Excerpt: 'Headlong Hall' by Thomas Love Peacock
John Everett Millais, Christmas Eve, 1887
MR MAC LAUREL
Noo, ye ken, sir, every mon is the centre of his ain system, an’ endaiyours as much as possible to adapt everytlung aroond him to his ain parteecular views.
MR ESCOT
Thus, sir, I presume, it suits the particular views of a poet, at one time to take the part of the people against their oppressors, and at another, to take the part of the oppressors against the people.
SQUIRE HEADLONG
Ye mun alloo, sir, that poetry is a~sort of ware or commodity, that is brought into the public market wi’ a’ other descreptions of merchandise, an’ that a mon is pairfectly justified in getting the best price he can for his article. Noo, there are three reasons for taking the part o’ the people: the first is, when general leeberty an’ public happiness are conformable to your ain parteecular feelings o’ the moral an’ poleetical fetness o’ things: the second is, when they happen to be, as it were, in a state of exceetabeelity, an’ ye think ye can get a gude price for your commodity, by flingin’ in a leetle seasoning o’ pheelanthropy an’ republican speerit: the third is, when ye think ye can bully the menestry into gieing ye a place or a pension to hau’d your din, an’ in that case, ye point an attack against them within the pale o’ the law; an’ if they tak nae heed o’ ye, ye open a stronger fire; an’ the less heed they tak, the mair ye bawl; an’ the mair factious ye grow, always~within the pale o’ the law, till they send a plenipotentiary to treat wi’ ye for yoursel, an’ then the mair popular ye happen to be, the better price ye fetch.
SQUIRE HEADLONG
Off with your heeltaps.
MR CRANIUM
I perfectly agree with Mr Mac Laurel in his definition of self-love and disinterestedness: every man’s actions are determined by his peculiar views, and those views are determined by the organisation of his skull. A man in whom the organ of benevolence is not developed, cannot be benevolent: he, in whom it is so, cannot be otherwise. The organ of self-love is prodigiously developed in the greater number of subjects that have fallen under my observation.
MR ESCOT
Much less, I presume, among savage than civilised men who, constant only to the love of self and consistent only in their aim to deceive, are always actuated hy the hope of personal advantage, or by the dread of personal punishment.
MR CRANIUM
Very probably.
MR ESCOT
You have, of course, found very copious specimens of the organs of hypocrisy, destruction, and avarice.
MR CRANIUM
Secretiveness, destructiveness, and covetiveness. You may add, if you please, that of constructiveness.
MR ESCOT
Meaning, I presume, the organ of building; which I contend to be not a natural organ of the featherless biped.
MR CRANIUM
Pardon me: it is here.—(As he said these words, he produced from his pocket, and placed it on the table, to the great surprise of the company.)—This was the skull of Sir Christopher Wren. You observe this protuberance—(The skull was handed round tbe table.)
MR ESCOT
I contend that the original unsophisticated man was by no means constructive. He lived in the open air, under a tree.
THE REVEREND DOCTOR GASTER
The tree of life. Unquestionably. Till he had tasted the forbidden fruit.
MR JENKINSON
At which period, probably, the organ of constructiveness was added to his anatomy, as a punishment for his transgression.
MR ESCOT
There could not have been a more severe one, since the propensity which has led him to building cities has proved the greatest curse of his existence.
SQUIRE HEADLONG (taking the skull.)
Memento mori. Come, a bumper of Burgundy.
MR NIGHTSHADE
A very classical application, Squire Headlong. The Romans were in the practice of adhibiting skulls at their banquets, and sometimes little skeletons of silver, as a silent admonition to the guests to enjoy life while it lasted.
THE REVEREND DOCTOR GASTER
Sound doctrine. Mr Nightshade.
MR ESCOT
I question its soundness. The use of vinous spirit has a tremendous influence in the deterioration of the human race.
MR FOSTER
I fear, indeed, it operates as a considerable check to the progress of the species towards moral and intellectual perfection. Yet many great men have been of opinion that it exalts the immagination, fires the genius, accelerates the flow of ideas, and imparts to dispositions naturally cold and deliberative that enthusiastic sublimation which is the source of greatness and energy.
MR NIGHTSHADE
Laudibus arguitur vini vinosus Homerus.
MR JENKINSON
I conceive the use of wine to be always pernicious in excess, but often useful in moderation: it certainly kills some, but it saves the lives of others: I find that an occasional glass, taken with judgment and caution, has a very salutary effect in maintaining that equilibrium of the system, which it is always my aim to preserve; and this calm and temperate use of wine was, no doubt, what Homer meant to inculcate, when he said: Par de depas oinoi, piein hote thumos anógoi. [A cup of wine at hand, to drink as inclination prompts.]
SQUIRE HEADLONG
Good. Pass the bottle. (Un morne silence.) Sir Christopher does not seem to have raised our spirits. Chromatic, favour us with a specimen of your vocal powers. Something in point. Mr Chromatic, without further preface, immediately struck up the following
SONG
In his last binn Sir Peter lies,
Who knew not what it was to frown:
Death took him mellow, by surprise,
And in his cellar stopped him down.
Through all our land we could not boast
A knight more gay, more prompt than he,
To rise and fill a bumper toast,
And pass it round with THREE TIMES THREE.
None better knew the feast to sway,
Or keep Mirth’s boat in better trim;
For Nature had but little clay
Like that of which she moulded him.
