Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 3 (of 3)

One of these medical gentlemen, however, – a fair, square, straightforward, skilful nosologist, – could not bring himself so easily to give up the baronet: he returned; and by dint of medicamenta, phlebotomy, blistering, leeching, cupping, smothering in vapour, &c. &c. (the pains of the patient’s mind, meanwhile, being overcome by the pains of his body) the doctor at last got him thorough the thing (as they say in Ireland). He was not, however, quite free from the danger of a relapse; and an unlucky flask extraordinary of “Epernay sec” (taken to celebrate his recovery) set Sir John’s solids and fluids again fermenting, knocked down his convalescence, which Dr. T – had so indefatigably re-established, and introduced a certain inflammatory gentleman called fever.

The clergy were now summoned, and attended with an extra quantity of oil and water to lighten and prepare the baronet’s soul for speedy transportation; some souls, they said, and I believe truly, being much easier put into dying order than others. The skill of Doctor T – , however, once more preserved his patient for further adventures, and both physician and baronet agreed that, as the priests had done his body none, and his soul no perceptible service, and as holy men were of course above all lust of lucre, there was no necessity for cashing them; so that the contemplated fees for masses should in strict justice be transferred to prescriptions. A few more plenteous bleedings were therefore substituted for extreme unction: with the aid of a sound natural constitution, Sir John once more found himself on his legs; and having but little flesh, and no fat, his shanks had not much difficulty in carrying his body moderate distances.

At the last bleeding, the incident occurred to which the foregoing is but matter of induction. The blood which the doctor had just extracted from the baronet was about twenty ounces of genuine ruby Galway gore, discharged unadulterated from the veins of a high-crested, aboriginal Irishman. It lay proudly basking and coagulating before the sun in china basins, at the chamber-window. Sir John seeming still rather weak, the physician determined to bring all his skill into a focus, discover the latent source of indisposition, and if possible at once root it out of the baronet’s constitution, thereby gaining the double advantage of increasing professional fame and the amount of his fees. Now, at precisely the same point of time, the baronet was inventing an apology for not paying the doctor.

After musing some time, as every physician in the world does, whether he is thinking of the patient or not, Doctor T – said, “Pray, let me see your tongue, Sir John.”

“My tongue!” exclaimed the baronet, “ah! you might be greatly disappointed by that organ; there’s no depending on tongues now-a-days, doctor!”

“Yet the tongue is very symptomatic, I can assure you, Sir John,” pursued the doctor gravely.

“Possibly, in your part of the world,” replied the baronet. “But I do assure you, we place very little reliance on tongues in my country.”

“You know best,” said the doctor coolly: “then, pray let me feel your pulse, Sir John,” looking steadfastly on his stop-watch, counting the seconds and the throbs of the Milesian artery. “Heyday! why, your pulse is not only irregular, but intermits!”

“I wish my remittances did not,” remarked Sir John, mournfully, and thinking he had got an excellent opportunity of apologising to the doctor.

The latter, however, had no idea of any roundabout apologies (never having been in Ireland), and resumed: “your remittances! ah, ah, Sir John! But seriously, your pulse is all astray; pray, do you feel a pain any where?”

“Why, doctor,” said Sir John, (sticking in like manner to his point,) “whenever I put my hand into my breeches-pocket, I feel a confounded twitch, which gives me very considerable uneasiness, I assure you.”

“Hah!” said the doctor, conceiving he had now discovered some new symptom about the femoral artery – “are you sure there’s nothing in your pocket that hurts you, Sir John? – Perhaps some – ”

“O no, doctor,” said the baronet rather impatiently; “there’s nothing at all in my pocket, Doctor T – .”

“Then the twitch may be rather serious,” and the doctor looked knowing, although he was still at fault concerning the éclaircissement. “It is a singular symptom. Do you feel your head at all heavy, Sir John – a sensation of weight?”

“Not at all,” replied the other: – “my head is (except my purse) the lightest thing I possess at present.”

The disciple of Galen still supposed Sir John was jesting as to his purse, inasmuch as the plum-coloured vis-a-vis, with arms, crests, and mantlings to match – with groom, geldings, and the baronet’s white Arabian, still remained at the Hotel de Wagram, Rue de la Paix.

