Page images
PDF
EPUB

ART. III-A Letter to the Editor of the Quarterly Review. By Wm. Parnell, Esq. Dublin. 1820.

WE generally have the charity to refrain from noticing the answers which angry authors make to our criticisms; but we have departed from this rule on special occasions; and we are induced to do so in the present instance, because we conceive that, amidst a good deal of petty dispute, Mr. Parnell has involved in the controversy some topics of general interest.

The Letter' before us is a protest against the justice of our opinion of Maurice and Berghetta, or the Priest of Rahary,' the review of which has, we have reason to know, amused not a few readers who had thrown away the work itself in disgust.—We intimated that Mr. Parnell, Knight of the Shire for Wicklow, was the supposed author of this strange novel; he here avows it, and defends his offspring with even more than parental partiality. But as he affects to write calmly, (though we can perceive that he fancies he has levelled some sly and stinging personalities at us,) we shall examine his Reply without any other objects than those of correcting error and establishing truth.

Any one who reads the novel, the review, and the reply, will be satisfied that even if all Mr. Parnell's recriminations were well founded, they would affect but little, if at all, the real questionthe merit of his work.' He might have corrected us on points of agricultural or genealogical detail (such as his pamphlet dwells upon) without disproving the substantial charges: but, in truth, even that paltry victory we cannot allow him; he is wrong throughout his novel was as dull as an argumentation, and now his argument is as flimsy as a novel.

Mr. Parnell's 'first ground of complaint' is, that the person selected to review his work should be totally ignorant of the most ordinary facts of farming.'-p. 4.

6

Some may incline to think that if we had amongst us one person 'ignorant of the most ordinary facts of farming,' he was just the person to whom might be committed, without any great impropriety, the examination of a novel. But Mr. Parnell is not of this opinion, nor indeed were we. We can assure this gentleman that we are so far from being totally ignorant' on that subject, that we have entertained many practical farmers by our accurate and judicious accounts of his discoveries. To prove our ignorance, however, Mr. Parnell employs three pages in abusing the fac (the long handled spade), with which he says an Irish labourer always works as timidly as a lady tuning her harp-strings:' but when did we say a word in defence of the fac? Mr. Parnell recommended the short handled spade, the use of which occasioned ‘a great stoop,

[ocr errors]

6

stoop,' and he also recommended the use of a scythe with a bent handle, which prevented the necessity of stooping.' It was upon the inconsistency of these reasons, apparent we think even to those who may be ignorant of farming,' that we observed, and not at all upon the real value of the respective implements: nay, we did not disagree with Mr. Parnell, for our expression was the change may be desirable, but not assuredly for the reasons assigned by the author.'-No. XLII. p. 485.

[ocr errors]

We had smiled at Mr. Parnell's developing with great solemnity, that recondite mystery in the art of mowing, that damp -grass is cut more easily than dry, and that it is less fatiguing to mow in the morning and evening than under the meridian sun.' p. 473. To this he replies:

'It is also no discovery, as your Reviewer states, nor is it a very important fact in England, to shew that grass may be mown easier when full of sap and wet with the morning and evening dew; but it is of importance to urge this fact in Ireland, where, if known, it is not attended to; and to any one who has witnessed, as I have done during the last hot summer, the mowers of the country working through the heat of the day on task-work, with no diet but potatoes, and actually with no drink but water, an attempt to lighten this severe labour, by transferring it from the heat of the mid-day to the cool of the morning and even ́ing, would not be esteemed a fit topic for ridicule.'-pp. 7, 8.

