Volume 26 — VOL. XXVI., No. 152.—NOVEMBER, 1877. (continued 3)

“Oh! Dublin, sure there is no doubtin’,

Beats every city upon the say;

’Tis there you’ll see O’Connell spoutin’

And Lady Morgan making tay”;

a night at Howth; the Knight of Kerry and Billy McCabe—form a succession of sketches teeming with vivacity, humor, and wit, and dashed off with a pen which almost makes a steeplechaser of the reader, so exciting and so rapid is the pace.

To Lever’s official career at Brussels we are indebted for several diplomatic portraits, notably those of Sir Horace Upton (The Fortunes of Glencore) and Sir Shally Doubleton (A Day’s Ride); the former of “a very composite order of human architecture, chivalrous in sentiment and cunning in action, noble 406in aspiration and utterly sceptical as regards motives, deep enough for a ministerial dinner and fast enough for a party of young guardsmen at Greenwich,” and the latter who could receive a Foreign Office “swell” thus: “Possibly your name may not be Paynter, sir; but you are evidently before me for the first time, or you would know that, like my great colleague and friend, Prince Metternich, I have made it a rule through life never to burden my memory with what can be spared it, and of these are the patronymics of all subordinate people; for this reason, sir, and to this end, every cook in my establishment answers to the name of Honoré, my valet is always Pierre, my coachman Jacob, and all Foreign Office messengers I call Paynter.” Upon the small-fry of diplomacy Mr. Lever is occasionally very severe, and his pictures of life at Hesse Kalbbratonstadt and similar unpronounceable principalities are as amusing as they are possibly realistic.

The success of Harry Lorrequer set its author at quill-driving in the same direction, and Charles O’Malley, or The Irish Dragoon, was given to the world. The very name sounds “boot and saddle”—rings of the spur and clanks of the sabre. What a romance: the high-spirited lad who leads his rival to the jaws of the grave in the hunting-field, and follows him in a ride of death against the unbroken front of Cambronne’s battalions on the blood-stained field of Waterloo! What a picture of the old Peninsular days! What portraits of Le petit Caporal, as the French army loved to call Napoleon, of the “Iron Duke,” the gallant Picton, and the great captains of that eventful period! What glimpses of dark-eyed 407señoritas and haughty hidalgos; of lion-hearted sons of Erin charging to the cry of Faugh a ballagh, and leading forlorn hopes with saucy jokes upon their laughing lips; of “Connaught Robbers,” as the Connaught Rangers were jocosely called, on account of the number of prisoners which they invariably made, and for the most part single-handed; of Brussels the night before Waterloo; and of the Duchess of Richmond’s celebrated ball:

“There was a sound of revelry by night,

And Belgium’s capital had gathered then

Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright

The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men.”

What pictures of old Ireland—of Daly’s Club-House, the resort of the Irish members in College Green, still standing, but now converted into insurance offices. “I never pass the old club,” said Sir Thomas Staples, the last surviving member of the Irish House of Commons, to the writer, “without picturing it as I remember it, when Grattan, and Curran, and Ireland’s best blood strolled in after a fiery debate, or rushed out on the whisper of that awful word, ‘division.’ Very little would restore Daly’s to its original shape; and who knows but it may yet be revived, if repeal of the Union be carried?” Sir Thomas Staples is dead some years, and the Home-Rule question had not come to the front whilst he was yet numbered amongst the living. Shall we behold an Irish Parliament sitting once again in College Green? Shall Daly’s club be restored to its former splendor? Shall we see Mr. Butt, Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Mitchell Henry, with many other earnest sons of Ireland, enrolled amongst its members?

Who can forget the account of Godfrey O’Malley’s election, when, 408in order to avoid arrest for debt, he announced his own death in the papers, and, having travelled in the hearse to Connemara, reached his stronghold in the west, where bailiffs and process-servers foolhardy enough to cross the Shannon were compelled to eat their own writs under penalty of tar and feathers, and from whence he triumphantly addressed his constituents, appealing to their sympathies and support on the very powerful plea of having died for them? There is a story extant of Jackey Barrett which has not travelled far, if at all, beyond the walls of Trinity. Upon one occasion the vice-provost was dining off roast turkey in the glorious old Commons Hall, and next to him sat his nephew, the heir expectant to his enormous wealth. The turkey was somewhat underdone, and the nephew sent the drumsticks to be devilled. Some little delay occurred, which caused the vice-provost to observe to his kinsman with a malicious grin: “That devil is keeping you a long time waiting.” “Not half as long as you are keeping the devil waiting,” was the retort. Jackey never forgave him. What a creation is Mickey Free, that devoted, warm-hearted, rollicking Irish follower, that son of song and story, who, by his own account, sang duets with the commander-in-chief in the Peninsula, and wore a masterpiece of Murillo for a seat to his trousers! Mickey was quoted recently, during a debate in the British House of Commons on the Eastern question by Major O’Gorman, the jester-in-chief, vice Mr. Bernal Osborne, the rejected of Irish constituencies:

“For I haven’t a janius for work—

It was never a gift of the Bradies;

But I’d make a most illigant Turk,

For I’m fond of tobacco and ladies.”

409The House roared, and even Mr. Disraeli, that was, allowed his parchment visage to snap into smiling. Charles Lever informed the writer that he originally intended Mickey Free for a mere stage servant, who comes on with a tray or exits with a chair or a table; but upon discovering that Mr. Free had made his mark he wrote him up. “I never could give a publisher a complete novel all at once,” said Mr. Lever, “although I have been offered very large sums of money for one; I always wait to see how my public like me, and write from month to month, trimming my sails to suit the popular breeze.”

Charles O’Malley was a brilliant success. A spirit of martial enthusiasm inflated the minds of the rising generation, until to be a dragoon became the day-dream of existence, and many an embryo warrior who failed in obtaining a commission compromised with a cruel destiny by accepting the queen’s shilling. The charm of the book is complete; and for break-neck, dashing narrative, for wit, sparkle, and genuine Irish drollery, interspersed here and there with tender touches of pathos and soft gray tones of sorrow, Charles O’Malley stands unrivalled, and will hold its own when hundreds of so-called Irish romances shall have returned to the dust out of which they should never have emerged, even into a spasmodic vitality.

Perhaps the only smart thing ever uttered by King George III. was when he taxed Sheridan with being afraid of the author of the School for Scandal; and perhaps Lever was afraid of the author of Charles O’Malley, as he published Con Cregan, Maurice Tiernay, Sir Jasper Carew, and one or two other novels anonymously; but a quickwitted 410public, detecting the ring of the true metal, compelled “Harry Lorrequer” to stand revealed. Novel followed novel in quick succession, Ireland providing the mine from which he dug his golden ore; and although he carries his readers to fairer climes and sunnier skies, somehow or other he contrives to land them safely and soundly in the “ould counthry” at last. We have not space, nor is it our province, to deal with Lever’s works in detail. No modern productions of fiction have gained a greater or more popular reputation for their writer. By no Irish author is he equalled in Irish humor, by no author is he surpassed in unwearying narrative. The foreign tone infused into some of his later productions is due to his residence in Italy. “You wish to have nothing to do, Lever? There is eight hundred a year; go and do it,” said the late Lord Derby, bestowing the vice-consulship of Spezzia upon him. Later on he was promoted to Trieste.

For a time Charles Lever edited the Dublin University Magazine, then a coruscation of all that was brilliant in literature. He resided at the village of Templeogue, situated in the lap of the Dublin mountains, with Sugar Loaf at one extremity, and Mount Pelier, with its ruined castle renowned for the orgies of the infamously-celebrated “Hell-fire Club,” at the other. Templeogue Lodge was the Mecca towards which all “choice spirits” devoutly turned, and the wit, repartee, song, jest, and story circulated within its walls made the Noctes Ambrosianæ but dull affairs in comparison. “One little room rises to recollection, with its quaint old sideboard of carved oak, its dark-brown cabinets, curiously sculptured, its heavy 411old brocade curtains, and all its queer devices of knick-knackery, where such meetings were once held, and where, throwing off the cares of life—shut out from them, as it were, by the massive folds of the heavy drapery across the door—we talked in all the fearless freedom of old friendship.” There are a few still surviving who will recognize that room, and recall with a throb of painful pleasure the nights at the little lodge at Templeogue.

Lever was fond of portraying banished heroes, misanthropes—men who had dug their own graves, or, overtaken by some whirlwind of misfortune, “gave signs that all was lost.” The character of Lord Glencore is admirably drawn, and his life of torture in his mad cry for vengeance fearfully vivid. Luttrell of Arran is the story of a disappointed life, from out of which springs a bright flower of maidenhood—Kate, one of Lever’s most charming creations. Again, we have the Knight of Gwynne, over whose gentle head wave after wave of hard fortune pitilessly breaks, and, driven from the lordly home of his ancestors to a sheeling by the sad sea-wave, he is as cheerful in adversity as he was noble in prosperity. The portrait of the fire-eating Bagenal Daly is not overdrawn, and the introduction of Freeny the robber, although highly melodramatic, is not only possible but probable. Freeny’s “character” stood remarkably high. He would rob a rich miser to save a poor family from starvation, and his word was as good as his bond; ‘98 turned many a man upon the king’s highway who, but for being “out,” would have lived respecting and respected. The Martins of Cro’ Martin is another ghastly narrative of the wreck and ruin of 412a proud old Irish race. It is “an owre true” story. A few miles outside of the town of Galway, on the road to Oughterard, stand two gaunt pillars surmounted by granite globes. The gates have disappeared, as also the armorial bearings; but this was formerly the entrance to Ballinahinch, the seat of the “ould, anshint” Martins, and from that gate to Ballinahinch Castle was a drive of forty Irish miles. The castle, situated in one of the loneliest and loveliest valleys in Connemara, was maintained in a style of regal magnificence, the stables, marble-stalled, affording accommodation for sixty hunters. On an island, in the centre of a small lake opposite the castle, stands a desolate, half-ruined keep, within the four walls of which such of his retainers or neighbors as proved refractory were imprisoned by “The Martin” of the period. Recklessness and improvidence scattered the broad acres, mortgage overlapped mortgage, and every inch of the grand old estate became the property of the London Law Life Assurance Society. Notably the last of the family was Richard Martin, commonly known as “Humanity Dick,” in reference to a bill introduced by him into the British House of Commons for the repression of cruelty to animals. Upon the occasion of its introduction the English members essayed to cough him down. “I perceive,” said Mr. Martin, “that many of you seem troubled with severe coughs; now, if any one gentleman will cough distinctly, so that I may be able to recognize him, I can give him a pill which may, perhaps, effectually prevent his ever being again troubled with a cough on this side of the grave.” Mr. Martin’s prescription was at once effectual.

