Tales and Novels Volume IV Part 2

It is a problem of difficult solution to determine, whether an Union will hasten or r.e.t.a.r.d the amelioration of this country. The few gentlemen of education, who now reside in this country, will resort to England: they are few, but they are in nothing inferior to men of the same rank in Great Britain. The best that can happen will be the introduction of British manufacturers in their places.

Did the Warwicks.h.i.+re militia, who were chiefly artisans, teach the Irish to drink beer? or did they learn from the Irish to drink whiskey?

1800.

GLOSSARY.

_Some friends, who have seen Thady's history since it has been printed, have suggested to the Editor, that many of the terms and idiomatic phrases, with which it abounds, could not be intelligible to the English reader without further explanation. The Editor has therefore furnished the following Glossary_.

[A] _Monday morning_,--Thady begins his memoirs of the Rackrent Family by dating _Monday morning_, because no great undertaking can be auspiciously commenced in Ireland on any morning but _Monday morning_.

"Oh, please G.o.d we live till Monday morning, we'll set the slater to mend the roof of the house. On Monday morning we'll fall to, and cut the turf. On Monday morning we'll see and begin mowing. On Monday morning, please your honour, we'll begin and dig the potatoes," &c.

All the intermediate days, between the making of such speeches and the ensuing Monday, are wasted: and when Monday morning comes, it is ten to one that the business is deferred to _the next_ Monday morning. The Editor knew a gentleman, who, to counteract this prejudice, made his workmen and labourers begin all new pieces of work upon a Sat.u.r.day.

[B] _Let alone the three kingdoms itself._--_Let alone_, in this sentence, means _put out of consideration_. The phrase, _let alone_, which is now used as the imperative of a verb, may in time become a conjunction, and may exercise the ingenuity of some future etymologist.

The celebrated Horne Tooke has proved most satisfactorily, that the conjunction _but_ comes from the imperative of the Anglo-Saxon verb _(beoutan) to be out_; also, that _if_ comes from _gif_, the imperative of the Anglo-Saxon verb which signifies _to give_, &c.

[C] _Whillaluh_.--Ullaloo, Gol, or lamentation over the dead--

"Magnoque ululante tumultu."--VIRGIL.

"Ululatibus omne Implevere nemus."--OVID.

A full account of the Irish Gol, or Ullaloo, and of the Caoinan or Irish funeral song, with its first semichorus, second semichorus, full chorus of sighs and groans, together with the Irish words and music, may be found in the fourth volume of the transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. For the advantage of _lazy_ readers, who would rather read a page than walk a yard, and from compa.s.sion, not to say sympathy, with their infirmity, the Editor transcribes the following pa.s.sages:

"The Irish have been always remarkable for their funeral lamentations; and this peculiarity has been noticed by almost every traveller who visited them; and it seems derived from their Celtic ancestors, the primaeval inhabitants of this isle ... ...

"It has been affirmed of the Irish, that to cry was more natural to them than to any other nation, and at length the Irish cry became proverbial.... ... ...

"Cambrensis in the twelfth century says, the Irish then musically expressed their griefs; that is, they applied the musical art, in which they excelled all others, to the orderly celebration of funeral obsequies, by dividing the mourners into two bodies, each alternately singing their part, and the whole at times joining in full chorus....

... The body of the deceased, dressed in grave clothes, and ornamented with flowers, was placed on a bier, or some elevated spot. The relations and keepers (_singing mourners_) ranged themselves in two divisions, one at the head, and the other at the feet of the corpse. The bards and croteries had before prepared the funeral Caoinan. The chief bard of the head chorus began by singing the first stanza, in a low, doleful tone, which was softly accompanied by the harp: at the conclusion, the foot semichorus began the lamentation, or Ullaloo, from the final note of the preceding stanza, in which they were answered by the head semichorus; then both united in one general chorus. The chorus of the first stanza being ended, the chief bard of the foot semichorus began the second Gol or lamentation, in which he was answered by that of the head; and then, as before, both united in the general full chorus. Thus alternately were the song and choruses performed during the night. The genealogy, rank, possessions, the virtues and vices of the dead were rehea.r.s.ed, and a number of interrogations were addressed to the deceased; as, Why did he die? If married, whether his wife was faithful to him, his sons dutiful, or good hunters or warriors? If a woman, whether her daughters were fair or chaste? If a young man, whether he had been crossed in love; or if the blue-eyed maids of Erin treated him with scorn?"

We are told, that formerly the feet (the metrical feet) of the Caoinan were much attended to; but on the decline of the Irish bards these feet were gradually neglected, and the Caoinan fell into a sort of slipshod metre amongst women. Each province had different Caoinans, or at least different imitations of the original. There was the Munster cry, the Ulster cry, &c. It became an extempore performance, and every set of keepers varied the melody according to their own fancy.

