?T4?73 B ; r n r Mf 5 ; IN PROSE AND VERSE. BY J. CLARENCE MANGAN.w i » EDITED BY C. P. MEEHAN, C.C. .MS M-S" IDufilitt: JAMES DUFFY one from Wilson, a famous phrenologist ; and the other from Mangan himself to a fellow bard named Frazer, and who, over the nom de yplume, “ De Jean,” contributed many delightful poems to the Nation . The writer knew him well, but he does not remember what good, if any, Bishop Berkeley’s Catholi- Xll PREFACE. con did to a corpuscnlum enfeebled by all the ills which are said to infest the lives of the generality of those who struggle to main- tain themselves by the pen. And now should any one ask why these letters have been introduced here, will not this be a satisfactory answer ? Every scrap of writing from Mangan’s pen, or remotely relating to him, deserves to be rescued from the countless contingencies to which manuscripts are exposed. C. P. M. Xlll PHRENOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION OF MANGAN’S HEAD. This is the head of one capable of warm attachment, and of having his mind, enthusiastically wrought up to the consideration of any subject or the accomplishment of any purpose. He would be apt to live much more in the world of romance than in that of reality, and with respect to the other sex, he would be inclined to cherish fanciful notions of their dispositions and characters. He has a bright imagination and possesses the spirit of poetry in a very high degree, but he would be subject to great alternation of feeling, and would be susceptible of great extremes, both of joy and grief. His mind is of an inquiring order, and he possesses ability for philosophy, but in general, and for a con- tinuance, a literature of a lighter and more imaginative kind would suit him best. He appears to have but little combativeness, destructiveness, acquisitiveness, or self- esteem, which, with large cautiousness and no great degree of firmness, would render him very likely to be much influenced by the spirit of his associates : on the other hand having but little veneration, he would not be disposed to yield much submission to authority. He has a tender and compassionate heart for others, but especially for the young and innocent. He has also a strong desire to acquire the good will of others, and more particularly of those who are themselves great or amiable. He would not be of a domineering, insolent, or quarrelsome disposition ; he would rather err in the contrary extreme and regard the crimes and follies of others with too lenient an eye. In religion he would be more speculative than devotional. In politics, he would prefer the people to the Crown. In all the affairs of life generally, he would be more imaginative than prudent. He has but little secretiveness, and would then be inclined to express his sentiments with- out disguise on all occasions, perhaps often indiscreetly. XIV Constructiveness is hardly developed at all, on which account he would not have a genius for mechanism or inventions generally, but he would possess the power of magnifying, embellishing and beautifying in the highest degree. A tendency to exaggerate and amplify would pervade whatever he undertook. He has great Form and Language, and would have an exquisite perception of the beauty of figure from the first, and a remarkable memory for words from the latter. His memory for places would be also great. In argument he would be quick -though ted, but singular and prone to dissent from commonly received opinions. In action he would be rather irresolute, unless operated upon by some strong motive, on which occasions he would be rather impetuous. In conclusion, this is the head of one who is susceptible of strong impressions, great joy or great sorrow, but who would live much more in the past and future than in the present, and would be reckoned somewhat eccentric by the world. The principal in- gredients of the character it indicates are taste, wit, extravagance, vividness of fancy, generosity, and proneness to yield to the solicitations of others. J. Wilson. 11 thFeby. 1835. :o: XV MANGAN’S RECIPE TO MAKE TAR-WATER. Pour a gallon of cold water on a quart of tar. Stir both up with a stick for five or six minutes. Let the mixture (which should be covered) lie for three days ; then pour it off. Nothing more need be done, except perhaps to skim the oil from the surface. If rightly made it will appear of a light amber colour, somew hat like that of sherry wine. With respect to quantity to be taken, this will de- pend on the nature of the disease. In most cases half a pint in the morning and another in the evening are sufficient. Where the complaint is of a desperate character double or treble that quantity may be requi- site. Bishop Berkeley cured a hideous malady — “ a gangrene in the blood ” — a leprosy in fact — in one of his own servants, by forcing him “ to drink tar- water by night and day.” He cured an old soldier who had been turned out of hospital as incurable of the dropsy, by administering to him two quarts per diem of this Western Balm of Gilead. He also cured — but see his work, and see Prior, who was next to him, the greatest Tar-waterman of the day. One thing, however, should be particularly attended to. This, namely, that he who takes Tar- water must take nothing that will interfere with it. He must not approach any intoxicating liquor. He may drink cold water, and milk, and soup to any extent ; he may also drink tea and coffee, but the less of these latter the better. Tar- water knows its own power. It is a jealous medicine. It is the Emperor of Specifics, and “ Turk- like, ’twill bear no brother near its throne.” J. C. Manga n. PROSE ESSAYS. £3 Crrat in oh a of Congo. * * Sure such a pair was never seen So justly formed.” — The Duenna. |{ INTRODUCE my subject stylishly. R There is nowhere to be met with in this world a more interesting spectacle than a pair of tongs. Throughout Japan and the provinces of Tartary — from boundary to boundary of the Celestial Empire — among the Moguls even, not to speak of VanDieman’s Land, in Piccadilly, Philadelphia, Stamboul, Timbuctoo, and Bilboa, — I see nothing that I admit to be worthy of standing up by the side of a pair of tongs. It suggests a prolific universe of reflections, each the parent of an additional universe. Contem- plate the subject as you will, handle it as you may, you are certain to discover, day after day, some new quality to blow your trumpet concerning. Small wonder — it is everlasting as the march of Eternity — in- exhaustible as the depths of Infinity. Only A l 2 mangan’s essays. consider, Public, what a pair of tongs really is. Its shape and figure — attitudes it un- consciously assumes — the material of which it is constructed — the purposes to which it is destined — are all topics apart, should be the work of a succession of generations ; to dilate upon the entire conjunctively we know to be a dead impracticability. The bare attempt in any man to do it in 3 vols. post octavo sickens our stomachs ; it is entirely too revolting — monstrous beyond measure. Any proposal, emanating from New Burlington Street, and addressed to me, insinuating that I should undertake the business, would prove to us all how slenderly the great European publisher has profited by the intellectual treasures piled behind his counter by Bulwer and Disraeli; Col- burn’s Lunacy would be at once established as a melancholy fact, and his solitary re- source would be to plant himself solus on the pinnacle of the Temple of Hamburg, and continue there to all eternity, occupying a position too deplorably conspicuous for human imagination, unaided by the Spirit of the Age, to be capable of conceiving. I proceed now to point out to observers what a blessed thing it is for mankind that there is nothing like a pair of tongs. A pair of tongs is an unique object. There is nothing exactly resembling it upon the sur- ua ngvn’s essays. 3 face of the earth. It is alone, a phoenix, a study for the amateurs of the singular. This is fortunate. If there were any other object, from the North Pole to the South, perfectly analogous to the tongs, the indi- viduality of the tongs would be at an end ; it would, in fact, be merged in the other object. Hence would result a startling question : By what process shall the learned societies of Europe be enabled to distinguish between the identity of the tongs and the identity of the other object ? No discovery in physics hitherto accomplished could assist us in framing a satisfactory reply to this question. It is worse than a Chinese puzzle. I enter into a mysterious question, to wit: when and by whom the first pair of tongs was built ? Nobody can tell me, and thus the thing goes to the Devil ! The origin of tongs is involved in obscu- rity. The period of their introduction into Europe in particular, and among civilized nations in general, has never been clearly ascertained. It is to be deeply regretted that antiquarian research has, in so few in- stances, been directed to the development of the mystery that hangs over the inven- tion of tongs. This indifference is not merely culpable, it is atrocious ; it inculcates, however, a splendid moral lesson, by point- ing out the melancholy consequences of 4 mangan’s essays. neglect, and by establishing the necessity o! diligence and perseverance with regard to what may be too toploftically termed the minutice of life. Perhaps a conjecture of my own may be hazarded without presump- tion. I should imagine that tongs first came into use as soon as they began to be wanted. Any theory which assumes that they existed antecedent to the discovery of fire by Prometheus, in Kilkenny, 5,600 years ago, must be baseless, unless, Public, you and I take it for granted that they might have been applied to widely different pur- poses — par example, to the taking up of little pebbles of lump sugar and dropping them into the mouth of the punch jug; and considering that the average length and dimensions of tongs altogether unfit them for such an office, the hypothesis must be rejected as the reverie of a drunken dreamer. I come down with heavy fist upon the sparetongs niggard. Tongs are more frequently handled in the depth of winter than during the sweltering sultriness of the dog days; oftener in re- quisition where there is fire than where there happens to be none. The reason of this is obvious; it is because there is a greater occasion for them. Tongs, however, are by no means invariably made use of mangan’s essays. 5 even in a chamber where the occasion re- quires their exercise ; and this circumstance is generally attributable either to inability or disinclination in the proprietor of the chamber. Possibly, he has no tongs — pos- sibly, though he may have them, he declines using them. Putting case the first as true, he is destitute of the ability to procure a pair ; in case the second he is, though possessed of a pair, evidently unwilling to devote them to the ends to which they w T ere primarily appropriated. Both transactions are of the shabby and beggarly order ; but moral jurisprudence will for ever erect a distinction between the pauper and the niggard ; and a rational man w r ill be always found ready to give the pauper more half- pence than kicks, and the niggard more kicks than halfpence. I was fearfully erudite in descanting upon the guilty doings of Cartesius and his clique ; because they have Burked the ex- istence of tongs, therefore, I make an ex- ample of them. Why should I blink it ? The existence of tongs involves the destruction of a certain antiquated metaphysical dogma, ascertain- able by a reference to the writings of Sachelling, Gassendi, Reid, Mallebranche, Wolfe, Descartes, Leibnitz, and many more. The fact is that, with the hypothetical ex- 6 MANGANS ESSAYS. ception of the Berkeleyans, all philosophers have agreed in the truth of the theory which maintains that there are in esse vel posse, but two things, i.e., body and spirit ; this theory is a fallacy. What manner of thing is a pair of tongs ? Clearly, it is neither body, nor yet spirit. It is all head, neck and legs ; it possesses no body ; it is inert and lifeless ; therefore, it has no spirit. Hence, it is not body — it is not spirit ; and not being body and not being spirit, the inference follows that it is neither. How often have I, during the slowly-rolling winter nights, from midnight till day-dawn, in the solitude of my lamp-illumined apart- ment, how frequently have I perused the works of those illustrious labourers whom I have named, and of others whom I might have named, if I had chosen to name them, but whom I have not chosen to name, and therefore have not named; and as I have perused them, how I have been paralysed with astonishment to observe the total omis- sion of any allusion in those works to a pair of tongs ! I have ransacked Reid’s, Power’s, Mill’s Phenomena, and Brown’s Philosophy in vain. “ Give me,” I have exclaimed, while fathoming, muddler in hand, the depth of my eleventh tumbler, “give me the remotest allusion, the faintest reference to the existence of tongs. I shall be satisfied mangan’s essays. 7 with the shadowyest semblance of an ac- knowledgment/ 5 In vain, Public ; no tongs - — no allusion — nothing whatever. Damning evidence this, of something ! Such has been my emphatical exclamation while fathoming with a muddler my fifteenth tumbler. The thing, Philander, was hollow. Any admission of the existence of a pair of tongs would have been death to the systems of philosophy palmed upon us all. Good herrings ! how afflicting it is to see men of extensive intel- lectual resources stooping to such dirty paltriness. The iniquity of suppression is more heinous than the iniquity of misquota- tion, because the misquoter merely garbles a fact, merely submits it to us in a garbled state ; but he who suppresses it entirely omits it, in fact, altogether. I show what Howdydowdy thought of all such scamps as snuff candles with tongs. Follows a lamentable howl for Howdydowdy. A select friend of my own, the late Dr. Howdydowdy, an Englishman of infinite research and surpassing powers of genius, of whose acquaintance, Philander, you would have been vain-glorious, never ceased expres- sing the highest veneration for tongs. To have listened to the indignant eloquence of that man upon the profanation undergone by a pair of tongs, when converted by the hand of vulgarian into a pair of snuffers. I 8 MANGAN S ESSAYS. was accustomed, deferentially, to hazard a few remarks, hy way of palliating the enor- mity. a It’s all gammon,” he would reply, after having heard me out with lofty patience, that characterises elevated minds ; “ its all gammon ah ere fudgification of yours, darn it ! If a man han’t got fingures clean enough to trim a glimmer, let him cadge a pair of snuffers, and bedarned to un !” It is a pity that Howdydowdy should have died as he did, in a ditch. For six months pre- vious to his death he had been subsisting exclusively upon whiskey, a practice that should never be recommended to a person of delicate constitution. He rests in Bully’s Acre. I argue the merits of the case as between tongs and poker. In what way the poker- champions are to be dealt with, claims have been authoritatively advanced by plodders and dawdlers in favour of the poker ; and the superiority of the poker over the tongs has been warmly contended for by nincompoops and drivellers. The mode of treating these bores and boobies consists in tripping them up and treading them joyously in the gutter. What is a poker ? A bare unit, a figure of 1, a Brobdignagian pin, a striking imple- ment, it is true, in the gripe of a savage ; but left to itself, abandoned to its own private resources, seen reclining in its ordi- MANGAN S ESSAYS. 9 nary attitude by the mantelpiece, niliil — nothing. What stupid humbuggers there are alive this day. Let no man henceforth syllable poker and tongs in the one sentence. I dilate celestially upon the effects pro- duced on me by the glimpse of a superb pair of tongs. I prove that nobody has a right to call me a robber. The preservation of tongs in a state of purity and brilliancy constitutes one of the noblest objects to which human attention can be directed. If a bachelor be so unfortunate as to have neither cook nor housemaid, the concentrated energies of his own mind should be lavished upon the task of burnishing his tongs. When I stalk into a drawingroom and per- ceive a magnificent brace of tongs genteely lounging by the fireside, I experience a glow of spirit and a flow of thought bordering on the archangelical. Standers-by are instan- taneously stricken lifeless with astonishment at the golden tide of poetry which, in myriads of sunny streams and glittering rivulets, issues from my lips, poetry as far beyond what you, Public, are accustomed to get from me, as ambrosia is beyond hog- wash. With modest effrontery I take a chair, and if my quick eye detect the pre- sence of anything in the shape of wine or punch on the table I cheerfully abolish its existence. Impelled, as I am, on such occa- 10 mangan’s essays. sions by an irresistible impulse, all apology is superfluous ; but, to speak the truth, the mingled grace and gravity that accompany my performance of the manoeuvre afford superabundant compensation to the com- pany for the disappearance of the drinkables. I may add, that I re-establish the spiritless bottle upon the table, instead of putting it into my pocket, as a robber would do, or shattering it into shivers upon the hearth- flag, as a ruffian would do. Why is this ? Because, Public, I, Clarence, am neither a ruffian nor a robber. Herein I develop the rueful consequences of lazily suffering a tongs to get rusty. It conquers me, and I display sentimentalism of a heavenly order De l’ autre coU , whenever a pair of tongs with a cloak of ignominious rust, strikes the eye of me, the heart- wither- ing spectre paralyses the majority of my faculties in the twinkling of a bed-post. Darkest pictures arise melancholically and flit in lugubrious guise before my fancy. So pines, ejaculate I, a neglected genius in obscurity, his prospects shaded, his powers running to waste, destitute of a fair field for his talents, and looking forward to a dreary death and dismal burial in the vicinity of some dunghill. I see Trenck, in Magde- burgh; Tasso, in Ferrara; Galileo, in Florence, and you, Philander, in Kilmainham. Yet, mangan’s essays. 11 you, Philander, are not rusted, albeit you have quitted one rusty city for another rusticity. You rather remind me just now of a parboiled egg than of a rusty pair of tongs. Why ? Because you are under Dunn. Then flow my tears like rain-water in winter. The immediate application of eau-de-Cologne or sal volatile to my temples becomes a matter of pressing necessity, and while this charitable duty is in progress of performance by thee, Eglantine, I, totally mastered by the romance interwoven with my nature, unconsciously kiss the fair hand that is thus employed, and bedew it again and again with passionate tears, which gush less from the eyes than from the heart. I am, indeed, a being of incredible suscepti- bility. I wonder very much that it is not generally known among my acquaintances ; but half the world seems to be battishly blind. I start a poser that sorely puzzled Zeno. When I have got pretty deeply into it I am unfortunately called off to a bowl of brandy and gruel. I now approach the analysis of an argu- ment of intense interest. It is taken for granted that a pair of tongs has lost one of its grippers. A question to be mooted then results whether the remnant be a pair of tongs or not, A presumption in favour of 12 MANGAN S ESSAYS. an affirmative conclusion is started from the fact that although a man (whether a native of the Cannibal Islands, a Chinese, or a Tip- perary man) may have lost a toe, he is not less the man on account of the loss of the toe. But to this it may be objected, that the reasoning is not of universal application, inasmuch as if you purchase a pennyworth of buttermilk for your breakfast, deduct a penny from twenty pounds, the residue is no longer twenty pounds. Let us conceive the hypothesis that I have a pot of porter on the table; I abstract a spoonful of porter from that pot. Query — is the unabstracted residuum of porter left in the quart a potful of porter or not ? It will not be denied by the most determined doubter that the aggre- gation of a specific number of spoonfuls of porter is requisite to constitute a total pot of porter. Two spoonfuls will not do ; three are a failure ; four spoonfuls are a decided bam ; five are no go ; no man in town will make a potful out of six ; seven are a beg- garly humbug. Query again, then — is what remains in the pot a potful of porter or not ? If it be still a potful of porter, it must have been more than a potful of porter antecedent to the abstraction of the spoonful of porter. If it be not a potful of porter, what is it ? Is it a potful of froth — a bubble — a juggle on touch, taste, and sight. Here we are mangan’s essays. 13 left to speculate in the dark. Doubt and obscurity surround us on every point of our starless pathway. At every step we make we stick half a foot deeper in the bog. We are bewildered, labyrinthed, lost ! I am free to admit, however, that taken in the abstract scarcely any preceptible analogy subsists between a pot of porter and a pair of tongs. The tongs are of steel or brass ; the pot is of pewter. You swallow the por- ter; no man swallows tongs. The solitary link of brotherhood between porter and tongs is this : that tongs has a head ; and that porter has a head. Still I am satisfied with the general tone of my logic. I per- ceive that I have shed a wide illumination upon the subject. I have pickaxically pioneered my way to the original question, that of the grippers. Is it not, therefore, Public, deplorable, must it not be considered dismal, is it not an awful circumstance, that I should feel at present too dozy and drowsy to push along any farther ? My visage is buried in a basin of brandy and gruel. As soon as I have cleared the basin off I toddle to bed. Being now again on my pins, and feeling refreshed, like a giant after a long drink of whiskey, I go on in this way. The miracu- lous resemblance between the shape of man and the shape of tongs cannot fail to make 14 manoan’s essays. a profound impression upon the most sopor- iferous observer. To the moral philosopher it is a source of never-dying interest; the zoologist contemplates it in the light of a singular phenomenon ; but, above all, it appeals with irresistible power to the sym- pathies of the philanthropist. It has oftener than once occurred to me that Robert Owen might, with great advantage and propriety, commit the superintendence of his parallelo- grams to a pair of tongs. The Trades’ Union might, in the absence of their presi- dent, show their independence of all prece- dents by moving : — “ That until Tom Steele do arrive the chair be taken by Steel Tongs.” Tongs for ever ! Tongs will yet triumph. At some future period, when Reason shall reign solus, when illuminism shall really prevail among men ; when Broughams Useless Knowledge books shall be carted waggon-load after waggon-load into the mud of Father Thames; when the human race shall have become rational, when monarchies shall have tum- bled, and kings become nobodies, and — spiral climax ! — when persons like myself, with intellect of the superhuman sort, shall drop in for an equitable portion of such snacks as may be going ;. then, at that time, in that day, about that period, shall Governments and Unions award a tardy tribute of vener- mangan’s essays. 15 ation to tongs. Some better Browning, yet unswathed, will arise to celebrate the glory of tongs in all languages ! Senators will legislate with tongs in their hands ! Duels will be decided by appeals to tongs ! Tongs will be, as Warton superfinely expresses it, “ be slowly swung with sweepy sway ” from side to side by right arm of pedestrian — fair presumption for his dextrality ! And poets wdll'magnify tongs in all measures and out of all measure — anapaestic, pyrrhic, trochaic, dactyle, alexandrine, iambic, and even hexameter — which that illustrious member of societies and industrious mem- ber of society, Dr. Southey, has, in his latter days, with miserable w r ant of gump- tion, endeavoured to see whether he could have any chance in trying to make a bar- barous attempt at. But I lament to add that in those distant times none of us, nine- teenth-century men, shall be alive, because we shall be all dead. I speak of the year 7000. Growing desperate as I proceed, I attack William Godwin, and threaten to slaughter him. I guess it is Helvetius who, in his trum- pery book, De V Esprit, observes that a man vegetates like a tree, and that he (Helvetius) would be as wdllingly a tree as a man. Helvetius has totally omitted to inform us 16 mangan’s essays. how much he would take to become a pair of tongs. The only mode left us of account- ing for this culpable oversight is by pre- suming that Helvetius was as drunk as a piper while he was writing his book. God- win, in his preface to St. Leon , categorically tells me that “ it is better to be a human than a stock or a stone/’ Upon my honour I cannot away with such an implied con- demnation of tongs. William Godwin, I contest it with you stiff, sir ! I will do battle with you on that article. How dare you, W. G., erect yourself into a dogmatist on men, stocks, and stones ? Come, Godwin — come, my man, whence is your experience? What is the extent of your dabblings in the stocks? Were you ever in the stocking trade ; and, if so, how much was your stock- in-trade worth ? Have you ever devoured a stockfish ? Do you support a black stock? Come, never shrink from my attacks, my man, as if I were a tax man ; but answer me : How often do you play at jackstones ? How far can you see into a millstone ? Did you ever see a single stone of potatoes. I am a-stone-ished at your stock of assurance. You cub, what do you mean ? Explain yourself, you varlet. Do you know, you sumph, to whom it is that you stand op- posed ? Why, you greenhorn of a month s growth, is it possible that you forget that MANGAN S ESSAYS. 17 the knotted club of Clarence is already lifted up to prostrate you in your mother mud and that you are destined to kiss the bosom of your fatherland incontinent ? Godwin, I venerate your forty-quill power as an author; and therefore, Godwin, I challenge you to a public disputation in my native City, Dublin, upon this subject ; allowing you, as Crichton allowed the University of Paris, the choice of thirty languages, and six and thirty various kinds of verse. There now, c’est- Id une affaire fin ie ; so you may take your change out of that, and small blame to you, my gay fellow, for doing so. This is the most eventful morning of my life, and the adventures that I shall meet before the sun gets up are to form the sub- ject of a future paper in the Comet . I dive into the ocean of wit for a stray pearl and fetch up a casket of gems. We now consider what species of scene socialised would exhibit, in case no tongs were a nul- lity — that is, if the space they fill presented to the eye of the gazer — that is, if there were no tongs. Imagine, then, Philander — think, Public, to what extremities we should be reduced ! Stars and Garters, Public, figure yourself Francis Blackburne, Esq., Grey’s Attorney-General of Ireland, poking his fingers among the cinders and semi- calcined coals, and dropping them into the B 18 mangan’s essays. fire ! Picture to yourself William Conyng- ham Plunket, Lord High Chancellor of Ireland, descending to such a degradation as this is — raking in his old days ! getting smutty in our eyes ; lowering himself to the level of the Bar ; disturbing the ashes of the grate ; shaking hands with the most brazen of fenders, showing that he is a good war- rant at “ posting the coal,” and a better on the turf! Instead of hastening away to Coke on Lyttleton, wasting away his little ton of coke. In place of poring over Black - stone's Commentaries , fingering coals, which are merely black stones (common tories, Phil !) I ask whether any man supposes that I am to write to all eternity upon tongs, and never get a drop of punch. I want to put one question. I demand an answer in the face of congregated Europe, of the Comet Club of the Allied Powers, and of the black-bearded, grey-headed, and blue- devilled Ministry of England. Is there on the Globe, under the sun, or in the comet, a man with the pia mater of an ass’s foal, who will tell me that I ought to go on writing upon a pair of tongs to all eternity, without once slipping down to the nearest public- house to moisten my whistler ? Why, what a hoggish stupidity such a fellow must have inherited! How muzzy he feels at all times ! mangan’s essays. 19 “ The world would ” (as Shelley says), “ laugh with a vast and inextinguishable laughter ; ” to see him slowly trailed through some sludgy puddle of interminable longitude, while I standing alone, aloof from all, would look tearfully on, compassionating the suf- ferings of the unfortunate man from the depths of my soul, and swilling (from time to time), as I looked on, protracted draughts from a pitcher of punch to invigorate my nerves, and preserve me from hysterics. Let me reflect. It is now 2 a.m. ; taverns are closed ; not a minim of rum under my roof ; I am waterless, sugarless, and spir — no, not spiritless ! I go forth, Public, in terrible night, and flashing rain and howling tem- pest, to storm the city for a beaker, though but of small beer. Why a man ought not to be tweaked by the nose with a pair of tongs merely on account of his politics. Listen to me now, readers. If you have invited a gentleman to dinner, it is apiece of suburban vulgarian- ism to tweak him by the beak with a pair of tongs, merely because his political opin- ions are not in harmony with yours. Truth compels me to add that it betrays devilish impertinence in you, and affords a strong proof that neither your morals nor your man- ners were properly cultivated when you were a gaffer. Your guest may play the devil, 20 MANGAX’s ESSAYS. but that is no reason you should presume to play Saint Dunstan. Your criminality as- sumes a deeper dye if you have taken no pains to ascertain whether or not his beak had been soaped before he came into the room, for whenever the beak has not been soaped, and that well, the tweaking is an expressibly painful operation to the tweaked party. In conclusion, I must observe, that I have never seen the act done, that I have never heard that any man did it, and that I do not believe any man capable of doing it ; any man, at least, who reflects that the beak is the leading article of a gentleman’s coun- tenance. P.S. — Beak-tweaking is, indeed, very much out of fashion in general. Everyone nose that it is bectkause of the Reform Bill ; and possibly bringing a Black-burn on his hands (no joke, Phil.) The blood, as he stoops, gushes cataract-like, to his cranium, turning topsy-turvy the mighty kingdom of ideas in brain of Plunket, and sending the king himself adrift, Heaven knows whither, like the Dey of Algiers or the ex-Rex Charles X. Look at his forehead, and suppress your tears ! It has come bump into contact with that smutty bar, now a trifle the brighter for loss of the smut. Did you ever lay eyes on such a dark-browed Chancellor ? Only conceive what sums must, in conseauence, mangan’s essays. 