The Romany Rye Part 37

The Radical, probably observing something in the writer's eye which he did not like, became all on a sudden abjectly submissive, and, professing the highest admiration for the writer, begged him to visit him in his government; this the writer promised faithfully to do, and he takes the present opportunity of performing his promise.

This is one of the pseudo-Radical calumniators of Lavengro and its author; were the writer on his deathbed he would lay his hand on his heart and say, that he does not believe that there is one trait of exaggeration in the portrait which he has drawn. This is one of the pseudo-Radical calumniators of Lavengro and its author; and this is one of the genus, who, after having railed against jobbery for perhaps a quarter of a century, at present batten on large official salaries which they do not earn. England is a great country, and her interests require that she should have many a well-paid official both at home and abroad; but will England long continue a great country if the care of her interests, both at home and abroad, is in many instances intrusted to beings like him described above, whose only recommendation for an official appointment was that he was deeply versed in the secrets of his party and of the Whigs?

Before he concludes, the writer will take the liberty of saying of Lavengro that it is a book written for the express purpose of inculcating virtue, love of country, learning, manly pursuits, and genuine religion, for example, that of the Church of England, and for awakening a contempt for nonsense of every kind, and a hatred for priestcraft, more especially that of Rome.

And in conclusion, with respect to many pa.s.sages of his book in which he has expressed himself in terms neither measured nor mealy, he will beg leave to observe, in the words of a great poet, who lived a profligate life, it is true, but who died a sincere penitent--thanks, after G.o.d, to good Bishop Burnet--

"All this with indignation I have hurl'd At the pretending part of this proud world, Who, swollen with selfish vanity, devise False freedoms, formal cheats, and holy lies, Over their fellow fools to tyrannize."

ROCHESTER.

Footnotes

{1} Tipperary.

{2} An obscene oath.

{3} See "Muses' Library," pp. 86, 87. London, 1738.

{4} Genteel with them seems to be synonymous with Gentile and Gentoo; if so, the manner in which it has been applied for ages ceases to surprise, for genteel is heathenish. Ideas of barbaric pearl and gold, glittering armour, plumes, tortures, blood-shedding, and l.u.s.t, should always be connected with it. Wace, in his grand Norman poem, calls the Baron genteel:--

"La furent li gentil Baron," etc.

And he certainly could not have applied the word better than to the strong Norman thief, armed cap-a-pie, without one particle of truth or generosity; for a person to be a pink of gentility, that is heathenism, should have no such feelings; and, indeed, the admirers of gentility seldom or never a.s.sociate any such feelings with it. It was from the Norman, the worst of all robbers and miscreants, who built strong castles, garrisoned them with devils, and tore out poor wretches' eyes, as the Saxon Chronicle says, that the English got their detestable word genteel. What could ever have made the English such admirers of gentility, it would be difficult to say; for, during three hundred years, they suffered enough by it. Their genteel Norman landlords were their scourgers, their torturers, the plunderers of their homes, the dishonourers of their wives, and the deflourers of their daughters.

Perhaps, after all, fear is at the root of the English veneration for gentility.

{5} Gentle and gentlemanly may be derived from the same root as genteel; but nothing can be more distinct from the mere genteel, than the ideas which enlightened minds a.s.sociate with these words. Gentle and gentlemanly mean something kind and genial; genteel, that which is glittering or gaudy. A person can be a gentleman in rags, but n.o.body can be genteel.

{6} The writer has been checked in print by the Scotch with being a Norfolk man. Surely, surely, these latter times have not been exactly the ones in which it was expedient for Scotchmen to check the children of any county in England with the place of their birth, more especially those who have had the honour of being born in Norfolk--times in which British fleets, commanded by Scotchmen, have returned laden with anything but laurels from foreign sh.o.r.es. It would have been well for Britain had she had the old Norfolk man to dispatch to the Baltic or the Black sea, lately, instead of Scotch admirals.

{7} As the present work will come out in the midst of a vehement political contest, people may be led to suppose that the above was written expressly for the time. The writer therefore begs to state that it was written in the year 1854. He cannot help adding that he is neither Whig, Tory, nor Radical, and cares not a straw what party governs England, provided it is governed well. But he has no hopes of good government from the Whigs. It is true that amongst them there is one very great man, Lord Palmerston, who is indeed the sword and buckler, the chariots and the horses of the party; but it is impossible for his lords.h.i.+p to govern well with such colleagues as he has--colleagues which have been forced upon him by family influence, and who are continually pestering him into measures anything but conducive to the country's honour and interest. If Palmerston would govern well, he must get rid of them; but from that step, with all his courage and all his greatness, he will shrink. Yet how proper and easy a step it would be! He could easily get better, but scarcely worse, a.s.sociates. They appear to have one object in view, and only one--jobbery. It was chiefly owing to a most flagitious piece of jobbery, which one of his lords.h.i.+p's princ.i.p.al colleagues sanctioned and promoted, that his lords.h.i.+p experienced his late parliamentary disasters.

{8} A fact.