Part 19
The Union Club, of rhetorical fame, Was held at the Red Lion Inn,[9] And there never was Lion so perfectly tame, Or who made such a musical din. ’Tis pleasant to snore, at a quarter before, When the Chairman does nothing in state, But ’tis heaven, ’tis heaven, to waken at seven, And pray for a noisy debate!
“What’s the question?”--“Reform.” “What! the old story!”--“Yes, the old story; the common good against the Commons’ House; speechifying _versus_ starvation!” “Oh, but you’re a red-hot Radical?”--“Yes, that’s my key; every man is red-hot who is deep read!” “Reform in Parliament?”--“Yes, the only thing men are agreed upon; for the Outs can’t carry it, and the Ins can’t bear it.” “Infamous! split me!”--“Order, order! Gentlemen will be so good as to take their seats. The question for this evening’s debate is: ‘Would Reform in Parliament have been conducive to the welfare of the country at any period previous to the year 1800?’ To be opened by Mr. Pattison of St. John’s.”
And the honourable opener immediately mounts his hobby, and proceeds at a rapid rate over a level road, panting and blowing like a courier. Off he goes! Mounts at Magna Charta, breakfasts with the Long Parliament, dines with William and Anne, and finds himself comfortably at home in the state of the nation.
[10]“We have heard of a time, Mr. President, when England was the envy and the terror of the whole world; we have heard of a time when commerce flourished, and the quartern loaf was sold for a penny-halfpenny; but these things are now altered; bread has risen, as stocks have fallen; we lose time in debates, and we lose men in battle; and are not all these things owing to Mr. Pitt? Unfortunate man! he had it in his power to make his country happy, and he has left it miserable; all of it encumbered with penury and taxation, and half of it fettered by a damnable religious restriction. Yes, Mr. President, from the fear of rebellion and revolution, the Protestants are wretched and spied upon; and from the dread of the Holy Alliance, the Pope, the Pretender, the Arch-Fiend Napoleon, and the Devil, the Catholics are oppressed and persecuted.”
Here the honourable member is jerked from his hobby by an orthodox hiss from the corner, and he sits down among the comments of the crowd. “What do you think of the opener?”--“Why, I think he’s all
Public debts, Epithets, Foul and filthy, good and great, Glorious wars, British tars, Beat and bruise Parlez-vous, Frenzy, frown, Commons, Crown, Ass and pannier, Rule Britannia!-- How I love a loud debate!”
Then the Church shakes her rattle, and sends forth to battle The terror of Papist and sinner, Who loves to be seen as the modern Mæcenas, And asks all the poets to dinner.
[11]“Mr. President,--I rise to express my dissent from the honourable opener with regard to the Catholics. With respect to the question of debate, my sentiments are entirely those of the late Charles James Fox. He was a man adorned by every manly virtue that can adorn and dignify a man--_Propria quæ maribus tribuuntur, mascula dicas_. But with regard to the Catholics, when I remember the times of the Bloody Queen Mary, when I call to mind the horrible massacres she perpetrated--the helpless old women that were depopulated--I cannot sufficiently restrain my feelings to hear the Catholics commended without expressing my dissent.”
Then the gentleman Attic, with tales Asiatic And body that bends with a grace, The maker of jeers that led us for years, The prime Staple-Ton of the place.
[12]“Mr. President,--From the look of virtuous indignation with which the honourable gentleman arose from his seat, I expected to have heard something worthy of a Blair or a Benson, a Confucius or a Nebuchadnezzar; but lo! when my hopes were wrought up to the highest pitch, the honourable gentleman has suddenly reseated himself, and I do not even understand the purport of his sudden ebullition. Once upon a time a sudden darkness overspread the town of Ching-Chong-Foo; the sun and the moon and the stars were hidden, all business was suspended, all hearts were astounded. The mathematician Sing-Su said it was an eclipse; the Bishop Chit-Quong said it was the Devil; and the Chancellor Hum-lum said that he doubted: when suddenly there flew down from the skies, extending his wings over all the city, a stupendous cock; he soared majestically down--sullenly--slowly; and when they expected from him the voice of Azrael the Destroyer, or the Mandate of Mahomet the Prophet, he said--nothing, Mr. President, but Cock-a-doodle-doo!”