413With “Humanity Dick’s” granddaughter perished the race; and her name is still breathed in Connemara as a prayer, as one “who never opened a cabin-door without a blessing, nor closed it but to shut hope within.” The farm-house where she was nursed is still fondly pointed out, and “Miss Martin’s lep”—she was a superb horsewoman—is proudly shown to every “spalpeen” of an Englishman who travels that wild, bleak, and desolate road between Oughterard and Clifden. Mr. Lever, with that magic all his own, has told the sad story. His Mary Martin is but the portrait of that fair young Irish girl who dearly loved “her people” unto the last, and who, in the bright blossom of her life, died an exile from that western home which was at once her idol and her pride. Where but in Ireland could this sad and solemn gathering around the bedside of a dying girl take place?

“And yet there was a vast multitude of people there. The whole surface of the lawn that sloped from the cottage to the river was densely crowded with every age, from the oldest to the very infancy; with all conditions, from the well-clad peasant to the humblest ‘tramper’ of the highroads. Weariness, exhaustion, and even hunger were depicted on many of their faces. Some had passed the night there, others had come long distances, faint and foot-sore; but, as they sat, stood, or lay in groups around, not a murmur, not a whisper, escaped them. With aching eyes they looked towards an open window where the muslin curtains were gently stirred in the faint air. The tidings of Mary Martin’s illness had spread rapidly; far-away glens down the coast, lonely cabins on the bleak mountains, wild, remote spots out of human intercourse, had heard the news, and their dwellers had travelled many a mile to satisfy their aching hearts.”

This is Ireland. This is the undying affection of the people for 414the “rale ould stock.” This is the imperishable sentiment, as fresh at this hour as the emerald verdure upon the summit of Croagh Patrick.

In A Day’s Ride: a Life’s Romance, Mr. Lever has given us Algernon Sydney Potts—one of those romantic visionaries who believe in destiny, bow to their Kismet, and, going with the tide, clothe the meanest accidents of life in dreamy panoply. The adventures which befall the Dublin apothecary’s son, from his ride in Wicklow to his imprisonment in an Austrian fortress, are as varied as they are exciting, and we are strongly inclined to believe that Lever, “letting off” a good deal of Bohemia, is at his best in the wild vagaries of this reckless day-dreamer. Tom Burke of Ours is a dashing military story, as is also Jack Hinton, the Guardsman. The O’Donoghue is charmingly written and is thoroughly Irish. That Boy of Norcott’s is unsatisfactory. Commencing in Ireland, it wanders from the old country with the evident intention of returning to it; but a change came o’er the spirit of the author’s dream, and it bears all the imprint of having been hastily written, a changed venue, and of being “hurried up” at its conclusion. Sir Brook Fosbrooke, on the other hand, bears traces of the utmost care, the details of character being worked out with microscopic minuteness. The old lord chief-justice is supposed to have been meant for Lord Chief-Justice Lefroy, of the Court of Queen’s Bench in Ireland, who died at a very advanced age a few years since, in full possession of the astounding legal acumen which marked his extended career at the bar, and subsequently upon the bench.

The writer spent a long-to-be-remembered day with Charles Lever 415in the April before his death. He was stopping in Dublin at Morrison’s Hotel, Dawson Street. We found him seated at an open window, a bottle of claret at his right hand and the proof-sheets of Lord Kilgobbin before him. It was a beautiful morning borrowed from the month of May; the hawthorns in the college park were just beginning to bloom, and nature was young and warm and lovely.

At the date of our visit he looked a hale, hearty, laughter-loving man of sixty. There was mirth in his gray eye, joviality, in the wink that twittered on his eyelid, saucy humor in his smile, and bon mot, wit, repartee, and rejoinder in every movement of his lips. His hair very thin, but of a silky brown, fell across his forehead, and when it curtained his eyes he would jerk back his head—this, too, at some telling crisis in a narrative when the particular action was just the exact finish required to make the story perfect. Mr. Lever’s teeth were all his own, and very brilliant, and, whether from habit or accident, he flashed them upon us in company with his wonderful eyes—a battery at once both powerful and irresistible. He spoke slowly at first, but warming to his work, and candying an idea in a short, contagious, musical laugh, his story told itself all too rapidly, and the light burned out with such a glare as to intensify the succeeding darkness. Like all good raconteurs, he addressed himself deferentially to his auditor in the beginning, and as soon as the fish was hooked, the attention enthralled, he would speak as if thinking aloud. Mr. Lever made great use of his hands, which were small and white and delicate as those of a woman. He made play with them—threw them up in ecstasy or 416wrung them in mournfulness, just as the action of the moment demanded. He did not require eyes or teeth with such a voice and such hands; they could tell and illustrate the workings of his brain. He was somewhat careless in his dress, but clung to the traditional high shirt-collar, merely compromising the unswerving stock of the Brummel period. “I stick to my Irish shoes,” he said, thrusting upwards about as uncompromising a “bit of leather” as we have ever set eyes on right under our nose, “and until a few years ago I got them from a descendant of the celebrated Count Lally, who cobbled at Letterkenny. There is no shoe in the world equal to the Irish brogue.”

“You are ‘taking time by the forelock,’ as we say in the play,” said the writer, pointing to the rough copy of the Cornhill Magazine, in which the story was running.

“Always at the heel of the hunt,” he replied. “This is the May number, and not corrected yet.”

“I consider Lord Kilgobbin as good as, if not better than, anything you have written.”

There was unutterable sadness in his tone and gesture as he said, with a weary sigh:

“Ah! I have been tilting the cask so long that the lees are coming out very muddy.”

“Which of your novels do you like best?” was asked.

“Well, my most careful work is Sir Brook Fosbrooke, but I prefer the Dodd Family Abroad, and all for the sake of Carry Dodd, who is my ideal of a pure, bright, charming Irish girl.”

Further on:

“You are the same reckless, rollicking, warm-hearted, improvident people as when I left you, and the lower orders entertain the same hatred of Saxon supremacy. I was 417walking down College Green yesterday, and as I stood opposite the old Parliament House, a troop of dragoons, in all their panoply of glancing helmets, blood-red coats, and prancing steeds, trotted past. A ragged, tatterdemalion carman was feeding a horse only fit for the knacker’s yard, attached to an outside car, with a wisp of hay.

“‘What regiment is that?’ I asked, partly from curiosity, partly for the sake of a conversation.

“‘Sorra a know I know,’ was the gruff response.

“‘Where are they going to?’

“Without raising his head, and giving a vicious chuck to the hay:

“‘To h—l, I hope.’

“I will give you another illustration,” continued Mr. Lever, “of how determinedly the lower order of my countrymen disparage anything and everything English. I was invited to spend some days with the late Lord Carlisle, twice your Lord Lieutenant, at Castle Howard, in Yorkshire. I had at that time an Irish servant, a son of Corny Delany, to whom grumbling was chronic. As we drove through the magnificent avenue beneath the extending branches of giant oaks and lordly elms, I observed to my follower: ‘What do you think of those trees?’

“‘I see thim.’

“‘Are they not splendid?’

“‘Och! threes is threes anywhere.’

“‘But the Howards are proud of these trees; they are the finest in England. Lord Carlisle sets great store by them.’

“‘Arrah, thin, why wudn’t he have the hoighth av fine threes? Shure hadn’t he the pick av the Phaynix Park?’

“I was dining with Judge —— on Sunday, who, as you know, is a very diminutive, shrivelled-up-looking 418little man,” continued Mr. Lever, “and he told me an amusing story. When attorney-general, he purchased an estate in Tipperary near Clonmel. Shortly after the purchase he resolved upon paying the place a visit to take a look at his recent acquisition. As he was proceeding with his agent through a boreen which led to mearings of his property, he overheard the following conversation between two old women:

“‘Wisha, thin, d’ye tell me that’s the new landlord, Missis Mulligan?’

“‘Sorra a lie in it, ma’am.’

“‘That dawny little bit av a crayture?’

“‘A leprechaun, no less.’

“‘Why, begorra, the boys might as well be shootin’ at a jacksnipe.’”

Mr. Lever’s conversational powers were simply marvellous; his anecdotes fell like ripe fruit from an overladen tree. In London his great delight was a night at the Cosmopolitan Club, Berkeley Square. This club is only open upon Wednesday and Sunday nights during the Parliamentary session. The members stroll in from eleven o’clock at night to about three o’clock A.M. Cabinet ministers, ambassadors of all nations, members of the legislature, eminent littérateurs, Royal Academicians, repair thither for a gossip; and here, amidst the best talkers in the world, Charles Lever stood pre-eminent. As the wits and raconteurs at Will’s Coffee House were silent whilst Joseph Addison talked Spectator, so the members of the Cosmopolitan maintained a breathless attention when Charles Lever talked Cornelius O’Dowd; and many a man has “dined out considerably” upon a mot, and has, perhaps, established a reputation, by the retailing of an anecdote recounted within the salons of the club by 419the inimitable and fascinating “Harry Lorrequer.” When the writer parted with Lever upon that evening, he felt justifiably elated at being enabled to amuse, if not astonish, the most brilliant man of the day, but, upon a rigid self-examination, was somewhat disappointed upon discovering that, instead of his having been engaged in entertaining Lever, Lever had been entertaining him, and that he had not uttered a single sentence out of the veriest commonplace. Such was the charm of Lever’s manner that he took you, as it were, from out yourself, and for the time infused his own groove of thought, causing your ideas to mingle with his and float joyously onward upon the glittering current of his conversation. Lever was a devoted worshipper of the “sad solemnities of whist,” playing rubber after rubber up to any and all hours. It is related that an eminent wearer of the ermine, a fellow of Trinity College, a gallant field officer, and Lever met, dined early, and played whist until the hour at which the train departed for Kingston by which “Harry Lorrequer” was to leave en route for London. “Come on to Kingston,” said Lever, “sleep at the Anglesea Arms Hotel, and I will not go until the morning boat.” They played all night and until one o’clock next day. Si non e vero e ben trovato, but the writer has the story from unimpeachable authority.

