_ CHAPTER XII. BATH COACH CONVERSATION
In one of the coaches which travel between Bath and London, an Irish, a Scotch, and an English gentleman happened to be passengers. They were well informed and well-bred, had seen the world, had lived in good company, and were consequently superior to local and national prejudice. As their conversation was illustrative of our subject, we shall make no apology for relating it. We pass the usual preliminary compliments, and the observations upon the weather and the roads. The Irish gentleman first started a more interesting subject--the Union; its probable advantages and disadvantages were fully discussed, and, at last, the Irishman said, "Whatever our political opinions may be, there is one wish in which we shall all agree, that the Union may make us better acquainted with one another."
"It is surprising," said the Englishman, "how ignorant we English in general are of Ireland: to be sure we do not now, as in the times of Bacon and Spenser, believe that wild Irishmen have wings; nor do we all of us give credit, to Mr. Twiss's assertion, that if you look at an Irish lady, she answers, '
port if you please.'"
Scotchman.--"That traveller seems to be almost as liberal as he who defined
oats--food for horses in England, and for men in Scotland: such illiberal notions die away of themselves."
Irishman.--"Or they are contradicted by more liberal travellers. I am sure my country has great obligations to the gallant English and Scotch military, not only for so readily assisting to defend and quiet us, but for spreading in England a juster notion of Ireland. Within these few months, I suppose, more real knowledge of the state and manners of that kingdom has been diffused in England by their means, than had been obtained during a whole century."
Scotchman.--"Indeed, I do not recollect having read any author of note who has given me a notion of Ireland since Spenser and Davies, except Arthur Young."
Englishman.--"What little knowledge I have of Ireland has been drawn more from observation than from books. I remember when I first went over there, I did not expect to see twenty trees in the whole island: I imagined that I should have nothing to drink but whiskey, that I should have nothing to eat but potatoes, that I should sleep in mud-walled cabins; that I should, when awake, hear nothing but the Irish howl, the Irish brogue, Irish answers, and Irish bulls; and that if I smiled at any of these things, a hundred pistols would fly from their holsters to
give or
demand satisfaction. But experience taught me better things: I found that the stories I had heard were
tales of other times. Their hospitality, indeed, continues to this day."
Irishman.--"It does, I believe; but of later days, as we have been honoured with the visits of a greater number of foreigners, our hospitality has become less extravagant."
Englishman.--"Not less agreeable: Irish hospitality, I speak from experience, does not now consist merely in pushing about the bottle; the Irish are convivial, but their conviviality is seasoned with wit and humour; they have plenty of good conversation as well as good cheer for their guests; and they not only have wit themselves, but they love it in others; they can take as well as give a joke. I never lived with a more good-humoured, generous, open-hearted people than the Irish."
Irishman.--"I wish Englishmen, in general, were half as partial to poor Ireland as you are, sir."
Englishman.--"Or rather you wish that they knew the country as well, and then they would do it as much justice."
Irishman.--"You do it something more than justice, I fear. There are little peculiarities in my countrymen which will long be justly the subject of ridicule in England."
Scotchman.--"Not among well-bred and well-informed people: those who have seen or read of great varieties of customs and manners are never apt to laugh at all that may differ from their own. As the sensible author of the Government of the Tongue says, 'Half-witted people are always the bitterest revilers.'"
Irishman.--"You are very indulgent, gentlemen; but in spite of all your politeness, you must allow, or, at least, I must confess, that there are little defects in the Irish government of the tongue at which even
whole-witted people must laugh."
Scotchman.--"The well-educated people in all countries, I believe, escape the particular accent, and avoid the idiom, that are characteristic of the vulgar."
Irishman.--"But even when we escape Irish brogue, we cannot escape Irish bulls."
Englishman.--"You need not say
Irish bulls with such emphasis; for bulls are not peculiar to Ireland. I have been informed by a person of unquestionable authority, that there is a town in Germany, Hirschau, in the Upper Palatinate, where the inhabitants are famous for making bulls."
Irishman.--"I am truly glad to hear we have companions in disgrace. Numbers certainly lessen the effect of ridicule as well as of shame: but, after all, the Irish idiom is peculiarly unfortunate, for it leads perpetually to blunder."
Scotchman.--"I have heard the same remarked of the Hebrew. I am told that the Hebrew and Irish idiom are much alike."