“Why the devil do you laugh?”--“Laugh! why because it’s all
Indian Stories, Damn the Tories, None but he can rule the State, Wise magicians, Politicians, Foreign lands, Kings and wands, Fiends and fairies, Dromedaries, Laugh at Boodle’s, Cock-a-doodles-- How I love a loud debate!”
Then up gets a youth with a visage of truth, An omen of good to our islands, Who promises health and abundance of wealth To our Oatlands, and Wheatlands, and Ryelands.
[13]“Mr. President,--I had not intended to address you on the present question; but some observations which have been made on the character of George the Third prevent me from remaining silent. If I use any strong expressions, I trust they will be attributed to the violence of my feelings.” (Refers to a paper.) “When I remember, Sir, that in the reign of George the Third the purest blessings of Heaven were shed upon us, and that Mr. Pitt was Prime Minister; that the powers of darkness were scattered before us, and that the combined fleets of France and Spain were defeated--above all, when I reflect that all the nine Muses migrated from Pindus to England, and that Mr. Southey was the Poet Laureate--I cannot help saying that George the Third, who reigned so gloriously, and lived to an advanced period of life, was very wise, very prudent, and very triumphant. In short, Sir, I do not fear to affirm that he was very good.”
And the honourable gentleman halts as systematically as a posthorse knocked up or a timepiece run down. “Very perfect in his lesson!”--“Oh, very! but it’s all
Sigh and simper, Whine and whimper, Kings and princes, Church and State; Cut and dried, Ill applied, Nightly taper, Pen and paper, Audience dozing, How composing! Would ’twere shorter! Milk and water!-- How I love a loud debate!”
But the favourite comes, with his trumpets and drums, And his arms and his metaphors crossed; And the audience--Ο dear!--vociferate “Hear!” Till they’re half of them deaf as a post.
And the honourable gentleman, after making the grand tour in a hand canter, touching cursorily upon Rome, Constantinople, Amsterdam, Philadelphia, and the Red Sea; with two quotations, two or three hundred similes, and two or three hundred thousand metaphors, proceeds to the tune of
[14]“We, Mr. President, have indeed awful examples to direct us or deter. Have we not seen the arms of the mighty overpowered, and the counsels of the wise confounded? Have not the swords of licentious conquest, and the fasces of perverted law, covered Europe with blood, and tears, and mourning? Have not priests and princes and nobles been driven in beggary and exile to implore the protection of rival thrones and hostile altars? Where is the sacred magnificence of Rome? Where the wealth and independence of Holland? Where the proud titles of the German Cæsars? Where the mighty dynasty of Bourbon? But is there yet one nation which has retained unimpaired its moral and political strength? One nation, whose shores have ever been accessible to a suppliant, and never to an enemy? One nation which, while the banners of her foes have been carried in triumph to half the capitals of the world, has seen them only suspended over her shrines as trophies? One nation, which, while so many cities have been a prey to hostile fires, has never seen her streets lighted up but with the blaze of victorious illumination? History and posterity will reply, ‘That country was England.’ Let them not talk to us of their philosophy and their philanthropy, their reason and their rights! We know too well the oratory of their Smithfield meetings, and the orgies of their midnight clubs! We have seen the weapons which arm, and the spirit which nerves them. We have heard the hyæna howl, till the raving which excited dismay provokes nothing but disgust. Amid the railings of disappointed ambition, and the curses of factious hate; amid the machinations of the foully wicked, and the sophistries of the would-be wise, we will cling to our fathers’ banner--we will rally round our native rock. Mr. President, that banner is the Charta of our rights--that Rock is the British Constitution!”