21 be disbursed by Plunket for cleansing lo- tions — for Pomade divine, for ambrosial soap, otta of rose soap, soap of almonds, cocoa-nut oil soap, etc., etc., etc. And yet, his is but one instance in many — but, ex uno disce omnes . Let us, therefore, Public, who possess tongs, who enjoy unlimited use of them, who have received the capability of turning them to account as often as we like, let us, I say, be careful how we under- value so distinguished a blessing. I adduce Jewish testimony on behalf of the antiquity of tongs. Since I commenced this essay, my excel- lent friend, Moses Cohen, of Dame Street, a philosophical Hebrew (whose cigars I warmly recommend to the “ lip-homage ” of all de- voufc, cloud-blowers), has directed my atten- tion to the following passage in the fifth book of the Jewish Ethics, compiled by Levi : — Ten things were created on the eve of the Sabbath in the twilight, and these are they : the mouth of the Sabbath, the mouth of the ass (of Balaam), and the mouth of the spring ; the rainbow, manna, the rod of Moses, the shameer, characters, writing, and the tables ; and some say also the Daemons, and the grave of our legislator, Moses, the ram, and our father Abraham, and also the prepared instrument of a tongs. 22 mangan’s essays. A passage worth the whole of the Talmud, I shall leave it to speak of itself. Public and I have a tussle. If we dispassionately investigate the na- ture of our conceptions with regard to the abstract idea of a pair of tongs, we shall dis- cover that it is by no means what the Aristotelians denominate an ens vationis, but rather — Public (with outrageous im- patience) — 0 curse you and your tongs, and your ens rationis to boot ! Is there no end to this trumpery ? You bore me to death’s door. But, bless my soul ! is it possible ? He is positively dead asleep. (Approaches and shakes me). I (yawning and rubbing my orbs) : You have disturbed me, old woman, in the enjoyment of as hazily-beauti- ful a doldrum as ever soul of poet revelled in. You have cruelly broken my talisman, for which I feel cruelly disposed to break your neck. My occupation is gone : asleep, I wrought wonders ; awake, my brain-case is a base-built pumpkin. She : But what, in the name of all that is odd, induced you to select such a subject. I : Why, old woman, if I am no original genius, if nature has gifted me with certain toploftical powers. She (interrupting me in an unmannerly manner) : Topoloftical ! pah ! Do you think I will tolerate such rebel English ; like your prohibition, forsooth, mangan’s essays. 23 against syllabling poker and tongs in one day. I : What ! antiquated dame, have you never heard of Shakespeare’s “ Airy tongs that syllable men’s names In desert wildernesses.” It is clear that you have never been to the Tonga Islands, or eaten (and drunk, too) your share of a hog’s head in company with King Tongataboo. She : Well, sir, pour couper court , if you wish me to patronise — I mean, matronise you, you will desist from a subject only calculated for the meridian of an ironmonger’s shop ; I lay my inj unction on you. I (with an air) : An injunction that the Chancellor shall never dissolve. I yield to the fair — though it is hard. With Schiller I exclaim : “ Das Jahrhundert 1st meinen Ideal richt reif — Ich lebe Erin Biiger derer weiche kommen warder.” Adieu, old creature ! She : Adieu, my son ! P.S. — Every one remembers Lord Angle- sey’s modest and quiet entree into Dublin some time back, and Marcus Costello’s pair of tongs and pair of black stockings. Cos- tello’s conduct on that occasion was looked on at the time, as a symbolical hint to such of the Marquis’s friends as we are deter- mined to keep up the game “ at all hazards” that thus would all black legs be ultimately 24 mangan’s essays. caught and suspended. For my part, I always, from the bottom of my sole, con- sidered it a mark of respect from the noble Marcus to the noble Marquiz for the heeling measures set on foot by the latter, which I am shoer it would be bootless to enumerate. The Marquis himself says he under-stands it in that light, and says he will take steps to put down white feet everywhere. Whig- gery, it is said, has got beyond standing ; if so, Anglesey’s first proclamation will make a capital 1-e-g for it. mmm gollese library CHESTNUT .HILL. MASS. MANGAN S ESSAYS. 25 ST t}t fTtoo dFIat* ; or, our (©uarfe* institution. AN APOLOGUE. “ Ce gouvernement serait digne des Hottentos dans lequel il serait permis a un certain nombre d’hommes de dire, c’est a .ceux qui travaillent a payer ; nous ne devons rien parce que nous sommes oisifs.” ^NCE upon a time there stood, in a cer- tain part of Kingdom-land, known by ♦ the name of Undone Town, a large, dull, old building, called by w r ay of pre- eminence — the House. It was a crazy sort of edifice, and was filled with tenants, many of whom were likewise crazy. Their busi- ness was to transact, for weighty consider- ations, the affairs of the neighbourhood ; but they generally preferred passing their time either in praising themselves or in abusing one and other. They styled themselves “ The Collective Quizdom,” and on that account continued for a series of years to be looked up to with a sentiment of almost religious reverence by mohaw T ks, moseys, and spooneys, and in general by all those persons who, not understanding the meaning of the 26 mangan’s essays. phrase, concluded that it was too sacred a nature to be intelligible. The House con- sisted of two parts, the Upper Flat or House of Words, and the Lower Flat or House of Clamours. The Upper Flat was subdivided into several departments. The tenants were named Ducks, Mere-quizzers, Err-alls, Wise- counts, and Barrens. There were also a separate class, forming a coterie by them- selves, and thence called the Bunch of Bye- shops ; another name for these was the Holygarchy, for their principal occupation was preying. The Ducks were famous at (t)waddling, and were remarkable for a partiality of no quacking but their own. The Mere-quizzers, or, as some called them, from their buckram stiffness and leaden gravity, the Mar-quizzes, were poor lifeless creatures ; the fairest specimen of the caste was considered to be the Mar- quiz of Long- dulldreary. The course of the Err-alls was tracked by their blunders, which the wisdom of the Wisecounts was not competent to remedy. As to the Barrens, their title was singularly significative of their intellectual inanity, and they constituted the lowest class of any. The motto of all was, “Know- ledge is Powder.” Their nominal chief wag a puppet in strings (he was called “The Thing;”) he was distinguished from them- selves by wearing an eccentrically-shaped MANGAN S ESSAYS. 27 hat, resembling a bruised kettle with the bottom off; and hence the honour of the kettle, the support of the kettle consistently with the dignity of the kettle, etc., was a favourite phrase with all. The stupidity of this batch of beings v T as only paralleled by their cupidity. They seized everything seizable (the principal name of the puppet was “The Great Seizer.”) They devoured all substances, even iron ; and being particu- larly fond of axes after tea, they were called “ The T-ax-eaters.” The Holygarchy alone regularly ate up a tenth part of whatever the neighbourhood produced. In short, they were all as omnivorous as an army of rats ; and, in fact, a gentleman one day speaking of them indignantly exclaimed : “ They are-a stock-o rats/' an expression, the justness of which was acknowdedged by all the by-standers. The Upper Flat had for some time been insufferable ; its only advocates were sinecu- rists and byeway robbers, with here and there an old woman in a wig, as also Black - ^vood’s Magazine , and an odd weakly weekly newspaper. The John Gull and another paper, never read more than half through, and called the ’Alf-read, besides the Stand- hard, a nightly straggler and struggler, evidently walking on its last legs. In most points of view the Lower Flat might be 28 MANGAN’S ESSAYS. regarded as a less disreputable locality than the upper. It was eminent for several men of distinguished talent and unimpeached integrity. Every measure of any importance originated here, and the utmost that the Barrens, etc., could do was to signify their approbation of the measure. Still, still it was a deplorable Flat. The mutual Billings- gate that passed from mouth to mouth, the slovenliness, the apathy, the selfishness, the prejudice, and impenetrable ignorance that frequently prevailed, and the corrupt and dirty ways of all kinds encountered in this Flat rendered it a disagreeable place for minds of a philosophical or patriotical turn. Many individuals were known, by a hor- rid underground-working system, to have actually burrowed their passage into the House, and Burke-ing traps and Pitt-falls, to ensnare the unsuspecting, were thickly sown at one side of the Flat. This Flat was generally recognised by the names of “ The Hen of Corruption,' ” “ The Sink of Bribery/' “ The House of Clamours," etc. ; and as the other Flat was filled with plunderers and robbers, so this was stocked with plunderers and jobbers. The whole house was, in fine, as it stood, a public nuisance, and all sensible persons agreed that it was high time to think of remodelling it. Wherever human beings are congregated we shall see quacks mangan’s essays. §9 and dwaddlers ; at all events, Undone Town had been, from days immemorial, the grand theatre of Charlatanism ; humorous were the theories, numerous the theorists. The ques- tion being the simplest at all, and the obvi. ous expedient being to take down the edifice and construct a new one ; such an expedient occurred, of course, to nobody. Patching, and piecing, and crutch-propping at most were talked, and these merely by the peculators, and they regularly carried the day, upon the ground that they (the peculators) had the Eyes of the house, whereas their adversaries (the speculators) had merely the Nose. It was a question, they said, between Eyes and Nose, and the Eyes were numerically to the Nose as two are to one. The Puppet was himself a cabinet maker, but declined interfering individually, stating, as his reason, that he was unwilling to occasion umbrage to the Ten Teapots of Europe by compromising the dignity of his kettle, and suggesting at the same time the adoption of the only course that propriety appeared to warrant, viz. : that his Prime-ear should take the eyes and the nose of his faithful cormorants at both sides. In both Flats, however, there were numbers of old saws, tacks, budgets, and tools of all sorts for hire ; many tenants were proficient in boring ; there were ex-plainers 30 mangan’s essays. on every bench, and several were in the con- stant practice of turning. So far for med- dling ; but here was the rub. There was, it appears, a mysterious impalpable something said by sundry persons to exist somewhere, it was called our Venerable Claptrap Quack- stitution in Church and State. The decision of the gravest among the juriscon- sults was that this was an invisible tubful of the extract of jelly ; a decision, in the correctness of which the metaphysicians coincided with the jurisconsults, but said that Aristotle had not propounded any rule sufficient to guide them in deciding whether the tub itself were an entity, an abstract, or a modality, and that in his Ten Predicubles he had made no allusion to the tub. To this, however, the jurisconsults replied: 1st, that Aristotle, having never been seen in a wig, was not an infallible authority ; and, 2ndly, that the tub, being a real tub, could never be regarded as chattel property. The point remained unsettled. Be it as it might, our Quackstitution was a bugbear; every- thing lay at sixes and sevens, from a dread of deranging the jelly of our Quackstitution. Years wheeled on; nothing was achieved. A tenant would talk for seven hours suc- cessively on the necessity of a change, and would pronounce the word Quackstitution one hundred and ten times, and thereafter MANQAN S ESSAYS. SI another would talk for ten hours and a-half on the contrary side, and pronounce the same word three hundred and forty times, and ten and a half being more by three and a half than seven ; and one hundred and ten being less by two hundred and thirty than three hundred and forty, the eyes would assemble against the nose, and would pro- claim that Talker No. 1 had beaten Talker No. 2 by 'three hours and a-half, and two hundred and thirty Quackstitutions. But patience will never be an eternal thing ; it is really so difficult for human creatures to settle down permanently into stocks and stones. Wearied, worried, taxed, tormented, robbed, and devoured uninter- mit tingly, the neighbourhood at last grew uproarious and volcanic. Assemblies and speeches, vows, placards, thunder, and tem- pest followed in order. A sensation of uneasiness and alarm gradually pervaded every department of both Flats. What was to be done ? They consulted ; the majority were for dying in ditches, spilling last drops of blood, and doing other similar matters. One day a special Coterie was summoned. Our venerable and George-us Quackstitu- tion is in danger, said the Mere-quizzes. Let us die, then, said the Ducks, in the breaches of the Quackstitution. It is a love-lie Quackstitution, said the Err-alls. 32 mangan’s essays. It is a booty-ful Quackstitution, added the Holygarchy. The entire Flat sighed. It was established by the Quizdom of our ancestors, observed the Barrens; and Ann Tiquity has stamped it with her seal, re- marked the Wisecounts (Ann- Tiquity was an old woman). It has been the Bullwork of Kingland, said one; it is the law and profits to us all, said another. There was a pause. I think, said Wailingtone to Long- dulldreary, that our Quackstitution is the perfection of human wigsdom — Knowledge is Powder — vide the wigs of the Holygarchy and my own experience in the field. True, said Longdulldreary to Wailingtone ; what is wanting for the tranquillity of Kingland is, in point of fact, a society for the confu- sion of useful knowledge. That which is erroneously high reason is really high trea- son. As regards any Quackstitutional change I have but one name for it — Devia- tion. There was a devilution in France lately, as I have been told (for I never read the papers) ; and the Devil himself was seen publicly in Paris proceeding from street to street to discharge the artillery for the mob. The mob are dangerous people ; they are enemies to all the Drones and Halters on earth. A devilution, said Wailingtone, will strike the kettle off the puppets head, and annihilate the House of Hangover. Depend MANGAN S ESSAYS. 33 upon it, said Longdulldreary. Cumberthe- land then addressed himself to the question. My friends, said he, our Quackstitution is the Quackstitution of Quackstitutions ; no- thing is like to it ; it is parallel to itself alone ; it is beau-ideal of the unique sphinx and phoenix in one. The Eureka that Archimedes missed, our enemies must allow it to be good, since, if not good for some- thing, it must at least be good for nothing. It gives the greenacres to the wiseacres. We are the wiseacres; no man denies it. The speaker then quoted Burgersdicious Machiavel, Yattel, Puffendorf, and Bombas- tes, Paracelsus, for the purpose of dis- proving an assertion respecting something that had occurred on the day before, and continued : Our cause is Holygarchy versus Polygarchy ; the latter being the mob, the multitude, who are many. These powers are now in contest. The power of Poly- garchy has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished. If it should con- tinue to increase the result will disarrange the balance that has in every other age subsisted between both powers. Balances are necessary for balancing things. With- out a balance it is impracticable to balance anything (hear, hear). I trust that I am perfectly intelligible. The remark was pro- found, but I trust that I am perfectly in- G 34 mangan’s essays. telligible. You will find the balance in machinery in grocers’ shops, in watches, account books, etc., etc. To conclude, I shall observe that Hoax and Trapstick, Hocus Pocus with Hummery, Mummery, Flummery, Claptrap, Quackstitution, Church and State. This speech was vehemently applauded, and the last sentence declared to contain the arch-essence of all that could be advanced by way of argument for the Oneservative party. The neighbourhood called a meeting. “ Shall we suffer these imbeciles to subsist as a political body any longer?” they asked. “ What is the Upper Flat but a drag on the Lower ?” The Chairman remarked that in a pro- ceeding of this nature, temperance and order were indispensably requisite. “ Let us,” said he, “ commence by the commence- ment. Let the Lower Flat be first purified. This is the first step. After that, the ob- struction to other and greater beneficial alterations will be fewer. It will be for our option either to modify or abolish the Upper Flat. My own prepossessions are at present in favour of abolition. A chariot runs along gaily enough when there are a dozen or so bluebottle-flies upon the wheel-spoke ; it is, nevertheless, the belief of men and women mangan’s essays. 35 that the same chariot would get on pretty well without the assistance of the bluebottle- flies. The flies and we are at issue ; it is not very material. But we must, I repeat, proceed with moderation and method. A haze is over the moral horizon, and yet we discern objects and principles but dimly ; a glimpse only of the attainable perfect is occasionally afforded us. Unity of purpose, sympathy, of feeling, concord of opinion ; these are all that is wanting ; they are the be-all and end-all. Struggle for these. Isolated exertations are quixotic in cases of this kind. But, possessed of these, precipi- tancy will be unnecessary ; possessed of these, discovery will succeed to discovery, system to system, until at length the uni- versal consent of men shall have established a series of ultimate principles, and produced a constitution unsusceptible of any further improvement.” It was accordingly resolved unanimously that the purification of the Lower Flat should commence forthwith, and the meet- ing having arranged the preliminary measures for the purpose, broke up. [The conclusion of the Apologue will pro- bably be communicated to the Comet here- after. Meanwhile, the writer apologises for his dulness ; he hopes that nothing he has said will be conduced as alluding to any- 36 mangan’s essays. thing whatever. He has been particularly careful in the selection of his proper names. Dashes would have been suspicious ; super- ficial readers might have easily mistaken Lond — nd — rry for Londonderry; but nobody can suppose Longdulldreary to be London- derry. He would not have deemed it necessary to append these observations but for the horrible wickedness of the times and the increasing number of Radical Reformers, all of whom are assassins to man and are incessantly destroying the peace of the aristocracy by publishing penny newspapers and committing other frightful excesses — vide the Quarterly Review , Warder , etc., passim ]. mangan’s essays. 37 Pompeii. A.D. 63, an earthquake destroyed many of its houses and public buildings ; and on the 24th August, 79, occurred the tremendous catastrophe so faithfully depicted by Mangan. The heralds of thy ruin and despair Thickened and quickened as thy time drew nigh. What prodigies of sound convulsed the air ! How many a death-flag was unfurled on high ! The sullen sun went down — a globe of blood, Ray less, and colouring every heart with gloom, ’Till even the dullest felt and understood The coming of an overwhelming doom — - The presage of a destiny and fall, A shock, a thundershock, for thee, for them— for all. The sullen sun went down — a globe of blood, Rayless, and colouring every soul with gloom ; And men’s imagination, prone to brood Over the worst, and summon from the womb Of unborn Time, the Evil and the Dark, 38 mangan’s essays. Launched forth in fear upon that shoreless ocean, Whose whirlpool billows but engulph the bark — Conjectured Dread — and each fresh-felt emotion, Like spectral figures on a magic mirror, Seemed wilder than the last, and stronglier strung with terror. We shrink within ourselves when Night and Storm Are darkly mustering ; for-, to every soul Heaven here foreshadows the character and form Of Nature’s death-hour. Doth the thun- der roll, The wild wave boil, the lightning stream or strike, Flood, fire, and earthquake devastate in vain ? Or, is there not a voice which peals alike To all from these, conjuring up that train Of scenes and images that shall be born In living, naked might upon the Judgment morn ? If thus we cower to tempest and to night, How feltest thou when first the red bolt broke, That seventeen suffocating centuries might mangan’s essays. 39 Enshroud thine ashes in Time’s midnight cloak ? Where wert thou in that moment? Was thy power All a funeral phantom ? Thy renown An echo ? Thine the triumph of an hour ? Enough ! — I rave : when empires, worlds, go down Time’s wave to dissolution — when they bow To Fate, let none ask where , but simply — what wert thou ? The desolated cities which of yore Perished by flooding fire and sulphury rain, Where sleeps the Dead Sea’s immemorial shore, Like blasted wrecks below that mortar plain.* They fell — thou fellest — but, renounced of Earth ; Blotted from being to eternal years, Their image chills the life-blood — thine gives birth, Even while we shudder, to some human tears. Hadst thou less guilt ? Who knows ? The book of Time Bears on each leaf alike the broad red stamp of crime. * 4 ‘The soil of this accursed locality is a species of soft clay, which the rains literally convert into mor- tar.” — Wilson's Travels in the Holy Land . 40 mangan’s essays. €o my [FROM THE GERMAN OF KALCHENBERG.] Hail, narrow house ! wherein, ere long, As on a mother's breast, Away from life’s infecting throng My troubled heart shall rest. Soon shalt thou seal, oh, truest friend ! The fountain of my tears : Thou art th’ asylum whither wend The pilgrim’s lightless years ! Then thither many a noble hand Shall garland- offerings bring ; And friends above my dust shall stand, And songs of sorrow sing. 0 grave-mound! when in moonlight hours, To pensive bosoms dear, Young lovers, leaving gladder bowers, Shall will to wander here ; Look brighter then, that they may mourn With softer grief and love, And with still fresher flowers adorn The crucifix above. So shall they oft, as years roll round, Think on the slumberer there, And to the memory of that mound A tear of pity spare. mangan’s essays. 41 Co Dratft. [FROM THE GERMAN OF GLUCK.] Methinks it were no pain to die On such an eve, when such a sky O’ercanopies the West; To gaze my fill on yon calm deep, And, like an infant, fall asleep On earth, my mothers breast. there’s peace and welcome in yon sea Of endless blue tranquillity. These clouds are living things ; Thence their veins of liquid gold — I see them solemnly unfold Their soft and fleecy wings. There be the angels that convey Us, weary children of a day, Life’s tedious nothing o’er ; Where neither passion come, nor woes, To vex the genius of repose, On Death’s majestic shore. No darkness there divides the sway With startling dawn and dazzling day ; But gloriously serene Are the interminable plains ; One fixed eternal sunset reigns O’er the wild silent scene. 42 MANGAN S ESSAYS. I cannot doff all human fear, I know thy greeting is severe To this poor shell of clay ; Yet come, 0 Death ! thy freezing kiss Emancipates ! thy rest is bliss ! I would I were away. mangan’s essays. 43 mu ISuglr, aitii tjoiu £ itsioui it. BY THE MAN IN THE CLOAK. [This pleasant Extravaganza — a quiz upon the Ger- man school — by a popular writer, was given some years ago to the Editor of the Nation for a publication of a literary character. It is thought necessary to mention this, as we have not an opportunity of commuuicating with the author, and he may not choose to be identified with the particular politics of the Nation . ] Ein Alphorn noch ershallen Das mich von hinnen ruft. Tdnt es aus wald’gen hallen Tent es aus blauer luft Tdnt es von bergeshohen Aus blumenreichem thal We ich nur steh’und gehe llor ich’s in siiSser qual. Bei spiel und frohen reigen, ELnsam mit mir allein, Tont’s ohne je zu schweigen Tdnt tief in’s herz hinein. Noch nie hab’ ich gefunden Den Ort, w^oher es schalit Und nimmer, wird gefunden Dies herz, bis es verhallt, A mystical bugle calls o’er The earth to me everywhere-* Peals it from forest halls or The crypts of the azure air ? From the snow-enrobed mountains yonder ? From the flower-strewn vales below ? 0 ! whithersoever I wander I hear it with sweetest woe ! 44 mangan’s essays. Alone in the woods, or present Where mingle the song and dance, That summoning sound, incessant Is piercing my heart like a lance. ’Till now hath my search been ceaseless, And its place I have nowhere found, But my spirit must ever be peaceless Till that Bugle shall cease to sound ! If the German poet speak truth in the last two lines he had better set sail for England without delay, and assassinate ME, for I am the Bugle-player ! I plunge at once, like an Epic versifier, in medias res ; you per- ceive, Reader, and “ give my worst of thoughts the worst of words.” Yes ; I am the Bugle-blower ; and, like Sam Slick’s cloud-blower, I am willing to blow away and “ take the responsibility.” And who, you ask, is the poet ? That will I tell you instanter. The original grubber-up of the gem that I have set in gold, silver, or pewter, as the metal may turn out to the touch- stone, is, be it known to you, Justinus Kerner, man of many accomplishments — poet, physician, metaphysician, hobgoblin- hunter, widower, and weeper. He is by birth a Swabian, or, perhaps I should say a swab ; just as we call a native of Poland a Pole. The word “ swab,” moreover, has the advantage of “ swabian ” in being shorter by three letters ; and I have seen three letters take up six newspaper columns. Little did mangan’s essays. 45 Kerner imagine the first evening the bugle smote his ears that the Man in the Cloak, whom he saw climbing the hill to the right, was his electrifier ! Up went his dexter ogler along the rocks, and there encountered — a goat : him the poet did not for a mo- ment suspect of practising on either of his own horns ; and so down went his sinister peeper to the flood below, where, however, it was at onck rebuked by a corpulent codfish, whose interrogative eye appeared fixed on “ the first demonogolist in Europe,” with a library of wandering questions in the pupil thereof. I, my cloak, and my bugle, mean- time, had vanished for the night. Pretty considerably bewildered, my swab toddled homew r ard to his attic, and over a second tankard of heavy wet composed the stanzas I have quoted. I confess, nevertheless, it has always ap- peared to me singular — I would say shame- ful — that neither during the concert of that nor of any subsequent evening did Kerner seem to recognise me as the musician. True it is that I wore a cloak a quarter of a hun dred weight, with expansive wings at the sides, and a hood that hung down from the head, obscuring the light of my countenance and bugle-players are generally less cum- brously clad. But still it is difficult for me to acquit him of hoggish stupidity if I sup- pose that his suspicions were not at intervals 46 mangan’s essays. directed towards me. Indeed, the very cir- cumstance of a mans walking about and perspiring under such a peculiar cloak, ought, alone, to have been sufficient to con- vince him (the swab) that there was a mystery of some sort connected with the perspirer ; and had he only trundled up to me and put the interrogatory — “ Man in the Cloak, art thou he ?” I would have re- sponded to his sagacity by nobly, and with- out all disguise, flapping my side-wings in his physiognomy and treating him to a blast that would have shaken him to the centre of his system. I was one day — very recently, indeed — recounting this adventure, with slight addi- tions, to my friend, the King of the Sicilies, when an Englishman near me, who had just been admitted to the horrors of an audience, turned round, a la Jacques Corveau , and stared at my cloak from hood to hem in the rudest manner through his lorgnette . “Pray, sir,” he asked, “are you celebrated for anything besides wearing a cloak ?” Every hair in my moustache quivered at the ruffianism of the fellow ; but on account of the king’s proximity I restrained myself from sneering, or even sneezing. “Yes, sir,” I replied, “for playing on my bugle. Have you not heard my anecdote, you sumph of the muddiest water ? ” “ Come, come,” interrupted the king, no mangan’s essays. 47 personalities ; this gentleman is a Corn-law Repealer." (This he said, evidently not knowing the signification of his words). “Aye," said the Englishman, “I am a Corn-law Repealer!” “ And I,” cried I, flapping my pinions, “ I — I am a Unicorn-law Repealer !” “ A Unicorn-law Repealer !” and the Man- chesterian grinned ; “ what may that be ?” “ A Repealer in virtue of that law of my being which compels me to play on the Horn,” said I, holding up my bugle. “ How a Repealer ?” he asked. “ Thus,” quoth I : “ a Pealer, when I peal ; a Re-pealer, when I peal again. Do you understand, trapp ?” “ Pardon me,” said the Englisher, waving his hand ; “ I do not carry a flash vocabulary about me.” Here the king should thrust himself in. “ What does he mean by a flash vocabulary?” said he to me in an under voice. “A horn of sulphur, your majesty,” I answered,” in the same tone. “ I take it as a direct insult to you, your recent political squabble with Great Britain con- sidered.” Up flared the king, like a rocket from Mount Vesuvius. “ Who talks of sulphur at this time of day ?” he cried. 48 MANGAN'S ESSAYS. “What on earth is he after?” asked th a Corn-law Repealer of me, sotto voce . “ He wants your opinion of the Sulphur Question,” whispered I. “ I shall be happy to give it,” said the Englishman. “ The sulphur monopoly, your majesty, I conceive to be totally ” “I wish the devil had the sulphur mom opoly from the beginning !” roared the king “ I think the devil has had the sulphur monopoly from the beginning,” observed the Corn-law Proser. “I was just about to re- mark that he is the legitimate monopolist of the article.” “ You were, were you ?” cried the king — then turning to me — “ did any man ever see such a silly fellow ?” “ I fancy,” said I, “ folding my cloak about me like an emperor, “that your majesty’s subjects are pretty much in the habit of see- ing fellows quite as silly ” “Indeed! Why so ?” “ Because,” said I, “ you are the King oi the See-sillies ” This tickled the monarch so home that his good humour returned like fine weather on an April day, and he ordered in coffee, cigars, and a steaming bowl of bishop, in return for my share of which I executed an unapproachable solo on my bugle, which dissolved the entire court in an ecstacy of mangan's essays. 