It is too badly concealed not to pop out its ugly head in a moment. Even the person with the incomprehensible name of Tunno, to whom Shee dedicates his play, must have seen it. He gives note of preparation in the outset. SCENE I. "Daybreak-The entrance of a cavern-a peasant armed with a PIKE," the instrument used by the rebels in Ireland. Had the scene been meant for Poland, in which it is laid, the author would have given his Whiteboy a lance. A dialogue ensues between two noted leaders of the insurrection, such as we may conceive would be the style of conversation between Captain Rock and his lieutenant, were those eminent characters as well educated as Moore assures us they are. "Conrad. Though your wrongs are throb- Repress the impatient spirit, and AWAIT The shackles his brave countrymen have scorn'd." from the Irish spouters, whenever they Precisely the language one hears think proper to be complimentary to England. Alasco himself is soon brought on the stage to twaddle in the same strain. He is reproached by his father-in-law with being connected with the Whiteboys, and talks fustian to this tune. "With most unworthy patience have I borne My country's ruin-seen an ancient state Struck down by sceptres-trampled on by kings," &c. This ancient state is the Ogygia of O'Halloran-the country peopled originally by Cesara, grand-daughter of Noah, seventy years before the floodand now-a-days the theatre of operations of such patriots as the above, and the magna mater of such tragedians as their poet. Alasco, like the Catholic priests in Ireland, takes great credit to himself for only permitting a certain quantum of murder, on which Hohendahl, the German governor of Poland, that is the English Lord-lieutenant of Ireland, for Shee well knows that his countrymen call the English Saxons— thanks her ironically, and gets the following reply : This was written to be played in 1824. Pastorini, whose prophecies are more devoutly believed by the Roman Catholic insurgents of Ireland than the Bible, assures his believers that heresy is to be rooted out of these kingdoms with fire and sword, with dreadful punishment and intolerable agony, in 1825. Shee, himself Irish and Catholic, well knew this. Conrad proceeds-"Tyrants, proud lord, are never safe, nor "What little skill the patriot sword re quires, Our zeal may boast in midnight vigils school'd; Those deeper tactics, well contrived to The mere machine of mercenary war, fray, Who for ourselves, our homes, our coun try fightAND FEEL IN EVERY BLOW WE STRIKE FOR FREEDOOM." Lest any one should mistake his meaning, he has almost quoted the line prefixed as a motto to Mr O'Connell's annual tirades against the Protestants of Ireland. "Hereditary bondsmen ! know you not That they who would be FREE, must strike the BLOW." Another Whiteboy leader soon puts us, should be The ground is mined beneath them as they tread; Haunted by plots, cabals, conspiracies, Their lives are long convulsions, and they shake, Surrounded by their guards and garrisons." Tom Moore, the Pike Proser, in his gentlemen of Ireland are just in this siCaptain Rock, tells us that the country tuation, and Shee of course calls them tyrants. I perceive the Roman Catholic priests of Ireland designate them by this name in the letters which they are daily sending to the mock-parliament of Dublin, tolerated by the miserable government of that country. What the Whiteboy in the play says, is no joke, I assure you. We have some gentlemanlike allusions to the poor old Marquis of Weltool of state, a taunting, dull, unmanlesley, who is called "a slanderous nered deputy-a district despot, who "Makes the power the pander to his lust." Very civil, and very amiable this of Need I go on with any more parallel passages? The Pikism is evident in both. Shee takes care to tell us that it is not rebellion to resist oppression-just what Sheares, who was hanged in 1798 for high treason, said in his proclamation, when he preached the murder of all the Royalists of Ireland. Tarquin and Brutus, of course, figure as usual, with the fine taste of a schoolboy, and the kind feeling of an Irish orator. The necessity of reviving an ancient empire is preached, as we generally hear it discussed in those pretty little melodies which sing of the glories of Erin of old; even her faithless sons betrayed her," and the necessity of all uniting to be free, is given in a style worthy of a United Irishman. Those things cannot be accidental. There is no necessity of reading myself aleep over the rest of the play, Its scope and tendency, as our old friend the Macveian would say, is evident to the meanest capacity-even that of a Phrenologer. rhyme. Let us remember also, that one of the usual topics of vulgar parliamentary abuse, which the fags of opposition used to handle against Lord Londonderry, was this particular charge of being so bloody-minded as to condemn amiable patriots to the cat-o'nine-tails. True it is, that the charge, as they brought it, was a mere lie, but that is any day better than a fact to a Whig. In the second act, we have again an agreeable similarity between Messrs Moore and Shee. The Whiteboys in both works are conversing on the cause of their rebellion, and, of course, blaming government for it. MOORE. "Lord Fitzwilliam too, in his answer, appears to have fully understood the stimu lating system that was about to be pursued, as he refused to be the person to raise a flame, which nothing but the force of arms could keep down. "The soldier was sent