LETTER II
TO J.D. ESQ. M.P.
M— House
In the various modes of penance invented by the various penance mongers of pious austerity, did you ever hear the travelling in an Irish post-chaise enumerated as a punishment, which by far exceeds horsehair shirts and voluntary flagellations? My first day’s journey from Dublin being as wet a one as this moist climate and capricious season ever produced, my berlin answered all the purposes of a shower bath, while the ventilating principles on which the windows were constructed, gave me all the benefits to be derived from the breathy influence of the four cardinal points.
Unable any longer to sit tamely enduring the ‘penalty of Adam, the season’s change,’ or to sustain any longer the ‘hair-breadth scapes,’ which the most dismantled of vehicles afforded me, together with delays and stoppages of every species to be found in the catalogue of procrastination and mischance, I took my seat in a mail coach which I met at my third stage, and which was going to a town within twenty miles of Bally—. These twenty miles, by far the most agreeable of my journey, I performed as we once (in days of boyish errantry) accomplished a tour of Wales — on foot.
I had previously sent my baggage, and was happily unencumbered with a servant, for the fastidious delicacy of Monsieur Laval would never have been adequate to the fatigues of a pedestrian tour through a country wild and mountainous as his own native Savoy. But to me every difficulty was an effort of some good genius chacing the dæmon of lethargy from the usurpations of my mind’s empire. Every obstacle that called for exertion was a temporary revival of latent energy; and every unforced effort worth an age of indolent indulgence.
To him who derives gratification from the embellished labours of art, rather than the simple but sublime operations of nature, Irish scenery will afford little interest; but the bold features of its varying landscape, the stupendous attitude of its ‘cloud-capt’ mountains, the impervious gloom of its deep embosomed glens, the savage desolation of its uncultivated heaths, and boundless bogs, with those rich veins of a picturesque champagne, thrown at intervals into gay expansion by the hand of nature, awaken in the mind of the poetic or pictoral traveller, all the pleasures of tasteful enjoyment, all the sublime emotions of a rapt imagination. And if the glowing fancy of Claude Loraine would have dwelt enraptured on the paradisial charms of English landscape, the superior genius of Salvator Rosa would have reposed its eagle wing amidst those scenes of mysterious sublimity, with which the wildly magnificent landscape of Ireland abounds. But the liberality of nature appears to me to be here but frugally assisted by the donations of art. Here agriculture appears in the least felicitous of her aspects. The rich treasures of Ceres seldom wave their golden heads over the earth’s fertile bosom; the verdant drapery of young plantations rarely skreens out the coarser features of a rigid soil, the cheerless aspect of a gloomy bog; while the unvaried surface of the perpetual pasturage which satisfies the eye of the interested grazier, disappoints the glance of the tasteful spectator.
Within twenty miles of Bally- I was literally dropt by the stage at the foot of a mountain, to which your native Wrekin is but an hillock. The dawn was just risen, and flung its grey and reserved tints on a scene of which the mountainous region of Capel Cerig will give you the most adequate idea.
Mountain rising over mountain, swelled like an amphitheatre to those clouds which, faintly tinged with the sun’s prelusive beams, and rising from the earthly summits where they had reposed, incorporated with the kindling æther of a purer atmosphere.
All was silent and solitary — a tranquility tinged with terror, a sort of ‘delightful horror,’ breathed on every side. — I was alone, and felt like the presiding genius of desolation!