“Ha! ha! Sir John,” cried he, “I am glad to see you in such spirits.”

Nothing, however, either as to the malady or the fees being fully explained, it at length flashed across the doctor’s comprehension that the baronet might possibly be in downright earnest as to his remittances. Such a thought must, under the circumstances, have a most disheartening effect on the contour of any medical man in Europe. On the first blush of this fatal suspicion the doctor’s features began to droop – his eyebrows descended, and a sort of in utrumque paratus look, that many of my readers must have borne when expecting a money letter, but not quite sure it may not be an apology, overspread his countenance, while his nasal muscles puckering up (as in the tic douloureux), seemed to quaver between a smile and a sardonic grin.

Sir John could scarcely contain himself at the doctor’s ludicrous embarrassment. “By Jove,” said he, “I am serious!”

“Serious! as to what, Sir John?” stammered the physician, getting out of conceit both with his patient and himself.

“The fact,” said Sir John, “is this: your long and indefatigable attention merits all my confidence, and you shall have it.”

“Confidence!” exclaimed the doctor, bowing, “you do me honour; but – ”

“Yes, doctor, I now tell you (confidentially) that certain papers and matters called in Ireland custodiums,10 have bothered both me and my brother Joseph, notwithstanding all his exertions for me as agent, receiver, remitter, attorney, banker, auditor, and arranger-general; which said custodiums have given up all my lands, in spite of Joe, to the king, as trustee for a set of horse-jockies, Jews, mortgagees, gamblers, solicitors, and annuity-boys – who have been tearing me to pieces for twenty years past without my having the slightest suspicion of their misdemeanors; and now, doctor, they have finally, by divers law fictions, got his majesty to patronise them.”

“But, sir! sir!” interrupted the doctor.

“I assure you, however,” continued Sir John, placidly, “that my brother Joe (whose Christian name – between you and me, doctor – ought to have been Ulick, after Ulick the Milesian, if my mother had done him common justice at his christening) is a long-headed fellow, and will promptly bring those infernal custodium impostors into proper order.”

“But, sir, sir!” repeated the doctor.

“One fellow,” pursued the baronet, “hearing that Joe intended to call him out for laying on his papers, has stopped all law proceedings already, and made a proper apology. The very name of Burke of Glinsk, doctor, is as sounding as Waterloo, in the county of Galway.”

“Pardon me, Sir John,” said Doctor T – , “but what can all this have to do with – ”

“Never mind,” again interrupted the baronet, catching hold of one of the doctor’s coat-buttons,11 “never mind; I give you my word, Joe is a steady, good, clever fellow, and looks two ways at every thing before he does it – I don’t allude to the cast in his eye: a horse with a wall-eye, you know, doctor, is the very lad for hard work! – ha! ha! ha!”

The doctor could stand this no longer, and said, “I know nothing about wall-eyed horses, Sir John.” – Indeed, being now hopeless, he made the second of the three bows he had determined to depart with; but he found his button still in custody between Sir John’s fingers, and was necessitated to suspend his exit, or leave it behind him.

“A plan has occurred to me, doctor,” said the baronet, thoughtfully, “which may not only liquidate my just and honourable debt to you for attendance and operations, but must, if you are as skilful as I think you are, eventually realise you a pretty fortune.”

This in a moment changed the countenance of the doctor, as a smouldering fire, when it gets a blast of the bellows, instantly blazes up and begins to generate its hydrogen. “And pray, sir,” asked the impatient physician, “what plan may this be? what new bank are you thinking of?”

“’Tis no bank,” said Sir John; “its a much better thing than any bank, for the more you draw, the richer you’ll be.”

The doctor’s eyelids opened wide; his eyebrows became elevated, and he drew his ear close to the proposer, that he might not lose a single word of so precious an exposé.

“You know,” said Sir John, “though you are a Sarnion (Guernsey-man) by birth, you must know, as all the world knows, that the name of the Burkes or O’Bourkes (Irlandois), and their castle of Glinsk, have been established and celebrated in Ireland some dozen centuries.”

“I have heard the name, sir,” said the doctor, rather peevishly.

“Be assured ’tis the very first cognomen in Ireland,” said Sir John.