to make, not to meet enemies, and the lash and picket went before to cater for the bayonet. "The consequence is, that the people, against whom the law is arrayed, cannot discover, in looking through its official ranks, one single individual of their own faith, upon whom they can count for a community of feeling, or for a chance of impartiality between them and their acen sers. Here, however, comes another question. What harm could it have done? The poor devils who are now rioting, murdering, burning, ravishing, houghing, fasting, praying, confessing, and receiving absolution in Tipperary, have no chance of reading Mr Shee's Covent-Garden Whiteboyism. Not much, I own; but yet even that danger is not entirely nonsensical. Those who have paid attention to the subject must know the vast exertions made to put the Irish peasantry in possession of everything which can tend to advance the cause of insurrection. For instance, Walmesley's bulky and unreadable stuff on the Apocalypse is sold among them in thousands for four or five tenpennies, though it never could be published at that price-and Tom Moore's Melodies, unintelligible as one would think their pedantry and affectation must make them to the lowest orders, are chaunted out of pothouses impervious to the sunbeam. In the same manner these fine things of Mr Shee's would find their way even 1824.] Pike Prose, and Poetry. to Captain Rock. Nay, such is the perverse industry of those whose interest it is that Ireland should be disturbed, that you may depend upon the mere fact of a Whiteboy play, acted by play-actors before the King and Lords of London, would afford a fine opportunity for cheering the patriots on their work. Things as ridiculous are told them, as indications of the King's patronage of their cause. But even granting that there was no such danger, is not the Lord Chamberlain's deputy justifiable, as long as it is thought necessary to give him any power at all, in keeping off the stage, the discussion of so angry a subject, as the right of insurrection in consequence of oppression, when actually an insurrection on that alleged account is raging in one of the provinces? I think he is, if the office is to be at all retained. Heaven knows, however, that I am so fully conscious of our superiority over the Whig Radical, or Whiteboy prosers or poets, that I should not care to meet and beat them in the drama, as we have met and beaten them in every other department of literature, without the assistance of anything but our own pe ricrania. The thing is pretty well forgotten Shee has no dramatic tact whatever. Just think of a man's wri now. ting a thousand lines too much, not Colman has been liberally abused, Maxims of Mr ODoherty. INTRODUCTION. I HAVE often thought that the world loses much valuable information from the laziness or diffidence of people, who have it in their power to communicate facts and observations resulting from their own experience, and yet neglect doing so. The idlest or most unobservant has seen, heard, or thought something, which might conduce to the general stock of knowledge. A single remark may throw light on a doubtful or a knotty point a solitary fact, observed by a careless individual, and which may have escaped the notice of other observers, however acute, may suffice to upset, or to establish, a theory. For my part, my life has been abundantly chequered. I have mixed in society of all kinds, high and low. I have read much, wrote much, and thought a little. Very little, it is true, but still, more than nine-tenths of people who write books. I am still in the prime of my life, and, I believe, in the vigour of my intellect. I intend, therefore, to write down as they occur to me, without binding myself to any order, whether expressed or understood, any general reflections that may occur on men and manners, on the modes of thought and action, on the hopes, fears, wishes, doubts, loves, and hatreds, of mankind. It is probable that what I shall write will not be worth reading. I cannot help that. All my bargain is, that I shall give genuine reflection, and narrate nothing but what I have seen and heard. I was one day in the Salopian Coffee-house, near Charing-Cross, taking a bowl of ox-tail soup, when a venerable and imposing-looking gentleman came in. The coffee-room of that house is small, and it so happened that every box was occupied-that is, had a gentleman or two in it. The elderly gentleman looked about a little confused, and everybody in the room gazed at him, without offering him a share of any table. Such is the politeness and affability of the English. I instantly rose, and requested him to be seated opposite me. He complied, with a bow; and, after he had ordered what he wanted, we fell into conversation. He was a thoughtful man, who delivered his sentences in a weighty and well considered style. He did not say much, but what he did say was marked with the impress of thought. I found, indeed, that he was a man of only one reflection; but that was a great one. He cast his eye solemnly over the morning paper, which happened to contain the announcement of many bankruptcies. This struck the key-note of his one reflection. "Sir," said he to me, laying down the paper, and taking his spoon cautiously between his fingers, without making any attempt to lift it to his mouth-" sir, I have now lived in this world sixty-three years, through at least forty of which I have not been a careless or inattentive spectator of what has been passing around