As I had previously learned my route, after a few minute’s contemplation of the scene before me, I pursued my solitary ramble along a steep and trackless path, which wound gradually down towards a great lake, an almost miniature sea, that lay embosomed amidst those stupendous heights whose rugged forms, now bare, desolate, and barren, now clothed with yellow furze, and creeping underwood, or crowned with mistic forests, appeared towering above my head in endless variety. The progress of the sun convinced me that mine must have been slow, as it was perpetually interrupted by pauses of curiosity and admiration, and by long and many lapses of thoughtful reverie; and fearing that I had lost my way (as I had not yet caught a view of the village, in which, seven miles distant from the spot where I had left the stage, I was assured I should find an excellent breakfast), I ascended that part of the mountain where, on one of its vivid points, a something like a human habitation hung suspended, and where I hoped to obtain a carte du pays: the exterior of this hut, or cabin, as it is called, like the few I had seen which were not built of mud, resembled in one instance the magic palace of Chaucer, and was erected with loose stone,
‘Which, cunningly, were without mortar laid,’
thinly thatched with straw; an aperture in the roof served rather to admit the air than to emit the smoke, a circumstance to which the wretched inhabitants of those wretched hovels seem so perfectly naturalized, that they live in a constant state of fumigation; and a fracture in the side wall (meant I suppose as a substitute for a casement) was stuffed with straw, while the door, off its hinges, was laid across the threshold, as a barrier to a little crying boy, who sitting within, bemoaned his captivity in a tone of voice not quite so mellifluous as that which Mons. de Sanctyon ascribes to the crying children of a certain district in Persia, but perfectly in unison with the vocal exertions of the companion of his imprisonment, a large sow. I approached — removed the barrier: the boy and the animal escaped together, and I found myself alone in the center of this miserable asylum of human wretchedness — the residence of an Irish peasant. To those who have only contemplated this useful order of society in England, ‘where every rood of ground maintains its man,’ and where the peasant liberally enjoys the comforts as well as the necessaries of life, the wretched picture which the interior of an Irish cabin presents, would be at once an object of compassion and disgust. [1]
Almost suffocated, and not surprized that it was deserted pro tempo, I hastened away, and was attracted towards a ruinous barn by a full chorus of females — where a group of young females were seated round an old hag who formed the centre of the circle; they were all busily employed at their wheels, which I observed went merrily round in exact time with their song, and so intently were they engaged by both, that my proximity was unperceived. At last the song ceased — the wheel stood still — every eye was fixed on the old primum mobile of the circle, who after a short pause, began a solo that gave much satisfaction to her young auditors, and taking up the strain, they again turned their wheels round in unison. — The whole was sung in Irish, and as soon as I was observed, suddenly ceased; the girls looked down and tittered — and the old woman addressed me sans ceremonie, and in a language I now heard for the first time. [2]
Supposing that some one among the number must understand English, I explained with all possible politeness the cause of my intrusion on this little harmonic society. The old woman looked up in my face and shook her head; I thought contemptuously — while the young ones, stifling their smiles, exchanged looks of compassion, doubtlessly at my ignorance of their language.
‘So many languages a man knows,’ said Charles V ‘so many times is he a man,’ and its certain I never felt myself less invested with the dignity of one, than while I stood twirling my stick, and ‘biding the encounter of the eyes,’ and smiles of these ‘spinners in the sun.’ Here, you will say, was prejudice opposed to prejudice with a vengeance; but I comforted myself with the idea that the natives of Greenland, the most gross and savage of mortals, compliment a stranger by saying, ‘he’s as well bred as a Greenlander.’
While thus situated, a sturdy looking young fellow, with that boldness of figure and openness of countenance so peculiar to the young Irish peasants, and with his hose and brogues suspended from a stick over his shoulder, approached, and hailed the party in Irish: the girls instantly pointed his attention towards me; he courteously accosted me in English, and having learnt the nature of my dilemma, offered to be my guide — ‘it will not take me above a mile out of my way, and if it did two, it would make no odds,’ said he. I accepted his offer, and we proceeded together over the summit of the mountain.
In the course of our conversation (which was very fluently supported on his side), I learnt, that few strangers ever passing through this remote part of the province, and even very many of the gentry here speaking Irish, it was a rare thing to meet with any one wholly unacquainted with the language, which accounted for the surprize, and I believe contempt, my ignorance had excited.
When I inquired into the nature of those choral strains I had heard, he replied — “O! as to that, it is according to the old woman’s fancy;’ and in fact I learnt that Ireland, like Italy, has its improvisatorés, and that those who are gifted with the impromptu talent are highly estimated by their rustic compatriots; [3] and by what he added, I discovered that their inspirations are either drawn from the circumstances of the moment, from some striking excellence or palpable defect in some of the company present, or from some humorous incident or local event generally known.
As soon as we arrived at the little auberge of the little village, I ordered my courteous guide his breakfast, and having done all duehonour to my own, we parted.
My route from the village to Bally- lay partly through a desolate bog, whose burning surface, heated by a vertical sun, gave me no inadequate idea of Arabia Deserta; and the pangs of an acute head-ach, brought on by exercise more violent than my still delicate constitution was equal to support, determined me to defer my journey until the meridian ardours were abated; and taking your Horace from my pocket, I wandered into a shady path, ‘impervious to the noon tide ray.’ Throwing my ‘listless length’ at the foot of a spreading beech, I had already got to that sweet ode to Lydia, which Scaliger in his enthusiasm, declares he would rather have written than to have possessed the monarchy of Naples, when somebody accosted me in Irish, and then with a ‘God save you, Sir!’ I raised my eyes, and beheld a poor peasant driving, or rather soliciting, a sorry lame cow to proceed.
