Blue-Stocking Hall, (Vol. 2 of 3)

by William Pitt Scargill

"Which warm from the still, and faithful to its fires,"

were dealt out with equal readiness and prodigality to all who looked as if they were inclined to purchase Parnassian fame; and the same snuff-box supplied a substitute for sand, with which ever and anon, the bard sprinkled his effusions. Fancy a large, obtuse red face, curled head, rough coat, of dark brown cloth, fastened with a cord round his waist; a hat full of holes, an ink bottle cased over with a surtout of pack-thread, and tied at a button-hole; a pen stuck behind one ear, and a roll of the coarsest description of paper sticking out of his bosom, and you have before you as much of poet Connor as I shall give till you see his fac simile admirably sketched by Fanny's pencil in my journal. Mrs. Fitzroy and I, whose perfections had been "theme of song," gave half a crown each to the verse-vender, and received another scolding from old Bentley for encouraging these idlers, who, he says, truly enough I believe, are amongst the most worthless part of the community. We then dispersed, and went our several ways, for the first time since the "English foreigners" had been at Glenalta without saying when shall we meet again? I am melancholy I confess. My heart is full, as the hour of my departure advances. The last week has brought me more intimately acquainted than ever with the excellence from which I must tear myself; and I am sorrowful in proportion as I compare the feelings which I brought to Ireland with those which now on the eve of separation over-whelm me, as I bid farewell to this happy abode of all that is best and brightest. Where shall I look for such affection; where seek such disinterested kindness, mental improvement, and variety of pleasurable excitement, as I have found in this charming spot, which I nicknamed Blue-stocking Hall, and believed to be a centre in which pedantry, dullness, affectation, and presumption, had agreed to meet and lodge together?

Glenalta, "I cry you mercy;" if repentance merit pardon, I may hope to be forgiven. I love even Domine, and down to the very dogs, nothing is an object of indifference that I leave behind. How painful the sensation that one experiences when the heart swells as though it would burst its confine, an unbidden tear starts, and utterance is palsied? Yet this is what we pay our money for, and delight in the actor or the actress who can most powerfully call forth such emotion, by only imitating those passions, and feigning those incidents which naturally affect our sympathies. Why do we thus liberally bestow our best feelings on theatrical fiction, while we so frequently withhold them from the legitimate claims of reality? Old Bentley would give some reason, I dare say, for this anomaly, not very favourable to human nature; and if I think of it I will ask him the question before I go. We are to have strangers at dinner to-day, which is a bore, but my aunt wishes to repay some of the many attentions shewn to Frederick, since his return from Dublin, by all the neighbouring gentry, who have been profuse of congratulation, and perhaps she is desirous of constraining us all to be more cheerful in spite of ourselves, than the prospect of a parting scene on the day after to-morrow would permit, were it not for a little gentle compulsion. I shall go on writing till we set out, and shall not finish this till I reach London, where I shall hope to find means of sending my packet as usual by private hand. What a lucky dog you are in receiving such pounds of stationery free of cost, in a country where epistolary taxation is calculated by weight? Adieu, till to-morrow.