Charles Lever’s last novel, concluded shortly before his death, is Lord Kilgobbin. Let its unutterably sad preface speak for itself:

“To the memory of one whose companionship made the happiness of a long life, and whose loss has made me helpless, I dedicate this book, written in breaking health and broken spirits. The task that once was my joy and my pride I have 420lived to find associated with my sorrow. It is not, then, without a cause I say, I hope this effort may be my last.—Trieste, January 20, 1872.”

It is with a pang of regret that we peruse the Cornelius O’Dowd papers. They are tinged with that abominable spirit which is sending Italy at the present hour to perdition, and we greatly fear that Mr. Lever wrote them for the London market. He was no bigot, however; on the contrary, his life was passed amongst Catholics, and his dearest and best friends were of the true church; consequently, the pain is intensified when we come to stand face to face with the fact that these papers were, if not the outcome of a pecuniary necessity, at least the result of a craving for money, and the hollow effusions of a hirelingpen. His Italian sojourn led him gradually away from the more kindly tone towards Catholics which pervaded his earlier Irish novels.

Lever and Griffin have been compared as writers of Irish fiction. We would rather have been the author of The Collegians than of any work of Mr. Lever’s. There is a virgin simplicity in Gerald Griffin’s style that “Harry Lorrequer” could not touch; an atmosphere which he could not breathe; a purity which, while the morale of Lever’s writings is unimpeachable, is of that order that is so rarely attained by the most chaste and most elevated amongst our writers of fiction. Griffin’s Irish is not stagy—it is real; so, too, is Lever’s. But while the former paints the portrait, leaving the imagination of the reader to put in the finishing touches, the latter rubs in a laugh here or a keen thrust there, so as to dramatize the picture; and, while it is more vivid during perusal, the mind falls back upon the other for less exciting pabulum.

421

ORDER.

FROM A POEM BY ST. FRANCIS D’ASSISI.

Our Lord Speaks:

And though I fill thy heart with warmest love,

Yet in true order must thy heart love me;

For without order can no virtue be.

By thine own virtue, then, I from above

Stand in thy soul; and so, most earnestly,

Must love from turmoil be kept wholly free.

The life of fruitful trees, the seasons of

The circling year, move gently as a dove.

I measured all the things upon the earth;

Love ordered them, and order kept them fair,

And love to order must be truly wed.

O soul! why all this heat of little worth?

Why cast out order with no thought or care?

For by love’s warmth must love be governèd.

422

THE LITTLE CHAPEL AT MONAMULLIN.

Situated in the wildest portion of the county of Mayo, Monamullin, at the date upon which this story opens, mustered about forty mud-cabins erected here and there, and in such positions as were deemed most suitable, having regard to the cruel winds from the ocean, and the “bit o’ ground” for the cultivation of the potatoes.

A cottage covered with a crisp amber thatch, and whitewashed to the color of the driven snow, held the post of honor in the village. It boasted a flower-garden in front and a vegetable patch in the rear. Moreover, it was guarded by a neatly-cropped privet hedge, while a little green gate admitted to a red-bricked pathway leading to a rustic porch adorned with roses that seemingly bloomed the whole year round, and a Virginia creeper whose leaves were now the hue of blood.

In the front garden, his head bared, the rays of the setting sun surrounding it as with an aureole, stalked a man attired in the black flowing soutane of a Catholic clergyman.

Father Maurice O’Donnell, the parish priest, was engaged in reading his office from a tattered and dog’s-eared breviary. Tall and thin almost to emaciation, there was yet a wiry swing in his gaunt frame that spoke of unfaded vigor, whilst the glowing fire in the dark blue eye told its own tale.

“Father Maurice” was loved and cherished by his little flock. His every want—and his wants were few enough—was anxiously anticipated. His patch of oats was tilled, weeded, 423cut, and stacked, his cottage thatched and whitewashed, his potatoes planted, his pony treated as common property in so far as fodder was concerned, while upon fast-days the “finest lump av a salmin” or the “illigantest” turbot, ever found its way to the back door of “The House,” as his humble abode was somewhat grandiloquently styled.

Maurice O’Donnell was wrapped up in his flock. In good sooth he was their shepherd. Night, noon, and morning found him ever watchful at “the gate in the vineyard wall.” He was the depositary of all their griefs, the sharer in all their joys—their guide, philosopher, and friend. In worldly matters he was simple as a child. Living, as he did, out of the world, he was perfectly contented to learn what was whirling round within it from the pages of the Nation, from the columns of which it was his practice to read aloud on Sunday afternoon to a very large muster, if not to the entire adult population, of Monamullin—in summer time seated in a coign of vantage by the sad sea-wave, in winter opposite a rousing turf fire laid on especially for the important occasion, and with a great display of ceremony by his housekeeper, “an ould widdy wumman” rejoicing in the name of Clancy, whose husband had been lost at sea in the night of “the great storm.”

Father Maurice never asked for money—he had no occasion for it. His solitary extravagance was snuff, and the most sedulous care was taken by the “boys” returning from 424Castlebar or Westport to fetch back a supply of “high toast,” in order that his “riverince’s box” might stand constantly replenished.

Upon this particular August evening Father Maurice was hurrying through his office with as much rapidity as the solemn nature of the duty would permit, as a drive of no less than seven honest Irish miles lay between him and his dinner.

The even tenor of his life had been broken in upon by an invitation to dine and sleep at the palatial residence of Mr. Jocelyn Jyvecote, a Yorkshire squire, who had purchased the old acres of the Blakes of Ballinacor, and who had recently expended a fabulous sum in erecting a castle upon the edge of a gloomy lake in the desolate valley of Glendhanarrahsheen. In his letter of invitation Mr. Jyvecote had said: “I am extremely desirous of introducing my youngest daughter to you, as she has taken it into her head to go over to your church; and, since you are so devoted to her interests, I beg of you to accept this invitation as you would undertake a little extra duty.”

To decline would be worse than ungracious, especially under the peculiar circumstances of the case, and it was with a heavy heart, and not without a keen debate with Mr. Lawrence Muldoon, the “warm” man of the village, in which the pros and cons were duly and gravely weighed, that the worthy priest replied in the affirmative. While Father Maurice was engaged in pacing his little garden, Mrs. Clancy, his housekeeper, was calmly preparing for a steady but copious enjoyment of her evening meal in the kitchen, which from floor to ceiling, from fireplace to dresser—shining again with crockery of the 425willow pattern—was, to use her own expression, “as nate as a new-biled egg.” A large brown earthenware teapot had just been promoted from the hob to a table “convaynient” to the window. A huge platter of stirabout, with a lump of butter oiling itself in the middle, stood within easy reach of her right hand, while a square of griddle-bread occupied a like position upon her left, and a wooden bowl full of jacket-bursted potatoes formed the near background.

Mrs. Clancy was strong upon tea, and in the village her opinion upon this as upon most other subjects was unwritten law. She was particularly fond of a dash of green through a full-flavored Pekoe, preparing the mixture with her own fair hands with a solemn gravity befitting so serious an undertaking. She was now about to try a sample of Souchong which had just arrived from Westport, and her condition of mind was akin to that of an analytical chemist upon the eve of some exceedingly important result.

Mrs. Clancy had seated herself in that cosy attitude peculiar to elderly females about to enjoy, to them, that most inviting of all meals, and had already ascertained, upon anxious reference to the teapot, that its contents had been sufficiently drawn, when the door was thrust somewhat violently open, and Murty Mulligan, the “priest’s boy,” unceremoniously entered the sanctum.

Murty was handy-man and factotum. He “swep out” the chapel, rang the bell, attended Mass, groomed the pony, dug the potatoes, landed the cabbage, and made himself generally useful.

Although designated a “boy,” he had allowed—not that he could claim any particular option in the 426matter—some forty-five summers to roll over his head, every one of which, in addition to their attendant winters, had been passed in the peaceful little village of Monamullin. His travels had never extended further than Westport, which he regarded as a vast commercial seaport—a Liverpool, in fact—and it was his habit to place it in comparison with any city of note that might come upon the tapis, extolling its dimensions and dilating upon its unlimited importance.

Murty’s appearance savored much of the stage Irishman’s. His eyes sparkled comically, his nose was tip-tilted—Mr. Tennyson will excuse the application of the simile—while his mouth was large and always open. His forehead was rather low, and his ears stood out upon either side of his head like the orifices of air-shafts. He was now arrayed in his bravest attire, as he had been told off to drive his reverence to Moynalty Castle. His brogues were as highly greased as his hair, and his Sunday—last Mass—clothes, consisting of a gray frieze body-coat with brass buttons, a flowered silk waistcoat, corduroy knee-breeches, and blue worsted stockings, looked as fresh as if they had been donned for the first time.

Not a little vain of the importance of his office, combined with the general effect of his appearance, he swaggered into the kitchen in a manner totally at variance with his usual custom, as Mrs. Clancy was every inch queen of this realm, and a potentate who exercised her prerogative with right royal despotism.

The “consait” was considerably taken out of Murty by being met with an angry, contemptuous stare and “What ails ye, Murty Mulligan?”

427“It’s time for to bring round the yoke, ma’am,” replied Murty in an abashed and respectful tone, eyeing the teapot with a wistful glance, as he was particularly partial to a cup of the beverage it distilled, especially when brewed by Mrs. Clancy.

“Well, av it is, bring it round,” was the tart rejoinder.

