Produced by David Widger
THE KNIGHT OF GWYNNE
By Charles James Lever
With Illustrations By Phiz.
In Two Volumes
Vol. I.
Boston: Little, Brown, And Company
1899.
TO ALEXANDER SPENCER, ESQ.
If the public would only prove as indulgent to the faults and demeritsof this volume as You have ever been to those of him who wrote it, Ishould be as sanguine of its success as I am now happy in dedicating itto the Oldest Friend I
HAVE IN THE WORLD.
Ever yours, most affectionately,
Charles Lever.
Schloss-Riedenburg, Tyrol,
June 20, 1847.
PREFACE.
I wrote this story in the Tyrol. The accident of my residence there wasin this wise: I had travelled about the Continent for a considerabletime in company with my family with my own horses. Our carriage was alarge and comfortable caleche, and our team, four horses; the leadersof which, well-bred and thriving-looking, served as saddle horses whenneeded.
There was something very gypsy-like in this roving, uncertain existence,that had no positive bent or limit, and left every choice of place anopen question, that gave me intense enjoyment. It opened to me views ofContinental life, scenery, people and habits I should certainly neverhave attained to by other modes of travel.
Not only were our journeys necessarily short each day, but we frequentlysojourned in little villages, and out-of-the-world spots, where, ifpleased by the place itself, and the accommodation afforded, we wouldlinger on for days, having at our disposal the total liberty of ourtime, and all our nearest belongings around us.
In the course of these rambles we had arrived at the town of Bregenz,on the Lake of Constance; where the innkeeper, to whom I was known,accosted me with all the easy freedom of his calling, and half-jestinglyalluded to my mode of travelling as a most unsatisfactory and wastefulway of life, which could never turn out profitably to myself or to mine.From the window where we were standing as we talked, I could descry thetall summit of an ancient castle, or schloss, about two miles away;and rather to divert my antagonist from his argument than with any moreserious purpose, I laughingly told my host, if he could secure me sucha fine old chateau as that I then looked at, I should stable my nags andrest where I was. On the following day, thinking of nothing less thanmy late conversation, the host entered my room to assure me that he hadbeen over to the castle, had seen the baron, and learned that he wouldhave no objection to lease me his chateau, provided I took it for afixed term, and with all its accessories, not only of furniture but cowsand farm requisites. One of my horses, accidentally pricked in shoeing,had obliged me at the moment to delay a day or two at the inn, andfor want of better to do, though without the most remote intentionof becoming a tenant of the castle, I yielded so far to my host'ssolicitation,--to walk over and see it.
If the building itself was far from faultless it was spacious andconvenient, and its position on a low hill in the middle of a lawn finerthan anything I can convey; the four sides of the schloss commandingfour distinct and perfectly dissimilar views. By the north it lookedover a wooded plain, on which stood the Convent of Mehreran; and beyondthis, the broad expanse of the Lake of Constance. The south opened aview towards the Upper Rhine, and the valley that led to the Via Mala.On the east you saw the Gebhardsberg and its chapel, and the lovelyorchards that bordered Bregenz; while to the west rose the magnificentLenten and the range of the Swiss Alps,--their summits lost in theclouds.
I was so enchanted by the glorious panorama around me, and so carriedaway by the thought of a life of quiet labor and rest in such a spot,that after hearing a very specious account of the varied economies Ishould secure by this choice of a residence, and the resources I shouldhave in excursions on all sides, that I actually contracted to take thechateau, and became master of the Rieden Schloss from that day.
Having thus explained by what chance I came to pitch my home in thislittle-visited spot, I have no mind to dwell further on my Tyrolexperiences than as they concern the story which I wrote there.
