Nuts and Nutcrackers

A NUT FOR REPEAL

When the cholera first broke out in France, a worthy prefect in a district of the south published an edict to the people, recommending them by all means to eat well-cooked and nutritious food, and drink nothing but vin de Bourdeaux, Anglice, claret. The advice was excellent, and I take it upon me to say, would have found very few opponents in fact, as it certainly did in principle. When the world, however, began to consider that filets de bouf à la Marengo, and dindes truffées? washed down with Chateau Lafitte or Larase, were not exactly within the reach of every class of the community, they deemed the prefect’s counsel more humane than practicable, and as they do at every thing in France when the tide of public opinion changes, they laughed at him heartily, and wrote pasquinades upon his folly. At the same time the ridicule was unjust, the advice was good, sound, and based on true principles, the only mistake was, the difficulty of its practice. Had he recommended as an antiseptic to disease, that the people should play short whist, wear red nightcaps, or pelt stones at each other, there might have been good ground for the disfavour he fell into; such acts, however practicable and easy of execution, having manifestly no tendency to avert the cholera. Now this is precisely the state of matters in Ireland at this moment: distress prevails more or less in every province and in every county. The people want employment, and they want food. Had you recommended them to eat strawberries and cream in the morning, to drink lemonade during the day, take a little chicken salad for dinner, with a light bread pudding and a glass of negus afterwards, avoiding all stimulant and exciting food – for your Irishman is a feverish subject – you might be laughed at perhaps for your dietary, but certes it would bear, and bear strongly too, upon the case in question. But what do you do in reality? The local papers teem with cases of distress: families are starving; the poor, unhoused and unfed, are seen upon the road sides exposed to every vicissitude of the season, surrounded by children who cry in vain for bread. What, I ask, is the measure of relief you propose? not a public subscription; no general outburst of national charity – no public work upon a grand scale to give employment to the idle, food to the hungry, health to the sick, and hope to all. None of these. Your panacea is the Repeal of the Union; you purpose to substitute for those amiable jobbers in College-green, who call themselves Directors of the Bank of Ireland, another set of jobbers infinitely more pernicious and really dishonest, who will call themselves Directors of Ireland itself; you talk of the advantage to the country, and particularly of the immense benefits that must accrue to the capital. Let us examine them a little.

Dublin, you say, will be a flourishing city, inhabited by lords and ladies: wealth, rank, and influence will dwell in its houses and parade its streets. The glare of lamps, the crash of carriages, all the pride, pomp, and circumstances of fashion, will flow back upon the long-deserted land, and Paris and London will find a rival to compete with them, in this small city of the west. Would that this were so; would that it could be! This, however, is the extent of what you promise yourselves: you may ring the changes as you please, but the “refrain” of your song is, that Dublin shall “have its own again.” Well, for argument’s sake, I say, be it so. The now silenced squares shall wake to the echoes of thundering equipages, peers and prelates shall again inhabit the dwellings long since the residence of hotel-keepers, or still worse, those little democracies of social life, called boarding-houses. Your theatre shall be crowded, your shops frequented, and every advantage of wealth diffused through all the channels of society, shall be yours. As far as Dublin is concerned, I say – for, mark me, I keep you to this original point, in the land of your promise you have strictly limited the diffusion of your blessings by the boundary of the Circular road; even the people at Ringsend and Ballybough bridge are not to be included, unless a special bill be brought in for their benefit. Still the picture is a brilliant one: it would be a fine thing to see all the pomp and ceremony of proud popery walk the land at noon-day, with its saints in gold, and its relics in silver; for of course this is included in the plan. Prosperous Ireland must be Catholic Ireland, and even Spain and Belgium will hide their diminished heads when compared with the gorgeous homage rendered to popery at home. The “gentlemen of Liffey-street chapel,” far better-looking fellows than any foreign priest you ‘ll meet with from Trolhatten to Tivoli, will walk about in pontificalibus; and all the exciting enthusiasm that Romanism so artfully diffuses through every feature of life, will introduce itself among a people who have all the warm temper and hot blood of the south, with the stern determination and headlong impulse of the north of Europe. By all of which I mean to say, that in points of strong popery, Dublin will beat the world, and that before a year of such prosperity be past, she will have the finest altars, the fattest priests, and the longest catalogue of miractes in Europe. Lord Shrewsbury need not then go to the Tyrol for an “estatica,” he’ll find one nearer home worth twice the money. The shin-bone of St. Januarius, that jumped out of a wooden box in a hackney coach, because a gentleman swore, will be nothing to the scenes we’ll witness; and if St. Patrick should sport his tibia at an evening party of Daniel O’Connell’s, it would not in the least surprise me. These are great blessings, and I am fully sensible of them. Now let me pass on to another, which perhaps I have kept last as it is the chief of all, or as the late Lord Castlereagh would have said, the “fundamental feature upon which my argument hinges.”

