The Romany Rye

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So the respectable people, whose opinions are still sound, are, to
a certain extent, right when they say that the tide of Popery,
which has flowed over the land, has come from Oxford. It did come
immediately from Oxford, but how did it get to Oxford? Why, from
Scott's novels. Oh! that sermon which was the first manifestation
of Oxford feeling, preached at Oxford some time in the year '38 by
a divine of a weak and confused intellect, in which Popery was
mixed up with Jacobitism! The present writer remembers perfectly
well, on reading some extracts from it at the time in a newspaper,
on the top of a coach, exclaiming--"Why, the simpleton has been
pilfering from Walter Scott's novels!"

O Oxford pedants! Oxford pedants! ye whose politics and religion
are both derived from Scott's novels! what a pity it is that some
lad of honest parents, whose mind ye are endeavouring to stultify
with your nonsense about "Complines and Claverse," has not the
spirit to start up and cry, "Confound your gibberish! I'll have
none of it. Hurrah for the Church, and the principles of my
FATHER!"

CHAPTER VII

Same Subject continued.

Now what could have induced Scott to write novels tending to make
people Papists and Jacobites, and in love with arbitrary power?
Did he think that Christianity was a gaudy mummery? He did not, he
could not, for he had read the Bible; yet was he fond of gaudy
mummeries, fond of talking about them. Did he believe that the
Stuarts were a good family, and fit to govern a country like
Britain? He knew that they were a vicious, worthless crew, and
that Britain was a degraded country as long as they swayed the
sceptre; but for those facts he cared nothing, they governed in a
way which he liked, for he had an abstract love of despotism, and
an abhorrence of everything savouring of freedom and the rights of
man in general. His favourite political picture was a joking,
profligate, careless king, nominally absolute--the heads of great
houses paying court to, but in reality governing, that king, whilst
revelling with him on the plunder of a nation, and a set of
crouching, grovelling vassals (the literal meaning of vassal is a
wretch), who, after allowing themselves to be horsewhipped, would
take a bone if flung to them, and be grateful; so that in love with
mummery, though he knew what Christianity was, no wonder he admired
such a church as that of Rome, and that which Laud set up; and by
nature formed to be the holder of the candle to ancient worm-eaten
and profligate families, no wonder that all his sympathies were
with the Stuarts and their dissipated insolent party, and all his
hatred directed against those who endeavoured to check them in
their proceedings, and to raise the generality of mankind something
above a state of vassalage, that is, wretchedness. Those who were
born great, were, if he could have had his will, always to remain
great, however worthless their characters. Those who were born
low, were always to remain so, however great their talents; though,
if that rule were carried out, where would he have been himself?

