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Leader (1850-1860), 14th July 1860, Edition 2 of 2, Page 6, OLD IDEALISMS * AN interesting book of t...

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      Cm The Saturday Analyst Cmd Leader. [J U...

      CM The Saturday Analyst cmd Leader . [ J uly 14 , I 860 .

      Bonnybrook In Rome. Save Me From My Frie...

      BONNYBROOK IN ROME . Save me from my friends ! Ifo one at the present moment has more occasion to utter this prayer than the Pope . His friendshis Irish f riends—are positively killing him -with kindness . Not content , with a gentle kiss of the pontifical toe , they are throwing themselves in their excess of devotion upon the paternal foot , utterly regardless of the temporal attribute of corns . _ His Holiness , who , in regard of these excresce nt 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 a right to expect that the devoted youth of Ireland , who forsook the land of their birth and all they held the attacks of

      dear to them , to defend , his person and throne from the heretic and the heathen , would have been actuated by disinterested motives . He had every reason to believe that they came to Rome 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 ottered their services of their own free will as volunteers in the holv cause , and the Pope had a right to expect that each man among- " them would find his reward in an approving conscience and in the sense of having performed a sacred duty . That is the viewin 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 deal more to eat and drink than he ever had at home in his native land . The distinction of being a ¦ " fall private" in the army of his Holiness the Pope by no means satisfies their ^ ambition . Under the and

      Lainoriciere , full private does not turn out to be easy honourable position which their fervid imaginations pictured . Full private must wear the common uniform , he niust attend drill when he is called upon , he must share in the common mess , and above all he must obey his officers . This does not . suit the ideas of the Irish Brigade at all , On the 27 tFof June a young Irishman named Laffan , " very respectably and nicely educated" as the correspondent of the Nation informs us , not being satisfied . with the position of " full private" ( being like a number of those who seenx to . have expected officers ' ^ commissions to be as plentiful as blackberries ) , put off his uniform ,

      and turned out in plain clothes . Mr . Howley , the olticer m command , objected to this , and ordered him to put on his" uniform . But Mr . Laffan 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 off and took refuge in the Irish college . Some French officers ,

      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 haying the 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 major 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 ' s talent for picking a quarrel , this athletic son of Erin pointed out to his comrades that all these dirty Bolgians were drawn up there to overawe them—tho Pope ' s gentlemen , at arms . Here was somebod y treading on the tail of their coat at last . " Look at them , the dirty blackguards ,

      they would sell the Pope and join Garibaldi in tho morning , and there they are , with their bayonets to frighten us . " Whoop ! tho faction cry so familiar in the purlieus of Drury-lane and £ > t , Giles ' s , " is Taised ; ~ and" tho ~ Popo ' B ~; gentlemen-are—rushing pell mell upon the bravo Belgians , when Major CVReiily , in a voice of thunder , shouts out , u Right about face . " ** Devil of a bit , " says tho athletic full-private , and rushing at ft Belgian , laid him low with ' one blow of his fist , " to the utter amiiKement and horror of overyono , " as the oye-witness of tho Nation deposoth . Here , acoording to tins authority , the Belgian officer was guilty of an act of great indiscretion . His order , oh seeing his man floored , was , " Prime and load—make ready—present—fire . " The great O'Reilly hero again came to the rescue with his voice of thunder . " Hold , " said the major—at least , wo suppose ho paid , " Hold . " ( These nvortera of lato always do ) .

