LETTER XV.
TO J. D. ESQ., M. P.
M-------- House.
It certainly requires less nicety of perception to distinguishdifferences in kind than differences in degree; but though my present,like my past situation, is solitudinous in the extreme, it demandsno very great discernment to discover that my late life was a life ofsolitude--my present, of desolation.
In the castle of Inismore I was estranged from the world: here I amestranged from myself. Yet so much more sequestered did that sweetinteresting spot appear to me, that I felt, on arriving at this vastand solitary place (after having passed by a few gentlemen’s seats, andcaught a distant view of the little town of Bally----,) as though Iwere returning to the world--but felt as if that world had no longer anyattraction for me.
What a dream was the last three weeks of my life! But it was a dreamfrom which I wished not to be awakened. It seemed to me as if I hadlived in an age of primeval virtue. My senses at rest, my passionssoothed to philosophic repose, my prejudices vanquished, all the powersof my mind gently breathed into motion, yet calm and unagitated--allthe faculties of my taste called into exertion, yet unsated even byboundless gratification.--My fancy restored to its pristine warmth, myheart to its native sensibility. The past given to oblivion, the futureunanticipated, and the present enjoyed with the full consciousness ofits pleasurable existence. Wearied, exhausted, satiated by a boundlessindulgence of hackneyed pleasures, hackneyed occupations, hackneyedpursuits, at a moment when I was sinking beneath the lethargic influenceof apathy, or hovering on the brink of despair, a new light broke uponmy clouded mind, and discovered to my inquiring heart, something yetworth living for. What that mystic something is, I can scarcely yetdefine myself; but a magic spell now irresistibly binds me to that lifewhich but lately,
“Like a foul and ugly witch, did limp
So tediously away.”
The reserved tints of a gray dawn had not yet received the illuminatingbeams of the east, when I departed from the castle of Inismore. None ofthe family were risen, but the hind who prepared my _rosinante_, and thenurse, who made my breakfast.
I rode twice round that wing of the castle where Glorvina sleeps: thecurtain of her bedroom casement was closely drawn: but as I passed by ita second time, I thought I perceived a shadowy form at the window ofthe adjoining casement. As I approached it seemed to retreat; the whole,however, might have only been the vision of my wishes--my _wishes!!_ Butthis girl piques me into something of interest for her.
About three miles from the castle, on the summit of a wild and desolateheath, I met the good Father Director of Inismore. He appeared quiteamazed at the rencontre. He expressed great regret at my absence fromthe castle, insisting that he should accompany me a mile or two of myjourney, though he was only then returning after having passed the nightin ministering temporal as well as spiritual comfort to an unfortunatefamily at some miles distance.
“These poor people,” said he “were tenants on the skirts of Lord M’sestate, who, though by all accounts a most excellent and benevolent man,employs a steward of a very opposite character. This unworthy delegatehaving considerably raised the rent on a little farm held by theseunfortunate people, they soon became deeply in arrears, were ejected,and obliged to take shelter in an almost roofless hut, where theinclemency of the season, and the hardships they endured, brought ondisorders by which the mother and two chil dren are now nearly reducedto the point of death; and yesterday, in their last extremity, they sentfor me.”
While I commiserated the sufferings of these unfortunates (and cursedthe villain Clendinning in my heart,) I could not avoid adverting to thehumanity of this benevolent priest.
“These offices of true charity, which you so frequently perform,” said I, “are purely the result of your benevolence, rather than a mereobservance of your duty.”
“It is true,” he replied, “I have no parish; but the incumbent of thatin which these poor people reside is so old and infirm, as to be totallyincapacitated from performing such duties of his-calling as require theleast exertion. The duty of one who professes himself the minister ofreligion, whose essence is charity, should not be confined within thenarrow limitation of prescribed rules; and I should consider myself asunworthy of the sacred habit I wear, should my exertions be confined tothe suggestions of my interest and my duty only.
“The faith of the lower order of Catholics here in their priest,” he continued, “is astonishing: even his presence they conceive is anantidote to every evil.--When he appears at the door of their huts, andblends his cordial salutation with a blessing, the spirit of consolationseems to hover at its threshhold--pain is alleviated, sorrow soothed;and hope, rising from the bosom of strengthening faith, triumphsover the ruins of despair. To the wicked he prescribes penitence andconfession, and the sinner is forgiven; to the wretched he asserts,that suffering here, is the purchase of felicity hereafter, and he isresigned; and to the sick he gives a consecrated charm, and by the forceof faith and imagination he is made well.--Guess then the influencewhich this order of men hold over the aggregate of the people; for whilethe Irish peasant, degraded, neglected, despised, * vainly seeksone beam of conciliation in the eye of overbearing superiority;condescension, familiarity and kindness win his gratitude to him whosespiritual elevation is in his mind above all temporal rank.”
* “The common people of Ireland have no rank in society-- they may be treated with contempt, and consequently are with inhumanity.”--An Enquiry into the Causes, &c.