In the book which he called the "History of Napoleon Bonaparte," in
which he plays the sycophant to all the legitimate crowned heads in
Europe, whatever their crimes, vices, or miserable imbecilities,
he, in his abhorrence of everything low which by its own vigour
makes itself illustrious, calls Murat of the sabre the son of a
pastry-cook, of a Marseilleise pastry-cook. It is a pity that
people who give themselves hoity-toity airs--and the Scotch in
general are wonderfully addicted to giving themselves hoity-toity
airs, and checking people better than themselves with their birth
{6} and their country--it is a great pity that such people do not
look at home-son of a pastry-cook, of a Marseilleise pastry-cook!
Well, and what was Scott himself? Why, son of a pettifogger, of an
Edinburgh pettifogger. "Oh, but Scott was descended from the old
cow-stealers of Buccleuch, and therefore--" descended from old cow-
stealers, was he? Well, had he nothing to boast of beyond such a
pedigree, he would have lived and died the son of a pettifogger,
and been forgotten, and deservedly so; but he possessed talents,
and by his talents rose like Murat, and like him will be remembered
for his talents alone, and deservedly so. "Yes, but Murat was
still the son of a pastry-cook, and though he was certainly good at
the sabre, and cut his way to a throne, still--" Lord! what fools
there are in the world; but as no one can be thought anything of in
this world without a pedigree, the writer will now give a pedigree
for Murat, of a very different character from the cow-stealing one
of Scott, but such a one as the proudest he might not disdain to
claim. Scott was descended from the old cow-stealers of Buccleuch-
-was he? Good! and Murat was descended from the old Moors of
Spain, from the Abencerages (sons of the saddle) of Granada. The
name Murat is Arabic, and is the same as Murad (Le Desire, or the
wished-for one). Scott in his genteel Life of Bonaparte, says that
"when Murat was in Egypt, the similarity between the name of the
celebrated Mameluke Mourad and that of Bonaparte's Meilleur Sabreur
was remarked, and became the subject of jest amongst the comrades
of the gallant Frenchman." But the writer of the novel of
Bonaparte did not know that the names were one and the same. Now
which was the best pedigree, that of the son of the pastry-cook, or
that of the son of the pettifogger? Which was the best blood? Let
us observe the workings of the two bloods. He who had the blood of
the "sons of the saddle" in him, became the wonderful cavalier of
the most wonderful host that ever went forth to conquest, won for
himself a crown, and died the death of a soldier, leaving behind
him a son, only inferior to himself in strength, in prowess, and in
horsemanship. The descendant of the cow-stealer became a poet, a
novel writer, the panegyrist of great folk and genteel people;
became insolvent because, though an author, he deemed it ungenteel
to be mixed up with the business part of the authorship; died
paralytic and broken-hearted because he could no longer give
entertainments to great folks, leaving behind him, amongst other
children, who were never heard of, a son, who, through his father's
interest, had become lieutenant-colonel in a genteel cavalry
regiment. A son who was ashamed of his father because his father
was an author; a son who--paugh--why ask which was the best blood?

So, owing to his rage for gentility, Scott must needs become the
apologist of the Stuarts and their party; but God made this man pay
dearly for taking the part of the wicked against the good; for
lauding up to the skies the miscreants and robbers, and
calumniating the noble spirits of Britain, the salt of England, and
his own country. As God had driven the Stuarts from their throne,
and their followers from their estates, making them vagabonds and
beggars on the face of the earth, taking from them all that they
cared for, so did that same God, who knows perfectly well how and
where to strike, deprive the apologist of that wretched crew of all
that rendered life pleasant in his eyes, the lack of which
paralysed him in body and mind, rendered him pitiable to others,
loathsome to himself,--so much so, that he once said, "Where is the
beggar who would change places with me, notwithstanding all my
fame?" Ah! God knows perfectly well how to strike. He permitted
him to retain all his literary fame to the very last--his literary
fame for which he cared nothing; but what became of the sweetness
of life, his fine house, his grand company, and his entertainments?
The grand house ceased to be his; he was only permitted to live in
it on sufferance, and whatever grandeur it might still retain, it
soon became as desolate a looking house as any misanthrope could
wish to see--where were the grand entertainments and the grand
company? there are no grand entertainments where there is no money;
no lords and ladies where there are no entertainments--and there
lay the poor lodger in the desolate house, groaning on a bed no
longer his, smitten by the hand of God in the part where he was
most vulnerable. Of what use telling such a man to take comfort,
for he had written the "Minstrel" and "Rob Roy,"--telling him to
think of his literary fame? Literary fame, indeed! he wanted back
his lost gentility:-

"Retain my altar,
I care nothing for it--but, oh! touch not my BEARD."
PORNY'S War of the Gods.

