CA.RLETON'S SQUANDERS OF CASTLE SQUANDER. *

This is a socio-didactic novel, where a particular family is chosen as the type of a class, and their characters, conduct, and fortunes are exhibited, less perhaps to adorn a tale than to point a national moral. The subject of waste, extravagance, embarrassment, and final ruin, on the part of Irish gentlemen, is not a new theme ; and in a certain sense Mr. Carleton is a day after the fair. He ad- mits that the Famine, the pressure of the Poor-law, and the En- cumbered Estates Act, are going far to sweep away the whole tribe of Squanders, having already made short work with a good many of them. On the other hand, he has the advantage of a more thorough knowledge than his predecessors. They only saw the disorder in the living; Mr. Carleton has seen the living and traced the results of the disease in a post-mortem. examination as well.

The story of the Squanders is supposed to be written by a quon- dam Irish tutor to the " whelps," who subsequently becomes an humble friend or hanger-on. He paints the characters of the family, such as they appeared on his first arrival, and as they sub- sequently developea themselves. He narrates the reckless extra- vagance and licence of Mr. Squander's establishment, when the old. man had a rent-roll of twelve thousand a year, though heavily encumbered, through growing embarrassments, racina specula- tions to retrieve them, and crippled. means or rather are it, till the old squire dies of a broken heart. Dick Squander, the eldest son, has, like his father, the good and bad qualities of the Irish gen- tleman about him, but trained to idleness, self-indulgence, licen- tiousness, and reckless profusion, so that whilst his evil doings are habitual, it requires some extraordinary stimulus to bring out his virtues. The second. son, Harry, has all the vices of the Squan- ders, without either their openness or their generosity ; but his

ess and harshness as manager of the property on their ather's death are as mischievous in their way as his elder brother's helpless extravagance, besides eventually causing his own assassi- nation. Other members of the family play their parts in the story, and serve to bring out the peculiarities of class and country. Public events, so far as they generally influence the fortunes of individuals, are also introduced into the narrative,—as the system of wholesale ejectment, the famine, the pestilence, the last poor-law and its consequences. The book closes with the destruction of the old race, to be replaced by a new one, springing from a brother who has been discarded by his family for marrying a manu- facturer's daughter and turning manufacturer himself, but whose wealth seems to be about to purchase the family property for sale under the new act.

Mr. Carleton has somewhat sacrificed his fiction to his matter-of- fact. It is not only that he introduces disquisitions, and a good deal of general description of the state of the country, which is aside from the direct course of the story, but the story itself wants roundness and completeness. Persons and incidents are introduced for the occasion, and then dropped. There is a great lack of indi- vidual interest. No single person has a prominent story. Perhaps the persons have scarcely sufficient character to inspire much in- terest ; for Emily Squander, the redeeming person of the family, is rather an abstraction of goodness. Whether Mr. Carleton has the dramatic spirit requisite to impart-life' especially to dialogue, may be doubted; at any rate it is not exhibited in Castle Squander. The most remarkable feature of the work is the extensive know- ledge of the Irish character possessed by Mr. Carleton, and the equal-sided manner in which he exhibits the vices and virtues of all classes. He has enough of the Irishman about him, however, to make ample allowance for the vices.

The subject of the story of course furnishes full opportunity for depicting the extreme features of Irish life : a double duel; numerous incidents connected with the defensive and aggressive acts of bailiffs and beleaguered squires; the coarse and reckless jollity or debauchery of Irish hospitality, but of rather an earlier date, we think, than of the period in which the scene is laid. These remarks on poverty, which accompany the distresses of the squire, are truthful.