“Bravo!” “Can’t say I quite caught the line of argument.” “Argument! Fiddlestick! Quite gone out except for opponencies; and then for the language, and the feeling, and the style, and all that sort of thing--oh! nobody can deny that it was all
Oratoric, Metaphoric, Similes of wondrous length; Illustration, Conflagration, Ancient Romans, House of Commons, Clever Uriel And Ithuriel, Good old king, Everything!-- How I love a loud debate!”
With his sayings and saws, his hems and his haws, Another comes up to the scratch; While Deacon and Law unite in a yaw! [_Yawning._ And the President looks at his watch.
And the honourable gentleman, after making a long journey and plunging up to his knees in dirt, bog, and quagmire; after taking up many strong positions and much valuable time, after bruising the Bishops and the table, and twisting his argument and his sleeve in twenty different ways, proceeds to wake the members with a joke.
[15]“Mr. President,--I am out of all patience when I hear the poor abused because they wish to reform the Constitution. Why, when you have taken from them all they have got, and all they hope to get, what can they do? Why, they complain, to be sure; and as soon as they complain, like the poor fellow who was tried for stealing a pair of leather breeches, and found guilty of manslaughter, the unfortunate rabble--though why they are called rabble the Attorney-General only knows, I’m sure I don’t--but, as I said before, the unfortunate rabble are prosecuted upon _ex officio_ informations, or persecuted by a Bridge Street gang, which I look upon as a combination of fiends against our Constitution--that is, what we’ve got left of it, which to be sure is but little, whatever the honourable gentlemen opposite may think, who seem to be very much amused at the idea--but as I said before, the unfortunate rabble, like the poor fellow who was tried for stealing a pair of leather breeches and found guilty of manslaughter, is tried for high treason and found guilty of being ragged, and so is hung, fined, imprisoned, or sent to Botany Bay, or Australasia as the Vice-Chancellor calls it, according to the will and pleasure of His Majesty’s Attorney and Solicitor-General. But the honourable gentleman would let the poor starve, while the rich take coffee and snuff, talk religion, and buy into the stocks; provided my Lord this and my Lord that may keep their mistresses and their boroughs, all the scum, all the _canaille_ may be cut down by the dozen. The honourable gentleman cares no more for the poor than the country gentleman did--a good, honest, well-meaning man--who lost so many turnips that he wanted to make turnip-stealing a capital offence. The country gentleman and the honourable gentleman argue on the same ground--they are on the same bench--there they are!”
“Bravo!” “Bravo!” “Pray, Sir, how long has that young gentleman been on his legs?”--“Really I can’t tell, 1 was so much amused at his
Admirable, Bang the table, ‘Sir, although its getting late,’ Opposition, Repetition, Endless speeches, Leather breeches, Taxes, hops, Turnip-tops, Leather ’em, lather ’em, Omnium-gatherum-- How I love a loud debate!”
Mr. Punnett, whose vows are put up for the House As if he was born to the trade, Would chafe if we close with the ayes and the noes, And break up before we have--prayed!
And accordingly, after the honourable gentleman has abused, _ad libitum_, all persons not freeholders who wish to have votes, and told us, “as for such people, now we have got ’em down, keep ’em down;” he is succeeded by the laureate jester of the society. The honourable gentleman plunges into a sea of puns, passes a few modest strictures on the freedom of the press, likens Frederick the Great to a thief, and Mr. Bartholomew to the devil; and at last betakes himself, like all poets, to abusing his friends.