49 tears, and made the king, strong as his nerves were, instantaneously mix an additional tumbler, to save himself from fainting. Then I was at Naples — now I am in London. From sulphur to coal-gas ; out of the frying-pan into the fryer. “ A bitter change — severer to severe/’ as the poet Young — now, alas ! grown old in dusty obscurity — sings. I have imported myself hither free of duty — free of all duties, at least, save one, that of blowing my bugle ; and here I am, in “ the great Metropolis/* though I have got no Grant (either from Government or otherwise) to place me there; my bugle on the table of my inn, and my cloak, “ fold over fold, inveterately con- volved/* around my majestic person. A thousand troubles menace me — Coelum non animam mutant qui trans mare currunt ; yet I care not. Come what may my cloak will stick to me, my bugle depend from my baldric. My cloak and my bugle I must always retain, until my last hour shall see the one rended into shreds and the other divested of its identity, melted into air, transmuted into ethereality, as viewless and intangible as one of its own melodies. Here, however, and before I advance a sentence further, I know that some noodles will be disposed to take me very short. Bah ! the jackasses will bray ; you over-rate D 50 mangan’s essays. your pretensions to notice. How are you a greater man than Plato, Brougham, or Bombastes Paracelsus ? You have a bugle and you wear a cloak ; well, and what of all that ? In what way can all those extraneous appendages of the man confer intellectual pre-eminence on the mind ? Were I for answering those green-horns seriously, I should certainly drub them until they dropped. Do the twaddlers not know that the whole thing is sesthetical ? That it in- volves the'abstrusest metaphysical views at all ? That philosophy beholds an admirable harmony in connection between the interior and exterior of man, not only in the abstract but in the individual, and moreover, recog- nises the eternal truth, not to be contro- verted by scepticism, not to be shaken by twaddle, that every individual is himself, and that he cannot become another as long as he remains himself, for the simple reason that if he were to become another he would cease to be himself? No, the ganders, they don’t, because they know nothing upon any subject connected with anything that has ever at all existed anywhere whatever. Let the dunderheads for once show themselves tractable, and attend to what I am going to spout. Public, do you listen ; you are eleva- ted to the high honour of being my confidante. I am about to confer an incredible mark of mangan’s essays. 51 my favour on you, Public. Know, then, the following things : — Firstly. — That I am not a Man in a Cloak, but the Man in the Cloak. My per- sonal identity is here at stake, and I cannot consent to sacrifice it. Let me sacrifice it, and what becomes of me? “ The earth hath bubbles as the water hath,” and I am thence- forth one of them. I lose my cloak and my consciousness both in the twinkling of a pair of tongs ; I become what the philosophy of Kant (in opposition to the Cant of Philoso- phy) denominates a Nicht-ich , a Not-I, a Non- ego. Pardon me, my Public, if I calmly but firmly express my determination to shed the last drop of my ink before I concede the possibility of such a paltry, sneaking, shabby, swindling, strip-and-pillage-me species of contingency. Secondly. — That I am the Man in the Cloak, viz. : I am not an “ Old Woman,” as Mrs. Trollope complains that the Yankees would call her, despite her best bonnets, satin frocks and flounces, and corsets, a V en- fant. Neither am I a lump of moonshine all out. Stigmatise me, if you will, as a Hottentot, as a Troglodyte, as a hang-a-bone jail-bird ; still, you cannot put your hand on your heart and assert that I am a make- believe, a bag of feathers, a non-ens y a bull-beggar, a hobgoblin, a humbug, a lath- 52 MANGAN S ESSAYS. and-pulley get-up, like Punch. Not at all. I do not say that you dare not, but I clap my wings, like a bantam on a barn-roof, and I crow aloud in triumph that you cannot, Public, It is outside the sphere of your power, my Public ! I am the Man in the Cloak. Mettez cela dans votre pipe, et fumez-le , mon public! Thirdly. — That I am the Man in the Cloak. In other words, I am by no manner of means the Man of the Cloak, or the Man under the Cloak. The Germans call me Der Mensch mit dem Mantel, the Man with the Cloak. This is a deplorable error in the nomenclature of that otherwise intelligent people ; and I am speechless with astonish- ment that they should have fallen into it. Why ? Because my cloak is not part and parcel of myself. The cloak is outside, and the man is inside, as Goldsmith said of the World and the Prisoner; but each is a dis- tinct entity ; of that I am satisfied ; on that point I, as the Persians would say, tighten the girdle of assurance round the waist of my understanding, though, perhaps, there is no waste of my understanding whatever. I admit that you may say, “ The Man with the Greasy Countenance/’ or “ The Chap with the Swivel Eye ; ” thus, also, Slawlcen- berglns ( vide Tristram Shandy) calls his hero “ The Stranger with the Nose/’ and mangan’s essays. 53 reasonably enough ; for, although it was at one period conjectured that the nose in question might extend to five hundred and seventy-five geometrical feet in longitude, not even the most incredulous amongst the Faculty of Strasburgh were found to advance an opinion that the nose was not an integral portion of the individual. With me the case is a horse of another colour. I do not put my cloak on and off, I grant, but I can do so when I please by a mere exercise of volition and muscle ; and therefore it is obvious to the meanest capacity (I like original tours de phrase) that I am just the Man in the Cloak, and no mistake. If any cavillers feel inclined to dispute the pro- position with me further, they may await my arrival in Dublin at the Fifteen Acres. Finally. — That I am the Man in the Cloak . Other men tabernacle their cor- poreality in broadcloth, Petershams, Redin- go tes, Surtouts, Macintoshes, Overalls, Wraprascals, Kangaroos, Traceys, Dread- noughts. Every blunderer to his fancy or the fashion. I quarrel with nobody for his taste or want of taste. I do not approach any mooncalf in the public street with an uplifted crowbar, poker, pike, pitchfork, or pickaxe in my grasp, because his toggery is of a different order from my own. I could not do so, independent of my intuitive be- 54 mangan’s essays. nevolence of disposition, I have what Harriet Martineau would call ‘ a powerful preventive check ” in my sense of what is due to the bienseances of society. On the other hand, however, I yield not up a whit of my own liberty. I am aware that in Africa and Asia people wear “ cotton, muslin, and other stuffs with which I won’t stay puzzling;” that in parts of America the run is upon blankets; that in the West Indies nankeens are all the go ; that in Egypt the men some- times carry their duds under their arms. But am I, therefore, to ape their example — to become an African, an American, a West Indian, an Egyptian ? I see not the decil- lionth part of a reason for doing so. I call Europe to witness that I shall never do so as long as I have my cloak. In a case like this I laugh at coercion and despise the prospect of torture. What did I buy my cloak for ? Why did I pay fifteen shillings and sixpence, besides boot, for it to a Jew hawker of old rags, but that I might don it, and never doff it, I should be glad to know ? After all, I am the most rational of man- kind, including Kobert Owen himself, and I will show him that I am. Notwithstanding all I have so eloquently said, there may still remain some persons reluctant to concede my qualifications for amusing or illuminating them, because I carry a bugle and wear a mangan’s essays. 55 cloak. Suppose, then, that in compassion to the hide-bound prejudices of those poor creatures, I gallantly waive all ground of superiority derivable from my bugle and my cloak. What if I cast away, as far as I pos- sibly can — much further than they could cast a bull by his horns — both the one and the other? Will my magnanimity be ap- appreciated? Surely, it may, can, might, could, would, or should be, only really the world is such a settled dolt ! Let me not be misunderstood. I cannot avoid blowing my bugle and showing my cloak. What I mean to state is, that I shall refrain from claiming any especial merit in possessing either. I shall not glorify myself because I split the ears of groundlings, nor shall I give myself any extra-mundane airs, though my wings do occasionally flap like winglings in the eyes of the lieges, children of dust — dusts themselves — as they are. In the very fulness and churchflower of my triumph I shall talk “ with bated breath and whisper- ing humbleness ” of what I have done, am doing, and mean to do ; so that spectators shall say of me, as I said t’other day of my friend, Barney Higgins, the vintner, while he was trying to coax the Bench into (or out of) a renewal of his spirit license — “How like a fawning Publican he looks l ” 56 MANGAN S ESSAYS, With which specimen of my Wit and Wis- dom (N.B. — I am not the father of all the jests in the book that goes by that title) good Reader, I bid you farewell for the present. There is much talk here of “ embarking capital.” I wish the talkers could embark the capital itself, for never did city need an aquatory excursion so much — “ all the town’s a fog, and all the men and women merely fograms.” I shall steam over to the Green Isle shortly ; and, once there, I mean to apply to some Vindicator of Talent in my own behalf and that of my cloak and bugle, and supplicate his patronage for six weeks. Be- yond that period, alas ! I may not remain an abider within any town. Your surprise, Reader, is, doubtless, excited — ah ! you know not what a vagabond I am ! Perhaps I may communicate my history to the Irish people, and if I should I have no hesitation in assuring them that they will pronounce it without a parallel in the Annals of the Marvellous and Mournful. Only see the result ! — lor me there is no stopping place in city or county. An unrelenting doom con- demns me to the incessant exercise of my pedestrian capabilities. It is an awful thing to behold me at each completion of my term scampering off like Van Woedenblock of the Magic Leg — galloping along roads — clearing mangan’s essays. 57 ditches — dispersing the affrighted poultry in farmyards as effectually as a forty-eight pounder could. Other men sojourn for life in the country of their choice ; there is a prospect of ultimate repose for most things ; even the March of Intellect must one day halt; already we see that pens, ink, and paper are — stationary. But for me there is no hope; at home or abroad I tarry not. Like Schubart’s Wandering Jew , I am “ scourged by unrest through many climes.” Like Coleridges Ancient Mariner , “ I pass like Night, from land to land.” No matter tvho or what becomes paralytic and refuses to budge, I must progress. “ Tramp, tramp along the land ; splash, splash across the sea,” is my maledictory motto, A fearful voice, to all but me inaudible, for ever thunders in mine ear, “ Pack up thy duds ! — push along ! — keep moving ! ” I see no prospect before me but an eternity of peripateticalism — “ The race of Life becomes a hopeless flight To those that walk in darkness— on the sea The boldest steer but where their ports invite, But there are wanderers o’er eternity Whose bark drives on and on, and anchored ne’er shall be.” Once again, Reader, farewell, but forget not — The Man in the Cloak, 58 mangan’s essays. ©JjtOipOiF, And where is now the golden hour, When earth was as a fairy realm When fancy revelled Within her own enchanted bower, Which sorrow came to overwhelm, Which reason levelled. When life was new, and hope was young, And sought and saw no other chart Than rose where’er We turned — the crystal joy that sprung Up freshly from the bubbling heart — Oh ! tell us where ? Man — like the leaf that swims the wave, Goes headlong down that rushing river Whose lampless shore Is spectre-peopled from the grave. He cannot in his whirl and fever Of soul, explore The treasures infant bosoms cherish ; Yet feelings of celestial birth To thee are given, Whose Iris hues, too deep to perish, Outliving life, outlasting earth, Shall glow in heaven. MANGAN S ESSAYS. 59 I see thy willow-darkened stream, Thy waveless lake, thy sunless grove, Before me glassed In many a dimly-gorgeous dream — And wake to love — to doubly love The magic Past : Or fiction lifts her dazzling wand — And lo ! thy buried wonders rise On slumbers view Till all Arabia’s genii land Shines out — the mimic paradise Thy pencil drew. Youth burns — we run the blind career, Which myriads only run to rue : Too fleetly flies The witchery of that maddening year ; Yet will we not the track pursue Where wisdom lies : For manhood comes — and all the cares, And ills and toils of manhood born, Consume the soul — Till palsied age’s whitened hairs (The symbols of his winter) warn Us to the goal. But thou, lost vision ! memory clings To all of bright, and pure, and fond, By thee enrolled — Mementos as of times and things Antique — remote — far, far beyond The flood of old ! 60 mangan’s essays. Yet, ah ! the spell itself how brief, How sadly brief ! — how swiftly broken 1 We witness how The freshness of the lilys leaf Ere Autumn dies and leaves no token ; And where art thou ? mangan’s essays. 61 5Tia mp J Mtibc Uattlr* Awake ! arise ! shake off thy dreams ! Thou art not what thou wert of yore : Of all those rich, those dazzling beams, That once illum’d thine aspect o’er Show me a solitary one Whose glory is not quenched. The harp remaineth where it fell, With mouldering frame and broken chord Around the song when hangs no spell — No laurel wreath entwines the sword; And startlingly the footstep falls Along thy dim and dreary halls. When other men in future years, In wonder ask, how this could be ? Then answer only by thy tears, That ruin fell on thine and thee ; Because thyself wouldst have it so — Because thou welcomedst the blow ! To stamp dishonour on thy brow Was not within the power of earth ; And art thou agonized, when now The hour that lost thee all thy worth, And turned thee to the thing thou art, Rushes upon thy bleeding heart ? 62 mangan’s essays. Weep, weep, degraded one— the deed, The desperate deed was all thine own : Thou madest more than maniac speed To hurl thine honours from their throne. Thine honours fell, and when they fell The nations rang thy funeral knell. Well may thy sons be seared in soul, Their groans be deep by night and day ; Till day and night forget to roll, Their noblest hopes shall morn decay — Their freshest flowers shall die by blight — Their brightest sun shall set at night. The stranger, as he treads thy sod, And views thy universal wreck. May execrate the foot that trod Triumphant on a prostrate neck ; But what is that to thee ? Thy woes May hope in vain for pause or close. Awake ! arise ! shake off thy dreams ! ’Tis idle all to talk of power, And fame and glory — these are themes Befitting ill so dark an hour ; Till miracles be wrought for thee, Nor fame nor glory shalt thou see. Thou art forsaken by the earth, Which makes a byword of thy name ; Nations, and thrones, and powers whose birth As yet is not, shall rise to fame, Shall flourish and may fall — but thou Shalt linger as thou lingerest now. MANGAN S ESSAYS. 63 And till all earthly power shall wane And Time’s gray pillar, groaning fall ; Thus shall it be, and still in vain, Thou shalt essay to burst the thrall Which binds, in fetters, forged by fate, The wreck and ruin of what once was great. 64 mangan’s essays. ®n IExtvaoririnat$ abb tntnve in ii)t sHjabfg* The day of the week was Sunday, of the month, the first ; the month itself was April, the year 1832. Sunday, first of April, 1832 — de mortuis nil nisi bonum ; but I really must say that thou wert, in very truth, a beautiful, a bland, and a balmy day. I remember thee particularly well. Ah ! which of the days that the departed year gave birth to do I not remember? The history of each and of all is chronicled in the volume of my brain — written into it as with a pen of iron, in characters of inefface- able fire ! It is pretty generally admitted by the learned that an attempt to recall the past is labour in vain, else should I, for one, purchase back the bygone year with diadems and thrones (supposing that I had the diadems and thrones to barter). Under present circumstances my only feasible pro- ceeding is to march onward rectilineally, cheek-by-jowl, with the spirit of the age, to abandon the bower of Fancy for the road-beaten pathway of Reason — renounce Byron for Bentham, and resign the brilliant and burning imagery of the past for the frozen realities of the present and the future. mangan’s essays. 65 Be it so. Whatever may become of me, my lips are sealed — a padlocked article. Tout est perdu, mes amis; and when the case stands thus, the unfortunate victim had much better keep his breath to cool his porridge withal ; for he may stake his last cigar upon it, that anything more supremely ridiculous than his efforts to soliloquize his friends into a sympathetic feeling will never come under the cognizance of the public. The foregoing paragraph is exclusively “ personal to myself.” I am now going to relate what will be generally interesting. For the evening of the 1st of April, ’32, I had an appointment with an acquaintance whom I had almost begun to look on as a friend. The place of rendezvous was in College Green, at the Shades Tavern — a classic spot, known to a few select persons about town. At half-past six o’clock I ac- cordingly repaired thither. As yet my acquaintance, whom I had almost begun to regard as a friend, had not made his appear- ance. Taking possession of a vacant box, I ordered the waiter to bring a bottle of port and two glasses. He obeyed. Mechanically I began to sip the wine, awaiting, with some anxiety, the arrival of my acquaintance, whom I had almost begun to regard as a friend ; but half-an-hour elapsed, and he came not. Now I grew fidgety and E mangan’s essays. thoughtful, and began to form a variety of conjectures. At length, for very weariness, I gave this up. Suddenly I heard some one cough slightly. I raised my head and looked forth at the door. Seated at an opposite table I beheld a gentleman of tall stature and commanding aspect, striking, indeed, to a degree, in his physiognomy. He was reading a newspaper, and was apparently deeply absorbed in its contents. How was it that I had hitherto neglected to notice this man ? I could not forbear wondering. I was unable to account for the circumstance, except by referring to my previous abstrac- tion, the preoccupied nature of my thoughts, and the agitation which the anticipation of the meeting with my acquaintance, whom I had almost begun to regard as a friend, had necessarily tended to produce, in a person of my delicately nervous temperament. Now, however, I was resolved to compensate for my previous absence of mind. I examined the stranger opposite me minutely. I criti- cised him without saying a syllable, from hat-crown (he wore his beaver) to shoe-tie (he sported pumps). His cravat, waistcoat, frock, unutterables — all underwent a rigid analysis by my searching, eye. I scrutinized all, first collectively and then consecutively ; and I owe it to truth and justice to protest, that, upon my honour, the result was de- mangan’s essays. 67 cidedly satisfactory ; all was perfect;, lofty, gentleman-like. Viewed as a whole, his countenance was, as I have remarked, pecu- liarly particular. I was, however, deter- mined to institute an examination into it, Stuclcweisse* as they say at Vienna, and I reviewed every feature distinctively and apart. Had I been a Quarterly Reviewer, or Professor Wilson himself, I could not have discovered the slightest groundwork to erect a superstructure of censure on. Had simi- lar perfection ever until that hour been encountered by any? Never and nowhere. I knew not what to imagine ; my faculties were bewildered. The thing was too mir- aculous, it was over magnificent, extraor- dinary, super-inexplicable. Who was this man ? I had always been a considerable peripatetic ; but I could not recollect that in town or country he had ever until now encountered my inspection. Such a figure and such a face I could not, had I but once beheld them, possibly forget; they would have been enrolled among the archives of my memory, as treasures to be drawn largely and lavishly upon on some future night, when the current of my ideas should run darkly and low, among underwood and over brambly places, and the warehouse of my Bit by bit. 68 mangan’s essays. imagination be ransacked in vain for a fresh assortment of imagery, and the punchless jug stand solitary upon the dimly-lighted table, and not a human voice be heard to set that table in a roar. I had never before seen this man ; of course, then, it was obvious I now saw him for the first time. As this reflection, which I conceive to be a strictly logical one, occurred, I filled my glass a fifth time, and sipped as usual. The stranger continued to peruse his paper. His atti- tude was half recumbent and wholly motion- less. It was a reasonable inference from this, that he must be an individual of steady habits and unchangeable principles, whom it might be exceedingly difficult to detach from a favourite pursuit, or draw aside from the path of prudence or duty. Rectitude of conduct is a quality that commands my esteem. If I had before admired the stranger, this consideration annexed to my admiration a feeling of respect. Yes ; he was evidently a cautious and forethoughtful character — perhaps a little too inflexible in his determinations; but, then, has not in- flexibility ever been the invariable concomi- tant of vast powers ? Whether, however, this interrogatory were answered negatively or affirmatively, it was certain that adequate testimony of the positive inflexibility of this mans disposition was as yet wanting ; and I mangan’s essays. 69 should perpetrate an enormous act of injus- tice in condemning him, unless I had been antecedently placed in possession of every fact and circumstance exercising the re- motest influence upon the question. It is essential to the passing of an upright sen- tence that crude and precipitate opinions be discarded ; and should I, by over hastily following the dictates of a rash judgment, irrevocably commit myself in the eyes of philosophy, and ' eternally damn my own character as an impartial observer of the human family at large ? Would it be reason- able ? Would it be even polite ? Should I not, in fact, deserve to be hooted down wherever I exhibited myself, and driven, like Ahasuerus the wanderer, from post to pillar ; seeking refuge now in a cavern and now in a pot-house, and finding rest no- where — a houseless wretch — a spectacle to society, and a melancholy memorial to after ages of the ruinous results of that self-con- ceit which prompts to a headstrong perse- verance in opinions of a ridiculous order? What a doom ! I shuddered as I silently contemplated the abstract possibility of such a contingency ; and then filling a sixth glass went on sipping. Still my acquaintance, who was not yet a friend, had not blessed me with the light of his countenance; and my only resource was to watch, with an 70 mangan’s essays. attentive eye, the proceedings, if any should take place, of the being at the opposite table. I felt my interest in the unknown augment moment by moment. Question- lessly, thought I, the Platonical theory is not wholly visionary — not altogether a bam. I must have known this man in some pre- adamite world ; and the extraordinary sen- sations I experience are explicable only by reference to an antenatal state of existence. He and I have been ancient companions — fraternized members of the aboriginal Tuzen- bund — the Orestes and Pylades of a purer and loftier sphere. Perhaps I died upon the block for him ! Who shall expound me the enigma of the sympathetical feelings reciprocated between master minds, when upon earth each meets the other for the first time, unless by pointing to the electri- cal chain which runs dimly back through the long gallery of time, ascending from generation to generation, until it has reached the known beginning of all things, and then stretches out anew, far, far beyond that wide-a-way into the measureless deep of primary creation, the unknown, the un- imaginable infinite ! There is nothing incredible if we believe life to be a reality ; for, to a psychologist the very consciousness that he exists at all is a mystery unfathom- able in this world. An ass will attempt to MANGAN’S ESSAYS. 71 illuminate us on the subject, and may pro- duce, with an air of consequential cognoscity, a schedule of what he is pleased to call reasons; but it is all hollow humbug. So stands a leaden-visaged geologist who, up to his knees in the centre of a quagmire, and silently and sedulously pokes at the mud with his walking stick, fancying himself the while a second Cuvier; though the half- dozen clowns who act as spectators, and whom he takes for assembled Europe, per- ceive that the poor creature does nothing but turn up sludge eternally. As to the illuminating ass, only suffer him to proceed, and he will undertake to probe infinity with a bodkin, and measure the universe with a yard of pack thread. There are two dis- tinguished plans for the extinction of such an annoyance — first, to cough him do wn ; second, to empty a pot of porter against his countenance. I have tried both experiments, and can vouch that the most successful results will follow. The stranger, as I continued to gaze, elevated his hand to his head, and slightly varied the position of his hat. Here was a remarkable event — a landmark in the desert — an epoch in the history of the evening, affording scope for unbounded conjecture. I resolved, however, by no means to allow imagination to obtain the start of judgment 72 MANGAN S ESSAYS. on this occasion. The unknown had altered the position of his hat. What was the in- ference spontaneously deducible from the occurrence of such a circumstance ? Firstly, that anterior to the motion which preceded the change, the unknown had conceived that his hat did not sit properly on his head; secondly, that he must be gifted with the organ of order in a high degree. Indi- viduals in whom that organ is prominently developed, rarely, if ever, are imaginative or poetical ; hence it was to be inferred, that the energies of the unknown were exclusively devoted to the advancement of prosaical interests. But here again rose cause to be- wilder and embarrass. I could see by a glance that the unknown was conning a column of poetry ; and that his expressive countenance, as he went on, became palely illumined by a quenchless lamp from the sanctuary within. How did this harmonise with my former conclusion ? I surmounted the difficulty, however, by reflecting that it is, after all, possible for a man to be at once illimitably imaginative and profoundly philo- sophical, as we find, said I, mentally, in the instance of Dr. Bowring-bowing ! Ah, stupidity ! thy name is Clarence. That until this moment the truth should never have struck thee ! That only now shouldst thou have been made aware that Bowring MANGAN'S ESSAYS. 78 himself was before thee ! A thrill of joy pervaded my frame, as I reclined my brow upon my hand, and internally exclaimed: yes, it is, indeed Bowring ! It must be he, because it can be no other. As I had always been ardently desirous of an introduction to that illustrious man, whom I justly regard as one of the leading genii of Modern Europe, I shall leave the public to imagine the overpowering nature of my feelings upon discovering that the golden opportunity had at length been vouchsafed, and that I was now free to enter into oral communication with a master-spirit of the age. I paused to deliberate upon the description of address I should put forth, as well as the tone of voice which it would be most appropriate to assume ; whether aris- tocratical or sentimental, free and easy or broken-hearted ; and also upon the style of expression properest for my adoption, and best calculated to impress the mind of Bowring with a conviction that whatever my defects may prove to be in detail, I was — take me all in all — a young man of mag- nificent intellect and dazzling originality, and possessed a comprehensiveness of capa- city discoverable in nobody else within the bills of mortality. Whether I should com- press my sentiments within two bulky sen- tences or subdivide them into fifteen little 74 mangan’s essays. ones was, likewise, a matter of serious impor- tance. So acute an observer of mankind and syntax as Bowring is, will infallibly, said I, detect the slenderest inaccuracy in my phraseology. To betray any philological inability would be a short method of getting myself damned in his eyes, and I should go down to the latest posterity as a bungler and a bumpkin. Mannerism is a grand thing. Let me, therefore, review this ques- tion minutely and microscopically under all the various lights and shades in which it can be presented to the mind before I pass the Rubicon irremediably. Mannerism is a grave thing, pursued I, following the current of my reflections. It is not the real heavy bullion, the genuine ore, the ingot itself; every other thing is jelly and soapsuds. You shall tramp the earth in vain for a more pitiable object than a man of genius, with nothing else to back it with. He was born to amalgamate with the mud we walk upon, and will, whenever he appears in public, be trodden over like that. Transfuse into this man a due portion of mannerism ; the metamorphosis is mar- vellous. Erect he stands and blows his trumpet, the sounds whereof echo unto the uttermost confines of our magnificent world. Senates, listen ; Empires, tremble ; Thrones, tumble down before him ! He possesses the mangan’s essays. 75 wand of Prospero, the lamp of Aladdin, the violin of Paganini, the assurance of the devil ! What has conferred all these advan- tages upon him ? Mannerism ! destitute of which we are, so to speak, walking humbugs; destitute of which the long odds are, that the very best individual among us, after a life spent on the treadmill system, dies dismally in a sack. For myself, concluded I, I at Charlatanism in all its branches ; but it is, nevertheless, essential that I show off with Bowring; I am nothing if not striking. It is imperative on me, therefore, to strike. Six hours of un- remitting study a few weeks previously enabled me to concoct a very superior joke about the March of Intellects becoming a Dead March on the first of April. This had never appeared. Should I suffer the diamond to sparkle ? It was a debatable question whether Dr. B. would not inter- nally condemn me as an unprincipled ruf- fian for sneering at my own party, I know not, said I. I am buried in Egyptian dark- ness on this point ; but, primd facie , I should be inclined to suppose Bowring a moral cosmopolite, who could indifferently floor friends and enemies, con a more. To humbug the world in the gloss is certainly a herculean achievement ; but the conquest of impossibilities is the glory of genius. 76 mangan’s essays. Both Bowring and I are living in a miracu- lous era — the second quarter of the 19 th century, and shall I deny to him the capability of appreciating one of the loftiest efforts of the human mind? Perish the notion ! I had nearly arrived at a permanent decision when the progress of my medita- tions was abruptly arrested by the inter- vention of a new and startling consideration. Bowring was a universal linguist, a master of dead and living languages to any extent. Admirably well did he know — none better — the intrinsic nothingness of the English tongue. Its periods and phrases were, in truth, very small beer to him. Suppose that I were to accost him in the majestical cadences of the Spanish. A passage from Calderon might form a felicitous introduc- tion ; or in the French ? I could draw upon Corneille, Malherbe, Voltaire, and etc. to any amount ; or in the German ? Here, again, I was at home. To spout Opitz, Canitz, Ugo Wieland, and oh ! above all, Richter — meines herz Richter , (< ach wenn Ich ein herz habe ) was as easy to mix as a fifth tumbler. Of Latin and Greek I made no account ; Timbuctooese I was slightly deficient in. As to the Hungarian and Polish they were not hastily to be sneezed at. The unknown tongues merited mangan’s essays. 