He dies, his children die too, and then comes the crowning judgment
of God on what remains of his race and the house which he had
built. He was not a Papist himself, nor did he wish any one
belonging to him to be Popish, for he had read enough of the Bible
to know that no one can be saved through Popery, yet had he a
sneaking affection for it, and would at times in an underhand
manner, give it a good word both in writing and discourse, because
it was a gaudy kind of worship, and ignorance and vassalage
prevailed so long as it flourished--but he certainly did not wish
any of his people to become Papists, nor the house which he had
built to become a Popish house, though the very name he gave it
savoured of Popery; but Popery becomes fashionable through his
novels and poems--the only one that remains of his race, a female
grandchild, marries a person who, following the fashion, becomes a
Papist, and makes her a Papist too. Money abounds with the
husband, who buys the house, and then the house becomes the rankest
Popish house in Britain. A superstitious person might almost
imagine that one of the old Scottish Covenanters, whilst the grand
house was being built from the profits resulting from the sale of
writings favouring Popery and persecution, and calumniatory of
Scotland's saints and martyrs, had risen from the grave, and banned
Scott, his race, and his house, by reading a certain psalm.

In saying what he has said about Scott, the author has not been
influenced by any feeling of malice or ill-will, but simply by a
regard for truth, and a desire to point out to his countrymen the
harm which has resulted from the perusal of his works;--he is not
one of those who would depreciate the talents of Scott--he admires
his talents, both as a prose writer and a poet; as a poet
especially he admires him, and believes him to have been by far the
greatest, with perhaps the exception of Mickiewicz, who only wrote
for unfortunate Poland, that Europe has given birth to during the
last hundred years. As a prose writer he admires him, less, it is
true, but his admiration for him in that capacity is very high, and
he only laments that he prostituted his talents to the cause of the
Stuarts and gentility. What book of fiction of the present century
can you read twice, with the exception of "Waverley" and "Rob Roy?"
There is "Pelham," it is true, which the writer of these lines has
seen a Jewess reading in the steppe of Debreczin, and which a young
Prussian Baron, a great traveller, whom he met at Constantinople in
'44 told him he always carried in his valise. And, in conclusion,
he will say, in order to show the opinion which he entertains of
the power of Scott as a writer, that he did for the sceptre of the
wretched Pretender what all the kings of Europe could not do for
his body--placed it on the throne of these realms; and for Popery,
what Popes and Cardinals strove in vain to do for three centuries--
brought back its mummeries and nonsense into the temples of the
British Isles.

Scott during his lifetime had a crowd of imitators, who, whether
they wrote history so called--poetry so called--or novels--nobody
would call a book a novel if he could call it anything else--wrote
Charlie o'er the water nonsense; and now that he has been dead
nearly a quarter of a century, there are others daily springing up
who are striving to imitate Scott in his Charlie o'er the water
nonsense--for nonsense it is, even when flowing from his pen.
They, too, must write Jacobite histories, Jacobite songs, and
Jacobite novels, and much the same figure as the scoundrel menials
in the comedy cut when personating their masters, and retailing
their masters' conversation, do they cut as Walter Scotts. In
their histories, they too talk about the Prince and Glenfinnan, and
the pibroch; and in their songs about "Claverse" and "Bonny
Dundee." But though they may be Scots, they are not Walter Scotts.
But it is perhaps chiefly in the novel that you see the veritable
hog in armour; the time of the novel is of course the '15 or '45;
the hero a Jacobite, and connected with one or other of the
enterprises of those periods; and the author, to show how
unprejudiced he is, and what ORIGINAL views he takes of subjects,
must needs speak up for Popery, whenever he has occasion to mention
it; though, with all his originality, when he brings his hero and
the vagabonds with which he is concerned before a barricadoed
house, belonging to the Whigs, he can make them get into it by no
other method than that which Scott makes his rioters employ to get
into the Tolbooth, BURNING DOWN the door.

To express the more than utter foolishness of this latter Charlie
o'er the water nonsense, whether in rhyme or prose, there is but
one word, and that word a Scotch word. Scotch, the sorriest of
jargons, compared with which even Roth Welsch is dignified and
expressive, has yet one word to express what would be inexpressible
by any word or combination of words in any language, or in any
other jargon in the world; and very properly; for as the nonsense
is properly Scotch, so should the word be Scotch which expresses
it--that word is "fushionless," pronounced FOOSHIONLESS; and when
the writer has called the nonsense fooshionless--and he does call
it fooshionless--he has nothing more to say, but leaves the
nonsense to its fate.