“I dunna how far he’s upon his office,” said Murty.

“Ye’d betther ax, Murty Mulligan.”

“I dar’n’t disturb him, Mrs. Clancy, an’ ye know that as well as I do meself, ma’am.”

“Well, don’t bother me, anyhow,” observed the lady, proceeding to pour out a cup of tea.

“Is that the tay I brought ye from Westport, ma’am?” demanded Murty, upon whom the sight of the rich brown fluid and its pungent aroma were producing longing effects.

Mrs. Clancy took a preliminary sip with the sound of a person endeavoring to suck a coy oyster from a clinging shell.

“Sorra worse tay I ever wetted,” she retorted. “There’s no more substance in it nor in chopped sthraw. I’ll never take a grain o’ tay out o’ Westport agin—sorra a wan.”

“I done me best for ye, anyhow, ma’am. I axed Misther Foley himself for the shupariorest tay in the town, an’ he gim me what’s in that pot; an’, faix, it smells rosy an’ well.” And Murty sniffed, as if he would drive the aroma up through his nostrils out to the top of his head.

Mrs. Clancy turned to Murty with a frowning and ominous aspect, the glare of an intense irritation blazing in her face.

“Do ye know what I think ye done, Murty Mulligan? It’s me 428belief ye done it, an’ if ye tuk the buke to the conthrairy I wudn’t credit ye,” placing her arms akimbo and fixing him with her eye.

“What is it I done, Mrs. Clancy?” demanded Murty boldly, flinging his caubeen upon the floor and assuming a defiant attitude. “What is it I done, ma’am?”

The housekeeper regarded him steadily, while she said in a slow and solemn tone of impeachment:

“Ye got me infayrior tay, an’ ye tuk a pint out av the change.”

It was Murty’s turn to become indignant now.

“I’d scorn for to do the likes of so mane an action, Mrs. Clancy. There’s them that wud do the like, but I’d have ye know, ma’am, that me father’s son wud rather be as dhry as a cuckoo, ma’am, nor demane himself in that way. Yer sentiments, ma’am, is very hurtful to me feelin’s, an’ I’d as lieve ye’d call me a thief at wanst, ma’am, as for to run down me karakter in that a-way.”

“I don’t want for to call ye nothin’, but I repate that—”

“Don’t repate nothin’, ma’am. Av ye wur a man I’d give ye a crack in the gob for daarin’ to asperge me karakter, more betokin all for the sake av the filthy lucre av a pint of porther. Porther, indeed!” added Murty. “I’m goin’ to-day, ma’am, where I’ll get me fill av port wine, an’ sherry wine, and Madayrial wine, ma’am; an’ dickins resave the word I’ll tell ye av the goin’s-on at the castle beyant for yer thratemint av me this blessed evenin’, Mrs. Clancy.”

This threat upon the part of Murty threw the housekeeper into the uttermost consternation. The proceedings at Moynalty Castle were fraught with the deepest interest to 429her; for in addition to her personal curiosity, which was rampant, it was necessary that she should become acquainted with everything that took place, in order to retail her special knowledge to her cronies in the village, who awaited the housekeeper’s report in eager and hopeful expectation.

Had she burnt her boats? Had she cut down the bridge behind her?

Murty Mulligan’s tone was resolute.

“Murty, Murty avic! shure it’s only jokin’ I was—sorra a more,” she said in a coaxing way.

Murty grunted.

“Shure yer welkim to yer pint av—”

Murty confronted her:

“I tell ye, Missis Clancy, that I tuk nothin’, nayther bit, bite, nor sup, from the time I et me brekquest till I met Misther Fogarty’s own boy, and he thrated me. Av I tuk a pint out av yer lucre, ma’am, I’d say it at wanst, wudout batin’ about the bush.”

“That’s enough, Murty; say no more about the tay. They gev ye a bad matarial, Murty, an’ shure that’s none o’ you’re fault. Here,” she added, pouring out a saucerful—the saucer being about the dimensions of a large soup-plate—and presenting it to him; “put that to yer mouth an’ say is it worth three hapence an ounce?”

“Sorra a care I care,” growled Murty, but in a much softer tone.

“Thry it, anyhow,” urged the housekeeper.

“I don’t care a thraneen for tay, Mrs. Clancy,” said Murty, throwing a glance full of profound meaning towards a small press in which Mrs. Clancy kept a supply of cordials.

“Ah!” exclaimed that lady, “I 430see be the twist in yer eye that ye want somethin’ to put betune yer shammy an’ the cowld. Ye have a long road to thravel, Murty, so a little sup o’ ginger cordial will warm it for ye, avic.” And while the now thoroughly pacified Murty gently remonstrated, Mrs. Clancy proceeded to the cupboard, and, pouring a golliogue of the grateful compound into a tea-cup, handed it to Murty, who tossed it off with a smack that would have started a coach and four.

“So ye’ll stop the night at the castle?” observed the housekeeper in a careless tone.

“Yis, ma’am.”

“It’s a fine billet, Murty.”

“Sorra a finer. Shure it bates Lord Sligo’s an’ Mitchell Hinry’s beyant at Kylemore; an’ as for atin’ an’ dhrinkin’, be me song they say that lamb-chops is as plentiful as cabbages is here, an’ that there’s as much sperrits in it as wud float ould Mickey Killeher’s lugger.”

“It’s a quare thing for Misther Jyvecote for to be axin’ Father Maurice to a forrin’ cunthry like that, Murty.”

“Troth, thin, it is quare, ma’am; but, shure, mebbe he wants for to be convarted.”

“That must be it; an’ he’d be bet intirely, av Father Maurice wasn’t there for to back his tack. His sermon last Sunda’ was fit for the Pope o’ Room.”

“I never heerd the like av it. It flogged Europe. Whisht!” suddenly cried Murty, “who’s this comin’ up the shore?”

“It’s a forriner,” exclaimed the housekeeper, after a prolonged scrutiny—meaning by the term foreigner that the person who was now approaching the cottage was not an inhabitant of the village. “A fine, souple boy,” she added admiringly.

431“It’s a gintleman, an’ he has a lump av a stick in his hand,” said Murty.

“Arrah! what wud bring a gintleman here, ye omadhawn?” observed Mrs. Clancy with some asperity.

“A thraveller, thin,” suggested her companion. “He’s a bag on his back.”

“Troth, it’s badly off he’d be for thravellin’, if he come here for to do the like.”

“He’s makin’ for the gate.”

“He’s riz the latch.”

“I’ll run out, Mrs. Clancy, and bring ye the hard word, while ye’d be axin’ for the lind av a sack.”

“Ay, do, Murty avic; an’ I’ll have a cup av Dimpsy’s tay wet be the time yer back.”

Father Maurice had just finished the perusal of his office, and was in the act of returning to the house, when the stranger approached him.

“Father Morris?” said the new-comer, lifting his hat.

“Maurice O’Donnell, at your service, sir,” replied the priest.

“I should apologize for addressing you so familiarly, reverend sir, but three or four persons of whom I asked my way told me that Father Morris was Monamullin, and that Monamullin was Father Morris.”

“My people invariably address me by my Christian name, and I beg, sir, as you are now within my bailiwick, that you will continue to do so.”

“As I am within your bailiwick, I must needs do your bidding, Father Maurice.”

Such a genial, happy voice! Such frank, kind blue eyes! Such a well knit, strong-built figure!

The priest gazed at a young man of about five-and-twenty, six feet high, with crisp brown curly hair, 432beard en Henri Quatre, broad forehead, and manly, sunburnt neck and face, attired in a suit of light homespun tweed, a blue flannel shirt very open at the throat, a scarlet silk tie knotted sailor fashion, and heavy shoes, broad-toed and thick-soled.

“My name is Brown,” he said. “I am an artist. I have walked over from Castlebar. I am doing picturesque bits of this lovely country—not your confounded beaten tracks, but the nooks which must be sought like the violet. I have very little money, and needs must rough it. This stick and knapsack constitute my impedimenta, and, like Cæsar, I have carried my Commentaries before now in my teeth while bridging a river by swimming it. I asked for the inn, and I was referred to Father Maurice.”

“I can answer for it, Mr. Brown, that you will find every house in Monamullin willing to shelter you; and, further, that you will find this to be possibly the best. I am unfortunately compelled to travel seven miles along the coast to-night, but will be back, please God, to-morrow; in the meantime my housekeeper will try what some broiled fish and a dish of ham and eggs can do towards appeasing what ought to be a giant’s appetite. And I can answer for the sheets being well aired, having pulled the lavender myself in which they are periodically enshrined.”

Father Maurice ushered his guest into the cottage with a welcome so genuine that Mr. Brown felt at his ease almost ere the greeting had died upon the priest’s lips, and proceeded to hang up his hat and knapsack with the air of a man who was completely at home.

The neat little parlor was cosily furnished. A genuine bit of Domingo 433mahogany stood in the centre of the room, and round it half a dozen plump horse-haired, brass-nailed chairs, with a “Come and sit on us, we are not for show” air about them peculiarly inviting. A venerable bureau, black as ebony from age, and brass-mounted, ornamented one corner, and opposite to it a plaster-of-paris bust of Pius IX. upon a fluted pedestal, while the recesses at either side of the fireplace were furnished with antique book-cases containing a well-thumbed library of ecclesiastical literature, the works of St. Augustine being prominently conspicuous. Over the mantel-piece hung a portrait of Daniel O’Connell, with the autograph of the Liberator in a small frame beneath, and at his right and left engravings, and of no mean order either, of Henry Grattan and John Philpot Curran. The walls were adorned with copies of the cartoons of Raphael, a view of Croagh Patrick from Clew Bay, a bird’s-eye glance at St. Peter’s, and an illuminated address from the inhabitants of Monamullin to their beloved pastor upon the completion of his thirtieth year on the mission—an address the composition of which conferred undying renown upon Tim Rafferty, the schoolmaster, and begat for the boy who wrote it a fame only second to that of the erudite pedagogue.