Well, yesterday is "numbered with the years before the flood," and the company which, while in perspective, I thought would be a gène, turned out a resource, and gave us a great deal to talk of when spirits were flagging, and threatened to fail unless given fresh motion by some new impingement from without. The ladies who were asked did not come, and the most prominent features among the gentlemen of the country who made their appearance were, Mr. Fitzallan, a man of large fortune, generally an absentee, and Mr. Ridley, another person of good estate, together with their respective sons. The politics, manners, and sentiments, in every possible department of conversation between these neighbours are north and south of each other, but as they met here on neutral ground, and in a lady's house, all was smooth to outward seeming. Mr. Fitzallan is a liberal, and very eloquent; he talked admirably on the rights of the people, the errors of Administration, the total want of honesty in Ministers; the shameful abuse of power, peculation in every quarter, prostitution of the national purse, and dereliction of justice. He sat next to Mrs. Fitzroy, whose animated countenance almost emitted light, as she listened to a flow of mind so congenial with her own. Mr. Ridley, on the opposite side, who took his seat next my aunt, supported even the very thickest skull to be found on the Ministerial side of Lords and Commons. To a person not immediately engaged in conversation with either of our leaders, nothing could be more comical than the effect of opposition in the chance-medley of sounds that vibrated round the table. It was what the printers call a pie, when the devils have jumbled their types into confusion. I heard liberty, authority, equal rights, wholesome rule, universal suffrage, Kingly prerogatives, emancipation, Protestant ascendancy, the curse of tithes, the blessings of an Established Church, &c. in the drollest mess that could be imagined. When the speakers descended from their stilts, and, quitting the arena of dispute on public affairs, meandered into the paths of private life, the same remarkable difference was observable in the style of our orators. Mr. Fitzallan talked with enthusiasm of the peasantry of Ireland as the finest, but most oppressed, people under Heaven; declaring that West Indian slavery had nothing to compare, in its horrors, with the subjugation of this British island; this land of beauty, this nursery of the brave. He told some striking anecdotes of his own tenantry, who, he said, would follow him to the confines of earth, and that were he like Roderick Dhü, only to whistle as he rode along, the whole country would rise in his defence. When he spoke of his family, he dwelt on the lovely innocence of childhood, and said how hard he felt it even to look angrily. All discipline he left entirely to Mrs. Fitzallan, who was, he acknowledged, so much wiser than himself, that he willingly relinquished every title to controul, and gladly confessed that he was hen-pecked and chicken-pecked, and pecked in every possible manner of pecking; adding, "I live, in fact, totally under petticoat government, and find nothing suits with my temper so pleasantly as to be led in all things by my wife." Mr. Fitzallan's appearance is very handsome, and his manners are perfectly polished, which gave the most finished, at the same time the most playful tone to every thing he said, while Ridley looked as serious in describing a game of German tactics to Fanny, as if he had been delivering evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons on the Corn Laws. Young Fitzallan gave a scowling glance at his father every time that he spoke; and whenever he could slide in a word, it was sure to be a cut at the difference between theory and practice. Young Ridley, on the contrary, seemed to hang with delight on every word that his father uttered, though with the most perfect freedom and considerable intelligence, he sometimes ventured a flight in praise of some of our Opposition men, who met with no quarter from the old man. When the party broke up in the evening Mrs. Fitzroy burst into a glowing eulogium on Mr. Fitzallan, "who," she said, "was the most noble creature she had met for ages. That man has such heart, he is overflowing with love for his species, and his views upon every subject are so generous, so exalted, so comprehensive"—

"That they comprehend nothing, madam," interrupted Mr. Bentley in a high state of irritation. "I repeat, madam," continued he, "that you were never so mistaken in the course of your life. This shewy man, who has attracted so much of your admiration, possesses property to a large amount in several counties in Ireland. The agent whom he employs in this part of the country, I know to be one of the most grinding, heartless, fellows in creation. Mr. Fitzallan is one of the worst landlords in Ireland, and never does an act that is not dictated by the grossest self-interest. In private life he is a compound of pride and laxity. The former governs his conduct with wife and children, to all of whom he behaves in the most imperious yet capricious manner; and, though he has too little controul over himself to enforce subordination in others, he is selfish and tyrannical with all whose actions he can dare to command. You might have observed how small a degree of credit he has with his son, who dotes on his mother, and resents, as far as he can, his father's neglect of her. Madam, Mr. Fitzallan fastened on your ear because you were a stranger, and he found that he could play off an artillery of words upon your ignorance of his true character.

"Now there is honest Jack Ridley, whom you did not condescend to address, I believe, for the whole day; I would bet a sovereign that you think every syllable of what I have told you fits him to a tee, and that I am either an idiot or a madman for having given you such an account of your favourite. The truth is, that you and I may exchange our portraits, and each will then possess a good likeness, for my worthy friend Jack is all that you ascribe to Mr. Fitzallan. If he incline perhaps a little to what is now called bigotry, it is in defence of his King and his Church, though he would not hurt the feelings of any man, whatever be his creed. He is an excellent magistrate, one of the best of landlords, and it is worth going from this to Fort Ridley to see him in the midst of his family. When he returns to-night, the smile of welcome will greet his arrival. His son and he are probably at this moment cheerfully discussing in their way home the agreeable party at Glenalta; and will make the fire-side group partakers in every little incident or remark that has occurred during the absence of two of its members.

