Tales and Novels Volume IV Part 14

_Irishman_.--"Upon my word, I did not think you could have found a match for the mason; but what will you say to my countryman, who, on meeting an acquaintance, accosted him with this ambiguous compliment--'When first I saw you I thought it was you, but now I see it is your brother.'"

_Scotchman_.--"If I were not afraid you would take me for a pedant, I should quote a sentence from Cicero that is not far behind this blunder."

_Irishman_.--"I can take you for nothing but a friend: pray let us have the Latin."

_Scotchman_.--"It is one of Cicero's compliments to Caesar--'Qui, c.u.m ipse imperator in toto imperio populi Romani unus esset, esse me alterum pa.s.sus est.'[62] Perhaps," continued the Scotchman, "my way of p.r.o.nouncing Latin sounds strangely to you, gentlemen?"

_Irishman_.--"And perhaps ours would be unintelligible to Cicero himself, if he were to overhear us: I fancy we are all so far from right, that we need not dispute about degrees of wrong."

The coach stopped at this instant, and the conversation was interrupted.

CHAPTER XIII.

BATH COACH CONVERSATION.

After our travellers had dined, the conversation was renewed by the English gentleman's repeating Goldsmith's celebrated lines on Burke:

"Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining, And thought of convincing, whilst they thought of dining; In short, 'twas his fate, unemployed or in place, sir, To eat mutton cold, and cut blocks with a razor."

"What humour and wit there are in that poem of Goldsmith's! and where is there any thing equal to his 'Traveller?'"

_Irishman_.--"Yet this is the man who used to be the b.u.t.t of the company for his bulls."

_Englishman_.--"No, not for his bulls, but for _blurting_ out opinions in conversation that could not stand the test of Dr. Johnson's critical powers. But what would become of the freedom of wit and humour if every word that came out of our mouths were subject to the tax of a professed critic's censure, or if every sentence were to undergo a logical examination? It would be well for Englishmen if they were a little more inclined, like your open-hearted countrymen, to _blurt_ out their opinions freely."

_Scotchman_,--"I cannot forgive Dr. Johnson for calling Goldsmith an inspired idiot; I confess I see no idiotism, but much inspiration, in his works."

_Irishman_.--"But we must remember, that if Johnson did laugh at Goldsmith, he would let no one else laugh at him, and he was his most sincere and active friend. The world would, perhaps, never have seen the 'Vicar of Wakefield' if Johnson had not recommended it to a bookseller; and Goldsmith might have died in jail if the doctor had not got him a hundred pounds for it, when poor Goldsmith did not know it was worth a s.h.i.+lling. When we recollect this, we must forgive the doctor for calling him, in jest, an inspired idiot."

_Scotchman_.--"Especially as Goldsmith has wit enough to bear him up against a thousand such jests."

_Englishman_.--"It is curious to observe how nearly wit and absurdity are allied. We may forgive the genius of Ireland if he sometimes

'Leap his light courser o'er the bounds of taste.'

Even English genius is not always to be restrained within the strict limits of common sense. For instance, Young is witty when he says,

'How would a miser startle to be told Of such a wonder as insolvent gold.'

But Johnson is, I am afraid, absurd when he says,

'Turn from the glittering bribe your scornful eye, Nor sell for gold what gold can never buy.'"

"One case, to be sure, must be excepted," said the Irishman; "a patriot may sell his reputation, and the purchaser get nothing by it. But, gentlemen, I have just recollected an example of an Irish bull in which are all the happy requisites, incongruity, confusion, and laughable confusion, both in thought and expression. When Sir Richard Steele was asked, how it happened that his countrymen made so many bulls, he replied, 'It is the effect of climate, sir; if an Englishman were born in Ireland, he would make as many.'"

_Scotchman_.--"This is an excellent bull, I allow; but I think I can match it."

_Englishman_.--"And if he can, you will allow yourself to be fairly vanquished?"

_Irishman_.--"Most willingly."

_Scotchman_.--"Then I shall owe my victory to our friend Dr. Johnson, the leviathan of English literature. In his celebrated preface to Shakspeare he says, that 'he has not only shown human nature as it acts in real exigencies, but as it _would be found in situations to which it cannot be exposed_.' These are his own words; I think I remember them accurately."