" Poverty, however, is a great curse, whether it is occasioned by extrava- gance or fate. Human temper becomes fretted—the spirit impatient—the af- fections blunted—by the pressure of want ; or if not blunted, deprived of their natural force by the dissipation of the heart upon more painful con- siderations. The poor—that is to say, the wrestling, struggling poor—never live long, although many in humble life do; but these latter are always known to have a sim.ple and sufficient competence. The longest lives are to be found among the aristocracy ; but only among such of them as never know what it is either to wrestle or to struggle. The well-oiled machine, that is properly taken care of, will work easily and last long but when it is not oiled, and when it is neglected, and when the latent fire is brought out by incessant friction to prey upon itself, it becomes a wreck and a ruin, and is consumed long before Its time, because it has not been properly tended. For years, as we have said, the proprietor of Castle Squander was a prisoner in his own house, and that house a changed one. Whilst the family lived at high-pressure speed, there was no such thing known or heard of in it as want of temper or a broil, with the exceptions of Dick's boyish passions, which were merely the ebullitions of a spoiled and petted child. Now, however, the case was different. A general dissatisfaction and acerbity of disposition predominated among them, with the exception only of Emily and Master Tom, the placidity of whose tempers nothing could disturb. Mr. Squander and his wife now scarcely

• The Squanders of Castle Squander. By William Carleton, Esq., Author of "Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry," .Cc., &c. In two volumes. Published at the Office of the Illustrated London Library.

passed a day without a battle. Unavailing recriminations were incessant ; the subject on his side being her ruinous pride, and that on hers his equally ruinous profligacy. It was miserable, it was painful, it was sickening ; and what added to its bitterness was the fact that Dick and Harry were as liable to quarrel as were their father and mother.

' We have said Mr. Squander was a prisoner in his own house ; and this is true. Sometimes, however, he took heart of grace and ventured out, always accompanied, however, by a pretty strong body-guard, well armed—princi- pally consisting of his two sons, myself, and three or four stout and resolute tenants. Poor man, this was a great relief to him, especially when attend- ing the neighbouring races, or the Ballyseamper hounds. Not an occasion occurred of the kind, it is true, on which there was not from one to half-a- dozen bailiffs after him. IL however, to feast their eyes upon him might be considered a gratification, they undoubtedly enjoyed it ; but there their sa- tisfaction rested. To attempt serving him with a writ—much less the fearful hazard of an arrest—was what none of them, aware as they were of the ha'. tred which animated the people against all law proceedings—would any more- think of doing than he would deliberately put his head into a heated fur- nace. Nay, their very disguises, in point of ingenuity and effect, were such as could scarcely be equalled on any stage in Europe, and it was only by the peculiarity of their movements that they were known. Sometimes, a sim- ple-looking farmer, dressed in comfortable frieze, and apparently well to do in the world, would keep dodging about, the Squire, as he was often called, and narrowing the circle, or diminishing the distance between himself and his object by such imperceptible degrees that the secret was at once disco- vered. On such occasions, some one of us put his finger in his mouth, and, giving a loud, ear-piercing, fierce whistle, called out at the top of his voice, ' Ware hawk!' after which, a dozen pistols were out, the caps or flints looked to, and in an instant, two or three individuals approached the farmer, who kept gradually withdrawing—his pace accelerating as he went along— until at length he fairly fled at the to of his speed ; and it was seldom in- deed he got off without what is called a shirtful of sore bones, and that by strangers of whom he knew nothing, and who had only got a mere hint of his purpose."

Crimes of cruel eviction on the part of the landlords, and of brutal murders on the part of the tenantry, are frequent topics of the book ; the author bringing out into strong relief the provoca- tions of the latter. This is a story told by a ruined peasant at a secret meeting to which Dick Squander and his friend Bandy get access in disguise.

