New Irish Humorist,

New Zealand Mail, Issue 859, 17 August 1888, Page 9

New Irish Humorist,

(The Spectator. )

The * Blarney Ballads,"’ two or three of which have formerly appeared in our own oolumns, show that Irolaud has not run dry of that delicious and extravagant humour which, fifty years ago, used to bo regarded as her greatest gift. It is not surprising, we think, that that humour is in this case employed o-i the side of the Union, and not ou the side of Home rule. For the truth is, that one condition sine quA non of humour is, after all, a basis of shrewd sense at least sufficient to provide the humorist with a standard by which to measure the flights of the shafts shot from his own long-bow. Goldsmith himself would not have been the great humorist he wa3, if he had not possessed, besides a mo3t whimsical fancy, and a nature, unfortunately for himself, too muoli inclined to embody that whimsical fancy in very whimsical actious, a keen literary ideal of wisdom which be expresses amply in ‘ The Deserted Village,’ ‘ She stoops to Conquer,’ ‘The Vioar of Wakefield, * Retaliation,’ and many others of his works. And we do nob doubt for a moment that had Goldsmith lived in this co.utury instead of the last, he would have surpassed even the author of the ‘Blarney Ballads, though some of them are well worthy even of Goldsmith's genius, -in his ridiculo of the extravagancies of Mr. O’Brien, Mr. Jasper Pyno, Mr. Wilfrid Blunt, aud some of their English champions. Goldsmith s rogret for Burke, — . ... ‘ Who born for the universe, narrowed ms mind, And to party gave up what was meant for mankind,’ is not more significant of the standard by which the flights of l.is whimsical fancy wore measured, than tho fine ballad whioh concludes this series of ‘Blarney Ballads,’—the only serious one it contains, -which shows us the deep and patriotic convictions of the Irish humorist who has provided for ns the overflowing fun of this volume : —•

* The Anti-English Englishman. ' From Polar seas to torrid climos, Where’er the trace of man is found, What common feeling marks our kind, And sanctifies each spot of ground ? What virtue in the human hoavt The proudest tribute cau command ? The dearest, purest, holiest, best, The lasting love of Fatherland.’+

Then who is he who would deface The scutcheon of his country’s fame ? Who calls each conquest a disgrace, Each victory the veriest shame ? One wretch alone on earth you’ll meet, Though all the universe you Bean, So steeped in treason and deceit, — The Anti-English Englishman.

Where’er he goes he subtly sows The dragon-teeth of civil strife ; Each hidden smart with deadly art He probes anew to festering life. Were England stripped of power and laid Beneath a universal ban, He’d meet the prospect undismayed The Anti-English Englishman.

Where treason teems and hate is hot, He finds his true, his native soil, And keeps the rank Rebellion-pot For ever on the over-boil. What, with our deadliest foemon close, And charge triumphant in our van ? He’d rather fly with England’s foes The Anti-English Englishman.

’Tis his unnatural task to breach His country’s walls and lay them low, And then in rounded phrase to preach Submission to a savage foe. Majaba’s heuht was his delight, That peace-afc-all-price partisan; He’d have us yield in every field— The Anti-English Englishman.

The Anarchist from o’er the wave • Steered his fell bark to Erin’s beach, And leagued with every native knave Preyed on her life-blood like a leech. Who clasped that parricidal hand ? Who all the recreant crew outran ? The blackest of that baneful band—« The Anti-English Englishman.

Yet, Erin, hope ! Thy tyrant’s reign Is reeling at the righteous blast, The monster shadows flee amain, The judgment day in dawning fast. Oh ! then oliail Heav’ns high wrath consume With all his misbegotten clan, O’erwhelmed in dark untimely doom, The Anti-EDglish Englishman.

There yon see the true point of departure from which the freaks of fancy which throw so much well desired ridicule on the Parnellite strategy are measured. It is the voluntary divergence from this standard which constitutes to the writer the measure of the political folly aud ruin which Parnellite policy has attempted to bring about. For Mr." Graves, the Anti-English Englishman is evidently also in reality au anti-Irish Irishman ; one who would undo the prospects of both countries in the endeavour to pit the one against the other. Without such a stan. dard of good sense at the bottom of the author’s mind, the delightful extravagance of these ballads would have lost all their sig. nificance. The humour consists in making the reader feel at every point how great and astounding the departure from an old, a statelier, andajuster policy has-been, in spite of the shriek of ironic ecstasy with which the poet expresses his enjoyment of the burlesque in the situation. For example, take this,—a soliloquy of the genius of the hour on the surprise with which Ireland has viewed the metamorphosis in his own atti* tude and mien : “ Willy, I hardly knew you. , As I tuk tlie road to College Green, Hurroo ! Hurroo ! As 1 tuk'the road to College Green, Hurroo ! Hurroo ! As I tuk the road to College Green, Wid my twirlin’ stick and my cocked caubeen, Says Erin, * The likes was never seen ;

