Punch: Punch (11.1846)

198

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

PUNCH'S SPANISH BALLADS. BRINGING HOME THE BRIDE.

5

LOUDER peal, old Notre Dame ! boom, guns of St. Denis !
Pour, Paris, out thy motley rout, all gape, and grin and glee ;
Let the drums supply a welcome cry , for a people's love, in showers
Let Opera-dancers strew the way with artificial flowers.

For Montpensier brings home his bride, old France is there to meet him ;
With his smile so sly, and his small, sharp eye, he rushes forth to greet him—
" Thou 'rt wed, my son ! Albion, thou 'rt done ! oh happy, happy hour !
Her budding charms, give to my arms ! a daughter—and a dower i"

Then the drums rolled loud, Montpensiek bowed, Joinville gave a
Jack-tar hail,

And the little dog Bresson he barked and bounced, and frisked and

wagged his tail ;
And the scene was most affecting, tho' melodramatic, I fear—
For in France's eye, Punch, standing by, saw a wink and not a tear.

The ordered rank, and musket clank, the staff and sword and
star,

Had a sorry moral, and whispered less of wedlock than of war.

But 'mid tin-foil trumpets, spangles, swords, shams, hollowness and art,

In that pale young bride may still abide the love of a wifely

heart.

PUNCH'S AMENDE HONORABLE.

Some weeks ago, Punch read a letter addressed to his Monaghan
tenantry by John Evelyn Shirley, M.P. He commented on that
letter, which purported to be an answer to applications for advice and
assistance, but which really resolved itself into an exhortation to pay \
rent. He knew nothing of Mr. Shirley but his letter. His comments
had reference to that only. On the face of it the letter justified the
comments. He is assured, on good authority, that Mr. Shirley has
no right to the place which Punch, judging him by his letter, assigned
to him. Mr. Shirley is declared to be a good landlord, residing on
his Irish property four months of every year—to have been supplying
his tenants with Indian meal for the last twelvemonth, at a rate below
market price, and—not waiting for the aid of Government Acts—to
have given his agent directions to set the poor on his estate to work.
For several weeks every distressed tenant and cottier has been
employed at a rate ranging from a shilling to sixteenpence a day.

Punch regrets that Mr. Shirley's letter was not more carefully
expressed, or that, being so loosely expressed, it was made public. Mr.
Shirley acts like a good landlord, but writes like a bad one. Punch
judged him by his writing, not knowing him by his acts. If he be what
our informant describes him, he does his duty. This is a virtue in
Ireland, and Punch recognises it as such, in Mr. Shirley's case, with cor-
dial pleasure. The rare discovery of a good landlord in Ireland recon-
ciles Punch to the still rarer discovery of a harsh judgment in himself.

A. Sign of the Times.

It seems that the house in which Shakspbare was born is to be
sold. This is a symptom of the declining interest that is felt in the
Bard of Avon. His spirit used to hover round the abode ; but the
»pirit having gone over to Paris for change of air, the premises are
vacant, and will be knocked down to the highest bidder.

A great Comfort.—A tremendous fog on the 3rd rendered the
Wellington Statue quite invisible.

THE LOST FOG.

Some surprise was manifested in London at the sudden disappearance
of all symptoms of an intense fog that had prevailed a few days before ;
and it was only on our reading a paragraph in a country paper, that
we read the fact of the London fog having arrived at Birmingham.
We perceive, from the journal we allude to, that there prevailed in that
town a mist as dense and decided as ever darkened the metropolis. It
was called in the paragraph a real London fog, and it must have been
a genuine town-made, for, with all their skill in manufactures, it would
be impossible to produce a similar article in Birmingham. It must
have gone down overnight by the heavy goods' train on the Railway.
It was remarked that the fog made for the Northern part of the Me-
tropolis on the night when it appeared in London ; and after going
up Tottenham Court Road, it turned off to the right towards Euston
Square, where it hovered over the railway terminus, for it was not seen
in any part of the Hampstead Road, and must have quitted London by
the route we have alluded to.

Horse-Radish for the Million

Among the enormous benefits of Free Trade, is a tremendous influx
of horse-radish, which is arriving daily by ship-loads at the Custom
House. Getting the horse-radish is one step towards getting the roast
beef to eat with it. This is like a friend of ours, who has got a
banker's book, and now wants nothing to make it complete but a large
balance.

A BROTHERLY DIFFERENCE.

A provincial paper says " There is a sensible diflercnoc between the
letters of Mr. Grantley Berkeley and his brother." It is the only
thing, then, in the difference between them, that is sensible.

Arrival in the Metropolis—A block of granite from Scotlaa-i.
It has joined a select circle in Trafalgar Square, previous to settling
at the foot of the Nelson Column.