Tales and Novels Volume IV Part 9

"The council of war was sitting when I received the honour of your letters. We have unanimously resolved not to surrender the place until we shall have been buried in its ruins," &c.

One step further in hyperbole is reserved for him, who, being buried, carries about his own sepulchre.

"To live a life half dead, a living death, And buried; but oh, yet more miserable!

Myself my sepulchre, a moving grave!"

No person, if he heard this pa.s.sage for the first time from the lips of an Irishman, could hesitate to call it a series of bulls; yet these lines are part of the beautiful complaint of Samson Agonistes on his blindness. Such are the hyperboles sanctioned by the genius, or, what with some judges may have more influence, the name of Milton. The bounds which separate sublimity from bombast, and absurdity from wit, are as fugitive as the boundaries of taste. Only those who are accustomed to examine and appraise literary goods are sensible of the prodigious change that can be made in their apparent value by a slight change in the manufacture. The absurdity of a man's swearing he was killed, or declaring that he is now dead in a ditch, is revolting to common sense; yet the _living death_ of Dapperwit, in the "Rape of the Lock," is not absurd, but witty; and representing men as dying many times before their death is in Shakspeare sublime:

"Cowards die many times before their death; The brave can never taste of death but once."

The most direct contradictions in words do not (_in English writers_) destroy the eflect of irony, wit, pathos, or sublimity.

In the cla.s.sic ode on Eton College, the poet exclaims--

"To each their sufferings, all are men Condemned alike to groan; The feeling for another's pain, Th' _unfeeling_ for their own."

Who but a half-witted dunce would ask how those that are unfeeling can have sufferings? When Milton in melodious verse inquires,

"Who shall tempt with _wandering feet_ The dark _unbottom'd_ infinite abyss, And through the _palpable obscure_ find out His uncouth way!"--

what Zoilus shall dare interrupt this flow of poetry to object to the palpable obscure, or to ask how feet can wander upon that which has no bottom?

It is easy, as Tully has long ago observed, to fix the brand of ridicule upon the _verb.u.m ardens_ of orators and poets--the "Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn."

CHAPTER VII.

PRACTICAL BULLS.

As we have not hitherto been successful in finding original Irish bulls in language, we must now look for them in conduct. A person may be guilty of a solecism without uttering a single syllable--"That man has been guilty of a solecism with his hand," an ancient critic said of an actor, who had pointed his hand upwards when invoking the infernal G.o.ds.

"You may act a lie as well as speak one," says Wollaston. Upon the same, principle, the Irish may be said to act, as well as to utter bulls. We shall give some instances of their practical bulls, which we hope to find unmatched by the blunders of all other nations. Most people, whether they be savage or civilized, can contrive to revenge themselves upon their enemies without blundering; but the Irish are exceptions.

They cannot even do this without _a bull_. During the late Irish rebellion, there was a banker to whom they had a peculiar dislike, and on whom they had vowed vengeance: accordingly they got possession of as many of his bank-notes as they could, and made a bonfire of them! This might have been called a feu de joie, perhaps, but certainly not un feu d'artifice; for nothing could show less art than burning a banker's notes in order to destroy his credit. How much better do the English understand the arts of vengeance! Captain Drinkwater[45] informs us, that during the siege of Gibraltar, the English, being half famished, were most violently enraged against the Jews, who withheld their stores of provision, and made money of the public distress--a crime _never committed except by Jews:_ at length the fleet relieved the besieged, and as soon as the provisions were given out, the English soldiers and sailors, to revenge themselves upon the Jews, burst open their stores, and actually roasted a pig at a fire made of cinnamon. There are other persons, as well as the Irish, who do not always understand their own interests where their pa.s.sions are concerned. That great warrior, Hyder Ali, once lost a battle by a practical bull. Being encamped within sight of the British, he resolved to give them a high idea of his forces and of his artillery; for this purpose, before the engagement,[46] he ordered his army to march early, and conveying some large pieces of cannon to the top of a hill, he caused them to be pointed at the English camp, which they reached admirably well, and occasioned a kind of disorder and haste in striking and removing tents, &c. Hyder, delighted at having thus insulted the English, caused all his artillery, even the very smallest pieces, to be drawn up the hill for the purpose of making a vain parade, though the greater part of the b.a.l.l.s could never reach the English: he imagined he should give the enemy a high idea of his forces, and intimidate them by showing all his artillery, and the vivacity with which it was worked; and in order that his intention might be answered, he encouraged the soldiers himself, by giving money to the cannoneers of those pieces that appeared to be the best served.