“You shed,” said I, “a patriarchal interest over the character ofpriesthood among you here; which gives that order to my view in a verydifferent aspect from that in which I have hitherto considered it. Towhat an excellent purpose might, this boundless influence be turned!”
“If,” interrupted he, “priests _were not men_--men too, generallyspeaking, without education, (which is in fact, character, principle,everything) except such as tends rather to narrow than enlarge themind--men in a certain degree shut out from society, except of the lowerclass; and men who, from their very mode of existence (which forcesthem to depend on the eleemosynary contributions of their flock,) musteventually in many instances imbibe a degradation of spirit which iscertainly not the parent of the liberal virtues.”
“Good God!” said I, surprised, “and this from one of their own order!”
“These are sentiments I never should have hazarded,” returned thepriest, “could I not have opposed to those natural conclusions, drawnfrom well known facts, innumerable instances of benevolence, piety, andlearning among the order. While to the whole body let it be allowed as_priests_, whatever may be their failings as _men_, that the activity oftheir lives, * the punctilious discharge of their duty, and their everready attention to their flock, under every moral and even underevery physical suffering, renders them deserving of that reverence andaffection which, above the ministers of any other religion, they receivefrom those over whom they are placed.”
* “A Roman Catholic clergyman is the minister of a very ritual religion and by his profession, subject to many restraints; his life is full of strict observances, and his duties are of a laborious nature towards himself, and of the highest possible trust towards others.”--Letter on the Penal Laws against the Irish Catholics, by the Right Honourable Edmund Burke.
“And which,” said I, “if opposed to the languid performance ofperiodical duties, neglect of the moral functions of their calling,and the habitual indolence of the ministers of other sects, they maycertainly be deemed zealots in the cause of the faith they profess, andthe charity they inculcate!”
While I spoke, a young lad, almost in a state of nudity, approached us;yet in the crown of his leafless hat were stuck a few pens, and over hisshoulder hung a leathern satchel full of books.
“This is an apposite rencontre,” said the priest--“behold the firststage of _one_ class of Catholic priesthood among us; a class however nolonger very prevalent.”
The boy approached, and, to my amazement,
addressed us in Latin, beggingwith all the vehement eloquence of an Irish mendicant, for some money tobuy ink and paper. We gave him a trifle, and the priest desired him togo on to the castle, where he would get his breakfast, and that on hisreturn he would give him some books into the bargain.
The boy, who solicited in Latin, expressed his gratitude in Irish; andwe trotted on.
“Such,” said Father John, “formerly was the frequent origin of our RomanCatholic priests This is a character unknown to you in England, and iscalled here ‘_a poor scholar_.’ If a boy is too indolent to work and hisparents too poor to support him, or, which is more frequently the case,if he discovers some natural talents, or, as they call it, _takes to hislearning_, and that they have not the means to forward his improvement,he then becomes by profession a _poor scholar_, and continues to receiveboth his mental and bodily food at the expense of the community atlarge.
“With a leathern satchel on his back, containing his portable library,he sometimes travels not only through his own province, but frequentlyover the greater part of the kingdom. * No door is shut against the poorscholar, who, it is supposed, at a future day may be invested with theapostolic key of Heaven. The priest or schoolmaster of every parishthrough which he passes, receives him for a few days into his barefootedseminary, and teaches him bad Latin and worse English; while the mostopulent of his schoolfellows eagerly seize on the young peripateticphilosopher and provide him with maintenance and lodging; and if he isa boy of talent or _humour_ (a gift always prized by the naturallylaughter-loving Milesians) they will struggle for the pleasure of hissociety.
* It has been justly said, that, “nature is invariable in her operations; and that the principles of a polished people will influence even their latest posterity.” And the ancient state of letters in Ireland, may be traced in the love of learning and talent even still existing among the inferior class of the Irish to this day. On this point it is observed by Mr. Smith, in his History of Kerry, “that it is well known that classical reading extends itself even to a fault, among the lower and poorer kind of people in this country, [Munster,] many of whom have greater knowledge in this way than some of the better sort in other places. He elsewhere observes, that Greek is taught in the mountainous parts of the province. And Mr. O’Halloran asserts, that classical reading has most adherents in those retired parts of the kingdom where strangers had least access, and that as good classical scholars were found in most parts of Connaught, as in any part of Europe.
“Having thus had the seeds of dependence sown _irradically_ in his mind,and furnished his perisatetic studies, he returns to his native home,and with an empty satchel to his back, goes about raising contributionson the pious charity of his poor compatriots: each contributes somenecessary article of dress, and assists to fill a little purse, untilcompletely equipped; and, for the first time in his life, covered fromhead to foot, the divine embryo sets out for some sea-port, where heembarks for the colleges of Douay or St. Omer’s; and having beggedhimself, _in forma pauperis_, through all the necessary rules anddiscipline of the seminary, he returns to his own country, and becomesthe minister of salvation to those whose generous contributions enablehim to assume the sacred profession. *
* The French Revolution, and the foundation of the Catholic college at Maynooth, has put a stop to these pious emigrations.