me; and I have uniformly found, when a man lives annually on a sum less than his year's income-say, five hundred, or five thousand, or five hundred thousand pounds-for the sum makes no difference-that that man's accounts are clear at the end of the twelvemonth, and that he does not run into debt. On the contrary, I have uniformly found, when a man lives annually on a sum more than his year's income-say, five hundred, or five thousand, or five hundred thousand pounds-for the sum makes no difference that that man's accounts are liable at the end of the twelvemonth to get into confusion, and that it must end by his running into debt. Believe me, sir, that such is the result of my forty and odd years' expe rience in the world." The oracular gravity in which this sentence was delivered-for he paused between every word, I might say between every syllable, and kept the uplifted spoon all the time in suspense between the plate of mulligatawny and his lip, which did not receive the savoury contents until the last syllable died away-struck me with peculiar emphasis, and I puzzled my brain to draw out, if possible, something equally profound to give in return. Accordingly, after looking straight across at him for a minute, with my head firmly imbedded on my hands, while my elbows rested on the table, I addressed him thus:-"Sir," said I, "I have only lived thirtythree years in the world, and cannot, of course, boast of the vast experience which you have had; neither have my reasoning faculties been exerted so laboriously as yours appear to have been; but from twenty years' consideration, I can assure you that I have observed it as a general rule, admitting of no exception, and thereby in itself forming an exception to a general rule, that if a man walks through Piccadilly, or the Strand, or Oxford Street-for the street makes no difference, provided it be of sufficient length without an umbrella or other defence against a shower, during a heavy fall of rain, he is inevitably wet; while, on the contrary, if a man walks through Piccadilly, or the Strand, or Oxford Street, for the street makes no difference during fine dry weather, he runs no chance whatever of being wet to the skin. Believe me, sir, that such is the result of my twenty and odd years' experience in the world." The elderly gentleman had by this time finished his soup. "Sir," said he," I agree with you. I like to hear rational conversation. Be so good as to give me your card. Here is mine. Name an early day to dine with me.-Waiter, what's to pay ?-Will you, sir, try my suuff? I take thirty-seven. I wish you, sir, a good morning." So saying, he quitted the box, leaving me to ruminate upon the discovery made by a man who had lived sixty-three years in the world, and had observed its ways for forty and odd years of that period. I thought with myself, that I too, if I set about it seriously to reflect, might perhaps come to something as striking and original; and have accordingly set about this little work, which I dedicate to your kindness, gentle reader. If from it you can extract even one observation conducive towards making you a better or a happier man-the end has been answered which was proposed to himself, by Gentle Reader, Your most obedient, and very humble Salopian, May 1, 1824. P. T. T. Servant, MORGAN ODOHERTY. Marim First. Ir you intend to drink much after dinner, never drink much at dinner, and particularly avoid mixing wines. If you begin with Sauterne for example, stick to Sauterne, though, on the whole, red wines are best. Avoid malt liquor most cautiously, for nothing is so apt to get into the head unawares, or, what is almost as bad, to fill the stomach with wind. Champagne, on the latter account, is bad. Port, three glasses at dinner-claret, three bottles after-behold the fair proportion, and the most excellent wines. Marim Second. It is laid down in fashionable life, that you must drink champagne after white cheeses-water after red. This is mere nonsense. The best thing to be drunk after cheese is strong ale, for the taste is more coherent. We should always take our ideas of these things from the most constant practitioners. Now, you never hear of a drayman, who lives almost entirely on bread and cheese, thinking of washing it down with water, far less with champagne. He knows what is better. As for champagne, there is a reason against drinking it after cheese, which I could give if it were cleanly. It is not so, and therefore I am silent concerning it, but it is true. N. B. According to apophthegm the first, ale is to be avoided in case a wet night is expected-as should cheese also. I recommend ale only when there is no chance of a man's getting a skinful. Marim Third. A punster, during dinner, is a most inconvenient animal. He should, therefore, be immediately discomfited. The art of discomfiting a punster is this: Pretend to be deaf, and after he has committed his pun, and just before he expects people to laugh at it, beg his pardon, and request him to repeat it again. After you have made him do this three times, say, O! that is a pun, I believe. I never knew a punster venture a third exhibition under similar treatment. It requires a little nicety, so as to make him repeat it in proper time. If well done, the company laugh at the punster, and then he is ruined for ever. Marim Fourth. A fine singer, after dinner, is a still greater bore, for he stops the wine. This we pardon in a slang or drinking song, for such things serve as shoeing, VOL. XV. 4 H |