[16]“Not being disposed, Mr. President, to pun it in a decidedly personal manner through any more of the honourable gentleman’s speech, I proceed to say a few words in reply to my honourable friend who preceded him. But I conceive, Mr. President, when I see how much the table of the House has suffered from the fist of the honourable gentleman, I may be somewhat afraid of the knock-down arguments of my honourable friend. Let him not commit violence on our persons or our property; let him not frighten the freshman or annihilate the Soph. He is already the Ord of this House, let him not make himself the Lord of it; we give him an inch, let him not take an ‘L.’ But I conceive, Sir, that my honourable friend will attend to no suggestion of mine. He is a Republican, a Radical, a Revolutionist, a Fury, a Firebrand; but, however hot may be the doctrines he now advocates, I would whisper in his ear: ‘You were once something far more reasonable; yes, though you may now be a rioter or a regicide, yet, as the poet says, You were a Whig, and thereby hangs a tale!’ I have detained the House too long, and will make haste to conclude. I have been censured for mixing too much of the ludicrous with the debates of the House. It has been said of me that the thread of my argument is drawn from the tassel of my cap, that the point of my jokes is drawn from the belles of Barnwell. Mr. President, I plead guilty to the charges, and the House must be well aware that the insignia of my profession were never anything but the cap and bells!”
Quite divine Peregrine, Never shall we see his mate; Fun and flams, Epigrams, Leering, lying, Versifying, Nodding, noting, Quibbling, quoting, ‘Thief!’ and ‘Bore!’ ‘Lie!’ no more-- How I love a loud debate!”
Then up gets the glory of us and our story, Who does all by logic and rule, Who can tell the true diff’rence ’twixt twopence and threepence, And prove Adam Smith quite a fool.
[17]“Mr. President,--I had intended to have addressed the meeting at considerable length, but as the ground I meant to occupy has been entirely and successfully anticipated by my honourable friends, I shall not dwell upon the crying and terrible demand there is for Parliamentary Reform, but shall confine my observations to the existing aggression of France upon Spain. For it is not so much the question whether France or Spain shall be victorious; it is not so much the question whether that ‘alter Achilles,’ the Duke d’Angoulême, with his miserable and half-starved myrmidons, or General Mina and his patriots, shall be vanquished; the question is, whether the nefarious and accursed principles of foreign aggression and tyranny, the principles of despotism and usurpation, shall triumph eternally over the principles of freedom; whether worse than Scythian ignorance and barbarism shall crush the progress of science and enlightened understanding; whether that holy knot of confederated despots (who I trust in heaven will ere long meet their well-earned reward of the halter)--whether they are to dictate laws and constitutions to the rest of mankind; whether that hellish power which has crushed the freedom and trampled on the genius of Italy shall crush the freedom and trample on the genius of the rest of the world; whether we, who boast ourselves freeborn Englishmen, shall tamely look on and see the rights of nations and the rights of man assaulted and violated; whether we are to listen with submission and humility to the insolent decrees of the Autocrat of the Russias; whether we are to cringe and subscribe to the proclamation of a semi-barbarian who dares to issue his mandate to the world--a mandate which is nothing but an ignorant tissue of Syrio-Calmuc jargon and cacophony.”
But Lord! Sir, you ask a more difficult task That aught in the son-shop of Burchill, If you ask me to dish up, like many a Bishop, The eminent words of the Church-ill!
[18]“Mr. President,--The honourable opener of this debate called Mr. Pitt an unfortunate man; now I think him a very fortunate man. He went about, like Jeremy Diddler, borrowing sixpence from every one who was fool enough to lend him, and died before he was called on to refund. We have heard the prosperous state of the country referred to. Now, Sir, everybody that can pay for his passage is going to the Cape; for though a man likes his bed, he leaves it when he finds it full of fleas. The distresses of England have also been alluded to. Now, Sir, with regard to Lord George Gordon’s riots, they were like Tom Thumb’s giants--the Minister made the riots first, and then he quelled them.”
“Does any other honourable gentleman wish to address the House? I shall proceed to put the question. It is carried that Parliamentary Reform would not be beneficial, by a majority of 77 to 13. (Hear! hear! hear!) There is a motion on the boards, ‘That an adequate supply of chairs for the reading-room be provided--proposed by Mr. Moore, of Caius.’”
[19]“Mr. President,--It is not often that I rise to address this society; nor should I on the present occasion, but that I see so strong a necessity for interference, that I should deem it a dereliction of my duty were I to remain silent. In those things which regard our intellectual and moral improvement, this society should be more especially attentive to its interests; but I have observed with regret and concern that there is by no means an adequate supply of chairs in our reading-room, and I therefore move that a fit supply be immediately procured.”