“Such is the man by whom the minds opinions, and even actions of thepeople are often influenced; and, if man is but a creature of educationand habit, I leave you to draw the inference. But this is but _one_class of priesthood, and its description rather applicable to twenty orthirty years back than to the present day. The other two may be dividedinto the sons of tradesmen and farmers, and the younger sons of Catholicgentry.
“Of the latter order am I; and the interest of my friends on my returnfrom the continent procured me what was deemed the best parish in thediocese. But the good and the evil attendant on every situation in life,is rather to be estimated by the feelings and sensibility of the objectswhom they affect, than by their own intrinsic nature. It was in vain Iendeavoured to accommodate my mind to the mode of life into which I hadbeen forced by my friends. It was in vain I endeavoured to assimilatemy spirit to that species of exertion necessary to be made for mylivelihood.
“To owe my subsistence to the precarious generosity of those wretches,whose every gift to me must be the result of a sensible deprivation tothemselves; be obliged to extort (even from the altar where I presidedas the minister of the Most High) the trivial contributions for mysupport, in a language which, however appropriate to the understandingsof my auditors, sunk me in my own esteem to the last degree ofself-degradation or to receive from the religious affection of myflock such voluntary benefactions as, under the pressure of scarcityand want, their rigid economy to themselves enabled them to make tothe pastor whom they revered. * In a word, after three years miserabledependence on those for whose poverty and wretchedness my heart bled, Ithrew up my situation, and became chaplain to the Prince of Inismore,on a stipend sufficient for my little wants, and have lived with him forthirty years, on such terms as you have witnessed for these three weeksback.
* “Are these men supposed to have no sense of justice that, in addition to the burthen of supporting their own establishment exclusively, they should be called on to pay ours; that, where they pay sixpence to their own priest, they should pay a pound to our clergymen; that, while they can scarce afford their own a horse, they should place ours in his carriage; and that when they cannot build a mass- house to cover their multitudes, they should be forced to contribute to build sumptuous churches for half a dozen Protestants to pray under a shed--Inquiry into the Causes of Popular Discontents, &c. page 27.
“While my heart felt compassion, my tenderest sympathy is given to thoseof my brethren who are by birth and education divested of that scaleof thought, and obtuseness of feeling, which distinguish those of theorder, who, reared from the lowest origin upon principles the mostservilizing, are callous to the innumerable humiliations of theirdependent state----”
Here an old man mounted on a mule, rode up to the priest, and with tearsin his eyes informed him that he was just going to the castle to humblyentreat his reverence would visit a poor child of his, who had beenlooked on with “_an evil eye_,” a few days back, * and who had eversince been pining away.
* It is supposed among the lower order of Irish, as among the Greeks, that some people are born with an evil eye, which injures every object on which it falls, and they will frequently go many miles out of their direct road, rather than pass by the house of one who has “an evil eye.” To frustrate its effects, the priest hangs a consecrated charm around the necks of their children, called “a gospel;” and the fears of the parents are quieted by their faith.
“It was our misfortune,” said he, “never to have tied a gospel about herneck, as we did round the other children’s, or this heavy sorrow wouldnever have befallen us. But we know if your reverence would only bepleased to say a prayer over her, all would go well enough!”
The priest gave me a significant look, and shaking me cordially bythe hand, and pressing my speedy return to Inismore, rode off with thesuppliant.
Thus, in his duty, “prompt at every call,” after having passed the nightin acts of religious benevolence, his humanity willingly obeyed thevoice of superstitious prejudice which endowed him with the fanciedpower of alleviating fancied evils.
As I rode along, reflecting on the wondrous influence of superstition,and the nature of its effects, I could not help dwelling on the stronganalogy which in so many instances appears between the vulgar errors ofthis country and that of the ancient as well as modern Greeks.
St. Chrysostom, * relating the bigotry of his own times, particularlymentions the superstitious horror which the Greeks entertained against“_the evil eye_.” And an elegant modern traveller assures us, that evenin the present day they “combine cloves of garlic, talismans, and othercharms, which they hang about the necks of their infants, with
the sameintention of keeping away _the evil eye_.”
* “Some write on the hand the names of several rivers, while others make use of ashes, tallow, salt for the like purposes--all this being to divert the ‘evil eye.’”
Adieu.
H. M.
END OF VOL. 1.
WILD IRISH GIRL,
A National Tale.
By Lady Morgan,
Author Of St. Clair, The Novice Of St. Dominic, etc.
“Questa gente benche mostra selvagea
E pur gli monte la con trad a accierba
Nondimeno l’e dolce ad cui l’assagia.”
This race of men, though s&vage they may seem,
The country, too, with many a mountain rough,
Yet are they sweet to him who tries and tastes them.”
_Uberties Travels thro’ Ireland, 14th Century_
In Two Volumes, Vol. II
New York: P. M. Haverty.
1879.