Part 23 (2/2)
Moore's, Billy, and take a gla.s.s with us,” said Terry; ”it isn't often we see you in these parts.”
”If the honorable company will graciously vouchsafe and condescind to let me trate them to a half-gallon,” said Billy, ”it will be the proudest event of my terrestrial existence.”
The proposition was received with a cordial enthusiasm, flattering to all concerned; and in a few minutes after, Billy Traynor sat at the head of a long table in the neat parlor of ”The Griddle,” with a company of some fifteen or sixteen very convivially disposed friends around him.
”If I was Caesar, or Lucretius, or Nebuchadnezzar, I couldn't be prouder,” said Billy, as he looked down the board. ”And let moralists talk as they will, there's a beautiful expansion of sentiment, there's a fine genial overflowin' of the heart, in gatherin's like this, where we mingle our feelin's and our philosophy; and our love and our learning walk hand in hand like brothers--pa.s.s the sperits, Mr. Shea. If we look to the ancient writers, what do we see!--Lemons! bring in some lemons, Mickey.--What do we see, I say, but that the very highest enjoyment of the haythen G.o.ds was--Hot wather! why won't they send in more hot wather?”
”Begorra, if I was a haythen G.o.d, I 'd like a little whisky in it,”
muttered Terry, dryly.
”Where was I?” asked Billy, a little disconcerted by this sally, and the laugh it excited. ”I was expatiatin' upon celestial convivialities. The _nodes coenoeque deum_,--them elegant hospitalities where wisdom was moistened with nectar, and wit washed down with ambrosia. It is not, by coorse, to be expected,” continued he, modestly, ”that we mere mortials can compete with them elegant refections. But, as Ovid says, we can at least _diem jucundam decipere_.”
The unknown tongue had now restored to Billy all the reverence and respect of his auditory, and he continued to expatiate very eloquently on the wholesome advantages to be derived from convivial intercourse, both amongst G.o.ds and men; rather slyly intimating that either on the score of the fluids, or the conversation, his own leanings lay towards ”the humanities.”
”For, after all,” said he, ”'tis our own wakenesses is often the source of our most refined enjoyments. No, Mrs. Ca.s.sidy, ye need n't be blus.h.i.+n'. I 'm considerin' my subject in a high ethnological and metaphysical sinse.” Mrs. Ca.s.sidy's confusion, and the mirth it excited, here interrupted the orator.
”The meeting is never tired of hearin' you, Billy,” said Terry Lynch; ”but if it was plazin' to ye to give us a song, we'd enjoy it greatly.”
”Ah!” said Billy, with a sigh, ”I have taken my partin' kiss with the Muses; _non mihi licet increpare digitis lyram_:--
”'No more to feel poetic fire, No more to touch the soundin' lyre; But wiser coorses to begin, I now forsake my violin.'”
An honest outburst of regret and sorrow broke from the a.s.sembly, who eagerly pressed for an explanation of this calamitous change.
”The thing is this,” said Billy: ”if a man is a creature of mere leisure and amus.e.m.e.nt, the fine arts--and by the fine arts I mean music, paintin', and the ladies--is an elegant and very refined subject of cultivation; but when you raise your cerebrial faculties to grander and loftier considerations, to explore the difficult ragions of polemic or political truth, to investigate the subtleties of the schools, and penetrate the mysteries of science, then, take my word for it, the fine arts is just snares,--devil a more than snares! And whether it is soft sounds seduces you, or elegant tints, or the union of both,--women, I mane,--you 'll never arrive at anything great or tri-um-phant till you wane yourself away from the likes of them vanities. Look at the haythen mythology; consider for a moment who is the chap that represents Music,--a lame blackguard, with an ugly face, they call Pan. Ay, indeed, Pan! If you wanted to see what respect they had for the art, it's easy enough to guess, when this crayture represints it; and as to Paintin', on my conscience, they have n't a G.o.d at all that ever took to the brush.--Pa.s.s up the sperits, Mickey,” said he, somewhat blown and out of breath by this effort. ”Maybe,” said he, ”I'm wearin' you.”
”No, no, no,” loudly responded the meeting.
”Maybe I'm imposin' too much of personal details on the house,” added he, pompously.
”Not at all; never a bit,” cried the company.
”Because,” resumed he, slowly, ”if I did so, I 'd have at least the excuse of say in', like the great Pitt, 'These may be my last words from this place.'”
An unfeigned murmur of sorrow ran through the meeting, and he resumed:--
”Ay, ladies and gintlemin, Billy Traynor is takin' his 'farewell benefit;' he's not humbuggin'. I 'm not like them chaps that's always positively goin', but stays on at the unanimous request of the whole world. No; I'm really goin' to leave you.”
”What for? Where to, Billy?” broke from a number of voices together.
”I 'll tell ye,” said he,--”at least so far as I can tell; because it would n't be right nor decent to 'print the whole of the papers for the house,' as they say in parliamint. I 'm going abroad with the young lord; we are going to improve our minds, and cultivate our janiuses, by study and foreign travel. We are first to settle in Germany, where we 're to enter a University, and commince a coorse of modern tongues, French, Sweadish, and Spanish; imbibin' at the same time a smatterin' of science, such as chemistry, conchology, and the use of the globes.”
”Oh dear! oh dear!” murmured the meeting, in wonder and admiration.
”I 'm not goin' to say that we 'll neglect mechanics, metaphysics, and astrology; for we mane to be cosmonopolists in knowledge. As for myself, ladies and gintlemin, it's a proud day that sees me standin' here to say these words. I, that was ragged, without a shoe to my foot,--without breeches,--never mind, I was, as the poet says, _nudus nummis ac vestimentis_,--
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