A very common topic of Irish eloquence is, to lament over the enormous exportation of cattle, fowl, and fish, that continually goes forward from Ireland into England. I acknowledge the justness of the complaint – I see its force, and appreciate its value. It is exactly as though a grocer should exclaim against his misery, in being compelled to part with his high-flavoured bohea, his sparkling lump sugar, and his Smyrna figs, or our publisher his books, for the base lucre of gain. It is humiliating, I confess; and I can well see how a warm-hearted and intelligent creature, who feels the hardship of an export trade in matters of food, must suffer when the principle is extended to a matter of genius; for, not content with our mutton from Meath, our salmon from Limerick, and our chickens from Carlow; but the Saxon must even be gratified with the soul-stirring eloquence of the Great Liberator himself, with only the trouble of going near St. Stephen’s to hear him. I say near – for among the other tyrannies of the land, he is compelled to shout loud enough to be heard in all the adjacent streets. Now this is too bad. Take our prog – take even our poteen, if you will; but leave us our Penates; this theft, which embodies the antithesis of Shakspeare, is not only “trash,” but “naught enriches them, and makes us poor indeed.”

Repeal the union, and you remedy this. You ‘ll have him at home with you – not masquerading about in the disguise of a gentleman – not restricted by the habits of cultivated and civilised life – not tamed down into the semblance and mockery of good conduct – no longer the chained-up animal of the menagerie, but the roaring, rampant lion, roaming at large in his native forest – not performing antics before some political Van Amburgh – not opening his huge jaws, as though he would devour the Whigs, and shutting them again at the command of his keeper – but howling in all the freedom of his passion, and lashing his brawny sides with his vigorous “tail.” Haydn, the composer, had an enormous appetite; to gratify which, when dining at a tavern, he ordered a dinner for three. The waiter delayed in serving, as he said the company hadn’t yet arrived, but Haydn told him to bring it up at once, remarking, as he patted complacently his paunch, “I am de compagnie myself.” Such will you have the case in your domestic parliament – Dan will be the company himself. No longer fighting in the ranks of opposition, or among the supporters of a government – no more the mere character of a piece, he will then be the Jack Johnson of the political world, taking the money at the door – in which he has had some practice already – he will speak the prologue, lead the orchestra, prompt the performers, and announce a repetition of the farce every night of the week for his own benefit. Only think what he is in England with his “forty thieves” at his back, and imagine what he will be in Ireland without one honest man to oppose him. He will indeed then be well worth seeing, and if Ireland had no other attraction, foreigners might visit us for a look at the Liberator. He is a droll fellow, is Dan, and there is a strong dash of native humour in his notion of repeal. What strange scenes, to be sure, it would conjure up. Only think for a moment of the absentee lord, an exiled peer, coming back to Dublin after an absence of half his lifetime, vainly endeavouring to seem pleased with his condition, and appear happy with his home. Like an insolvent debtor affecting to joke with the jailer, watch him simulating so much as he can of habits he has long forgotten, while his ignorance of his country is such, that he cannot direct his coachman to a street in the capital. What a ludicrous view of life would this open to our view! While all these men, who have been satisfied hitherto to send their sympathies from Switzerland, and their best wishes for Ireland by an ambassador’s bag, should now come back to writhe beneath the scourge of a demagogue, and the tyranny of a man who wields irresponsible power.

All Ireland would present the features of a general election – every one would be fascinating, courteous, affable, and dishonest. The unpopular debater in England might have his windows smashed. With us, it would be his neck would be broken. The excitement of the people will be felt within the Parliament; and then, fostered by all the rancour of party hate, will be returned to them with interest. The measure discussed out of doors by the Liberator, will find no one hardy enough to oppose it within the House, and the opinions of the Corn Exchange will be the programme for a committee. A notice of a motion will issue from Merrion-square, and not from a seat in Parliament; and wherever he moves through the country, great Daniel, like a snail, will carry “his house” on his back. “Rob me the Exchequer, Hal!” will be the cry of the priesthood, and no men are better deserving of their hire; and thus, wielding every implement of power, if Ireland be not happy, he can only have himself to blame for it.