It is curious to observe how customs and ceremonies degenerate. The present Irish cry, or howl, cannot boast of such melody, nor is the funeral procession conducted with much dignity. The crowd of people who a.s.semble at these funerals sometimes amounts to a thousand, often to four or five hundred. They gather as the bearers of the hea.r.s.e proceed on their way, and when they pa.s.s through any village, or when they come near any houses, they begin to cry--Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Agh! Agh!

raising their notes from the first _Oh!_ to the last _Agh!_ in a kind of mournful howl. This gives notice to the inhabitants of the village that _a funeral is pa.s.sing_, and immediately they flock out to follow it. In the province of Munster it is a common thing for the women to follow a funeral, to join in the universal cry with all their might and main for some time, and then to turn and ask--"Arrah! who is it that's dead?--who is it we're crying for?" Even the poorest people have their own burying-places, that is, spots of ground in the church-yards where they say that their ancestors have been buried ever since the wars of Ireland; and if these burial-places are ten miles from the place where a man dies, his friends and neighbours take care to carry his corpse thither. Always one priest, often five or six priests, attend these funerals; each priest repeats a ma.s.s, for which he is paid, sometimes a s.h.i.+lling, sometimes half-a-crown, sometimes half-a-guinea, or a guinea, according to their circ.u.mstances, or, as they say, according to the _ability_ of the deceased. After the burial of any very poor man, who has left a widow or children, the priest makes what is called _a collection_ for the widow; he goes round to every person present, and each contributes sixpence or a s.h.i.+lling, or what they please. The reader will find in the note upon the word _Wake_, more particulars respecting the conclusion of the Irish funerals.

Certain old women, who cry particularly loud and well, are in great request, and, as a man said to the Editor, "Every one would wish and be proud to have such at his funeral, or at that of his friends." The lower Irish are wonderfully eager to attend the funerals of their friends and relations, and they make their relations.h.i.+ps branch out to a great extent. The proof that a poor man has been well beloved during his life is his having a crowded funeral. To attend a neighbour's funeral is a cheap proof of humanity, but it does not, as some imagine, cost nothing.

The time spent in attending funerals may be safely valued at half a million to the Irish nation; the Editor thinks that double that sum would not be too high an estimate. The habits of profligacy and drunkenness which are acquired at _wakes_, are here put out of the question. When a labourer, a carpenter, or a smith, is not at his work, which frequently happens, ask where he is gone, and ten to one the answer is--"Oh, faith, please your honour, he couldn't do a stroke to-day, for he's gone to _the_ funeral."

Even beggars, when they grow old, go about begging _for their own funerals_; that is, begging for money to buy a coffin, candles, pipes, and tobacco. For the use of the candles, pipes, and tobacco, see _Wake_.

Those who value customs in proportion to their antiquity, and nations in proportion to their adherence to ancient customs, will doubtless, admire the Irish _Ullaloo_, and the Irish nation, for persevering in this usage from time immemorial. The Editor, however, has observed some alarming symptoms, which seem to prognosticate the declining taste for the Ullaloo in Ireland. In a comic theatrical entertainment, represented not long since on the Dublin stage, a chorus of old women was introduced, who set up the Irish howl round the relics of a physician, who is supposed to have fallen under the wooden sword of Harlequin. After the old women have continued their Ullaloo for a decent time, with all the necessary accompaniments of wringing their hands, wiping or rubbing their eyes with the corners of their gowns or ap.r.o.ns, &c. one of the mourners suddenly suspends her lamentable cries, and, turning to her neighbour, asks, "Arrah now, honey, who is it we're crying for?"

[D] _The tenants were sent away without their whiskey._--It is usual with some landlords to give their inferior tenants a gla.s.s of whiskey when they pay their rents. Thady calls it _their_ whiskey; not that the whiskey is actually the property of the tenants, but that it becomes their _right_ after it has been often given to them. In this general mode of reasoning respecting _rights_ the lower Irish are not singular, but they are peculiarly quick and tenacious in claiming these rights.

"Last year your honour gave me some straw for the roof of my house and I _expect_ your honour will be after doing the same this year." In this manner gifts are frequently turned into tributes. The high and low are not always dissimilar in their habits. It is said, that the Sublime Ottoman Porte is very apt to claim gifts as tributes: thus it is dangerous to send the Grand Seignor a fine horse on his birthday one year, lest on his next birthday he should expect a similar present, and should proceed to demonstrate the reasonableness of his expectations.

[E] _He demeaned himself greatly_--means, he lowered or disgraced himself much.

