Читать книгу Essay on Irish Bulls - Maria Edgeworth - Страница 6

Table of Contents

Irish Newspapers.

We presume that we have successfully disputed the claims imposed upon the public, in behalf of certain spurious, alien blunders, pretending to be native, original irish bulls; and we shall now with pleasure proceed to examine those which have better titles to notice. Even nonsense ceases to be worthy of attention and public favour, unless it be original.

"Dear lady Emily," says miss Allscrip, in the excellent comedy of the Heiress—"Dear lady Emily, don't you doat upon folly?"

"To ecstacy!" replies her ladyship, "I only despair of seeing it well kept up."

We flatter ourselves "there is no great danger of that," for we have the irish newspapers before us, where, no doubt, we shall find a fresh harvest of indigenous absurdity ripe for the sickle.

The first advertisement that meets our eye is promising.

It is the late proclamation of an irish mayor, in which we are informed, that certain business is to be transacted in that city "every Monday, (Easter Sunday only excepted)." This seems rather an unnecessary exception; but it is not an inadvertency, caused by any hurry of business in his worship, it is deliberately copied from a precedent set in England, by a baronet formerly well known in parliament, who, in the preamble to a bill, proposed, that certain regulations should take place "on every Monday (Tuesday excepted.)" We fear also, that an english mayor has been known to blunder.—Some years ago the mayor of a capital english city published a proclamation and advertisement, previous to the races, "that no gentleman will be allowed to ride on the course, but the horses that are to run." A mayor's blundering proclamation is not, however, worth half so much in the eye of ridicule, as a lord lieutenant's.

"A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn."

A bull on the throne is worth twice as much as a bull in the chair.

"By the lord lieutenant and council of Ireland.

"A proclamation.

****,

"Whereas the greatest economy is necessary in the consumption of all species of grain, and, especially, in the consumption of potatoes, &c.

"Given at the council chamber in Dublin."

This is the first time we have been informed, by authority, that potatoes are a species of grain; but we must accede to this new botanical arrangement, when published under such splendid auspices. The assertion, certainly, is not made in distinct terms, but all who understand the construction of language must imply the conclusion, that we draw from these premises. A general position is in the first member of the sentence laid down, "that the greatest economy is necessary in the consumption of all species of grain." A particular exemplification of the principle is made in the next clause—"especially in the consumption of potatoes."

The inference is as plain as can be made.

The next article in our newspaper is an advertisement of lands to be let to an improving tenant:—"A few miles from Cork, in a most sporting country, bounded by an uncommon fine turf bog, on the verge of which there are a number of fine lime kilns, where that manure may be had on very moderate terms, the distance for carriage not being many hundred yards. The whole lands being now in great heart, and completely laid down, entirely surrounded and divided by impenetrable furze ditches, made of quarried stone, laid edgeways."

It will be a matter of difficulty to the untravelled english reader, to comprehend how furze ditches can be made of quarried stones laid edgeways, or any way; and we fear that we should only puzzle his intellects still more, if we should attempt to explain to him the mysteries of irish ditching in the technical terms of the country. With the face of a ditch he may be acquainted, but to the back and gripe, and bottom of the gripe, and top of the back of a ditch, we fear he is still to be introduced.

We can never sufficiently admire these furze ditches made of quarried stones, they can, indeed, be found only in Ireland: but we have heard in England of things almost as extraordinary. Dr. Grey, in his erudite and entertaining notes on Hudibras, records the deposition of a lawyer, who in an action of battery told the judge, "that the defendant beat his client with a certain wooden instrument called an iron pestle." Nay to go further still, a wise annotator on the Pentateuch, named Peter Harrison, observed of Moses's two tables of stone, that they were made of shittim wood. The stone furze ditches are scarcely bolder instances of the catachresis, than the stone tables of shittim wood. This bold figure of rhetoric in an irish advertisement of an estate may lead us to expect, that hibernian advertisers may, in time, emulate the fame of Christie, the prince of auctioneers, whose fine descriptive powers can make more of an estate on paper, than ever was made of it in any other shape, except in the form of an ejectment. The fictions of law, indeed, surpass even the auctioneer's imagination; and a man may be said never to know the extent of his own possessions, until he is served with a process of ejectment. He then finds himself required to give up the possession of a multitude of barns, orchards, fish-ponds, horse-ponds, dwelling-houses, pigeon-houses, dove-cotes, out-houses, and appurtenances, which he never saw or heard of, and which are no where to be found upon the surface of the habitable globe; so that we cannot really express this english legal transaction, without being guilty of an irish bull, and saying, that the person ejected is ousted from places which he never entered.