‘May be,’ said he, taking off his hat, ‘your Honour would be after telling me what’s the hour?’ ‘Later than I supposed, my good friend,’ replied I, rising; ‘it is past two.’ He bowed low, and stroking the face of his companions, added, ‘well, the day is yet young, but you and I have a long journey before us, my poor Driminduath.’
‘And how far are you going, friend?’
‘Please you Honour, two miles beyond Bally—.’
‘It is my road exactly, and you, Driminduath, and I may perform the journey together.’ The poor fellow seemed touched and surprized by my condescension, and profoundly bowed his sense of it, while the curious triumviri set off on their pedestrian tour together.
I now cast an eye over the person of my compagnon de voyage. It was a tall, thin, athletic figure, ‘bony and gaunt,’ with an expressive countenance, marked features, a livid complexion, and a quantity of coarse black hair hanging about the face; the drapery was perfectly appropriate to the wearer — an under garment composed of ‘shreds and patches,’ was partially covered with an old great coat of coarse frize, fastened on the breast with a large wooden skewer, the sleeves hanging down on either side unoccupied, [4] and a pair of yarn hose which scarcely reached mid-leg, left the ancle and foot naked. [5]
Driminduath seemed to share in the obvious poverty of her master — she was almost an anatomy, and scarcely able to crawl. ‘Poor beast!’ said he, observing I looked at her, ‘Poor beast! little she dreamed of coming back the road she went, and little able she is to go it, poor soul; not that I am overly sorry I could not get nobody to take her off my hands at all at all; though to be sure ‘tis better loose one’s cow nor one’s wife, any day in the year.’
‘And had you no alternative?’ I asked.
‘Anan!’ exclaimed he, staring.
‘Were you obliged to part with one or the other?’ Sorrow is garrulous, and in the natural selfishness of its suffering, seeks to lessen the weight of its woe by participation. In a few minutes I was master of Murtoch O’Shaughnassey’s story:[6] he was the husband of a sick wife; the father of six children, and a labourer, or cotter, who worked daily throughout the year for the hut that sheltered the heads, and the little potatoe rick which was the sole subsistence, of his family. He had taken a few acres of ground, he said, from his employer’s steward, to set grass potatoes in, by which he hoped to make something handsome; that to enable himself to pay for them, he had gone to work in Leinster during the last harvest, ‘where, please your Honour,’ he added, ‘a poor man gets more for his labour than in Connaught; [7] but here it was my luck (and bad luck it was), to get the shaking fever upon me, so that I returned sick and sore to my poor people, without a cross to bless myself with, and then there was an end of my fine grass potatoes, for devil receive the sort they’d let me dig till I paid for the ground; and what was worse, the steward was going to turn us out of our cabin, because I had not worked out the rent with him as usual, and not a potatoe had I for the children, besides finding my wife and two boys in a fever: the boys got well, but my poor wife has been decaying away ever since; so I was fain to sell my poor Driminduath here, what was left me by my gossip, in order to pay my rent and get some nourishment for my poor woman, who I believe was just weak at heart for want of it; and so, as I was after telling your Honour, I left home yesterday for a fair twenty-five good miles off, but my poor Driminduath has got such bad usage of late, and was in such bad plight, that nobody would bid nothing for her, and so we are both returning home as we went, with full hearts and empty stomachs.’
This was uttered with an air of despondency that touched my very soul, and I involuntarily presented him some sea biscuit I had in my pocket. He thanked me, and carelessly added, ‘that it was the first morsel he had tasted for twenty-four hours; [8] not,’ said he, ‘but I can fast with any one, and well it is for me I can.’ He continued brushing an intrusive tear from his eye; and the next moment whistling a lively air, he advanced to his cow, talked to her in Irish, in a soothing tone, and presenting her such wild flowers and blades of grass as the scanty vegetation of the bog afforded, turned round to me with a smile of self satisfaction and said, ‘One can better suffer themselves a thousand times over than see one’s poor dumb beast want: it is next, please your Honour, to seeing one’s child in want — God help him who has witnessed both!’