77 some attention, on account of the coal-black locks of the Rev. Ned Irving. In short, the satisfactory adjustment of this point was to be sedulously looked to. After some further deliberation I at length concluded upon doing nothing hurriedly. First ideas, said I, should be allowed time to cool into shape. A grammatical error would play the devil with me. The great Utilitarian would dub me quack, and the forthcoming number of the Westminster would nail me to the wall as a hollow-skulled pretender to encyclope- diacal knowledge, a character which I am much more anxious that Oliver Yorke should fasten upon Lardner than Rowland Bowring upon me. As, however, I languidly sipped my ninth glass a heart-chilling and soul-sinking re- miniscence came over me. I remembered to have somewhere read that Bowring was a Cassius-like looking philosopher. Now the stranger before me was rather plump than spare : certainly more embonpoint than cor- responded with the portrait given of the Doctor. Thus was my basket of glass in- stantaneously shattered to fragments, while I, like another Alnascher, stood weeping over the brittle ruin. This, then, was not Bowring ! The tide of life ran coldly to my heart ; and I felt myself at that moment a conscious nonentity I 78 mangan’s essays. What was to be done ? Hastily to dis- cuss the remainder of my wine, to order a fresh bottle, and to drink six or eight glasses in rapid succession, was the operation of a few minutes. And oh, what a change ! Cleverly, indeed, had I calculated upon a glorious reaction. Words I have none to reveal the quiescence of spirit that succeeded the interior balminess that steeped my faculty in blessed sweetness; I felt renovated, created anew ! I had undergone an apotheo- sis; I wore the cumbrous habiliments of flesh and blood no longer ; the shell, hitherto the circumscriber of my soul, was shivered ; I stood out in front of the universe a visible and tangible intellect, and beheld, with giant grasp, the key that had power to unlock the deep prison which enclosed the secrets of antiquity and futurity ! The solitary thing that excited my sur- prise and embarrassment was the anomalous appearance which the nose of the stranger had assumed. But a few brief minutes before and it had exhibited a symmetry the most perfect, and dimensions of an everyday character; now it might have formed a respectable rival to the Tower of Lebanon. As I concentrated the scattered energies of mind, and brought them soberly to bear upon the examination of this enormous feature, I learned from an intimate percep- MANGAN S ESSAYS. 79 tion of too incommunicable a nature to admit of development, that the stranger was no other than a revivification of Mangraby, the celebrated oriental necromancer, whose dreaded name the romances of my child- hood had rendered familiar to me, and who had lately arrived in Dublin for the purpose of consummating some hell-born deed of darkness, of the particulars of which I was, in all probability, destined to remain eter- nally ignorant. That there is, as some Ger- man metaphysicians maintain, idiosyncracy in some individuals, endowing them with the possession of a sixth sense or faculty to which nomenclature has as yet affixed no dis- tinct idea (for our ideas are in fewer instances derivable from things than from names) is a position which I will never suffer any man, woman, or child, to contest. Had I myself ever at any former period been disturbed by the intrusion of doubts upon the subject, here was evidence more than sufficient to dissi- pate them all. Here was evidence toe weighty to be kicked downstairs in a fine de haut en has fashion; for, although I had never until the present evening, come into contact with Mangrabys ; this sixth faculty, this fine, vague, spiritual, unintelligible, lightning-like instinct had sufficed to assure me of his presence and proximity. It was even so ; certainty is the sepulchre of seep- 80 MANGAN S ESSAYS. ticism ; scepticism is the executioner of cer- tainty. As the believer, when he begins to doubt, ceases to believe; so the doubter, when he begins to believe, ceases to doubt. These may be entitled eternal, moral axioms, philosophical aphorisms, infinitely superior to the aphorisms of Sir Morgan O’Dogherty touching the relative merits of soap and bear’s grease, black pudding, manches a gigot , cravats, cold fish, and similar bagatelles ; and I may as well take this opportunity of observing that Sir M. O’D. has by such dis- cussions inflicted incalculable injury upon the cause of philosophy, which mankind should be perpetually instructed to look up to as the very soul of seriousness and centre of gravity. That he whom I surveyed was identically and bond fide Mangraby, it would have be- trayed symptoms of extravagant lunacy in me to deny ; because the capability of pro- ducing so remarkable an effect, as the pre- ternatural growth of nose which I witnessed, was one which, as far as my lucubration enabled me to judge, had always been ex- clusively monopolized by Mangraby. It was by no manner of means material whether what came under my inspection were a tangible reality or an optical illusion; that was Mangraby s business, not mine ; and if he had juggled my senses into a persuasion MANGAN’y ESSAYS. 81 of the fidelity of that appearance which con- founded me, when, in point of fact, the entire thing, if uncurtained to the world, would turn out to be a lie — a shabby piece of “ Lock-and-gankel-work,” a naked bam- boozlement; if he had done this, upon his own head be the deep guilt, the odium, the infamy attachable to the transaction. It would be hard if I were compelled to incur any responsibility for the iniquitous vagaries of an East Indian sorcerer. To the day of my death I would protest against such injustice. The impression transmitted along the cord of the visual nerve to the external chambers of the brain, and thence conveyed by easy stages into the inner domicile of the soul, is all, quoth I, that I have to do with. Of such an impression I am the life-long slave. Whether there be other physical objects on the face of this globe as well as myself — whether there be the material of a globe at all — whether matter be an entity or an abstraction — whether it have substra- tum or not — and whether there be anything anywhere having any existence of any de- scription, is a problem for Berkeleyans ; but if there be any reasoning essences here below independent of myself, in circum- stances parallel with my own, their opinions will corroborate mine ; our feelings will be found to coalesce, our decisions to coincide. F 82 mangan’s essays. In any event, however, no argument arising from the metaphysics of the question can annihilate the identity of Mangraby. Were I to have been hanged for it in the course of the evening, at the first convenient lamp- post I could not suppress a sentiment of envy at the superiority over his fellow- creatures which characterised the Indian juggler. Elevate, said I, to the uppermost step of the ladder, establish me on the apex of the mountain, and what, after all, is my preeminence ? Low is the highest ! Con- temptibly dwarfish the loftiest altitude ! Admit my powers to be multifarious and unique ; yet, am I, by comparison with this intelligence sunk “ deeper than ever plum- met sounded/' Lord of this earth, Mangraby ; his breath exhales pestilence ; his hand lavishes treasures ! He possesses invisibility, ubiquity, tact, genius, wealth, exhaustless power undreamed of. Such is Mangraby; such is he on whom I gaze. He is worthy to be champion of England or to write the leading articles for the Thunderer. Gradually the current of my thoughts took another course, and my mind yielded to suggestions and speculations that were anything but tranquillizing and agreeable. I am not prone to be lightly affected ; legerde- main and playhouse thunder move me never; it might be even found a task to brain mo mangan’s essays. 83 with a lady’s fan ; and hence the mere size of Mangraby’s nose, though I admitted it to be a novelty of the season, was insufficient to excite any emotion of terror within me. Viewed in the abstract, it was unquestionably no more than an additory, a bugbear to the un- initiated of the suburbs ; a staggering devia- tion from the appearances that everyday life presents us with ; and if this were the Alpha and Omega of the affair, Mangraby was a bottle of smoke. But this was not all ; it was to be recollected that the nose increased each moment in longitude and latitude ; here was the rub. The magnitude of a man’s nose is not, per se, an object of public solicitude ; the balance of power is not interfered with by it, and its effects upon the social system are comparatively slight ; but if a progres- sive increase in that magnitude be dis- cernible, such an increase becomes a subject of interest to the community with whom the owner of the nose associates, and will, in course of time, absorb the undivided atten- tion of mankind. [See Slawkenbergin’s, vol. ix., chap, xxxii., p. 658, Art, Nosology]. It was apparent that in Mangraby’s case dismal damage would accrue to the proprie- tor of the Shades. His (Mangraby’s) nose would speedily become too vast for the area of the apartment ; it would soon constitute a barricade, it would offer a formidable ob- 84 mangan’s essays. stacle to the ingress of visitors ; eventually the entrance to the tavern would be blocked up ; all intercourse would be thus imprac- ticable; business would come to a dead stand- still, and an evil, whose ramifications no penetration could reach, would thus be generated. But experience alone could testify to the absolute amount of injury that would be inflicted through the agency of this moun- tainous feature. Extending itself through College Green, through Dame Street, West- moreland Street, and Grafton Street, it would, by regular degrees, occupy every square foot of vacant space in this mighty metropolis. Then would ensue the prostra- tion of commerce, the reign of universal terror, the precipitated departure of the citizens of all ranks into the interior, and Dublin would, in its melancholy destiny, be assimilated by the historian of a future age, with Persepolis, Palmyra, and Nineveh 1 As the phantasmagoria of all this ruin arose in shadowy horror upon my anticipations, is it wonderful that I shook as if affected with palsy, and that my heart sank into my bosom to a depth of several inches ? I fell at once into a train of soliloquy. Too intimately, Mangraby, am I acquainted with thine iron character to doubt for an instant thy rocky immovability of purpose. mangan’s essays. 85 What thou wiliest that executest thou. Expostulation and remonstrance, oratory and poetry are to thee so much rigmarole ; even my tears will be thy laughing stock. I have not the ghost of a chance against thee. Mangraby ! thou damned incubus ! what liberty is this thou darest to take with me ? Supposest thou that I will perish, as perishes the culprit at the gallows, bandaged, night- capped, hoodwinked, humbugged. Is thy horn after all so soft ? I am, it is true, weaponless, unless we consider this glass decanter in my fist a weapon ; but all the weapons with which nature has endowed me shall be exercised against thee. Still, and at the best, “my final hope is flat despair.” I stand alone ; like Anacharsis Clootz, I am deserted by the human race ; I am driven into a box, there I am cooped up ; a beggarly bottle of wine is allotted to me ; pour toute compagnie , I am placed in juxtaposition with a hellhound, and then I am left to perish ignobly. That I should at this moment have neither pike, poker, pitchfork, nor pickaxe, will be viewed in the light of a metropolitan cal- amity by the future annalist of Dublin, when he shall have occasion to chronicle the circumstance. The absence of a vat of tal- low from this establishment is of the greatest 86 mangan’s essays. detriment to me, for in such a vat it might be practicable to suffocate this demi-dsemon. There being no such vat it becomes obvious he can never be suffocated in it. How, then, good Heavens, can any man be so senseless, betray so much of the Hottentot, show himself so far sunk in stupidity, as to expect that I should find one at my elbow ? How deplorably he needs the schoolmaster ! How requisite it is that some friend to human perfectibility should advance him one halfpenny each Saturday, wherewith to procure a halfpenny magazine ! He is this night the concentrated extract of absurdity; the force of assay can no further go. I pro- test with all the solemnity of my awful position that if there be a chandlers vat under this roof the fact is the most extraor- dinary that history records. Its existence is not to be accounted for on any commercial principle. No man can tell how it was con- veyed hither, or at whose expense it was established. An impenetrable veil of mys- tery shrouds the proceeding ; the whole thing is dark ; it is an enigma, a phenomenon of great importance. I had better leave it where I found it. My regards were now painfully fascinated by the great magician of the Down-Daniel. To look in any direction but the one I felt to be totally impracticable. He had spell- mangan’s essays. 87 bound me doubtlessly ; his accursed jugglery had been at work while I, with the innocent unsuspiciousness which forms my distin- guishing characteristic, had been occupied in draining the decanter. Was ever an inhabitant of any city in Europe so horribly predicam ented ? It was manifest that he had already singled me out as his first vic- tim. I foreknew the destiny whereinto I was reserved. I saw the black marble dome, the interminable suites of chambers, the wizard scrolls, the shafts and arrows, and in dim but dreadful perspective, the bloody cage, in which, incarcerated under the figure of a bat, I should be doomed to flap my leathern wings dolefully through the sunless day. Mere human fortitude was inadequate to the longer endurance of such agonising emotions as accompanied the portrayal of these horrors upon my intellectual retina. Nature was for once victor over necromancy. I started up, I shrieked, I shouted, I rushed forward headlong. I remember tumbling down in a state of frenzy, but nothing beyond. The morn was up again, the dewy morn, With breath all incense and with cheek all bloom, Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn, And living as if earth contained no tomb. But I could not enjoy it, for I was in bed, 88 mangan’s essays. and my temples throbbed violently. I understood that I had been conveyed from the Shades in a carriage. Dr. Stokes was at my bedside ; I inquired of him whether he had seen Mangraby hovering in the vicinity of the house. As the only reply to this was a shake of the head I at once and briefly gave him an account of the adventure. Well, said he, I can satisfy you of the individuality of your unknown. He is neither Mangraby nor Bowring, but Brass- pen,* of the Comet Club. I saw him there last night myself. Tout est mystere dans ce monde ci, thought I, Je ne sais trop quen croire. * Mr. Lestrange, who wrote over that nom de plume. — :o:- SIANGAN’S ESSAYS. 89 Vtvv Interesting S?onnet0. TO CAROLINE. I. Have I not called thee angel-like and fair ? What wouldst thou more ? 'Twere perilous to gaze Long on those dark bright eyes whose flashing rays Fill with a soft and fond, yet proud despair The bosoms of the shrouded few, who share Their locked up thoughts with none: thou hast their praise ; But beauty hears not their adoring lays, When but whispered in the air. Yet, think not, although stamped as one of those, Ah ! think not thou this heart hath never burned With passion deeply felt and ill returned. If, ice-cold now, its pulse no longer glows, The memory of unuttered love and woes Lies there, alas ! too faithfully inurned. II. For once I dreamed that mutual love was more Than a bright phantom thought ; and when mankind Mocked mine illusion, then did I deplore 90 mangan’s essays. Their ignorance, and deem them cold and blind, And years rolled on and still I did adore The unreal image loftily enshrined In the recesses of mine own sick mind. Enough; the spell is broke — the dream is o’er; The enchantment is dissolved — the world appears The thing it is — a theatre — a mart. Genius illumines, and the work of art Renews the wonders of our childhood’s years; Power awes — wealth shines — wit sparkles — but the heart, The heart is lost, for love no more endears. Sonnet* an artetocrat i. When I reflected on the blazing things Achieved by Wellington at Waterloo, Not only for the borough, huxtering crew, And Europe’s blessed group of holy kings, But for himself and his relations too ; When I considered how Bob Southey strings Hexameters for butts of sack, and sings The praise of that great all but ex-Rex who Is an jour d’hui (so swears at least the Editor Of the John Bull ) Europe’s eternal creditor; mangan’s essays. 91 Then gratitude rose in my breast as hot As broth which bubbleth in a copper pot, And straightways I determined that my shyness Should consecrate one sonnet to his Highness. II. The devil’s in this wickedest of ages ; There is, by all accounts, a hideous plot Concocting by the riff-raff now to blot From earth its bloated autocrats and sages, Conquerors and kings — the stars of history’s pages, And send my Order in a word to pot ; Oh, for Bastiles, Bicetres, and what not ! Oh, for old Louis Onze’s iron cages ! I’m drowned in tears ; alas those good old blind Times have departed, and to-day folk bow Solely before the majesty of mind; A thing I don’t much know, though I’ll allow Its working woeful wonders, since I find It leaves myself upon my last legs now. 92 mangan’s essays. 21 Mttytv. My friend, Tom Bentley, borrowed from me lately A score of yellow shiners. Subsequently I met the cove, and dunned him rather gently, Immediately he stood extremely stately, And swore ’pon honour that he wondered greatly ! We parted coolly. Well (exclaimed I ment’lly) I calculate this isn’t acting straightly. You’re what Slangwhangers call a scamp, Tom Bentley ! In sooth, I thought his impudence prodigious; And so I told Jack Spratt a few days after ; But Jack burst into such a fit of laughter! Fact is (said he) poor Tom has turned religious. I stared and asked him what it was he meant — Why don’t you see (quoth Jack) he keeps the lent. -:q:- mangan’s essays. 93 €!)£ Linnaeus parcels men in classes — But this his quaint conception Is quizzery — all alive are Asses, Without the least exception. In this 111 prove myself an Ass- umer of nothing wrong, And afterwards make you an Ass- enter to my song. There’s Buckingham, the lecturing Ass- yrian politician ; And Francis Moore, the annual Ass- trological physician ; Shovel-hat Whateley, he’s an Ass- tronomical calculator ; And Boy ton Trin. Col. Dub/s an Ass- everating prater. Tom Wyse is known to be an Ass- tonishing speech deliverer ; But Shiel is much more of an Ass- tounding man and cleverer ; Lord Plunkett is a general Ass- orter of legal knowledge ; But Crampton was the devil’s Ass— To poke his phiz at College. 94 mangan’s essays. O’Connell is himself an Ass- ailer of cant and whiggery ; Basseggio * always was an Ass- ured hand at wiggery ; Lord Brougham is now pronounced an Ass- tringent piece of judging ; And Eldons wig-block is an Ass- ylum for all fudging. Now as to Blackbume, he’s an Ass- aulter of the press ; And gaffer Gray is Blackburne’s Ass- istant there I guess. The world allows Jardine’s an Ass- piring kind of Doctor ; But says Lamert’s a greater Ass- afoetida concoctor. It strikes that Doctor Doyle’s an Ass- uager of animosity ; And likewise an ecclesi- Ass- tic of profound cognoscity ; O’Gorman Mahon’s a fant- Ass- tic blade — but none are braver — * And Mahony’s a whiggish Ass- ieger of Castle favour. * A celebrated hairdresser and perfumer who lived in Wicklow Street, and died very rich. mangan’s essays. 95 The poet’s a most ass-idious Ass- perser of Tom Steele ; And Con,* the Daggerman’s, an Ass- assin of Repeal ; Yet Con was once a Catholic Ass- ociation spouter, But being Whigged he’s now an Ass- cendant out-and-outer. Even the Comet is an Ass- emblage of all that’s glorious, And he who says so is an Ass- ertor of what’s notorious. But as my hand shakes like an Ass- pen leaf, I’ll just retire, Hoping I’ll one day prove an Ass- uager of something higher. * Conway, Editor of the Evening Post. 96 mangan’s essays. Cfje STegtamntt of ©atfjaeir ifKor. [One of the most interesting archaeological relics connected with Irish literature is unquestionably the Testament of Cathaeir Mor, King of Ireland in the second century. It is a document, whose general authenticity is established beyond question, though some doubt exists as to whether it was originally penned in the precise form in which it has come down to modern times. Mention of it is made by many writers on Irish history, and, among others, by O’Flaherty in his Ogygia, (part iii. c. 59). But in the Leabhar Na Ceart , or The Booh of Rights , now for the first time edited, with translation and notes, by John O’Donovan for the Celtic Society, we have it entire. The learned editor, to whose genius and exer- tions Irish literature is so deeply indebted, is of opinion that “ it was drawn up in its present form some cen- turies after the death of Cathaeir Mor, when the race of his more illustrious sons had definite territories in Leinster.” Be the fact as it may, the document is certainly one of those characteristic remains of an earlier age which most markedly bears the stamp of the peculiarities that distinguish native Irish literary pro- ductions. I have thought, therefore, that a rhymed and yet faithful translation of it might possibly find favour with some of our readers]. INTRODUCTION. Here is the Will of Cathaeir Mor, God Rest Him ! Among his heirs he divided his store. His treasures and lands ; And, first laying hands On his son, Ross Faly, he blessed him. mangan’s essays. 97 i. “ My sovereign power, my nobleness, My wealth, my strength to curse and bless, My royal privilege of protection I leave to the son of my best affection, Boss Faly, Boss of the Bings, Worthy descendant of Ireland's Kings ! To serve as memorials of succession For all who yet shall claim their possession In after ages. Clement and noble and bold Is Boss, my son. Then, let him not hoard up silver and gold, But give unto all fair measure of wages. Victorious in battle he ever hath been ; He therefore shall yield the green And glorious plains of Tara to none — No, not to his brothers ! Yet these shall he aid When attacked or betrayed. This blessing of mine shall outlast the tomb, And live till the Day of Doom, Telling and telling daily, And a prosperous man beyond all others Shall prove Boss Faly !” Then he gave him ten shields, and ten rings, and ten swords, And ten drinking horns ; and he spake him those words ; G 98 mangan’s essays. “ Brightly shall shine the glory, O Boss, of thy sons and heirs ; Never shall flourish in story Such heroes as they and theirs !” II. Then, laying his royal hand on the head Of his good son, Darry, he blessed him and said: “ My valor, my daring, my martial courage, My skill in the field I leave to Darry, That he be a guiding torch and starry Light and lamp to the hosts of our age. A hero to sway, to lead and command, Shall be every son of his tribes in the land ! O Darry, with boldness and power Sit thou on the frontier of Tuath Lann,* And ravage the lands of Deas Ghower.f Accept no gifts for thy protection From woman or man. So shall heaven assuredly bless Thy many daughters with fruitfulness, And none shall stand above thee, For I, thy sire, who love thee. With deep and warm affection, I prophesy unto thee all success Over the green battalions Of the redoubtable Gallons.” \ * Tuath Laighean — viz., North Leinster, t Deas Ghabhair — viz., South Leinster. J Gailians — an ancient designation, according to O’Donovan, of the Leighnigh or Leinstermen. MAN GAN'S ESSAYS. 99 And he gave him thereon, as memorials and meeds, Eight bondsmen, eight handmaids, eight cups, and eight steeds. ill. The noble monarch of Erin’s men Spake thus to the young Prince Brassal then : “ My sea, with all its wealth of streams, I leave to my sweet-speaking Brassal, To serve and to succour him as a vassal — And the lands whereon the bright sun beams Around the waves of Amergins Bay,* As parcelled out in the ancient day. By free men through a long, long time Shall this thy heritage be enjoyed— But the chieftaincy shall at last be destroyed Because of a Prince’s crime. And though others again shall regain it, Yet heaven shall not bless it, For power shall oppress it, And weakness and baseness shall stain it !” And he gave him six ships, and six steeds, and six shields, Six mantles and six coats of steel — ■ * Inbhean Amherghin , originally the estuary of the Blackwater, and so called from Aimherghin, one of the sons of Milesius, to whom it wa3 apjiortioned by lot. 100 mangan’s essays. And the six royal oxen that wrought in his fields, These gave he to Brassal, the Prince, for his weal. % IV. Then to Catach he spake : “ My border lands Thou, Catach, shalt take, But ere long they shall pass from thy hands, And by thee shall none Be ever begotten, daughter or son !” Y. To Fearghus Luascan spake he thus : “ Thou Fearghus, also one of us, But over simple in all thy ways And babblest much of thy childish days. For thee have I naught, but if lands may be bought \ Or won hereafter by sword or lance Of those, perchance, I may leave thee a part, All simple babbler and boy as thou art !” YI. Young Fearghus, therefore, was left bereaven, And thus the monarch spake to Creeven : “ To my boyish hero, my gentle Creeven, Who loveth in Summer, at morn and even, mangan’s essays. 101 To snare the songful birds of the field, But shunneth to look on spear and shield, I have little to give of all that I share. His fame shall fail, his battles be rare, And of all the kings that shall wear his crown But one alone shall win renown.” * And he gave him six cloaks, and six cups, and seven steeds, And six harnessed oxen, all fresh from the meads. VII. But on Aenghus Nic, a younger child, Begotten in crime and born in woe, The father frowned, as on one defiled, And with louring brow he spake him so : “To Nic, my son, that base-born youth, Shall naught be given of land or gold ; He may be great, and good, and bold, But his birth is an agony all untold, Which gnaweth him like a serpent’s tooth. I am no donor To him or his race — His birth was dishonour ; His life is disgrace !” + * The text adds : i.e., Colam mac Croimhthainn ; but O'Donovan conjectures, and in our opinion correctly, that this is a mere scholium of some scribe. t The reader may, perhaps, here be reminded of the 102 mangan’s essays. yin. And thus he spake to Eochy Timin, Deeming him fit but to herd with women : “ Weak son of mine, thou shalt not gain Waste or water, valley or plain. From thee shall none descend save cravens, Sons of sluggish sires and mothers, Who shall live and die, But give no corpses to the ravens ! Mine ill thought and mine evil eye * * On thee beyond thy brothers Shall ever, ever lie!” IX. And to Oilioll Cadach his words were those : “ 0 Oilioll, great in coming years Shall be thy fame among friends and foes As the first of Brughaidhs f and Hospi- taliers ! But neither noble nor warlike Shall show thy renownless dwelling ; Nevertheless, Thou shalt dazzle at chess, line in Byron’s Parisina, addressed by Hugo to his father Count Azo : — “ And with thy very crime, my birth, Thou tauntedst me as little worth A match ignoble for thy throne ! ” * In the original — Mo faindi mo eascaine — literally, “ my weakness, my curse.” t Public victuallers. mangan’s essays. 103 Therein supremely excelling And shining like somewhat starlike !” And his chess-board, therefore, and chessmen eke, He gave to Oilioll Cadach the meek, x. Now Fiacha — youngest son was he — Stood up by the bed . . of his father who said, The while caressing Him tenderly : “ My son ! I have only for thee my blessing, And nought beside — Hadst best abide With thy brothers a time, as thine years are green.” Then Fiacha wept, with a sorrowful mien ; So, Cathaeir spake, to encourage him gaily, With cheerful speech : “ Abide one month with thy brethren each, And seven years long with my son, Ross Faly. Do this, and thy sire, in sincerity, Prophesies unto thee fame and prosperity.” And further he spake as one inspired : “ A chieftain flourishing, feared, and admired, Shall Fiacha prove ! The gifted man from the boiling Berbe,* Him shall his brothers’ clansmen serve. * Bearbha—\ iz., the River Barrow. 104 MANGAN’S ESSAYS. His forts shall be Aillin and proud Almain, He shall reign in Carman and Allen ; * The highest renown shall his palaces gain When others have crumbled and fallen. His power shall broaden and lengthen, And never know damage or loss ; The impregnable Naas he shall strengthen, And govern in Ailbhe and Arriged Ross. Yes, 0 Fiacha, foe of strangers. This shall be thy lot ! And thou shalt pilot Ladhrann and Leeven f with steady and even Heart and arm through storm and dangers ! Overthrown by thy mighty hand Shall the lords of Tara lie ; And Taillte’s J fair, the first in the land, Thou, son, shalt magnify ; And many a country thou yet shalt bring To own thy rule as Ceann and King. The blessing I give thee shall rest On thee and thy seed While time shall endure, Thou grandson of Fiacha the blest ! It is barely thy meed, For thy soul is child-like and pure ! ” [Here ends the will of Cathaeir Mor, who was King * The localities mentioned here were chiefly resi- dences of the ancient Kings of Leinster, f Forts upon the eastern coasts of Ireland. + Taillte , now Teltown, a village between Kells and Navan, in Meath. mangan’s essays. 105 of Ireland. Fiacha abode with his brothers, as Cathaeir had ordered. And he stayed for seven years with Ross Faly ; and it was from Ross Faly that he learned the use of arms ; and it has since been obliga- tory upon every man of his descendants who aspire at excellence in martial exercises to receive his first arms from some descendant of Ross Faly. As for Cathaeir himself, be it known to all that he lived in good health for a season after making this will, but that when some years had elapsed, he went to Taillte, and there fought a battle, and was killed there by the Fian of Luaighne. To commemorate his death this quatrain was written by that complete poet, Lughair : — A world-famed illustrious, honourable man, The pride of his tribe in his day, King Cathaeir, the glory and prop of each clan, Was killed by the Fian in Magh Breagh !] 106 mangan’s essays. ®De Ming#. In the reign of the Sultan Sal-ad-Deen there lived in the city of Damascus a Jew called Nathaniel, who was pre-eminently distin- guished among his fellow-citizens for his wisdom, his liberality of mind, the goodness of his disposition, and the urbanity of his manners, so that he had acquired the esteem even of those among the Mooslemin who were accounted the strictest adherents to the exclusive tenets of the Mahommedan creed. From being generally talked of by the com- mon people, he came gradually to attract the notice of the higher classes, until the Sultan himself, hearing so much of the man, became curious to learn how it was that so excellent and intelligent a person could re- concile it with his conscience to live and die in the errors of J udaism. With the view of satisfying himself on the subject, he at length resolved on condescending to a perso- nal interview with the Jew, and accordingly one day ordered him to be summoned before him. The Jew, in obedience to the imperial mandate, presented himself at the palace gates, and was forthwith ushered, amid guards and slaves innumerable, into the pre- MANGAN S ESSAYS. 