Part 7 (1/2)
Now, I am not about to take you back; for at this hour of the morning you have nothing to reward your curiosity. But, with your leave, we 'll start from Kingstown again at nine. Here comes a fresh, jovial-looking set of fellows They have bushy whiskers, and geraniums in the b.u.t.ton hole of their coats. They are traders of various sorts--men of sugar, soap, and sa.s.safras--Macintoshes, mola.s.ses, mouse-traps--train-oil and tabinets. They have, however, half an acre of agricultural absurdity, divided into meadow and tillage, near the harbour, and they talk bucolic all the way. Blindfold them all, and set them loose, and you will catch them groping their way down Dame-street in half an hour.
9 1/2.--The housekeepers' train. Fat, middle-aged women, with cotton umbrellas--black stockings with blue _fuz_ on them; meek-looking men, officiating as husbands, and an occasional small child, in plaid and the small-pox.
10.--The lawyers' train. Fierce-looking, dictatorial, categorical faces look out of the window at the weather, with the stern glance they are accustomed to bestow on the jury, and stare at the sun in the face, as though to say--”None of your prevarication with _me_; answer me, on your oath, is it to rain or not?”
10 1/2.--The return of the doctors. They have been out on a morning beat, and are going home merry or mournful, as the case may be.
Generally the former, as the sad ones take to the third cla.s.s. These are jocose, droll dogs: the restraint of physic over, they unbend, and chat pleasantly, unless there happen to be a sickly gentleman present, when the instinct of the craft is too strong for them; and they talk of their wonderful cures of Mr. Popkins's knee, or Mr. Murphy's elbow, in a manner very edifying.
11.--The men of wit and pleasure. These are, I confess, difficult of detection; but the external signs are very flash waistcoats, and guard-chains, black canes, black whiskers, and strong Dublin accents.
A stray governess or two will be, found in this train. They travel in pairs, and speak a singular tongue, which a native of Paris might suppose to be lush.
A NUT FOR THE DOCTORS.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 168]
Would you ask, Who is the greatest tyrant of modern days? Mr. O'Connell will tell you--Nicholas, or Es-partero. An Irish Whig member will reply, Dan himself. An _attache_ at an emba.s.sy would say, Lord Palmerston,--”'Tis Cupid ever makes us slaves!” A French _depute_ of the Thiers party will swear it is Louis Philippe. Count D'Orsay will say, his tailor. But I will tell you it is none of these: the most pitiless autocrat of the nineteenth century is--the President of the College of Physicians.
Of all the unlimited powers possessed by irresponsible man, I know of nothing at all equal to his, who, _mero motu_, of his own free will and caprice, can at any moment call a meeting of the dread body at whose head he stands, a.s.semble the highest dignitaries of the land--archbishops and bishops, chancellors, chief barons, and chief remembrancers--to listen to the minute anatomy of a periwinkle's mustachios, or some singular provision in the physiology of a crab's breeches-pocket: all of whom, _luto non obstante_, must leave their peaceful homes and warm hearths to ”a.s.sist” at a meeting in which, nine cases out of ten, they take as much interest as a Laplander does in the health of the Grand Lama, or Mehemet Ali in the proceedings of Father Mathew.
By nine o'clock the curtain rises, displaying a goodly mob of medical celebrities: the old ones characterised by the astute look and searching glance, long and shrewd practice in the world's little failings ever confers; the young ones, anxious, wide awake, and fidgetty, not quite satisfied with what services they may be called on to render in candle-snuffing and crucible work; while between both is your transition M. D.--your medical tadpole, with some practice and more pretension, his game being to separate from the great unfeed, and rub his shoulders among the ”dons” of the art, from whose rich board certain crumbs are ever falling, in the shape of country jaunts, small operations, and smaller consultings. Through these promiscuously walk the ”_gros bonnets_” of the church and the bar, with now and then--if the scene be Ireland--a humane Viceroy, and a sleepy commander of the forces. Round the room are gla.s.s cases filled with what at first blush you might be tempted to believe were the _ci-devant_ professors of the college, embalmed, or in spirits; but on nearer inspection you detect to be a legion of apes, monkeys, and ourangoutangs, standing or sitting in grotesque att.i.tudes. Among them, pleasingly diversified, you discover murderers' heads, parricides' busts in plaster, bicephalous babies, and shapeless monsters with two rows of teeth. Here you are regaled with refreshments ”with what appet.i.te you may,” and chat away the time, until the tinkle of a small bell announces the approach of the lecture.