“You are delightfully snug here, Father Maurice,” observed his guest, seating himself and glancing admiringly round the apartment. “What a treasure of an antique bureau! Why, the brokers in London are giving any amount of money for such articles; we are all running mad over them. If you could get it whispered that Dean Swift or Joe Addison worked at 434that desk, it would be worth its weight in gold. It’s Queen Anne now or nothing.”

“You are an Englishman?”

“A base, bloody, and brutal Saxon!”

“We have one of your countrymen residing in this part of the country—a Mr. Jyvecote.”

The stranger started. “Any of the Jyvecotes of Marston Moor, in Yorkshire?”

“The Jyvecote, I believe. He came over here about ten years ago to shoot, taking poor Mr. Bodkin Blake’s Lodge in the valley of Glendhanarrahsheen, and—”

“Oh! do say that word again, it is so delightfully soft—a cross between Italian and Japanese,” burst in the artist.

“Glendhanarrahsheen,” repeated Father Maurice. “We have some softer than that. What think you of Tharramacornigaun? But, as I was saying, Mr. Jyvecote liked the valley so much that he brought his family over in the following year. Mr. Jyvecote was delighted with the place, and he bought the Lodge, extended it, and at length determined upon building a castle. This castle—Moynalty Castle he calls it—was completed about three years ago, the bare walls alone costing seventy thousand pounds. Except the Viceregal Lodge in Dublin,” added the priest, “there is nothing so grand in all Ireland.”

“I must walk over there some day. Which way does it lie?”

“It’s between us and Westport, along the coast, almost out upon a rock.”

“What a strange idea to put such a lot of money into such a corner!”

“Is it not? It’s completely out of the world. The nearest railway station is fifty miles.”

435“Then I forgive Mr. Jyvecote. I take off my hat to him. I congratulate him. O my dear Father Maurice!” exclaimed the artist enthusiastically, “you who live in such tender tranquillity, with the moan of the sea for a lullaby, can know nothing of the ecstatic feeling attendant upon leaving steam fifty miles behind one. It is simply a new, a beatific existence! And so Jocelyn Jyvecote is within ten miles,” he added, more in the tone of a person engaged in thinking aloud than by way of observation.

“Are you acquainted with him?” asked the priest.

“Oh! yes—that is, very slightly.” There was a decided shade of embarrassment in his manner that would have struck an ordinary observer, but the simple-minded clergyman failed to notice it.

“The yoke’s at the doore, yer riverince, an’ if we don’t start at wanst we’ll be bet be the hill beyant Thronig na Coppagh,” shouted Murty Mulligan, thrusting his shock head into the apartment.

“How unfortunately this happens!” exclaimed the priest. “I have not slept out of this cottage for nearly thirty years, and the very night I could have wished to be here I am compelled to go elsewhere. However, Mr. Brown, I shall leave you in good hands, and before I start I must make you acquainted with my housekeeper.”

Murty had returned to the kitchen considerably baffled.

“He’s goin’ for to stop the night, Mrs. Clancy,” he reported to the expectant housekeeper.

“Who’s goin’ for to stop the night?”

“The strange gintleman above.”

“Where is he goin’ for to stop, I’d like for to know? Mrs. Dooly’s childre is down wud maysles. 436The gauger is billeted at Mooney’s—”

“He’s goin’ to stop here in this house. I heerd his riverince axin’ him.”

“Arrah, baithershin!” exclaimed Mrs. Clancy incredulously.

“It’s truth I’m tellin’ ye, ma’am.”

“Well, may—”

At this moment the voice of Father Maurice was heard calling, “Mrs. Clancy.”

“Yer wanted, ma’am,” cried Murty.

“I’m not fit for to be seen. Slip up an’ discoorse him, Murty avic, till I put on a clane cap an’ apron.”

“Mrs. Clancy, you will take good care of this gentleman, Mr. Brown, till I come back. Show your skill in frying eggs and bacon, and in turning out a platter of stirabout. Don’t let the hens cheat him of his fresh egg in the morning, and see that his bed is as comfortable as my own.” And seating himself upon one side of the low-backed jaunting-car, with Murty Mulligan upon the other, and with a courteous farewell to his guest, Father Maurice rapidly disappeared in the direction of the valley of Glendhanarrahsheen.

Mr. Brown stood in the middle of the road gazing after the car, his hands plunged into his breeches pockets, and a sweet little bit of meerschaum stuck in his handsome mouth.

“What a turn of the wheel is this?” he said to himself. “I wander here into the most out-of-the-way place in out-of-the-way Ireland, and I find myself treading on the kibes of the very man whom of all others I would least care to meet. I always thought that Jyvecote was in Kerry, near Valentia, where the wire dives for America. However, seven miles mean utter 437isolation here, and, by Jove! I’m too much charmed with this genial old clergyman and his genuine hospitality to think of shifting my quarters; besides I’ll paint him a holy picture, perhaps a Virgin and Child, which will in some small measure repay him. Nowhere in the world would one meet with such a reception, save in Ireland. Here I am taken upon trust, and believed to be an honest fellow until I am found out, completely reversing the social code. He places his house, his all, at my disposal, believing me to be a poor devil of an artist on tramp and ready to paint anything for bread and butter. Hang it all! it makes me feel low and mean to sail under the false colors of an assumed name, and yet it is better as it is—much better. Suppose I meet Mr. Jyvecote? He’d scarcely recognize me. I’ve not seen him since our stormy interview at Marseilles. Had I my beard then? No; it was on my way out to Egypt, and that’s exactly three years ago this very month. He had a lot of womankind with him. Per Bacco! I suppose he was making for this place.”

Mr. Brown strolled over to the beach, and, seating himself upon a granite boulder, smoked on and on, buried in thought. The sea was as still as a sea in a dream, and gray, and mystic, and silent. The hush that Eve whispers as Night lets fall her mantle was coming upon the earth, and the twinkling stars began to throb in the blue-black sky; not a speck was visible on the billowy plain save a solitary fishing-boat, which now loomed out of the darkness like a weird and spectral bark.

In such scenes, and in the awful quiet of such hours, images and thoughts that dare not die are 438deposited upon the silent shore of memory. The man who sat gazing out to sea with his hands clasping his knees was Sir Everard Noel, the fourth baronet of a good old Yorkshire family, and owner of a fine estate between Otley and Ilkley, in the North Riding of that noble county. He was five-and-twenty, and had been his own master ever since he attained his majority, until which momentous event he had been the victim of a peripatetic guardian and the Court of Chancery, his father having died while he was yet an infant, and his mother when he had reached the age of nineteen. Freed from the yoke of his guardian, who led him a tour of the world, and placed in possession of ninety thousand pounds, the accumulation of his minority, and with an income of ten thousand a year, he plunged into the giddy whirl of London fast life, and for a brief season became the centre of a set composed of the crème de la crème, the aurati juvenes of that modern Babylon. He was liberal to lavishness, was fascinated with Clubland and écarté, losing his money with a superb tranquillity, and addicted to turning night into day. He flattered the fair sex with the “homage of a devotee,” and broke hearts as he would nutshells. Intriguing dowagers fished for him for their “penniless lasses wi’ long pedigrees,” but somehow or other, after four seasons, during which he had had several hairbreadth escapes, he still was single, still healthy and heart-whole, but minus his ninety thousand pounds.

During his minority he had wooed Art, wisely and well, and even while the daze of deviltry was upon him he never totally neglected her. He painted with more than the skill of a mere amateur, and had 439even the best of it in a tussle with the art critic of the Times upon the genuineness of a Rembrandt which had burst upon the market, to the intense excitement of the cognoscenti. There was a good deal of the artist in his nature, and he was an immense favorite with the bearded Bohemians, knights of the brush, who voted him a good fellow, with the solitary drawback of being unavoidably a “howling swell.”

Four years of wasted life brought on satiety, and he turned from the past with a shudder, from the present with loathing. He wanted to do something, to be interested in something, and to shake off the sickening aimlessness of his every-day life that clung to him like a winding-sheet.

There came a day when the men in the smoking-room of the club asked each other, “Where the doose is Noel?” when wily matrons found their gushing notes of invitation unanswered; when toadies, hangers-on, and sycophants found his apartments in Half-Moon Street, Piccadilly, closed. There came a day when club and matron and toady thought of him no more. The wave of oblivion had passed over him and he was forgotten. Sic itur ad astra. Away from the fatal influences that had, maelstrom-like, sucked him into their whirl, new thoughts, new impulses, new aspirations burst into blossom, and his old love—Art—turned to him with the radiant smile of the bygone time.

There is red red blood in the veins at twenty-five, and white-winged Hope ever beckons onwards with soul-seductive gesture. He determined to seek change of scene and of thought. As Sir Everard Noel, the president of the Four-in-Hand Club; the owner of Katinka, 440the winner of the Chester Cup; the skipper of the Griselda, that won the queen’s prize at Cowes; the best rider with the Pytchley hounds, every hotel on the Continent, every village in Merrie England, would recognize him, and the old toadying recommence; but as plain Mr. Brown, an obscure artist, with a knapsack on his back, he would be free, free as a bird, and the summer morning this idea flashed across his mind found him once again a bright, happy, and joyous man.

Sir Everard Noel was a gentleman of warm temper and great energy, prone to sudden impulses and unconsidered actions. No sooner had he made up his mind to go upon the tramp than he started; and, considering that he would be less liable to recognition in Connemara than in Wales, made Galway the base of his supplies, and, knapsack on back, containing sketching materials and a change of flannel, a few days’ walking brought him to Monamullin in glorious health, splendid spirits, and prepared to enjoy everybody and everything.

