Art. IX. Views of Society and Manners in the North of Ireland, in a Series of Letters written in the Year 1818. By John Gamble, Esq. Author of Irish Sketches," "Sarsfield," "Northern Irish Tales," &c. 8vo. pp. 423. London, 1819.

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THE custom,' remarks Mr. Gamble, of making punch in jugs,'

seems a better one than that of each person making for himself. It mingles the spirits and water more intimately, and gives more mellowness to the liquor, from the practice of pouring it several times out of one jug into another. It is long since punch has been drank out of bowls; but the large china bowl stills holds its place in closets, in memory of past times, and as an article of show.'

The day,' (that on which the above important observation suggested itself to the Author) was,' he says, 'too hot for much drinking, and we shortly adjourned to the garden, where we amused ourselves with pulling currants, and talking of parliamentary reform.' (p. 211.)

It is but justice, however, to add, that Mr. Gamble, by his own account, is not a drinker: indeed, as a medical mau, he inveighs strongly against that intemperance to which is attributable so large a portion of the miseries of his native island.

But let us observe a just proportion in our estimate of the vices. Immoderate drinking is to be deplored; but immoderate praying is to be scorned or abhorred. A drunkard, it seems, besides being a pleasant companion and good friend, may be an innocent, and even a religious man. But a Methodist― let him be held in utter contempt!'

I walked on to the vicarage house, inhabited by an old relation of my own. I had neither seen nor heard of him for many years, and I feared that amidst the wreck of my other friends, he too had perished, but happily I found him living and well, and almost as jovial as ever. He is an innocent, and I have no doubt a religious man, though he would not serve Mrs. Hannah More as the model of a clergyman, for he is not a Methodist either in manner, or in speech. He holds the whole sect indeed in utter contempt, and has no greater term of reproach for any one, than that he is a swaddler. By the bye, he is not over fond of Presbyterians, but he makes an exception in favour of me, on the flattering ground of my liberality, I tell him that the Church of England service is far more beautiful, than the extempore and unadorned prayers of my own Church; and believe me I only tell him what I think. The evening was dedicated to carousing, and my good old friend swallowed plentiful potations of cold rum punch, which, considering the season, was a grateful and well chosen beverage. For a while we drained the bowl in all due jollity; but the jollity of an old man is fleeting as his few remaining years, and as the liquor exerted its influence, age's natural disposition, more and more appeared. Had it been my object in this journey, like the king's in the Persian Tales, to seck a truly happy

man, I might at first have imagined that I had found him here; but I now know too much of human life, to trust lightly to appearances. In wine there is truth, and liquor opened wide the sluices of my kind host's eyes as well as heart; merriment gave way to thoughtfulness, and thoughtfulness to sorrow, which soon dissolved itself in tears, &c.'

The last evening of his visit, the Author says, he would have obtained a truce from drinking,' and with difficulty did obtain it until nine o'clock.

'My kind host loves his bottle, but he never loves it so well as when he has a friend to share it with him; and to night we drain the bowl to drown sorrow for my departure, as the day I came we drained it to denote joy. It is the custom, but, in my mind, though I am native here and to the matter borne, it is one more honoured in the breach than the observance.

Mrs. Hannah More, we imagine, and the Methodists,' would be little concerned (at least on their own account) to know, that they are held in utter contempt' by all the innocent and religious sots, whether clergy or laity, of the three kingdoms. Mr. Gamble, although his Letters abound with flippancies on the subject of religion, professes to reverence Christianity. It is almost surprising that men like him, with the language of the New Testament sounding in their ears, should not sometimes be startled even with their own statements of the difference between themselves and those whom they ridicule or revile. But we will not be so simple as to expend a serious remonstrance upon Mr. Gamble, and yet we cannot but remark, that a little more consistency in reference to Christianity than his Letters display, would have given us a higher idea, both of his good sense and his honesty, than, as the case is, we are able to entertain. Besides a very respectful reference (p. 54.) to that great 'man, Thomas Payne,' and besides his often expressed dislike of religionists, a number of indistinct expressions would, we imagine, give most readers the idea that the Author's opinions are deistical. But at p. 180, he says,

I have no more doubt of the truth of Christianity, than that the sun was made to give light by day, and the moon by night; the bright star of Christian knowledge had shone on my cradle, and I rejoiced with exceeding great joy."

If this inconsistency be the result of vacillating opinions, it is pitiable; if of mere levity, or of affectation, it is contemptible: but if the sentence we have quoted be, as indeed we are unwilling to suppose, merely put in as a concession to Christianity, which, now-a-days, is almost a needful passport to a book, it is surely an unmanly, and almost an odious hypocrisy.

But Mr. Gamble is a warm friend of political liberty; witness VOL. XII. N.S.

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his admiration of that eminent defender of the Rights of Man,' Napoleon Bonaparte.

'Doubtless there is much in the character of Bonaparte to excite sympathy, as well as to attract reverence and regard.' p. 386.

Nothing, it must be granted, can be more fitting, or seem more homogeneous in character, than that those who reverence Bonaparte, should worship the memory of Thomas Payne, and hate the Methodists.

This is, however, altogether an entertaining volume, though it very barely merits its designation as professing to present 'views of society and manners.' There are gossipping, and anecdote, and musings, and flippancies, and conceits enough; but little of the intelligent observation of a comprehensive mind. We could make many quotations that would recommend the Author to that class of readers whose literary appetite endures nothing but the lightest food, and at the same time demands a large and constant supply of it.