What we'ridiculed' was-not the fact, which we asserted to be notorious, but-Mr. Parnell's pompous exhibition of it as valuable information, to acquire which, his hero was obliged to make a tour into England. When it was mentioned that Goldsmith intended to travel in quest of useful inventions, Doctor Johnson thought there was danger of his going to Constantinople, and bringing back a wheelbarrow as a wonderful discovery. Did the doctor by this phrase ridicule either travelling or wheelbarrows? or is not the smile excited at the simple Irishman painfully journeying into foreign parts to make a discovery which every peasant in the country was already acquainted with?—And does Mr. Parnell really believe that Irish mowers do not work in the evening and morning, and that English mowers do not work in the midday? and does he know what task-work means?-We doubt it— if he did, he could not be ignorant that in England, as in Ireland and every other country, when men work by the day, they will gladly accept permission not to work during the heat of the day, but that when they work by task they will choose their own time, and work only at such hours as they please. If there be any class of the Irish who less than another want Mr. Parnell's advice, it is probably the mowers; for it may surprise this worthy gentleman to be informed that many of those admirable mowers, whom he sees

with

with bent scythes cutting the swathe of this favoured country, are no other than Irishmen, who migrate hither during the harvest, and return to Ireland in the autumn with the profits of their labour; and we scarcely suppose that they leave all their experience behind. Having made such exquisite observations on these two points and these only-on one of which we gave no opinion, and on the other, agreed with him-Mr. Parnell proudly exclaims, 'So much for your Reviewer's knowledge of agriculture!'

The royal descent and noble names and titles which Mr. Parnell chose to lavish upon two Irish peasants struck us as supremely absurd; and we incidentally observed, that he christened the girl Geraldine, thereby intimating that the Fitzgeralds, to whom the name of Geraldine is appropriate, were of the ancient house of O'Neal or O'Toole.'-p. 476.

On this Mr. Parnell is very angry and very triumphant; he asserts, that if we had known any thing of Irish history, we would have known that the illustrious House of Fitzgerald never disdained alliance with the Irish families;' and he reminds us that Walter Scott tells us in poetry and prose, that the Fitzgeralds and O'Neals intermarried. This Mr. Parnell might have proved without Sir Walter's assistance, from Collins's Peerage, a venerable authority with which we are not wholly unacquainted; but what we were disposed a little to doubt (and what Mr. Parnell ought to have proved) was that Geraldine was a popular Christian name, or likely to be one, amongst the O'Neals and O'Tooles of our day:—and surely when Mr. Parnell was so curious in the selection of appropriate and septic names as to call the hero Muircheartach, and the heroine Berghetta, it was not quite congruous to give their child the Anglo-Italian name of Geraldine: but this hint, for it was no more, Mr. Parnell speaks thus—

upon

'Indeed, sir, I begin to blush at the supposition that your Reviewer should be an Irishman; all the waters of the Shannon will not wash out the scandal of such unpardonable ignorance of the antiquities of his country, accompanied with so much pretension, and contrasted with the accuracy of the Scottish bard.'—p. 10.

On this we will just observe, for Mr. Parnell's sake, that the effect of an immersion in the Shannon is not, in the vulgar notion to which he alludes, to wash out the stains of ignorance or to clear the understanding, but the very reverse; and we shall not be greatly surprised to hear that Mr. Parnell had himself taken a dip in this celebrated stream before he began his pamphlet.

The next reproach may appear somewhat trivial, but as we are obliged to admit it to be well founded, we cannot, in candour, suppress it.

Mr. Parnell had been celebrating the glories of a certain king, Tuathal,

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Tuathal, Tual, or Toole, who reigned over the county of which Mr. Parnell is now a simple Knight-of-the-Shire; and in compliment to the placable disposition of the present dynast (to borrow Mr. Parnell's expression) of the county, we contrasted it with the ferocity of the old potentate, by exclaiming somewhat loosely, Quantum mutatus ab illo Hectore! This unlucky quotation, says Mr. Parnell, betrays the reviewer's ignorance of Latin, an ignorance which should at once disqualify him for the department in which he has been strangely misplaced.' This sentence, however just in itself, is not quite consistent with the distribution of duty which Mr. Parnell was so good as to make for us in the outset, when he hinted that his novel ought to have been handed over to some gentleman in the farming line! The words, Mr. Parnell says, are in Virgil, but he carefully and candidly assures us, that he entirely acquits that admired writer of the blunder which he has detected, for Virgil (says he) uses the expression with great propriety,' inasmuch as the Hector who appeared to Æneas was, " mutatus," changed from the Hector who set fire to the Grecian ships; whereas the present Knight of the Shire for Wicklow can by no strain of the word be said to be mutatus from King Tual, with whom he had never any personal identity.'

