Punch: Punch (21.1851)

42

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI

SUBJECT FOR A PICTURE—IRRITABLE GENTLEMAN DISTURBED BY BLUEBOTTLE.

PUNCH'S BULL AND INDULGENCES.

Punch, LXXXV, Fleet Street.

From the first moment when we started in Wellington Street,
Waterloo Bridge, and afterwards, when we removed to the Strand,
opposite to St. Clement's Church, after that, also, when, for the better
regulation of the affairs of the world, and especially of the City of
London, we fixed our seat at 85, Fleet Street, and from that blessed
and ever-memorable period until now, we have not ceased to devote
ourselves, with all the anxiety of our paternal heart, to the emancipation
of opinion, the promotion of civil and religious liberty, and the diffusion
of useful knowledge, as well in foreign countries as at home. For not only
did we, in verse and in prose, and by large or small woodcuts, always,
as occasion required, expose the erroneous designs of our own Ministers,
but we never hesitated to assail, both with pen and with pencil, foreign
Potentates, whenever they were guilty of tyrannous or unjust conduct
towards their own subjects. We have, indeed, nothing so much at heart
as the progress of mankind in morality and true knowledge : in which
two things, the happiness of an intelligent being chiefly consists. Both
the experience of ages, and the opinions of the wisest men, attest the
truth that there is no greater auxiliary to the inculcation of virtuous
precepts, than instruction in the laws which govern the system of
nature, whereby it is rendered manifest, even to the most obtuse
understanding, that what is a man's duty, that, likewise, is his interest.
To disseminate this so-much-to-be-desired information, we are con-
vinced, by the undeniable evidence of a multitude of facts, that
Mechanics' Institutes contribute in no small measure. Seeing this,
and internally groaning, and sighing, and grunting, in the most vehe-
ment manner, to behold the deplorably degraded, benighted, and
bestial state of Italy, and especially of Rome, whose inhabitants,
in as far as concerns natural and political science, are for the most
part overspread with Cimmerian darkness, we, in the plenitude
of the license which we have assumed to interfere with other
people's business, have determined, on mature reflection, and after
many grave consultations with our Dog Toby, to decree the esta-
blishment of a Mechanics' Institute in a central situation, in a
fine position, in the Eternal City. From the marvellous desire of the
Italian people for enlightenment, we entertain the sweetest hopes of

their conversion to the sublime principles of Newton, and the wise
and reasonable views of Jeremy Bentham; nor do we doubt that the
great truths of Adam Smite, if only due diligence shall have been used
in their propagation, will in no long time be received beyond'the Alps.
In honour of the principal founder of modern philosophy, we ordain
that the new institution to be founded at Rome shall be called the
Baconian Mechanics' Institute ; and that it may be the more thoroughly
actuated by the British spirit, we have settled that its Professors and
Lecturers shall be all Englishmen, and selected from among graduates
of the University of London, distinguished for their attainments in
physical science, and remarkable for the liberality of their opinions in
politics and matters of faith. By these means, we confidently trust
that not only will the dark clouds of superstition which have
so long overshadowed the country of Italy be speedily dissi-
pated, but also that the Italians, imbibing English ideas, wiii
in the end submit themselves entirely to the salutary influence and
control of England. As nothing in this world can be done without
a certain amount of money, and the execution of the proposed
laudable project will cost above six thousand pounds, we have
thought fit to appeal, hereby, to the benevolence and bounty of English-
men, and especially of those sojourning at Rome, and to exhort them to
contribute, according to their ability, to this glorious and patriotic
undertaking. And the more to stimulate the generosity of the affluent
to aid, with their pecuniary assistance, so desirable a scheme, we have
determined to unlock our aerial treasury, and accord to the bountiful
who shall have subscribed towards the end in view, the following
indulgences. We grant indulgence in a box at the Opera to any one,
on condition that he will stand on one leg and repeat Chrononhoton-
thologos three times, and Heautontimorumenos twice. We grant an
indulgence in a glass of brandy-and-water and a cigar every evening to
every one whose health shall permit him to enjoy it. And we grant an
indulgence in a hearty laugh to anybody who shall read his Holiness
the Pope's last Bull. Given at our Office, in the Twenty-first Volume,
and the Five Hundred and Twenty-third Number of our Periodical.

(Signed)

(Countersigned) Dick, Nuncio in Ordinary to the Office.

Tom, Lbgate a latere to the Contributors and Artists.