To proceed with our newspapers.—The next advertisement is from a school-master: but we shall not descant upon its grammatical errours, because they are not blunders peculiar to irish school-masters. We have frequently observed, that the advertisements, of school-masters, even in England, are seldom free from solecisms; too much care in writing, it seems, is almost as bad as too little. In the preface of the dictionary of the french academy, there are, as it is computed by an able french critic, no less than sixteen faults; and in Harris, the celebrated grammarian's dedication of his Hermes, there is one bull, and almost as many faults as lines. It appears as if the most precise and learned writers sometimes, like the ladies in one of Congreve's plays, "run into the danger to avoid the apprehension."

After a careful scrutiny of the hibernian advertisements, we are compelled to confess, that we have not met with any blunders that more nearly resemble our notion of an irish bull than one, which some years ago appeared in our english papers. It was the title to an advertisement of a washing machine, in these words—"Every man his own washer-woman!" We have this day, Nov. 19, 1807, seen the following—"This day were published, Memoirs of the Life of Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, with a new edition of her Poems, some of which have never before appeared." And an eye witness assures us, that lately he saw an advertisement in the following terms, stuck up on the wall of an English coffee-house—"This coffee-house removed up stairs!"

A roman emperor used to draw his stairs up after him every night into his bed-chamber, and we have heard of throwing a house out of the windows, but drawing a whole house up into itself is new.

How can we account for such a blunder in an advertisement, on the wall of an English coffee-house, except by supposing that it was penned by an irish waiter? If that were the case it would be an admirable example of an irish bull! and, therefore, we had best take it for granted.

Let not any conscientious person be startled at the mode of reasoning, by which we have convicted an imaginary irish waiter of a real bull: it is at least as good, if not better logic, than that which was successfully employed in the time of the popish plot, to convict an irish physician of forgery. The matter is thus recorded by l'Estrange. The irish physician "was charged with writing a treasonable libel, but denied the thing, and appealed to the unlikeness of the characters. It was agreed, that there was no resemblance at all in the hands; but asserted that the doctor had two hands, his physic hand and his plot hand, and the one not a jot like the other. Now this was the doctor's plot hand, and it was insisted that because it was not like one of his hands, it must be like the other."

By this convenient mode of reasoning an irishman may at any time be convicted of any crime, or of any absurdity.

But what have we next in our newspaper—"Murder, Robbery, and Reward."—This seems a strange connection of things, according to our vulgar notions of distributive justice; but we are told that the wicked shall have their reward even in this world, and we suppose it is upon this principle, that over the stocks in a town in Ireland there appears this inscription—"A reward for vagabonds."

Upon proceeding further in our advertisement, which begins with "Murder, Robbery, and Reward," we find however, that, contrary to the just expectations raised by the title, the reward is promised not to the robbers and murderers, but to those who shall discover and prosecute them to conviction. Here we were led into error by that hasty mode of elision, which sometimes obtains in the titles even of as our english law processes; as, sci-fa, fi-fa, qui-tam, &c.; names which, to preserve the glorious uncertainty of the law, never refer to the sense, but to the first words of the writs.

In our newspaper a formidable list of unanimous resolutions of various committees and corps succeeds to the advertisement of murder, robbery, and reward, and we have, at the close of each day's business, thanksgivings in various formulas for the very proper, upright, or spirited behaviour of our worthy, gallant, or respected chairman. Now that a man may behave properly, or sit uprightly in a chair, we can readily comprehend; but what are we to understand by a spirited behaviour in a chair? Perhaps it alludes to the famous duel fought by a gouty irish gentleman in his armchair. As the gallant chairman actually in that position shot his adversary, it behoves us to understand the meaning of spirited behaviour in the chair.