‘And art thou then (I mentally exclaimed) that intemperate, cruel, idle savage, an Irish peasant? with an heart thus tenderly alive to the finest feelings of humanity; patiently labouring with daily exertion for what can scarce afford thee a bare subsistence; sustaining the unsatisfied wants of nature without a murmur, nurtured in the hope (the disappointed hope) of procuring nourishment for her dearer to thee than thyself, tender of thy animal as thy child, and suffering the consciousness of their wants to absorb all consideration of thy own; and yet resignation smooths the furrow which affliction has traced upon thy brow, and the national exility of thy character cheers and supports the natural susceptibility of thy heart.’ In fact, he was at that moment humming an Irish song by my side.
I need not tell you that the first village we arrived at I furnished him with means of procuring a comfortable dinner for himself and Driminduath, and advice and medicine from the village apothecary for his wife. Poor fellow! his surprize and gratitude was expressed in the true hyperbola of Irish emotion.
Meantime I walked on to examine the ruins of an abbey, where in about half an hour I was joined by Murtoch and his patient companion, whom he assured me he had regaled with some hay, as he had himself with a glass of whiskey. — What a breakfast for a famishing man!
‘It is a dreadful habit, Murtoch,’ said I.
‘It is so, please your Honour,’ replied he, ‘but then it is meat, drink, and clothes to us, for we forget we have but little of one and less of the other, when we get the drop within us; [9] Och, long life to them that lightened the tax on the whiskey, for by my safe conscience, if they had left it on another year we should have forgotten how to drink it.’
I shall make no comment on Murtoch’s unconscious philippic against the legislature, but surely a government has but little right to complain of those popular disorders to which in a certain degree it may be deemed accessory, by removing the strongest barrier that confines within moral bounds the turbulent passions of the lower orders of society.
To my astonishment, I found that Murtoch had only purchased for his sick wife a little wine and a small piece of bacon: [10] both, he assured me, were universal and sovereign remedies, and better than any thing the physicianers could prescribe, to keep the disorder from the heart. [11] The spirits of Murtoch were now quite afloat, and during the rest of the journey the vehemence, pliancy, and ardour of the Irish character strongly betrayed itself in the manners of this poor unmodified Irishman; while the natural facetiousness of a temperament ‘complexionally pleasant,’ was frequently succeeded by such heart-rending accounts of poverty and distress, as shed involuntary tears on those cheeks which but a moment before were dissented by the exertions of a boisterous laugh.
Nothing could be more wildly sweet than the whistle or song of the ploughman or labourer as we passed along; it was of so singular a nature, that I frequently paused to catch it; it is a species of voluntary recitative, and so melancholy, that every plaintive note breathes on the heart of the auditor a tale of hopeless despondency or incurable woe. By heavens! I could have wept as I listened, and found a luxury in tears. [12]
The evening was closing in fast, and we were within a mile of Bally—, when to a day singularly fine, succeeded one of the most violent storms of rain and wind I had ever witnessed. Murtoch, who seemed only to regard it on my account, insisted on throwing his great coat over me, and pointed to a cabin at a little distance, where, he said, ‘if my Honour would demean myself so far, I could get good shelter for the night.’
‘Are you sure of that, Murtoch?’ said I.
Murtoch shook his head, and looking full in my face, said something in Irish; which at my request he translated — the words were — ‘Happy are they whose roof shelters the head of the traveller.’
‘And is it indeed a source of happiness to you, Murtoch?’
Murtoch endeavoured to convince me it was, even upon a selfish principle: ‘For (said he) it is thought right lucky to have a stranger sleep beneath one’s roof.’
If superstition was ever thus on this side of benevolence, even reason herself would hesitate to depose her. — We had now reached the door of the cabin, which Murtoch opened without ceremony, saying as he entered — ‘May God and the Virgin Mary pour a blessing on this house!’ [13] The family, who were all circled round a fine turf fire that blazed on the earthen hearth, replied, ‘Come in, and a thousand welcomes’ — for Murtoch served interpreter, and translated as they were spoken these warm effusions of Irish cordiality. The master of the house, a venerable old man, perceiving me, made a low bow, and added, ‘You are welcome, and ten thousand welcomes, gentleman.’ [14]
So you see I hold my letter patent of nobility in my countenance, for I had not yet divested myself of Murtoch’s costume — while in the act, the best stool was wiped for me, the best seat at the fire forced on me, and on being admitted into the social circle, I found its central point was a round oaken stool heaped with smoking potatoes thrown promiscuously over it.
To partake of this national diet I was strongly and courteously solicited, while as an incentive to an appetite that needed none, the old dame produced what she called a madder of sweet milk, in contradistinction to the sour milk of which the rest partook; while the cow which supplied the luxury [15] slumbered most amicably with a large pig at no great distance from where I sat; and Murtoch glancing an eye at both, and then looking at me, seemed to say, ‘You see into what snug quarters we havegot.’ While I (as I sat with my damp clothes smoking by the turf fire, my madder of milk in one hand, and hot potatoe in the other), assured him by a responsive glance, that I was fully sensible of the comforts of our situation.