The English presently, after this farce was over, obliged Hyder to come down from labour-in-vain hill and to give them battle in earnest. As the historian observes, "The ridiculous cannonade at the top of the hill had exhausted his ammunition, his great guns were useless to him, and he lost the day by his premature rejoicings before the battle." A still more ancient precedent for this preposterous practical bull, of rejoicing for an antic.i.p.ated victory, was given by Xerxes, we believe, who brought with him an immense block of marble, on which he intended to inscribe the date and manner of his victory over the Greeks. When Xerxes was defeated, the Greeks dedicated this stone to Nemesis, the G.o.ddess of vengeance. But Xerxes was in the habit of making practical bulls, such as whipping the sea, and begging pardon for it afterwards; throwing fetters into the h.e.l.lespont as a token of subjugation, and afterwards expiating his offence by an offering of a golden cup and Persian scimetar.

To such blunders can the pa.s.sions betray the most renowned heroes, although they had not the misfortune to have been born in Ireland.

The impatience which induced Hyder Ali to antic.i.p.ate victory is not confined to military men and warlike operations; if we descend to common life and vulgar business, we shall find the same disposition even in the precincts of Change-alley: those who bargained for South Sea stock, that was not actually forthcoming, were called _bears_, in allusion to the practice of the hunters of bears in Canada, who were accustomed to bargain for the skin of the bear before it was caught; but whence the correlative term _bull_ is derived we are at a loss to determine, and we must also leave it to the mercantile speculators of England to explain why gentlemen call themselves bulls of wheat and bulls of coals: all we can say is, that these are not Irish bulls. There is one distinguished peculiarity of the Irish bull--_its horns are tipped with bra.s.s_.[47]

It is generally supposed that persons who have been dipped in the Shannon[48] are ever afterwards endowed with a supernatural portion of what is called, by enemies, impudence or a.s.surance, by friends, self-possession or _civil courage_. These invulnerable mortals are never oppressed with _mauvaise honte_, that malady which keeps the faculties of the soul under imaginary imprisonment. A well-dipped Irishman, on the contrary, can move, speak, think, like Demosthenes, with as much ease, when the eyes of numbers are upon him, as if the spectators were so many cabbage-stalks. This virtue of _civil courage_ is of inestimable value in the opinion of the best judges. The great Lord Verulam--no one, by-the-by, could be a better judge of its value than he, who wanted it so much--the great Lord Verulam declares, that if he were asked what is the first, second, and third thing necessary to success in public business, he should answer boldness, boldness, boldness. Success to the nation which possesses it in perfection! Bacon was too acute and candid a philosopher not to acknowledge, that like all the other goods of life this same boldness has its countervailing disadvantages.

"Certainly," says he, "to men of great judgment, bold persons are a sport to behold; nay, and to the vulgar, boldness hath somewhat of the ridiculous; for if absurdity be the subject of laughter, doubt you not but great boldness is seldom without some absurdity; especially it is a sport to see when a bold fellow is out of countenance, for that puts his face into a most shrunken and wooden posture, as needs it must."

The man, however, who possesses boldness in perfection, can never be put out of countenance, and consequently can never exhibit, for the sport of his enemies, a face in this wooden posture. It is the deficiency, and not the excess of this quality, that is to be feared. Civil boldness without military courage would, indeed, be somewhat ridiculous: but we cannot accuse the Irish of any want of military courage; on the contrary, it is supposed in England, that an Irishman is always ready _to give any gentleman satisfaction_, even when none is desired.

At the close of the American war, as a n.o.ble lord of high naval character was returning home to his family after various escapes from danger, he was detained a day at Holyhead by contrary winds. Reading in a summer-house, he heard the well-known sound of bullets whistling near him: he looked about, and found that two b.a.l.l.s had just pa.s.sed through the door close beside him; he looked out of the window, and saw two gentlemen who were just charging their pistols again, and, as he guessed that they had been shooting at a mark upon the door, he rushed out, and very civilly remonstrated with them on the imprudence of firing at the door of a house without having previously examined whether any one was withinside. One of them immediately answered, in a tone which proclaimed at once his disposition and his country, "Sir, I did not know you were within there, and I don't know who you are now; but if I've given offence, I am willing," said he, holding out the ready-charged pistols, "to give you the _satisfaction of a gentleman_--take your choice."

