A NUT FOR THE IRISH.
AN IRISH ENCORE.
We certainly are a very original people, and contrive to do everything after a way of our own! Not content with cementing our friendships by fighting, and making the death of a relative the occasion of a merry evening, we even convert the habits we borrow from other land into something essentially different from their original intention, and infuse into them a spirit quite national. The echo which, when asked “How d'ye do, Paddy Blake?” replied, “Mighty well, thank you,” could only have been an Irish echo. Any other country would have sulkily responded, “Blake—ake—ake—ake,” in diminuendo to the end of the chapter. But there is a courtesy, an attention, a native politeness on our side of the channel, it is in vain to seek elsewhere. A very strong instance in point occurs in a morning paper before me, and one so delightfully characteristic of our habits and customs, it would be unpardonable to pass it without commemoration. At an evening concert at the Rotundo, we are informed that Mr Knight—I believe his name is—enchanted his audience by the charming manner he sung “Molly Astore.” Three distinct rounds of applause followed, and an encore that actually shook the building, and may—though we are not informed of the circumstance—have produced very remarkable effects in the adjacent institution; upon which Mr. Knight, with his habitual courtesy, came forward and sang—what, think ye, good reader? Of course you will say, “Molly Astore,” the song he was encored for. Alas! for your ignorance;—that might do very well in Liverpool or Manchester, at Bath, Bristol, or Birmingham—the poor benighted Saxons there might like to get what they asked so eagerly for; but we are men of very different mould, and not accustomed to the jog-trot subserviency of such common-sense notions; and accordingly, Mr. Knight sang “The Soldier Tired”—a piece of politeness on his part that actually convulsed the house with acclamations; and so on to the end of the entertainment, “the gentleman, when encored, invariably sang a new song”—I quote the paper verbatim—“which testimony of his anxiety to meet the wishes of the audience afforded universal satisfaction.”
Now, I ask—and I ask it in all the tranquillity of triumph—show me the country on a map where such a studied piece of courteous civility could have been practised, or which, if attempted, could have been so thoroughly, so instantaneously appreciated. And what an insight does it give us into some of the most difficult features of our national character. May not this Irish encore explain the success with which Mr. O'Connell consoles our “poverty” by attacks on the clergy, and relieves our years of scarcity by creating forty-shilling freeholders. We ask for bread; and he tells us we are a great people—we beg for work, and he replies, that we must have repeal of the union—we complain of our poverty, and his remedy is—subscribe to the rent. Your heavy-headed Englishman—your clod-hopper from Yorkshire—or your boor from Northumberland, would never understand this, if you gave him a life-long to con over it. Norfolk pudding to his gross and sensual nature would seem better than the new registration bill; and he'd rather hear the simmering music of the boiled beef for his dinner, than all the rabid ruffianism of a repeal meeting.
But to come back to ourselves. What bold and ample views of life do our free-and-easy habits disclose to us, not to speak of the very servant at table, who will often help you to soup, when you ask for sherry, and give you preserves, when you beg for pepper. What amiable cross-purposes are we always playing at—not bigotedly adhering to our own narrow notions, and following out our own petty views of life, but eagerly doing what we have no concern in, and meritoriously performing for our friends, what they had been well pleased, we'd have let alone.