Upon looking over our last chapter on practical bulls, we were much concerned to find that we have so few Irish and so many foreign blunders. It is with still more regret we perceive, that notwithstanding our utmost diligence, we have not yet been able to point out the distinguishing characteristic of an Irish bull. But to compensate for this disappointment we have devised a syllogism, which some people may prefer to an à priori argument, to prove irrefragably, that the Irish are blunderers.
After the instances we have produced, chapter 6th, of the verbum ardens of English and foreign poets, and after the resemblance that we have pointed out betwixt certain figures of rhetoric and the Irish bull, we have little reason to fear that the candid and enlightened reader should object to our major.
Major.—Those who use figurative language are disposed to make bulls.
Minor.—The Irish use figurative language.
Conclusion.—Therefore the Irish are disposed to make bulls.
We proceed to establish the truth of our minor, and the first evidence we shall call is a Dublin shoeblack. He is not in circumstances peculiarly favourable for the display of figurative language; he is in a court of justice, upon his trial for life or death. A quarrel happened between two shoeblacks, who were playing at what in England is called pitch-farthing, or heads and tails, and in Ireland, head or harp. One of the combatants threw a small paving stone at his opponent, who drew out the knife with which he used to scrape shoes, and plunged it up to the hilt in his companion’s breast. It is necessary for our story to say, that near the hilt of this knife was stamped the name of Lamprey, an eminent cutler in Dublin. The shoeblack was brought to trial. With a number of significant gestures, which on his audience had all the powers that Demosthenes ascribes to action, he, in a language not purely Attic, gave the following account of the affair to his judge.
“Why, my lard, as I was going past the Royal Exchange I meets Billy. ‘Billy,’ says I, ‘will you sky a copper?’ ‘Done,’ says he; ‘Done,’ says I; and done and done’s enough between two jantlemen. With that I ranged them fair and even with my hook-em-snivey—up they go. ‘Music!’ says he—‘Skulls!’ says I; and down they come, three brown mazards. ‘By the holy! you flesh’d ‘em,’ says he. ‘You lie,’ says I. With that he ups with a lump of a two year old, and lets drive at me. I outs with my bread-earner, and gives it him up to Lamprey in the bread-basket.”
To make this intelligible to the English, some comments are necessary. Let us follow the text, step by step, and it will afford our readers, as Lord Kames says of Blair’s Dissertation on Ossian, a delicious morsel of criticism.
As I was going past the Royal Exchange I meets Billy.
In this apparently simple exordium, the scene and the meeting with Billy are brought before the eye by the judicious use of the present tense.