Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 3 (of 3). Jonah Barrington

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СКАЧАТЬ grand measure was nevertheless so strongly pressed – the ladies so coaxed the alderman to take the pretty name, and they were so well supported by Sir Charles Vernon, then master of the ceremonies, (and of course the best judge in Ireland of what was good for Sir William at the Castle of Dublin,) that his resolution gradually softened, wavered, and gave way. He became convinced against his will, and at last, with a deep sigh and a couple of imprecations, ungratefully yielded up his old, broad, national Stammer, to adopt an Anglicised mincemeat version thereof; and in a few nights, Sir William Steemer’s landau was announced as stopping the way at the breaking up of the Duchess of Richmond’s drawing-room.

      ’Tis true, some very cogent and plausible reasons were suggested to Sir William, pending the negotiation, by a lady of excellent judgment, and what was termed in Dublin “masculine understanding.” This lady had great weight with his lordship. “You know, my Lord Mayor,” said she, sententiously, “you are now nine or ten pegs (at the lowest computation) higher than you were as a common alderman, and a pronunciation that might sound quite in unison with ‘sheriff’s peer,’ would be mere discord in the politer mouths of your new equals.”

      “Ah! what would Jekey Poole say to all this, if he were alive?” thought Sir William, but was silent.

      “Consider, also,” – pursued the lady, – “consider that Stammer is a very common kind of word; nay, it is a mere verb of Dutch extraction (as that great man Doctor Johnson says), which signifies stuttering; and to articulate which, there is a graceless double chopping of the under jaw – as if a person was taking a bite out of something: – try now, try, Stammer – Stammer!”

      “Egad, it’s – it’s very true,” said Sir William: “I – I never remarked that before.”

      “But,” resumed the lady with the masculine understanding, “the word Steemer, on the contrary, has a soft, bland, liquid sound, perfectly adapted to genteel table-talk. To pronounce Steemer, you will perceive, Sir William, there is a slight tendency to a lisp: the tip of the tongue presses gently against the upper gums, and a nice extension of the lips approaching toward a smile, gives an agreeable sensation, as well as a polite complacency of countenance to the addresser. – Now, try!”

      Sir William lisped and capitulated – on express condition; first, that the old County Clare tone of Stammer, in its natural length and breadth, should be preserved when the name was used by or to the Corporation of Dublin.

      “Granted,” said the lady with the masculine understanding.

      “Secondly, amongst the aldermen of Skinners’ Alley.”

      “Granted.”

      “Thirdly, in the Court of Conscience.”

      “Granted.”

      “Fourthly, in my own counting-house.”

      “Granted – according to the rank of the visitor.”

      “Fifthly, as to all my country acquaintance.”

      “Granted, with the exception of such as hold any offices, or get into good company.”

      The articles were arranged, and the treaty took effect that very evening.

      Sir William no doubt acquired one distinction hereby, which he never foresaw. Several other aldermen of Dublin city have been since converted into baronets of the United Kingdom, but not one of them has been able to alter a single syllable in his name, or to make it sound even a semitone more genteel than when it belonged to a commonplace alderman. There was no lack of jesting, however, on those occasions. A city punster, I think it was a gentleman called, by the Common Council, Gobbio, waggishly said, “That the Corporation of Dublin must be a set of incorrigible Tories, inasmuch as they never have a feast without King-James1 being placed at the head of their table.”

      It is said that this joke was first cracked at the Castle of Dublin by a gentleman of the long robe, and that Mr. Gobbio gave one of the footmen (who attended and took notes) half a guinea for it. Though a digression, I cannot avoid observing that I hear, from good authority, there are yet some few wits surviving in Dublin; and it is whispered that the butlers and footmen in genteel families (vails having been mostly abolished since the Union) pick up, by way of substitute, much ready money by taking notes of the “good things” they hear said by the lawyers at their masters’ dinner parties, and selling them to aldermen, candidates for the sheriffry, and city humourists, wherewith to embellish their conversation and occasionally their speeches. Puns are said to sell the best, they being more handy to a corporator, who has no great vocabulary of his own: puns are of easy comprehension; one word brings on another, and answers for two meanings, like killing two birds with one stone, and they seem much more natural to the memory of a common councilman than wit or any thing classical – which Alderman Jekey Poole used to swear was only the d – ’d garbage (gibberish) of schoolmasters.

      Had the Jubilee concern ended here, all would have been smooth and square: – but as events in families seldom come alone, Providence had decreed a still more severe trial for Sir William Steemer– because one of a more important character, and requiring a more prompt as well as expensive decision.

      Soon after the luxurious celebration of the Jubilee throughout the three united kingdoms (except among such of the Irish as happened to have nothing in their houses to eat or drink, let their loyalty be ever so greedy), I chanced to call at the Mansion House on official business; and Sir William, always hospitable and good-natured, insisted on my staying to taste (in a family way) some “glorious turtle” he had just got over from the London Tavern, and a bottle of what he called “old Lafitte with the red nightcap,” which, he said, he had been long preserving wherewith to suckle his Excellency the Duke of Richmond.

      I accepted his invitation: we had most excellent cheer, and were busily employed in praising the vintage of 1790, when a sealed packet, like a government dispatch, was brought in by the baronet’s old porter. We all thought it was something of consequence, when Sir William, impatiently breaking the seal, out started a very beautiful painting on parchment or vellum, gilded and garnished with ultramarine, carmine, lapis caliminaris, and all the most costly colours.

      “Heyday!” said Sir William, staring: “what the deuce have we here? Hollo! Christopher – Kit – I say Kit – who – who – or where the devil did this come from?”

      “By my sowl, my lord,” replied Christopher, “I dunnough who that same man was that fetched it; but he was neat an’ clean, and had good apparel on his body, though it was not a livery like mine, my lord.”

      “Did – did – he say nothing, Kit?” said Sir William, surprised.

      “Oh yes, plenty my lord; he desired me on my peril to give the thing safe and sound to your lordship’s own self. He swore, like any trooper, that it was as good as a ten thousand pound bank of Ireland note in your pocket any how. So I curdled up at that word, my lord; I towld him plain and plump he need not talk about peril to me; that I was nothing else but an honest sarvant; and if the said thing was worth fifty pounds in ready money it would be as safe as a diamond stone with me, my lord.”

      “And was that all, Christopher?” said Sir William.

      “Oh no, my lord,” replied Kit, “the man grinned at me all as one as a monkey; and said that, maybe, I’d be a master myself one of these days. ‘By my sowl, maybe so, Sir,’ says I, ‘many a worse man arrived at being an attorney since I came into service;’ and at the word, my lord, the said man held his hand quite natural, as if he’d fain get something into СКАЧАТЬ