Irishman (laughing).--"That is a great comfort to us, certainly, particularly to those amongst us who are fond of tracing our origin up to the remotest antiquity; but still there are many who would willingly give up the honour of this high alliance to avoid its inconveniences; for my own part, if I could ensure myself and my countrymen from all future danger of making bulls and blunders, I would this instant give up all Hebrew roots; and even the Ogham character itself I would renounce, 'to make assurance doubly sure.'"
Englishman.--"'To make
assurance doubly sure.' Now there is an example in our great Shakspeare of what I have often observed, that we English allow our poets and ourselves a licence of speech that we deny to our Hibernian neighbours. If an Irishman, instead of Shakspeare, had talked of making 'assurance doubly sure,' we should have asked how that could be. The vulgar in England are too apt to catch at every slip of the tongue made by Irishmen. I remember once being present when an Irish nobleman, of talents and literature, was actually hissed from the hustings at a Middlesex election because in his speech he happened to say, 'We have laid the root to the axe of the tree of liberty,' instead of 'we have laid the axe to the root of the tree.'"
Scotchman,--"A lapsus linguae, that might have been made by the greatest orators, ancient or modern; by Cicero or Chatham, by Burke, or by 'the fluent Murray.'"
Englishman,--"Upon another occasion I have heard that an Irish orator was silenced with '
inextinguishable laughter' merely for saying, 'I am sorry to hear my honourable friend stand mute.'"
Scotchman.--"If I am not mistaken, that very same Irish orator made an allusion at which no one could laugh. 'The protection,' said he, 'which Britain affords to Ireland in the day of adversity, is like that which the oak affords to the ignorant countryman, who flies to it for shelter in the storm; it draws down upon his head the lightning of heaven:' may be I do not repeat the words exactly, but I could not forget the idea."
Englishman.--"I would with all my heart bear the ridicule of a hundred blunders for the honour of having made such a simile: after all, his saying, 'I am sorry to hear my honourable friend stand
mute,' if it be a bull, is justified by Homer; one of the charms in the cestus of Venus is,
'Silence that speaks, and eloquence of eyes.'"
Scotchman.--"Silence that speaks, sir, is, I am afraid, an English, not a Grecian charm. It is not in the Greek; it is one of those beautiful liberties which Mr. Pope has taken with his original. But silence that speaks can be found in France as well as in England. Voltaire, in his chef-d'oeuvre, his Oedipus, makes Jocasta say,
'Tout parle centre nous jusqu'a notre silence.'" [1]
[Footnote 1: "Every thing speaks against us, even our silence."]
Englishman.--"And in our own Milton, Samson Agonistes makes as good, indeed a better bull; for he not only makes the mute speak, but speak loud:--
'The deeds themselves, though mute, spoke loud the doer.'
And in Paradise Lost we have, to speak in
fashionable language, two
famous bulls. Talking of Satan, Milton says,
'God and his Son except,
Created thing nought valued he nor shunn'd.'
And speaking of Adam and Eve, and their sons and daughters, he confounds them all together in a manner for which any Irishman would have been laughed to scorn:--
'Adam, the goodliest man of men since born,
His sons; the fairest of her daughters Eve.'
Yet Addison, who notices these blunders, calls them only little blemishes."
Scotchman.--"He does so; and he quotes Horace, who tells us we should impute such venial errors to a pardonable inadvertency; and, as I recollect, Addison makes another very just remark, that the ancients, who were actuated by a spirit of candour, not of cavilling, invented a variety of figures of speech, on purpose to palliate little errors of this nature."
"Really, gentlemen," interrupted the Hibernian, who had sat all this time in silence that spoke his grateful sense of the politeness of his companions, "you will put the finishing stroke to my obligations to you, if you will prove that the ancient figures of speech were invented to palliate Irish blunders."
Englishman.--"No matter for what purpose they were invented; if we can make so good a use of them we shall be satisfied, especially if you are pleased. I will, however, leave the burden of the proof upon my friend here, who has detected me already in quoting from Pope's Iliad instead of Homer's. I am sure he will manage the ancient figures of rhetoric better than I should; however, if I can fight behind his shield I shall not shun the combat."
Scotchman.--"I stand corrected for quoting Greek. Now I will not go to Longinus for my tropes and figures; I have just met with a little book on the subject, which I put into my pocket to-day, intending to finish it on my journey, but I have been better employed."