The English gentleman smiled, and our Hibernian acknowledged that the Scotchman had fairly gained the victory. "My friends," added he, "as I cannot pretend to be 'convinced against my will,' I certainly am not 'of the same opinion still.' But stay--there are such things as practical bulls: did you never hear of the Irishman who ordered a painter to draw his picture, and to represent him standing behind a tree?"

_Englishman_.--"No: but I have heard the very same story told of an Englishman. The dealers in _good jokes_ give them first to one nation and then to another, first to one celebrated character and then to another, as it suits the demand and fas.h.i.+on of the day: just as our printsellers, with a few touches, change the portrait of General Was.h.i.+ngton into the head of the king of France, and a capital print of Sir Joshua Reynolds into a striking likeness of _the Monster_.

"But I can give you an instance of a practical bull that is not only indisputably English, but was made by one of the greatest men that England ever produced, Sir Isaac Newton, who, after he had made a large hole in his study-door for his cat to creep through, made a small hole beside it for the kitten. You will acknowledge, sir, that this is a good practical bull."

"Pardon me," said the Hibernian, "we have still some miles further to go, and, if you will give me leave, I will relate 'an Hibernian tale,'

which exemplifies some of the opinions held in this conversation."

The Scotch and English gentlemen begged to hear the story, and he began in the following manner.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE IRISH INCOGNITO.

Sir John Bull was a native of Ireland, _bred_ and _born_ in the city of Cork. His real name was Phelim O'Mooney, and he was by profession a _stocah_, or walking gentleman; that is, a person who is too proud to earn his bread, and too poor to have bread without earning it. He had always been told that none of his ancestors had ever been in trade or business of any kind, and he resolved, when a boy, never to _demean_ himself and family, as his elder brother had done, by becoming a rich merchant. When he grew up to be a young man, he kept this spirited resolution as long as he had a relation or friend in the world who would let him hang upon them; but when he was shaken off by all, what could he do but go into business? He chose the most genteel, however; he became a wine merchant. I'm _only_ a wine merchant, said he to himself, and that is next door to being nothing at all. His brother furnished his cellars; and Mr. Phelim O'Mooney, upon the strength of the wine that he had in his cellars, and of the money he expected to make of it, immediately married a wife, set up a gig, and gave excellent dinners to men who were ten times richer than he even ever expected to be. In return for these excellent dinners, his new friends bought all their wine from Mr.

O'Mooney, and never paid for it; he lived upon credit himself, and gave all his friends credit, till he became a bankrupt. Then n.o.body came to dine with him, and every body found out that he had been very imprudent; and he was obliged to sell his gig, but not before it had broken his wife's neck; so that when accounts came to be finally settled, he was not much worse than when he began the world, the loss falling upon his creditors, and he being, as he observed, free to begin life again, with the advantage of being once more a bachelor. He was such a good-natured, free-hearted fellow, that every body liked him, even his creditors. His wife's relations made up the sum of five hundred pounds for him, and his brother offered to take him into his firm as partner; but O'Mooney preferred, he said, going to try, or rather to make, his fortune in England, as he did not doubt but he should by marriage, being, as he did not scruple to acknowledge, a personable, clever-looking man, and a great favourite with the s.e.x.

"My last wife I married for love, my next I expect will do the same by me, and of course the money must come on her side this time," said our hero, half jesting, half in earnest. His elder and wiser brother, the merchant, whom he still held in more than sufficient contempt, ventured to hint some slight objections to this scheme of Phelim's seeking fortune in England. He observed that so many had gone upon this plan already, that there was rather a prejudice in England against Irish adventurers.

This could not affect _him_ any ways, Phelim replied, because he did not mean to appear in England as an Irishman at all.

"How then?"

"As an Englishman, since that is most agreeable."

"How can that be?"

"Who should hinder it?"

His brother, hesitatingly, said "Yourself."

"Myself!--What part of myself? Is it my tongue?--You'll acknowledge, brother, that I do not speak with the brogue."

It was true that Phelim did not speak with any Irish brogue: his mother was an English woman, and he had lived much with English officers in Cork, and he had studied and imitated their manner of speaking so successfully, that no one, merely by his accent, could have guessed that he was an Irishman.

"Hey! brother, I say!" continued Phelim, in a triumphant English tone; "I never was taken for an Irishman in my life. Colonel Broadman told me the other day, I spoke English better than the English themselves; that he should take me for an Englishman, in any part of the known world, the moment I opened my lips. You must allow that not the smallest particle of brogue is discernible on my tongue."