CHAPTER VIII

On Canting Nonsense.

The writer now wishes to say something on the subject of canting
nonsense, of which there is a great deal in England. There are
various cants in England, amongst which is the religious cant. He
is not going to discuss the subject of religious cant: lest,
however, he should be misunderstood, he begs leave to repeat that
he is a sincere member of the Church of England, in which he
believes there is more religion, and consequently less cant, than
in any other church in the world; nor is he going to discuss many
other cants; he shall content himself with saying something about
two--the temperance cant and the unmanly cant. Temperance canters
say that "it is unlawful to drink a glass of ale." Unmanly canters
say that "it is unlawful to use one's fists." The writer begs
leave to tell both these species of canters that they do not speak
words of truth.

It is very lawful to take a cup of ale, or wine, for the purpose of
cheering or invigorating yourself when you are faint and down-
hearted; and likewise to give a cup of ale or wine to others when
they are in a similar condition. The Holy Scripture sayeth nothing
to the contrary, but rather encourageth people in so doing by the
text, "Wine maketh glad the heart of man." But it is not lawful to
intoxicate yourself with frequent cups of ale or wine, nor to make
others intoxicated, nor does the Holy Scripture say it is. The
Holy Scripture no more says that it is lawful to intoxicate
yourself or others, than it says that it is unlawful to take a cup
of ale or wine yourself, or to give one to others. Noah is not
commended in the Scripture for making himself drunken on the wine
he brewed. Nor is it said that the Saviour, when he supplied the
guests with first-rate wine at the marriage-feast, told them to
make themselves drunk upon it. He is said to have supplied them
with first-rate wine, but He doubtless left the quantity which each
should drink to each party's reason and discretion. When you set a
good dinner before your guests, you do not expect that they should
gorge themselves with the victuals you set before them. Wine may
be abused, and so may a leg of mutton.

Second. It is lawful for any one to use his fists in his own
defence, or in the defence of others, provided they can't help
themselves; but it is not lawful to use them for purposes of
tyranny or brutality. If you are attacked by a ruffian, as the
elderly individual in Lavengro is in the inn-yard, it is quite
lawful, if you can, to give him as good a thrashing as the elderly
individual gave the brutal coachman; and if you see a helpless
woman--perhaps your own sister--set upon by a drunken lord, a
drunken coachman, or a drunken coalheaver, or a brute of any
description, either drunk or sober, it is not only lawful but
laudable, to give them, if you can, a good drubbing; but it is not
lawful because you have a strong pair of fists, and know how to use
them, to go swaggering through a fair, jostling against unoffending
individuals; should you do so, you would be served quite right if
you were to get a drubbing, more particularly if you were served
out by some one less strong, but more skilful than yourself--even
as the coachman was served out by a pupil of the immortal
Broughton--sixty years old, it is true, but possessed of
Broughton's guard and chop. Moses is not blamed in the Scripture
for taking part with the oppressed, and killing an Egyptian
persecutor. We are not told how Moses killed the Egyptian; but it
is quite as creditable to Moses to suppose that he killed the
Egyptian by giving him a buffet under the left ear, as by stabbing
him with a knife. It is true that the Saviour in the New Testament
tells His disciples to turn the left cheek to be smitten, after
they had received a blow on the right; but He was speaking to
people divinely inspired, or whom He intended divinely to inspire--
people selected by God for a particular purpose. He likewise tells
these people to part with various articles of raiment when asked
for them, and to go a-travelling without money, and take no thought
of the morrow. Are those exhortations carried out by very good
people in the present day? Do Quakers, when smitten on the right
cheek, turn the left to the smiter? When asked for their coat, do
they say, "Friend, take my shirt also?" Has the Dean of Salisbury
no purse? Does the Archbishop of Canterbury go to an inn, run up a
reckoning, and then say to his landlady, "Mistress, I have no
coin?" Assuredly the Dean has a purse, and a tolerably well-filled
one; and, assuredly, the Archbishop, on departing from an inn, not
only settles his reckoning, but leaves something handsome for the
servants, and does not say that he is forbidden by the gospel to
pay for what he has eaten, or the trouble he has given, as a
certain Spanish cavalier said he was forbidden by the statutes of
chivalry. Now, to take the part of yourself, or the part of the
oppressed, with your fists, is quite as lawful in the present day
as it is to refuse your coat and shirt also to any vagabond who may
ask for them, and not to refuse to pay for supper, bed, and
breakfast, at the Feathers, or any other inn, after you have had
the benefit of all three.

