The barber's chair; and, The hedgehog letters

by Douglas William Jerrold

Sir Robert Peel has behaved in the handsomest manner in the matter. He says it is by no means his wish to rob the Whigs of the gratitude of Ireland for the Maynooth measure. Certainly not: they, no doubt, could have carried it had he joined them; this, however, he would not do: he has, however, no objection that they should join him. And so they may have the gratitude, and he the patronage and power. They have helped him to open the oyster; he swallows the fish, and they are quite welcome to the shells.

It is quite a delight to read Sir Robert’s Parliament speeches. Did you ever talk to a man who seemed never to hear what you said, but only thought what he should say to pass for an answer? who seemed as though none of your words entered his ears, but all slid down his cheeks? I’ve met with such people, and Sir Robert Peel—when I read his Maynooth speeches—does remind me of ’em. What a way he has of talking down the side of a speech, and never answering it direct! I hardly wonder that the playhouses don’t flourish, when there’s such capital actors of all sorts in the Houses of Parliament. I had just been reading an account of two or three more Maynooth meetings, where some of the speakers talked about the true and the false religion, as though themselves had a sole and certain knowledge of what was true—what false: I had just been reading all this, when my eye fell upon a paragraph headed “Lord Rosse’s Telescope.” Lord Rosse, you must know, is one of those noblemen who do not pull off knockers, knock down cabmen, and always take a front seat at the Old Bailey on a trial for murder. No: he has been making an enormous telescope; and the paragraph I write of says: “Marvellous rumours are afloat respecting the astronomical discoveries made by Lord Rosse’s monster telescope. It is said that Regulus, instead of being a sphere, is ascertained to be a disc; and stranger still, that the nebula in the belt of Orion is a universal system—a sun with planets moving round it, as the earth and her fellow-orbs move round our glorious luminary.”

Now, at one time, a man might have been burnt alive for taking it upon himself to say that Regulus was not a sphere but a disc; and that Orion (I know nothing about him, save and except that a marvellously fine poem, price one farthing, was lately published with his name) did not wear in his belt any nebula, but a universal system! La, grandmother! when I read of these things, I feel a mixture of pain and pity for men that, instead of having their hearts and spirits tuned by the harmony that God is always playing to them (and they won’t hear it, the leathern-eared sinners!) think of nothing but swearing that one thing’s a disc, and the other a nebula—when they only look through small glasses, wanting the great telescope to show ’em the real truth!—And so no more from your affectionate grandson,

Juniper Hedgehog.

P.S.—I blush for myself, that I had almost forgotten to tell you that Dr Wolff has come back safe and sound from the innermost part of India, where he went to try to save the lives of two Englishmen, Stoddart and Conolly. It was like going into a tiger’s den to take the flesh from the wild beast. And yet the stout-hearted man went! Such an act makes us forget the meanness and folly of a whole generation! Captain Grover—a heart of gold that—has published a book on the matter called “The Bokhara Victims.” As no doubt the New York publishers—in their anxiety to diffuse knowledge—have already published it for some five cents, do not fail to read it. As for Dr Wolff, I wonder what Englishmen will do for him? If he’d come back from India after cutting twenty thousand throats, why, he might have had a round of dinners, diamond-hilted swords, wine-coolers as big as buckets, and so on; as it is, I fear nothing can be done for him. However, we shall see.

Letter XIV.—To Mrs Hedgehog of New York.

Dear Grandmother,—England’s still above water: the sea doesn’t yet roll over Dover cliffs; nevertheless, the Maynooth Grant that I wrote to you about, is gone through the House of Commons, and in a very few weeks the Papists, as you love to call them, will have the money. Sir Culling Eardley Smith, Mr Plumptre, and others of their kidney, may possibly for a month or two appear in the streets in sackcloth and ashes, and with beards like Jew rabbis—first to show their respect for the departed constitution; but after a decent time of mourning, they will, no doubt, be open to consolation, and take their dinners with their usual appetite. I shouldn’t wonder if in six months the Rev. Mr M’Neile (of sulphurous principles) consents to eat and drink like anybody else; and shall be by no means surprised if Dr Croly is found to have regained, at least, all the flesh that anxiety and grief for the Church in danger have so deplorably deprived him of. It’s wonderful to think how certain saints and patriots get lean and fat as sudden as rabbits! Wonderful to think, when the whole world, according to their declaration, has gone to bits, how well and contentedly they still continue to live upon the pieces! But, dear grandmother, what a blessing is Exeter Hall! What a safety-valve it is for the patriotism, and indignation, and scorn, and hatred—and all other sorts of public virtues—that but for it, or some such place, would fairly burst so many excellent folks, if they couldn’t go and relieve their swelling souls in a bit of talk! As it is, they speechify and are saved! Only suppose there had been no place whereat worthy people could have abused the Maynooth Grant—no place wherein to air their own particular Christianity to the condemnation of the religion of everybody else—what would have been the consequence? Why, they must have exploded—burst like the frog in the fable. Day after day Mr Wakley and his brother coroners would have been sitting on the body of some respectable saint and patriot—day after day we should have read the verdict, “Died by retention of abuse!” Happily, while we have Exeter Hall, we are spared these national calamities.