For the most part, this is a good, drowsy, sleep-disposing affair of an hour long, written to show, that from some peculiarity lately discovered in the cerebral vessels, man's natural att.i.tude was to stand on his head; or that, from chemical a.n.a.lysis just invented, it was clear, if we live to the age of four hundred years and upwards, part of our duodenum will be coated with a delicate aponeurosis of sheet iron.
Now, with propositions of this kind I never find fault. I am satisfied to play my part as a biped in this breathing world, and to go out of it too, without any rivalry with Methuselah. But I'll tell you with what I am by no means satisfied,--nor shall I ever feel satisfied--nor do I entertain any sentiment within a thousand miles of grat.i.tude to the man who tells me, that food--beef and mutton, veal, lamb, &c.--are nothing but gas and glue. The wretch who found out the animiculas in clean water was bad enough. There are simple-minded people who actually take this as a beverage: what must be their feelings now, if they reflect on the myriads of small things like lobsters, with claws and tails, all fighting and swallowing each other, that are disporting in their stomachs? But only think of him who converts your cutlet into charcoal, and your steak into starch! It may stick to your ribs after that, to be sure; but will it not stick harder to your conscience? With what pleasure do you help yourself to your haunch, when the conviction is staring you in the face, that what seems venison is but adipose matter and azote? That you are only making a great Na.s.sau balloon of yourself when you are dreaming of hard condition, and preparing yourself for the fossil state when blowing the froth off your porter.
Of latter years the great object of science would appear to be an earnest desire to disenchant us from all the agreeable and pleasant dreams we have formed of life, and to make man insignificant without making him humble. Thus, one cla.s.s of philosophers labour hard to prove that manhood is but monkeyhood--that a slight adaptation of the tail to the customs of civilized life has enabled us to be seated; while the invention of looking-gla.s.ses, bear's grease, cold cream, and maca.s.sar, have cultivated our looks into the present fas.h.i.+on.
Another, having felt over our skulls, gravely a.s.serts, ”There is a _vis a tergo_ of wickedness implanted in us, that must find vent in murder and bloodshed.” While the magnetic folk would make us believe that we are merely a kind of ambulating electric-machine, to be charged at will by the first M. Lafontaine we meet with, and mayhap explode from over-pressure.
While such liberties are taken with us without, the case is worse within. Our circulation is a hydraulic problem; our stomach is a mill--a brewing vat--a tanner's yard--a crucible, or a retort. You yourself, in all the resplendent glory of your braided frock, and your decoration of the Guelph, are nothing but an aggregate of mechanical and chemical inventions, as often going wrong as right; and your wife, in the pride of her Parisian bonnet, and robe _a la Victorine_, is only gelatine and adipose substance, phosphate of lime, and a little a.r.s.enic.
Now, let me ask, what remains to us of life, if we are to be robbed of every fascination and charm of existence in this fas.h.i.+on? And again--has medical science so exhausted all the details of practical benefit to mankind, that it is justified in these far-west explorations into the realms of soaring fancy, or the gloomy depths of chemical a.n.a.lysis?
Hydrophobia, consumption, and teta.n.u.s are not so curable that we can afford to waste our sympathies on chimpanzees: nor is this world so pleasant that we must deny ourselves the advantage of all its illusions, and throw away the garment in which Nature has clothed her nakedness.
No, no. There was sound philosophy in Peter, in the ”Tale of a Tub,” who a.s.sured his guests that whatever their frail senses might think to the contrary, the hard crusts were excellent and tender mutton; but I see neither rhyme nor reason in convincing us, that amid all the triumphs of turtle and white bait, Ardennes ham and _pate de Strasbourg_, our food is merely c.o.ke and glue, roach, lime, starch, and magnesia.
A NUT FOR THE ARCHITECTS.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 172]
”G.o.d made the country,” said the poet: but in my heart I believe he might have added--”The devil made architects.” Few cities--I scarcely know of one--can boast of such environs as Dublin. The scenery, diversified in its character, possesses attraction for almost every taste: the woody glade--the romantic river--the wild and barren mountain--the cultivated valley--the waving upland--the bold and rocky coast, broken with promontory and island--are all to be found, even within a few miles of the capital; while, in addition, the nature of our climate confers a verdure and a freshness unequalled, imparting a depth and colour to the landscape equal to this beauty of its outline.
Whether you travel inland or coastwise, the country presents a succession of sites for building, there being no style of house for which a suitable spot cannot readily be found; and yet, with all this, the perverse taste of man has contrived, by incongruous and ill-conceived architecture, to mar almost every point of view, and destroy every picturesque feature of the landscape.
The liberty of the subject is a bright and glorious prerogative; and nowhere should its exercise be more freely conceded than in those arrangements an individual makes for his own domestic comfort, and the happiness of his home.