A NUT FOR NATIONAL PRIDE

National Pride must be a strong feeling, and one of the very few sentiments which are not exhausted by the drain upon them; and it is a strange thing, how the very fact upon which one man plumes himself, another would regard as a terrible reproach. A thorough John Bull, as he would call himself, thinks he has summed up, in those few emphatic words, a brief description of all that is excellent in humanity. And as he throws out his chest, and sticks his hand with energy in his breeches pocket, seems to say, “I am not one of your frog-eating fellows, half-monkey, half-tiger, but a true Briton.” The Frenchman, as he proclaims his nation, saying, “Je suis F-r-r-r-rançais” would indicate that he is a very different order of being, from his blunt untutored neighbour, “outre mer;” and so on to the end of the chapter. Germans, Italians, and Spaniards, and even Americans, think there is some magic in the name of their fatherland – some inherent nobility in the soil: and it was only lately I read in a French paper an eloquent appeal from a general to his soldiers, which concluded by his telling them, to remember, that they were “Mexicans.” I devoutly trust that they understood the meaning of his phrase, and were able, without difficulty, to call to mind the bright prerogative alluded to; for upon my conscience, as an honest man, it would puzzle me sorely to say what constitutes a Mexican.

But the absurdity goes further still: for, not satisfied with the bounties of Providence in making us what we are, we must indulge a rancorous disposition towards our neighbours for their less-favoured destiny. “He behaved like a Turk,” is an every-day phrase to indicate a full measure of moral baseness and turpidity. A Frenchman’s abuse can go no farther than calling a man a Chinese, and when he says, “tu es un Pékin,” a duel is generally the consequence. I doubt not that the Turks and the Chinese make use of retributive justice, and treat us no better than we behave to them.

Civilisation would seem rather to have fostered than opposed this prejudice. In the feudal ages, the strength of a brawny right arm, the strong hand that could wield a mace, the firm seat in a saddle, were the qualities most in request; and were physical strength more estimated than the gifts of a higher order, the fine distinctions of national character either did not exist, or were not attended to. Now, however, the tournament is not held on a cloth of gold, but on a broad sheet of paper; the arms are not the lance and the dagger, but the printing-press. No longer a herald in all the splendour of his tabard proclaims the lists, but a fashionable publisher, through the medium of the morning papers, whose cry for largess is to the full as loud. The result is, nations are better known to each other, and, by the unhappy law of humanity, are consequently less esteemed. What signifies the dislike our ancestors bore the French at Cressy or Agincourt compared to the feeling we entertain for them after nigh thirty years of peace? Then, indeed, it was the strong rivalry between two manly natures: now, the accumulated hate of ages is sharpened and embittered by a thousand petty jealousies that have their origin in politics, military glory, society, or literature; and we detest each other like quarterly reviewers. The Frenchman visits England as a Whig commissioner would a Tory institution – only anxious to discover abuses and defects – with an obliquity of vision that sees everything distorted, or a fecundity of imagination that can conjure up the ills he seeks for. He finds us rude, inhospitable, and illiterate; our habits are vulgar, our tastes depraved; our House of Commons is a riotous mob of under-bred debaters; our army an aristocratic lounge, where merit has no chance against money; and our literature – God wot! – a plagiarism from the French. The Englishman is nearly as complimentary. The coarseness of French habits is to him a theme of eternal reprobation; the insolence of the men, the indelicacy of the women, the immorality of all, overwhelm him with shame and disgust: the Chamber of Deputies he despises, as a contemptible parody on a representative body, and a speech from the tribune a most absurd substitute for the freedom of unpremeditated eloquence: the army he discovers to be officered by men, to whom the new police are accomplished gentlemen; and, in fact, he sums up by thinking that if we had no other competitors in the race of civilisation than the French, our supremacy on land, is to the full as safe, as our sovereignty over the ocean. Here lie two countries, separated by a slip of sea not much broader than an American river, who have gone on for ages repeating these and similar puerilities, without the most remote prospect of mutual explanation and mutual good-will.