If the scene in which I was living, the dress of the peasants, the dailyways and interests had been my prompters, I could not have addressedmyself to an Irish theme; but long before I had come to settle atPredeislarg, when wandering amongst the Rhine villages, on the vine-cladslopes of the Bergstrasse, I had been turning over in my mind the Unionperiod of Ireland as the era for a story. It was a time essentiallyrich in the men we are proud of as a people, and peculiarly aboundingin traits of self-denial and devotion which, in the corruption of a few,have been totally lost sight of; the very patriotism of the time havingbeen stigmatized as factious opposition, or unreasoning resistance towiser counsels. That nearly every man of ability in the land was againstthe Minister, that not only all the intellect of Ireland, but all thehigh spirit of its squirearchy, and the generous impulses of its people,were opposed to the Union,--there is no denying. If eloquent appeal andpowerful argument could have saved a nation, Henry Grattan or Plunkettwould not have spoken in vain; but the measure was decreed before itwas debated, and the annexation of Ireland was made a Cabinet decisionbefore it came to Irishmen to discuss it.
I had no presumption to imagine I could throw any new light on thehistory of the period, or illustrate the story of the measure by anynovel details; but I thought it would not be uninteresting to sketch theera itself; what aspect society presented; how the country gentleman ofthe time bore himself in the midst of solicitations and temptings themost urgent and insidious; what, in fact, was the character of that manwhom no national misfortunes could subdue, no Ministerial blandishmentscorrupt; of him, in short, that an authority with little bias to theland of his birth has called,--_The First Gentleman of Europe_.
I know well, I feel too acutely, how inadequately I have pictured what Idesired to paint; but even now, after the interval of years, I lookback on my poor attempt with the satisfaction of one whose aim was notignoble. A longer and deeper experience of life has succeeded to thetime since I wrote this story, but in no land nor amongst any peoplehave I ever found the type of what we love to emblematize by the wordGentleman, so distinctly marked out as in the educated and travelledIrishman of that period. The same unswerving fidelity of friendship, thesame courageous devotion to a cause, the same haughty contempt for allthat was mean or unworthy; these, with the lighter accessories of genialtemperament, joyous disposition, and a chivalrous respect for women,made up what I had at least in my mind when I tried to present to myreaders my Knight of Gwynne.
That my character of him was not altogether ideal, I can give no betterproof than the fact that during the course of the publication I receivedseveral letters from persons unknown to me, asking whether I had notdrawn my portrait from this or that original, several concurring inthe belief that I had taken as my model The Knight of Kerry, whosequalities, I am well assured, fully warranted the suspicion.
For my attempt to paint the social habits of the period, I had but todraw on my memory. In my boyish days I had heard much of that day, andwas familiar with most of the names of its distinguished men. Anecdotesof Henry Grattan, Flood, Parsons, Ponsonby, and Curran jostled in mymind with stories of their immediate successors, the Bushes and thePlunketts, whose fame has come down to the very day we live in. As aboy, it was my fortune to listen to the narratives of the men who hadbeen actors in the events of that exciting era, and who could even showme in modern Dublin the scenes where memorable events occurred, and notunfrequently the very houses where celebrated convivialities occurred.And thus from Drogheda Street, the modern Sackville Street, where thebeaux of the day lounged in all their bravery, to t
he Circular road,where a long file of carriages, six in hand, evidenced the luxury andtone of display of the capital. I was deeply imbued with the featuresof the time, and ransacked the old newspapers and magazines with a zestwhich only great familiarity with the names of the leading characterscould have inspired.
Though I have many regrets on the same score, there is no period of mylife in which I have the same sorrow for not having kept some sort ofnote-book, instead of trusting to a memory most fatally unretentiveand uncertain. Through this omission I have lost traces of innumerableepigrams, and _jeux d'esprit_ of a time that abounded in such effusions,and even where my memory has occasionally relieved the effort, I haveforgotten the author. To give an instance, the witty lines,--
"With a name that is borrowed, a title that 's bought, Sir William would fain be a gentleman thought; His wit is but cunning, his courage but vapor, His pride is but money, his money but paper:"--
which, wrongfully attributed to a political leader in the Irish house,were in reality written by Lovel Edgeworth on the well-known Sir WilliamGladowes, who became Lord Newcomen; and the verse was not only poetrybut prophecy, for in his bankruptcy some years afterwards the sarcasmbecame fact,--"his money was but paper."
This circumstance of the authorship was communicated to me by Miss MariaEdgeworth, whose letter was my first step in acquaintance with her, andgave me a pleasure and a pride which long years have not been able toobliterate.
