grovelling among the stones, gibbering and writhing in a fit of
epilepsy.
Catherine started forward and looked up. She had been standing
against a post, not a tree--the moon was shining full on it now; and
on the summit strangely distinct, and smiling ghastly, was a livid
human head.
The wretched woman fled--she dared look no more. And some hours
afterwards, when, alarmed by the Count's continued absence, his
confidential servant came back to seek for him in the churchyard, he
was found sitting on the flags, staring full at the head, and
laughing, and talking to it wildly, and nodding at it. He was taken
up a hopeless idiot, and so lived for years and years; clanking the
chain, and moaning under the lash, and howling through long nights
when the moon peered through the bars of his solitary cell, and he
buried his face in the straw.
* * *
There--the murder is out! And having indulged himself in a chapter
of the very finest writing, the author begs the attention of the
British public towards it; humbly conceiving that it possesses some
of those peculiar merits which have rendered the fine writing in
other chapters of the works of other authors so famous.
Without bragging at all, let us just point out the chief claims of
the above pleasing piece of composition. In the first place, it is
perfectly stilted and unnatural; the dialogue and the sentiments
being artfully arranged, so as to be as strong and majestic as
possible. Our dear Cat is but a poor illiterate country wench, who
has come from cutting her husband's throat; and yet, see! she talks
and looks like a tragedy princess, who is suffering in the most
virtuous blank verse. This is the proper end of fiction, and one of
the greatest triumphs that a novelist can achieve: for to make
people sympathise with virtue is a vulgar trick that any common
fellow can do; but it is not everybody who can take a scoundrel, and
cause us to weep and whimper over him as though he were a very
saint. Give a young lady of five years old a skein of silk and a
brace of netting-needles, and she will in a short time turn you out
a decent silk purse--anybody can; but try her with a sow's ear, and
see whether she can make a silk purse out of THAT. That is the work
for your real great artist; and pleasant it is to see how many have
succeeded in these latter days.
The subject is strictly historical, as anyone may see by referring
to the Daily Post of March 3, 1726, which contains the following
paragraph:
"Yesterday morning, early, a man's head, that by the freshness of it
seemed to have been newly cut off from the body, having its own hair
on, was found by the river's side, near Millbank, Westminster, and
was afterwards exposed to public view in St. Margaret's churchyard,
where thousands of people have seen it; but none could tell who the
unhappy person was, much less who committed such a horrid and
barbarous action. There are various conjectures relating to the
deceased; but there being nothing certain, we omit them. The head
was much hacked and mangled in the cutting off."
The head which caused such an impression upon Monsieur de
Galgenstein was, indeed, once on the shoulders of Mr. John Hayes,
who lost it under the following circumstances. We have seen how Mr.
Hayes was induced to drink. Mr. Hayes having been encouraged in
drinking the wine, and growing very merry therewith, he sang and
danced about the room; but his wife, fearing the quantity he had
drunk would not have the wished-for effect on him, she sent away for
another bottle, of which he drank also. This effectually answered
their expectations; and Mr. Hayes became thereby intoxicated, and
deprived of his understanding.
He, however, made shift to get into the other room, and, throwing
himself upon the bed, fell asleep; upon which Mrs. Hayes reminded
them of the affair in hand, and told them that was the most proper
juncture to finish the business. *
* * *
* The description of the murder and the execution of the culprits,
which here follows in the original, was taken from the newspapers of
the day. Coming from such a source they have, as may be imagined,
no literary merit whatever. The details of the crime are simply
horrible, without one touch of even that sort of romance which
sometimes gives a little dignity to murder. As such they precisely
suited Mr. Thackeray's purpose at the time--which was to show the
real manners and customs of the Sheppards and Turpins who were then
the popular heroes of fiction. But nowadays there is no such
purpose to serve, and therefore these too literal details are
omitted.
* * *
Ring, ding, ding! the gloomy green curtain drops, the dramatis
personae are duly disposed of, the nimble candle snuffers put out
the lights, and the audience goeth pondering home. If the critic
take the pains to ask why the author, who hath been so diffuse in
describing the early and fabulous acts of Mrs. Catherine's
existence, should so hurry off the catastrophe where a deal of the
very finest writing might have been employed, Solomons replies that
the "ordinary" narrative is far more emphatic than any composition
of his own could be, with all the rhetorical graces which he might
employ. Mr. Aram's trial, as taken by the penny-a-liners of those
days, had always interested him more than the lengthened and
poetical report which an eminent novelist has given of the same.
