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PONNYBROOK IN ROME.
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OLD IDEALISMS*
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Save ine froinniy friends ! No one at the . present moment has more occasion to utter this prayer than the Pope . His friendshis Irish friends ^ are posi tively killing him with kindness . Not content with a gentle kiss of the pontifical toe , they are throwing themselves in their excess of devotion iipbn the paternal foot , utterly regardless of the temporal attribute of corns . . His Holiness , who , in regard of these excrescent weaknesses , is no more than mortal , winces accordingly . As flesh and blood , like himself , we pity him from the bottom of our heart . He had a right to expect better things ; he had aright to expect that the devoted youth of Irelandwho forsook the land of their birth and all they held
, dear to them , to defend his person and throne from the attacks of the heretic and the heathen , would have been actuated by disinterested motives . He had every reason to believe that they came to Home in the spirit of the old crusaders to fight for the cause of the true cross at all hazards and at all sacrifice . It would have been difficult to conceive that sordid or ambitious motives could be mixed up with their professions of allegiance to the papal throne . They offered their services of their own free will as volunteers m the holy cause , and the Pope had a right to expect that each man amons- them would find his reward in an approving conscience and view
in the sense of having performed a sacred duty . That is the in which Queen Victoria ' s volunteers accept service . They are prepared to make a sacrifice of time and money , to submit themselves to discipline , and to obey the officers who are set over them , whatever may be their rank or standing in society . Not so , however , the Irish volunteers of the Pope . They are deeply devoted to the Holy See , and warmly attached to the person of the Sovereign Pontiff ; but they are by no means indifferent to pay , and there is a strong feeling among them that each member of the body ought to be an officer , wear fine clothes , and have a good dual more to eat and drink than he ever had at home in his native
lancl . The distinction of being a " full private" in the army of his Holiness the pope by no means satisfies their ambition . Under Lamoriciere , full private does not turn out to be the easy and honourable position which their fervid imaginations pictured . Full private must wear the _ conlmon uniform , he must attend drill when he is called upon , he must share in the cpnjmOn mess , and above all he must obey his officers . This does not suit the ideas of the Irish Brigade at all . On the 27 th of Junea young Irishman named Xaffan , '' very respectably and nicely educated" as the correspondent of the Nation "informs us , not being satisfied with the position , of- " full private" ( being Jike a number of those who seem to haye expected _ officers 1 _ commissions to ' "be as plentiful as blackberries ); put off Ihs uniform ,
" Hold , " said Major O'Reilly , rushing forward , and putting Ininself between the muzzles of the Belgian guns and the Insh . Whether it was thatthe major ' s voice of thunder frightened the Belgians , or that they had not had time to prime and load , we caniot pretend to say , but they did not obey &e order to ^ &e ; and encouraged thereby , the Irish , this tune deaf to the awful voice of the major , rushed upon the Belgians , and commenced a regular hand-to-hand fight , " merely , however , " as the Nation $ eye witness assures us , " desiring to disarm the others—wresting _ away off like twi what pious
their guns , twisting the bayonets gs— Brummagem Romanist manufactures the Pope ' s muskets ?—and tossing them in the air by dozens . " The reporter who furnishes us with an account of this interesting occurrence must be an Irishman ; for he tells us that when this battle had raged for some time , and after at least one Belgian had been sent sprawling on his back , the first blow was struck . This was the act of the indiscreet Belgian officer . This rash person even went so far as to draw his s \ TO ? d and smite an Irishman . We are gratified , however to know that the Irishman received the blow on his head , and was not hurt ;
indeed , he preserved sufficient presence of mind to pick up a paving stone , and heave it at the head of the Belgian officer . As the Belgian officer did not injure the Irish full-private it was only just that the full-private should miss the Belgian officer and hit somebody else . This he did ; but it does not appear that anybody was killed , or that even a drop of blood was shed throughout the whole struggle . All this seems to have been owing to that wonderful man Major O'Reilly . The deeds which are ascribed to the gallant Major are worthy of Ajax himself , or Baron Munchausen . His soft and persuasive tongue could sooth the fury of the I rish , and the thunder of his voice paralyze the arms of the Belgians . A hundred fingers were upon a hundred triggers , but when Major O'Reilly cried out "hold , " les braves Beiges did hold accordingly . But the Major ' s most wonderful feat of all was to put an end , a few minutes after it began , to a conflict which , according to the story of its incidents , must have lasted an hour at the least . We" have ho doubt that among the Irish
themselves this affair was regarded as a mere harmless scrimmage , such as is of every-day occurrence in Tipperary and its English settlement in Charles-street , Drury-lane . We regret , however ^ to see that the Pope : does not appreciate these Donnybrook pleasantries . We should have ^ xpeeted him , in his great necessity , _ to be urgent for more recruits from the Emerald Isle . -But that does not appear to be Ms desire ; on the contrary , he intimates thatany morel intendmg volunteers would greatly oblige him bystaying " at home ; while , as to those who have already made such great sacrifices on his behalf , he is drafting them out of Rome as quickly as possible .