“Possibly,” said the doctor.

“Nay, positively,” rejoined the baronet: “far more ancient than the O’Neils, O’Briens, O’Flahertys, who indeed are comparatively moderns. We were native princes and kings several centuries before even the term Anno Domini was used.”

“I will not dispute it, sir.”

“Nay, I can prove it. I had six and twenty quarters on my shield without a blot upon either – save by one marriage with a d – d Bodkin out of the twelve tribes of Galway, about a hundred and eighty years ago. We never got over that!”

“For Heaven’s sake, sir,” said Doctor T – , “do come to the point.”

“Pardon me,” said Sir John, “I am on the point itself.”

“As how?” inquired the other.

“Come here,” said Sir John, “and I will soon satisfy you on that head:” and as he spoke he led him to the window, where three china cups full of the baronet’s gore lay in regular order. “See! that’s the genuine crimson stuff for you, doctor! eighteen ounces at least of it; the richest in Europe! and as to colour – what’s carmine to it?”

The doctor was bewildered; but so passive, he stood quite motionless.

“Now,” continued Sir John, “we are bringing the matter to the point. You can guarantee this gore to be genuine Glinsk blood: it gushed beautifully after your lancet, doctor, eh! didn’t it?”

“What of that, sir?” said Doctor T – : “really, Sir John, I can stay no longer.”

“You have much ordinary professional practice,” said the baronet – “I mean exclusive of your noble patients in Rue Rivoli, &c. – visits, for instance, to the Boulevard St. Martin, St. Antoine, Place de Bastile, De Bourse, &c., which you know are principally peopled by brokers with aspiring families; rich négocians, with ambitious daughters, &c., who, if they were to give five hundred thousand francs, can’t get into one fashionable soirée for want of a touch of gentility – not even within smell of sweet little Berry’s12 under nursery-maids. Now,” said Sir John, pausing a moment, “we’re at the point.”

“So much the better,” said the man of medicine.

“I understand that there is a member of the faculty in Paris, who undertakes the transfusion of blood with miraculous success, and has not only demonstrated its practicability, but insists that it may by improvement be rendered sufficiently operative to harmonise and amalgamate the different qualities of different species of animals. I am told he does not yet despair of seeing, by transfusion of blood, horses becoming the best mousers, cats setting partridges, and the vulgarest fellows upon earth metamorphosed into gentlemen.”

“Pshaw! pshaw!” exclaimed Doctor T – .

“Now, I perceive no reason,” resumed Sir John, “why any man should perform such an operation better than yourself: and if you advertise in the Petit Avis that you have a quantity of genuine Glinsk O’Bourke gore always at command, to transfuse into persons who wish to acquire the gentilities and the feelings of noblesse, without pain or patent, my blood, fresh from the veins, would bring you at least a Nap a spoonful: and in particular proportions, would so refine and purify the vulgar puddle of the bourgeois, that they might soon be regarded (in conjunction with their money) as high at least as the half-starved quatrième nobility, who hobble down to their sugar and water at soirées in the fauxbourg St. Germain, and go to bed in the dark to save candle-light.”

The doctor felt hurt beyond all endurance: he blushed up to his very whiskers, sealed his lips hermetically – by a sardonic smile only disclosing one of his dog-teeth, and endeavoured to depart: but the button was still fast between Sir John’s fingers, who begged of his victim not to spare his veins, saying, “that he would with pleasure stand as much phlebotomy as would make a fortune for any reasonable practitioner.”

This was decisive: the doctor could stand it no longer; so snatching up the toilet scissors, he cut the button clean off his new surtout, and vanished without waiting ceremoniously to make the third bow, as had always previously been his custom.

However, the baronet, when Joe (who should have been Ulick) afterward sent him over some of the dross, made full metallic compensation to the doctor, – and within this last month I met them walking together in great harmony.

This incident, which I had known and noted long before, was then repeated by Sir John in the doctor’s presence; and it affords the very strongest proof what a truly valuable liquid genuine Irish gore is considered by the chiefs of County Galway.

There is not a baronet in the United Kingdom who (with the very essence of good-humour) has afforded a greater opportunity for notes and anecdotes than Sir John Burke of Glinsk Castle and tilt-yard; – and no person ever will, or ever can, relate them so well as himself.

