Yet
perhaps I am wrong in regretting even this: it may be an appointed lesson
for futurity, that the art of the best English etcher in the nineteenth
century, spent on illustrations of the lives of burglars and drunkards,
should one day be seen in museums beneath Greek vases fretted with
drawings of the wars of Troy, or side by side with Duerer's "Knight and
Death."
139. Be that as it may, I am at present glad to be able to refer to one
of these perpetuations, by his strong hand, of such human character as
our faultless British constitution occasionally produces in
out-of-the-way corners. It is among his illustrations of the Irish
Rebellion, and represents the pillage and destruction of a gentleman's
house by the mob. They have made a heap in the drawing-room of the
furniture and books, to set first fire to; and are tearing up the floor
for its more easily kindled planks, the less busily-disposed meanwhile
hacking round in rage, with axes, and smashing what they can with
butt-ends of guns. I do not care to follow with words the ghastly truth
of the picture into its detail; but the most expressive incident of the
whole, and the one immediately to my purpose, is this, that one fellow
has sat himself at the piano, on which, hitting down fiercely with his
clenched fists, he plays, grinning, such tune as may be so producible, to
which melody two of his companions, flourishing knotted sticks, dance,
after their manner, on the top of the instrument.
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