With his usual presence of mind the n.o.ble lord seized hold of both the pistols, and said to his astonished countryman, "Do me the justice, sir, to go into that summer-house, shut the door, and let me have two shots at you; then we shall be upon equal terms, and I shall be quite at your service to give or receive the _satisfaction of a gentleman_."

There was an air of drollery and of superiority in his manner which at once struck and pleased the Hibernian. "Upon my conscience, sir, I believe you are a very honest fellow," said he, looking him earnestly in the face, "and I have a great mind to shake hands with you. Will you only just tell me who you are?"

The n.o.bleman told his name--a name dear to every Briton and every Irishman.

"I beg your pardon, and that's what no man ever accused me of doing before," cried the gallant Hibernian; "and had I known who you were, I would as soon have _shot my own soul_ as have fired at the door. But how could I tell who was withinside?"

"That is the very thing of which I complain," said his lords.h.i.+p.

His candid opponent admitted the justice of the complaint as soon as he understood it, and he promised never more to be guilty of such a practical bull.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE DUBLIN s...o...b..ACK.

Upon looking over our last chapter on practical bulls, we were much concerned to find that we have so few Irish and so many foreign blunders. It is with still more regret we perceive, that notwithstanding our utmost diligence, we have not yet been able to point out the distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristic of an Irish bull. But to compensate for this disappointment we have devised a syllogism, which some people may prefer to an a priori argument, to prove irrefragably, that the Irish are blunderers.

After the instances we have produced, chapter 6th, of the _verb.u.m ardens_ of English and foreign poets, and after the resemblance that we have pointed out betwixt certain figures of rhetoric and the Irish bull, we have little reason to fear that the candid and enlightened reader should object to our major.

_Major_.--Those who use figurative language are disposed to make bulls.

_Minor_.--The Irish use figurative language.

_Conclusion_.--Therefore the Irish are disposed to make bulls.

We proceed to establish the truth of our minor, and the first evidence we shall call is a Dublin s...o...b..ack. He is not in circ.u.mstances peculiarly favourable for the display of figurative language; he is in a court of justice, upon his trial for life or death. A quarrel happened between two s...o...b..acks, who were playing at what in England is called pitch-farthing, or heads and tails, and in Ireland, head or harp. One of the combatants threw a small paving stone at his opponent, who drew out the knife with which he used to sc.r.a.pe shoes, and plunged it up to the hilt in his companion's breast. It is necessary for our story to say, that near the hilt of this knife was stamped the name of Lamprey, an eminent cutler in Dublin. The s...o...b..ack was brought to trial. With a number of significant gestures, which on his audience had all the powers that Demosthenes ascribes to action, he, in a language not purely Attic, gave the following account of the affair to his judge.

"Why, my l_a_rd, as I was going past the Royal Exchange I meets Billy.

'Billy,' says I, 'will you sky a copper?' 'Done,' says he; 'Done,' says I; and done and done's enough between two jantlemen. With that I ranged them fair and even with my hook-em-snivey--up they go. 'Music!' says he--'Skulls!' says I; and down they come, three brown mazards. 'By the holy! you flesh'd 'em,' says he. 'You lie,' says I. With that he ups with a lump of a two year old, and lets drive at me. I outs with my bread-earner, and gives it him up to Lamprey in the bread-basket."

To make this intelligible to the English, some comments are necessary.

Let us follow the text, step by step, and it will afford our readers, as Lord Kames says of Blair's Dissertation on Ossian, a delicious morsel of criticism.

_As I was going past the Royal Exchange I meets Billy._

In this apparently simple exordium, the scene and the meeting with Billy are brought before the eye by the judicious use of the present tense.

_Billy, says I, will you sky a copper?_

A copper! genus pro specie! the generic name of copper for the base individual halfpenny.

_Sky a copper._

_To sky_ is a new verb, which none but a master hand could have coined: a more splendid metonymy could not be applied upon a more trivial occasion; the lofty idea of raising a metal to the skies is subst.i.tuted for the mean thought of tossing up a halfpenny. Our orator compresses his hyperbole into a single word. Thus the mind is prevented from dwelling long enough upon the figure to perceive its enormity. This is the perfection of the art. Let the genius of French exaggeration and of eastern hyperbole hide their diminished heads--Virgil is scarcely more sublime.