"Were we to accompany the Fitzallans in their homeward course, I promise you that your enthusiasm would be plunged in an ice-bath ere you had left this gate three perches behind you. Imagine the father and son, fitted like corner-cupboards into the extreme angles of their carriage, asleep, or feigning sleep; knees approximating, but not touching, towards the centre. Arrived at the Rialta (foolish name), the gentlemen contrive to separate without a mutual "good night,"—no "blazing hearth," no "crackling fagot;" no beaming open countenance awaits their return. A silence dark and chill as death pervades the mansion, and morning's sunny ray has no power over the gloomy hearts that dwell within it. At the Rialta absenteeism stares you in the face whichever way you turn. Offices dilapidated, plantations overgrown, gates off their hinges, walls scolloped into gaps, weeds flourishing in the very porch, paper hanging about your ears, bell-ropes pulled down from their cranks, furniture thinly scattered, old fashioned, yet ill preserved, heavy, but not magnificent: these are the dreary indications of approach to the residence of a popular orator, who lives beyond his means, and comes annually amongst his tenants to obtain supplies which may enable him to pass another year in estrangement from their wants and their wishes.

"At Fort Ridley you find tight cottages, whole fences, trim gardens, clean walks, and warm welcome. You hear no cant about a radical reform; but you see progressive and constant improvement. Your ears are not assailed by cataracts of fine words, but your heart acknowledges a continued flow of kindness and good humour. You encounter no tirades about liberty and equality, but you find all happy in their own places. Parents walking hand-in-hand, sustaining each other's authority, not struggling for their own: children respectful and affectionate: servants orderly and comfortable: the poor protected: the unhappy consoled. Mrs. Fitzroy, I only say, give me one Ridley, man, woman, or child, and I will joyfully contract to let you have as many Fitzallans as you can steam away from us in your packet. Take an old man's assurance, that there is little reality, whenever you find much shew. Good wine (the proverb says) needs no bush; and when people do, they need not talk. Things tell their own stories. "Be not solitary, be not idle," is the conclusion of Johnson's beautiful fiction on the Search after Happiness; and Voltaire, the very opposite of our great moralist in all but the possession of superior talent, finishes his disgusting, but witty, Candide, with words to the same effect, 'Il faut cultiver le jardin.'"

"You always set your face against whatever I approve," said Mrs. Fitzroy; "but Mr. Fitzallan seems quite a practical man," added she, "and that is the reason that I like him. All his principles are pure; and, judging by what I have seen, I should say they are reduced to daily exercise, else how should he know so much of the Irish peasantry, or be able to relate so many interesting anecdotes respecting them?"—"Why, madam," replied old Bentley, "you might as well argue to the original humour of a man who had learned Joe Miller by heart. Mr. Fitzallan studies stage effect, and has tragedy as well as comedy at his fingers' ends. An Irish story, well purged from its yellow clay, and dressed to advantage, is a nice morsel, even in the heart of London, if you do not stuff your friends with too much of a good thing; and the gentleman of whom we are speaking knows exactly how much pudding will choke a dog."

Mrs. Fitzroy is so genuinely diverted by Mr. Bentley, that they always part the best friends imaginable. He now shook hands and went home. When he was gone, Mr. Otway said of him, "There goes one of the bluntest, and yet the kindest, people I know. It would seem as if Nature, in forming my worthy neighbour, had been playing at hide-and-seek with herself; for in his character there is a jumble of the most heterogeneous materials: rude as a bear, he is gentle as a lamb; and though sly as a fox in detecting the wiles of his species, he is one of the most single hearted persons I have ever met with, in all his own dealings with mankind. The penetration with which he delves into character, is almost supernatural. He decides on a counterfeit at a glance; and though it is rarely his habit to indulge a sentimental vein, you would be astonished by the tenderness of feeling which sometimes softens that rugged exterior. I know him so intimately that I am aware of the contradictions in his mind, and he is not ashamed of being himself with me; but in common society he avoids the least exhibition of softness, and is generally glad when he has frightened strangers by his roughness, though upon occasion, if he be in the humour, I have known him delighted with individuals, who, not repelled by his frown, have braved opposition, and surmounted the obstacles to his friendship.