One might reasonably suppose that no Brehon judge ever exposed himself to be twice so branded. But human nature is as weak as it is perverse. We read in the ancient laws of Ireland of a certain Sencha Mac Aililla, who, the more he was ‘blotched,’ the wickeder he grew. He seemed to defy the brand, as others have defied public opinion. He did not care what the law was. When he had to administer it between a member of his own tribe and one of another clan, he would decide in favour of his own ‘country,’ as he called it, irrespective of law and justice. This exemplary Sencha used to retire from the judgment-seat daily with three additional fiery blotches to those he bore the day previous. The monster became so ugly that he was fain at last to withdraw from the public gaze.
It was the same with the lawyers in those felicitous times. If one ventured upon a ‘Scotch insinuation,’ such as deliberately accusing a witness of forgery, and, on the accusation being immediately shown to be groundless, pleading that the charge was simply an ‘insinuation,’ perfectly professional, on the Brehon nose of such an unworthy lawyer a carbuncle would establish itself, like a light on a disagreeable object to help you to avoid it. A Brehon lawyer never even played with a lie but a pimple started on his tongue and checked his speech. If a Brehon judge were addicted to the wine-cup, it was as much as his nose, or at least the end of it, was worth to potter about excess, from the bench. If he lived an unclean life, and then judicially talked solemn sham to the ignorant and immoral, a burning St. Anthony’s fire, or whatever name it was called before St. Anthony, overspread his face, and never left it. Nay, there is record of unjust kings and judges laughing at the commission of crime till their mouths extended from ear to ear, and remained so for ever after.
It must have been then that divine Astræa bandaged her eyes. Were she to open them now and glance over the world, she would behold bench and bar unstained by a blush. Nevertheless, a sigh may be permitted for the good old Brehon times, when wicked lawyers blushed in spite of themselves.
n many respects those old times, or their customs, have not so completely passed away as might be generally thought. In connection with Mr. Tuckerman’s next subject of Sepulchres, I may notice those military funerals at which the horse of the dead rider follows his master to the grave. There is now no significance in such a matter; but it was once of very stern reality, and not a mere form. It is now simply a relic of the times when the steed was slain at the side of the tomb of his defunct master, a tomb which the horse was destined to share with the departed soldier. The faithful horse, like the Indian’s dog, was to keep him company in the fields beyond the waters of oblivion. It was a pagan ceremony, but it did not finally go out till somewhat late in the Christian era—in fact, not till towards the close of the last century. On the 13th of February, 1781, there was a military burial at Treves. A cavalry general, in the service of the Palatinate, a Teutonic knight, and commander of Lorraine, named Frederick Kasimir, was then and there buried according to the rites of the Order of Chivalry, of which he was a member. As soon as the coffin was lowered into the grave, the general’s horse was led up by the officer who had had it in charge during the funeral procession. An official then advanced, and, by a skilful sweep of a sharp hunting-knife across the animal’s throat, stretched him dead, after which the dead horse was thrown into the grave on the top of the coffin. It was a hideous ceremonial, the origin of which dates from the days when skeleton knights were supposed to require skeleton chargers. The above was the last occasion on which such a ceremony was performed. The favourite horse that followed the Duke of Wellington’s funeral car, the caparisoned steed that was but yesterday led after the bier of the dragoon who used to mount him, were but formalities, the meaning of which is for the most part forgotten.
There was a period when a grave and much ceremony were thus afforded to brutes, but when also the grave ‘was begrudgingly allowed,’ and all ceremony denied, to men. I allude to the Actors, which pleasant brotherhood forms the subject of Mr. Tuckerman’s next essay. This has been especially the case in France. Thence some erroneously suppose that actors were excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church; whereas the ecclesiastical authorities at Rome especially protected the Italian players in Paris from the ban proclaimed by the Gallican bishops against actors and actresses. In England there has been more liberality of feeling towards the players. These have had individual clerical enemies, from Archbishop Grindal down to Dean Close; but they have also had as many friends, from Archbishop Bancroft down to the present Archbishop of Dublin, who, amidst groups of actors and a large general public, in Stratford Church, at the last Shakspeare centenary, gave expression to wise and loving testimony in behalf of that poor player on whom God conferred the gifts that made of him the foremost poet of the entire world.
As between plaintiff and defendant, the opposite cases were succinctly stated by Dean Close and Mr. Buckstone. The Dean once denounced the brethren of the drama generally as wicked people. Mr. Buckstone simply replied that, while there was no crime subject to capital punishment but that a clergyman had suffered for it, there was no instance of an actor ever having been hanged for any crime. This is not quite correct, but the rare exception testifies to the general rule. One actor has been hanged, and two or three, richly deserved to be; but, speaking generally, they have been distinguished for the good observance of prudence and the excellent practice of charity. Lord Southampton described the players at the ‘Blackfriars’ as ‘married men and of reputation.’ Even in Grindal’s days, though there were some among them of equivocal conduct and character, they were designated as ‘those grave and sober actors.’ Burbage’s fortune is a proof of their thrift; Alleyn’s noble bequests are so many proofs of his godlike charity. In every path of his life, from St. Botolph’s, Bishopsgate, down to Dulwich College, he has left proofs of a benevolence which still brings enjoyment to numberless legatees. Alleyn’s letters afford us a glance into the household of a player of the seventeenth century, and they show that the house was well kept, and that a spirit of piety sanctified it. So of Betterton; his hand and his heart were open and liberal. What were Quinn’s faults in the light of his delicate and profuse charity? The same question might be asked in reference to many other actors. They have not only shown, as the Tatler once said of his dramatic contemporaries, a wonderful benevolence towards the interests and necessities of each other, but towards those of all who needed succour. They have played equally well in this respect on and off the stage, and all that need be added in regard to them may be said in the quaint words of Sir Thomas Overbury, who remarks: ‘I value a worthy actor by the corruption of some few of the quality, as I would do gold in the ore; I should not mind the dross, but the purity of the metal.’
Theatrical criticism in early days found no place in our newspapers. Even as late as the first appearance of Sprangor Barry, in ‘Othello’ (A.D. 1746), the journalist only recorded the fact, adding, as a sort of critical notice, that the gentleman got as much applause as could be expected!
An essay on Newspapers might extend to a folio volume. They have all been founded on the insatiable appetite that humanity has to know what has happened to its fellows. The difference is not so great between the earliest and the latest samples of newspapers. The ‘leading article,’ which so often misleads, is comparatively of modern origin; but the Roman Acta Diurna may be said to correspond with our reports and general intelligence, chronicling human errors, heroism, and rascality, pillorying the names of young fellows who had quaffed too deeply of the Falernian, and noting how the fine imposed on a felonious butcher who gave short weight was to be devoted to the building of a chapel in the temple of Tellus for the propagation of the gospel of that deity, and the reformation of light weights.