Sir John Burke is married to the sister of Mr. Ball, the present proprietor of Oatlands, commonly called the Golden Ball. I witnessed the courtship; negotiated with the brother; read over the skeleton of the marriage settlement, and was present at the departure of the baronet and his new lady for Rome, to kiss the pope’s toe. I also had the pleasure of hailing them on their return, as le Marquis and la Marquise de Bourke of the Holy Roman Empire. Sir John had the promise of a principality from the papal see when he should be prepared to pay his holiness the regulation price for it. At all events, he came back highly freighted with a papal bull, a nobleman’s patent, holy relics, mock cameos, real lava, wax tapers, Roman paving-stones, &c. &c.; and after having been overset into the Po, and making the fortune of his courier, he returned in a few months to Paris, to ascertain what fortune his wife had; – a circumstance which his anxiety to be married and kiss the pope’s toe had not given him sufficient time to investigate before. He found it very large, and calculated to bear a good deal of cutting and hacking ere it should quit his service – with no great probability of his ever coaxing it back again. Sir John’s good temper, however, settles that matter with great facility by quoting Dean Swift’s admirable eulogium upon poverty: – “Money’s the devil, and God keeps it from us,” said the dean. If this be orthodox, there will be more gentlemen’s souls saved in Ireland than in any other part of his Britannic Majesty’s dominions.

Previous to Sir John’s marriage, Miss Ball understood, or rather had formed a conception, that Glinsk Castle was placed in one of the most cultivated, beautiful, and romantic districts of romantic Ireland, in which happy island she had never been, and I dare say never will be. Burke, who seldom says any thing without laughing heartily at his own remark, was questioned by her pretty closely as to the beauty of the demesne, and the architecture of the castle. “Now, Sir John,” said she, “have you much dressed grounds upon the demesne of Glinsk?”

“Dressed, my love!” repeated Sir John, “why, my whole estate has been nearly dressed up these seven years past.”

“That’s very uncommon,” said Miss Ball; “there must have been a great expenditure on it.”

“Oh, very great,” replied the baronet, “very great.”

“The castle,” said her future ladyship, “is, I suppose, in good order?”

“It ought to be,” answered Sir John; “for (searching his pockets) I got a bill from my brother Joe of, I think, two hundred pounds, only for nails, iron cramps, and holdfasts – for a single winter.”

The queries of Miss Ball innocently proceeded, and, I think, the replies were among the pleasantest and most adroit I ever heard. The lady seemed quite delighted, and nearly expressed a wish to go down to the castle as soon as possible. “As Sir John’s rents may not come in instantly,” said she, “I have, I fancy, a few thousand pounds in the bank just now, and that may take us down and new-furnish, at least, a wing of the castle!”

This took poor Sir John dreadfully aback. Glinsk was, he told me, actually in a tumbling state. Not a gravel walk within twenty miles of it: and as to timber, “How the devil,” said he, “could I support both my trees and my establishment at the same time? – Now,” he pursued, “Barrington, my good friend, do just tell her what I told you about my aunt Margaret’s ghost, that looks out of the castle window on every anniversary of her own death and birth-day, and on other periodical occasions. She’ll be so frightened (for, thank God! she’s afraid of ghosts), that she’ll no more think of going to Glinsk than to America.”

“Tell her yourself, Sir John,” said I: – “nobody understands a romance better; and I’m sure, if this be not a meritorious, it is certainly an innocent one.”

In fine, he got his groom to tell her maid all about the ghost: the maid told the mistress, with frightful exaggerations: Sir John, when appealed to, spoke mysteriously of the matter; and the purchase of Glinsk Castle could not have induced Miss Ball to put her foot in it afterwards. She is a particularly mild and gentlewomanly lady, and, I fancy, would scarcely have survived a visit to Glinsk, even if the ghost of Madam Margaret had not prevented her making the experiment.

SWEARING NO VICE

English slang contrasted with Irish imprecation – The chase of St. Chrysostom, and his rescue – Meet garnish for an Hibernian anecdote – Futile attempts at imitation by English dramatists, &c. – Remarks of a puritan on the author and his book – A caution, and a shrewd way of observing it – Michael Heney, steward of the author’s father – His notions concerning swearing – Curious dialogue between him and the author – New mode of teaching children filial respect.