107 sence of the august Sal-ad-Deen, Light of the World, Protector of the Universe, and keeper of the Portals of Paradise; who, how- ever, being graciously determined that the lightning of his glances should not annihi- late the Israelite, had caused his face to be covered on the occasion with a magnificent veil, through the golden gauze- work of which he could carry on at his ease his own exami- nation of his visitor s features. “ Men talk highly of thee, Nathaniel/' said the Sultan, after he had commanded the Jew to seat himself on the carpet ; “ they praise thy virtue, thy integrity, thy understanding, beyond those of the sons of Adam. Yet thou professest a false religion, and showest no sign of a disposition to embrace the true one. How is this obstinacy of thine recon- cilable with the wisdom and moderation for which the true believers give thee credit ? ” “If I profess a false religion, your highness/' returned the Jew modestly, “ it is because I have never been able to distinguish infallibly between false religions and true. I adhere to the faith of my fathers." “ The idolaters do so no less than thou," said Sal-ad-Deen, “ but their blindness is wilful, and so is thine. Dost thou mean to say that all religions are upon the same level in the sight of the God of Truth ? " “ Not so, assuredly," answered Nathaniel : 108 mangan’s essays. “ Truth is but one ; and there can be but one true religion. That is a simple and obvious axiom, the correctness of which I have never sought to controvert.” “ Spoken like a wise man ! ” cried the Sultan; — “ that is,” he added, “ if the religion to which thou alludest be Islamism, as it must be of course. Come : I know thou art favourably inclined towards the truth ; thou hast an honest countenance : declare openly the conviction at which thou must have long since arrived, that they who be- lieve in the Koran are the sole inheritors of Paradise. Is not that thy unhesitating per- suasion ? ” “ Will your highness pardon me,” said the Jew, “if, instead of answering you directly, I narrate to you a parable bearing upon this subject, and leave you to draw from it such inferences as may please you ? ” “ I am satisfied to hear thee,” said the Sultan after a pause ; “ only let there be no sophistry in the argument of thy narrative. Make the story short also, for I hate long tales about nothing.” The Jew, thus licensed, began : — “ May it please your highness,” said he, “ there lived in Assyria, in one of the ages of old, a certain man who had received from a venerated hand a beautiful and valuable ring, the stone of which was an opal, and sparkled in the mangan’s essays. 109 sunlight with ever- varying hues. This ring, moreover, was a talisman, and had the secret power of rendering him who wore it with a sincere desire of benefiting by it, acceptable and amiable in the eyes of both God and man. It is not therefore to be wondered at, that the owner continually wore it during his lifetime, never taking it off his finger for an instant, or that, when dying, he should adopt precautions to secure it to his lineal descendants for ever. He bequeathed it ac- cordingly first to the most beloved of his sons, ordaining that by him it should be again bequeathed to the dearest of his off- spring, and so down from generation to gene- ration, no one having a claim in right of priority of birth, but preference being given to the favourite son, who, by virtue of the ring, should rule unconstrained as lord of the house and head of the family. Your high- ness listens ? ” “ I listen : I understand : proceed/* said the Sultan. The Jew resumed : — “Wells from son to son this ring at length descended to a father who had three sons, all of them alike remark- able for their goodness of disposition, all equally prompt in anticipating his wishes, all equally loving and virtuous, and between whom, therefore, he found it difficult to make any distinction in the paternal affection he 110 mangan’s essays. bore them. Sometimes he thought the eldest the most deserving ; anon his predi- lections varied in favour of the second ; and by and by his heart was drawn towards the youngest: — in short, he could make no choice. What added to his embarrassment was, that, yielding to a good-natured weakness, he had privately promised each of the youths to leave the ring to him, and him only ; and how to keep his promise, he did not know. Matters, however, went on smoothly enough for a season ; but at length death approached, and the worthy father became painfully per- plexed. What was to be done ? Loving his sons, as he did, all alike, could he inflict so bitter a disappointment upon two of them as the loss of the ring would certainly prove to them ? He was unable to bear the reflec- tion. After long pondering, a plan occurred to him, the anticipated good effects of which would, he trusted, more than compensate for the deceit connected with it. He sent secretly for a clever jeweller; and, showing him the ring, he desired him to make two other rings on the same model, and to spare neither pains nor cost to render the three exactly alike. The jeweller promised, and kept his promise; the rings were finished, and in so perfect a manner that even the fathers eye could not distinguish between them as far as mere external appearance mangan’s essays. Ill went. Overjoyed beyond expression at this unlooked-for consummation of his wishes, he summoned his three sons in succession into his presence, and from his deathbed bestowed upon each, apart from the other tw r o, his last blessing and one of the rings ; after which, being at his own desire left once more alone, he resigned his spirit tranquilly into the hands of its eternal Author. Is your high- ness attentive ? ” “I am,” said Sal-ad-Deen, “but to very little purpose, it would seem. Make an end of thy story quickly, that I may see the drift of it.” “ It is soon ended, most powerful Sultan,” said Nathaniel, “ for all that remains to be told is what doubtless your highness already half conjectures — the result, namely, of his good-natured deception. Scarcely was the old man laid in his grave, when each of the sons produced his ring, and claimed the right of being sole master and lord of the house. Questions, wranglings, complaints, accusa- tions, succeeded — all to no end, however ; for the difficulty of discovering which was the true ring was as great then as that of discovering which is the true faith now.” “ How ! ” interrupted the Sultan indig- nantly, “ this to me ? Dost thou tell me that the faith of the Mooslemin is not ac- knowledged by all right-thinking persons to be the true one ? ” 112 mangan’s essays. “ May it please your highness,” said the Jew, calmly, “I am here at your own com- mand, and I answer your questions according to the best of my poor ability. If the al- legory I relate be objectionable, it is for the Sultan to find fault with it alone, and not with the reflections which it must necessarily suggest.” “ And dost thou mean, then, that thy pal- try tale shall serve as a full answer to my query ? ” demanded Sal-ad-Deen. “ No, your highness,” said Nathaniel, “but I would have it serve as my apology for not giving such an answer. The father of these youths caused the three rings to be made expressly that no examination might be able to detect any dissimilarity between them ; and I will venture to assert, that not even the Sublimest of Mankind, the Sultan Sal- ad-Deen himself, could, unless by accident, have placed his hand on the true one.” “ Thou triflest with me, Nathaniel,” said the Sultan ; “ a ring is not a religion. There are, it is true, many modes of worship on the earth : but has not Islamism remained a distinct system of faith from the false creeds? Look at its dogmas, its ceremonies, the modes of prayer, the habits, yea, the very food and raiment of its professors ! What sayest thou of these ? ” “ Simply,” returned the Jew, “ that none mangan’s essays. 113 of them are proofs of the truth of Islamism. Nay, be not wroth with me, your highness, for what I say of your religion I say equally of all others. There is one true religion, as there was one true ring in my parable ; but you must have perceived that all men are not alike capable of discovering the truth by their own unassisted efforts, and that a cer- tain degree of trust in the good faith of others as teachers is therefore essential to the reception of religious belief at all. In whom, then, I would ask, is it most natural for us to place our trust ? Surely in our own people — in those of whose blood we are — who have been about us from our childhood, and given us unnumbered proofs of love — and who have never been guilty of inten- tionally practising deception upon us. How can I ask of you to abandon the preposses- sions of your fathers before you, and in which, true or false, you have been nurtured ? Or how can you expect, that, in order to yield to your teachers the praise belonging solely to the truth, I should virtually declare my ancestors fools or hypocrites ? ” “ Sophistical declamation ! ” said the Sul- tan, “ which will avail thee little on the Judgment Day. Is thy parable ended ? ” "In point of instruction it is,” replied Nathaniel, “but I shall briefly relate the conclusion to which the disputes among the H 114 mangan’s essays. brothers conducted. When they found agreement impossible they mutually cited one another before the tribunal of the law. Each of them solemnly swore that he had received a ring immediately from his father’s hand — as was the fact — after having obtained his fathers promise to bestow it on him, as was also the fact. Each of them indignantly repudiated the supposition that such a father could have deceived him ; and each declared, that, unwilling as he was to think uncharitably of his own brethren, he had no alternative left but that of branding them as impostors, forgers, and swindlers.” “And what said the judge?” demanded Sal-ad-Deen ; “ I presume the final decision of the question hung upon his arbitration ? ” “Your highness is correct: the judge at once pronounced his award, which was defini- tive. i You want/ said he, ‘ a satisfactory adjudication on this question, which you have contested among yourselves so long and so fruitlessly. Summon then your father before me : call him from the dead and let him speak ; it is otherwise impracticable for me to come at the knowledge of his inten- tions. Do you think that I sit here for the purpose of expounding riddles and reconciling contradictions ? Or do you, perhaps, expect that the true ring will by some miracle be compelled to bear oral testimony here in mangan’s essays. 115 court to its own genuineness ? But hold : I understand that the ring is endowed with the occult power of rendering its wearer amiable and faultless in the eyes of men. By that test I am willing to try it, and so to pronounce judgment. Which of you three, then, is the greatest object of love to the other two ? You are silent. What ! does this ring, which should awaken love in all, act with an inward influence only, not an outward ? Does each of you love only himself ? Oh, go ! you are all alike deceivers or deceived : none of your rings is the true one. The true ring is probably lost ; and to supply its place your father ordered three spurious ones for common use among you. If you will abide by a piece of advice instead of a formal decision, here is my counsel to you : leave the matter where it stands. If each of you has had a ring presented to him by his father, let each believe his own to be the real ring. Possibly your father might have grown disinclined to tolerate any longer the exclusiveness implied in the possession of a single ring by one member of a family ; and, certainly, as he loved you all with the same affection, it could not gratify him to appear the oppressor of two by favouring one in particular. Let each of you therefore feel honoured by this all-embracing generosity of your parent ; let each of you endeavour 116 mangan’s essays. to outshine his brothers in the cultivation of every virtue which the ring is presumed to confer — assisting the mysterious influence supposed to reside in it by habits of gentle- ness, benevolence, and mutual tolerance, and by resignation in all things to the will of God ; and if the virtues of the ring continue to manifest themselves in your children, and your childrens children, and their descen- dants to the hundredth generation, then, after the lapse of thousands of years, appear again and for the last time before this j udg- ment seat ! A Greater than I will then occupy it, and He will decide this contro- versy for ever/ So spake the upright judge, and broke up the court. Your highness now, I trust, thoroughly comprehends my reason for not answering your question in a direct manner ? ” “ Is that the end of thy story ? ” asked Sal-ad-Deen. “ If it please your highness/’ said the J ew, who had by this time arisen, and was gra- dually, though respectfully, proceeding to ac- complish his retreat. “ By my beard/’ said the Sultan, after a considerable pause, “ it is an ingenious apo- logue that of thine, and there may be some- thing in it too ; but still it does not persuade me that thou art excusable in thy perti- nacious rejection of Islamism. I own I mangan’s essays. 117 tremble for thee after all. Go thy ways, however, for the present, with this purse of tomauns, by way of premium for thy mother- wit ; but I shall shortly send for thee again ; and as I do not much fancy remaining in any man’s debt, thou shalt then, as a wholesome counterpoise to thy sophistry, obtain from me in reply either a parable of my own, or one from -the Koran, upon which I will argue with thee to thy signal confusion ! ” 118 MANGAN S ESSAY& an ©tre to tf)t ©o met Come down upon my desk, oh, heavenly muse ! Come down this day upon my desk ! I chuse A theme this day dazzling with glorious hues ! Come down, then, to my desk, nor wander from it, Because this day I sing about the Comet ; I sing the Comet which all men peruse ; I sing this day about the Comet, whose Lustre and long, long tail delight, amuse. And ’stonish natives — not in all the news- papers — the Standard, Courier, Age , or True S- un, or the Thief ’ or other poor hebdomad- al, can you twig such fun as in the Comet ; No ma’am — nor in all Magas (buffs or blues) Nor in those litter-airy bugaboos Dubbed by the style of Quarterly Reviews , Can we behold such desperate and indomit- able pluck and power as in the Comet The traveller, ’mong Fire Worshippers and Jews, Circassians, Mohawks, Cannibals, Hindoos, Hottentots, Troglodytes, and Kangaroos, Orang-outangs, Bears, Bulls, and Cockatoos, All tribes of Paynims,Bramins,and Mahomet- ans nowhere sees a Blazer like the Comet MANGAN S ESSAYS. 119 The thinking man, who studies Whiston, views It as a prodigy, and can’t refuse Acknowledging that next to Trigonomet- ry, the great attraction is the Comet The drinking man who studies whiskey- booz- - ing and all that, protests he’d pawn his shoes For sixpence, if he couldn’t snigg the Comet By common consent, then, that man is a goose, Or at least he’s a gander, Who dreams that the visible globe can pro- duce A match for Philander. On the high ground of principle Phil is invincible ; It is always his glory To slaughter a Tory ; And fiercely to tweak That rascally clique Of Whigs by the beak, Till the vagabonds shriek. He makes dismal examples Of renegade knaves ; His heel into powder imperially tramples Your Castle-hack fawners, and crouchers, and slaves ; His price is exceedingly far above rubies ! 120 mangan’s essays. It is none of your mawkish, your half-and- half tub-licking, Lick-spittle sycophants, wait-a- while boobies, But a hot out-and-outer, a glorious repub- lican, And hope yet to witness the era when reason Shall cease to be stigma- tized under the rigma- role Shibboleth, Hue-and-cry war-whoop of “ treason !” So huzzah ! And hurrah ! And the Comet , so wicked, and caustic, an’ clever, Our wonderful, thunderful Comet for ever ! I say, sir Regina (That s Frazer) Can’t match Comettina ! Nor ebony * neither. She’s finer, Diviner, And more of a splasher as well as a shiner Than either. Yet, so bloodless is her bludgeon ; How can any curst curmudgeon Take her pranksome tricks in dudgeon ? * Blackwood. MANGAN S ESSAYS. 121 To all unprejudiced beholders That growler must appear a brainless bumpkin ; And, b’yond all doubt, the thing betwixt his shoulders Is what w r e generally call a pumpkin. Then huzzah ! And hurrah ! And the Comet so blazing, amazing, and clever, The wonderful, thunderful Comet for ever ! *:o:- 122 mangan’s essays. Cfte iJrtrotfifU. “ Of all that I have ever read or heard The course of true love never yet ran smooth.” — Shakespeare. A silence reigns in Yenice streets, And all is calm as beauty sleeping ; The noise is hush’d, no clamour greets The ear ; but unobserv’d, fleets To other shores, where morn is peeping. The Adriatic sinks her head, Clear as the sky it sinks upon ; The stars are hid, the curtained bed Of palest blue, forbids their dawn, And a fair moon so clear and wan The Islands of the East hath fled. She silvers o’er old Yenice towers, And kisses their crests again ; The city sleeps, and no brow lowers Except in dreams of reckless men, Whose conscience, dire, with wicked deeds, Gnaws, and on the base heart feeds. A gentle heart, in all this calm, Beat at a lattice high, And flutter’d as the leaves of palm When the soft wind wantons by ; And many a sigh from that young breast, Spoke that the soul was not at rest. MANGAN S ESSAYS. 123 She looks upon the distant sea, So windless and so blue, And the moon in such bright canopy, So placid to her view ; And she sighs to see how nature sleeps, And she but waketh — she but weeps. And Ida, a gentle Peri seems, Fresh as light in heaven beaming; Pure as seraph in our dreams, When the young heart with love is teeming ; And yet in sorrow’s sad caress She sighs thro’ all her loveliness. But hark ! a note floats o’er the clear Bright waters of the sea, And wings its music on the ear, In mildest melody ; And Ida’s eyes, like cherub’s glistened As o’er the lattice she leaned and listened. A plash is heard of the dripping oar, And a song of a gondolier ; And Ida hastes to the moonlit shore. And the light gondola’s near; And now she rests by Leon’s side And the barque now dances o’er the tide. And Leon touched his soft guitar And breathed the truth of lovers dead. Till Venice ceased to peep afar, Or raise a turret o’er the head Of the Adriatic’s rising wave, That seem’d to weep o’er Venice’ grave. 124 mangan’s essays. A rival with a Turkish horde, The lovers watched — the barque did chase; The blazing crescent redly poured Its shadow o’er each bearded face ; The Pagan and the Christian soon Must bare their weapons to the moon, Now clashed the sword and scimitar Now Tunis strives with Italie ; The Moslem slave inured to war, (A savage pirate of the sea) Was mild, like demon of his trade, And hurled the Christian ’neath his blade. And Ida, like a statue, sate Pale as the white and marble bust, And cold and as inanimate As the bleeding on the dying dust ; Nor spake, although a passion wrung Quick motion of her arid tongue. The moon looks now on the lover slain, And now the Moslem, on the love The Pagan’s vision scowled in vain ; And blasphemy could ne’er remove The maiden from the valued dead, Until her own pure spirit fled. mangan’s essays. 125 €l)e ftutnffc ©itins of [FROM THE ITALIAN OF FILICAJA — e< QUI PUR FOSTE.”] “ Here on the spot where stately cities rose,” No stone is left, to mark in letters rude Where earth did her tremendous jaws unclose — Where Syracuse — or where Catania stood, Along the silent margin of the flood I seek, but cannot find ye ; nought appears, Save the deep-settled gloom of solitude, That checks my step, and fills mine eyes with tears. Oh ! thou whose mighty arm the blow hath dealt, Whose justice gave the judgment, shall not I Adore that power which I have seen and felt ? Rise from the depths of darkness where y e lie, Ye ghosts of buried cities — rise and be A sad memorial to futurity. 126 mangan’s essays. Ctoo £ort0 of Pittman <&vtatntM. Twofold is the greatness men inherit ; Each is beautiful to human eyes ; Both are woven in the loom of merit ; Yet how different are the threads and dyes ! One is all in glaring light arrayed, While the other is relieved by shade. Sunlike, one for ever flashes noonlight, Burning by its glow the world it warms ; While the other, like the placid moonlight, Silently by night its task performs. One will dazzle with its blinding beam, But the other is a twilight gleam. That , a mountain torrent dashes wildly Over broken rocks its foaming flood ; This , a rivulet unseen and mildly Winds its way among the underwood ; That o’erfloods and desolates the plain — This refreshes it with dew and rain. One erects mausoleums proud and lonely On the ruins of one half the earth ; But the other vaunts its trophies only In the grateful tears of rescued worth ; One engraves its glorious deeds on stone, But the other in the heart alone. mangan’s essays. 127 Trumpet tongues the formers praise are swelling ; Round the thrones of kings it sheds its rays ; But the latter in the poor man’s dwelling, Finds in nature’s blessing all its praise. One to fortune may owe all its fame ; But the other builds itself a name. Greatness hailed by harp and acclamation ! Boundless art thou as the vault of heaven; But to gain thine altitude of station Unto few of mortal mould is given. Tranquil greatness ! at thy shrine I fall , Thou alone art in the reach of all. 128 mangan’s essays. ^Translation of ^Mvavta'* “Bourn ttyt lieu.” 0 LADY ! purest, loveliest ! who now, In guerdon of thy spotless life and merits, Standest exalted in the realm of spirits — A crown of pearl upon thy beaming brow ! Now, peerless paragon of women ! thou Before that God, whose eye beholdeth all, Art witness to my constancy and love — Thou seest the tears that from these eyelids fall, And knowest that this heart, on earth thy thrall, Is still thine only in the heavens above ! Then as from thee all my life’s light hath shone, Pray, that to recompense my struggles here, I, who forsook the world for thee alone, May meet thee soon beyond the starry sphere. Siangan's essays. 129 % f nit Sgltn&itoe mfo pgfett ConMteb gittie of unto dottttrnpge tjjo Jttoe fcau. I. The poet calleth aloud for punch and cigars. From eighteene hundredde thirtie-two I see we’re now completelie sundered ; Cigars and punche ! here’s to the newe Year eighteene hundredde 33! II. He sayethe that before he punishethe tumbler the Beconde, he will acquainte mankynde with what he hath guessed the bye-past yeare. Before I punishe tumbler two, I’ll tell you what I’ve guessed and pondered Anente the subjecte of this newe Yeare eighteene hundredde 33! hi. He sayethe that the Whigges will look bluer and bluer. I guess that though the Whigges look blue At alle they’ve bungled, botched, and blundered, They’ll looke much bluer in the newe Yeare eighteene hundredde 33! I 130 mangan’s essays. IV. The cause ande reason inhereof he elegantlie expli- cateth in this wyse. For if even no we they’re soe lugu- brious, Heavens ! howe they’ll gasp when floundered By things from Radical this newe Year eight eene hundredde 33 ! v. He jocoselie adverteth to the ruefulle plyglite ande gloom ie apprehensions of the Biblicals. The Bible folk are in a stewe, Because those greasie foes to fun dread Being quite extinguished in the newe Yeare eighteene hundredde 33 ! VI. He propoundeth his opinion to the effecte followynge, to witte : the Tories must now fal oute. I guess the Tory robbynge crewe Muste emptie all the bagges they’ve plun- dered, Before we terminate the newe Yeare eighteene hundredde 33 ! mangan’s essays. 131 VII. It were not wonderfulle, he addeth, if Cobbett were to treate the Earle Grey to a dismalle whacking. Should Cobbett give Earle Grey his gru- el, ’twould notte, faythe, be greatlie won- dered, At ’midde the wonders of the newe Yeare eighteene hundredde 33! VIII. The poet, in this bright stanza, uprolleth, with an adventurous hand, the curtayne of Unborn Time, ande exhibiteth to the gaze of a delighted universe the glorious future destinie of the Comet. The Comet ande the intreppidde fewe, Whose batterynge ramme (the Press) had thundered, Will fighte like giants in the newe Yeare eighteene hundredde 33! IX. We then laconicallie develope the miserable ende of certayne hang-a-bone Journallers. The Mail , the Post, the Warder, too, Will dye like dogges — they’ll alle have foundered By fyrste of Aprylee, in the newe Yeare eighteene hundredde 331 132 mangan’s essays. X. Ande howe sumphs and asses will groan thereat. And manie a sumph and many a stu- pid bore, with manie an asse and dun- d’rhead Will howl to see this in the newe Yeare eighteene hundredde 33 ! XI. The poet she we th what a grande thynge the Member for all Irelande wille do. In fine, Dan will repeal the U- nion (which is Wiseman Stanley’s one dread) If Whigges get wiser in the newe Yeare eighteene hundredde 33 ! XII. And the treasurye of his rhymes being exhaustedde, he manufacturedde an appropriate conclusion for his taske. My rhymes being oute I’ll close the beau- tifullest ditty, scratching under 't On this fyrste forenoon of the newe Yeare eighteene hundredde 33 ! My title, to be seene and talked of far hence, the whylke is mangan’s essays. 133 atlexanUer anti tffe Cm* “ From this tree it was that the Voice came which spake of old to Iskander (Alexander the Great), saying, as an oracle, ‘Iskander indeed cometh into India, but goeth from thence into the Land of Darkness.’” — Apocryphal History of A lexander the Great . The sun is bright, the air is bland, The heavens wear that stainless blue Which only in an Orient land The eye of man may view ; And lo ! around, and all abroad, A glittering host, a mighty horde — And at their head a demigod, Who slays with lightning-sword ! The bright noon burns, but idly now Those warriors rest by copse and hill, And shadows on their Leaders brow Seem ominous of ill : Spell-bound, he stands beside a tree, And well he may, for through its leaves, Unstirred by wind, come brokenly Moans, as of one that grieves ! How strange ! he thought ; — Life is a boon Given and resumed — but how ? and when $ But now I asked myself how soon I should go home agen ! 134 MANGAN S ESSAYS. How soon I might once more behold My mourning mother’s tearful face ; How soon my kindred might enfold Me in their dear embrace ! There was an Indian Magian there — And, stepping forth, he bent his knee : “ Oh, king ! ” he said, “ be wise ! — beware This too prophetic tree ! ” “ Ha,” cried the king, “ thou knowest, then, Seer, What yon strange oracle reveals ? ” “ Alas ! ” the Magian said, “ I hear Deep words, like thunder-peals ! “ I hear the groans of more than Man, Hear tones that warn, denounce, beseech : Hear — woe is me ! — how darkly ran That stream of thrilling speech ! ‘ Oh, king,’ it spake, ‘ all- trampling king ! Thou leadest legions from afar — But Battle droops his clotted wing ! Night menaces thy star ! “ ‘ Fond visions of thy boyhood’s years Dawn like dim light upon thy soul ; Thou seest again thy mother’s tears Which Love could not control ! Ah ! thy career in sooth is run ! Ah ! thou indeed returnest home ! The Mother waits to clasp her son Low in her lampless dome ! mangan’s essays. 135 “ ‘ Yet go, rejoicing ! He who reigns O’er Earth alone leaves worlds unscanned ; Life binds the spirit as with chains ; Seek thou the Phantom-land ! Leave Conquest all it looks for here — Leave willing slaves a bloody throne — Thine henceforth is another sphere, Deaths realm, the dark Unknown ! ’ ” The Magian paused ; the leaves were hushed, But wailings broke from all around, Until the Chief, whose red blood flushed His cheek with hotter bound, Asked, in the tones of one with whom Fear never yet had been a guest — “ And when doth Fate achieve my doom ? And where shall be my rest ? ” “ Oh, noble heart ! ” the Magian said, And tears unbidden filled his eyes, “We should not weep for thee ! — the Dead Change but their home and skies : The moon shall beam, the myrtles bloom For thee no more — yet sorrow not ! The immortal pomp of Hades’ gloom Best consecrates thy lot.” In June, in June, in laughing June, And where the dells show deepest green, Pavilioned overhead at noon, With gold and silken sheen — 136 MANGAN S ESSAYS. These be for thee — the place, the time ; Trust not thy heart, trust not thine eyes, Behind the Mount thy warm hopes climb, The Land of Darkness lies ! ” Unblenching at the fateful words, The Hero turned around in haste — “ On ! on ! ” he cried, “ ye million swords, Your course, like mine, is traced ; Let me but close Life's narrow span Where weapons clash, and banners wave I would not live to mourn that Man But conquers for a grave ! ” mangan’s essays. 137 me £ton> Of tf)e m* ffiffilolf. i. Sir Isegrim, the wolf, was grown old. The years that had passed over his head, too, had brought with them changes hardly to be expected in a wolf at any season of life. All his fierceness and ferocity were gone ; he was no longer the slayer of sheep and terror of shepherds : no ; he had lost his teeth, and was now a philosopher. To superficial observers, perhaps, the alteration in his character might not have been very obvious; but he himself knew that he was no more what he had been — that his lupuline prowess had departed from him. He resolved accord- ingly on showing mankind what a refor- mation had overtaken him. “One of my brethren,” said he, “ once assumed the garb of a lamb, but he was still a wolf at heart. I reverse the fable ; I seem outwardly a wolf, but at heart I am a lamb. Appearances are deceptive ; whatever prejudices may be excited against me by my exterior, with which I was born, and for which I am not accountable, I have that within which passeth show. I trust that I feel an exemplary horror for the blood-thirstiness of my juve- nile instincts, and the savage revellings of 138 MANGAN S ESSAYS. my maturer years. I am determined, there- fore, to accommodate my way of life in future to the usages of society — to march with the spirit of the age — to cut no more throats — to become in short quite civilized — and set an example which may have the effect of eventually bringing all the wolves of the forest into the same reputable position as my own.” Full of these thoughts, and possibly some others, which he kept to himself, he set out upon a journey to the hut of the nearest shepherd, which he soon reached. “ Shepherd/’ said he, “ I have come to talk over a little matter with you, personal to my- self. You have been long the object of my esteem ; I entertain a special regard for you ; but you requite my esteem and regard with suspicion and hatred. You think me a law- less and sanguinary robber. My friend, you labour under a deplorable prejudice. What have I done, at least for many years back, worse than others ? The head and front of my offending is that I eat sheep. Suppose so : must not every animal eat some other animal ? I have the misfortune to be sub- ject, like all quadrupeds (as well as bipeds), to hunger. Only guarantee me from the attacks of hunger: and upon my honour, Shepherd, I will never even dream of pillag- ing your fold. Give me enough to eat, and mangan’s essays. 