I can never refrain from laughing at the English, who pass such pitiful cockney judgments on this their second poet (for after Shakspeare the palm is surely his,) because he ridiculed their pedantry, because he could not adapt himself to the manners and usages of their little nook, nor share in their cold superstition; because their insipidity was sickening to him, and because he denounced their arrogance and hypocrisy. Many of them cross themselves (inwardly) when they mention him; and even the women, though their cheeks glow with enthusiasm when they read him, in public take part vehemently against their secret favourite.
It was worthy of grateful Germany, worthy of our Patriarch, to erect a lasting German arch of triumph, to a man who belongs to Europe, opposite to that monument of infamy which the English have laboured to build.
Could I but bid you a ‘farewell’ as immortal as his,—it should be no last, I hope no long farewell, but as tender and as touching. Think of me thus.
Your faithful L——.
LETTER XXX.
Dublin, Aug. 29th, 1828.
Dear and kind one,
I have passed the last few days in bed with fever and pain. I am but now sufficiently recovered to answer your letter. What you send me from B—— is indeed very flattering to me, though the enthusiasm which my little labours excite in him is the growth of his own poetical soul alone, which paints what ought to be, and believes that it is. Do not wish for my return before it is possible; and trust me, that where a man is not he is commonly desired; as soon as he is there, he is thought, by many, in the way.
I rode out again to-day for the first time to see the fair at Donnybrook, near Dublin, which is a kind of popular festival. Nothing indeed can be more national! The poverty, the dirt, and the wild tumult were as great as the glee and merriment with which the cheapest pleasures were enjoyed. I saw things eaten and drunk with delight, which forced me to turn my head quickly away to remain master of my disgust. Heat and dust, crowd and stench, (‘il faut le dire,’) made it impossible to stay long; but these do not annoy the natives. There were many hundred tents, all ragged like the people, and adorned with tawdry rags instead of flags; many contented themselves with a cross on a hoop; one had hoisted a dead and half putrid cat as a sign! The lowest sort of rope-dancers and posture-masters exercised their toilsome vocation on stages of planks, and dressed in shabby finery, dancing and grimacing in the dreadful heat till they were completely exhausted. A third part of the public lay, or rather rolled about, drunk; others ate, screamed, shouted and fought. The women rode about, sitting two and three upon an ass, pushed their way through the crowd, smoked with great delight, and coquetted with their sweethearts. The most ridiculous group was one which I should have thought indigenous only to Rio de la Plata: two beggars were seated on a horse, who by his wretched plight seemed to supplicate for them; they had no saddle, and a piece of twine served as reins.