They paid at Peterloo, With a yell that in hell For we had crushed their hated foe, The locustry of Britain Are gods beneath the skies; They stamp the brave into the grave; They blight all homes, they break all hearts, While a moan, and a groan, That move the Almighty's throne, Bring angels' tears in pity down, And move th' Eternal throne ! The bread-taxery of England, They make a league with Want and Crime! They curse the land, the winds, the seas; Call up thy pallid angel, The tamer of the strong! And bid him whip, with want and wo, And basely beg the bread they curse, No, wake not thou the giant Who drinks hot blood for wine; And shouts unto the east and west, Till the slow to move rush all at once, An avalanche of men ; While he raves over waves That need no whirlwind then, Though slow to move, mov'd all at once, What means that mighty shadow Oh! tells it now of ruin past? Or ruin yet to come? It spreads its wings o'er humbled things, Most haughty once of all; With a frown that shakes down "Wrong not the poor," ye mighty, For the right, in their might, Who take our bread, our life."* THE IRISH ORATOR. I AM an Irishman, and yet, thank God! I am not an orator. I never delivered my sentiments in public-no statement of mine has ever yet been corroborated by a Hear, hear;" nor have any of my opinions been responded to by "loud and enthusiastic cheers." I am, of all that have come within the cognizance of my acquaintance, the only one who never made a speech. It is Juvenal, I think, who complains of his being pestered by the loud and incessant bawling of poetasters reciting their compositions. A most grievous calamity it is, in truth, for a man to be obliged to listen to indifferent rhyming; but yet it is an affliction that must naturally be but of a temporary nature; for even the most foolish cannot at all times be perpetrating poetry. The infliction, then, sinks into insignificance, when compared with his, who, having conned over the speeches of Demosthenes, studied the orations of Cicero, and read all that the minds of Erskine, Grattan, and Canning dictated, is still compelled, day after day, and hour after hour, to hear nothing but bad speeches delivered. The speech-making mania has reached its acmé in Ireland; the conversational tone in which men were wont to address one another is excited into the forensic manner of the bar, or the exalted style of the senate. People no longer talk in plain and friendly terms; they exaggerate their opinions, or sophisticate their commonplace ideas into unintelligible nonsense. The sock of unpretending life is discarded for the buskin of pretended feeling, which every one endeavours to assume; but which, like the doomed sandal in the fairy tale, is found to fit nobody. Of course, I cannot intend to enter into competition with the bard of "Hope," in his famous ode, "The Mariners of England." The nature of my materials precludes this. His are the winds, the seas, the heavens, the tempest, and the battle's fiery storms-poetry in themselves! while I have nothing to create a poem out of, but a wicked and stupid act of Parliament, miscreant-made, and misery-making. But if there is still one honest man in England who does not wish that act of Parliament to be execrated in every street and lane of the empire, he must have saw-dust for brains, water for blood, and a heart, not of stone, but cut out of a boiled turnip. In the street you are met, not by an investigation which becomes the simple citizen; there are no inquiries about your wife, or what was till now a subject of the deepest interest, the number of your children; no, —such questions, if they be put, are tortured into an inquisition as to the "home supplies," and an essay upon "surplus population." If you have to do business, instead of getting what is, to an author, often a matter of the utmost moment, "a good bill at a short date," I have often expected to be horrified with "a long essay on the monetary system." And then, if you go out to dine-"to spend" what we in Ireland used to call "a pleasant evening"-instead of each man letting loose his soul,. unbending his mind, giving fair play to jocund spirits, generous feeling, and wit harmless as it would be lively-instead of verifying the truth of the maxim of that admirable judge of human nature, Horace,—“ dulce. est desipere in loco," you will, when the cloth is removed, be lost in the fog of political economy, bewildered with the will-o'-the-wisp of metaphysics, or, perhaps, what is a still greater misfortune, have a grave eu, logium pronounced upon your "transcendent virtues, supereminent talents, unexampled integrity, unbending patriotism, et cetera, and so forth;" and, in reply, be expected to make a long speech, propose the health of your proposer, and so see the evening wear away in each man wondering at the stupidity of the other. Evenings so passed in Ireland and, Heaven help me! I have been doomed to endure many of themfrequently remind me of the story of the economic Dutchmen, who, in their anxiety to preserve their apartments clean, transmit from one mouth to another, till it reaches the outer door, the exuberance of saliva collected by smoking. The rage for speechifying is not confined to any particular class in society. The porters on the coal-quay sin as grievously in this respect as the judges on the bench. The dandy in the dark neckcloth delivers "his opinion" as profoundly as the King's counsel in his flowing wig. The man who keeps a book-stall thinks he is as erudite as the Fellow of College. The apothecary's apprentice is as diffuse, and as unintelligible, as the doctor; and the old attorney as nonsensical as the young barrister; while the horse-shoers, the cordwainers, the breeches-makers, the plasterers, and the brick manufacturers, are all affected with the influenza of speech-making; and each of them is desirous of exhibiting the utmost extent of his ridiculous propensity in the columns of a newspaper. To one who knows the failings of the Irish in this respect, the sight of a Dublin paper is as complete a physic as a drachm of hippo. You have only to read it through, and-the effect is most disagreeable. If you, in these days, begin the report of a public meeting, you will find that if Paddy Murphy's speech does disgust you, Tom Mullowney's will turn your stomach; while Jem Cassidy will operate in such a manner, as to send the reader and ❝ the hearers weeping to their beds." One of the most annoying consequences attendant upon the printing and publishing of an Irish orator's speech is, that the instant he "fills up a stick" in a newspaper, he immediately supposes himself a man of mighty consequence in the political world. A public plan, he imagines, should not be propounded unless his opinion is first given respecting it; and he considers that, unless this compliment is paid to him, it is "his right," as a deeply injured man, to oppose it, no matter what may be its scope and