The conduct of Lavengro with respect to drink may, upon the whole,
serve as a model. He is no drunkard, nor is he fond of
intoxicating other people; yet when the horrors are upon him he has
no objection to go to a public-house and call for a pint of ale,
nor does he shrink from recommending ale to others when they are
faint and downcast. In one instance, it is true, he does what
cannot be exactly justified; he encourages the Priest in the
dingle, in more instances than one, in drinking more hollands and
water than is consistent with decorum. He has a motive indeed in
doing so; a desire to learn from the knave in his cups the plans
and hopes of the Propaganda of Rome. Such conduct, however, was
inconsistent with strict fair dealing and openness; and the author
advises all those whose consciences never reproach them for a
single unfair or covert act committed by them, to abuse him
heartily for administering hollands and water to the Priest of
Rome. In that instance the hero is certainly wrong; yet in all
other cases with regard to drink, he is manifestly right. To tell
people that they are never to drink a glass of ale or wine
themselves, or to give one to others, is cant; and the writer has
no toleration for cant of any description. Some cants are not
dangerous; but the writer believes that a more dangerous cant than
the temperance cant, or as it is generally called, teetotalism, is
scarcely to be found. The writer is willing to believe that it
originated with well meaning, though weak people; but there can be
no doubt that it was quickly turned to account by people who were
neither well meaning nor weak. Let the reader note particularly
the purpose to which this cry has been turned in America; the land,
indeed, par excellence, of humbug and humbug cries. It is there
continually in the mouth of the most violent political party, and
is made an instrument of almost unexampled persecution. The writer
would say more on the temperance cant, both in England and America,
but want of space prevents him. There is one point on which he
cannot avoid making a few brief remarks--that is, the inconsistent
conduct of its apostles in general. The teetotal apostle says, it
is a dreadful thing to be drunk. So it is, teetotaller; but if so,
why do you get drunk? I get drunk? Yes, unhappy man, why do you
get drunk on smoke and passion? Why are your garments impregnated
with the odour of the Indian weed? Why is there a pipe or a cigar
always in your mouth? Why is your language more dreadful than that
of a Poissarde? Tobacco-smoke is more deleterious than ale,
teetotaller; bile more potent than brandy. You are fond of telling
your hearers what an awful thing it is to die drunken. So it is,
teetotaller. Then take good care that you do not die with smoke
and passion, drunken, and with temperance language on your lips;
that is, abuse and calumny against all those who differ from you.
One word of sense you have been heard to say, which is, that
spirits may be taken as a medicine. Now you are in a fever of
passion, teetotaller; so, pray take this tumbler of brandy; take it
on the homoeopathic principle, that heat is to be expelled by heat.
You are in a temperance fury, so swallow the contents of this
tumbler, and it will, perhaps, cure you. You look at the glass
wistfully--you occasionally take a glass medicinally--and it is
probable you do. Take one now. Consider what a dreadful thing it
would be to die passion drunk; to appear before your Maker with
intemperate language on your lips. That's right! You don't seem
to wince at the brandy. That's right!--well done! All down in two
pulls. Now you look like a reasonable being!