[20]“Mr. President,--I have observed with great satisfaction the interest which the honourable gentleman takes in the welfare of this society; but as in an inn, where there are nine beds, and ten travellers to sleep in them, one bed must carry double or one traveller must go without; so, in the present case, if upon any occasion the honourable gentleman should find ten chairs in the reading-room occupied by ten individuals, I should recommend him to make them determine by lot which of them shall hold him on his knees!”
“Well, Sir, what do you think of the Union?”--“Why, Sir, I think it’s all
Bow, wow, What a row, Money lost, and laurels earned; Constitution, Elocution, Whig and Tory, Oratory, Hauling, bawling, ‘Order’ calling, Headache, dizziness, No more business-- Sirs, the meeting is adjourned.”
MY FIRST FOLLY.
“L’imagination grossit souvent les plus petits objets par une estimation fantastique jusqu’à remplir notre âme.”--PENSÉES DE PASCAL.
“I have spent all my golden time, In writing many a loving rime: I have consumed all my youth In vowing of my faith and trueth; Ο willow, willow, willow tree, Yet can I not beleeved bee.”--OLD BALLAD.
“Do you take trifle?” said Lady Olivia to my poor friend Halloran.
“No, Ma’am, I am reading philosophy,” said Halloran; waking from a fit of abstraction, with about as much consciousness and perception as exists in a petrified oyster, or an alderman dying of a surfeit. Halloran is a fool.
A trifle is the one good thing, the sole and surpassing enjoyment. He only is happy who can fix his thoughts, and his hopes, and his feelings, and his affections, upon those fickle and fading pleasures, which are tenderly cherished and easily forgotten, alike acute in their excitement and brief in their regret. Trifles constitute my _summum bonum_. Sages may crush them with the heavy train of argument and syllogism; schoolboys may assail them with the light artillery of essay and of theme; Members of Parliament may loathe, doctors of divinity may contemn--bag wigs and big wigs, blue devils and blue stockings, sophistry and sermons, reasonings and wrinkles, Solon, Thales, Newton’s “Principia,” Mr. Walker’s “Eidouranion,” the King’s Bench, the bench of Bishops--all these are serious antagonists; very serious! But I care not; I defy them; I dote upon trifles; my name is Vyvyan Joyeuse, and my motto is “Vive la Bagatelle!”
There are many persons who, while they have a tolerable taste for the frivolous, yet profess remorse and penitence for their indulgence of it; and continually court and embrace new day-dreams, while they shrink from the retrospect of those which have already faded. Peace be to their everlasting laments and their ever-broken resolutions! Your true trifler, meaning your humble servant, is a being of a very different order. The luxury which I renew in the recollection of the past is equal to that which I feel in the enjoyment of the present, or create in the anticipation of the future. I love to count and recount every treasure I have flung away, every bubble I have broken; I love to dream again the dreams of my boyhood, and to see the visions of departed pleasures flitting, like Ossian’s ghosts, around me, “with stars dim twinkling through their forms.” I look back with delight to a youth which has been idled away, to tastes which have been perverted, to talents which have been misemployed; and while in imagination I wander back through the haunts of my old idlesse, for all the learning of a Greek professor, for all the morality of Sir John Sewell, I would not lose one single point of that which has been ridiculous and grotesque, nor one single tint of that which has been beautiful and beloved.
Moralists and misanthropists, maidens with starched morals and matrons with starched frills, ancient adorers of Bohea and scandal, venerable votaries of whispering and of whist, learned professors of the compassionate sneer and the innocent innuendo, eternal pillars of gravity and good order, of stupidity and decorum--come not near me with your spare and spectacled features, your candid and considerate criticism. In you I have no hope, in me you have no interest. I am to speak of stories you will not believe, of beings you cannot love; of foibles for which you have no compassion, of feelings in which you have no share.