“How much more delightful all this is,” he thought, “than the horrors I have passed through—horrors labelled pleasures! Faugh! I shudder when I think of them. Let me see, it’s ten o’clock; at this hour I would be about half-way through a miserably unwholesome dinner, spiced up in order to meet the requirements of a demoralized appetite, or yawning in an opera-box, with six or seven long, dreary hours before me to kill at any price, especially with brandy and soda. How delicious all this is! How fresh, how pure! What a dinner I ate of those rashers and eggs! And such tea! By Jove! that old lady must have a chest entirely 441for her own consumption. If my bed is as comfortable as it looks, I shall not awaken till the padre returns from Jyvecote’s. How disagreeable to meet Jyvecote or any of the lot! I never knew any of them but Jasper and the father. What a glorious old gentleman is Father Maurice—simple as a child, with the dignity of a saint. I had better get to bed now, as I shall begin on a Virgin and Child for him to-morrow; or, if his Stations are daubs, I can do him a set, though it will take me a deuce of a time. I must visit the chapel to-morrow; I suppose it’s very dingy.” And with a good stout yawn Mr. Brown—for we shall continue to call him by this name until the proper time comes—turned towards the cottage.

Mrs. Clancy met him at the door.

“I was afraid ye wor lost, sir,” she said as he entered the hall.

“Not lost, my good lady, but found. I suppose you lock the doors here earlier than this.”

“Lock!” she exclaimed almost indignantly—“lock indeed! There’s not a bowlt nor a bar nor a lock on the whole house. Arrah! who wud rob Father Maurice but th’ ould boy?—an’ he’d be afeard. He daren’t lay a hand on anything here, an’ well he knows it, God be good to us!”

“I suppose you’ve been a long time with Father Maurice, Mrs. Clancy.”

“Only sence me man—the Lord rest his sowl, amin!—was lost in the night av the great storm, nigh fifteen year ago—fifteen year come the fourteenth av next month, on a Frida’ night. He was a good man, an’ a fine provider, an’ wud have left me warm an’ comfortable but for the hard times that cum on the cunthry be raison av the famine. 442Ye might have heard tell of it, sir.”

“Oh! indeed I did.”

“Och! wirra, wirra! but it was an awful time, glory be to God! whin the poor craythurs was dyin’ by the roadsides and aitin’ grass to keep the sowles in their bodies, like bastes.”

“I was far away then, in China,” said Brown.

“That’s where the tay cums from; an’ very infayrior tay we’re gettin’ now, sir, compared wud what we used to get. I can’t rise more nor a cup out av two spoonfuls, an’ well I remimber whin wan wud give me layves enough for to fill a noggin. Are ye thinkin’ av Maynewth, sir?” asked Mrs. Clancy, exceedingly desirous of some clue as to the identity, habits, and occupation of her guest, as it would not do to face Monamullin with her finger in her mouth.

“Maynewth?” he replied. “What is Maynewth?”

“The collidge.”

“What college?”

“The collidge where the young priests is med.”

“Oh! dear, no, Mrs. Clancy,” he replied, laughing heartily. “I am a painter.”

“A painther!” she said in considerable astonishment.

“Yes, a poor painter.”

“Musha, now, but that flogs. An’ what are ye goin’ for to paint?”

“Anything that turns up.”

She thought for a moment, hesitated a little, scrutinized his apparel, hesitated again, and at length, “Wud ye be afther doin’ his riverince a good turn?”

“I should be only too delighted.”

“Thin ye might give the back doore a cupple o’ coats o’ paint afore ye go.”

The artist burst into an uncontrollable 443fit of laughter, long, loud, joyous, and rippling as that of a schoolboy’s, again and again renewed as the irritated puzzle written in the housekeeper’s face met his glance. At length he burst out after a tremendous guffaw:

“I am not exactly that sort of a painter, Mrs. Clancy, but I dare say I could do it if I tried; and I will try. I am more in that line,” pointing to the picture of Daniel O’Connell suspended over the mantel-piece.

The cloud of anger rapidly disappeared from Mrs. Clancy’s brow upon this explanation, and in a voice of considerable blandishment she half-whispered:

“Arrah, thin, mebbe ye’d do me a little wan o’ Dan for the kitchen, honey.”

After another hearty peal of laughter Mr. Brown most cordially assented, and, taking his chamber candle—a flaring dip—retired to his bedroom.

“Ma foi,” he gaily laughed, “this is homely. Do I miss my valet? Do I miss my brandy and soda? Do I miss my Aubusson carpet, my theatrical pictures, my Venetian mirror, or my villanous French novel? Not a bit of it. This is glorious; and what a tub I shall have in the morning in the wild Atlantic!”

Father Maurice’s guest was up, if not with the lark, at least not far behind that early-rising bird, and out in the gently-gliding wavelets, buffeting them with the vigorous stroke of a skilful swimmer. The ocean on this still, clear morning was beautiful enough to attract wistful glances from eyes the most blasé. The cloudless sky was intensely dark in its blue, as though the unseen sun was overhead 444and shining vertically down. The light did not seem of sea or land, but it shone dazzlingly on the low line of verdure-clad hills, on the cornfields in stubble, causing every blade to glisten like a golden spear, on the whitewashed cottages, on the bright green hedges, on the line of dark rock, and enveloping the mountains of Carrig na Copple in the dim distance in blue and silver glory. The colors of the sea were magical, in luminous green, purple, and blue; and out across the billowy plain great bands of purple stretched away to the sky line, as a passing cloud flung its shadows in its onward fleecy progress. The artist felt all this beauty, drinking it in like life-wine, till it tingled and throbbed in every vein.

After partaking of a breakfast the consumption of which would have considerably astonished some of his quondam London set, and having lighted his meerschaum, Mr. Brown set out for a stroll through the village, accompanied by half a dozen cabin curs, who, having scented the stranger, most courteously made up their minds to act as his escort. The inhabitants of the cabins en route turned out to look respectfully at him. Children timorously approached, curtsied, and, when spoken to, retreated in laughing terror. Matrons gazed and gossiped. A cripple or two touched their caps to him, and on every side he was wished “good-luck.” He was Father Maurice’s guest, and, as a consequence, the guest of Monamullin. Whitewash abounded everywhere; amber thatch covered the roofs; scarlet geraniums bloomed vigorously, their crimson blossoms resembling gouts of blood spurted against marble slabs. A shebeen or public-house was not to be seen; 445order and peace and happiness reigned triumphant.

“A few trees planted down this street—if I may call it so—would make this an Arcadian village. I must ask Father Maurice to let me have them planted. A fountain, too, would look well just opposite that unpretending shop. I wonder where the church can be?”

A man with a reaping-hook bound in a hay rope happened to be passing, to whom he addressed himself.

“Can you tell me where the church is?”

“Yis, yer honor; troth, thin, I can.”

“Where is it, please?”

“Av it’s Mass ye want, Father Maurice is beyant at Moynalty Castle.”

“I merely want to see it.”

“An’ shure ye can, sir; it’s open day an’ night.”

“But where is it, my man?”

“Where is it? Right foreninst ye, thin. Don’t ye see the holy and blessed crass over the doore?”

The chapel was a small, low, cruciform building, very dingy despite its whitewash, and very tumble-down-looking. It was surrounded by a small grass-plat and a few stunted pines. A rude cross with a real crown of thorns stood in one corner, at the foot of which knelt an old man, bare-headed, engaged in repeating the rosary aloud, and two women, who were rocking themselves to and fro in a fervor of prayer. Within the church the fittings were of the most primitive description. The floor was unboarded, save close to the altar-rails; a few forms were scattered here and there, and one row of backed seats occupied a space to the right. The altar, approached by a single step, was of wood, a 446golden cross ornamenting the front panel, and a series of gilded Gothic arches forming its background, while the tabernacle consisted of a rudely-cut imitation of a dome-covered mosque. A picture of the Crucifixion hung over the altar suspended from the ceiling, and, as this was regarded as a masterpiece of art by the inhabitants of Monamullin from time immemorial, we will not discuss their æstheticism here. The Stations of the Cross were represented by small colored engravings in mahogany frames, and the holy-water font consisted of a huge boulder of granite which had a large hole scooped out of it.

“This will never do,” said Mr. Brown, gazing ruefully at the several works of art. “What a splendid chance for me! I shall paint, as the old masters did, under direct inspiration. What a sublime sensation, when my picture shall have been completed, to witness the reverential admiration of the poor devout people here! I shall be regarded as a benefactor. Fancy my being a benefactor to anybody or anything! Heigh-ho!” he sighed, “what a glorious little Gothic church, a prayer in stone, a portion of the money I so murderously squandered would have built here!—that four thousand I flung last March into the mire in Paris. Faugh!” And, dragged back over the waves of Time, he sat down upon one of the wooden benches, overwhelmed by the rush of his own thoughts.

Of the length of time he remained thus absorbed he made no count. The dead leaves of the misspent past rustled drearily round his heart, weighing him down with a load of inexpressible sadness—a sadness almost amounting to anguish—and two hours had come and gone ere his reverie was broken.

447Happening to raise his eyes towards the altar, he was startled by perceiving a female form kneeling at the railings, lithe, svelte, and attired in costly and fashionable raiment. As he gazed, the young girl finished her prayers, and, with a deep, reverential inclination in front of the altar, swept past him with that graceful, undulatory motion which would seem to be the birthright of the daughters of sunny Spain. She was tall, elegantly formed, and possessed that air of high breeding which makes itself felt like a perfume. Her bright chestnut hair was brushed tightly back from an oval face, and hung in massive plaits at the back of her head. Her eyes were soft brown, her complexion milk-white.

“What a vision, and in this place, too! That is the best of the Catholic religion. The churches are always open, inviting one to come in and pray. I wonder who she can be? Some tourist. Pshaw! your tourist doesn’t trouble this quarter of the globe. To see, to be seen, to dress, and wrangle over the bills at palatial hotels, means touring nowadays. Some county lady, over to do a little shopping; but there are no shops, except that miserable little box opposite, and they apparently sell nothing there but marbles, tobacco-pipes, kites, and corduroy. Ah! I have it: some inlander coming for a plunge in the Atlantic. I suppose I shall meet her pony phaeton as I pass up through the village. I seriously hope I shall. There is something very fetching about her, and it purifies a fellow to see a girl like that at prayer.”

Such were the cogitations of Mr. Brown as he emerged from the dingy little chapel. Brown was not a Catholic. He had been educated 448at Eton, and, although intended for Cambridge, his guardian took him to Japan when he should have been cramming for his degree. Of the religion as by law established in England, he paid but little attention to the forms and merely went to church during the season to hear some “swell” preacher, or because Lady Clara Vere de Vere gave him a rendezvous. But, with all his faults and follies, he was never irreverent, and his respect for the things that belong unto God was ever honest, open, and sincere.

