Punch: Punch (36.1859)

June 18, 1859.;

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

247

lion by predicting that, before lie goes to press with his next Number,
be will have split above a dozen pairs of best kid gloves, in applauding
to the echo the trio of performances; and will have knocked the heels
off eleven pairs of boots, in stamping his approval upon all who had a
head, or hand, or voice in the matter.

With this prophecy to back them, the Committee may rely that
their "Commemoration Festival" will prove a great success. If any
lover of good music wilfully absents himself, the fact should be
regarded as a proof of his insanity, and his friends should all sub-
scribe to buy him a strait-waistcoat. Tastes, we all know, differ.
There are some men, it is true, who have no more love for Handel
than Prince Plon-Plon has for fighting, and whom one no more
expects to see at the Messiah than one expects to see Lord Malmes-
bury presiding at a charity-school for the purpose of distributing the
prizes for good spelling. ■ But these are merely the exceptions which
serve to prove the rule. The majority of Englishmen love Handel as
they love their national roast beef. His chorusses are good, sub-
stantial mental food, and make a most delicious change from the
toujours-Verdi diet with which the British Opera-goer is now annually
sickened.

" All ye who music love, and would its pleasures prove," go, then,
down to Sydenham, and take your places at the Handel feast. Mind
you, it's no ordinary annual affair, like the lunch upon the Derby Day,
or the Lord Mayor's dinner. Go now, or never; there will be no
alternative. However well it may go off, you'll not get it encored
for you. Centenaries come, like aloes bloom, once in a hundred years.
Gather then, oh! gather ye, such blossoms while ye may ! Unless you
hope to live to be a rival of Old Parr, you cannot hope to live to see
another Handel Centenary!

MALMESBURY v. MAVOR,

AND

DISRAELI v. DILWORTH.

Such is Mr. Punch's loyalty, that he is reluctant to criticise the
language which issues from the lips of his Gracious Sovereign, even
when he knows it has been put into that august mouth by the Ministers
lor the time being. But in the case of a Queen's Speech proceeding
from the present Cabinet, Mr. Punch has a special reason for being
critical.

If the Ministry include a Malmesbtjry, nobly scornful of ortho-
graphy, who considers Priscian honoured, every time an attache
" ot tact, temper, good manners, and savoir faire" condescends to
break the head of the priggish old pedagogue, it contains, also, a
Disraeli, who has wielded the poet's pen as well as the romancer's,
and a Bulwer, who has won his spurs—(whether golden or pinch-beck
is not the question)—in almost every field of literature in which money
can be made.

At the threshold of the Royal Speech, Mr. Punch breaks his shins
over an unlicensed adjective. Her Majesty declares that—

" She avails Herself with Satisfaction, in the present anxious State of Public
Affairs, of the Advice of Her Parliament, which she has summoned to meet with the
least possible Delay."

"An anxious state of affairs?" A Minister may be anxious about
a place, or about a pension. A Cabinet may be anxious about a
■division on a motion of no confidence. A " state of affairs " may inspire
anxiety. But how a "state of affairs" can be "anxious," Mr. Punch's
knowledge of his native tongue is not profound enough to inform him.
Perhaps the Civil Service Commissioners will propose the question to
the next batch of competitors for Clerkships in the Foreign Office.

War, we are informed, has been declared. Her Majesty—

li Receiving Assurances of Friendship from both the contending Parties, intends
to maintain between them a strict and impartial Neutrality."

Why "strict and impartial ? " Can a neutrality be "strict" with-
out being "impartial," or "impartial" without being "strict?"
Her Majesty hopes—

'• With God's Assistance, to preserve to Her People the Blessings of continued
Peace."

If she hopes to "preserve" peace, Mr. Punch would submit that
" continued" is impertinent.
Her Majesty has thought fit, she tells us,—

" To renew Her diplomatic Intercourse with the Court of Naples, which had been
suspended during the late Reign."

What has been suspended ? The Court of Naples ? The law of
grammatical antecedents would lead one to conclude so. We regret
that the law of political antecedents is not equally strict. The " Court
of INaples," whatever it may have deserved, was not "suspended"
during the late reign. It was only our intercourse that was suspended
—greatly to the disadvantage of the sufferers from Royal misrule in
Naples.

These, however, are but a few of the undigested plums of the
Cabinet Pudding, selected almost at random. There is one sentence

in which blunders occur clustered in a heap, at once so rich and so
crude, that we cannot venture to play the part of Jack Horner any
longer._ It is impossible to put one's thumb into this cluster without
detaching a whole clot of plums. This is, the sentence by whose
lumbering machinery Her Majesty is made to flounder into, and out
of, the subject of Parliamentary Reform, in a style never surpassed by
any master of the slip-slop or higgledypiggledy style, so much in vogue
among advertisers, auctioneers, and fashionable novelists:

" i should with Pleasure give My Sanction to any well-considered (Measure for
the)1 Amendment of the Laws which regulate the Representation of My People in
Parliament; and should you be of opinion that 2 the Necessity of giving your imme-
diate Attention to Measures of Urgency relating to the Defence and financial Condition
of the Country will not leave you 2 sufficient Time for legislating with due Deliberation
during the present Session cm a Subject3 at once so difficult and so extensive, i
trust that at the Commencement of the next Session your earnest Attention will
be given to a Question of which an 4 early and satisfactory Settlement would be
greatly to the Public Advantage."

(1) Words in italics much better omitted.

(2) It is not "the necessity of giving" which "will not leave time,"
but "the giving." Again, "measures of urgency" is only another
phrase for measures to which " immediate attention " must be given.

(3) Query, what subject ? The defence, or the financial condition
of the country. Again, " so difficult" as what ?

(4) If an " early" settlement is desirable, why defer it to next
Session ? Of course a " satisfactory" settlement must be " to the
public advantage."

Ministers, we know, are by no means clear in their notions on the
subject of a Reform Bill. Probably it is this obscurity which reflects
itself in the haze of words we have just quoted.

CHARMING NEWS FOR OLD LADIES.

The Morning Herald is about to open a Grandma's School for Sucking
Politicians. The opening is expected about Parliament-time, when
there will be a grand ovation for the purpose of instructing elderly
ladies in the refreshing art of sucking eggs. It is not yet decided
whether Mr. Spooner or Mr. Newdegate will be appointed to the
honourable post of Head Grand Ma'rian.

The Empire Burlesqued.

It is time that Louis Napoleon began to burlesque some of the
sayings of le Grand Empereur. He is not half quick enough with his
parodies. However, he has a chance now at Milan, which he is not
the clever man we take him to be, if he allows to slip through his
fingers. Let Louis Napoleon ascend the cathedral, and then, bearing
in mind, what the first Emperor said about the forty centuries contem-
plating the French soldiers from the top of the Pyramids, address his
brave army thus -.—"Soldats! du haut de cette Cathedrale, non quarante
siecles, mais Milan vous contemple."

" The Romance op War."—The bulletins published on both sides,
in which there is a difference sometimes of only 14,000 aud 15,000
killed and wounded, and a like proportion of guns, standards, and
prisoners! «