139 you may turn your dogs loose, and sleep in security. Ah ! Shepherd, believe me, you do not know what a gentle, meek, sleek- tempered animal I can become when I have got what I think enough/' “ When you have got what you think enough ! ” retorted the Shepherd, who had listened to this harangue with visible impa- tience ; “ ay, but when did you ever get what you thought enough ? Did Avarice ever think it had got enough ? No : you would cram your maw as the miser would his chest, and when both were gorged to repletion, the cry would still be, More ! More ! Go your way ; you are getting into years ; but I am even older than you ; and your cajolery is wasted. Try somebody else, old Isegrim ! ” II. I see that I must, thought the Wolf ; and prosecuting his journey farther, he came to the habitation of a second shepherd. “ Come, Shepherd ! ” he began stoutly, “ I have a proposal to make to you. You know me, who I am, and how I live. You know that if I choose to exert my energies, I can dine and sup upon the heart's blood of every sheep and lamb under your care. Very well : now mark me ; if you bestow on me half a dozen sheep every twelvemonth, I pledge you my word that I will look for no 140 MANGAN S ESSAYS. more. And only think what a fine thing it will be for you to purchase the safety of your entire flock at the beggarly price of half a dozen of sheep ! ” “ Half a dozen sheep ! ” cried the Shepherd, bursting into a derisive laugh ; “ why that’s equal to a whole flock ! ” “ Well, well, I am reasonable,” said the Wolf ; “ give me five.” “ Surely you are joking,” said the Shep- herd. “ Why, if I were in the habit of sacri- ficing to Pan, I don’t think I should offer him more than five sheep the whole year round.” “ Four, then, my dear friend,” urged the Wolf, coaxingly; “you won’t think four too many ? ” “ Ah,” returned the Shepherd, with a sly glance from the corner of his eye, “ don’t you wish you may get them ? ” The selfish scoundrel, how he mocks me ! thought the Wolf. “ Will you promise me three, or even two ? ” “Not even one — not the ghost of one!” replied the Shepherd, emphatically. “A pretty protector of my flock I should prove myself, truly, to surrender it piecemeal into the claws of my inveterate enemy ! Take yourself off, my fine fellow, before you chance to vex me ! ” mangan's essays. 141 III. The third attempt generally creates or dissipates the charm, cogitated Isegrim. May it be so in this present instance. As he mentally uttered this ejaculation, he found himself in the presence of a third shepherd. “ Ah ! my worthy, my excellent friend/' cried he, “ I have been looking for you the whole day. I want to communicate a piece of news to you. You must know that I have been struggling desperately of late to regenerate my character. The enormity of my past career, haunted as it is with phan- toms of blood and massacre, is for ever before my eyes, and humbles me — oh, dear ! how much nobody can guess. I have grown very penitent, and very, very soft-hearted alto- gether, Shepherd/’ Here Isegrim hung his head, overcome for a moment by his emotions. “ Still, Shepherd, still — and this is what I want you to understand — I find I can make after all but slight progress by myself. I go on smack smooth enough for a while, and then my zeal flags. I require encourage- ment and sympathy, and the companionship of the good and the gentle, who could give me advice, and point out to me the path of rectitude continually. In short, you see, if — if you would be but generous enough to allow a sheep or two of enlightened prin- 142 mangan’s essays. ciples to take a walk out with me occasion- ally, in the cool of the evening, along some sequestered valley, sacred to philosophic musings, I feel that it would prove of the greatest advantage to me, in a moral and intellectual point of view. But ah ! I per- ceive you are laughing at me : may I ask whether there is any thing in my request that strikes you as ridiculous ? ” “ Permit me to answer your question by another,” said the Shepherd, with a sneer. “ Pray, Master Wolf, how old are you ? ” “ Old enough to be fierce enough,” ex- claimed Isegrim, with something of the ferocity of old days in his tone and eye ; “ let me tell you that, Master Shepherd.” “ And, like all the rest you have been tell- ing me, it is a lie,” was the Shepherd’s response. “ You would be fierce if you could ; but, to your mortification, you are grown imbecile — you have the will, but want the power. Your mouth betrays you, if your tongue don’t, old deceiver ! Yet, though you can bite no longer, you are still, I dare say, able to mumble; and on the whole, I shouldn’t fancy being a sheep’s head and shoulders in your way just now. What’s bred in the bone will never come out of the flesh, says the proverb ; and I believe you are one of the last animals one could expect to falsify it. I’ll take right good care to mangan’s essays. 143 keep you at crook’s length, my crafty neigh- bour ; make yourself certain of that ! ” IV. The wrath of the Wolf was excessive, but after some time it began to subside. Man- kind, it was evident, at least the pastoral portion of them, did not appreciate as they ought the dawn of intelligence among the lupuline race — the first faint efforts of the brute intellect to attain emancipation from ignorance and savageism. However, he would try again. Perseverance might con- quer destiny. The Great, thought he, are not always thus unfortunate. Certainly it should not be so in my case. Ha ! here we are at the door of another shepherd, and me- thinks a man of a thoughtful and benevolent aspect. Let us see how we shall get along with his new crookship. So he began: “How is this, my dear friend ? ” he asked ; “ you seem rather de- pressed in spirits. Nothing unpleasant, I hope ? — no domestic fracas, or thing of that sort — eh ? ” “No,” returned the Shepherd, sighing, “but I have lost my faithful dog — an animal I have had for years — and I shall never be able to supply his place. I have just been thinking what a noble creature he was.” “ Gadso ! that’s good news ! ” cried the 144 mangan’s essays. Wolf — “I mean for myself — ay, and on second thoughts, let me add for you too, Shepherd. You have me exactly in the nick of time. It’s just the nicest thing that could have happened ! ” “ What do you mean ? ” cried the Shep- herd. “ Nicest thing that could have hap- pened ! I don’t understand you.” “Ill enlighten you, my worthy,” cried Isegrim in high spirits. “ What would you think ? I have just had the bloodiest battle you can imagine with my brethren in the forest ; they and I quarrelled upon a point of etiquette ; so I tore a dozen and a half of them to pieces, and made awful examples of all the rest. The consequence is, that the whole of the brute world is up in arms against me ; I can no longer herd with my kind ; for safety sake I must make my dwel- ling among the children of men. Now, as you have lost your dog, what can you do better than hire me to fill his place ? Depend upon it, I shall have such a constant eye to your sheep ! And, as to expense, I shall cost you nothing; for as employment, and not emolument, is my object, I shall manage to live on a mere idea — in fact, I don’t care whether I eat or drink ; I’ll feed upon air, if you only take me into your service ! ” “Do you mean to say,” demanded the Shepherd, “ that you would protect my flock MANGAN S ESSAYS. 145 against the invasion of your own brethren, the wolves ? ” “ Mean to say it ! Ill swear it,” cried Isegrim. “ 111 keep them at such a distance that no eye in the village shall see them ; that their very existence shall become at length matter of tradition only ; so that the people shall think there is only one Wolf — that’s myself — in the world ! ” “ And pray,” asked the Shepherd, “ while you protect my sheep from other wolves, who will protect them against you ? Am I to suppose that though you hold the place of a dog, you can ever forget that you in- herit the nature of a wolf ? And if I can- not suppose so, should I not be a madman to employ you ? What ! introduce a thief into my house, that he may forestall, by his own individual industry, the assaults of other thieves on my property ? Upon my word, that’s not so bad ! I wonder in what school you learned such precious logic, Master Isegrim ?” “You be hanged!” cried the Wolf in a rage, as he took his departure ; “ a pretty fellow you are to talk to me about schools, you who were never even at a hedge- school !” K 146 MANGAN S ESSAYS. Y. “ What a bore it is to be superannuated !” soliloquized the Wolf. “ I should get on famously but for these unfurnished jaws of mine ;” and he gnashed his gums together with as much apparent fervour as if he had got a mouthful of collops between them. However, I must cut my coat according to my cloth. ‘ Tis not in mortals to command success/ ” With which quotation from an English poet, Sir Isegrim made a halt before the cottage of a fifth shepherd. “ Good morrow, Corydon,” was his cour- teous greeting. The accosted party cast his eyes upon Isegrim, but made no reply. “ Do you know me, Shepherd ?” asked the Wolf. “ Perhaps not you as an individual/’ said the Shepherd, “ but at least I know the like of you.” “ I should think not, though,” suggested Isegrim. “I should think you cannot. I should think you never saw the like of me, Corydon.” “ Indeed !” cried Corydon, opening his eyes ; “ and why not, pray ?” “ Because, Corydon,” answered Isegrim, “ I am a singular sort of wolf altogether — marvellous, unique, like to myself alone. I mangan’s essays. 147 am one of those rare specimens of brute intellectuality that visit the earth once per- haps in three thousand years. My sensi- bilities, physical and moral, are of a most exquisite order. To give you an illustration • — I never could bear to kill a sheep ; the sight of the blood would be too much for my nerves ; and hence, if I ever partake of animal food, it can only be where life has been for some time extinct in the natural way. I wait until a sheep expires at a venerable old age, and then I cook him in a civilized manner. But why do I mention all this to you ? I'll tell you frankly, my admirable friend. My refined suscepti- bilities have totally disqualified me for living in the forest, and I want a home under your hospitable roof. I know that after what I have said you cannot refuse me one, for even you yourself eat dead sheep ; and I protest most solemnly that I will dine at your table.” “And I protest most solemnly that you shall do no such thing,” returned the Shep- herd. “ You eat dead sheep, do you ? Let me tell you that a wolf whose appetite is partial to dead sheep, may be now and then persuaded by hunger to mistake sick sheep for dead, and healthy sheep for sick. Trot off with your susceptibilities elsewhere, if you please. There’s a hatchet in the next room.” 148 mangan’s essays. VI. Have I left a single stone unturned to carry my point ? demanded the Wolf of him- self. Yes, there is a chance for me yet. I have it ! And full of hope he came to the cottage of the sixth shepherd. “ Look at me, Shepherd ! ” he cried. Am I not a splendid quadruped for my years ? What’s your opinion of my skin ? ” “ Very handsome and glossy indeed,” said the Shepherd. “You don’t seem to have been much worried by the dogs.” “No, Shepherd, no,” replied Isegrim, “I have not been much worried by dogs, but I have been and am worried, awfully worried, Shepherd, by hunger. Now, the case being so, as you admire my skin, you and I shall strike a bargain. I am grown old, and can- not live many days longer ; feed me then to death, cram me to the gullet, Shepherd, and I’ll bequeath you my beautiful skin ! ” “ Upon my word ! ” exclaimed the Shep- herd. “ You come to the person of all on earth most interested in compassing your death, and you demand of him the means to enable you to live. How modest of you ! No, no, my good fellow, your skin would cost me in the end seven times its worth. If you really wish to make me a present of it, give it to me now. Here’s a knife, and I’ll war- mangan’s essays. 149 rant you I’ll disembarrass you of it before you can say Trapstick.” But the Wolf had already scampered off* VII. “ Oh, the bloody-minded wretches !” he exclaimed, “ give them fair words or foul, their sole retort to you is still the hatchet ! the cleaver ! the tomahawk ! Shall I endure this treatment? Never! I’ll return on my trail this moment, and be revenged on the whole of the iniquitous generation.” So saying he furiously dashed back the way he had come, rushed into the shepherds’ huts, sprang upon and tore the eyes out of several of their children, and was only finally subdued and killed after a hard struggle, during which he managed to inflict a num- ber of rather ugly wounds upon his captors. It was then that a venerable shepherd of five score years and ten, the patriarch of the village, spoke to them as follows : — “ How much better, my friends, would it have been for us if we had acceded at first to the terms proposed by this reckless destroyer ! Whether he was sincere or not, we could have easily established so vigilant a system of discipline with respect to him, that he should not have had it in his power to injure us. Now, too late, we may deplore the evil that we cannot remedy. Ah, 150 mangan’s essays. believe me my friends, it is an unwise policy to drive the vicious to desperation : the hand of the outcast from society becomes at last armed against all mankind ; he ceases after a season to distinguish between friends and enemies. Few, perhaps none, are so bad as to be utterly irreclaimable ; and he who dis- courages the first voluntary efforts of the guilty towards reforming themselves, on the pretence that they are hypocritical, arrogates to himself that discrimination into motives which belongs alone to the Supreme Judge of all hearts, and becomes in a degree re- sponsible for the ruinous consequences that are almost certain to result from his con- duct." mangan’s essays. 151 Cfje ffisaoman of STfjm (ftotoa* O, Woman of Three Cows, agragh ! don’t let your tongue thus rattle ! 0, don’t be saucy, don’t be stiff, because you may have cattle. I have seen — and, here’s my hand to you, I only say what’s true — A many a one with twice your stock not half so proud as you. Good luck to you, don’t scorn the poor, and don’t be their despiser, For worldly wealth soon melts away, and cheats the very miser, And Death soon strips the proudest wreath from haughty human brows ; Then don’t be stiff, and don’t be proud, good Woman of Three Cows ! See where Momonia’s heroes lie, proud Owen More’s descendants, ’Tis they that won the glorious name, and had the grand attendants ! If they were forced to bow to Fate, as every mortal bows, Can yon be proud, can you be stiff, my Woman of Three Cows ! 152 MANGAN S ESSAYS. The brave sons of the Lord of Clare, they left the land to mourning ; Movrone ! for they were banished, with no hope of their returning — Who knows in what abodes of want those youths were driven to house ? Yet you can give yourself these airs, 0 Woman of Three Cows ! 0, think of Donnell of the Ships, the Chief whom nothing daunted — See how he fell in distant Spain, unchro- nicled, unchanted ! He sleeps, the great O’Sullivan, where thunder cannot rouse — Then, ask yourself, should you be proud, good Woman of Three Cows ! O’Ruark, Maguire, those souls of fire, whose names are shrined in story — Think how their high achievements once made Erins greatest glory — Yet now their bones lie mouldering under weeds and cypress boughs, And so, for all your pride, will yours, 0, Woman of Three Cows ! The O’Carroll’s also, famed when Fame was only for the boldest, Rest in forgotten sepulchres with Erin’s best and oldest ; mangan’s essays. 153 Yet who so great as they of yore in battle or carouse ? Just think of that, and hide your head, good Woman of Three Cows ! Your neighbours poor, and you it seems are big with vain ideas, Because, inagh /* you’ve got three cows, one more, I see, than she has, That tongue of yours wags more at times than charity allows. But, if you are strong, be merciful, great Woman of Three Cows ! THE SUMMING UP. Now, there you go ! You still, of course, keep up your scornful bearing, And I’m too poor to hinder you ; but, by the cloak I’m wearing, If I had but four cows myself, even though you were my spouse, I’d thwack you well to cure your pride, my Woman of Three Cows ! * Forsooth. 154 mangan’s essays. [FROM TIIE GERMAN OP HOLTY.] Oh ! who to bitter thoughts and wasting cares would hearken, So long as youth’s bright blossoms bloom? Who, in the fairy halls of youth and hope would darken A sunny brow by shades of gloom ? Joy stands and smiles, and beckons with alluring finger On all the pathways life discloses, And ever as a cross-road, bids the pilgrim linger, She crowns him with her wreath of roses. The stream — the meadow stream — still bubbles fresh and sprightly : Still blushes all the dell with flowers ; The moon — the vestal moon — is beaming now as brightly As when she silvered Edens bowers. The wine — the chaliced wine — still sheds its purple splendour On souls that droop in griefs eclipse ; And in the rosy glen is still as sweet and tender The kiss from pure affection’s lips. MANGANS ESSAYS. 155 And still, as twilight dies, the mourner’s heart rejoices, Forgetting pain and even despair, As warbling through the grove the never- silent voices Of nightingales enchant the air, Oh, earth ! how fair thou art, while youth is yet in blossom ! How bright, how lovely is thy brow ! Oh, may this bounding heart be withered in my bosom When I shall love thee less than now. 156 mangan’s essays. Symptoms* of of t f)e 3®tavL I’m desperately deep in love. My heart, Transfixed by Cupid’s savage little dart, Goes pit-a-pat one million times per day. My hair’s a Whig — ’twill shortly turn to Grey. Appalled at night, from dreary dreams I start, My health is wracked beyond the power of art. I can’t drink anything except some whey, I’m credibly assured I’ve shrunk away To half my size — yet I’ve increased in sighs, Which puzzles ; I daren’t munch potatoes, On pastry I may banquet with my eyes ; But not my stomach, which is dead as Plato’s. Now what, dear Eglantine, does all this prove, If not that I am dying fast in love ? mangan’s essays. 151 Jin mt tk ft Mm mft f tttMntHian fiinws garni at gome. “ A bheAri pi Ain ^aiVI Ain An fpeAftc!” [The poem is the production of O’Donnell’s bard, Owen Roe Mac an Bhaird, or Ward, who accompanied the family iq their flight, and is addressed to Nuala, O’DonneU's sister, who was also one of the fugitives. As the circumstances connected with the flight of the Northern Earls, and which led to the subsequent con- fiscation of the six Ulster Counties by James I., may not be immediately in the recollection of many of our readers, it may be proper briefly to state, that their departure from this country was caused by the dis- covery of a letter directed to Sir William Ussher, Clerk of the Council, which was dropped in the Council- chamber on the 7th of May, and which accused the Northern chieftains generally of a conspiracy to over- throw the government. Whether this charge was founded in truth or not, it is not necessary for us to express any opinion ; but as in some degree necessary to the illustration of the poem, and as an interesting piece of hitherto unpublished literature in itself, we shall here, as a preface to the poem, extract the follow- ing account of the flight of the northern Earls, as re- corded in the Annals of the Four Masters, and trans- lated by Mr. O’Donovan : — 4 4 Maguire (Cuconnaught) and Donogh, son of Mahon, who was son of the Bishop O’Brien, sailed in a ship to Ireland, and put in at the harbour of S willy. They then took with them from Ireland the Earl O’Neill (Hugh, son of Ferdoragh) and the Earl O’Donnell (Rory, son of Hugh, who was son of Magnus) and many others of the nobles of the province of Ulster. These are the persons who went with O’Neill, namely, his Countess, Catherina, daughter of Magennis, and her 158 mangan’s essays. three sons ; Hugh, the Baron, John and Brian } Art Oge, son of Cormac, who was son of the Baron ; Ferdo- ragh, son of Con, who was son of O’Neill ; Hugh 0 ge, son of Brian, who was son of Art O’Neill ; and many others of his most intimate friends. These were they who went with the Earl O’Donnell, namely, Caffer, his brother, with his sister Nuala ; Hugh, the Earl’s child, wanting three weeks of being one year old ; Bose, daughter of O’Doherty and wife of Caffer, with her son Hugh, aged two years and three months; his (Rory’s) brother son Donnell Oge, son of Donnell, Naghtan son of Calvacb, who -was son of Donogh Cairbreach O’Donnell, and many others of his intimate friends. They embarked on the Festival of the Holy Cross in Autumn. “ This was a distinguished company ; and it is cer- tain that the sea has not borne and the wind has not wafted in modern times a number of persons in one ship more eminent, illustrious, or noble, in point of genealogy, heroic deeds, valour, feats of arms, and brave achievements, than they. Would that God had but permitted them to remain in their patrimonial inheritances until the children should arrive at the age of manhood 1 Woe to the heart that meditated, woe to the mind that conceived, woe to the council that recommended the project of this expedition, without knowing whether they should, to the end of their lives, be able to return to their native principalities or patri- monies.”] 0, Woman of the Piercing Wail, Who mournest o’er yon mound of clay, With sigh and groan, Would God thou wert among the Gael ! Thou wouldst not then from day to day Weep thus alone. Twere long before, around a grave In green Tirconnell, one could find mangan’s essays. 159 This loneliness ; Near where Beann Boirche’s* banners wave Such grief as thine could ne’er have pined Companionless. Beside the wave, in Donegall, In Antrim’s glens, or fair Dromore, Or Killilee, Or where the sunny waters fall, At Assaroe, near Erna’s shore, This could not be. On Derry’s plains — in rich Drumclieff — Throughout Armagh the Great, renowned In olden years, No day could pass but Woman’s grief Would rain upon the burial-ground Fresh floods of tears ! 0, no ! — from Shannon, Boyne, and Suir, From high Dunluce’s castle- walls, From Lissadill, Would flock alike both rich and poor, One wail would rise from Cruachan’sf halls To Tara’s hill ; And some would come from Barrow-side, And many a maid would leave her home On Leitrim’s plains, And by melodious Banna’s tide, And by the Mourne and Erne, to come And swell thy strains ! * Mountains of Mourne. f Cruachan (Croghan), in Connaught. 160 mangan’s essays. 0, horses’ hoofs would trample down The Mount whereon the martyr-saint* Was crucified. From glen and hill, from plain and town, One loud lament, one thrilling plaint, Would echo wide. There would not soon be found, I ween, One foot of ground among those bands For museful thought, So many shriekers of the keen + Would cry aloud, and clap their hands, All woe-distraught ! Two princes of the line of Conn Sleep in their cells of clay beside O’Donnell Roe : Three royal youths, alas ; are gone ! Who lived for Erin’s weal, but died For Erin’s woe ! Ah ! could the men of Ireland read The names these noteless burial-stones Display to view, Their wounded hearts afresh would bleed, Their tears gush forth again, their groans Resound anew ! * St. Peter. This passage is not exactly a blunder, though at first it may seem one : the poet supposes the grave itself to be transferred to Ireland, and he natu- rally includes in the transference the whole of the immediate locality around the giave. t Caoine , the funeral wail. mangan’s essays. 161 The youths whose relics moulder here Were sprung from Hugh, high Prince and Lord Of Aileach’s * lands ; Thy noble brothers, justly dear, Thy nephew, long to be deplored By Ulster’s bands. Theirs were not souls wherein dull Time Could domicile Decay or house * Decrepitude ! They passed from Earth ere Manhood’s prime, Ere years had power to dim their brows Or chill their blood. And who can marvel o’er thy grief, Or who can blame thy flowing tears, That knows their source ? O’Donnell, Dunnasava’s chief, Cut off amid his vernal years, Lies here a corse. Beside his brother Cathbar, whom Tirconnell of the Helmets mourns In deep despair — For valour, truth, and comely bloom, For all that greatens and adorns, A peerless pair. O, had these twain, and he, the third, The Lord of Mourne, O’Niall’s son, Their mate in death — * Aileack, near Derry. L 162 MANGAN'S ESSAYS. A prince in look, in deed, and word — Had these three heroes yielded on The field their breath, 0, had they fallen on Criffan’s* * * § plain, There would not be a town or clan From shore to sea, But would with shrieks bewail the Slain, Or chant aloud the exulting rannf Of jubilee ! When high the shout of battle rose, On fields where Freedom’s torch still burned Through Erin’s gloom, If one, if barely one of those Were slain, all Ulster would have mourned The hero’s doom ! If at Athboy,J where hosts of brave Ulidian horsemen sank beneath The shock of spears, Young Hugh O’Neill had found a grave, Long must the North have wept his death With heart-wrung tears ! If on the day of Ballach-myre§ The Lord of Mourne had met, thus young, * Bardic name of Ireland. + Song. X Yellow Ford, where O’Neill and O’Donnell de- feated the English army, led by Marshal Bagnal in 1598. § Moyry Pass, where O’Neill defeated Lord Mount- joy in 1600. mangan’s essays 163 A warrior’s fate, In vain would such as thou desire To mourn, alone, the champion sprung From Niall the Great ! No marvel this — for all the Dead, Heaped on the field, pile over pile, At Mullach-brack, Were scarce an eric * for his head, If Death had stayed his footsteps while ' On victory’s track ! If on the Day of Hostages The fruit had from the parent bough Been rudely torn In sight of Munster’s bands — Mac-Nee’s — Such blow the blood of Conn, I trow, Could ill have borne. If on the day of Ballach-boy Some arm had laid, by foul surprise, The chieftain low, Even our victorious shout of joy Would soon give place to rueful cries And groans of woe ! If on the day the Saxon host Were forced to fly — a day so great For Ashaneef — The Chief had been untimely lost, Our conquering troops should moderate Their mirthful glee. * A compensation or line, + Ballyshannon, 164 mangan’s essays. There would not lack on Lifford’s* day, From Galway, from the glens of Boyle, From Limerick’s towers, A marshalled file, a long array, Of mourners to bedew the soil With tears and showers ! If on the day a sterner fate Compelled his flight from Athenree, His blood had flowed, What numbers all disconsolate Would come unasked, and share with thee Affliction’s load ! If Derry’s crimson field had seen His life-blood offered up, though ’twere On Victory’s shrine, A thousand cries would swell the keen, A thousand voices of despair Would echo thine ! 0, had the fierce Dalcassianf swarm That bloody night on Fergus’ banks, But slain our Chief, When rose his camp in wild alarm — How would the triumph of his ranks Be dashed with grief ! * Scene of an Irish victory, 1600, | Munster Clans. mangan’s essays. 165 How would the troops of Murbach mourn If on the Curlew Mountains’* day, Which England rued, Some Saxon hand had left them lorn, By shedding there amid the fray, Their prince’s blood ! Red would have been our warrior’s eyes Had Roderick found on Sligo’s field * A gory grave, No Northern Chief would soon arise So sage to guide, so strong to shield, So swift to save. Long would Leith-Cuinnf have wept if Hugh Had met the death he oft had dealt Among the foe ; But, had our Roderick fallen too, All Erin must, alas ! have felt The deadly blow ! What do I say ? Ah, woe is me ! Already we bewail in vain Their fatal fall ! And Erin, once the Great and Free, Now vainly mourns her breakless chain, And iron thrall ! Then daughter of O’Donnell ! dry Thine overflowing eyes, and turn ■ — * Where O’Donnell defeated the English led by Sir Conyers Clifford, on the Feast of the Assumption, 1599. t Leath-Cuinu, North half of Ireland. Leath-Moga, Southern half. I 166 mangan’s essays. Thy heart aside ! For Adam's race is born to die, And sternly the sepulchral urn Mocks human pride ! Look not, nor sigh, for earthly throne. Nor place thy trust in arm of clay — But on thy knees Uplift thy soul to God alone, For all things go their destined way As He decrees. Embrace the faithful Crucifix, And seek the path of pain and prayer Thy Saviour trod ; Nor let thy spirit intermix With earthly hope and worldly care It groans to God ! And Thou, 0 mighty Lord ! whose ways Are far above our feeble minds To understand, Sustain us in these doleful days, And render light the chain that binds Our fallen land ! Look down upon our dreary state, And through the ages that may still Boll sadly on, Watch Thou o’er hapless Erins fate, And shield at least from darker ill The blood of Gonn ! * * See Flight of the Earls , 2nd Edition. Dublin : J. Duffy and Sons. mangan’s essays. 167 ^lamentation of i#ta c Ufag for Uineora* A Chirm-copA*oh cAi'ohi bpiAn ? Oh, where, Kincora ! is Brian the Great ? And where is the beauty that once was thine? Oh, where are the princes and nobles that sate At the feast in thy halls, and drank the red wine ? Where, oh, Kincora ? 0, where, Kincora ! are thy valorous lords ? Oh, whither, thou Hospitable ! are they gone ? Oh, where are the Dalcassians of the Golden Swords ?* And where are the warriors that Brian led on ? Where, oh, Kincora ? And where is Morogh, the descendant of kings — The defeater of a hundred — the daringly brave — * Ccolg-nory of the swords of gold , i. e., of the gold - hilted swords. 168 mangan’s essays. Who set but slight store by jewels and rings — Who swam down the torrent and laughed at its wave ? Where, oh, Kincora ? And where is Donogh, King Brian’s worthy son ? And where is Conaing, the Beautiful Chief ? And Kian, and Coac? Alas! they are gone — They have left me this night alone with my grief ! Left me, Kincora ! And where are the chiefs with whom Brian went forth, The never- vanquished son of Evin the Brave, The great King of Osnaght, renowned for his worth, And the hosts of Baskinn, from the western wave ? Where, oh, Kincora ? Oh, where is Duvlann of the Swiftfooted Steeds ? And where is Kian, who was son of Molloy ? And where is King Lonergan, the fame of whose deeds In the red battle-field no time can des- troy ? Where, oh, Kincora ? mangan's essays. 169 And where is that youth of majestic height, The faith-keeping Prince of the Scots ? — Even he, As wide as his fame was, as great as was his might, Was tributary, oh, Kincora, to me ! Me, oh, Kincora ! They are gone, those heroes of royal birth, Who plundered no churches, and broke no trust, ’Tis weary for me to be living on the earth When they, oh, Kincora, lie low in the dust ! Low, oh, Kincora ! Oh, never again will Princes appear, To rival the Dalcassians of the Cleaving Swords ! I can never dream of meeting afar or anear, In the east or the west, such heroes and lords ! Never, Kincora ! Oh, dear are the images my memory calls up . Of Brian Boru ! — how he never would miss To give me at the banquet the first bright cup ! Ah ! why did he heap on me honour like this ? Why, oh, Kincora ? 170 mangan’s essays. I am Mac Liag, and my home is on the Lake: Thither often, to that place whose beauty is fled, Came Brian to ask me, and I went for his sake. Oh, my grief ! that I should live, and Brian be dead ! Dead, oh, Kincora ! mangan's essays. 171 VtVtUteVtVM** When Arthur Duke of Wellington was Praetor, He once asked me, (who always was a prater), To what plan should the Ministry adhere To save the State? I scarcely need add here That I intrepidly replied as follows : — “ Redoubtable Dictator, Duke and Signior, We will not now discuss what England's fall owes Its rise to ; but as we plebeians have seen your Highness's power to bind and loose 0 ! pinion That muli-mouthed libertine, Opinion. The press is democratical and coarse, — Sink it by tons of taxes — that’s your course, And hang the gang of Liberals in a knot ! Nothing will still the storm if this will not. Credit me, Captain Pacha, it were idle To temporise or trifle ; smash the idol !” These delicate hints and golden words of mine, (The least of them well worth a golden mine,) Brought down the Bishop's benisons and prayers On me, while I stood listening to the preyers; 172 mangan’s essays. Besides, of course, heroically bearing The speech, half sneers , half compliment of Baring, And standing the infliction of a peal Of plaudits, from Lord Eldon and Bob Peel. mangan’s essays. 173 €lje l&ttiit# of Donegal Caatle. [FROM THE IRISH]. 