tendency. Give an Irish orator twenty lines in a newspaper, and before six hours have elapsed from the time the journal is delivered to the newsman, the friends of the orator, the friends' friends, his acquaintances, and the acquaintances of those acquaintances, are obliged to read the twenty lines, twenty times over, and each time to laud it more highly than before. If they do not do this, it is ten chances to one but the orator will denounce" his friend or acquaintance at the next public meeting. It would be a gross injustice to that body of men, whom I mean to describe under the designation of "an Irish orator," if I did not state of them, that their styles are as various as their different natures and dispositions. The "stupid" Irish orator" vexes the dull ear" with a long narrative of what he has read in the morning papers ;—the " ignorant" Irish orator spurts forth a harum-skarum rhapsody, which is sinless of a breach of the second commandment; for it bears not “the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth ;”—the “ vulgar" Irish orator contents himself with merely blackguarding every honest man of his own party, and praising all those opposed to the principles he professes to support; the "half-read" (the bus) Irish orator conglomerates, in endless sentences, the hackneyed ideas of others, tied together by opinions of his own, which Edipus himself could not unravel; while the great, because always the most popular-the " eloquent" Irish orator disgorges poetry gone-mad, and prose run-riot, in which nought can be discerned but mystic images, unintelligible phrases, and compound figures, like those described in the lines, "Humano capiti cervicem equinam," &c. These distinctions comprise the entire genus, whether they be ranged under the green or orange species. The discipline requisite to attain the desired elevation is of the simplest kind. It is not necessary that the aspirant should have studied any branch of science, of the fine arts, or polite literature. These may, in fact, be an encumbrance to him. It is not demanded of him even to know how to read. He has only to try himself once or twice in private; and, if he discovers that he has stout lungs, a loud voice, and can talk nonsense without stuttering, he has attained the art. His friends (if he have any) can, from that moment, look upon him as a most tiresome bore; while the public hail him with the glorious, the ennobling title of " an Irish orator." BARBARISMS OF CIVILIZATION. DIALOGUE I-CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. English Jurist,-New Zealander. English Jurist. Your life and education have been truly extraordinary. A savage infancy, followed by a highly cultivated manhood, seems to have bred in your mind a very singular caste of opinions, not always sound, but generally original and entertaining; and I find in you powers of observation, and a vigour of the reflecting faculties, which might do honour to a civilized being. I beg your pardon: such you undoubtedly are; but I mean a person born in a civilized community. Without the aid of already formed opinions in your father, mother, brothers, and sisters, and other persons moving about you in childhood, you have acquired for yourself a tolerably good understanding of the develop ments of the human character in a social state, and of the moral principles of right and wrong; and the state of your mind, under circumstances so disadvantageous, is, I assure you, to say the least of it, highly creditable to yourself, New Zealander. Believe me, Sir, I must think you too partial in this. English Jurist. By no means; I never flatter: unless, indeed, the interesting nature of your conversation may have blinded my better judgment. Believe me, I cannot help regretting deeply, when I look upon your countenance, that a man so considerably advanced in intellectual attainments, should bear indelibly marked upon him the traces of a previous barbarism. That transverse horizontal perforation of your nostrils, I fear, can never be filled up; and the tattoo on your forehead, though fortunately not extensive, is very unequivocal indeed, my dear Sir. Should you return to your countrymen, as you propose, you will be able to give them many valuable hints on the manner of ornamenting their persons. After what you have seen of our European costume, you would not resume your nose-jewels, I apprehend, or consent to the infliction of any more blue flourishes on your countenance. New Zealander, 1 am not so very sure of that, my good Sir; though, saying so, I feel to be sinking in your valued estimation. Yet, why so? Consider, we have our veneration for these practices, which, whatever they may appear to you, we are in the habit of calling institutions. Our ancestors have, for many ages back, worn nose-rings and chinfeathers, and tattooed themselves, even more than is fashionable at the present day; yet we are not apt to undervalue the noses, the chins, and the complexions which, under those circumstances, they have transmitted to us; and as we naturally wish our posterity should be as goodlooking as ourselves, we regard with just suspicion, as it seems to me, all change in those adornments, which have so long consisted with the well-being of our faces. A person who should propose to innovate, as you desire, would find a task of great difficulty, if not danger; for, in all matters touching their personal vanity, my countrymen and countrywomen are very Tories, if I may use that expression without offence. It is true, they take with avidity, and at any price, the strange trinkets which your seamen bring for barter; but nothing could ever drive out of their heads their own way of wearing them. And pray, now, would not the women of my country laugh at me with some reason, if I should say to them, "Fie upon your nose-rings! If you must have rings, wear them in your ears, like the ladies of Europe, with large black and white pebbles hanging at them. Twist your hair about well with hot irons, that it may not hang loose about your faces, as nature indecently designed it ;-turn it back from the roots, both before and behind, and bunch it up in the middle of the head like a tuft of banana leaves; and then you will be able to stick feathers in it, much larger, and more in number, than you could conveniently carry in your foreheads, chins, and noses: Above all, straiten your bodies with large layers of fishbones wrapped tightly round them, and squeeze your toes into little leathern bags, by which means you will make both your waists and your feet appear much smaller than they really are, without any great personal inconvenience to yourselves, either in sitting or walking. Don't tattoo yourselves-there's dear creatures!-nor grease yourselves any more with that nasty oil; but when your complexions have lost the softness and freshness of youth, rub your faces with a certain invaluable copper-coloured powder, which I will show you!" |