not aware of the rights of the refuge , wanted to enter and arrest ; the men . This the authorities of the college refused to permit ; but in the course of the evening full private Laffan and Sergeant Wiseman thought better of their conduct , arid gave themselves up quietly to , the military authorities . The infection of their example , however , had spread in the meantime . The barrackyard of the battalion of St . Patrick was crowded with Irish , excitedly discussing the hardship of being full privates when they all expected to wear gold lace , and dine every day with the Pope and his cardinals . The discontent had just reached that Donnybrook pitch when an Irishman , not having th e good luck to meet with an antagonist in the ordinary course , goes round the tents in search of any head that may offer to take his revenge out of , when happily the maior made his appearance . The major
( O'Reilly ) was a man of persuasive eloquence , and a speech from him calmed down the rising storm for a time . A protruding head , however , is a temptation which an Irishman cannot resist ; and it happened , at the close of Major O'Reilly ' s speech , that an athletic and ill-grained full private , at the end of the file next the barracks , spied the caput of a Belgian , the first of a column of that brave nation , who had been drawn up under arms to watch the course of events . With an Irishman ' talent for picking a quarrel , this athletic son of Erin pointed out to his comrades that all those dirty Belgians were drawn up there to overawe them—the Pope ' s erontlemen , at arms . Here was somebody treading on the
tail of their coat at lost . " Look at them , the dirty blackguards , they would sell the Pope and join Garibaldi in the morning , and there they are , with their bayonets to frighten , us . " Whoop ! the faction cry so familiar in the purlieus of Drury-lane and St . Giles ' s ; is ~ raiser ]; r and—the Pope ' s— gentlemen—are-rushing poll mcjll upon the brave Belgians , when Major O'Reilly , in a voice of thunder , shouts out , "Right about face . " " Devil of a bit , " says the athletic full-private , and rushing at a Bolgian , laid him low with one blow of his fist , to the utter amazement and horror of everyone , " as the eye-witnesB of the Nation depoaeth . Hero , according to this authority , the Belgian offlcor was guilty of an ' act of great indiscretion . His order , on soeing his man iloorcd , was , " Prime and load—make ready—prosent—fire . " Tho great O'Reilly hero again came to the rescue with his voice of thunder . " Hold , " said the major—at least , we suppose ho said , "Hold . " ( Those averter ? of fat © always do ) .
and turned out in plain clothes . Mr . Howley , the otfacer in command ^ objected to this , and ordered him to put on his uniform . But Mr . Laffaii was not to be ordered . He refused point blank ; whereupon Lieutenant Howley called upon Sergeant Wiseman to arrest the insubordinate . Sergeant Wiseman , however , was no more content with being a sergeant than Mr . Laffan was with being a full private , and instead of obeying his commanding officer took part with Laffan , and with some half-a-dozen others ran / iff unrl + nnk rfifnra in the Irish college . Some French officers , \
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N interesting book of travels , entitled , The Oldest of the Old -oL World , ia deserving of considerable attention , both on account of the beauty and delicacy of the language , and the large amount of information conveyed through it to the reader . The authoress commences by informingns that many of these pages _ TOfii-fi-compile d under the shadow of the African palm tree , the foliage ofwhicli / she describes , was oft sEirred by the wmd ~ to a * "joyous rustle , " the breeze " sighing languidly through its down of leaves , as if whispering mournfully by-gone snatches of Egypt ' s more prosperous days . " After volunteering n few remarks upon the innovating spirit of tho times , and the mania for modern inventions and improvements , which seems in tlie present day to have found its way , more or less , into the several
quarters of the globe , she proceeds directly to expatiate upon the different objects which present themselves during the course of her peregrinations . After passing Naples , Sicily , and Malta , our authoress arrives at Alexandria , an < l is much startled at observing how immeasurably the real , bonaftde , city falls below the ideal conceived of it in European minds . She can scarcely believe that this is the once-reuowned city of the world , the dwellingplace of Euclid and Athanasius , the school of philosophy , poetry ^ and art . It now presents nothing but a sickening picture ot misery , indigence , and sqnalpr . One solitary obelisk , the cele-Pillar the only
brated Cleopatra ' s Needle , and Pompey ' s , being objects upon which tho mind can dwell with pleasure as the remnants of a past and now entirely obliterated greatness . Theuce our fair traveller takes the train to Cairo , speculating much upon tho fact of a modern tourist posting at the rate ot forty miles an hour in tho ' " Land of Ham , " his " thoughts with tho Pbaroahs , " and his " body at the mercy of steam ; " but this , though decidedly out of harmony with a former , dispensation of things , has , in ouv own matter-of-fact ago , become to be considered as perfectly rational , and congenial to the habits of even tho erudite and time-honoured Egyptians .
Passing " Heliopolis , " the authoress arrives at Cairo , ^ anci gives ^^ us ftniijterestinjDr" apconnt of -a- "Turkish -weddingr ~ . m which the bride is said to " walk backwards tolier fate , " a somewhat singular mode of entering into the state of matvimonv , nrnl an exai »»|> le which we shrewdly suspect , that our European Histors would consideyabjy . objeot to follow . It is not uncommon , says Mian Eohlay , for families viatting Cairo to take up their temporary residence " in a tomb . " . She speaks of a lady who disposed of herself and suite within the compartments of one of the last resting-places formerly belonging to the " Shepherd kings ; ahe
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654 The Saturday Analyst and Leader . [ July 14 , 1860 .
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* The Oldest of the Old World . By Sophia M « y Echley . Richard Bentley .
Ponnybrook In Rome.
donnybrook : in home .
Old Idealisms*
OLD IDEALISMS *
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 14, 1860, page 654, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2356/page/6/
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