Lavengro

CHAPTER XCIII

Another Visit--_A la Margutte_--Clever Man--Napoleon's Estimate--Another Statue.

One evening Belle and myself received another visit from the man in black. After a little conversation of not much importance, I asked him whether he would not take some refreshment, a.s.suring him that I was now in possession of some very excellent Hollands, which, with a gla.s.s, a jug of water, and a lump of sugar, were heartily at his service; he accepted my offer, and Belle going with a jug to the spring, from which she was in the habit of procuring water for tea, speedily returned with it full of the clear, delicious water of which I have already spoken. Having placed the jug by the side of the man in black, she brought him a gla.s.s and spoon, and a tea-cup, the latter containing various lumps of snowy-white sugar: in the meantime I had produced a bottle of the stronger liquid.

The man in black helped himself to some water, and likewise to some Hollands, the proportion of water being about two-thirds; then adding a lump of sugar, he stirred the whole up, tasted it, and said that it was good.

"This is one of the good things of life," he added, after a short pause.

"What are the others?" I demanded.

"There is Malvoisia sack," said the man in black, "and partridge, and beccafico."

"And what do you say to high ma.s.s?" said I.

"High ma.s.s!" said the man in black; "however," he continued, after a pause, "I will be frank with you; I came to be so; I may have heard high ma.s.s on a time, and said it too; but as for any predilection for it, I a.s.sure you I have no more than for a long High Church sermon."

"You speak _a la Margutte_," said I.

"Margutte!" said the man in black, musingly, "Margutte!"

"You have read Pulci, I suppose?" said I.

"Yes, yes," said the man in black, laughing; "I remember."

"He might be rendered into English," said I, "something in this style:--

'To which Margutte answered with a sneer, I like the blue no better than the black, My faith consists alone in savoury cheer, In roasted capons, and in potent sack; But above all, in famous gin and clear, Which often lays the Briton on his back, With lump of sugar, and with lymph from well, I drink it, and defy the fiends of h.e.l.l.'"

"He! he! he!" said the man in black; "that is more than Mezzofante {347} could have done for a stanza of Byron."

"A clever man," said I.

"Who?" said the man in black.

"Mezzofante di Bologna."

"He! he! he!" said the man in black; "now I know that you are not a Gypsy, at least a soothsayer; no soothsayer would have said that--"

"Why," said I, "does he not understand five-and-twenty tongues?"

"Oh yes," said the man in black; "and five-and-twenty added to them; but, he! he! he! it was princ.i.p.ally from him, who is certainly the greatest of Philologists, that I formed my opinion of the sect."

"You ought to speak of him with more respect," said I; "I have heard say that he has done good service to your See."

"Oh yes," said the man in black; "he has done good service to our See, that is, in his way; when the neophytes of the propaganda are to be examined in the several tongues in which they are destined to preach, he is appointed to question them, the questions being first written down for him, or else, he! he! he!--Of course you know Napoleon's estimate of Mezzofante; he sent for the linguist from motives of curiosity, and after some discourse with him, told him that he might depart; then turning to some of his generals, he observed, '_Nous avons eu ici un exemple qu'un homme peut avoir beaucoup de paroles avec bien peu d'esprit_.'"

"You are ungrateful to him," said I; "well, perhaps, when he is dead and gone you will do him justice."

"True," said the man in black; "when he is dead and gone, we intend to erect him a statue of wood, on the left-hand side of the door of the Vatican library."

"Of wood?"

"He was the son of a carpenter, you know," said the man in black; "the figure will be of wood, for no other reason, I a.s.sure you; he! he!"

"You should place another statue on the right."

"Perhaps we shall," said the man in black; "but we know of no one amongst the philologists of Italy, nor, indeed, of the other countries inhabited by the faithful, worthy to sit parallel in effigy with our ill.u.s.trissimo; when, indeed, we have conquered these regions of the perfidious by bringing the inhabitants thereof to the true faith, I have no doubt that we shall be able to select one worthy to bear him company--one whose statue shall be placed on the right hand of the library, in testimony of our joy at his conversion; for, as you know, 'There is more joy,' etc."

"Wood?" said I.

"I hope not," said the man in black; "no, if I be consulted as to the material for the statue, I should strongly recommend bronze."

And when the man in black had said this, he emptied his second tumbler of its contents, and prepared himself another.

