The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures, Bons Mots, Puns, and Hoaxes of Theodore HookHook, Theodore Edward
General
The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures, Bons Mots, Puns, and Hoaxes of Theodore Hook
Hook, Theodore Edward
English wit and humor
These innocent, or rather imbecile, blunders or fictions are followed
by another blasphemous satire upon our Church service--coupled with
the remark, that Ireland is "debased by the stupid intolerance of the
English priesthood," and that, therefore, out of a party of twenty
persons, nobody knew where Carlsbad or Prague was; they did not even
know where Bohemia was; in short, "everything out of Great Britain
and Paris was a country in the moon." All this is at Limerick,--where
the sexton of one of the "Catholic churches" told him they had rung
the bells as soon as they heard of his arrival, and begged ten
shillings as a gratuity; though we strongly suspect, that in 1828,
the "Catholic churches" had no bells; where his highness is offered
the order of the Liberators, which he declines, and compounds for
dining with the Agitators; and where also occurs that scene of his
being mistaken for young Ney, which we took leave to transpose to the
earlier part of our observations, in order to identify the author.
The great object, however, of his highness's Irish excursion was, as
might have been anticipated, to visit Mr. O'Connell; and accordingly
he gets a horse (a friend's, of course) to ride to Derrinane, by a
route which man on horseback never went before. On the journey a
"soft rain began to fall," and his delicate highness (who, be it
remembered, always prefers, or, at least, adopts the fashion of
"travelling outside") writes thus:--"As I am seldom in the way of
enjoying such a bath in the open air, I waded with a great feeling
of satisfaction and pleasure through the streams, throwing myself in
some degree into the pleasurable state of mind of a duck. Nothing
of that kind is, as you know, impossible to my mobile fancy."
What are we to make of this? His "thorough-lustre," the Prince
Puckler-Muskau--the "dignified," "prepossessing," all-accomplished,
admired of Goethe, the frank and favoured correspondent of Julia, and
the personal friend of Lady Morgan,--to be able to throw himself into
the pleasurable state of mind of a duck! and then appealing to his
"beloved soul" to bear public testimony that he is capable of such an
exertion. But perhaps the translator is in fault, and "duck" is not
the right word.
In his progress to Derrinane, a series of Munchausen adventures
await his highness:--he contrives to keep his seat in the saddle six
miles after having broken his saddle-girths--he subsequently saddles
himself, and leads his horse, (his carriage and people not being
there)--and at length, after fording bottomless torrents, ascending
inaccessible hills, and avoiding various inevitable accidents, the
least of which would have been mortal, he reaches "the Abbey,"
and, after much thumping and ringing, obtains admission. As many
of our readers may never have had the honour of inspecting this
distinguished _interieur_, we must let his highness speak:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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