He was doomed to be disappointed. No pony phaeton disturbed the stillness of the village street. The curs, which had patiently waited for him whilst he remained in the church, received him with noiseless but cheery tail-wagging as he came out, and marched at his heels as though he had been their lord and master. The children rushed from cabins and dropped their quaint little curtsies. The cripples doffed their caps, the matrons gazed at him and gossiped; and, although he lingered to say a few words to a passing fisherman, and somewhat 449eagerly scanned the surrounding country, no sign could he obtain of the fair young girl who had flashed upon him like a “vision of the night.”

“I shall never see her again,” he thought; “and yet I could draw that face. Such a mouth! such contour! I must ask the padre if he knows her, though that is scarcely probable; and yet she is one of his flock—at least, she is a Catholic, so there is some hope.”

He returned to the cottage, and encountered Father Maurice in the garden.

“I did not like to disturb you at your devotions, Mr. Brown,” he said, “but I was only going to give you five minutes longer, as the salmon grill will be ready by that time.”

“How did you ascertain I was in the church?” asked Brown, entering the hall and hanging up his hat.

“A beautiful young lady told me.”

“I saw her; who is she?” exclaimed the artist eagerly.

“I shall present you to her. Here she is. Mr. Brown, Miss Julia Jyvecote.”

[TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.]

450

THE TWO PROPHETS OF MORMONISM.

Mr. T. B. H. Stenhouse, one of the Scottish converts to Mormonism, was for a quarter of a century an elder and missionary of the church of the Latter-Day Saints. He is the author of the most complete and careful history of the Mormons in the English language. Although he has “outgrown” the faith of Brigham Young and Joseph Smith, and disbelieves the doctrines which he once preached, he writes of his former associates in a tone of moderation and good sense, and gives them more credit for sincerity than the rest of the world will be likely to concede them. In the introduction to his Rocky Mountain Saints he says:

“Whatever judgment may be passed upon the faith and personal lives of the Mormon Prophet and his successor, there will be a general recognition of a divine purpose in their history. Under their leadership the Mormon people have aided to conquer the western desert, and to transform a barren and desolate region of a hitherto ‘unknown country’ into a land that seems destined at no distant day to teem with millions of human beings, and which promises to stand pre-eminent among the conquests of the republic. It is doubtful whether any collective body of other citizens, unmoved by religious impulses, would ever have traversed the sandy desert and sage-plains, and have lived an age of martyrdom in reclaiming them, as the Mormons have in Utah. But this has been accomplished, and it was accomplished by faith. That was the Providence of the saints, and it must be conceded that, as a means subservient to an end, the Mormon element has been used in the Rocky Mountain region by the Almighty Ruler for developing the best interests of the nation, and for the benefit of the world at large.”

The fallacies hidden in these reflections will not escape the notice 451of any thoughtful Catholic reader. Mr. Stenhouse has got a feeble hold of a great truth, but, embarrassed by the materialistic ideas which form so important a part of the Mormon philosophy, he does not know how to apply it. We quote the passage as a striking illustration of the spirit in which too many of our countrymen are inclined to judge the history and character of the saints of the Great Salt Lake. Americans have a profound veneration for material prosperity, and hardly find it in their hearts to condemn a community which has built cities in the remote wilderness, planted gardens in the midst of the desert, taught brooks to run across the arid plains, and “developed the resources” of one of the least promising territories in our national domain. Any man, according to the popular theories of the emancipation of conscience, has a right to make a religion to suit himself; and whatever he may profess—unless, indeed, he should chance to concur with about 160,000,000 other persons in professing the doctrines of the holy Catholic Church, in which case there would be a fair presumption that he was dangerous to society—his fellow-citizens are bound to treat his creed respectfully and admit the purity of his motives.^[42] Hence the world honors the founder of a new state, even though he may be also the founder of a false religion. There are 80,000 Mormons in Utah, and 452as a community they are rich and thrifty. It is not surprising that we have heard of late so much admiring comment upon the genius of Brigham Young, so many predictions that he will be reckoned hereafter among the great men in American history.

It may be worth while to clear our minds by a brief sketch of the rise and development of Mormonism. It is a phenomenon too important to be passed over, and it has a closer connection with the moral and intellectual tendencies of the time than most of us suspect. The general direction of Protestant theology has always been towards rationalism and materialism. Founded upon the denial of everything that man cannot perceive by his unaided natural powers, it leads irresistibly to the rejection of divine interposition in worldly affairs and of all manner of heavenly revelation. But the human mind can no more rest without belief in the supernatural than the human body can rest upon air. Superstition is consequently the offspring of infidelity. The extremes of negation produce a reaction of credulity; the worship of Baal alternates with the worship of God; we see Protestantism swaying perpetually to and fro between a cold philosophical scepticism and the wildest extravagances of fanaticism and imposture. A time of general negation and intellectual pride is followed by an epidemic of rhapsodies and convulsions. Prophets arise; spirits are seen in clouds of light; conventicles resound with the ravings of frenzied sinners and the shouting of excited saints; Swedenborg makes excursions in the body into heaven and into hell; the Shakers place Mother Ann on 453the throne of the Almighty; the Peculiar People look for the direct interference of God in the pettiest affairs of life, and demand a miracle every hour of the day. Mormonism was the product of such a season of spiritual riot. Fifty years ago animal magnetism and clairvoyance were at their height. The pride which refused to worship God stooped to amuse itself with ghosts and witches. The soul, emancipated from religion, became the slave of magic; and superstition, rejecting the revelations of a loving Creator, was almost ripe for the instructions of dancing tables and flying tambourines. Mesmer had excited the learned world with his mystic tubs; throngs of prophetic somnambulists had prepared the way for the oracles of Andrew Jackson Davis. In England there was even a more chaotic disturbance of minds than here. Multitudes on the one hand, disbelieving in a personal deity altogether, took refuge in pure scepticism. Multitudes on the other looked for the advent of the Lord in power and glory, to establish on earth in visible form the kingdom foretold by the inspired writers. The study of the prophecies became an absorbing passion of sectaries and enthusiasts. They muddled their brains with much reading of Isaias and the Apocalypse. They made it their mission to explain dark sayings; and having placed their own interpretation upon the divine predictions, they watched the sky for signs of their immediate fulfilment, and found in contemporary events a thousand confirmations of their crazy fancies, a thousand portents of the speedy coming of the Lord. There was no conceivable theological vagary for which they did not seek authority among the 454prophets. There was a wide-spread revival of the ancient belief in a terrestrial millennium, with a faith that it was close at hand. Edward Irving was setting England and Scotland aflame with fiery announcements of the Second Advent; fashionable society left its bed at five o’clock in the morning to hear him preach, for three hours at a stretch, on the impending accomplishment of what had been foretold; and although it was not until a few years later that William Miller organized in this country the first regular congregations of those who expected the speedy end of the world, and who sat in white robes listening for the judgment trump, there is no doubt that the general religious ferment which preceded this particular hallucination was felt simultaneously on both sides of the ocean, and presented on both sides the same essential characteristics.

Naturally this exciting period was also a season of powerful Methodistic revivals. These sensational experiences belong, like spiritualism and the other delusions which we have mentioned, to what has been called “inspirational” as distinguished from rationalistic Protestantism, and they are apt to run their course together. Between 1825 and 1830 the revival movement was carried to great lengths, and its excesses seem to have been most marked in Central and Western New York just at the time when Mormonism arose there. We speak of the revivals as Methodistic only by way of defining their character; they were by no means restricted to the Methodist denomination. The most famous revival preacher of the day was the Rev. Charles G. Finney, a Presbyterian; and any one who is curious about 455the spiritual uproar which he carried through the State with him is referred to the chapter on “Fanaticism in Revivals” in the Personal Reminiscences of Dr. Gardiner Spring, of the Brick (Presbyterian) Church in New York City.^[43]

It was in such a time, equally favorable to delusions and impostures, that Joseph Smith, the inventor of Mormonism, made his appearance. The accounts of his early life are not satisfactory. His origin was obscure. His neighbors were ignorant. Little is on record except his Autobiography and a sketch by his mother, neither of which productions is entitled to much credit. It is evident, however, that he was caught up by the religious excitement which raged all around him. We are assured that on at least two special occasions during his boyhood he was “powerfully awakened” by Methodist revivalists. His writings abound with revival phraseology; his pretended revelations are full of the cant-terms of the camp-meeting; his code of doctrines bears traces of the denominational controversies which were most active in Western New York when he emerged upon the stage of history. In 1827 he was an illiterate and idle rustic of twenty-two years, living at Palmyra, in Wayne County, New York. His parents were shiftless 456and visionary people, who got drunk, and used the divining-rod, and dug for hidden treasures, and, according to their neighbors, stole sheep. Joseph was no better than the rest of the family. By natural disposition he was a dreamer and an adventurer. According to his own account, he began to see miraculous appearances in the air and to hear the voices of spiritual messengers as early as his fifteenth year. It was in one of his seasons of “awakening,” when, perplexed by the contradictions of rival sects, he went into a grove and asked the Lord which he should follow, in the firm persuasion that his question would be answered by some physical manifestation. We give the Mormon account of the result of his experiment:

“At first he was severely tempted by the powers of darkness, which endeavored to overcome him; but he continued to seek for deliverance, until darkness gave way from his mind. He at length saw a very bright and glorious light in the heavens above, which at first seemed to be at a considerable distance. He continued praying, while the light appeared to be gradually descending towards him; and as it drew nearer it increased in brightness and magnitude, so that by the time that it reached the tops of the trees the whole wilderness for some distance around was illuminated in the most glorious and brilliant manner. He expected to have seen the leaves and boughs of the trees consumed as soon as the light came in contact with them; but perceiving that it did not produce that effect, he was encouraged with the hopes of being able to endure its presence. It continued descending slowly, until it rested upon the earth and he was enveloped in the midst of it. When it first came upon him it produced a peculiar sensation throughout his whole system; and immediately his mind was caught away from the natural objects with which he was surrounded, and he was enwrapped in a heavenly vision, and saw two glorious personages, who exactly resembled each other in their 457features or likeness. He was informed that his sins were forgiven. He was also informed upon the subjects which had for some time previously agitated his mind—namely, that all the religious denominations were believing in incorrect doctrines, and consequently that none of them was acknowledged of God as his church and kingdom. And he was expressly commanded to go not after them; and he received a promise that the true doctrine, the fulness of the gospel, should at some future time be made known to him; after which the vision withdrew.”^[44]

