As men make use of olives to give a relish to their wine, so John Buncle made use of philosophy to give a relish to life. He stops in a ball-room at Harrowgate to moralise on the small number of faces that appeared there out of those he remembered some years before: all were gone whom he saw at a still more distant period; but this casts no damper on his spirits, and he only dances the longer and better for it. He suffers nothing unpleasant to remain long upon his mind. He gives, in one place, a miserable description of two emaciated valetudinarians whom he met at an inn, supping a little mutton-broth with difficulty, but he immediately contrasts himself with them in fine relief. ‘While I beheld things with astonishment, the servant,’ he says, ‘brought in dinner—a pound of rump-steaks and a quart of green peas, two cuts of bread, a tankard of strong beer, and a pint of port-wine; with a fine appetite, I soon despatched my mess, and over my wine, to help digestion, began to sing the following lines!’ The astonishment of the two strangers was now as great as his own had been.
We wish to enable our readers to judge for themselves of the style of our whimsical moralist, but are at a loss what to chuse—whether his account of his man O’Fin; or of his friend Tom Fleming; or of his being chased over the mountains by robbers, ‘whisking before them like the wind away,’ as if it were high sport; or his address to the Sun, which is an admirable piece of serious eloquence; or his character of six Irish gentlemen, Mr. Gollogher, Mr. Gallaspy, Mr. Dunkley, Mr. Makins, Mr. Monaghan, and Mr. O’Keefe, the last ‘descended from the Irish kings, and first cousin to the great O’Keefe, who was buried not long ago in Westminster Abbey.’ He professes to give an account of these Irish gentlemen, ‘for the honour of Ireland, and as they were curiosities of the human kind.’ Curiosities, indeed, but not so great as their historian!
‘Mr. Makins was the only one of the set who was not tall and handsome. He was a very low, thin man, not four feet high, and had but one eye, with which he squinted most shockingly. But as he was matchless on the fiddle, sung well, and chatted agreeably, he was a favourite with the ladies. They preferred ugly Makins (as he was called) to many very handsome men. He was a Unitarian.’
‘Mr. Monaghan was an honest and charming fellow. This gentleman and Mr. Dunkley married ladies they fell in love with at Harrowgate Wells; Dunkley had the fair Alcmena, Miss Cox of Northumberland; and Monaghan, Antiope with haughty charms, Miss Pearson of Cumberland. They lived very happy many years, and their children, I hear, are settled in Ireland.’
Gentle reader, here is the character of Mr. Gallaspy:
‘Gallaspy was the tallest and strongest man I have ever seen, well made, and very handsome: had wit and abilities, sung well, and talked with great sweetness and fluency, but was so extremely wicked that it were better for him if he had been a natural fool. By his vast strength and activity, his riches and eloquence, few things could withstand him. He was the most profane swearer I have known: fought every thing, whored every thing, and drank seven in hand: that is, seven glasses so placed between the fingers of his right hand, that, in drinking, the liquor fell into the next glasses, and thereby he drank out of the first glass seven glasses at once. This was a common thing, I find from a book in my possession, in the reign of Charles II., in the madness that followed the restoration of that profligate and worthless prince.[[42]] But this gentleman was the only man I ever saw who could or would attempt to do it; and he made but one gulp of whatever he drank. He did not swallow a fluid like other people, but if it was a quart, poured it in as from pitcher to pitcher. When he smoked tobacco, he always blew two pipes at once, one at each corner of his mouth, and threw the smoke out at both his nostrils. He had killed two men in duels before I left Ireland, and would have been hanged, but that it was his good fortune to be tried before a judge who never let any man suffer for killing another in this manner. (This was the late Sir John St. Leger.) He debauched all the women he could, and many whom he could not corrupt....’ The rest of this passage would, we fear, be too rich for the Round Table, as we cannot insert it, in the manner of Mr. Buncle, in a sandwich of theology. Suffice it to say, that the candour is greater than the candour of Voltaire’s Candide, and the modesty equal to Colley Cibber’s.
To his friend Mr. Gollogher, he consecrates the following irresistible petit souvenir:
‘He might, if he had pleased, have married any one of the most illustrious and richest women in the kingdom; but he had an aversion to matrimony, and could not bear the thoughts of a wife. Love and a bottle were his taste: he was, however, the most honourable of men in his amours, and never abandoned any woman in distress, as too many men of fortune do, when they have gratified desire. All the distressed were ever sharers in Mr. Gollogher’s fine estate, and especially the girls he had taken to his breast. He provided happily for them all, and left nineteen daughters he had by several women, a thousand pounds each. This was acting with a temper worthy of a man; and to the memory of the benevolent Tom Gollogher, I devote this memorandum.’
Lest our readers should form rather a coarse idea of our author from the foregoing passages, we will conclude with another list of friends in a different style:
‘The Conniving-house (as the gentlemen of Trinity called it in my time, and long after) was a little public-house, kept by Jack Macklean, about a quarter of a mile beyond Rings-end, on the top of the beach, within a few yards of the sea. Here we used to have the finest fish at all times; and, in the season, green peas, and all the most excellent vegetables. The ale here was always extraordinary, and everything the best; which, with its delightful situation, rendered it a delightful place of a summer’s evening. Many a delightful evening have I passed in this pretty thatched house with the famous Larry Grogan, who played on the bagpipes extremely well; dear Jack Lattin, matchless on the fiddle, and the most agreeable of companions; that ever-charming young fellow, Jack Wall, the most worthy, the most ingenious, the most engaging of men, the son of Counsellor Maurice Wall; and many other delightful fellows, who went in the days of their youth to the shades of eternity. When I think of them and their evening songs—‘We will go to Johnny Macklean’s, to try if his ale be good or no,’ etc. and that years and infirmities begin to oppress me—What is life!’