Willy, 1 hardly know you ! Wid your green turned coat Buttoned up to your throat, ’Tis the divil’s delight to view you. 0 darlin’ dear,you look so queer, Faith, Willy, I hardly knew you. « Where are your eyes that flashed so dread ? Hurroo ! Hurroo ! Where are your eyes that flashed so dread, Hurroo ! Hurroo ! Where ore your eyes that flashed so dread, That I thought on the spot they’d atrike mo dead ? Faith ! they’re smilin’ upon mo now inBtead; Why, Willy, I hardly knew you ! Wid your green turned coat Buttoned up to your throat, ’Tis the divil’s delight to view you. O darlin’ dear, you look so queer, Faith, Willy, I hardly knew you.’ ”

That picture of Mr Gladstone outdoiug the wildest Irishman in his patriotism, is cer. tainly delicious in its extravagance, especially the touch of impossible caricature which attributes to the impassioned statesman himself a feeling of positive glee in tho astonishment of Ireland at the wonderful completeness of the transformation he had undergone. Mr Gladstone is in reality far more likely evon to admit that his latest policy has been mistaken, than to be conscious of any of that glee which, by the happy caricature of the humourist, is attributed to him. Bat it is the inwoven picture of the magnificent scorn and indignation with which Mr Gladstone used ouoe to rebuke the Parnelites that gives to this whimsical conception of him as revelling in the wonder of Ireland at the Hibernification of his mien, its extreme humorousness. In the very happy parody of Tom Moore’s ‘Mr Orator Puff,’—it is published ‘ with apologies to the shade of Moore,’ _ but it is really a very much keener satire than Moore’s, thereisastill more impressive contrast drawn, not between any man’s past and his present attitude, but between the present attitude assumed by the Parnellitc orators when they speak in England, and the very same orators when they spoak in Ireland. This of course, goes much deeper than an attack on any inconsistency which, like Mr Gladstone’s,' is perfectly earnest and open, though to some of us it is so inexplicable,— for id touches the core of the whole question in pointing to the double voice and double mind of the most vigorous of the Home-rule partisans : Mr. O gator D. (With apologies to the shade of Moore). Mr Orator D (now there's no use in guessing !) Like Janus of old has a double-faced head : With one here in England lie gives us his blessing, With the other in Ireland ho wishes us dead. Oh 1 Mr Orator D One face is enough for a plain man like me. He has one voice as soft as the coo of a dove, The other is harsh as the caw of a crow ; The one mutters hatred, the other sings love, - Erom sol up in alt to the D down below. Oh ! Mr Orator D One voice is enough for a plain man like me. In his falsetto voice he cries ‘lreland a Nation 1’ And then with his double tongue ‘No Separation !’ A Whig once on hearing tho orator say, ‘l’m against Separation,' cried ‘ Which of you, pray T Oh! Mr Orator H—— One country’s enough for a plain man like me.

Coming home late at night from a meeting proclaimed, He was run into gaol, at the suit of the Queen, And as the door shut, tho last words he exclaimed, Were ‘ Gladstone for ever /’ and ‘ God save the Green !’ 011 1 Mr Orator u One cry is enough for a plain man like me.

And when he was tried, tho Crimes Act for evading, And for wearing t.he green on the Jubiloo day ; Said the Judge, ‘ You shall wear, as you like roasA new < sult* I for two months, but this time ’twill be grey.’ Oh 1 Mr Orator D One suit is enough for a poor man like me.

Erom his cold prison coll, so gloomy and bare, ‘ Help me out!’ he exclaimed, with a curse and a prayer. ‘ Help you out!’ cried John Bull ; ‘Oh my 1 what a pother ! , Why there's two of you there, can t you help one another?' Oh ! Mr. Orator D Two months aren’t enough for such martyrs as ye !’

Moore would have been the first to recognise that Mr Orator Puff must have had a great power of growth in him if he were ever to develop into Mr Orator D. But without in the least undervaluing a great many of the other pioces,—for example, ‘ The Groves of Hnwnrden ’ and * The Grand Ould Man, which have an immense wealth of banter in them, —tho one which strikes us as presenting the true Irish humour in its happiest, richest, and moat brilliant form is the "one which has been termed ‘The Imh War-Song,’ and which commemorates the siege sustained by Mr Jasper Pyne, M.P., in a ruin on his property near Tallow, where he defied the warrants of the police for many weeks, though when patriotic deputations sought him out with their congratulations, he was * let down by a ropo and pulley from a height of about eighty feet to within fifteen feet of the ground,’ and there, suspended in mid-air, delivered orations to enraptured audiences against tho British Government. Into this ballad the author has thrown all his strength, and has succeeded in depicting the hare-brained pugnacity, the half-serious swagger, the inventive mischievousness, the melodramatic resentment, the unconscious ineffectiveness, and the harmless fury with which the true Milesian patriot wages the war which, as he is fully aware, he cannot win, and very often does not really wish to win, though he is determined to gloss over in some plausible way the appearance of losing it. Putting Mr Parnell’s personal charaoter out of the question, for that is, no doubt, made of very different material, the ballad which commemorates the siege sustained by Jasper Pyne, M.P., in his inaccessible ruin, embodies the history of nine'teutha of those ingenious warriors who have never realised what the difference is between making war and playing at. war, and who are delighted to engage in the game, while they would have nothing to do with the reality : ‘ Hail to the Emerald Hope of Lisfinny ! «Honoured and blest be the evergreen Pyne !’ Gems from Golconda, or gold from New Guinea*