'We arrived in Strabane at the usual hour, and I again beheld the place of my birth. I beheld too the aged parent to whom I owe that birth. I beheld her with pleasure; but it was pleasure in which there was pain: the bowed down head was stooped still lower; the dim eye was dimmed further; and the weakened limbs trembled more. It has been my lot, whether good or bad, to be a wanderer; amidst the scenes of her youth, she has grown old; never has she changed, nor perhaps wished to change her place. But the mountains which bounded her narrow horizon could not shut her out from care. It has followed her over them, and made her die a hundred times in the loss of those she loved. Could we enter the heart, and read its secret thoughts, she dies perhaps further, as every green tree, and field, and bush, reminds her of the years that are flown. The daisied bank opposite her garden is the same on which, in happy infancy, she gathered wild flowers; and the setting sun which sheds lustre on her windows, lighted up in this very room her opening years and blooming hopes. To cheerless age, the earth no longer pours forth flowers; and neither rising nor setting sun can warm with joy the languid heart, on which is the chill of more than threescore and fourteen years. "The days of our years," saith Moses, “ are three"score and ten; and if by reason of strength they are fourscore, yet is their strengh labour and sorrow, for it is soon cut off, and we flee away." pp. 153, 4.

Mr. Gamble is, we have said, a medical man; in reference to the fever lately prevailing in Ireland, he observes,

'A remarkable feature of the disease was, that the mortality was much greater in the higher than lower classes; and not only was the termination more generally fatal, but it took place at a much earlier period. "There is a sore evil," saith Solomon, "which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners, thereof to their hurt." Intemperance in eating and drinking begets diseases, mul

tiplied as the hydra's heads, and aggravates those which it does not beget. I do not vaunt of the sobriety of my poorer countrymen; but such, for some time before, had been their condition, that they could not obtain the whiskey which they loved.

'Besides this compulsatory abstinence, other reasons may be assigned for the more frequent recovery of the poor. Some of them you may think not very becoming in me, but I shall give them nevertheless; for, as some wise man of old said, "I pursue truth, and must follow where she leads." The poor man seldom took any medicine, and still seldomer had a doctor; except the nature to which he owed his existence be reckoned such, and by whose assistance he was enabled, when the disorder had spent its violence, to throw it off by some salutary discharge. I have heard several instances of people of this description, passing sixteen or eighteen days in a kind of pleasing stupor, and all at once awakening with an inclination for food, and a perfect recollection of their situation.

But the abundance of the rich would not allow him to sleep. He had two or three physicians, and sometimes more; he was harassed by frequent questions, and tormented by various medicines and applications. Nature was interfered with in her operations, and, unacquainted, as in nine cases out of ten we are, with her intentions, they were very likely, in nearly the same proportion, counteracted. Because perspiration sometimes accompanies the crisis of a fever, solutions of a strong antimonial preparation were given, which alike nauseated the stomach, and racked the frame. Perspiration did indeed follow, but it was oftener than otherwise the dew of death; for as was well remarked by the most ancient of physicians, perspiration occurring in a fever is bad, because it protracts the disease, and denotes debility.

Nor were the vigilant doctors satisfied with harassing their poor patient's stomach, but they scarcely or never failed to clap a large blister to his back or breast, which added to his irritation, and dis. sipated, if I may so speak, the cloud of heaviness in which nature, kinder to him than they were, would have sheltered him as it were from himself. This blistering is abominable, but it is indispensible. in almost every disease here; and woe be to the worthless physician who allows his patient to slip through his fingers into another world, without imprinting on his back this mark of having passed through his hands. The more the practice is unsuccessful, the more it is persisted in, as Sangrado bled and drenched with warm water, the faster his patients died. Has he been blistered? is the first question asked by each officious intermeddler; and should the reply, which rarely occurs, be that he has not, hands and eyes are raised in astonishment, that any one should be allowed to die, while there was a Spanish fly left remaining to save him.

But beside the physical disadvantages of their condition, the rich have to encounter still more formidable moral ones. The poor man lives only in the present, and, occupied with his daily wants, suffers little from evils that are imaginary or remote. He has scarcely any apprehension of the fever, for scarcely has he leisure to think of it, and without scruple he goes in its way. My barber tells me that he

shaved without fear, both the living and the dead; he merely took a pinch of snuff before entering the room, and drank a glass of whiskey if it was offered to him. Tobacco, in every form, has been frequently mentioned as a means of guarding against contagion; and it is possible, by diminishing sensibility, it renders us less liable to its operation, but it is in no measure an antidote, as some foolishly suppose.

But when at length the poor man is overtaken with the disorder, he sinks quietly on his bed, not greatly concerned that he has so long a respite from the labour, which he regards as the heaviest of evils; and with scarce a fearful emotion awaits the event. How different are the mind's workings in the more cultivated man! He is assailed by disease on disease, for the worst of diseases is the fear of death. He weighs circumstances, and calculates probabilities; he dives into the future, and throws his thoughts backward to the past, and if he happens to be of a desponding disposition, he is almost certain not to recover. Despair of recovery almost excludes recovery; the instance of my worthy friend near Coote-hill is not a solitary one, for I know many of a similar kind. So many, that I almost regard the dread of death we so frequently witness, as less a natural than an artificial feeling; or at all events so dependent on comfort of condition, as in a great measure to counterbalance the discomforts of poverty, and to be only one of those means, by which Nature, who, amidst all her caprices, loves equality, holds in nearly equal balance the fortunes of men.' pp. 157-161.