Kitabı oku: «My Lords of Strogue. Volume 3 of 3», sayfa 15

Yazı tipi:

TO THE READER

It has been the habit of novelists, for some reason or another with which we have nothing to do at present, to associate the Irish character with rollicking fun, naïve bungling, and mighty fine tastes of the brogue; and it occurred to me some time since that English readers who are surfeited with orthodox Hibernian jollities might be glad, for a change, to look on Pat from his shadowed side; to contemplate his dreary pilgrimage through the Valley of the Shadow of Death; to pause for a moment over the events which have bound round his character with sorrow and hedged him about with grief. The history of Ireland has been so perverted by mendacious faction that the truth lies deeply interred. Protestant has vilified Catholic, and Catholic Protestant, to the extent which is inevitably associated with religious rancour. My sympathies being specially with neither party, I have endeavoured to weigh the evidence in a free and independent spirit, and have come to the conclusion, as might have been expected, that both were in a measure right and both wrong, considering that both were actuated by grievances of a more or less awful character, which, being tinged by a colour of religion, drove them both to madness and excess.

One of the chief difficulties with which an historical novelist has to contend, is the question how far imagination may be permitted successfully to fight with fact. Conversely, even reverend historians are beset by this trouble. Walter Scott, Chateaubriand, Michelet, hardly allow us to separate romance from history, and history from romance.

Being desirous of giving a true picture of a time, clothed in romantic garb, I, in my last novel, conscientiously pointed out the peccadilloes which lay cunningly in ambush in its chapters; and, being still anxious to keep my conscience clear, I deem it advisable now to repeat the process.

In the construction of this work I was deliberately guilty of two crimes, both of which, I consider, are attended with extenuating circumstances.

The first concerns the compact between the Executive and the state-prisoners, and is a sin of omission; for although the facts and the disgraceful behaviour of the English King and Government are truthfully related, it did not suit the scheme of the story to enter into all the motives which impelled the United Irishmen to sacrifice their feelings, and agree to so singular an arrangement. The rebel leaders submitted to examination by the secret council in hopes of saving the life of Oliver Bond; but as Oliver Bond was not one of my chosen puppets, I considered it permissible to leave him in his grave.

The second crime is one of much greater enormity. To suit the purpose of the weft, I have presumed to ante-date Emmett's rising by two years and a half. The United standard first waved over Dublin Castle on January 1,1801, whilst Emmett's riot did not take place till July, 1803. But I hold that, for the purposes of romance, the romancist may be permitted to draw events together, though he is in no case to be allowed to transpose them. At the time of the Union Robert Emmett was away in France on treasonable business; but it is in every way probable that if he had been in Ireland he would have acted as I have made him act. There is ample testimony to prove that the dwellers in the country (as opposed to the dwellers in the towns) were ready as early as the winter of '79 to make a new attempt if they could have found a leader, and that they waited for two years simply because Emmett did not call them to arms till then.

Lord Cornwallis writes to General Ross under date of 1779: 'We have every reason to believe that the French are undertaking a serious attack, and from the most authentic channels we learn that the disaffected are more active than ever in swearing and organising the southern provinces.'² And again later: 'That the French will persevere in their attempt to invade Ireland there can be no doubt, and if they should succeed, which God forbid, in establishing a war in this country,'³ etc. At page 86 we find, 'Though the new Directory was never fully formed, yet the spirit of rebellion was carefully kept alive-the flame subtly fanned-till it burst out in 1803 under Robert Emmett.' H. Alexander, Esq., writes to the Rt. Hon. T. Pelham under date January, 1800, that 'Dublin is much and seriously agitated.'

My portrait of Lord Clare differs in some respects from the usual conception of that statesman; but I have diligently studied everything concerning him which was attainable, and am convinced that his character was as it is here depicted.

I gratefully take this opportunity of thanking the Press for the unanimously indulgent manner in which they treated 'Lady Grizel'-with one exception, that of a certain weekly print whose raison d'être is its scurrility; and I further embrace this occasion of reminding the anonymous critic of the said ill-natured print that facts may be slightly distorted for a set purpose rather than through ignorance, and that the critic doth not transcendently exalt either his wisdom or his attainments by pointing out with magnificent scorn that such an event took place in January instead of March; for Macaulay's celebrated schoolboy could do as much or more in a diligent half-hour by the help of that invaluable book 'The Encyclopœdia of Chronology.' For the special benefit of the said sapient critic, however, I append to this discourse a list of the works upon Irish affairs to which I have been indebted, in order that he too may improve his mind, and be the better prepared to hold up to derision the rents and slits in my poor pasteboard armour.