Pale by tho glow of this jewel divine. Heaven, should his eyelids close, Watch o’er his nether hose, Ne’er may he don the dread garments of blue-: Long may his pulley 3wing, Long may he lurk and sing, * Strike for Lisfinny and Jasper Aboo !’

Ours is no clerk from a city or county bank, Bloomiug at Brighton ou Bank holidays ; Ours is a perfect political mountebank Dancing and prancing upon the trap&ze. Safe widout bolt or lock, Scorning the peeler’s knock, Higher he clambers the more they pursue. Silence, ye cynical, Pyne’s on his pinnacle. Blaze of our binnacle, Jasper Huron !

Then, as you’d witness a grand golden eagle Out of liis eyrie high perched on the height, . ■ ■ ~ Swooping to snatch the swift hare from the beagle, . See our great Jasper darts down in Ins might. Hi ! Kern and gallow glass, Tallow lad, Tallow lass, Jasper has dropped like a bolt from the blue : Pierce with your pillalu Kerry and Killalqo, • Jasper, a Jasper, a Jasper Aboo !'

There in the air like a child’s coloured bladder, Softly be bob 3 for awhile by the wall ; Then, like;a.n angel on Jacob's own ladder, Hark ! his oration he fiercely lets fall. Never such fiery tropes, Metaphors, metascopes, Blasted the coward coercionist crew ! Seipic, Sosthenes, Burke and Demosthenes, Pyne, were just poor penny whistles to you.

Well, when they’d printed your speech in the papers, Johnny Bright cursed you, you hit him so hard ; Chamberlain over his codfish cut capers, Ilartington fainted in Parliament Yard. ‘ Seize him 1’ black Balfour said, Cowering with conscious dread ; * Fetch me that villain’s head quick, some of you.' Yet still you faced you foes, Smiling mid owls and ciows, Wid s oar thumb on your nose, Jasper Aboo!

Talk of tho sieges of Carthage, Jerusalem, Nineveh, Ascalon, Acre, and Troy, Had the blookaders a Pyne to bamboozle ’em, _ Plague them and all their manoeuvres destroy ? No ! your Psammeticus, Pompey, Leviticus, Each had ten thousand of troops to subdue Where’s the comparison ? Here the whole garrison Solely consisted of Jasper Aboo !

Lo ! in his castle unconquered our hero, Bothered and baffled base Balfour’s brigade ; Till, when their spirits had sunk down to

zero, ~ . They ju3t pertinded to raise their blockade, j * Ah, would you wheedle us ? Chuckled ourDtedalus ; * Come, of yonr tricks this is worth any two.’ So/o’er their cordon ring, Wid a surprising spring, Safe on his pulley went Jasper Aboo !

‘Where are you going to, Jasper, our Jasper ?’ His comrades cried out to that bould aerolite. *To prepare Misther Speaker a regular rasper,’ Says he, ‘ on the very next Parliament " night. For, from my place, boys, Into his face, boys, Like any flamingo, by Jingo, I’ll fly ; Until I have fully Convinced the ould bully That though I’m suspinded I’ll spake till I die !’ ” « Ours is a perfect political mountebank ’ might be written as the motto of half those inexpressibly ingenious and irresistible feats of arms by which the Milesian patriots render their" enemies and themselves almost equally ridiculous, and by which they fascinate admirers who are much more eager to be entertained with a telling comedy of defiance, than to be involved in any tragedy of internecine combat: —

«There in the air like a child’s coloured bladder, Softly he bobs for awhile by the wall ; Then, like an angel on Jacob’s own ladder, Hark ! his oration be fiercely lets fall.’ What a picture of absurd and melodramatic, but not altogether unreal peril, of a political harlequin who will risk a great deal more for a hearty cheer than he would for any conceivable political gain, who will herd with owls to make a sensation, and who cares no more whether that sensation aids the cause for which he professes to fight, than he does to realiso to himself with any sort of distinctness what the cause for which he professes to fight really implies ! The power to risk a good deal for an unreal purpose ; to flssh all sortsiof vain and misleading lights in eyes that are easily dazzled by snch fireworks ; to pour forth oratory that fills the ear and foils the mind ; to join purposelessness with a dash of audacity till it looks like purpose, and indolence with, an air of ostentations melancholy till it resembles despair, this is the true genius of the Milesian politicians who are so admirably portrayed ana parodied in the ‘Blarney Ballads with which Mr Graves has enriched the political literature of our day.