0 mournful, 0 forsaken pile, What desolation dost thou dree ! How tarnished is the beauty that was thine erewhile, Thou mansion of chaste melody ! Demolished lie thy towers and halls ; A dark, unsightly, earthen mound Defaces the pure whiteness of thy shining walls, And solitude doth gird thee round. Fair fort ! thine hour has come at length, Thine older glory has gone by. Lo ! far beyond thy noble battlements of strength, Thy corner-stones all scattered lie 1 Where now, 0 rival of the gold Emania, be thy wine-cups all ? Alas ! for these thou now hast nothing but the cold, Cold stream that from the heavens doth fall! 174 MANGANS ESSAYS. Thy clay-choked gateways none can trace, Thou fortress of the once bright doors ! The limestones of thy summit now bestrew thy base, Bestrew the outside of thy floors. Above thy shattered window-sills The music that to-day breaks forth Is but the music of the wild winds from the hills, The wild winds of the stormy north ! What spell o’ercame thee, mighty fort, What fatal fit of slumber strange, 0 palace of the wine ! 0 many-gated court ! That thou shouldst undergo this change ? Thou wert, 0 bright- walled, beaming one, Thou cradle of high deeds and bold, The Tara of Assemblies to the sons of Con, Clan-Connell’s council-hall of old ! Thou wert a new Emania, thou ! A northern Cruachan in thy might — A dome like that which stands by Boynes broad water now, Thou Erin’s Rome of all delight ! In thee were Ulster’s tributes stored, And lavished like the flowers in May ; And into thee were Connaught’s thousand treasures poured, Deserted though thou art to-day I mangan’s essays. 175 How often from thy turrets high, Thy purple turrets, have we seen Long lines of glittering ships, when summer- time drew nigh, With masts and sails of snow-white sheen ! How often seen, when gazing round, From thy tall towers, the hunting trains, The blood-enlivening chase, the horseman and the hound, Thou fastness of a hundred plains ! How often to thy banquets bright We have seen the strong-armed Gaels repair, And when the feast was over, once again unite For battle, in thy bass-court fair ! Alas ! for thee, thou fort forlorn ! Alas ! for thy low, lost estate ! It is my woe of woes this melancholy morn, To see thee left thus desolate ! Oh ! there hath come of Connell’s race A many and many a gallant chief, Who, if he saw thee now, thou of the once glad face ! Could not dissemble his deep grief. Could Manus of the lofty soul Behold thee as this day thou art, Thou of the regal towers ! what bitter, bitter dole, What agony would rend his heart ! 176 mangan’s ESSAYS. Could Hugh MacHugh’s imaginings Portray for him the rueful plight, What anguish, O thou palace of the northern kings, Were his through many a sleepless night ! Could even the mighty prince whose choice It was to o’erthrow thee — could Hugh Roe But view thee now, methinks, he would not much rejoice That he had laid thy turrets low ! Oh ! who could dream that one like him, One sprung of such a line as his, Thou of the embellished walls, would be the man to dim Thy glories by a deed like this ! From Hugh O’Donnell, thine own brave And far-famed sovereign, came the blow By him, thou lonesome castle o’er the Esky’s wave, By him was wrought thine overthrow 1 Yet not because he wished thee ill, Left he thee thus bereaven and void ; The prince of the victorious tribe of Dalach still Loved thee — yea, thee whom he destroyed! mangan’s essays. 177 He brought upon thee all this woe, Thou of the fair-proportioned walls, Lest thou shouldst ever yield a shelter to the foe, Shouldst house the black, ferocious Galls ! Shouldst yet become in saddest truth A Dun-na-Gall * — the strangers own. For this cause only, stronghold of the Gaelic youth, Lie thy majestic towers o’erthrown. It is a drear, a dismal sight, This of thy ruin and decay, Now that our kings, and bards, and men of mark and might, Are nameless exiles far away ! Yet, better thou shouldst fall, meseems, By thine own king of many thrones, Than that the truculent Galls should rear around thy streams Dry mounds and circles of great stones. As doth in many a desperate case The surgeon by the malady, So hath, O shield and bulwark of great Coffey’s race, Thy royal master done by thee ! * Fort of the Foreigner. M 178 MANGAN S ESSAYS. The surgeon, if he be but wise, Examines till he learns and sees Where lies the fountain of his patient’s health, where lies The germ and root of his disease ; Then cuts away the gangrened part, That so the sounder may be freed Ere the disease hath power to reach the sufferers heart, And so bring death without remead. Now, thou hast held the patients place, And thy disease hath been the foe ; So he, thy surgeon, 0 proud house of Dalach’s race ! Who should he be if not Hugh Roe. But he, thus fated to destroy Thy shining walls, will yet restore And raise thee up anew in beauty and in joy, So that thou shalt not sorrow more. By God’s help, he who wrought thy fall Will reinstate thee yet in pride ; Thy variegated halls shall be rebuilded all, Thy lofty courts, thy chambers wide. Yes ! thou shalt live again, and see Thine youth renewed ! Thou shalt out- shine Thy former self by far, and Hugh shall reign in thee, The Tirconnellian’s king and thine ! mangan’s essays. 179 Cf)e HiibomtJ.* [A TRANSLATION FROM THE MOLDAVIAN.] “All ! what a fatal gift from Heaven is too sensitive a heart ! ” — Bousseau. What is that yonder shimmering so ? Can it be swans ? Can it be snow ? If it were swans they would move, I trow, If it were snow it had melted ere now. No : it is Ibrahim Aga s tent — There lies the warrior, wounded and spent. Mother and sisters tend him there Night and morn with busiest care; His wife alone — through shame or grief— Stays away from the suffering Chief. Wherefore, as soon as his illness was gone, Wrote he thus to the Sensitive One — “ Go thy way from my house and hearth, And bide with the mother that gave thee birth.” Sad was Ayoob at the sudden word ! It pierced her tender heart like a sword. Hark ! the sound of a charger s tramp — Ibrahim, then, is come from the camp ! ♦The incidents of this nmrative are founded on fact. 180 MANGAN S ESSAYS. So she fancies, and, in her despair, Thinks she will scale the turret-stair, And dash herself down from the castle-wall, When, lo ! her two little daughters call — “ It isnt our father, mother dear ! This is our uncle, Djaffar-al-Meer.” Turning around, the weeping mother Flings her arms about her brother — “ 0, brother ! that this black day should arrive ! Oh, how can I leave these helpless five ? ” But cold and wordless, as one who has yet To study Compassion, or feel Remorse, The brother draws forth, all shiningly set, In silk and gold, the Brief of Divorce, And sternly he states the Laws command — That again she return to her kindred and land, Free once more to dispose of her hand. The mother’s heart felt breaking, for now All hope was buried ; — she could not speak, She kissed her two little boys on the brow, And her two little girls she kissed on the cheek, While the babe in the cradle — unconscious child ! Held out its diminutive arms, and smiled ! The iron Djaffar would wait no more — His barb was pawing the earth at the door: mangan’s essays. 181 “ Up, woman !” he cried — and they galloped away, And reached their home by the close of day But there not long she pined alone, For, barely a week was over and gone When many a suitor came to sue ; Kapitans, Beys, and Agas too, Came to see her and stayed to woo. And Djaffar saw that the richest of all Was the noble Khadi of Nourjahaul. Afresh for sorrow were hourly shed The bitter tears of the mourner then : “ I pray thee, brother,” she sadly said, “ Give me not in marriage agen ! My broken heart would cease to beat Should I and the children chance to meet.” But Djaffar was ever the Man of Steel — The morrow, he vowed, should see her a wife! “ Then, hear me, brother ! — thy sisters life Hangs upon this her last appeal ! Write to the Khadi thus, I entreat — ‘ Health from Ayoob to her lordly lover ! ‘ Send, she prays thee, a veil to cover ‘ Her sorrowful figure from head to feet, ‘ Lest, while passing the Agas door, ‘ Her children greet her as heretofore/ ” 182 mangan’s essays. The letter was sent, and the veil came home ; And by noon on the morrow the bride was arrayed ; And a gorgeous train and cavalcade Set out for the Khadi’s palace-dome. They journeyed till sunset purpled the sky, And now, alas ! her trial is nigh — Her trial is nigh, her bosom is swelling ; They come within sight of Ibrahim’s dwelling — They near the gates — ah, well-a-day ! Her children cannot mistake their mother — “ Mamma ! mamma ! ah, don’t go away ! ” They cry, and their voices drown one another. That mother groaned in her wretchedness ! “ Live long! ” she said, “my Lord and Master ! Mayest thou ever defy Disaster ! May thy shadow never be less ! Bid, I implore thee, the cavalcade wait A moment in front of the Aga’s gate, While I go into the house, and leave Some gifts withmy little ones, lestthey grieve.” Silently then, like a ghost from the tombs, She enters once more the remembered rooms, Gives to her sons little gold-laced boots, Gives to her daughters little kapoots,* And leaves with the babe in the cradle-bed Some toys and a basket of sugar-bread. * Cloaks mangan’s essays. 183 Now, the desolate father was standing apart, And he marked that she neither spake nor sighed, And Agony wrung his manly heart — “ Come, come to me hither, my children ! ” he cried, “For I see that your mothers bosom is grown, Colder g,nd harder than marble stone.” But, as soon as Ayoob heard Ibrahim speak And saw her children turning away, She fell on the floor without a shriek, And without a stir on the floor she lay ; And the funeral-wailers of Istambol Were chanting ere night the hymn for her soul* * The popular notion that the Mohammedans deny immortality to the soul of women is altogether a mis- take, as will be apparent to any one who takes the trouble of looking through the Koran. 184 mangan’s essays. &f)e iWatt antf tlje ¥outt)0. [from the french of lafontaine.] A MAN of eighty years was planting trees : — “ Ha ! ha ! ” laughed out three striplings from the village, “ Planting at eighty ! — Had his task been tillage, Or building houses, or aught else you please, The folly might have passed at less worth noting, But — planting trees! He must indeed be doting ! Why, in the name of all thats odd, old neighbour, What fruit can such as you expect to gather From this ridiculous and driftless labour ? You, who are already a great-grandfather ! What ! do you think to rival in his years Methuselah ? For shame ! Do penance rather For your past errors ! Mourn your sins with tears ! Abandon hopes and plans that so ill suit your years. Age and grey hairs ! Give over looking wildly Out through the vista of a boundless future ! mangan’s essays. 185 All these are but for us, and such as we.” “ They are not even for you,” replied the Old Man mildly. “ Youth may be just as nigh Eternity As Age. What though the pitfalls of Existence Be covered o’er with flowers in lieu of snows, Who shall foremeasure the brief distance Between this dim dream’s birth and close ? The winged bolts of Death are swift to strike Life in its dawning as decline ; The pallid Parcse play their game alike With your days and with mine. Who knows which of us four shall be the one To gaze last on the glory of the sun ? Molest me not, then. Leave me to employ The hours that yet remain to me. I love To think my great-grandchildren will enjoy The shade and shelter of this embryo grove. Meantime I live, I breathe, and I may even Share for some years to come the gifts of Heaven. Alas ! even I may see the morning-light Shine more than once, young men ! upon your graves ! ” The Old Man spake a truth which Time revealed : — Boating soon after, on a sto nnj night, One of these youths was buried m the waves — A second was cut off upon the battle-field — 186 mangan’s essays. The third fell ill, and in four fleeting weeks His bier was dressed with Deaths pale plumes ; — So died the Three — thus early fated ! And while the tears rolled down his cheeks, The Old Man sculptured on their tombs The story I have here narrated. mangan’s essays. 187 ILtfe attli its fllustons* 14 Lean not on Earth — ’twill pierce thee to the heart — A broken reed at best, but of a spear, On whose sharp point Peace bleeds, and Hope expires.” — Young. We are but Shadows ! None of all those things, Formless and vague, that flit upon the wings Of wild Imagination round thy couch, When Slumber seals thine eyes, is clothed with such An unreality as Human Life, Cherished and clung to as it is ; the fear, The thrilling hope, the agonizing strife, Are not more unavailing there than here. To him who reads what Nature would pourtray, What speaks the night ? A comment on the day. Day dies — Night lives — and, as in dumb derision, Mocks the past phantom with her own vain vision ! Man shuts the Volume of the past for aye — A blind slave to the all-absorbing Present, He courts debasement, and from day to day His wheel of toil revolves, revolves incessant; 188 mangan’s essays. And well may earth-directed zeal be blighted! And well may Time laugh selfish hopes to scorn ! He lives in vain whose reckless years have slighted The humbling truth which Penitence and grey Hairs teach the Wise, that such cold hopes are born Only to dupe and to be thus requited ! How many such there be ! in whom the thorn Which disappointment plants festers in vain Save as the instrument of sleepless pain — Who bear about with them the burning feeling And fire of that intolerable word Which, inly searching, pierceth, like a sword, The breast whose wounds thenceforward know no healing ! Behold the overteeming globe ! Its millions Bear mournful witness. Cycles, centuries roll, That Man may madly forfeit Heavens pavilions, To hug his darling trammels: — Yet the soul, The startled soul, upbounding from the mire Of earthliness, and all alive with fears, Unsmothered by the lethargy of years mangan’s essays. 189 Whose dates are blanks, at moments will inquire, “ And whither tends this wasting struggle ? Hath The living universe no loftier path Than that we toil on ever ? Must the eye Of Hope but light a desert ? Shall the high Spirit of Enterprise be chilled and bowed And grovel in darkness, reft of all its proud Prerogatives ? Alas ! and must Man barter The Eternal for the Perishing — but to be The world’s applauded and degraded martyr, Unsouled, enthralled, and never to be free?” Ancient of Days ! First Cause ! Adored ! Unknown ! Who wert, and art, and art to come ! The heart Yearns, in its lucid moods, to Thee alone ! Thy name is Love: thy word is Truth; thou art The fount of Happiness — the source of Glory — Eternity is in thy hands, and Power — Oh, from that sphere unrecognised by our Slow souls, look down upon a world which, hoary In Evil and in Error though it be, Eetains even yet some trace of that primeval Beauty that bloomed upon its brow ere Evil And Error wiled it from Thy Love and Thee ! 190 MANGAN’S ESSAYS* Look down, and if, while human brows are brightening In godless triumph, angel eyes be weeping, Publish thy will in syllables of lightning And sentences of thunder to the Sleeping! Look down, and renovate the waning name Of Goodness, and relume the waning light Of Truth and Purity ! — that all may aim At one imperishable crown — the bright Guerdon which they who by un tired and holy Exertion overcome the world, inherit— The Self-denying, the Peaceable, the Lowly, The truly Merciful, the Poor in Spirit ! So shall the end of thine all-perfect plan At length be realised in erring Man. mangan’s essays. 191 S (Sxraitti antr Cransmttrfttt Country.* [FROM THE FRENCH OF ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE.] I. ’Tis o’er ! I abandon to an element Treacherous and dread, though now it seems so mild, The all of sweet with my life’s bitter blent, The best parts of my soul — my wife and child. I cast them to the seas, the sands, the clouds; The gloomier destinies are henceforth free To wreck their peace and mine ; a dark veil shrouds The years to come from them and me. II. Yet in my bosom burns no thirst of gold, Nor voyage I forth to woo the smiles of Fame ; Perchance on Europe’s shores her bell hath tolled Too oft already mine unhappy name. Nor in these days, all troublous though they be, Have Dante’s fortunes driven me o’er the wave, To eat the exile’s bitter bread, and see My Future in a troubless grave. * Written on the occasion of the author’s departure for the Holy Land. 212 mangan’s essays. III. 0 no ! I leave behind me the rich home, Wherein my boyhood’s careless lot was cast ; A home, a dwelling, sculptured like some dome Of ancient days, with memories of the Past. 1 leave behind me quiet groves and dells, A sorrowing father unto whom belongs My warm love, and a forest that yet knells The echo of my morning songs. IY. That father — oh ! his noble face and form They haunt me still ! — amid his castle- halls Notes the first whisper of the rising storm, And, trembling, fearing, hoping, praying, calls On God the Almighty not to leave him lorn ! My tearful servants mourn their lord and dame, Beneath my bedroom casement in the morn My hounds howl when they hear my name. Y. And I have sisters — creatures of romance — My childhood’s guardians — loving, soulful, meek ; mangan’s essays. 213 And friends, who read my emotions at a glance, And hear the thousand thoughts I cannot speak. And other friends * are mine — abroad, afar — Unknown to me by face, but each as bright And visible to my mind as yon lone star, That lights my ocean-path to-night. YI. But, ah ! the soul hath instincts of her own ; Like those bold birds, whose pinions waft them far O’er leagues of wave and waste, from zone to zone, She seeks a happier bourne — a brighter star — A clime of golden Morn — an isle of Calm — A land wherein, self-in wrapt as a dove, She may awake, to breathe new life and balm, Or sleep, to dream of Heaven and Love. YIT. At home the flood, the wood, the hill are mine, Mine are the corn-field and the laurel- grove ; Most probably his readers, 214 manoan’s essays. Yet feel I drawn to that bright land divine That shone the Aurora of my boyhood’s love. I have not worshipped on the shores where Shem Survived a drowned world; I have not trod The land where man first wore the diadem That stamped him as a King and God ! VIII. I have yet to travel where thezumbul* first Sailed, boat-like, through the desert’s deathful calm ; I have yet to slake by night my burning thirst At Hebron’s Well, and rest beneath its palm ; Have yet to climb the mount that lightnings rent, When God gave Moses His tremendous Law ; Yet under the pale shadow of my tent To dream the marvels Jacob saw. IX. How burn the pure stars of the Orient skies, What new hues gild the forest and the flood, * A willow basket or pannier, suspended on either side of the camel’s back, for travellers, MANGAN’s ESSAYS. 215 How throbs the heart to Heaven, how glow the eyes, How flashes through the veins the sun-lit blood, How pass the immortal memories of old times Over the soul, as shapes that come and g°; Whose voices haunt the wanderer in those climes — These know I not, but fain would know. x. Amid the cedars of high Lebanon I fain would hear the Past rewake its Lyre ; Would see the eagles of dim ages gone Again, in dream, sail over purple Tyre ; Would roam where proud Palmyra rose, and now No more yields even the echo of a name ; Would stand at midnight on Kavarahs brow And muse on hoary mystic Memnons fame. XI. And where the Jordan through a land of graves Sweeps mourning, with a sadder voice tgrlorn 216 mangan’s essays. Than startled of old years its own dark waves, When Jeremiah bade its people mourn, And where the bard and prophet of the Kings Felt in deep night the Angel’s flaming hand Guide his along the gold harp’s thrilling strings, There would I stray — in that strange land. XII. The olive-trees beneath which Jesus wept, The dark ravines his presence once made bright, The sea whereon once — only once — He slept, The mounts that witnessed oft His prayer all night, The garden where His blood gushed forth for men, Even ere His Cross appealed to Heaven on high, All the dread scenery of the There and Then, Would I behold ere yet I die ! XIII. Therefore, in solitude of soul I go To appeal for weal or woe to another zone. mangan’s essays. 217 What need to heed where Winter-storms o’erthrow The scathed tree whose leaves and bloom are flown ? My bones may bleach in Syria’s far-off sands; God knoweth ! Him in silence I adore. My life, my death, my doom, are in His hands ; His Will be done ! I ask no more. XIY. Farewell, then, all I have loved on this blank earth ! My weeping sisters and my sire, farewell ! Farewell my stag-hounds, lonely by the hearth ; Farewell my poet-haunts by stream and dell; Farewell my friends ! farewell the sympa- thies, With lute and lay that long have held in thrall A heart that ever yearned for more than these — Farewell — a sad farewell to all ! XY. Thou, too, my France, given up to waves and winds, Like this frail fabric on the Medial * seas, * The Mediterranean. 218 mangan’s essays. Yet, Queen of Nations, — Polar Star of minds ; Farewell ! may God watch o’er thy des- tinies ! Ere long may light from Him dispel once more The gloom that shrouds thy Throne, thy Church, and thee, And reenkindle on thy Christian shore Earths Pharos of Eternity ! XYI. Last, thou Marseilles, whose glistening sands outrolled, Shine like a link of silver set atween Europa’s iron world and Asia’s gold, Farewell ! Farewell ! Bide sunbright and serene ! ’Tis night ; thou fadest from the wanderer’s view ; But if thy cherished earth may yet inurn His ashes, thou that hast his last adieu, Wilt earliest greet his glad return. -:o:- mangan’s essays. 219 Batoning of tfto Bap. [The following song which I have translated from the Irish of O’Doran, refers to a singular atmospherical phenomenon said to be sometimes observed at Black - rock, near Dundalk, at daybreak, by the fishermen of that locality. Many similar narratives are to be met with in the poetry of almost all countries ; but O’Doran has endeavoured to give the legend apolitical colouring, of which, I apprehend, readers in general will hardly deem it susceptible.] “MAIDIN CHIUIN DHAM CIIOIS BRUACH NA TRAGHA.” I. ’Twas a balmy summer morning, Warm and early, Such as only June bestows ; Everywhere the earth adorning, Dews lay pearly In the lily-bell and rose. Up from each green-leafy bosk and hollow Rose the blackbird’s pleasant lay, And the soft cuckoo was sure to follow, ’Twas the Dawning of the Day ! II. Through the perfumed air the golden Bees flew round me ; Bright fish dazzled from the sea, ’Till medreamt some fairy olden 220 mangan’s essays. World spell bound me . In a trance of witcherie. Steeds pranced round anon with stateliest housings, Bearing riders prankt in rich array, Like flushed revellers after wine carousings, J Twas the Dawning of the Day ! ill. Then a strain of song was chanted, And the lightly Floating sea-nymphs drew anear. Then again the shore seemed haunted By hosts brightly Clad, and wielding shield and spear ! Then came battle-shouts, an onward rush- ing, Swords, and chariots, and a phantom fray. Then all vanished ; the warm skies were blushing, In the Dawning of the Day ! IY. Cities girt with glorious gardens, Whose immortal Habitants in robes of light, Stood, methought, as angel-wardens, Nigh each portal, Now arose to daze my sight. MANGAN S ESSAYS. 221 Eden spread around, revived and blooming ; When . . . lo ! as I gazed, all passed away — • . . I saw but black rocks and billows looming, In the dim chill Dawn of Day ! 222 mangan’s essays. gong of tt)t aifiantam [ 1826 .] Why, from the dawn till Day declines, Why hear we cries aloft and under, Upon Albania’s crested hills And through her long ravines ? Flood, war, destroy not now — no thunder, No lightning, strikes and kills. II. No ! Fire and Flood appal not now ! The Dominant Moslem need not war on, This down-trod land of yours again. Storm sleeps on Govaa’s brow, But Charon comes — the ghastly Charon, He comes with all his train ! ill. Gaunt Famine rideth in the van, And Pestilence with myriad arrows, Folio weth in fiery guise : they spare Nor Woman, Child, nor Man ! The stricken Dead lie without barrows, By roadsides, black and bare ! IY. Down on the burnt-up cottage roofs The sick sun all the long day flashes, In vain the old men seek the wood. MANGAN S ESSAYS. 223 ’Neath Charon’s hot horse-hoofs At every step a fresh corpse plashes Into a pool of blood ! v. Yet is there food — but, take and eat, And still thou diest : — the sharp sword slaughters Thee, daring robber ! So, by fount And field, — on path, in street, Amid the Blessed Living Waters, Souls perish without count ! VI. Oh, God ! it is a fearful sign — This fierce, mad, wasting, dragon Hunger ! Were there a land that could at most But sink and peak and pine, Infant-like, when such Agony wrung her, That land indeed were lost ! VII. Were there a land whose people could Lie down beneath Heaven’s blue pavilions And gasp, and perish, famished slaves ! While the ripe golden food That might and should have fed their millions, Rotted above their graves! 224 mangan’s essays. yin. That land was doomed! But, glorious Greece, Not such art thou ! Even now thou risesi Reborn from that drugged Sleep of Death. And soul embruting Peace Which all-too-long thy Bravest, Wisest, And Best lay sunk aneath ! IX. Upon thy hills methinks I see, Flashing like light and fire, the khandjers* Worn by our godlike sires of old ! — I hear that shout of jubilee, Which tells that neither Death nor Dangers Avail to daunt the Bold ! x. Come, Charon, then, and crown thy work ! The few heroic souls thou leavest, Surviving still are strong to wrest Their birthright from the Turk ! Slay on ! Perchance the task thou achievest Is one Heaven’s Powers have blessed ! * Splendid helmets. MANGAN S ESSAYS. 225 ©SJronge attSf ffiffilore of ©rim A POEM ON THE PERSECUTIONS SUSTAIN HD BY THE IRISH BETWEEN 1641 AND 1684. [FROM THE GAELIC OF DAVID BRUODER.] PART I. I. Woe, woe to us ! We groan under Gods heavy hand ! For the sins of our sires lies desolate the land. We droop ; we are wasted; we wither flesh and bone, And all through the cruel men who took away the Throne. II. The cruel men, the robber-horde, they seize house and soil. The chiefs of our clans they remorselessly despoil. Our prelates and our priests they uncassock, and they mock The privations of the Pastor and the tears of his flock. P 226 mangan’s essays. III. The leal men, the real men, the faithful to the Crown, Go outlawed and landless, are slain or trod- den down, While the false men, the traitors, the devil- faced and souled, Strip the nobles of their glory and the land of its gold. IY. They call us villain rebels — God’s curse be on the lie ! Scarce even in hell would we rebel : we might lie down and die. Our spirits have been broken, and our tyrants, in their strength, May blast us if they will, and as they will, at length. y. Thrice-blessed are the Dead, who fell upon the field ! They behold not the doom of their loved country sealed. They shall not see, they cannot dree, the woes we endure, God grant them easy slumbers, for never men were truer ! MANGAN S ESSAYS. 227 YT. The slaughterer,* the hypocrite, whom some styled divine, Was stricken in his high place, and perished without sign, For God willed, in vengeance of sixteen forty-nine, That the sceptre should return to the Royal Stuart line. VII. But this availed not us ! In vain we poured and poured Our heart’s-blood for Charles, our chosen and adored ; The usurpers of our lands, a rudest ruffian horde, Are to-day allowed to smite us down by edict and the sword. VIII. We are peeled, we are broken, like deer in their lair, We quail before our hunters in terror and despair. Cromwell. 228 MANGAN’S ESSAYS. Nought, nought will glut the fury of the accursed blood-hound brood, Till, having shorn us naked first, they lap our bosom’s blood. IX. But half-seen and fathomed were those wolves in human form In their own torchless land through the Revolution-storm ; First only were their tiger-thirstings deemed no idle tale, When on their butcher-knives lay warm the red gore of the Gael ! x. They invade our desolate dwellings in the dead waste of night — And our wives and children wither with horror and affright ; Or we shriek to God for help, from fields black with blight, In the country where King Heber of old swayed in might. XI. Their lying arts, their traitor hearts, have no parallel, Unless beyond, it may be, the threshold- stone of Hell. mangan’s essays. 229 They distil their vip’rous venom in the king's anxious ear, And they rouse against his best of friends his royal wrath and fear. XII. 0 ! whose pen shall number the myriad gal- lant souls Quelled, quenched, throughout the struggle ! While Time’s ocean rolls O’er its billows shall be borne to the further- est climes of earth The terror of their genius — the glory of their worth ! PART II. I. The black, bitter hatred the Saxons bear our name Is venomous as poison, is fierce as chainless flame. We looked for a reward for our loyalty and zeal, And the sole meed we met with was the down-hewing steel ! 230 mangan’s essays. II. Erewhile, indeed, they smiled on us, they gave us glozing words ; They won us o’er by wile and guile to un- sheathe our virgin swords : But now that their cause has triumphed by our deeds, They cast us oft* with scorn, they trample us like weeds. III. The storm of persecution beats on our naked heads ; None among us knows what evil he next forebodes or dreads ; Our last hopes are dying fast : Eternal Powers ! how long Shall we groan beneath the load of this life- crushing wrong ? IV. The double-faced, the darkly-plotting, vile- hearted crew, See with demon exultation how faint we are and few. They wait with savage longing till the last among us fall ; 'Twill be God’s might and mercy if the Gael survive at all. MAN GAN’S ESSAYS. 231 v. Their snares and their pit-falls encircle ns around ; We walk, alas ! in darkness, like men whose eyes are bound. Their malice now, their craft anon, their wickedness alway, Are ever forging weapons to strike down our latest stay. VI. Betrayed all-too-often, our Chiefs trust no more ; Their hearts are very ulcers, and bide for ever sore. Like young timid children, who have scorched themselves with fire, They fear where most they ought to love ; they dare no more aspire ! VII. 0 God ! that in this noblest land the sun ever saw, Unitedness our watchword were, and Trust- fulness our law, How soon should we flourish like our own mountain- trees, While our crest-fallen tyrants begged foi mercy on their knees. 232 mangan’s essays. VIII. ’Tis our woe of all woes that our Chieftains should come From the brightest shores abroad to be out- lawed at home, That the winners of green laurels under Kings far away Should be heart-sick and houseless in their own land to day ! IX. A. change sad for them, the high-souled and pure, From the honours they enjoyed to the wrongs they endure, Without hope, without spirit — yea, so fallen in estate That they beg from even those who could poison them for hate ! X. 0 live we still in Eire ? In the ashes of our sires, Are there smouldering no sparks of the old Gaelic fires ? Alas i is it come to this ? Must History avouch That we crouch to those that plunder us, and spurn us when we crouch ? mangan’s essays. 233 XI. My frame thrills with anguish as I think of coming years ; For the worst is not over — so forebode our souls and fears ; There are clouds darkly looming yet ; oft in our nightly dreams We hear battle-cries, and see blood gush in streams. XII. 0 Thou, who thus hast visited Thy faithful- est in wrath, Forsake us not. Sustain us yet. Illume our darkling path ! Woe falleth on the cruel, and our sires too oft were such ; Yet, 0 God !. 