‘How long did this kind of combination exist?—­For about six months.’

Setting aside the embellishments, let us note one or two differences as to facts.  In the book the suddenly converted friends placed him on a chair and asked him to make a speech before the castle door.  He did so, and there is a grand statuesque picture of the hero, naked to the waist, and standing on the chair as lofty pedestal.  In the torn coat the artist could never have made him look like Apollo.  Even the shirt would have been too commonplace; so off went the shirt.  Three or four times attention is directed to the fact of the nakedness by the hero himself, while the pencil of the filial illustrator has rendered him immortal in this primitive costume.  In his speech he ’abused them heartily and soundly.’  Yet they cheered him vociferously, and then carried him into the castle, where he could get nothing to cover his nakedness but a countryman’s frieze coat.  It was when he had been cheered vociferously, and kindly carried in, that Mr. Shirley’s architect appeared on the scene.  Mr. Trench has not been just to that gentleman, for he really came to his rescue, and perhaps saved his life, by giving the people the only sensible advice they got that day.  In his sworn statement, made twenty-five years ago, Mr. Trench said:  ’Mr. Shirley’s architect then appeared, and by promising to speak to Mr. Shirley in their favour, and by requesting them to send a deputation, instead of coming in a manner like the present, he induced them to desist from further injury to me.’

If we had contemporary accounts of all the other romantic scenes which have fascinated so many readers, the ‘Realities’ would lose much of their gilding.  Indeed, in most cases the internal evidence is sufficient to convince us that the sensationalist has been laying on his colours pretty heavily.  In the sketch of the Farney rent campaign, however, I am willing to accept Mr. Trench as a faithful historian.  It is a most suggestive narrative, because it shows what mischief could be done by driving the agricultural population to desperation.  A general strike against the payment of rent would convulse society.  If the war which raged in Farney had spread all over the island, the landlords would be in serious difficulty.  The British army might then have become rent collectors, as they had been tithe collectors in 1831.’

Mr. Shirley resolved, after much deliberation, to enforce his legal rights to the utmost.  The bailiff was sent to warn the backward tenants to come in with the rent, and he everywhere received the same answer—­’We will pay no rent till our grievances are redressed.’  Now all the missiles of the law were showered on the recusants—­notices to quit, latitats, processes for arrears, &c.  Grippers, process-servers, keepers, drivers, were in full requisition.  The grippers were to arrest all tenants against whom decrees had been obtained at the quarter-sessions; the keepers were employed to watch the crops that had been seized; and the drivers were to bring the cattle, sheep, horses, or pigs to pound.  These constituted the landlord’s army, having the police as a reserve, and the military if necessary.