If the conduct of Lavengro with retard to drink is open to little
censure, assuredly the use which he makes of his fists is entitled
to none at all. Because he has a pair of tolerably strong fists,
and knows to a certain extent how to use them, is he a swaggerer or
oppressor? To what ill account does he turn them? Who more quiet,
gentle, and inoffensive than he? He beats off a ruffian who
attacks him in a dingle; has a kind of friendly tuzzle with Mr.
Petulengro, and behold the extent of his fistic exploits.

Ay, but he associates with prize-fighters; and that very fellow,
Petulengro, is a prize-fighter, and has fought for a stake in a
ring. Well, and if he had not associated with prize-fighters, how
could he have used his fists? Oh, anybody can use his fists in his
own defence, without being taught by prize-fighters. Can they?
Then why does not the Italian, or Spaniard, or Affghan use his
fists when insulted or outraged, instead of having recourse to the
weapons which he has recourse to? Nobody can use his fists without
being taught the use of them by those who have themselves been
taught, no more than any one can "whiffle" without being taught by
a master of the art. Now let any man of the present day try to
whiffle. Would not any one who wished to whiffle have to go to a
master of the art? Assuredly! but where would he find one at the
present day? The last of the whifflers hanged himself about a
fortnight ago on a bell-rope in a church steeple of "the old town,"
from pure grief that there was no further demand for the exhibition
of his art, there being no demand for whiffling since the
discontinuation of Guildhall banquets. Whiffling is lost. The old
chap left his sword behind him; let any one take up the old chap's
sword and try to whiffle. Now much the same hand as he would make
who should take up the whiffler's sword and try to whiffle, would
he who should try to use his fists who had never had the advantage
of a master. Let no one think that men use their fists naturally
in their own disputes--men have naturally recourse to any other
thing to defend themselves or to offend others; they fly to the
stick, to the stone, to the murderous and cowardly knife, or to
abuse as cowardly as the knife, and occasionally more murderous.
Now which is best when you hate a person, or have a pique against a
person, to clench your fist and say "Come on," or to have recourse
to the stone, the knife,--or murderous calumny? The use of the
fist is almost lost in England. Yet are the people better than
they were when they knew how to use their fists? The writer
believes not. A fisty combat is at present a great rarity, but the
use of the knife, the noose, and of poison, to say nothing of
calumny, are of more frequent occurrence in England than perhaps in
any country in Europe. Is polite taste better than when it could
bear the details of a fight? The writer believes not. Two men
cannot meet in a ring to settle a dispute in a manly manner without
some trumpery local newspaper letting loose a volley of abuse
against "the disgraceful exhibition," in which abuse it is sure to
be sanctioned by its dainty readers; whereas some murderous horror,
the discovery for example of the mangled remains of a woman in some
obscure den, is greedily seized hold of by the moral journal, and
dressed up for its readers, who luxuriate and gloat upon the
ghastly dish. Now, the writer of Lavengro has no sympathy with
those who would shrink from striking a blow, but would not shrink
from the use of poison or calumny; and his taste has little in
common with that which cannot tolerate the hardy details of a
prize-fight, but which luxuriates on descriptions of the murder
dens of modern England. But prize-fighters and pugilists are
blackguards, a reviewer has said; and blackguards they would be
provided they employed their skill and their prowess for purposes
of brutality and oppression; but prize-fighters and pugilists are
seldom friends to brutality and oppression; and which is the
blackguard, the writer would ask, he who uses his fists to take his
own part, or instructs others to use theirs for the same purpose,
or the being who from envy and malice, or at the bidding of a
malicious scoundrel, endeavours by calumny, falsehood, and
misrepresentation to impede the efforts of lonely and unprotected
genius?

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