No, seriously, not the least! Mr. Parnell not only is not, but never was, King O'Toole; and he is so touchy on the subject of his personal identity, that we hasten to confess our error, and to assure him that we did not mean to confound him personally with either King O'Toole, or with that Hector who set fire to the Grecian ships; we merely meant to express our dutiful joy, that the dynasty of Wicklow had been so much mutatus, changed,' for the better.

[ocr errors]

Before we part with king O'Tual (continues Mr. Parnell), I must redress a wrong done to him by the ignorance of the reviewer. This king NEVER HAD SO VULGAR AN APPELLATION AS TOOLE. His name is written Tuathal, but the middle consonants being mute in the Irish pronunciation, it is pronounced Tual, with a broad accent on the a.'P. 11.

It may be, perhaps, too hazardous to attempt to meddle with what an Irish gentleman calls a broad accent on the a;'-passing this however for the moment, we cannot forbear saying that Mr. Parnell has touched us in a tender point. We prided ourselves a little on our acquaintance with this subject; and, to speak modestly, should have received with more thankfulness than surprise a honorary adscription into the quiet ranks of the Irish Society of Antiquaries, for the extent and accuracy of our researches into the archives of this illustrious race. And to be charged with

[ocr errors]

'wronging'

wronging' the head of it!—this we did not expect nor deserve. But we forgive Mr. Parnell: and, in return for his charge of 'ignorance,' shall simply recommend the following authorities to his knowledge.

[ocr errors]

In that part of Dr. Ledwich's Antiquities of Ireland, (a book of the greatest authority on such subjects,) which treats of the very scene where Mr. Parnell has laid this part of his novel, and of the very tomb of the ancient Dynasts of Wicklow, in which his descendant Berghetta is buried, we read-The valley derives, its name from its first Tirbolgian possessors the Totilas, Tuathals or Tools;'-and again, the sept of the Tuathals or Tools were the ancient proprietors of this district;'—and again,' the Refeart' (where Berghetta was buried) is literally the sepulchre of kings, being the burial place of the O'Tooles.'-Edit. 1790, pp. 33. 40. And Archdall says 'the Refeart, literally the sepulchre of kings, is the tomb of M'Uthiel or O'Toole, an ancient chieftain;'-and again, Laurence O'Toole was descended from the princely founders of the abbey;'-and again, a monastery was founded here by the O'Tooles.'-Monast. Hibern. pp. 769. 774. 778. Mr. Parnell sees by this time that the appellation,' whether 'vulgar' or not, is and ever was written and pronounced Toole; and we can further assure him that several worthy constituents of his own, who derive their descent from the ancient Tuathals, will be wonderfully astonished to learn from their Knight of the Shire, that they have an a, whether broad or slender, in their names.

6

[ocr errors]

'The reviewer next charges me (Mr. Parnell says) with fulsome flattery towards the Catholic Clergy. It might at least be termed praise, not flattery, till the truth of the praise is denied. Fulsome flattery, I imagine, is when questionable eulogy is bestowed upon a person possessed of patronage, and who having the power to reward, the motive of the eulogist must be considered, at least, equivocal.'-p. 11, 12.

own.

We might refer this erudite word-catcher to his dictionary, in which he would find that his only interpretation of the word ' to praise falsely,' is but its secondary meaning: but we will grant him his meaning, and we will go still further and avow it for our We meant to charge him with fulsome flattery of the Catholic clergy in the sense which he gives to the words, and his sole answer to this is, How can those be flattered who have no patronage to bestow?-A mob then is never flattered!—the base passions of the populace are never pandered to!-popularity is never sought by gross and unblushing deviations from truth and principle! Alas, of all flatteries, that which Mr. Parnell excludes by his definition is the most dangerous. We have seen it in France, we now see it in England; and yet Mr. Parnell with a grave face tells us, that there can be no flattery but

of

« PreviousContinue »