0 God ! chastise not their children overmuch. XII. For myself I pray but one prayer: Thy sovereign will be done ! What suffering yet may wait me till my mortal course be run 1 ask not ! I look to a bright reward above, But, oh ! have compassion on the Land of my love ! 234 mangan’s essays. THE SUMMING UP. Many the evils and ills be that here I have sought to paint, Yet has my trembling pen depicted only a few. God ! once more unto Thee I lift my soul in complaint : Save Thy faithfullest people. Oh, save Thy noble and true ! MAN GAN’S ESSAYS. 235 & Voice of CJnrouragemnit. A NEW YEAR’S LAY. I. Youths! Compatriots! Friends! Men for the time that is nearing ! Spirits appointed by Heaven to front the storm and the trouble ! You, who in seasons of peril unfaltering, still and unfearing Calmly have held on your course, the course of the Just and the Noble ! You, young men, would a man unworthy to rank in your number, Yet with a heart that bleeds for his country’s wrongs and affliction, Fain raise a Yoice too in Song, albeit his music and diction Rather be fitted, alas ! to lull to than startle from, slumber. IT. Friends ! the gloom in the land, in our once bright land, grows deeper ; Suffering, even to Death in its horriblest form, aboundeth ; Through our black harvestless fields the peasant’s faint wail resoundeth. 236 Siangan’s essays. Hark to it even now ! . . . The nightmare oppressed sleeper Gasping and struggling for life beneath his hideous bestrider, Seeth not, dreeth not, sight or terror more fearful or ghastly Than that poor paralysed slave ! Want — Houselessness — Famine, and lastly Death in a thousand-corpsed grave, that momently waxeth wider. III. Worse ! The great heart of the country is chilled, and throbbeth but faintly ! Apathy palsieth here-and-there a panic misgiving : Even the Trustful and Firm, even the Sage and the Saintly, Seem to believe that the Dead but fore- show the doom of the Living. Men of the faithful souls all but broken- hearted On the dishonoured tombs of the glorious Dreams that have perished — Dreams that almost outshone Realities while they were cherished, All, they exclaim, is gone ! The Vision and hope have departed! IV. Worst and saddest ! As under Miltons lowermost Tophet, mangan’s essays. 237 Yawned another yet lower,* so for the mourning Million, Still is there deeper woe ! Patriot, Orator, Prophet, Some, who a few years agone stood proudly in the Pavilion Of their land’s rights and liberties, gazing abroad through its casement, On the fair Future they fondly deemed at hand for their nation, Now, not alone succumb to the Change and the Degradation, But have ceased even to feel them ! God ! this indeed is abasement ! Y. Is the last hope, then, gone ! Must we lie down, despairing ? No ! there is always hope for all who will dare and suffer ! Hope for all who will mount the Hill of exertion, uncaring Whether their path be brighter or darker, or smoother, or rougher ; No ! there is always hope for those who, relying with earnest Souls on God and themselves, take for their motto, “ Labour.” * “ And in the lowest deep a lower deep . . . opens wide.” 238 MANGAN S ESSAYS. Such see the rainbow’s glory when Heaven looms darkest and sternest ; Such in the storm-wind hear, but the music of pipe and tabor. YI. Follow your destiny up ! Work . Write, Preach to arouse, and Warn, and warm, and encourage ! Dangers, no doubt, surround you — But for Ten threatening you now, you will soon be appalled by a Thousand ; If you forsake the course to which Virtue and Honour have bound you i 0, persevere — persevere; Falter not; faint not ; shrink not ; Haste and Hostility serve but as spurs to the will of the Zealous — Though your foes flourish awhile, and you seem to decline, be not jealous ! Help from “ the Son of Man cometh in such an hour as you think not ! ” VII. Slavery debases the soul — yea, reverses its primal nature, Long were our fathers bowed to the earth by fetters of iron — And, alas ! We inherit the failings and ills that environ mangan’s essays. 239 Slaves like a dungeon-wall, and dwarf their natural stature. Look on your countrymen’s failings with less of anger than pity — Even with the faults of the Evil, deal in a manner half- tender, And, like an army encamped before a beleaguered city Earlier or later you must compel your foes to surrender ! VIII. So a new year! a year into whose bosom Time gathers All the past lessons of ages — a mournful but truth-teaching muster ; All the rich thoughts, and deeds, and the marvellous love of our fathers ; All the sunlight experience that makes men wiser and juster. Hail it with steadfast resolve — thankfully if it befriend you — Guardedly lest it betray — without either Despair or Elation, Panoplied inly against the sharpest ills it may send you, But with a high hope still for yourselves, and the Rise of Your Nation. ix. Omen-full, arched with gloom, and laden with many a presage, 240 mangan’s essays. Many a portent of woe, looms the impend- ing Era, Not as of old by comet-sword,* Gorgon, or ghastly Chimera, Scarcely by Lightning and Thunder, Heaven to-day sends its message Into the secret heart — down through the caves of the spirit, Pierces the silent shaft — sinks the invisible Token — Cloaked in the Hall the Envoy stands, his mission unspoken, While the pale banquetless guests await in trembling to hear it. * At this time there was plainly seen in the sky a comet or star shaped like a sword ^Defoe, Plague of 1666 .) mangan’s essays. 241 Clje Uomanre of H3ott CKapaeros. [FROM THE GERMAN OF THE BARON DE LA MOTTE FOUQUE.] I. “ Don Gayseros, Don Gayseros ! Flower of youth and chivalry, Lo ! I leave my castle-chamber, Led from thence, beloved, by thee. “ Don Gaysdros, Don Gayseros ! Sunset gleams on hill and grove. See me now, my knight, beside thee ! Whither shall our footsteps rove ? ” “ Donna Clara, Donna Clara ! Thou art mistress — I am slave ; Thou the sun, and I thy planet, Fairest one, thy will I crave ! “ Tow’rds the cross on yonder mountain — Thither, then, beloved we speed, Where the pilgrims’ chapel rises, And return along the mead.” “ Ah ! but, wherefore nigh the cross, and Wherefore near the chapel stray ? ” “ Knight ! and wherefore dost thou waver ? Saidst thou not thou wouldst obey ? ” Q 242 mangan’s essays. “ Yes, I go ; yes, yes, I hasten — In thy will I breathe, I move.” Hand in hand, so wend they onward, Whispering sweetest words of love. “ Don Gayseros, Don Gayseros ; Nigh the cross behold us now — Bowest thy head before the Lord, as other Christians bow ? ” “ Donna Clara, Donna Clara ! Could I lavish look or gaze, Save on thy white hand of whiteness, As among the flowers it plays ? ” “ Don Gayseros, Don Gayseros ! Wherefore hadst thou no reply When the holy brother hailed thee ; — ‘ Peace to thee from Christ on high “ Donna Clara, Donna Clara ! Could mine ear to aught incline With this deep, deep echo ringing In my soul, ‘ My heart is thine V ” “ Don Gayseros, Don Gayseros ! Glittering in the waning light See the vase of holy water — Come and do as I, my knight !” mangan’s essays. 243 “ Donna Clara, Donna Clara ! Blinded must my vision be — Dazzled by thine eyes of brightness, Thee and thee alone I see ! ” “ Don Gayseros, Don Gaysdros ! If my knight, obey me now : Dip thy finger in the font, and Sign the Cross upon thy brow ! ” Don Gayseros, shuddering, shrinking, Fled away beyond her call — Donna Clara, sad and thoughtful, Wended tow’rds the castle hall. II. Midnight falls : the wonted fingers Wake anew the tinkling strings : Where he oft hath sung at midnight, There to-night the warrior sings. Hark ! the casement opens : Donna Clara downwards bends her view. Fearfully her earnest glances Pierce the glooming mist and dew. While in lieu of gentle whisper, Lisped-out speech and flattering tone, Thus she speaks — “ I here adjure thee ! Who art thou, mysterious one ? 244 mangan’s essays. “ Swear by thy and my affection ! By thy sou Is tranquillity ! Art thou Christian ? Art thou Spanish \ Dost thou worship God as we ?” u Lady ! strongly thou compellest — Hear me answer faithfully : Lady ! seest in me no Spaniard, Seest no Christian knight in me. “ Seest in me a Moorish monarch, All on fire for love of thee — Great in power and rich in treasure — First among the brave and free ! “ Golden shine Alhambra’s castles, Bright Grankda’s gardens bloom — Lo ! the Moors await their empress ; Fly with me through midnight’s gloom.” “ Hence ! thou darkling soul-destroyer ! Hence ! false — ” fiend , she would have said ; But the word, unheard, unspoken, On her ashy lips was dead. Round her fainting form a silver Net the Moorish monarch threw — Swiftly then to horse he bore her, Through the midnight gloom and dew. mangan’s essays. 245 III. Laughs the rose-red cheek of morning — Glance the sunbeams bright and fair; Ah ! but blood bedews the meadow, And a barb, of rider bare, Roams affrighted o’er the pasture — Knights are by with brows of care. Moorish king ! thou hast been slaughtered By the valorous brother-pair, Who, in dark-green forest lurking, Saw thee thence the damsel bear. O’er thy corpse Clara is kneeling — Loosely trails her golden hair ; As thy love her bosom ponders, In its depths is dark despair ! Priests are preaching, friends beseeching— One alone her gaze can share. Suns are sinking, stars are winking, Storm and sunshine play in air ; Earth and ocean all are motion — Clara only moveth ne’er. Till the all-too-faithful brothers Rear a church and altar, where Day by day, and year by year, her Sand of life runs out in prayer ; And her sighs and tears are offered For her loved and slaughtered there. 246 mangan’s essays. ■ WUtT fat cCT fdcCTA^e " rjedns&sdc^ aj~ i O \ no p, hj &ci~r 1 Cfje fMatiJ of ©tleattg. *JOKfffc>*. r , . [JEANNE D ARC.] CoAte* “ Das edle Bild, der Menschheit zu verhohneD. At thee the Mocker* sneers in cold de- rision ; Through thee he seeks to desecrate and dim Glory for which he hath no soul or vision, For God and Angel are but sounds with him. He makes the jewels of the heart his booty, And scoffs at Mans Belief and Woman’s Beauty. Yet thou — a lowly shepherdess ! — descended Not from a kingly but a godly race, Art crowned by Poesy ! Amid the splendid Of Heaven’s high stars she builds thy dwel- ling-place, Garlands thy temples with a wreath of Glory, And swathes thy memory in eternal Story. * Voltaire. MANGAN S ESSAYS. 247 The Base of this weak world exult at seeing The Fair defaced, the Lofty in the dust ; Yet grieve not ! There are godlike hearts in being Which worship still the Beautiful and Just. Let Momus and his mummers please the crowd, Of nobleness alone a noble mind is proud. 248 MANGAN S ESSAYS. Ctj t dfatfiev. A FATHER had two children — George and Christy — The last a bright young lad, the first a dull humdrum. One day, perceiving that his hour was come, Stretched on the bed of death he glanced with misty Eye around the room in search of Christy. “My son/’ he said, “I feel a sad thought darken My mind. Thou art a genius. What a task it Will be for thee to face the world ! But hearken — There lieth in my desk a little casket Of jewels. Take them all, my son, And give thy brother none.” The son was wonder-struck. He thought it droll, But still he held his peace. At last he said, “But Georgy, father! If I take the whole What will become of him ? I greatly dread ” “Dread nothing, Christy,” interrupted t’other ; “There’s not the slightest ground for this timidity : Be sure thy brainless booby of a brother Will make his way through life by sheer stupidity :o:- mangan’s essays. 249 €f)e jiontoismpta. [BY LICHTWER.] A WEARY wanderer about this earth Came home at length, his toils and perils over; His friends, impatient to behold the rover, All crowded circlewise around his hearth, And “ Hail !” and “ Welcome !” passed from mouth to mouth ; And many an eye was seen to glisten ; And, “ Tell us all thou sawest,” they cried, “ in North and South ; We long to hear the marvels.” “ Listen !” Replied the travelled man : “ You know how far The Huron kingdom and ourselves are sun- dered : Well, several hundred miles behind it are Strange men, at whose odd ways I’ve often wondered. They congregate in one extensive room, And there they sit when midnight’s gloom Spreads far the stillness of the tomb. They neither think on God nor devil ; No lips are wetted there ; no feast is there, no revel — The blasting sulphurbolt might level Whatever stands beyond their sphere ; 250 mangan’s essays. They lack the eye to spy, the ear to hear ! Two armies might engage ; The crashing thunder Might peal ; the stormwind rage ; The lightning rend the heavens asunder ; They have no eye to see, no ear To hear ! Yet ever and anon a hollow, broken sound Is heard to come From some Of these unhappy Blind, and Deaf, and Dumb ; And now and then they glare with ghastly gaze around ! I stood among them oft ; for when They assemble in their spacious hall Crowds flock to gaze on these astounding men. But one thing struck me stronglier than all, With which ’tis meet you should be made acquainted ; The worst and horriblest of human Passions I ever witnessed painted In countenance of man or woman, Infest their looks — despair and madness, And wrath, and agony, and demon-gladness. I swear to you, in rage they would excel The Furies and the damn’d in deep excess Of torment ; and for horrid earnestness Their chamber seemed the council hall of Hell !” mangan’s essays. 251 “Most wonderful, indeed!” remarked the friends : “ But surely they fulfil important ends Meantime. Perhaps they meditate some plan To advance the social happiness of man ?” “Ah, no!” “Perhaps they are engaged in mighty Endeavours to concoct the Elixir Vitae ?” “ Still wrong,” the traveller said. “ Well, then, they try To square the circle?” “Nay,” was his reply. “ Perhaps they dedicate their time To penance for some frightful crime ?” “No, no, no, no!” “Why, then, they are mad, ’tis clear,” The listeners could not help exclaiming ; “ If they can neither feel, see, speak nor hear, What is it they are doing*?” “They are GAMING.” 252 mangan’s essays. €l)e arrabdlft anfc ®miUe. A TALE. [BY WEISS.] One day a traveller, mounted on a horse, Arrived at where a river balked his pro- gress, The which he wished to get across, of course, But shrank from as a child shrinks from an ogress. To sport a fancy phrase, he wanted pluck, And therefore found himself completely stuck. “ What man,” he cried, “can trust to rolling ridges Of waves, without a plank by way ’{ protection ? Why don’t the carpenters build wooden bridges ? I’ll sue the first that moves in this direc- tion For succour.” Luckily for our equestrian, Just then came up a lounger (a pedestrian). “Friend,” said the traveller, “would you boggle much To cross yon stream ? ” “ Is*t I, Sir ? No ; particularly mangan’s essays. 253 With that fine animal. Had I but such A barb as your’s, I’d gallop perpendicu- larly Down Mount Vesuvius’ crater — ay, or canter Through hell itself, I calculate.” “You banter 1” Quoth t’other. “Not a bit.” “I trow, however,” The traveller said ; “ you’ll find, so soon’s you’ve tried, That that’s no wash-hand basin of a river.” “ Things may be thus, or not be thus,” replied The wag : “ I’ll undertake to fetch your steed Across, if you’ll permit me, Sir.” “ Indeed ! “Well, then, to show you that I’m not unwilling To recompense your conduct, which is noble, I’ll afterwards requite you with — a shilling, Both for your generosity and trouble. The world has latterly been growing sordid, But merit should be handsomely rewarded.” Our greenhorn then, dismounting from his horse, Commended him t’ other, who, instanter, Not merely cleared the stream but (which was worse) 254 mangan’s essays. Dashed off, like Burgers Jdger, in a can- ter Along the strand, and further still and further, Until the traveller shouted “ Murther ! murther !” “ My horse ! my horse ! Hallo, Sir ! What the deuce ! Whither away so rapidly ?” But all Those outcries were of rather slender use Because the rider didn’t heed his call. “ JJonner und Blitzen /” cried the steed’s proprietor, I’m finely humbugged!’’ But he soon grew quieter. His foul suspicions wrong the other wholly, For by-and-bye he turns the horse’s head, And trots him tow’rds the river margin slowly. “ Ah ! what a humorist you must be ! ” said The dupe. “ But hither with my horse ■ — and after I’ve got him back I’ll treat your joke with laughter.” "Why, as to laughter,” said the swindler, “ those May laugh that win. This animal appears mangan’s essays. 255 To be a trump, and therefore I propose To feed him (if you please) for some few years : However, as I think him worth the price, I’ll pay you in return with one advice — “ Whenever you attempt a something weighty , Trust to your own good powers , however scanty , And scout the wheedler v:ho will ne'er say Nay V ye , But smiles and yields . When I've a Rozinante And wish to ford a flood (if such a whim should seize me) Why must a slavish booby risk his neck to please me V 9 256 mangan’s essays. 0)£ JMinsrtrU. [BY GOETHE.] What voice, what harp, are those we hear Beyond the gate in chorus ? Go, page ! — the lay delights our ear, Well have it sung before us ! So spake the king : the stripling flies — He soon returns ; his master cries — Bring in the hoary minstrel ! Hail, princes mine ! Hail, noble knights ! All hail, enchanting dames ! What starry heaven ! What blinding lights ! Whose tongue may tell their names ? In this bright hall, amid this blaze, Close, close mine eyes ! Ye may not gaze On such stupendous glories ! The Minnesinger closed his eyes ; He struck his mighty lyre : Then beauteous bosoms heaved with sighs, And warriors felt on fire ; The king, enraptured by the strain, Commanded that a golden chain Be given the bard in guerdon. Not so ! Reserve thy chain, thy gold For those brave knights whose glances, mangan’s essays. 257 Fierce flashing through the battle bold, Might shiver sharpest lances ! Bestow it on thy Treasurer there — The golden burden let him bear With other glittering burdens. I sing as in the greenwood bush The cageless wild bird carols — The tones that from the full heart gush Themselves are gold and laurels ! Yet, might I ask, then thus I ask, Let one bright cup of wine in flask Of glowing gold be brought me ! They set it down : he quaffs it all, O draught of richest flavor ! 0 ! thrice divinely happy hall, Where that is scarce a favor ! If Heaven shall bless ye, think on me, And thank your God as I thank ye For this delicious wine-cup ! :o:- K 258 mangan’s essays. atgftt anH £f)atroto, [FROM THE GERMAN OF TIECK.] The gayest lot beneath By Grief is shaded ; Pale Evening sees the wreath Of Morning faded. Pain slays or Pleasure cloys ; All mortal sorrows But waken hollow joys Or lasting sorrows. Hope yesternoon was bright. Earth beamed with Beauty ; But soon came conquering Night And claimed his booty. Life’s billows as they roll Would fain look sunward; But ever must the soul Drift darkly onward. The sun forsakes the sky, Sad stars are sovereigns, Long shadows mount on high And Darkness governs. MANGAN’S ESSAYS. 259 So Love deserts his throne, Weary of reigning ; Ah ! would he but rule on Young and unwaning ! Pain slays, or Pleasure cloys. And all our morrows But waken hollow joys Or lasting sorrows. 260 mangan’s essays. STf)e ifBrtrmpspcfjost#* I’ve studied sundry treatises by spectacled old sages Anent the capabilities and nature of the soul, and Its vagabond propensities from even the earliest ages, As harped on by Spinosa, Plato, Leibnitz, Chubb and Toland ; But of all systems I’ve yet met, or p’rhaps shall ever meet with, Not one can hold a candle to ( videlicet , compete with) The theory of theories Pythagoras proposes, And called by that profound old snudge (in Greek) M eje/i yjsv'xivcris. It seems to me a pos’tive truth, admitting of no modi- Fication, that the human soul, accustomed to a lodging Inside a carnal tenement, must, when it quits one body, Instead of sailing to and fro, and profit- lessly dodging About from post to pillar without either pause or purpose, Seek out a habitation in some other cozy corpus, mangan’s essays. 261 And when, by luck, it pops on one with which its habits match, box Itself therein instanter, like a sentry in a watch-box. This may be snapped at, sneered at, sneezed at. Deuce may care for cavils. Reason is reason. Credit me, I’ve met at least one myriad Of instances to prop me up. I’ve seen (upon my travels) Foxes who had been lawyers at (no doubt) some former period. Innumerable apes, who, though they’d lost their patronymics, I recognised immediately as mountebanks and mimics, And asses, calves, etcet'ra , whose rough bodies gave asylum To certain souls, the property of learn’d professors whilome. To go on with my catalogue : what will you bet I’ve seen a Goose, that was reckoned in her day a pretty-faced young woman ? * * The transmigration of the souls of princesses into the bodies of owls has always been a matter of course ; upon what principle it is not easy to divine. We should like to see a commentary on the old ballad beginniug I was once a monarch’s dochter, Ande satte on a ladye’s knee ; Yet I’m now a nyghtlie rover, Banisht to the i vie -tree. 262 mangan’s essays. But more than that, I knew at once a bloody- lipped hyena To’ve been a Russian Marshal, or an ancient Emperor (Roman). All snakes and vipers, toads and reptiles, crocodiles and crawlers I set down as court sycophants or hypocritic bawlers, And there I may’ve been right or wrong — but nothing can be truer Than this, that in a scorpion I beheld a vile reviewer. So far we’ve had no stumbling-block. But now a puzzling question Arises: all the afore-named souls were souls of stunted stature, Contemptible or cubbish — but Pythag. has no suggestion Concerning whither transmigrate souls noble in their nature, As Homer, Dante, Shakspeare, Schiller — these now, for example, What temple can be found for such appro- priately ample ? Where lodge they now ? Not certes, in our present ninnyhammers, Who mumble rhymes that seem to’ve been concocted by their Grammars. Cryinge, Hoo hoo, hoo hoo, hoo hoo, Hoo hoo hoo, my feete are colde ; Pitye me, for here you see me Persecuted, poore ande olde. MANGAN S ESSAYS. 263 Well, then, you see, it comes to this — and after huge reflection Here’s what I say : A soul that gains, by many transmigrations, The summit, apex, pinnacle or acm4 of per- fection, There ends, concludes and terminates its earthly per’grinations. Then, like an air-balloon, it mounts through high Olympus’ portals, And cuts its old connections with Mortality and mortals ; And evidence to back me here I don’t know any stronger Than that the truly Great and Good are found on Earth no longer. 264 Siangan’s essays. 829 tangling [FROM WEISS.] Oh ! if in town I had not idly tarried, A wrangling, jangling jade I ne’er had married ; She’ll be the death of me this woful wife. I’m bothered with her clack, so brain- bewildering ; I neither mind my business, nor my children, Nor care one pinch of snuff about my life. 0 friends of mine, eschew this female curse then ! My bitterest foe, I scorn to wish you worse than One fortnight’s clapper-clawing from a shrew : Her tongue can bawl so, and her talons maul so — She’s hell itself, sir, and the devil also ; For she’ll destroy your soul and body too. mangan’s essays. 265 €!)e (©pitting of t f)t jHeto Crittury. “ Edler Freund ! wo offnet sich dem Frieden.” [FROM THE GERMAN OF SCHILLER.] Whither now, my noble friend ! shall quiet, Whither freedom for asylum go ? N inety-nine has set in storm and riot ; Eighteen hundred dawns with war and woe. All the social bands are ripped asunder ; Trod in dust the olden forms divine ; And the shout of war is pealed in thunder Down the giant Nile and ancient Rhine. Freedom is the watchword — and the juggle ! Blade is bared and thunder-bolt is hurled ; But the two great nations only struggle Which shall wield the sceptre of the world. Yet to yield them gold each land must labour ; And, like Brennus in as bloody days, France against the gold her iron sabre In the holy scale of justice weighs. 266 mangan’s essays. Britain, too, whose commerce sways her slaughters, Britain drives the sea-god from his throne ; Proudly, o’er the universe of waters, Britain’s armaments must ride alone. Continents and isles and trackless regions In remotest zones become her prize ; Round the globe her swooping fleets and legions, Roam, to master all — save Paradise ! Ah ! in vain through every earthly portal Hurries man to reach that glorious shore, Where the bowers of Liberty immortal, And of Beauty dazzle evermore. Vainly stretch the battling earth and ocean Wide away before us and around ; Room, amid their clangour and commotion, Room for happy hearts is yet unfound ! To thy bosom’s cloister, still and holy, Flee, oh ! flee from life’s infecting throng : Perfect freedom is the dream of folly, Perfect beauty only blooms in song. MANGAJS’S ESSAYS. 267 [FROM GOETHE.] The waters rush, the waters roll ; a fisher- man sits angling by ; He gazes o’er their glancing floor with sleepy brow and listless eye ; And while he looks, and while he lolls, the flood is moved as by a storm, And slowly from its heaving depths ascends a humid woman s form. She sings, she speaks, — Why lure, why wile, with human craft, with human snare, My little brood, my helpless brood, to perish in this fiery air ? Ah ! couldst thou guess the dreamy bliss we feel below the purple sea, Thou wouldst forsake the earth and all, to dwell beneath with them and me. The moon, the sun, their travel done, come down to sleep in Oceans caves ; They reascend their glorious thrones, with doubled beauty from the waves. Ah ! sure the blue ethereal dew, the shining heaven these waters show, Nay, even thine own reflected face must draw thee, win thee down below. 268 mangan’s essays. The waters rush, the waters roll; about his naked feet they move ; An aching longing fills his soul, as when we look on her we love, She sings to him, she speaks to him: alas! he feels that all is o’er, She drags him down ; his senses swim ; the fisherman is seen no more ! MANwAN'S ESSAYS. 269 STfjf ffiHantifring g^to. [from the german of schubart.] I. From one of the dark caverns of Mount . Carmel Ahasuer crawled. Now near two thousand years Have rolled since Unrest lashed him through all climes. When Jesus bore the burden of His cross, And fain would rest before Ahasuer s house, Ah ! then Ahasuer denied Him rest, And brutally thrust the Saviour from his door ; And Jesus reeled, and sank beneath his burden, But spake not. An avenging angel then, Standing before Ahasuer, pronounced Prophetic malediction on him thus : “ The rest thou hast refused the Son of Man To thee, Inhuman ! be in turn refused, Until He comes !” A swarthy hell-deserter, A demon goads thee now, Ahasuer, From land to land ! The blessed balm of Death, The solace of the Grave thou ne’er shalt know ! 270 mangan's essays. II. Forth from a dark, deep cavern of Mount Carmel Ahasuerus came. He shook the dust Out of his beard , and of the high-piled death- skulls Took one, and bowled it down the mountain side , So that it bounded and resounded , and Was split in twain. “ That was my father !” bellowed Ahasuer. Another skull ! “ Ha, more !” Seven other skulls leaped poltering down the steep From crag to crag! “And those — and those !” the J ew Exclaimed, with swoln eyes, tearless and outstarting, “ And those ! — and those ! — those were my wives ! Ha, more !” Down clattered other skulls ! — “ And those — and those !” Bellowed Ahasuer, “ were my children ! — Ha! They — they could die ! — but I, I reprobate ! I cannot die ! The irrevocable judgment Hangs terror -bellowing over me for ever ! in. “ J erusalem fell. I cranched the suckling’s flesh. mangan’s essays. 271 I dived into the flames. I cursed the Roman. But ah ! — but ah ! — mine own unslumbering curse Upheld me by the hair, — and — and I died not ! Rome, the colossus, tottered into ruins ; I stood beneath the tottering colossus, And — the colossus fell — and crushed me not! Empires arose, flourished, and waned before me ; Their very dust was scattered — still I died not ! I cast myself from the cloud-swathed cliffs Into deep Ocean — and the abysmal surges Tossed me, round-whirled, again upon the shore, And Being’s shaft of flame transpierced me afresh ! I fathomed the volcano’s horrible entrails, I plunged myself into Mount ^Etna’s crater And bellowed with the Cyclops ten long moons My agony-howl, and with my sighs made swarthy The sulphur-furnace — ha ! through ten long moons ! And in a lava-torrent iEtna vomited Me back, half-choked with ashes — and I lived ! 272 mangan’s essays. I Y. Then I insulted Power — I scoffed at tyrants ! To Nero I exclaimed, Thou art a blood- hound ! To Christiern I cried, Thou art a blood- hound ! To Muley Ismail spake, Thou art a blood- hound ! And Tyranny exhausted on my frame Its racks and torments, and destroyed me not ! V. A wood was burning. Frenzy in my brain, I rushed into the burning wood. The trees Showered fire upon me from their blazing hair, But the flames only scorched my outward hull— Me they destroyed not ! VI. I mingled in the deadly struggles of men, In the uproar, in the tempest of the battle ; I bellowed my defiance of the Gaul ; I bearded the unconquerable German ; And lance, barb, javelin struck against me pointless. The Saracen s high-brandished scymitar Sprang, shivered into fragments, from my skull. mangan’s essays. 273 Gun-bullets rained, upon me idly as Peas rattling on a coat of mail. The lightnings of the battle serpented Strengthless around my loins, As round the flanks of jagged crags. Which cloak themselves in clouds. In vain the elephant trampled me, In vain the fury-flashing war-horse Rode me to earth with iron hoof, In vain the shell- charged mine Exploding, blew me up, sky-high ; Stunned for a moment, I awoke, and found myself Still the life-curst and hurtless, in the midst Of blood, and brains, and marrow , And my slain comrades’ mangled carcases. VII. “ The giant’s adamant club rebounded from me; The executioner’s hand was lamed upon me ; The tigers tooth grew blunt and stumpy on me ; No famishing lion tore me in the arena ; I made the venomy snakes my bed-fellows ; I tweaked the dragon by his blood-red comb ; And the snakes bit me — but they killed me not ! The dragon tortured me — and killed me not 1 274 mangan’s essays. VIII. “ Ha ! not to be vouchsafed the boon of Death ! To be prohibited repose from Life ! To bear about this clay-frame, with its grave- hues, Its maladies, its charnel-odours, To be compelled to see, through uncounted years, The yawning monster, Sameness, And the insatiable monster, Time, Still bearing children, still devouring chil- dren ! Ha ! not to be vouchsafed the boon of Death ! Awful, Avenging One of Heaven ! Hast Thou, even in the store-house of Thy wrath, A more tremendous doom ? If so, here let its thunders overwhelm me ! Would some tyrannic hurricane Whirl me, precipitate me from these heights, How gladly at the foot of Carmel Prone should I lie ! How gladly should I grovel, gasp, and die !” MANGAN S ESSAYS. 275 IX. Ahasuer sank to earth. His hot brain rang. The shades of Night curtained his horn-dry eye-balls. An angel bore him back into the cavern, And whispered : “ Sleep, Ahasuerus, now ! For God doth not incense Himself for ever.” 276 SIANGAN’S ESSAYS. CTfee of . Printed by Edmund Burke & Co.. 61 & 62 Great Strand St., Dublin. BOSTON COLLEGE 3" 9031“ "of 142578 2 BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. Books may be kept for two weeks and may be renewed for the same period, unless re- served. Two cents a day is charged for each book kept overtime. If you cannot find what you want, ask the Librarian who will be glad to help you. The borrower is responsible for books drawn on his card and for all fines accruing on the fame.