many quarters where it was believed to exist, and so fearful a want of manliness where it ought to have been found, entitles him to the respect and gratitude of every true Briton. But I will tell his Lordship that rather than have spoken as he did against an act which would have lessened the sum of wickedness and suffering in this country,—rather than have treated a question of pure humanity with contempt and ridicule,—rather than have employed my tongue for such a purpose and with such success, I would———But no: I will not tell him how I had concluded. I will not tell him what I had added in the sincerity of a free tongue and an honest heart. I leave the sentence imperfect rather than that any irritation which the strength of my language might excite should lessen the salutary effects of self-condemnation.

James Montgomery! these remarks are too late for a place in thy Chimney Sweepers' Friend: but insert them I pray thee in thy newspaper, at the request of one who admires and loves thee as a Poet, honors and respects thee as a man, and reaches out in spirit at this moment a long arm to shake hands with thee in cordial good will.

My compliments to you Mr. Bowring! your little poem in Montgomery's benevolent album is in a strain of true poetry and right feeling. None but a man of genius could have struck off such stanzas upon such a theme. But when you wrote upon Humanity at Home, the useful reflection might have occurred that Patriotism has no business abroad. Whatever cause there may be to wish for amendment in the government and institutions of other countries, keep aloof from all revolutionary schemes for amending them, lest you should experience a far more painful disappointment in their success than in their failure. No spirit of prophecy is required for telling you that this must be the result. Lay not up that cause of remorse for yourself, and time will ripen in you what is crude, confirm what is right, and gently rectify all that is erroneous; it will abate your political hopes, and enlarge your religious faith, and stablish both upon a sure foundation. My good wishes and sincere respects to you Mr. Bowring!

INTERCHAPTER II.

ABALLIBOOZOBANGANORRIBO.

_Io'l dico dunque, e dicol che ognun m'ode._

BENEDETTO VARCHI.

Whether the secret of the Freemasons be comprized in the mystic word above is more than I think proper to reveal at present. But I have broken no vow in uttering it.

And I am the better for having uttered it.

Mahomet begins some of the chapters of the Koran with certain letters of unknown signification, and the commentators say that the meaning of these initials ought not to be enquired. So Gelaleddin says, so sayeth Taleb. And they say truly. Some begin with A. L. M. Some with K. H. I. A. S.: some with T. H.;—T. S. M.;—T. S. or I. S. others with K. M.;—H. M. A. S. K.;—N. M.;—a single _Kaf_, a single _Nun_ or a single _Sad_, and _sad_ work would it be either for _Kaffer_ or Mussulman to search for meaning where _none_ is. Gelaleddin piously remarks that there is only One who knoweth the import of these letters—I reverence the name which he uses too much to employ it upon this occasion. Mahomet himself tells us that they are the signs of the Book which teacheth the true doctrine,—the Book of the Wise,—the Book of Evidence, the Book of Instruction. When he speaketh thus of the Koran he lieth like an impostor as he is: but what he has said falsely of that false book may be applied truly to this. It is the Book of Instruction inasmuch as every individual reader among the thousands and tens of thousands who peruse it will find something in it which he did not know before. It is the Book of Evidence because of its internal truth. It is the Book of the Wise, because the wiser a man is the more he will delight therein; yea, the delight which he shall take in it will be the measure of his intellectual capacity. And that it teacheth the true doctrine is plain from this circumstance, that I defy the British Critic, the Antijacobin, the Quarterly and the Eclectic Reviews,—aye, and the Evangelical, the Methodist, the Baptist and the Orthodox Churchman's Magazine, with the Christian Observer to boot, to detect any one heresy in it. Therefore I say again

Aballiboozobanganorribo,

and like Mahomet I say that it is the Sign of the Book; and therefore it is that I have said it;

_Nondimen nè la lingua degli Hebrei
Nè la Latina, nè la Greca antica,
Nè quella forse ancor degli Aramei._[1]

[Footnote 1: MOLZA.]