CHAPTER XCIV

Prerogative--Feeling of Grat.i.tude--A Long History--Alliterative Style--Advantageous Specimen--Jesuit Benefice--Not Sufficient--Queen Stork's Tragedy--Good Sense--Grandeur and Gentility--Ironmonger's Daughter--Clan Mac-Sycophant--Lick-Spittles--A Curiosity--Newspaper Editors--Charles the Simple--High-flying Ditty--Dissenters--Lower Cla.s.ses--Priestley's House--Saxon Ancestors--Austin--Renovating Gla.s.s--Money--Quite Original.

"So you hope to bring these regions again beneath the banner of the Roman See?" said I; after the man in black had prepared the beverage, and tasted it.

"Hope!" said the man in black; "how can we fail? Is not the Church of these regions going to lose its prerogative?"

"Its prerogative?"

"Yes; those who should be the guardians of the religion of England are about to grant Papists emanc.i.p.ation, and to remove the disabilities from Dissenters, which will allow the Holy Father to play his own game in England."

On my inquiring how the Holy Father intended to play his game, the man in black gave me to understand that he intended for the present to cover the land with temples, in which the religion of Protestants would be continually scoffed at and reviled.

On my observing that such behaviour would savour strongly of ingrat.i.tude, the man in black gave me to understand that if I entertained the idea that the See of Rome was ever influenced in its actions by any feeling of grat.i.tude I was much mistaken, a.s.suring me that if the See of Rome in any encounter should chance to be disarmed and its adversary, from a feeling of magnanimity, should restore the sword which had been knocked out of its hand, the See of Rome always endeavoured on the first opportunity to plunge the said sword into its adversary's bosom; conduct which the man in black seemed to think was very wise, and which he a.s.sured me had already enabled it to get rid of a great many troublesome adversaries, and would, he had no doubt, enable it to get rid of a great many more.

On my attempting to argue against the propriety of such behaviour, the man in black cut the matter short, by saying, that if one party was a fool he saw no reason why the other should imitate it in its folly.

After musing a little while, I told him that emanc.i.p.ation had not yet pa.s.sed through the legislature, and that perhaps it never would; reminding him that there was often many a slip between the cup and the lip; to which observation the man in black agreed, a.s.suring me, however, that there was no doubt that emanc.i.p.ation would be carried, inasmuch as there was a very loud cry at present in the land--a cry of "tolerance,"

which had almost frightened the Government out of its wits; who, to get rid of the cry, was going to grant all that was asked in the way of toleration, instead of telling the people to "Hold their nonsense," and cutting them down, provided they continued bawling longer.

I questioned the man in black with respect to the origin of this cry; but he said, to trace it to its origin would require a long history; that, at any rate, such a cry was in existence, the chief raisers of it being certain of the n.o.bility, called Whigs, who hoped by means of it to get into power, and to turn out certain ancient adversaries of theirs called Tories, who were for letting things remain _in statu quo_; that these Whigs were backed by a party amongst the people called Radicals, a specimen of whom I had seen in the public-house; a set of fellows who were always in the habit of bawling against those in place; "and so," he added, "by means of these parties, and the hubbub which the Papists and other smaller sects are making, a general emanc.i.p.ation will be carried, and the Church of England humbled, which is the princ.i.p.al thing which the See of Rome cares for."

On my telling the man in black that I believed that, even among the high dignitaries of the English Church, there were many who wished to grant perfect freedom to religions of all descriptions, he said he was aware that such was the fact, and that such a wish was anything but wise, inasmuch as, if they had any regard for the religion they professed, they ought to stand by it through thick and thin, proclaiming it to be the only true one, and denouncing all others, in an alliterative style, as dangerous and d.a.m.nable; whereas, by their present conduct, they were bringing their religion into contempt with the people at large, who would never continue long attached to a Church the ministers of which did not stand up for it, and likewise cause their own brethren, who had a clearer notion of things, to be ashamed of belonging to it. "I speak advisedly,"

said he, in continuation, "there is one Plat.i.tude."

"And I hope there is only one," said I; "you surely would not adduce the likes and dislikes of that poor silly fellow as the criterions of the opinions of any party?"

"You know him," said the man in black, "nay, I heard you mention him in the public-house; the fellow is not very wise, I admit, but he has sense enough to know, that unless a Church can make people hold their tongues when it thinks fit, it is scarcely deserving the name of a Church; no, I think that the fellow is not such a very bad stick, and that upon the whole he is, or rather was, an advantageous specimen of the High Church English clergy, who, for the most part, so far from troubling their heads about persecuting people, only think of securing their t.i.thes, eating their heavy dinners, puffing out their cheeks with importance on country justice benches, and occasionally exhibiting their conceited wives, hoyden daughters, and gawky sons at country b.a.l.l.s, whereas Plat.i.tude--"