As soon as supper was finished the old man said grace, the family piously blessed themselves, and the stool being removed, the hearth swept, and the fire replenished from the bog, Murtoch threw himself on his back along a bench, [16] and unasked began a song, the wild and plaintive melody of which went at once to the soul.
When he had concluded, I was told it was the lamentation of the poor Irish for the loss of their glibbs, or long tresses, of which they were deprived by the arbitrary will of Henry VIII. — The song (composed in his reign), is called the Cualin, [17] which I am told is literally, the fair ringlet.
When the English had drawn a pale round their conquests in this country, such of the inhabitants as were compelled to drag on their existence beyond the barrier, could no longer afford to cover their heads with metal, and were necessitated to rely on the resistance of their matted locks. At length this necessity became ‘the fashion of their choice.’
The partiality of the ancient Irish to long hair is still to be traced in their descendants of both sexes, the women in the particular; for I observed that the young ones only wore their ‘native ornament of hair,’ which sometimes flows over their shoulders, sometimes is fastened up in tresses, with a pin or bodkin. A fashion more in unison with grace and nature, though less in point with formal neatness, than the round- eared caps and large hats of our rustic fair in England.
Almost every word of Murtoch’s lamentation was accompanied by the sighs and mournful lamentations of his auditors, who seemed to sympathize as tenderly in the sufferings of their progenitors, as though they had themselves been victims to the tyranny which had caused them. The arch-policy of the ‘ruthless king,’ who destroyed at once the records of a nation’s woes, by extirpating ‘the tuneful race,’ whose art would have perpetuated them to posterity, never appeared to me in greater force than at that moment.
In the midst, however, of the melancholy which involved the mourning auditors of Murtoch, a piper entered, and seating himself by the fire, sans façon, drew his pipes from under his coat, and struck up an Irish lilt of such inspiring animation, as might have served St Basil of Limoges, the merry patron of dancing, for a jubilate.
In a moment, in the true pliability of Irish temperament, the whole pensive group cheered up, flung away their stools, and as if bit to merry madness by a tarantula, set to dancing jigs with all their hearts, and all their strength into the bargain. Murtoch appeared not less skilled in the dance than song; and every one (according to the just description of Goldsmith, who was a native of this province), seemed
‘To seek renown,
By holding out to tire each other down.’
Although much amused by this novel style of devotion at the shrine of Terpsichore, yet as the night was now calm, and an unclouded moon dispersed the gloom of twilight obscurity, I arose to pursue my journey. Murtoch would accompany me, though our hospitable friends did their utmost to prevail on both to remain for the night.
When I insisted on my host receiving a trifle, I observed poverty struggling with pride, and gratitude superior to both: he at least reluctantly consented to be prevailed on, by my assurance of forgetting to call on them again when I passed that way, if I were now denied. I was followed for several paces by the whole family, who parted with, as they received me, with blessings; — for their courtesy upon all occasions, seems interwoven with their religion, and not to be pious in their forms of etiquette, is not to be polite.
Benevolent and generous beings whose hard labour
‘Just gives what life requires, but gives no more;’
yet who, with the ever ready smile of heart-felt welcome, are willing to share that hard-earned little with the weary traveller whom chance conducts to your threshold, or the solitary wanderer whom necessity throws upon your bounty. How did my heart smite me, while I received the cordial rites of hospitality from your hands, for the prejudices I had hitherto nurtured against your characters. But your smiling welcome, and parting benediction, retributed my error — in the feeling of remorse they awakened.
It was late when I reached Bally—, a large, ugly, irregular town, near the sea coast; but fortunately meeting with a chaise, I threw myself into it, gave Murtoch my address, (who was all amazement at discovering I was the son to the Lord of the Manor), and arrived without further adventure at this antique chateau, more gratified by the result of my little pedestrian tour, than if (at least in the present state of my feelings), I had performed it Sesostris-like, in a triumphal chariot drawn by kings; for ‘so weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable,’ appear to me the tasteless pleasures of the world I have left, that every sense, every feeling, is in a state of revolt against its sickening joys, and their concommitant sufferings.
Adieu! I am sending this off by a courier extraordinary, to the next post-town, in the hope of receiving one from you by the same hand.
H.M.