Mr. Turpin's adventures are more instructive and agreeable to him in
the account of the Newgate Plutarch, than in the learned Ainsworth's
Biographical Dictionary. And as he believes that the professional
gentlemen who are employed to invest such heroes with the rewards
that their great actions merit, will go through the ceremony of the
grand cordon with much more accuracy and despatch than can be shown
by the most distinguished amateur; in like manner he thinks that the
history of such investitures should be written by people directly
concerned, and not by admiring persons without, who must be ignorant
of many of the secrets of Ketchcraft. We very much doubt if Milton
himself could make a description of an execution half so horrible as
the simple lines in the Daily Post of a hundred and ten years since,
that now lies before us--"herrlich wie am ersten Tag,"--as bright
and clean as on the day of publication. Think of it! it has been
read by Belinda at her toilet, scanned at "Button's" and "Will's,"
sneered at by wits, talked of in palaces and cottages, by a busy
race in wigs, red heels, hoops, patches, and rags of all variety--a
busy race that hath long since plunged and vanished in the
unfathomable gulf towards which we march so briskly.
Where are they? "Afflavit Deus"--and they are gone! Hark! is not
the same wind roaring still that shall sweep us down? and yonder
stan
ds the compositor at his types who shall put up a pretty
paragraph some day to say how, "Yesterday, at his house in Grosvenor
Square," or "At Botany Bay, universally regretted," died So-and-So.
Into what profound moralities is the paragraph concerning Mrs.
Catherine's burning leading us!
Ay, truly, and to that very point have we wished to come; for,
having finished our delectable meal, it behoves us to say a word or
two by way of grace at its conclusion, and be heartily thankful that
it is over. It has been the writer's object carefully to exclude
from his drama (except in two very insignificant instances--mere
walking-gentlemen parts), any characters but those of scoundrels of
the very highest degree. That he has not altogether failed in the
object he had in view, is evident from some newspaper critiques
which he has had the good fortune to see; and which abuse the tale
of "Catherine" as one of the dullest, most vulgar, and immoral works
extant. It is highly gratifying to the author to find that such
opinions are abroad, as they convince him that the taste for Newgate
literature is on the wane, and that when the public critic has right
down undisguised immorality set before him, the honest creature is
shocked at it, as he should be, and can declare his indignation in
good round terms of abuse. The characters of the tale ARE immoral,
and no doubt of it; but the writer humbly hopes the end is not so.
The public was, in our notion, dosed and poisoned by the prevailing
style of literary practice, and it was necessary to administer some
medicine that would produce a wholesome nausea, and afterwards bring
about a more healthy habit.
And, thank Heaven, this effect HAS been produced in very many
instances, and that the "Catherine" cathartic has acted most
efficaciously. The author has been pleased at the disgust which his
work has excited, and has watched with benevolent carefulness the
wry faces that have been made by many of the patients who have
swallowed the dose. Solomons remembers, at the establishment in
Birchin Lane where he had the honour of receiving his education,
there used to be administered to the boys a certain cough-medicine,
which was so excessively agreeable that all the lads longed to have
colds in order to partake of the remedy. Some of our popular
novelists have compounded their drugs in a similar way, and made
them so palatable that a public, once healthy and honest, has been
well-nigh poisoned by their wares. Solomons defies anyone to say
the like of himself--that his doses have been as pleasant as
champagne, and his pills as sweet as barley-sugar;--it has been his
attempt to make vice to appear entirely vicious; and in those
instances where he hath occasionally introduced something like
virtue, to make the sham as evident as possible, and not allow the
meanest capacity a single chance to mistake it.
And what has been the consequence? That wholesome nausea which it
has been his good fortune to create wherever he has been allowed to
practise in his humble circle.
Has anyone thrown away a halfpennyworth of sympathy upon any person
mentioned in this history? Surely no. But abler and more famous
men than Solomons have taken a different plan; and it becomes every
man in his vocation to cry out against such, and expose their errors
as best he may.
Labouring under such ideas, Mr. Isaac Solomons, junior, produced the
romance of Mrs. Cat, and confesses himself completely happy to have
brought it to a conclusion. His poem may be dull--ay, and probably
is. The great Blackmore, the great Dennis, the great Sprat, the
great Pomfret, not to mention great men of our own time--have they
not also been dull, and had pretty reputations too? Be it granted
Solomons IS dull; but don't attack his morality; he humbly submits
that, in his poem, no man shall mistake virtue for vice, no man
shall allow a single sentiment of pity or admiration to enter his
bosom for any character of the piece: it being, from beginning to
end, a scene of unmixed rascality performed by persons who never
deviate into good feeling. And although he doth not pretend to
equal the great modern authors, whom he hath mentioned, in wit or
descriptive power; yet, in the point of moral, he meekly believes
that he has been their superior; feeling the greatest disgust for
the characters he describes, and using his humble endeavour to cause
the public also to hate them.
Horsemonger Lane: January 1840.
William Makepeace Thackeray, A Story
(Series: # )
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