Joseph, upon whose word alone this narrative rests, relates that when he came to himself he was lying on his back looking up into the clouds. He seems to have accepted cheerfully the condemnation of all existing religions, but the vision had no other practical effect upon him; as Orson Pratt confesses, his life continued to be unedifying, and his story of the celestial apparition was received with stubborn incredulity by those who knew his character and habits. It was three years before he professed to be favored with a second visit. Then, he says, a white and lustrous angel came into his room while he was at prayer, and told him that Heaven designed him for a great work. There was hidden in a certain place, to be revealed hereafter, a book written upon gold plates, which contained “the fulness of the everlasting gospel as delivered by the Saviour to the ancient inhabitants” of the American continent. This was the Mormon Bible, commonly known now as the Book of Mormon from the title of one of its divisions. In his Autobiography Joseph Smith states that the angel was Nephi, author of the First and Second Books of Nephi, which 458stand at the head of the Mormon scriptures; but in his Doctrine and Covenants he speaks of his visitant as Moroni, who wrote the last book in the collection and placed the gold plates where they were afterwards to be found. We do not know what explanation the Mormons offer of this singular discrepancy. The vision was repeated during the night, and Joseph was directed to search for the buried treasure in a hill near Manchester, a village about four miles from Palmyra, in the adjoining county of Ontario. He saw, as if in a dream, the exact spot in which he was to dig. He went to Manchester and found the plates, enclosed in a sort of box formed of stones set in cement. With them “there were two stones in silver bows (and these stones, fastened to a breastplate, constituted what is called the Urim and Thummim), and the possession and use of these stones was what constituted seers in ancient or former times, and God had prepared them for the purpose of translating the book”—an idea which Joseph borrowed, of course, from the Jewish high-priest’s “rational of judgment,” described in Exodus, chap. xxviii. Moroni (or was it Nephi?) would not allow the plates to be removed yet; but he gave Joseph a great many interesting and comfortable, though rather vague, instructions. He opened the heavens and caused him to see the glory of the Lord. He made the devil and his hosts pass by in procession, so that Smith might know them when he met them. Once a year Joseph was to return to the same spot and receive a new revelation. On the fourth anniversary of the discovery—that is, in September, 1827—the angel placed the plates and the Urim and 459Thummim in his hands, with a caution that he should let nobody see them. But he seems to have talked freely about his experiences; for, according to his own story, the whole country-side was up in arms to get the plates away from him. He was waylaid and chased by ruffians with clubs. He was shot at. His house was repeatedly mobbed; and when at last he removed to Pennsylvania in search of peace, carrying the plates in a barrel of beans, he was twice overtaken by a constable armed with a search-warrant, who failed, however, to find what he was looking for. Possibly the plates and the constable were equally fictions of Joseph Smith’s imagination.

Incredulous historians of Mormonism offer various explanations of the story which we have thus far recounted. They detect in Joseph Smith’s alleged visions a close resemblance to the trance state sometimes brought on by spiritual excitement among the Methodists and other sects who make strong appeals to the emotional nature; or they refer his supernatural exaltation to mesmeric clairvoyance; or they see in him merely a “spiritual medium,” a precursor of the rappers and table-tippers who became so common a few years later. Others, again, account for the whole case upon the theory of demoniac possession; while still others suppose that, having really discovered some sort of metallic tablets, the dreams of a disordered mind supplied him with the interpretation and the dramatis personæ.^[45] It seems to us hardly 460necessary to discuss these various explanations, for there is no proof of the alleged facts. The whole narrative rests upon nothing but Joseph Smith’s word. It is the story told by him in after-years to account for the new gospel. There is none who shared with him the privilege of angelic visitations. There is none who saw the great light, who heard the mysterious voices, who even beheld Joseph himself at the moment of the alleged revelations. No one knows what became of the golden plates. The angel, said Joseph, came and took them away again. While they remained in the prophet’s hands they were kept from curious eyes. Prefixed to the Book of Mormon in the current editions is the “Testimony of Three Witnesses”—Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris—that they were permitted to see the plates, and that a heavenly voice assured them of the faithfulness of Smith’s translation; but all these three witnesses afterwards confessed that their testimony was a lie. To their certificate is appended the testimony of eight other witnesses—namely, Joseph’s father and two brothers, four of the Whitmer family, and a disciple named Page—who also profess to have seen the plates; but their connection with the beginnings of the Mormon Church makes it impossible to put confidence in their statement. We do not know the circumstances under which the sight may have been vouchsafed to them, and we certainly have no sufficient reason to believe their word.^[46]

461Thus far, then, Mormonism is a mere legend. In 1828 it becomes historical fact; and whatever may be thought of the prophet’s good faith in the matter of his early dreams and visions, we find it impossible to resist the conviction that henceforth he was only a conscious and daring impostor. From this time to the day of his death, in his acts and his writings, in his shrewdness, his ambition, and his reckless courage—planning new settlements, fabricating new Bibles, uttering forged revelations, nominating himself for President of the United States, assuming to command armies, running a wild-cat bank, debauching women—we can see nothing but a career of vulgar fraud. There was wild fanaticism in the foundation of the Mormon Church; but it was not on the part of Joseph Smith.

There is proof that about fifteen years before this pretended revelation an ex-preacher, named Solomon Spalding, a graduate of Dartmouth College, and a resident of Crawford County, Pennsylvania, offered for publication at a Pittsburgh printing-office a book called the Manuscript Found, in which he attempted to account for the peopling of America by deriving the Indians from the lost tribes of Israel. It was a sort of Scriptural romance, written in clumsy imitation of the historical books of the Old Testament, and it contained, among its other divisions, a Book of Mormon. Although announced for publication, it never appeared. 462The manuscript remained in the printing-office for a number of years. Spalding died in 1816. The bookseller died in 1826. Sidney Rigdon, one of the first disciples of Mormonism, was a compositor in the printing-office, and it seems to be pretty well established that he made a copy of the book and afterwards gave it to Smith. At any rate the Book of Mormon, when it came from the press in 1830, was immediately recognized as an adaptation of Solomon Spalding’s romance. A great many people had read parts of it during Spalding’s lifetime, and remembered not only the principal incidents which it narrated, but the names of the leading characters—Nephi, Lehi, Moroni, Mormon, and the rest—which Smith boldly appropriated. Spalding’s only object was literary amusement, with perhaps a little harmless mystification. The theological teachings incorporated with his pretended history were the additions of Smith and Rigdon. As it now stands the Mormon Bible purports to relate the wanderings of a Hebrew named Lehi, who went out from Jerusalem six hundred years before Christ, and, after travelling eastward eight years “through a wilderness,” came to the sea-coast, built a ship, got a mariner’s compass somewhere, set sail with his wife Sariah, his sons Laman, Lemuel, Sam, Nephi, Joseph, and Jacob, the wives of the four elder sons, and six other persons, and in due time reached America. After the death of Lehi the Lord appointed Nephi to rule over the settlers, but Laman and Lemuel, heading a revolt, were cursed, and became the ancestors of the Indians. We shall not waste much time over this absurd and wearisome farrago, a mixture of 463Scriptural parodies, stupid inventions, and bold thefts from Shakspeare and King James’ Bible. It is intolerably verbose, dragging through fifteen books, stuffed with gross faults of grammar, anachronisms, and solecisms of every kind, and comprising as much matter as four hundred and fifty of these pages, or more than three entire numbers of The Catholic World. There are wonderful miracles and tremendous battles. Vast cities are created in North and South America. Nations wander to and fro across the continents. Priests, prophets, judges, and Antichrists, with names curiously constructed out of those in the Jewish Scriptures, appear and disappear like travesties of the persons in sacred history. The Nephites and the Lamanites hack and slay each other. A republican form of government is instituted, and is assailed by monarchical conspiracies. Nephi, Jarom, Omni, Mosaiah, Mormon, Moroni, Alma, Ether, and other leaders of the Nephites write the records of the people upon golden plates, and save them for Joseph Smith to find in due season. Seers give long-winded explanations of the divine purposes, and predict the incidents of the beginning of Mormonism, which had already taken place when Joseph Smith brought these predictions to light. The history of the Nephites is supposed to be contemporaneous with the history of the Jews, but entirely independent of it; their Scriptures are intended to supplement, not contradict, the holy Bible. The crucifixion of our Lord was announced to these American Jews by portents and prophecies, and afterwards the Saviour came to the chief city of the Nephites, showed his wounded hands 464and feet, healed the sick, blessed little children, and remained here forty days teaching Christianity. Gradually the Lamanites, or Indians, overcame the Nephites. In the year 384 a final battle was fought on the hill Cumorah (Ontario County, New York), where 320,000 Nephites were slain. This was the end of the pre-Columbian civilization of America, little or nothing being left of the Nephites except Mormon and his son Moroni, who completed the records on the gold plates and “hid them up” in the hill. Such, in brief outline, is the Mormon Bible. With the narrative of the descendants of Lehi, however, it contains an account of two other emigrations from Asia to America—namely, that of the Jaredites, who came here direct from the tower of Babel, and perished after they had stripped the continent of timber, and that of a party of Jews who followed Lehi at the period of the Babylonian captivity. The Jaredites came in eight small air-tight barges, shaped like a covered dish, loaded with all manner of beasts, birds, and fishes, and driven by a furious wind. The voyage lasted three hundred and forty-four days, so that, in spite of the miraculous gale astern, it was probably the slowest on record.