"A grave old man, who leant upon a pair of crutches, and had just come in, now got up, and, after looking about him with a wild but haggard glance, spoke as follows. Yez had betther be cautious as to passin' this same resolu- tion ; bekaise if it happens to go abroad that we passed it, the public will think that we're in lague wid the landlords. I have an amindment to pro- pose, but, before I do it, I want to spake to yes a little. You say that no poor-house ought to be left in the counthry. I say so too ; and I wish to Heaven there wasn't a poor-house in it. But, unfortunately, isn't nineteen houses out of every twenty over the whole face of the counthry poor-houses? (' Hear, hear ! ') Now, if there was any way to prevent these houses from bein' poor by makin' them that live in 'em aisy and comfortable, that way would be the best for gettin' rid of poor-houses. But you all know well enough— too well, indeed—that there's another way of gettin' rid of 'em, and that is the landlord way. Ah ! it is they that undherstand gettin' rid of poor- houses, and of the poor that's in them too. The crow-bar and the pick- axe are their instruments of charity. In wid the door and down wid the roof, and out wid the poor father, and may be the sick mother, and may be the sick childre, and may be the sick grandfather—for I have seen it all, and felt it too—it is to it that I owe these crutches, and the helpless limbs they support. (Sensation.) The humble roof where in the middle of all our misery we wor often happy in the affection of our own hearts; that humble roof, I say, was stripped from over us. I saw my only child and daughter lyin' a corpse before my eyes in a fortnight afther—(Sensation)—and I lyin' ill of could and fever beside her. She was buried somehow, but I couldn't attend the dead body of the best child that ever brought happiness to a father's heart ; no, I couldn't attend my darlin's body to the grave. I got up a cripple, widout the use of my limbs, and now here I am.' " Give poor Paul a glass o' whisky,' said Bill, drawing his hand across his eyes. " No,' replied the old man I will have no whisky ; I am dhrunk as it is but it is and vengeance. It is not long since my heart was as soft and kind as the heart of a child, when I loved and prayed for all my fellow cray- tures. What is that heart now ? Hard and bloody. (Sensation.) I am an cold man, but I hope never to close my eyes in death till I know that the blood of the tyrant that murdhered my child, and left myself as you see me, is shed. Here's these Squandhers—their ould father had a great dale of good about him, and a great dale of evil—the last, how-an-ever, was betwixt himself and his God ; but he wouldn't do rich an act as that. His eldest son resembles him both in his good and in his evil; but the second, called Harry, is goin' to commence the work of pullin' down the poor-houses I'm spakin' of. He manages the property, and has a heart as hard and hot wid wicked- ness as a pavin'-stone from hell. An ould villain, called " Graisy Pockets," is their agent—a miserly oppressor that you'd smell the stink o' the rotten Court o' Chancery from over a whole barony ; and a young scoundrel, the

son of a bailiff to ould uander, which bailiff was honestly shot for his doins—a young scoundrel, say, that lives wid 'em, and goes about dressed I like a gintleman—that scoundrel is the under-agent. Now, what I want fo lI

tell yez is this. Mark the three ; and if they begin their oppression, down with them ! There are hedges enough in the neighbourhood. (Cheer.) I

never thought,' he proceeded, that it would come to this wid me. I never

thought that the heart of a man and a Christian would be taken from me, and the heart of a wolf and a devil put in its place. If I had my will, there's not an oppreasin' villain that puts his feet upon our necks and tramps the very lives out of our bodies—that strikes the defenceless sick mother, and the ould man that is defenceless both by age and sickness—ay, and the inno- cent child that looks to that poor mother for support,—I say, if I had my will, there's not a proud and heartless oppressor among them th4t I wouldn't shoot as soon as I would the maddest dog that ever ran frothh14 through the counthry !' " The old man's features assumed such an expression as never had wit- nessed, and as I hope I never may witness again. His cheeks, as he spoke,

got deadly pale, his lips became contracted, and again' they relaxed and quivered with rage, and his eyes kindled with such a &fare of vengeance as made me absolutely shrink with a feeling approachint to dismay. His last

words were followed by a stern and solemn silence that was appalling. Alto- gether, the exhibition of this once kind, virtuous, mid affectionate old man, fallen, as it were, from the Christian charity of fecommon humanity to the vengeance and perdition of a devil, was probable one of the most terrific changes from good to evil ever witnessed. " At all events, it put an end to the mock debates, and suggested to both Dick and me the prudence of withdrawing asgi'aietly as possible, before we might happen to be discovered." /