in the company. Skelton then invented the scheme of blindfolding the waiter, that the first he might catch should pay the reckoning, and thus they all escaped.' It was a wonderful invention truly, and rather befitting the hero of a jest-book than an orthodox divine. But that is the strength of Philip Skelton: though his orthodoxy was impregnable, he always remained a man of infinite humour and fierce passion. So Skelton left Dublin, where he had more acquaintances than any man in the college, to take orders in the Church. It was Bishop Sterne, of Clogher, who ordained him, and it is characteristic of the man that on the day of ordination he threw another deacon down - stairs. His first curacy was interrupted speedily by a brawl with the vicar's wife; but he had already discovered not only the splendid charity which dominated his life, but his talent for preaching. On the one hand, he was not a "dull drowsy lecturer," nor, on the other, was he one of "the smooth pretty preachers." His discourses were apt to draw tears arouse laughter. On the subject of hell-fire he was peculiarly eloquent, and he could move the most cultured audience to terror. Once when he had preached before a too refined congregation he was told that a certain lady did not like his sermon. "Oh," replied Skelton, "she has a good right not to like sermons about hell's fire, for she is mistress to the Archbishop of York, and all London knows it." But all or to his hearers were not as this lady, and he thundered to good purpose wherever he went, and supported his stern opinions with his own lack of conventionality. "I set out on the road of orthodoxy," said he, "but I found leisure to switch the Arians now and then." And in good truth he switched them all, and defended his own opinions with admirable energy. "Between you and me," he said to a friend, "I'll pawn my salvation on the truth of the Trinity." Appointed curate at Monaghan, this fighting Christian, who should have ruled others, wasted the best years of his life in futile subservience. Maybe it is not strange that promotion came slowly to one who cared not to conciliate his fellows; but promotion did come slowly, and Skelton freely attributed his failure to the treachery of his bishop. Nor did he accept the neglect in amiable silence. "God forgive me," he would say, "I railed against him most violently, but he did not regard it; his station placed him far above me, and what did he care for the censure of a poor curate?" However, Skelton neither forgot nor forgave: if the bishop slighted him, he ignored the bishop. He never attended a visitation during the rest of the bishop's life; and so far did he carry his rancour, as always to insult a bishop wherever he found him, and whoever he might be. Meanwhile, though he followed a serious profession, he did not neglect the prowess of his the age of fifty he thought of marriage again. He then realised the loneliness of life, and repented that he had not married when young. "Would to God," he would exclaim, “I had married a servant-maid!" youth. He was still undefeat- he was not pleased with his ed at the game of long-bullets, own lack of bravery, and at and his strength was famous throughout the countryside. He could still lift such weights as no ordinary person could move, and he told Burdy that he could wind a 50-lb. weight round his head without any difficulty. Moreover, his fist was as active as his tongue to chastise the insolent, but he had not yet found the proper theatre for his genius. was On the subject of matrimony he no less exercised than was Panurge. "Shall I marry?" said he. 'Marry in God's name," might have replied his friends. But though he had made several attempts (ingeniously tabulated by the faithful Burdy) he never changed his state. The first lady to whom he paid his addresses showed signs of extravagance, and he would have none of her. "Between your pride and his poverty," he declared, "poor Phil Skelton shall never be racked." And poor Phil Skelton was not racked, though providence proved his wisdom by driving the lady to drink and adultery. Another experiment might have had a more hopeful result, had not Skelton called upon his betrothed and found her conversing in a private room with a gay, airy youth." He dropped the beau the stairs, and never spoke to the faithless one again. After this fashion four attempts failed, and Skelton resolved to suppress his passions, for which purpose he lived two years upon vegetables. But over The long years of his curacy were broken only by a literary project or two, and one journey to London. He was still young when he wrote 'Some Proposals for the Revival of Christianity,' a piece attributed to Swift, under whose inspiration it was composed. The great man, after his wont, would neither acknowledge nor deny the authorship; he merely objected that the writer had not continued the irony to the end. A more serious effort was 'Deism Revealed,' a work which was approved by Hume and profitably published by Andrew Miller. To launch this masterpiece Skelton travelled to London, and his impressions of the capital are droll enough. Like Voltaire, he was amazed at the intelligence of the merchants in whose houses he dined, and there "passed many agreeable hours with company fit to entertain and instruct me." But coming up from Monaghan he was most deeply struck by the sight of a wild Irishman in a public show, "dressed up with a false beard, artificial wings, and the like." A hideous figure, he wore a chain round his waist, and cut his foolish capers before a gaping crowd. He was a native of Skelton's own Derriaghy, and had taken, concealed his bed, and in this modest hut he entertained the great ones of the neighbourhood. His arrival was characteristic and magnificent. He was a bruiser himself, but he thought that his own fists might be over-matched, so he took with him one Jonas Good, a great boxer, to defend him. "I hire you to fight," said he to his henchman, "at which I hear you are very clever," and between them they fought the parish into submission and good behaviour. And if he behaviour. Moreover, his sense of fun got the better of him, and he dressed Jonas up to look as terrific as possible. Wherefore he would not allow him to wear livery, which might have destroyed the allusion, but clothed him in picturesque braveries, and gave out that he was a match for four. Yet the ruffians of Pettigo were equal to the emergency : the boasting of Skelton "excited the envy of some malicious people, who waylaid Jonas at night, and beat him most shockingly." This, however, was but an interlude. Jonas recovered his beating, and, his