A BELL AND KNOCKER.
There had been in 1852 a contested election for the city of Dublin, and the defeated party, as is usual on such occasions, attributed their failure to the use, on the part of their adversaries, of every unfair stratagem and corrupt inducement. At the commencement of the Session of Parliament in 1853, it was rumoured that a petition would be lodged to invalidate the return, especially on the grounds of extensive bribery amongst the freemen. It was alleged that a certain alderman was the confidential treasurer of the funds appropriated for the venal voters, and that a person named Bell had been employed to procure the men and dispense the money. The alderman was one of my most intimate friends, and I frequently enjoyed his hospitality. I was also acquainted with several of the other party who were loud in their denunciations of the corruption of which Bell was alleged to have been the instrument. When I heard them speaking of the sums distributed amongst the freemen, I contented myself by affecting to lament the injustice to which I was individually subjected, that I was a freeman of my native city, and that I might have participated in the distribution to which they referred, were it not for an odious statutable enactment which prohibited a Dublin Police magistrate from exercising the franchise, and realizing its incidental advantages, whilst the English Metropolitan Magistrates were subjected to no such disqualification. One of my friends who happened to be the editor of a newspaper, remarked that I seemed disposed to treat the recent bribery with levity, and to regard it as mere fun, and I replied that he was not far wrong in his conjecture, and that I would advise him to adopt a similar course. He asked me to commit my ideas to writing and transmit them to him. I acceded to his request, and he published my communication; but I feel confident that neither publicly nor privately did he divulge the name of its author. No parliamentary petition was presented; and the bountiful treatment of the freemen was only noticed publicly in my poor production of—
THE MAGIC BELL,
My retrospection of that election
Accords perfection to the magic "Bell,"
Whose notes so soothing were felt each booth in
Where freemen voted so prompt and well.
That Bell so cheering, our hopes uprearing,
As Green Street nearing we came to poll,
With notes persuasive, soft and adhesive,
And touch evasive of law's control.
There are joy-bells swinging, and sweetly ringing,
Their blithe sounds flinging from Christ Church high
And Father Yore has erected more
On the Liffey's shore to the Four Courts nigh.
But more sublime than their varied chime
Of a festal time or a funeral knell,
Was the Bell so soothing, felt every booth in
Where freemen voted so prompt and well.
From the gifted Prout, we derive no doubt,
Sweet strains about days of infancy,
When "The bells of Shandon did sound so grand on
The pleasant waters of the River Lee."
We may search in vain, we'll ne'er meet again
With a sweeter strain than Moore's "Evening Bell;"
But a Bell more soothing was felt each booth in
Where freemen voted so prompt and well.
The hermit lowly, whose thoughts are solely
On subjects holy, delights to hear,
When morn is shining or eve declining,
Sweet peals combining, his soul to cheer.
From far or near to his raptured ear
No sound so dear ever reach'd his cell
Like the Bell so soothing, felt every booth in
Where freemen voted so prompt and well.
In a few days after the publication of the foregoing lines, I dined at his residence near Salthill, with my friend the alderman, and in the course of the evening he mentioned that Bell was greatly annoyed by such a production, and that he considered it libellous. I asked how could he show that it applied to him. My worthy host said that it could not apply to any other person, and I then remarked that it was not malicious or of an injurious tendency, and that it had been written merely as an attempt at harmless fun. This elicited the question of how I knew in what spirit it had been written, to which I replied, that I had written it myself, intending to be jocose; and that if my verses were not considered worthy of laurel, they certainly did not deserve the application of birch. To this expression I received a contradiction unanimous but good-humored; and it was agreed that if the public whipping of a police magistrate could be effected, it would be an interesting novelty and a general gratification. There were two other aldermen present besides our host, and they repeatedly assured me, even when shaking hands at the conclusion of the entertainment, that they would provide some punishment for my transgression. On the following evening I was at the house of a friend on Merchant's Quay, and when I returned home, after midnight, I found that the knocker of my hall-door had disappeared. My servant stated that two gentlemen had called, one of whom expressed a wish to see me, and on being informed that I was not at home, said that he would write a note in my study and leave it for me. Whilst he was so employed, the other remained in the hall. At their departure the servant did not perceive that the knocker had been abstracted; but at my return I at once observed the loss, and opening the note, which was written in a hand manifestly disguised, I read the following communication:—
"Mr. Porter is so expert in the fabrication of a Bell, that he may confine himself to ringing without knocking."
Although I felt considerable annoyance at such an unwarrantable trespass whereby I lost a very handsome and expensive brass knocker, I did not indulge in resentful expressions or state the suspicions which I entertained. The door remained without a knocker, as if I intended to acquiesce in the suggestion of only using a bell. The door had not been injured or defaced, for the knocker had not been wrenched away, but had been unscrewed by the person who remained in the hall whilst the other was penning the note to me. I was repeatedly quizzed, and subjected to mock condolence, but I treated the matter as a practical joke, and ascribed the disappearance of my knocker to aldermanic influence. In about a fortnight I was invited to another dinner at Salthill, and met there the same parties who had been at the previous entertainment. Amongst the various pleasantries of the evening, my knocker was not forgotten, and my health was drank, accompanied by what I considered a bantering wish for the restitution of the brazen appendage to my hall-door. On my return home I was surprised to find the door furnished with a knocker, which I soon recognized as my own. It appeared that almost immediately after I had left home, a man came to my house, stating that I had ordered the article at Bryan's ironmongery warehouse in Bride Street, and he proceeded to fix it on. I have never since that time meddled with any "Bell," and my door has not been interfered with in any disagreeable manner.