      " Hold , " said Major O'Reilly , rushing forward , and putting himself between the muzzles of the Belgian ^ guns and Jhe Irish . Whether it was that the major ' s voice of thunder frightened the Belgians , or that they had not had time to prime and load we cannot pretend to say , but they did not obey the order to fire ; and encouraged thereby , the Irish , this time deaf to the . awful voice of the major , rushed upon the Belgians , commented a regular hand-to-hand fight , " merely , however , " as the Nation s eye witness assures us , " desiring to disarm the others— 'wresting ^ away their guns , twisting the bayonets oiflike twigs—what pious 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 tis 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 bo far as to draw his sword and smite an Irishman . We are gratified , however to knowthat the Irishman received the blow on h is 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 ofneer . As the Belgian officer did not injure the Irish full-private it was only just that the full-private should miss the Belgian oflicer 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 Irish , 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 ait the least . We have no doubt that among the Irish them-¦ ¦¦

      selves this affair was regarded as '' a mere harmless scrimmage , such as i & of every-day occurrence in Tipperary and its English settlement in ( 3 harles-street , Prury-lane . We regret , _ howeyer to see thai the Pope does not appreciate these Pbnnybrook pleasantries . We should have expected , him , in his great necessity , to be urgent for more recruits from the Emerald Isle . / But that does not appear to be his desire ; on the contrary , he intimates that any more intending volunteers would greatly oblige him by staying- at home : '¦ ¦ while , as to those who have ah'eady made such great sacrifices on Ms behalf , he- is _ ilraftirig thenv out ~ o £ Rome as quickly as possible . ,

      Old Idealisms * An Interesting Book Of T...

      OLD IDEALISMS * AN interesting book of travels , entitled . The Oldest of the Old World , is deserving of considerable attention , both on acc () uutoftlie beauty and delicncy of the language ,-au « l the large amount of information conveyed through it to the reader . The authoress commences by informing us that many of these pages -ret-e- / . ^ mp . lAf ? nndftr thft shad ow of the African palm tree , the foliage of which , she describes , wns oft stirred by the wind 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 a few remarks upon the innovating spirit of the 'times , and the mama for modern inventions and improvements , which seems in the present day to have found its way , more or less , into the several ouarters of the fflobe , she proceeds directly to expatiate upon the

      different objects which present themselves during the course ol her ' peregrinations , . After pas 4 ng Naples , Sicily , and Malta , our authoress arrives at , Alexandria , anl is much ' startled at observing how immeasurably the real , bowtjide , city falls below the ideal conceived of it in European miuWs . She can scarcely believe that this'is the once-renowned oity of the , worhl , the dwellingplace of Euclid and Athanasius , tlie school of philosophy , poetry , und art . It now presents nothing but a sickening p icture ot misery , indigence , ami squalor . One solitary obelisk , the celebrated Cleopatra ' Needle , and Pompey ' Pillar , being the only l the

      objects upon which the mind can dwell with peasure as remnants pf a past ami now entirely obliterated greatness . Thence our fair traveller takes tlie train to Cairo , speculating much upon the fact of a modern tourist posting at the rate ot forty miles nn hour in the " Land of Ham , " his " thoughts with the Pharoahn , " and his " body at the mercy of steam . ; " but this , though decidedly out of harmony with a former dispensation ot things , has , in our own matter-of-fuct age , become to be considered aa perfectly rational , and congenial to the habits of eyeii tho erudite and time-honoured Egyptians . . Cairoaim

      Passing " Heliopolis , " tho authoress arrives at , gives » alin ~ tttt 8 f ^ xnr ^ aTgWilffiri ) 'f ~ Ta ^ ^^ rrk ^ hr . weddli » g ^ »» which the bride is said to " wnlk backwards to her fato , a somewhat singular mode of entering into th « state of luatriruon ^ , nii . a an example which we shrewdly suspect , that our European sisters would considerably object to follow . It is not uncommon , saya Miss JEohley , for families visiting Cairo to take up their temporary residence " in n , tomb . " Shu speaks of a lady who clisposea of hersolf and suite within the compartments of one of the last resting-places formerly belonging to the " Shepherd kings ; ahe

      * The Oldest Qf The Old World. By Sopuin...

      * The Oldest qf the Old World . By SopUin May Eohley . Richard Bentley .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), July 14, 1860, page 6, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_14071860/page/6/