The late Mr Waterton having, some time ago, expressed his opinion that ravens1 are gradually becoming extinct in England, I offered the few following words about my experience of these birds.
The raven2 in this story is a compound of two great originals, of whom I was, at different times, the proud possessor. The first was in the bloom of his youth, when he was discovered in a modest retirement3 in London, by a friend of mine, and given to me. He had from the first, as Sir Hugh Evans says of Anne Page, ‘good gifts’, which he improved by study and attention in a most exemplary manner. He slept in a stable — generally on horseback — and so terrified a Newfoundland dog by his preternatural sagacity, that he has been known, by the mere4 superiority of his genius, to walk off unmolested with the dog’s dinner, from before his face. He was rapidly rising in acquirements and virtues5, when, in an evil hour, his stable was newly painted. He observed the workmen closely, saw that they were careful of the paint, and immediately burned to possess it. On their going to dinner, he ate up all they had left behind, consisting of a pound or two of white lead; and this youthful indiscretion terminated in death.
While I was yet inconsolable for his loss, another friend of mine in Yorkshire discovered an older and more gifted raven at a village public-house, which he prevailed upon the landlord to part with for a consideration, and sent up to me. The first act of this Sage6, was, to administer to the effects of his predecessor7, by disinterring all the cheese and halfpence he had buried in the garden — a work of immense labour and research, to which he devoted8 all the energies of his mind. When he had achieved this task, he applied9 himself to the acquisition of stable language, in which he soon became such an adept10, that he would perch11 outside my window and drive imaginary horses with great skill, all day. Perhaps even I never saw him at his best, for his former master sent his duty with him, ‘and if I wished the bird to come out very strong, would I be so good as to show him a drunken man’— which I never did, having (unfortunately) none but sober people at hand.
But I could hardly have respected him more, whatever the stimulating12 influences of this sight might have been. He had not the least respect, I am sorry to say, for me in return, or for anybody but the cook; to whom he was attached — but only, I fear, as a Policeman might have been. Once, I met him unexpectedly, about half-a-mile from my house, walking down the middle of a public street, attended by a pretty large crowd, and spontaneously exhibiting the whole of his accomplishments13. His gravity under those trying circumstances, I can never forget, nor the extraordinary gallantry with which, refusing to be brought home, he defended himself behind a pump, until overpowered by numbers. It may have been that he was too bright a genius to live long, or it may have been that he took some pernicious substance into his bill, and thence into his maw — which is not improbable, seeing that he new-pointed the greater part of the garden-wall by digging out the mortar14, broke countless15 squares of glass by scraping away the putty all round the frames, and tore up and swallowed, in splinters, the greater part of a wooden staircase of six steps and a landing — but after some three years he too was taken ill, and died before the kitchen fire. He kept his eye to the last upon the meat as it roasted, and suddenly. turned over on his back with a sepulchral16 cry of ‘Cuckoo!’ Since then I have been ravenless.
No account of the Gordon Riots having been to my knowledge introduced into any Work of Fiction, and the subject presenting very extraordinary and remarkable17 features, I was led to project this Tale.
It is unnecessary to say, that those shameful18 tumults19, while they reflect indelible disgrace upon the time in which they occurred, and all who had act or part in them, teach a good lesson. That what we falsely call a religious cry is easily raised by men who have no religion, and who in their daily practice set at nought20 the commonest principles of right and wrong; that it is begotten21 of intolerance and persecution22; that it is senseless, besotted, inveterate23 and unmerciful; all History teaches us. But perhaps we do not know it in our hearts too well, to profit by even so humble24 an example as the ‘No Popery’ riots of Seventeen Hundred and Eighty.
However imperfectly those disturbances25 are set forth26 in the following pages, they are impartially27 painted by one who has no sympathy with the Romish Church, though he acknowledges, as most men do, some esteemed28 friends among the followers29 of its creed30.
In the description of the principal outrages31, reference has been had to the best authorities of that time, such as they are; the account given in this Tale, of all the main features of the Riots, is substantially correct.
Mr Dennis’s allusions32 to the flourishing condition of his trade in those days, have their foundation in Truth, and not in the Author’s fancy. Any file of old Newspapers, or odd volume of the Annual Register, will prove this with terrible ease.
Even the case of Mary Jones, dwelt upon with so much pleasure by the same character, is no effort of invention. The facts were stated, exactly as they are stated here, in the House of Commons. Whether they afforded as much entertainment to the merry gentlemen assembled there, as some other most affecting circumstances of a similar nature mentioned by Sir Samuel Romilly, is not recorded.
That the case of Mary Jones may speak the more emphatically for itself, I subjoin it, as related by SIR WILLIAM MEREDITH in a speech in Parliament, ‘on Frequent Executions’, made in 1777.
‘Under this act,’ the Shop-lifting Act, ‘one Mary Jones was executed, whose case I shall just mention; it was at the time when press warrants were issued, on the alarm about Falkland Islands. The woman’s husband was pressed, their goods seized for some debts of his, and she, with two small children, turned into the streets a-begging. It is a circumstance not to be forgotten, that she was very young (under nineteen), and most remarkably33 handsome. She went to a linen34-draper’s shop, took some coarse linen off the counter, and slipped it under her cloak; the shopman saw her, and she laid it down: for this she was hanged. Her defence was (I have the trial in my pocket), “that she had lived in credit, and wanted for nothing, till a press-gang came and stole her husband from her; but since then, she had no bed to lie on; nothing to give her children to eat; and they were almost naked; and perhaps she might have done something wrong, for she hardly knew what she did.” The parish officers testified the truth of this story; but it seems, there had been a good deal of shop-lifting about Ludgate; an example was thought necessary; and this woman was hanged for the comfort and satisfaction of shopkeepers in Ludgate Street. When brought to receive sentence, she behaved in such a frantic35 manner, as proved her mind to he in a distracted and desponding state; and the child was sucking at her breast when she set out for Tyburn.’
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ravens
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| n.低质煤；渡鸦( raven的名词复数 ) | |
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raven
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| n.渡鸟，乌鸦；adj.乌亮的 | |
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retirement
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| n.退休，退职 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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sage
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| n.圣人，哲人；adj.贤明的，明智的 | |
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predecessor
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| n.前辈，前任 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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adept
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| adj.老练的，精通的 | |
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perch
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| n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于 | |
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stimulating
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| adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的 | |
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accomplishments
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| n.造诣；完成( accomplishment的名词复数 )；技能；成绩；成就 | |
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mortar
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| n.灰浆，灰泥；迫击炮；v.把…用灰浆涂接合 | |
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countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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sepulchral
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| adj.坟墓的，阴深的 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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shameful
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| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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tumults
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| 吵闹( tumult的名词复数 )； 喧哗； 激动的吵闹声； 心烦意乱 | |
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nought
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| n.／adj.无，零 | |
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begotten
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| v.为…之生父( beget的过去分词 )；产生，引起 | |
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persecution
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| n. 迫害,烦扰 | |
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inveterate
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| adj.积习已深的，根深蒂固的 | |
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humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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disturbances
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| n.骚乱( disturbance的名词复数 )；打扰；困扰；障碍 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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impartially
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| adv.公平地，无私地 | |
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esteemed
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| adj.受人尊敬的v.尊敬( esteem的过去式和过去分词 )；敬重；认为；以为 | |
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followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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outrages
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| 引起…的义愤，激怒( outrage的第三人称单数 ) | |
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allusions
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| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
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remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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