We may, however, venture to hint, fas est et ab hoste doceri, that in the publications of corps and committees, this formula should be omitted—"Resolved unanimously, (with only one dissentient voice.)" Here the obloquy meant to rest on the one dissentient voice unfortunately falls upon the publishers of the disgrace, exposing them to the ridicule of resolving an irish bull. If this be a bull however, we are concerned to find, it is matched by that of the government of Munich, who published a catalogue of forbidden books, and afterwards, under heavy penalties forbade the reading of the catalogue. But this might be done in the hurry, occasioned by the just dread of revolutionary principles.

What shall we say for the blunder of a french academician, in a time of profound peace, who gave it as his opinion, that nothing should be read in the public sittings of the academy "par dela ce qui est imposé par les statuts: il motivait son avis en disant—En fait d'inutilités il ne faut que le necessaire." If this speech had been made by a member of the Royal Irish Academy, it would have had the honour to be noticed all over England as a bull. The honour to be noticed we say, in imitation of the exquisitely polite expression of a correspondent of the English Royal Society, who talks of "the earthquake that had the honour to be noticed by the Royal Society."

It will we fear be long before the Irish emerge so far from barbarism as to write in this style. The Irish are, however, we are happy to observe, making some little approaches to a refined and courtly style; kings, and, in imitation of them, great men, and all who think themselves great—a numerous class—speak and write as much as possible in the plural number, instead of the singular. Instead of I they always say we, instead of my—our, according to the Italian idiom, which flatters this humour so far as to make it a point of indispensable politeness. It is, doubtless, in humble imitation of such illustrious examples, that an Irishman, of the lowest class, when he means to express that he is a member of a committee, says I am a Committee. Thus consolidating the power, wisdom, and virtue of a whole committee in his own person. Superiour even to the indian, who believes that he shall inherit the powers and virtues of his enemies after he has destroyed them^[7]; this committee-man takes possession of the faculties of his living friends and associates. When some of the united men, as they called themselves, were examined, they frequently answered to the questions, who or what are you? I am a committee.

However extraordinary it may at first sound to hear one man assert that he is a whole committee, it is not more wonderful than that the whole parliament of Bourdeaux should be found in a one horse chair^[8].

We forbear to descant farther upon Irish committeemen, lest, we should call to mind, merely by the similarity of name, the times when England had her committeemen, who were not perfectly free from all tinge of absurdity. It is remarkable, that in times of popular ferment, a variety of new terms are coined to serve purposes and passions of the moment. In the days of the english committeemen this practice had risen to such a height, that it was fair game for ridicule. Accordingly sir John Birkenhead about that time found it necessary to publish "The Children's Dictionary; an exact Collection of all New Words born since Nov. 3, 1640, in Speeches, Prayers, and Sermons, as well those that signify something, as nothing." We observe that it has been likewise found necessary to publish in France une Dictionnaire néologique, a dictionary of the new terms adopted since the revolution.

It must be supposed, that during the late disturbances in Ireland many cant terms have been brought into use, which are not yet to be reckoned amongst the acknowledged terms of the country. However absurd these may be, they are not for our purpose proper subjects of animadversion. Some countries have their birds of passage, and some their follies of passage, which it is scarcely worth while to shoot as they fly. It has often been said, that the language of a people is a just criterion of their progress in civilization; but we must not take a specimen of their vocabulary during the immediate prevalence of any transient passion or prejudice. It is to be hoped, that all party barbarisms in language will now be disused and forgotten; for some time has elapsed since we read the following article of country intelligence in a Dublin paper:—

"General —— scoured the country yesterday, but had not the good fortune to meet with a single rebel."

The author of this paragraph seems to have been a keen sportsman: he regrets the not meeting with a single rebel, as he would the not meeting with a single hare, or partridge; and he justly considers the human biped as fair game, to be hunted down by all who are properly qualified and licensed by government. To the English perhaps it may seem a strange subject of lamentation, that a general could not meet with a single rebel in the county of Wicklow, when they have so lately been informed from the high authority of a noble lord, that Ireland was so disturbed, that whenever he went out, he called as regularly for his pistols as for his hat and gloves. Possibly, however, this was only a figure of speech, like that of bishop Wilkins, who prophesied that the time would come when gentlemen, when they were to go a journey, would call for their wings as regularly as they call for their boots.—We believe that the hyperboles of the privy counsellor and the bishop are of equal magnitude.

[7]

"So Indian murd'rers hope to gain

The powers and virtues of the slain,

Of wretches they destroy"

[8] Vide Mémoires du Cardinal de Retz.