Sir Jasper Carew: His Life and Experience. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ now, Watty,” replied he, in a half-angry tone; “but I tell you what it is, you’d neither be so ready with your fun, nor so willing to play interpreter, if old Bob was the same man he was five-and-thirty years ago! – No, ma’am, he would not,” added he, addressing my mother. “But maybe, after all, it’s a greater triumph for you to turn an old head than a young one.”

      He hurried away after this; and although my father followed him, and did all in his power to make him join his companions at table, it was in vain; he insisted on going to his room, probably too full of the pleasant vision he had witnessed to destroy the illusion by the noisy merriment of a drinking-party.

      Trivial as the event was in itself, it was not without its consequences. Bob Ffrench had spread the fame of my mother’s beauty and accomplishments over Dublin before the following week closed, and nothing else was talked of in the society of the capital. My father, seeing that all further reserve on his part was out of the question, and being satisfied besides that my mother had acquitted herself most successfully in a case of more than ordinary difficulty, resolved on leaving the rest to fortune.

      From all that I have ever heard of the society of the time, and from what has reached me by description of my mother’s manner and deportment, I am fully convinced that she was exactly the person to attain an immense popularity with all classes. The natural freshness and gayety of her character, aided by beauty and the graceful duties of a hostess, – which she seemed to fill as by an instinct, – made her the object of universal admiration, – a homage which, I believe, it was not difficult to see was even more pleasing to my father than to herself.

      Castle Carew was from this time crowded with visitors, who, strangely enough, represented the most opposite sections of politics and party. My father’s absence during some of the most exciting sessions of parliamentary life had invested him with a species of neutrality that made his house an open territory for men of all shades of opinion; and he was but too glad to avail himself of the privilege to form acquaintance with the most distinguished leaders of opposite sections of the House; and here were now met the Castle officials, the chiefs of Opposition, the violent antagonists of debate, not sorry, perhaps, for even this momentary truce in the strife and conflict of a great political campaign.

      CHAPTER VIII. A STATE TRUMPETER

      The 27th of May, 1782, was the day on which Parliament was to assemble in Dublin, and under circumstances of more than ordinary interest. The great question of the independence of the Irish Legislature was then to be discussed and determined; and never was the national mind so profoundly excited as when that time drew near. They who have only known Ireland in a later period, when her political convulsions have degenerated into low sectarian disputes, – irregular irruptions, headed by men of inferior ability, and stimulated solely by personal considerations, – can scarcely form any idea of Dublin in the days of the Volunteers. It was not alone that the Court of the Viceroy was unusually splendid, or that the presence of the Parliament crowded the capital with all the country could boast of wealth, station, and influence, but that the pomp and parade of a powerful army added brilliancy and grandeur to a spectacle which, for the magnitude of the interests at stake, and the genius and capacity of those that controlled them, had not its superior in Europe.

      The position of England at the moment was pregnant with anxiety; at war with two powerful nations, she had more than ever reason to conciliate the feelings and consult the wishes of Ireland. The modern theory of English necessity being Irish opportunity had not the same prevalence then as in our own day, but still it had some followers, not one of whom more profoundly believed the adage, or was more prepared to stake fortune on the issue, than our acquaintance, Anthony Fagan.

      If the Grinder was not possessed of very sage and statesmanlike opinions on politics generally, he was, on Irish questions, fully as far advanced as the patriots of our own time; his creed of “Ireland for the Irish” comprising every article of his political belief, with this advantage over modern patriotism that he was immensely rich, and quite ready to employ his wealth in the furtherance of his conviction. He was no needy adventurer, seeking, as the price of a parliamentary display, the position to which mere professional attainments would never have raised him, but a hard-working, slow-thinking, determined man, stimulated by the ambition that is associated with great riches, and stung by the degradation of low birth and proscribed religion.

      Such men are dangerous in proportion as they are single-minded. Fagan, with all his sincerity of purpose, failed in this respect, for he was passionate and resentful to an extent which made him often forget everything else but his desire of a personal reparation. This was his great fault, and, strange enough, too, he knew it. The working of that failing, and his iron efforts to control it, made up the whole character of the man.

      The gross corruption which characterized a late period of Irish history was then comparatively unknown. It is very possible that had it been attempted, its success had been very inferior to that it was destined to obtain subsequently, for the whole tone of public feeling was higher and purer. Public men were both more independent in property, as well as principle, and no distinction of talent or capacity could have dispensed with the greater gifts of honesty and good faith. If there were not venality and low ambition, however, to work upon, there were other national traits no less open to the seductive arts of a crafty administration. There was a warm-hearted and generous confidence, and a gratitude that actually accepted a pledge, and acknowledged it for performance. These were weaknesses not likely to escape the shrewd perception of party, and to the utmost were they profited by. The great game of the government was to sow, if not dissension, at least distrust, in the ranks of the national party, – to chill the ardor of patriotism, and, wherever possible, to excite different views, and different roads to success, amongst the popular leaders of the time. There came a day when corruption only asked to see a man’s rent-roll and the list of his mortgages, when his price could be estimated as easily as an actuary can calculate an annuity when given the age and the circumstances of the individual. Then, however, the investigation demanded nicer and more delicate treatment, for the question was the more subtle one of the mixed and often discordant motives of the human heart.

      The Duke of Portland was well calculated to carry out a policy of this kind; but I am far from suspecting that he was himself fully aware of the drama in which he acted. He was a plain, straightforward man, of average good sense, but more than average firmness and determination. He came over to Ireland thoroughly impressed with the favorite English maxim that whatever Irishmen wish is assuredly bad for them, and thought, like the old physicians of the sixteenth century, that a patient’s benefit was in the exact proportion to his repugnance for the remedy. I am not quite sure that this pleasant theory is not even yet the favorite one as regards Ireland, which, perhaps, after all, might be permitted the privilege so generally accorded to the incurable, to take a little medicine of her own prescribing. Be this as it may, I am convinced that the Duke of Portland was no hypocrite, but firmly believed in the efficacy of the system he advocated, and only made use of the blandishments and hospitalities of his station to facilitate connections which he trusted would at last be concurred in on the unerring grounds of reason and judgment. Whatever people may say or think to the contrary, hypocrisy – that is, a really well-sustained and long-maintained hypocrisy – is one of the rarest things to be met with, and might even be suspected never to exist at all, since the qualities and gifts necessary, or indeed indispensable, to its attainment are exactly of an order which bespeaks some of the first and greatest traits of human nature, and for that reason would make the game of dissimulation impossible; and I would be as slow to believe that a man could search the heart, study the passions, weigh the motives, and balance the impulses of his fellow-men, for mere purposes of trick or deception, as that a doctor would devote years of toil and labor in his art for the sole aim of poisoning and destroying his patients.

      Few men out of the lists of party took so great an interest in the great struggle as Tony Fagan. With the success of the patriotic side his own ambitions were intimately involved. It was not the section of great wealth, and there was no saying to what eminence a man of his affluence might attain amongst them. He not only kept СКАЧАТЬ