[F] _Duty fowls, duty turkeys, and duty geese_.--In many leases in Ireland, tenants were _formerly_ bound to supply an inordinate quant.i.ty of poultry to their landlords. The Editor knew of thirty turkeys being reserved in one lease of a small farm.

[G] _English tenants_.--An English tenant does not mean a tenant who is an Englishman, but a tenant who pays his rent the day that it is due. It is a common prejudice in Ireland, amongst the poorer cla.s.ses of people, to believe that all tenants in England pay their rents on the very day when they become due. An Irishman, when he goes to take a farm, if he wants to prove to his landlord that he is a substantial man, offers to become an _English tenant_. If a tenant disobliges his landlord by voting against him, or against his opinion, at an election, the tenant is immediately informed by the agent, that he must become an _English tenant_. This threat does not imply that he is to change his language or his country, but that he must pay all the arrear of rent which he owes, and that he must thenceforward pay his rent on that day when it becomes due.

[H] _Canting_--does not mean talking or writing hypocritical nonsense, but selling substantially by auction.

[I] _Duty work_.--It was formerly common in Ireland to insert clauses in leases, binding tenants to furnish their landlords with labourers and horses for several days in the year. Much petty tyranny and oppression have resulted from this feudal custom. Whenever a poor man disobliged his landlord, the agent sent to him for his duty work; and Thady does not exaggerate when he says, that the tenants were often called from their own work to do that of their landlord. Thus the very means of earning their rent were taken from them: whilst they were getting home their landlord's harvest, their own was often ruined, and yet their rents were expected to be paid as punctually as if their time had been at their own disposal. This appears the height of absurd injustice.

In Esthonia, amongst the poor Sclavonian race of peasant slaves, they pay tributes to their lords, not under the name of duty work, duty geese, duty turkeys, &c., but under the name of _righteousnesses_. The following ballad is a curious specimen of Esthonian poetry:--

"This is the cause that the country is ruined, And the straw of the thatch is eaten away, The gentry are come to live in the land-- Chimneys between the village, And the proprietor upon the white floor!

The sheep brings forth a lamb with a white forehead, This is paid to the lord for a _righteousness sheep_.

The sow farrows pigs, They go to the spit of the lord.

The hen lays eggs, They go into the lord's frying-pan.

The cow drops a male calf, That goes into the lord's herd as a bull.

The mare foals a horse foal, That must be for my lord's nag.

The boor's wife has sons, They must go to look after my lord's poultry."

[J] _Out of forty-nine suits which he had, he never lost one but seventeen_,--Thady's language in this instance is a specimen of a mode of rhetoric common in Ireland. An astonis.h.i.+ng a.s.sertion is made in the beginning of a sentence, which ceases to be in the least surprising, when you hear the qualifying explanation that follows. Thus a man who is in the last stage of staggering drunkenness will, if he can articulate, swear to you--"Upon his conscience now, and may he never stir from the spot alive if he is telling a lie, upon his conscience he has not tasted a drop of any thing, good or bad, since morning at-all-at-all, but half a pint of whiskey, please your honour."

[K] _Fairy Mounts_--Barrows. It is said that these high mounts were of great service to the natives of Ireland when Ireland was invaded by the Danes. Watch was always kept on them, and upon the approach of an enemy a fire was lighted to give notice to the next watch, and thus the intelligence was quickly communicated through the country. _Some years ago_, the common people believed that these barrows were inhabited by fairies, or, as they called them, by the _good people_. "Oh, troth, to the best of my belief, and to the best of my judgment and opinion,"

said an elderly man to the Editor, "it was only the old people that had nothing to do, and got together, and were telling stories about them fairies, but to the best of my judgment there's nothing in it. Only this I heard myself not very many years hack from a decent kind of a man, a grazier, that as he was coming just _fair and easy (quietly)_ from the fair, with some cattle and sheep, that he had not sold, just at the church of ----, at an angle of the road like, he was met by a good-looking man, who asked him where he was going? And he answered, 'Oh, far enough, I must be going all night.' 'No, that you mustn't nor won't (says the man), you'll sleep with me the night, and you'll want for nothing, nor your cattle nor sheep neither, nor your _beast (horse)_; so come along with me.' With that the grazier _lit (alighted)_ from his horse, and it was dark night; but presently he finds himself, he does not know in the wide world how, in a fine house, and plenty of every thing to eat and drink; nothing at all wanting that he could wish for or think of. And he does not _mind (recollect_ or _know_) how at last he falls asleep; and in the morning he finds himself lying, not in ever a bed or a house at all, but just in the angle of the road where first he met the strange man: there he finds himself lying on his back on the gra.s.s, and all his sheep feeding as quiet as ever all round about him, and his horse the same way, and the bridle of the beast over his wrist. And I asked him what he thought of it; and from first to last he could think of nothing, but for certain sure it must have been the fairies that entertained him so well. For there was no house to see any where nigh hand, or any building, or barn, or place at all, but only the church and the _mote (barrow)_. There's another odd thing enough that they tell about this same church, that if any person's corpse, that had not a right to be buried in that church-yard, went to be burying there in it, no, not all the men, women, or childer in all Ireland could get the corpse any way into the church-yard; but as they would be trying to go into the church-yard, their feet would seem to be going backwards instead of forwards; ay, continually backwards the whole funeral would seem to go; and they would never set foot with the corpse in the church-yard. Now they say that it is the fairies do all this; but it is my opinion it is all idle talk, and people are after being wiser now."