master aiding, ruled the parish with an iron fist. said he, a proper method of But after twenty years of waiting Philip Skelton was appointed to the living of Pettigo, the roughest parish in Ireland, and there he showed his true character and courage. Remote and uncultivated, it verily deserved the name of Siberia, which he gave to it. The vicar himself had but one room, with an earthen floor, where he slept and studied. A simple screen For his own part, Skelton was always fighting. Now it is a mob of tinkers that he chastises single-handed. Now he thrashes an officer for profane swearing. At another time he quarrels at a vestry-meeting, and putting off his clerical robe, he beats his opponent within an inch of his life. He had been thirty years a priest when he challenged a major to mortal combat; and wherever he went or whatever enterprise he under took, he bore himself as a gallant man. But, his courage apart, he was always devoted to charity. He took upon himself the sorrows of all his poor parish. He fought hunger as he fought impertinence, with every fibre of his robust frame. "If you have not food," he said, "beg it; if you can't get for begging, steal; if you can't get for stealing, rob, and don't starve." So, as long as he had a penny in his pocket, he fed his parishioners, were they Catholic or Protestant. No heresy came in the way of his welldoing; only he must do good in his own way. When famine came, he sold his library to buy meal, and, distributing the meal himself, he kept back the extortionate thief with his strong right hand. At the time of the greatest dearth, "he and Jonas Good, the strong man, regulated Pettigo market on a Monday, standing among the meal-sacks, each of them with a huge club in his hand." It is a heroic picture, which you cannot contemplate without a frank admiration for this brave old parson. Yet though he gave up everything, he loved comfort and the good things of this world with all the energy of his vivid nature. The force of life dominated him, and he lived every minute and with every drop of blood. His library gone, he collected another; in the face of poverty he cultivated his garden, and despite the bleakness of his Siberian Pettigo, he made a wonderful collection of flowers. Of dress he was properly contemptuous, since finery in the wilds of Ireland would have been absurd. So in the time of frost and distress this open-handed hero would go through Pettigo" with a strawrope about rope about him to keep his large coat on." Yet in the face of disaster he allowed himself one pleasure. "He was fond of a good horse," says Burdy, "and generally had the best saddle-horses that could be got, though he was remarkably awkward on horseback, for he turned out his toes, and took no hold with his knees, but balanced himself in the stirrups, like a man on a slackwire; so that when a horse began to trot he jogged up down like a taylor. A lady who was riding near him one day near Pettigo observed to him that he turned out his toes too much. 'O yes,' he said, 'my education was inverted, for I was taught to ride by a dancing-master, and to dance by a riding-master."" Are not the picture and the excuse alike admirable? And still more humorous is Burdy's comment: "Horace himself informs very candidly that he rode awkwardly on his mule." us Thus Skelton was preferred from one rectory to another, until at last old age drove him to seek refuge and retirement in Dublin. There he lived quietly and at his ease, discussing theology, baiting bishops, and playing piquet for a farthing a game. But by this time his fame had spread wide, and his table-talk was collected for the curious. For instance, at dinner (you are told) he would give two toasts. The first was 66 the family of the Latouches, which had a soul superior to the rest of mankind; the second was Richmond the dancing-master, who was famous in Dublin for the capture of burglars. This toast he would preface with the words: "I give you the health of a hero, Richmond the dancing-master." With Skelton's approval he must needs have been a hero, and at least he professed an art which the parson practised with skill and sympathy. But Skelton's familiar discourse was always free, and never smacked of his cloth. To a girl who came to him for counsel he exclaimed: Marry a soldier, my girl, for you will find more honest soldiers than honest parsons. When a gentleman of Fermanagh told him that he expected to represent the county in Parliament, "Ay," he said, with a directness worthy of the Doctor, "they are all a parcel of rascals, and a rascal is fittest to represent them." Yet in spite of his energy and strength he suffered from the horrors, like Borrow and many another strong and energetic man. In his own thought, he trembled for fifty years upon the brink of the grave. He would rise at night to rush in timid search for a doctor, and half an hour's jogging on horseback would restore him to confidence. parishioners, sympathetic in most things, tired of this perpetual anxiety, and one among them, bolder than the rest, said, "Make a day, sir, and keep it, and don't be always disappointing us." But he refused to make a day, and disappointed VOL. CLXV. NO. MIII. His them until he was past eighty and the pompous prebendary of Donacavey. Moreover, he had a simple faith in omens and dreams. Once upon a time a great lady fell in love with him, and offered him the tutelage of her sons, as a step to matrimony. Although perplexed, he might have looked upon the suit with favour, but in the night "he saw the appearance of a wigblock, which, rising by degrees out of the floor of the room, and then moving back and forward, said in a solemn voice: 'Beware of what you are about.'" did beware, and procured the appointment for а friend. The lady married her tutor in two "in half a year years; after," says Skelton, "she cuckhold him, and then I saw her with my eyes a beastly drunkard." Truly the wig-block gave a just and timely warning. He Such was the man whom Burdy drew, and in drawing Skelton he perforce drew himself. So he is revealed to us a simple friend and faithful biographer. His own career, as we have said, was merely commonplace. He attempted, ineffectually, to marry Bishop Percy's daughter, and he printed a volume of poems, one of which boasted the ingenious title: "On being refused the Loan of an Umbrella by a certain Lady." But the work of his life was Skelton's biography, and it is a curiosity of literature that, while Burdy and Boswell were inspired by a similar talent, they were working at the same time, and that their masterpieces were published within the limit of a single year. 3 M |