Happen it may,—for things not less strange have happened, and what has been may be again;—for may be and has been are only tenses of the same verb, and that verb is eternally being declined:——Happen I say it may; and peradventure if it may it must; and certainly if it must it will:—but what with indicatives and subjunctives, presents, præterperfects and paulo-post-futura, the parenthesis is becoming too long for the sentence, and I must begin it again. A prudent author should never exact too much from the breath or the attention of his reader,—to say nothing of the brains.

Happen then it may that this Book may outlive Lord Castlereagh's Peace, Mr. Pitt's reputation (we will throw Mr. Fox's into the bargain); Mr. Locke's Metaphysics, and the Regent's Bridge in St. James's Park. It may outlive the eloquence of Burke, the discoveries of Davy, the poems of Wordsworth, and the victories of Wellington. It may outlive the language in which it is written; and in heaven knows what year of heaven knows what era, be discovered by some learned inhabitant of that continent which the insects who make coral and madrepore are now, and from the beginning of the world have been, fabricating in the Pacific Ocean. It may be dug up among the ruins of London, and considered as one of the Sacred Books of the Sacred Island of the West,—for I cannot but hope that some reverence will always be attached to this most glorious and most happy island when its power and happiness and glory like those of Greece shall have passed away. It may be decyphered and interpreted, and give occasion to a new religion called Dovery or Danielism, which may have its Chapels, Churches, Cathedrals, Abbeys, Priories, Monasteries, Nunneries, Seminaries, Colleges and Universities;—its Synods, Consistories, Convocations and Councils;—its Acolytes, Sacristans, Deacons, Priests, Archdeacons, Rural Deans, Chancellors, Prebends, Canons, Deans, Bishops, Archbishops, Prince Bishops, Primates, Patriarchs, Cardinals and Popes;—its most Catholic Kings, and its Kings most Dovish or most Danielish. It may have Commentators and Expounders—(who can doubt that it will have them?) who will leave unenlightened that which is dark, and darken that which is clear. Various interpretations will be given, and be followed by as many sects. Schisms must ensue; and the tragedies, comedies and farces, with all the varieties of tragi-comedy and tragi-farce or farcico-tragedy which have been represented in this old world, be enacted in that younger one. Attack on the one side, defence on the other; high Dovers and low Dovers; Danielites of a thousand unimagined and unimaginable denominations; schisms, heresies, seditions, persecutions, wars,—the dismal game of Puss-catch-corner played by a nation instead of a family of children, and in dreadful earnest, when power, property and life are to be won and lost!

But without looking so far into the future history of Dovery, let me exhort the learned Australian to whom the honour is reserved of imparting this treasure to his countrymen, that he abstain from all attempts at discovering the mysteries of Aballiboozobanganorribo! The unapocalyptical arcana of that stupendous vocable are beyond his reach;—so let him rest assured. Let him not plunge into the fathomless depths of that great word, let him not attempt to soar to its unapproachable heights. Perhaps,—and surely no man of judgement will suppose that I utter any thing lightly,—perhaps if the object were attainable, he might have cause to repent its attainment. If too “little learning be a dangerous thing,” too much is more so;

_Il saper troppo qualche volta nuoce._[2]

[Footnote 2: MOLZA.]

“Curiosity,” says Fuller, “is a kernel of the Forbidden Fruit, which still sticketh in the throat of a natural man, sometimes to the danger of his choaking.”

There is a knowledge which is forbidden because it is dangerous. Remember the Apple! Remember the beautiful tale of Cupid and Psyche! Remember Cornelius Agrippa's library; the youth who opened in unhappy hour his magical volume; and the choice moral which Southey, who always writes so morally, hath educed from that profitable story! Remember Bluebeard! But I am looking far into futurity. Bluebeard may be forgotten; Southey may be forgotten; Cornelius Agrippa may be no more remembered; Cupid and Psyche may be mere names which shall have outlived all tales belonging to them;—Adam and Eve—Enough.

Eat beans, if thou wilt, in spite of Pythagoras. Eat bacon with them, for the Levitical law hath been abrogated: and indulge in black-puddings, if thou likest such food, though there be Methodists who prohibit them as sinful. But abstain from Aballiboozobanganorribo.