Читать книгу Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Jonah Barrington - Страница 10

The Irish on the continent – Slow travelling of remittances – Inconveniences thereof – Sir John Burke, of Glinsk – Reasonable points of curiosity – Prompt satisfaction —Messieurs des Créanciers– Sir John’s health declines – Given over by the faculty generally – Doctor T – ’s perseverance – Its success – A game at cross purposes – Custodiums in Ireland – New mode of liquidating a debt – Galway gore – Receipt for ennobling the bourgeois of Paris – Sir John Burke’s marriage and visit to Rome – His return – Lady Burke – Glinsk Castle.

It has been generally observed, that our fellow-subjects who sojourn long on the continent often lose many of their national traits, and imbibe those of other countries. The Irish, however, present an exception to this rule. I have scarce ever met a thorough-paced Irishman whose oddities totally deserted him; the humorous idiom of his language, and the rich flavour of his dialect, are intrinsic, and adhere as steadily to his tongue as fancy does to his brain, and eccentricity to his actions.

An Irishman is toujours an Irishman, and wheresoever he “puts up” seldom fails to find one inveterate enemy – “himself.” This observation is not confined to the lower or middle classes of Hibernians, but occasionally includes the superior orders. Like the swine, when the demon got into them, Irishmen on the continent keep frisking, pirouetting, galloping, and puffing away, till they lose their footing; and there is scarcely a more entertaining spectacle than that afforded by the schemes, devices, and humours of a true son of Erin, under these circumstances.

I was greatly amused by an incident which took place at Paris some time since; – it possesses as much of the Irish flavour as any bagatelle anecdote I recollect to have met with; and as the parties are above the medium class, well known, all alive, and still on the same pavé in perfect harmony, the thing is rendered more entertaining.

An Irish baronet of very ancient family (an honour which he never suffered any person to be ignorant of after twenty minutes’ conversation), proprietor of a large Galway territory, garnished with the usual dilapidated chateau, brogueless tenantry, managing attorneys, and mis-managing agents, having sufficiently squeezed his estate to get (as he terms) the juice out of it, determined to serve a few campaigns about St. James’ Street, &c., and try if he could retrench at the several club-houses and “hells” to be met with amidst what is called “high life” in our economical metropolis.

After having enacted with éclat all the parts in the various scenes usually performed on that great theatre, he at length found, that the place was not much cheaper than sweet Glinsk, or any old principality of his own dear country. He therefore resolved to change the scene for a more diverting and cheerful one; and by way of a finish, came over to Paris, where any species of ruin may be completed with a taste, ease, and despatch unknown in our boorish country.

The baronet brought over three or four thousand pounds in his fob, just (as he told me) to try, by way of comparison, how long that quantity of the dross would last in Paris9– on which point his curiosity was promptly satisfied: – “Frascati” and the “Salon des Etrangers,” by a due application of spotted bones, coloured pasteboard, and painted whirligigs, under the superintendence of the Marquis de Livere, informed him at the termination of a short novitiate, that nearly the last of his “Empereurs” had been securely vested in the custody of the said Marquis de Livere.

Though this seemed, primâ facie, rather inconvenient, yet the baronet’s dashing establishment did not immediately suffer diminution, until his valet’s repeated answer, pas chez lui, began to alarm the crew of grooms, goddesses, led captains, &c.

Misfortune (and he began to fancy this was very like one) seldom delays long to fill up the place of ready money when that quits a gentleman’s service: and it now seemed disposed to attach itself to the baronet in another way. Madam Pandora’s box appeared to fly open, and a host of bodily ills beset Sir John, who, having but indifferent nerves, was quite thrown on his back.

Such was the hapless situation of Sir John Burke, while exercising his portion of the virtue of patience, in waiting for remittances– a period of suspense particularly disagreeable to travellers abroad – every post-day being pretty certain to carry off the appetite; which circumstance, to be sure, may be sometimes considered convenient enough.

Families from the interior of Hibernia are peculiarly subject to that suspense; and where their Irish agent happens to be an old confidential solicitor, or a very dear friend, or a near relation of the family, the attack is frequently acute. An instance, indeed, occurred lately, wherein the miscarriage of an Irish letter actually caused the very same accident to a new-married lady!

The baronet, however, bore up well; and being extremely good-humoured, the surliest créanciers in Paris could not find in their hearts for some time to be angry with him; and so, most unreasonably left him to be angry with himself, which is a thousand times more tormenting to a man, because sans intermission.

At length, some of his most pressing friends, who a short time before had considered it their highest honour to enjoy the pratique of Monsieur le Chevalier, began to show symptoms of losing temper; – as smoke generally forebodes the generation of fire, something like a blaze seemed likely to burst forth; and as the baronet most emphatically said to me – “The d – d duns, like a flock of jack snipes, were eternally thrusting their long bills