“I hate prejudice, I hate the French,” said poor Charles Matthews, in one of his inimitable representations, and really the expression was no bad summary of an Englishman’s faith. On the other hand, to hate and detest the English is the sine qua non of French nationality, and to concede to them any rank in literature, morals, or military greatness, is to derogate from the claims of his own country. Now the question is, are the reproaches on either side absolutely just? They are not. Secondly, if they be unfair, how comes it that two people pre-eminently gifted with intelligence and information, should not have come to a better understanding, and that many a long year ago? Simply from this plain fact, that the opinions of the press have weighed against those of individuals, and that the published satires on both sides have had a greater currency and a greater credit than the calm judgment of the few. The leading journals in Paris and in London have pelted each other mercilessly for many a year. One might forgive this, were the attacks suggested by such topics as stimulate and strengthen national feeling; but no, the controversy extends to every thing, and, worse than all, is carried on with more bitterness of spirit, than depth of information. The reviewer “par excellence” of our own country makes a yearly incursion into French literature, as an Indian would do into his hunting-ground. Resolved to carry death and carnage on every side, he arms himself for the chase, and whets his appetite for slaughter by the last “bonne bouche” of the day. We then have some half introductory pages of eloquent exordium on the evil tendency of French literature, and the contamination of those unsettled opinions in politics, religion, and morals, so copiously spread through the pages of every French writer. The revolution of 1797 is adduced for the hundredth time as the origin of these evils; and all the crime and bloodshed of that frightful period is denounced as but the first step of the iniquity which has reached its pinnacle, in the novels of Paul de Kock. To believe the reviewer, French literature consists in the productions of this writer, the works of George Sand, Balzac, Frédéric Soulié, and a few others of equal note and mark. According to him, intrigue, seduction, and adultery, are the staple of French romance: the whole interest of every novel turning on the undiscovered turpitude of domestic life; and the great rivalry between witters, being, to try which can invent a new feature of depravity and a new fashion of sin. Were this true, it were indeed a sad picture of national degradation; was it the fact that such books, and such there are in abundance, composed the light literature of the day – were to be found in every drawing-room – to be seen in every hand – to be read with interest and discussed with eagerness – to have that wide-spread circulation which must ever carry with it a strong influence upon the habits of those who read. Were all this so, I say it would be, indeed, a deplorable evidence of the low standard of civilisation among the French. What is the fact, however? Simply that these books have but a limited circulation, and that, only among an inferior class of readers. The modiste and the grisette are, doubtless, well read in the mysteries of. Paul de Kock and Madame du Deffant; but in the cultivated classes of the capital, such books have no more currency than the scandalous memoirs of our own country have in the drawing-rooms of Grosvenor-square or St. James’s. Balzac has, it is true, a wide-spread reputation; but many of his books are no less marked by a powerful interest than a touching appeal to the fine feelings of our nature. Alfred de Vigny, Eugene Sue, Victor Hugo, Leon Gozlan, Paul de Muset, Alexandre Dumas, and a host of others, are all popular, and, with the exception of a few works, unexceptionable on every ground of morality; but these, after all, are but the skirmishers before the army. What shall we say of Guizot, Thiers, Augustin Thierry, Toqueville, Mignet, and many more, whose contributions to history have formed an era in the literature of the age? The strictures of the reviewers are not very unlike the opinions of the French prisoner, who maintained that in England every one eat with his knife, and the ladies drank gin, which important and veracious facts he himself ascertained, while residing in that fashionable quarter of the town called St. Martin’s lane. This sweeping mode of argument, à particular, is fatal when applied to nations. Even the Americans have suffered in the hands of Mrs. Trollope and others; and gin twist, bowie knives, tobacco chewing, and many similarly amiable habits, are not universal. Once for all, then, be it known, there is no more fallacious way of forming an opinion regarding France and Frenchmen, than through the pages of our periodical press, except by a short residence in Paris – I say short, for if a little learning be a dangerous thing, a little travelling is more so; and it requires long experience of the world, and daily habit of observation, to enable any man to detect in the ordinary routine of life the finer and more distinctive traits that have escaped his neighbour; besides, however palpable and self-evident the proposition, it demands both tact and time to see that no general standard of taste can be erected for all nations, and, that to judge of others by your own prejudices and habits, is both unfair and absurd. To give an instance. No English traveller has commented on the French Chamber of Deputies, without expending much eloquence and a great deal of honest indignation on the practice of speaking from a tribune, written orations being in their opinion a ludicrous travestie on the freedom of debate. Now what is the fact; in the whole French Chamber there are not ten, there are not five men who could address the house extempore; not from any deficiency of ability – not from any want of information, logical force, and fluency – the names of Thiers, Guizot, Lamartine, Dupin, Arago, &c. &c. are quite sufficient to demonstrate this – but simply from the intricacy and difficulty of the French language. A worthy alderman gets up, as the phrase is, and addresses a speech of some three quarters of an hour to the collective wisdom of the livery; and although he may be frequently interrupted by thunders of applause, he is never checked for any solecisms in his grammar: he may drive a coach and six through Lindley Murray; he may inflict heaven knows how many fractures on poor Priscian’s head, yet to criticise him on so mean a score as that of mere diction, would not be thought of for a moment. Not so in France: the language is one of equivoque and subtlety; the misplacement of a particle, the change of a gender, the employment of any phrase but the exact one, might be at any moment fatal to the sense of the speaker, and would inevitably be so to his success. It was not very long since, that a worthy deputy interrupted M. Thiers by alleging the non-sequitur of some assertion, “Vous n’est pas consequent,” cried the indignant member, using a phrase not only a vulgarism in itself, but inapplicable at the time. A roar of laughter followed his interruption. In all the journals of the next day, he was styled the deputy consequent; and when he returned to his constituency the ridicule attached to his blunder still traced his steps, and finally lost him his election.