The meanest guest that graced his board
Was there the freest of the free,
His bumper toast when Peter poured,
And passed it round with THREE TIMES THREE.
He kept at true good humour’s mark
The social flow of pleasure’s tide:
He never made a brow look dark,
Nor caused a tear, but when he died.
No sorrow round his tomb should dwell:
More pleased his gay old ghost would be,
For funeral song, and passing bell,
To hear no sound but THREE TIMES THREE.
(Hammering of knuckles and glasses, and shouts of Bravo!)
MR PANSCOPE (Suddenly emerging from a deep reverie.)
I have heard, with the most profound attention, everything which the gentleman on the other side of the table has thought proper to advance on the subject of human deterioration; and I must take the liberty to remark, that it augurs a very considerable degree of presumption in any individual, to set himself up against the authority of so many great men, as may be marshalled in metaphysical phalanx under the opposite banners of the controversy; such as Aristotle, Plato, the scholiast on Aristophanes, St. Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Athanasius, Orpheus, Pindar, Simonides, Gronovius, Hemsterhusius, Longinus, Sir Isaac Newton, Thomas Paine, Doctor Paley, the King of Prussia, the King of Poland, Cicero, Monsieur Gautier, Hippocrates, Machiavelli, Milton, Colley Cibber, Bojardo, Gregory Nazianzenus, Locke, D’Alembert, Boccaccio, Daniel Defoe, Erasmus, Doctor Smollett, Zimmermann, Solomon, Confucius, Zoroaster, and Thomas-a-Kempis.
MR ESCOT
I presume, sir, you are one of those who value an authority more than a reason.
MR PANSCOPE
The authority, sir, of all these great men, whose works, as well as the whole of the Encyclopedia Britannica, the entire series of the Monthly Review, the complete set of the Variorum Classics, and the Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions, I have read through from beginning to end, deposes, with irrefragable refutation, against your ratiocinative speculations, wherein you seem desirous, by the futile process of analytical dialectics, to subvert the pyramidal structure of synthetically deduced opinions, which have withstood the secular revolutions of physiological disquisition, and which I maintain to be transcendentally self-evident, categorically certain, and syllogistically demonstrable.
SQUIRE HEADLONG
Bravo! Pass the bottle. The very best speech that ever was made.
MR ESCOT
It has only the slight disadvantage of being unintelligible.
MR PANSCOPE
I am not obliged, sir, as Dr. Johnson observed on a similar occasion, to furnish you with an understanding.
MR ESCOT
I fear, sir, you would have some difficulty in furnishing me with such an article from your own stock.
MR PANSCOPE
‘Sdeath, sir, do you question my understanding?
MR ESCOT
I only question, sir, where I expect a reply; which, from things that have no existence, I am not visionary enough to anticipate.
MR PANSCOPE
I beg leave to observe, sir, that my language was perfectly perspicuous, and etymologically correct; and, I conceive, I have demonstrated what I shall now take the liberty to say in plain terms, that all your opinions are extremely absurd.
MR ESCOT
I should be sorry, sir, to advance any opinion that you would not think absurd.
MR PANSCOPE
Death and fury, sir—
MR ESCOT
Say no more, sir. That apology is quite sufficient.
MR PANSCOPE
Apology, sir?
MR ESCOT
Even so, sir. You have lost your temper, which I consider equivalent to a confession that you have the worst of the argument.
MR PANSCOPE
Lightning and devils: sir—
SQUIRE HEADLONG
No civil war!–Temperance, in the name of Bacchus!–A glee! a glee! Music has charms to bend the knotted oak. Sir Patrick, you’ll join?
SIR PATRICK O’PRISM
Troth, with all my heart: for, by my soul, I’m bothered completely.
SQUIRE HEADLONG
Agreed, then: you, and I, and Chromatic. Bumpers!–bumpers! Come, strike up.
Squire Headlong, Mr Chromatic, and Sir Patrick O’Prism, each holding a bumper, immediately vociferated the following
GLEE
A heeltap! a heeltap! I never could bear it!
So fill me a bumper, a bumper of claret!
Let the bottle pass freely, don’t shirk it nor spare it,
For a heeltap! a heeltap! I never could bear it!
No skylight! no twilight! while Bacchus rules o’er us:
No thinking! no shrinking! all drinking in chorus:
Let us moisten our clay, since ’tis thirsty and porous:
No thinking! no shrinking! all drinking in chorus!
A heeltap! a heeltap! I never could bear it!
So fill me a bumper, a bumper of claret!
Let the bottle pass freely, don’t shirk it nor spare it,
For a heeltap! a heeltap! I never could bear it!
“OMADOS KAI DOUPOS ORÓREI”
The little butler now waddled in with a summons from the ladies to tea and coffee. The squire was unwilling to leave his Burgundy. Mr Escot strenuously urged the necessity of immediate adjournment, observing, that the longer they continued drinking the worse they should be. Mr Foster seconded the motion, declaring the transition from the bottle to female society to be an indisputable amelioration of the state of the sensitive man. Mr Jenkison allowed the squire and his two brother philosophers to settle the point between them, concluding that he was just as well in one place as another. The question of adjournment was then put, and carried by a large majority.
About the Author
Thomas Love Peacock was an English novelist and poet.
Publication Details
Headlong Hall was first published in 1816.