He drew from his pocket a book, called, "Deinology; or, the Union of Reason and Elegance." "Look," said he, "look at this long list of tropes and figures; amongst them we could find apologies for every species of Irish bulls; but in mercy, I will select, from 'the twenty chief and most moving figures of speech,' only the oxymoron, as it is a favourite with Irish orators. In the oxymoron contradictions meet: to reconcile these, Irish ingenuity delights. I will further spare four out of the seven figures of less note: emphasis, enallage, and the hysteron proteron you must have; because emphasis graces Irish diction, enallage unbinds it from strict grammatical fetters, and hysteron proteron allows it sometimes to put the cart before the horse. Of the eleven grammatical figures, Ireland delights chiefly in the antimeria, or changing one part of speech for another, and in the ellipsis or defect. Of the remaining long list of figures, the Irish are particularly disposed to the epizeuxis, as 'indeed, indeed--at all, at all,' and antanaclasis, or double meaning. The tautotes, or repetition of the same thing, is, I think, full as common amongst the English. The hyperbole and catachresis are so nearly related to a bull, that I shall dwell upon them with pleasure. You must listen to the definition of a catachresis:--'A catachresis is the boldest of any trope.
Necessity makes it borrow and employ an expression or term contrary to the thing it means to express.'"
"Upon my word this is something like a description of an Irish bull," interrupted the Hibernian.
Scotchman.--"For instance, it has been said,
Equitare in arundine longa, to ride on horseback on a stick. Reason condemns the contradiction, but necessity has allowed it, and use has made it intelligible. The same trope is employed in the following metaphorical expression:--the seeds of the Gospel have been
watered by the
blood of the martyrs."
Englishman.--"That does seem an absurdity, I grant; but you know great orators
trample on impossibilities." [2]
[Footnote 2: Lord Chatham.]
Scotchman.--"And great poets get the letter of them. You recollect Shakspeare says,
'Now bid me run,
And I will strive with things
impossible,
Yea,
get the better of them.'"
Englishman.--"And Corneille, in the Cid, I believe, makes his hero a compliment upon his having performed impossibilities--'Vos mains seules ont le droit de vaincre un invincible.'" [3]
[Footnote 3: Your hands alone have a right to conquer the unconquerable.]
Scotchman.--"Ay, that would be a bull in an Irishman, but it is only an hyperbole in a Frenchman."
Irishman.--"Indeed this line of Corneille's
out-hyperboles the hyperbole, considered in any but a prophetic light; as a prophecy, it exactly foretels the taking of Bonaparte's
invincible standard by the glorious forty-second regiment of the British: 'Your hands alone
have a right to vanquish the invincible.' By-the-by, the phrase
ont le droit cannot, I believe, be literally translated into English; but the Scotch and Irish,
have a right, translates it exactly. But do not let me interrupt my country's defence, gentlemen; I am heartily glad to find Irish blunderers may shelter themselves in such good company in the ancient sanctuary of the hyperbole. But I am afraid you must deny admittance to the poor mason, who said, 'This house will stand as long as the world, and longer.'"
Scotchman.--"Why should we 'shut the gates of mercy' upon him when we pardon his betters for more flagrant sins? For instance, Mr. Pope, who, in his Essay on Criticism, makes a blunder, or rather uses an hyperbole, stronger than that of your poor Irish mason:--
'When first young Maro in his noble mind
A work
t'outlast immortal Rome design'd.'
And to give you a more modern case, I lately heard an English shopkeeper say to a lady in recommendation of his goods, 'Ma'am, it will wear for ever, and make you a petticoat afterwards.'"
Irishman.--"Upon my word, I did not think you could have found a match for the mason; but what will you say to my countryman, who, on meeting an acquaintance, accosted him with this ambiguous compliment--'When first I saw you I thought it was you, but now I see it is your brother.'"
Scotchman.--"If I were not afraid you would take me for a pedant, I should quote a sentence from Cicero that is not far behind this blunder."
Irishman.--"I can take you for nothing but a friend: pray let us have the Latin."
Scotchman.--"It is one of Cicero's compliments to Caesar--'Qui, cum ipse imperator in toto imperio populi Romani unus esset, esse me alterum passus est.'[4] Perhaps," continued the Scotchman, "my way of pronouncing Latin sounds strangely to you, gentlemen?"
[Footnote 4: And when Caesar was the only emperor within the dominion of Rome, he suffered me to be another.]
Irishman.--"And perhaps ours would be unintelligible to Cicero himself, if he were to overhear us: I fancy we are all so far from right, that we need not dispute about degrees of wrong."
The coach stopped at this instant, and the conversation was interrupted. _