Though I have more than ordinary cause to be gratified by the reception the first two volumes of this work so unexpectedly met with, and am extremely grateful for that reception, yet I am well aware that certain starched moralists may conceive, and perhaps, primâ facie, with reason, that there is too much “imprecation,” and what the fastidious of Bond-street call vulgarity introduced into the Irish colloquies. I admit that a person who has never been in the interior of Ireland, or accustomed to the Irish people and their peculiarities, might naturally think so. I therefore feel it a duty to such critics, to give them at least one or two reasons why they should not consider Irish oaths immoral, or Irish colloquy vulgar.

The outrageous blasphemy and indecency, so copious in the slang of England, with neither wit, point, or national humour, to qualify it, might indeed disgust even the seven hundred imps whom the devil sent into this world to capture St. Chrysostom.13 The curses and imprecations of Ireland are of a nature totally different. They have no great variety; they are neither premeditated, nor acquired through habits of dissipation. They are idiomatic, a part and parcel of the regular language of the country, and repeated in other countries as a necessary appendage to the humour of an Irish story, though they would be utterly unadapted to any other people. Walter Scott’s delightful writings, with all the native simplicity and idiomatic dialect of the ancient Celtic, would be totally spoiled, for instance, had he mingled or introduced in them the oaths and idioms indispensable as a seasoning to Irish colloquy; an observation sufficiently illustrated by the absurd and stupid attempts to imitate Irish phraseology made by English dramatic mimics and grimacers.

Here I am quite prepared for the most severe criticism. “Upon my word (the lank-haired puritan will say), this is a most dangerous and sinful writer; holding out that an anecdote, if it be Irish, would lose its relish if there were neither oaths nor imprecations tacked to it. No man can, in the opinion of that immoral writer, repeat an innocent Irish story, unless he at the same time calls down the wrath of Heaven upon himself; and, moreover, upon such of his auditors as take any pleasure in hearing him.”

I know two very young ladies who told me that their mammas directed them to skim over any improper parts of the Sketches; – and that they read every word, to find out those improper parts. The book, they said, was extremely diverting; and as to the oaths, they never swore themselves, and never would, and therefore reading that part could do them no harm.

My own notions respecting this Irish habit of imprecation were illustrated many years ago by an actual dialogue with a man of low rank in that country; and as our conversation bore upon a subject of which scarce a day passes without reminding me, I have retained its import as if it had taken place yesterday: and though, after an interval of more than forty-five years, it is not to be expected I should repeat the exact words uttered, yet I really think my memory serves as to the precise sentences.

We had got accidentally upon the topic; and I expressed my opinion, as I have already stated it here, that these objectionable phrases were merely idiomatic and involuntary – betraying no radical or intentional vice. His notion went further; he apologised for the practice not only statistically, but said, with characteristic fervour, that the genuine Irish people could not “do without it.” “Many,” said he, “would not mind what was said to them, unless there was a curse tacked on to the direction. For instance, old Ned Doran, of Cherry Hill, ordered all his children, male and female, neither to curse nor swear, as they regarded their father’s orders; and the consequence was, the people all said they were going to turn swadlers, and not a maid or a labourer would do a farthing’s worth of work – for want of being forced to do it in the ‘owld way.’”

The man I talked with was a character not very general in England, but frequently met with among the Irish commonalty, whose acuteness of intellect, naturally exceeding that of English labourers, is rather increased by the simplicity of their ideas. Self-taught, they turn any thing they learn to all the purposes that their humble and depressed state can give room for.

Fortune had denied him the means of emerging from obscurity; and Michael Heney was for many years the faithful steward of my father, living with him to the period of his death. His station in life had been previously very low; his education was correspondent; but he had from Nature a degree of mental strength which operated in possessing him with a smattering of every thing likely or proper to be understood by persons of his grade. He was altogether a singularity, and would not give up one iota of his opinions. To address him as a casuist, was the greatest favour you could confer on Mick Heney; and the originality of his ideas, and promptitude of his replies, often amused me extremely.