I remember in that letter her having told me how she was in the habitof reading my story aloud to the audience of her nephews and nieces; asimple announcement that imparted such a glow of proud delight to me,that I can yet recall the courage with which I resumed the writing of mytale, and the hope it suggested of my being able one day to win a placeof honor amongst those who, like herself, had selected Irish traits asthe characteristics to adorn fiction.
For Con Heffernan I had an original. For Bagenal Daly, too, I was notwithout a model. His sister is purely imaginary, but that she is notunreal I am bold enough to hope, since several have assured me that theyknow where I found my type. In my brief sketch of Lord Castlereagh I wasnot, I need scarcely say, much aided by the journals and pamphletsof the time, where his character and conduct were ruthlessly and mostfalsely assailed. It was my fortune, however, to have possessed theclose intimacy of one who had acted as his private secretary, and whoseabilities have since raised him to high station and great employment;and from him I came to know the real nature of one of the ableststatesmen of his age, as he was one of the most attractive companions,and most accomplished gentlemen. I have no vain pretence to believethat by my weak and unfinished sketch I have in any way vindicated theMinister who carried the Union against the attacks of his opponents, butI have tried at least to represent him such as he was in the society ofhis intimates; his gay and cheerful temperament, his frank nature, andwhat least the world is disposed to concede to him, his sincere beliefin the honesty of men whose convictions were adverse to him, and whocould not be won over to his opinions.
I have not tried to conceal the gross corruption of an era which remainsto us as a national shame, but I would wish to lay stress on the factthat not a few resisted offers and temptations, which to men strugglingwith humble fortune, and linked for life with the fate of the weakercountry, must redound to their high credit. All the nobler theirconduct, as around them on every side were the great names of the landtrafficking for title and place, and shamelessly demanding office fortheir friends and relatives as the price of their own adhesion.
For that degree of intimacy which I have represented as existingbetween Bagenal Daly and Freney the robber, I have been once or twicereprehended as conveying a false and unreal view of the relations ofthe time; but the knowledge I myself had of Freney, his habits and hisexploits, were given to me by a well-known and highly-connected Irishgentleman, who represented a county in the Irish Parliament, and was aman of unblemished honor, conspicuous alike in station and ability. Andthere is still, and once the trait existed more remarkably in Ireland, awonderful sympathy between all classes and conditions of people: so thatthe old stories and traditions that amuse the crouching listener roundthe hearth of the cottage, find their way into luxurious drawing-rooms;and by their means a brotherhood of sentiment was maintained between thehighest class in the land and the humblest peasant who labored for hisdaily bread.
I tried to display the effect of this strange teaching on the mind of acultivated gentleman when describing the Knight of Gwynne. I endeavoredto show the "Irishry" of his nature was no other than the play of thosequalities by which he appreciated his countrymen and was appreciated bythem. So powerful is this sympathy, and so strong the sense of nationalhumor through all classes of the people, that each is able to entertaina topic from the same point of view as his neighbor, and the subtle_equivoque_ in the polished witticism that amuses the gentleman is neverlost on the untutored ear of the unlettered peasant. Is there any otherland of which one can say as much?
If this great feature of attractiveness pertains to the country and addsto its adaptiveness as the subject of fiction, I cannot but feel that toun-Irish ears it is necessary to make an explanation which will serve toshow that which would elsewhere imply a certain blending of stationand condition, is here but a proof of that widespread understanding bywhich, however divided by race, tradition, and religion, we are alwaysable to appeal to certain sympathies and dispositions in common, andfeel the tie of a common country.
At the period in which I have placed this story the rivalry betweenthe two nations was, with all its violence, by no means ungenerous.No contemptuous estimate of Irishmen formed the theme of Englishjournalism; and between the educated men of both countries there wasscarcely a jealousy that the character which political contest assumedlater on, changed much of this spirit and dyed nationalities with anamount of virulence which, with all its faults and all its shortcomings,we do not find in the times of the Knight of Gwynne.
CHARLES LEVER.
Trieste, 1872.
THE KNIGHT OF GWYNNE.