Truly, indeed, does the illustrious Goethe say, that this prince knew how to put himself on a level with the highest and lowest. We are, however, compelled to quit this rustic, half-clad Venus for brighter scenes and more intellectual pleasures. On his return from his ride, his highness proceeds to call on Lady Morgan, who receives him with much grace and urbanity.
"I was very eager (says the distinguished stranger) to make the acquaintance of a woman whom I rate so highly as an authoress. I found her, however, very different from what I had pictured her to myself. She is a little, frivolous, lively woman, apparently between thirty and forty, neither pretty nor ugly, but by no means disposed to resign all claim to the former, and with really fine and expressive eyes. She has no idea of 'mauvaise honte' or embarrassment; her manners are not the most refined, and affect the 'aisance' and levity of the fashionable world, which, however, do not sit calmly or naturally upon her. She has the English weakness, that of talking incessantly of fashionable acquaintances, and trying to pass for very 'recherchée,' to a degree quite unworthy of a woman of such distinguished talents; she is not at all aware how she thus underrates herself.
"She is not difficult to know, for, with more vivacity than good taste, she instantly professes perfect openness, and especially sets forth on every occasion her liberalism and her infidelity; the latter of the somewhat obsolete school of Helvetius and Condillac. In her writings she is far more guarded and dignified than in her conversation. The satire of the latter is, however, not less biting and dexterous than that of her pen, and just as little remarkable for a conscientious regard to truth."
Now is this fair?—is this gallant?—is it princely?—is it gentlemanlike?—hunted, followed, worshipped, and besought as his highness was by Lady Morgan; dogged, baited, ferreted out, and fêted as he had been, was it to be expected that he would denounce his kind hostess as frivolous, affected, a liberal and an infidel,—(and he too, of all men in the world)—with more vivacity than taste, and no regard for truth!—and, worst of all, "neither pretty nor ugly!"
He does, indeed, slily drop one lump of sugar into his bowl of gall, and thinking he knows her ladyship's mind to a nicety, no doubt believes that the one sweet drop will "property the whole." "She is apparently between thirty and forty." Miss Owenson, however, was an established authoress six-and-twenty years ago; and if any lady, player's daughter or not, knew what she knew when she wrote and published her first novels, at eight or nine years' of age, (which Miss Owenson must have been at that time, according to the prince's calculation,) she was undoubtedly such a juvenile prodigy as would be quite worthy to make a "case" for the Gentleman's Magazine, and as fit to fill a show-waggon at Bartholomew Fair, as her ladyship's namesake who was born with double joints, and could lift a sack of corn with her teeth when she was only six years old.
His highness now determines to explore County Wicklow, and starts for Bray,—"a town twenty miles from Dublin!"—having "left his carriage and people in town."—Of this carriage and people we are often told much, and they seem to give him no more trouble or inconvenience in the management of them than his hat or his gloves,—when he wants them he has them,—when he does not, they vanish into thin air. What did he do with his "carriage and people" while he was flirting with the barmaid at Bangor? When did they cross the water to Ireland? for we have seen he came quite alone through Wales; and we shall see presently that he made all his excursions in Ireland in noddies, jingles, jaunting cars, and went back quite alone through England upon the tops of coaches. But, not to dwell on such trifles—for we suppose one might, without much injury, say, both of "principality" and of "people," de minimis non curat Prætor—let us attend his highness (or, to give him the exact title which the Germans bestow on princes of this calibre, "his thorough-illustriousness,") to his supper-table at Bray.
"I supped with a young parson of good family, who made me laugh heartily at his orthodoxy in matters of religion, interspersed with talk, which was by no means remarkable for severe decorum of virtue. But such is the piety of Englishmen (qu. ?)—it is to them at once a party matter and an affair of good manners; and as in politics they follow their party implicitly, through thick and thin, reasonable and unreasonable, because it is their party;—as they submit to a custom for ever because it is a custom; so they regard their religion, (without the least tincture of poetry,) in exactly the same point of view: they go to church on Sundays, just as regularly as they dress every day for dinner; and regard a man who neglects church, just in the same light as one who eats fish with a knife."
We may afford to despise this infidel's sneer at English piety. As for his ideas of English manners, the secret of his "thorough-lustre" on that head now begins to peep out. He had evidently been studying the poor puppyisms of what has been well enough called "the silver-fork school of novelists." In the genuine spirit of the doctors of this precious "sapientia," he says,—
"The common people in England put the knife as well as the fork to their mouths. The higher classes, on the contrary, regard this as the true sin against the Holy Ghost, and cross themselves internally when they see a foreign ambassador now and then eat so;—it is an affront to the whole nation."