The country people in Ireland certainly _had_ great admiration mixed with reverence, if not dread, of fairies. They believed that beneath these fairy mounts were s.p.a.cious subterraneous palaces, inhabited by _the good people_, who must not on any account be disturbed. When the wind raises a little eddy of dust upon the road, the poor people believe that it is raised by the fairies, that it is a sign that they are journeying from one of the fairies' mounts to another, and they say to the fairies, or to the dust as it pa.s.ses, "G.o.d speed ye, gentlemen; G.o.d speed ye." This averts any evil that _the good people_ might be inclined to do them. There are innumerable stories told of the friendly and unfriendly feats of these busy fairies; some of these tales are ludicrous, and some romantic enough for poetry. It is a pity that poets should lose such convenient, though diminutive machinery. By-the-bye, Parnell, who showed himself so deeply "skilled in faerie lore," was an Irishman; and though he has presented his fairies to the world in the ancient English dress of "Britain's isle, and Arthur's days," it is probable that his first acquaintance with them began in his native country.

Some remote origin for the most superst.i.tious or romantic popular illusions or vulgar errors may often be discovered. In Ireland, the old churches and church-yards have been usually fixed upon as the scenes of wonders. Now antiquaries tell us, that near the ancient churches in that kingdom caves of various constructions have from time to time been discovered, which were formerly used as granaries or magazines by the ancient inhabitants, and as places to which they retreated in time of danger. There is (p. 84 of the R.I.A. Transactions for 1789) a particular account of a number of these artificial caves at the west end of the church of Killossy, in the county of Kildare. Under a rising ground, in a dry sandy soil, these subterraneous dwellings were found: they have pediment roofs, and they communicate with each other by small apertures. In the Brehon laws these are mentioned, and there are fines inflicted by those laws upon persons who steal from the subterraneous granaries. All these things show that there was a real foundation for the stories which were told of the appearance of lights, and of the sounds of voices, near these places. The persons who had property concealed there, very willingly countenanced every wonderful relation that tended to make these places objects of sacred awe or superst.i.tious terror.

[L] _Weed-ashes_.--By ancient usage in Ireland, all the weeds on a farm belonged to the farmer's wife, or to the wife of the squire who holds the ground in his own hands. The great demand for alkaline salts in bleaching rendered these ashes no inconsiderable perquisite.

[M] _Sealing money_.--Formerly it was the custom in Ireland for tenants to give the squire's lady from two to fifty guineas as a perquisite upon the sealing of their leases. The Editor not very long since knew of a baronet's lady accepting fifty guineas as sealing money, upon closing a bargain for a considerable farm.

[N] _Sir Murtagh grew mad_.--Sir Murtagh grew angry.

[O] _The whole kitchen was out on the stairs_--means that all the inhabitants of the kitchen came out of the kitchen, and stood upon the stairs. These, and similar expressions, show how much the Irish are disposed to metaphor and amplification.

[P] _Fining down the year's rent_.--When an Irish gentleman, like Sir Kit Rackrent, has lived beyond his income, and finds himself distressed for ready money, tenants obligingly offer to take his land at a rent far below the value, and to pay him a small sum of money in hand, which they call fining down the yearly rent. The temptation of this ready cash often blinds the landlord to his future interest.

[Q] _Driver_.--A man who is employed to drive tenants for rent; that is, to drive the cattle belonging to tenants to pound. The office of driver is by no means a sinecure.

[R] _I thought to make him a priest_.--It was customary amongst those of Thady's rank in Ireland, whenever they could get a little money, to send their sons abroad to St. Omer's, or to Spain, to be educated as priests.

Now they are educated at Maynooth. The Editor has lately known a young lad, who began by being a post-boy, afterwards turn into a carpenter, then quit his plane and work-bench to study his _Humanities_, as he said, at the college of Maynooth; but after he had gone through his course of Humanities, he determined to be a soldier instead of a priest.