Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 3 (of 3). Jonah Barrington
question in this part of the firmament. On this enigmatical subject my good friends the clergy are rather awkwardly circumstanced. They may be very excellent casuists, so far as their knowledge extends; yet, being only simple mortals themselves, they can know no more about the matter than the most ignorant of their parishioners. Though my Lords Spiritual, the Bishops of England, are by far the most temporal, sleek, and comfortable covey of prelates on the surface of this globe – whatever they may do in their political capacities, it would be profane to suppose they could have private audiences either in the upper or lower department of the other world, until their post obitums fall in, and give them the entrée. The fattest prelate of the land, therefore, can know no more of supernaturals than the hungriest curate of his diocese; the happy translation, however, must take place, (and nobody can tell how soon,) and no doubt its approach must be hailed by these parties with great pleasure, as the only tranquil catastrophe they can be absolutely certain of during this ticklish epoch.
I have already mentioned that my reasoning on this subject in detail appears in the first volume of this work; where, though I profess no enthusiastic adoration of Dr. Johnson’s morality, I certainly am proud to have the advantage of his coincidence on the subject of supernaturals. I therefore refer my respectable antagonist, Mr. T – , (whom, by-the-by, I never had the honour of speaking to or seeing,) to that volume.
I have also received, amongst many other favours upon the same subject, a letter under the signature of R. H., Brompton; but, though on thick gilt paper, of a very different complexion, and in very different language from that of my last-named correspondent. Mr. R. H. accuses me of publishing absolute falsehoods, and putting dangerous doctrines into the heads of silly people, which he illustrates by the example of his own wife and daughter, who, “naturally nervous,” ever since reading my argument in favour of ghosts, &c., fall into “twitters” if they hear any noise in the house after nightfall, which they cannot instantly account for. His life is a torment to him! Even a kitten, which was locked up accidentally in a cupboard, and began to rattle the tea-things after the candles were put out, threw Mrs. H. into strong hysterics, and nearly cost Miss H. her reason, besides the expense of drugs and attendance. This Mr. H., of Brompton, describes himself “a rational gentleman,” (credat Judæus Apelles!) I suppose in contradistinction to me; but, whether gentle or simple, he has in his commentary on my anecdote been so far impartial, that he has shown no greater respect for his own composition than he has for mine. To do him justice, he has not attempted reasoning: therein he was perfectly right; reason does not seem to be his forte, or in unison with either his temper or intellect, and the retort courteous with which he has favoured me is vastly better adapted to both the manners and capacity of that gentlemanly personage. To increase his troubles, I have referred him to a decided ghost story ycleped the “Tapestry Chamber,” from the celebrated pen of Sir Walter Scott, directing my letter “dead office, Brompton.” That story was vouched by Miss Seward, the most learned and religious of the bas-bleus. It has been swallowed by the public at large with a greedy avidity, as a genuine undoubted apparition; nor has a single reviewer, commentator, periodical, or other species of critic, ever ventured to call it a bounce, or to express the slightest doubt of its absolute authenticity. Whilst Sir Jonah Barrington’s “Bansheen of Lord Rossmore,” vouched by three living persons, has experienced all manner of ugly epithets, the “Tapestry Chamber,” so vouched, remains in full blow, with scarcely an unbeliever. It is observable also that Sir Walter’s apparition, coming a year after my “Bansheen,” and the public strictures thereupon, proves and exemplifies his coincidence in my belief; and (Miss Seward having been for some time a ghost herself) I trust Sir Walter, not being defunct, will, on his return from his travels, do me the justice of confirming my tenet by his own, and the authority of Miss Seward. In the mean time, as for Mr. R. H. of Brompton, whom I strongly suspect to be an M.P. and a saint —requiescat in pace! unless I can trace the writing, and, if I can, he may be assured the public shall have a garnished edition of it.
The Irish mower cutting his own head off has also afforded a multiplicity of amusing comments, both from my friends and the periodicals; the former call it ingenious, the latter a bounce. However, I refer my sceptics to the second edition of the former portion of these Sketches, where that incident is repeated and enlarged upon. That anecdote, not being in any degree supernatural, is susceptible of testimony; and it is rather fortunate for me that the very same respectable gentleman, Mr. T., who is so inflexible an anti-Bansheen, was also an avowed disbeliever of my self-decapitation anecdote, until his friend, Lord Mountnorris, vouched to him decidedly the truth of Dennis’s cutting his own head off, though his lordship would not give him the same corroboration as to the ear of his comrade: however, as to that, exceptio probat regulam, and I am contented.
So numerous have been the comments I have read in print, and received in MS., as to different articles of those Sketches, that a rejoinder to one half of them would be more than food for a tolerable quarto, and of course my notices must be very limited.
The letter which I received, marked private, by post from London, under the signature Z. Y., though long in my possession, I had no clue to answer, or any à-propos opportunity of noticing; and I regret that the limits of a Preface do not even now admit me to go much further than to advert to the subject of it. That subject, could I here dilate on it, would afford myself a very agreeable field for general as well as individual comment; and indeed, not being devoid of a popular interest, it deserves a distinct, and not limited consideration: such (I intend) it shall receive hereafter on a different occasion. At present I only wish the persons therein alluded to, and particularly the one who, Z. Y. insinuates, “has felt no pleasure at my observations,” to be assured that I should consider myself much to blame, had I intended to draw any invidious comparisons, or lean either by irony, ridicule, or satire, on either of two persons so justly and highly estimated by the public, for whom I feel the sentiments of private friendship, and whom I have known before they could either know or forget themselves.
One observation, however, I may venture, and (though singular) I have very generally found it a true one, namely, that the best writers are the most thin-skinned, and become jealous of comment, pari passu with the march of their celebrity. Even when their literary reputation has been popularly established beyond the power of “reviewing” injury, they feel more ticklish at criticism than scribblers in the fifth degree of comparison; and, as if they were afflicted with the disease called “noli me tangere,” they consider even the approach of a quill as injurious to their tranquillity. Such species of impression on either a party or a partizan has no doubt procured me the honour of the letter I have alluded to; – it is palpably the work of no ordinary penman. I regret that I must persist in my opinion both as to the lady and gentleman, and cannot relinquish my consistency as to the principle of distinction between genius and talent, though with modification, and perhaps according to my more minute view of these modern rarities.
I never found these gifts of intellect completely amalgamated in any one modern writer either in prose or poetry. Heavens and earth – flights of fancy, and matters of fact, savans and rainbows, angels, and ladies of quality, &c. &c. &c. afford very different touchstones whereby to assay the extent of human intellect.
The personages that Z. Y. has alluded to may rest assured that not a friend of theirs, either old or new, has a greater pride in their compatriotship than the composer of this terrestrial bagatelle; the one works in prose, and dresses in poetry, the other makes Irish petticoats with foreign flounces to them. Both are good artists – yet I confess myself so very worldly and unrefined a being that I should, under the circumstances of Ireland, prefer one sound, unexaggerated, unagitating true matter-of-fact essay on the real condition of my countrymen. The most lovely subjects of madrigal and sonnet, after a curt exhibition of their charms, wax old and ugly, and in some time enjoy little more than a florid epitaph. Time with his extinguisher soon puts out all flames of an amatory description, and reduces both the poet and his muse – the first (if he lives) to a state of dotage, the other to the enjoyment of some “newer lover.” But the love of a country blooms for ever: it defies the power of time and the lapse of ages; and I should like to see the produce of some proud and emulative talent or genius, to decide which is best adapted to descant upon that subject. Two attempts