As I know, grandmother, your natural tenderness for all that concerns the bishops, I must—at the risk of bringing on your cholic—inform you that they are again in danger. Even the Morning Post is beginning to neglect ’em! Some newspaper—I don’t know which—has proposed, as the only true remedy for the distress of the country, that there should be a greater number of bishops. Now this, at the first blush, seems a capital notion. But only mark what follows. The writer would multiply episcopal blessings, by “distributing the revenues of the present sees, as they fall vacant, among a greater number of bishops.” And the Morning Post doesn’t at once put down this infamous proposal. Only imagine the Bishop of London slit into half-a-dozen bishops—one Henry of Exeter made twenty Henrys—just as you make bundles of small wood from one large piece! After giving utterance to this wickedness, the writer goes on to think “it impossible that the spiritual Lords should continue to be members of the Legislature after ceasing to be rich men.” And this the Post calls “no singular opinion. For such is the habitual association of power and station in this country with wealth, that perhaps nine out of every ten persons that one might meet walking along the Strand, would say with this writer that unless a prelate had his thousands a year, and his carriage, and his servants, and his grandeur of accessories, he could not properly take a part in counselling the Government, or assisting to make laws in the Upper House of Parliament!” And if the people think so, I’ve heard it said that the bishops have themselves to thank for such belief, seeing that the world often hears more of their carriages and servants than of the humility and tenderness that were shown by the apostles. The Post, however, to my amazement, is for stripping Lambeth and Fulham of much of their finery. Yes: the Post absolutely says: “We protest against the opinion that, without the wealth, the worth of the bishops in the House of Lords would be nought. Nay, we can conceive the possibility of the influence of learning, and eloquence, and venerable earnestness, being even greater when disassociated from wealth and worldly interests!” Only imagine, grandmother, the Bishop of London walking down to the House of Lords leaning on a horn-tipped staff, and not rolled along in his cushioned carriage, with servant in purple livery to let down the steps for him! Isn’t the picture terrible? Isn’t it what they call revolutionary? And yet the Morning Post—as coldly as this present month of May—can see the possibility of a Bishop of Exeter being cut into ten or twenty bishoplings, and never swoon, or even as much as call out for the hartshorn! Who is the revolutionist now?

The month has been a dull month: politics, and all that, have been as stupid as the weather. The trees and bushes have come out, to be sure; but only, as it would seem, from a matter of habit—because it’s May by the almanac. However, the Duke of Newcastle has very kindly tried to give us a fillip, as I’ve heard somebody say in some play or the other, “Orson is endowed with reason!” We’ve had two letters from Clumber! You must know that in the British Museum there are two or three mummies of Egyptian kings, they say, who lived I don’t know how many thousand years ago. Now just suppose, grandmother, that one of these mummies—with his brains out, be it remembered—should have suddenly got up, and written a letter or two to Mehemet Ali and his Egyptians, thinking ’em the self-same Egyptians that used to worship crocodiles and ibises, and make gods of the leeks and onions that grew in their gardens,—suppose the British Museum mummy had done this—well, the thing would have done no more than the political mummy of Clumber; would have made just the same mistake as his well-meaning Grace the Duke of Newcastle. “Forget all you’ve been learning for the last thirty years, at least; give up the wickedness of steam, forego the iniquity of railroads, be content with sailing-smacks and stagecoaches, repeal the Reform Bill, repeal Catholic Emancipation—in a word, wipe everything from your minds, gathered there since the good old times when George the Third was King!—come out again in the pig-tails and shoe-buckles of that blissful reign—and I, Duke of Newcastle, am ready to march with you! I am prepared, at every risk, to be hero of the back-step!”

As yet, I have heard of nobody who has joined the Duke’s standard; but if recruits should come in, I’ll let you know.