Punch: Punch (39.1860)

8* PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [sei-tembkk i, im*;.

Piscator. “Oflo! This is the place where the big Trout are, is it? Then this is the sort of FLY, I think!”

THE WARNING OF THE WHITEBAIT.

In th* Arabian Nights Entertainments,

Is a tale of a little fish talking,

And though such piscatorial attainments
May be nothing to tables a-walking.

And Mediums revealing Ihemselves ar, the ceiling,

Pulled up, through unlicensed and grave spirit-dealing,

And arm-chairs up ottomans stalking—-

And though he who wishes to hear vocal fishes—

If we credit Sir Emerson Tennent,

Needn’t seek them in magic Egyptian dishes,

Nor beneath Mendez Pinto’s broad pennant—

But in Chilka’s fair lake may hear the fish make
A concert at dusk, which for rhyme’s urgent sake.

May best be described as “ surprenant

Still one can’t quite expect to be heard with respect,

When one states that on Mr. Hart’s premises,

There’ve been cases of Whitebait— served up as t he right bait.
To a party who’d just steamed down Thamesis—

Giving vent to discourse full of logic and force,

Though such tales we accept as mere matters of course
In the regions once ruled o’er by Bameses.

jfet, this, I’ve heard tell, very lately befell,

In the course of that Cabinet, dinner,

Which is held when the Session—with languid progression,
And House growing thinner and thinner,—

O’er Saharas of speeches, that Pisgah-point reaches.

Whence the green land of leisure tired statesmen beseeches.

To enter and take up possession.

For this feast, as all know, the Cabinet go
To Greenwich, and every dish is
(From the carp, souche stewed in, to Cabinet pudding)
Emblematic of loaves and of fishes;

But flounders and plaice are forbidden, in case
Of their prompting a pun to some blunderer’s face—

An omission that’s highly judicious.

The initiate assure us that Cabinet jollity.

As displayed with discreetly-closed doors,

If you measure by quantity rather than quality.

Unofficial facetiousness floors.

And through key-holes and chinks oose out hints of high jiuks,
When official reserve at wild rollicking winks.

And the soul red-tape’s band over-soars.

’Twas just—in the dinner of Wednesday last,—-
As t.tie fun to this maximum drew—

When the mirth ministerial wax’d furious and fast,

And e’en Lewis was almost warm’d through ;

'While Pam slapp’d Gladstone’s back, Lowe hailed Russell
as “Jack,”

And Argyll tickled Bethell in playful attack.

And Somerset courteous grew—

The Whitebait—course first—had gone round, and the burst
Of voracity drew to a pause.

When, an extra-sized fish from the half-emptied dish
Expanded its sore-battered jaws,

With a “List, list, oh, list! ’’—and in ev’ry fist
Knife and fork hung suspended, hairs slowly uprisf,

As the fish thus ’gan pleading its cause :—

“ Broil ye not in your shame ! shades of Ude and Careme !

With the pang that, your spirits must own,

To see thus shovelled down wretched Whitebait done brown,

Of dimensions till this year unknown !

Fish, fated as fecund, on this Twenty-second
Of August—a month past the time when we reckoned
The perils of Greenwich outgrown !

“ In the House week by week, it was still speak, speak, speak;

Ev’ry ill had its measure, but talk ;

And Bill after Bill, howe’er puff’d, turned out ill,—

What the House could not bungle, ’t would baulk.

There sat Bunkum, enthroned in Reform ct la Russell;
Ambition, in Gladstone-Finance ; Bounce and Bustle
Incarnate in Bethell did stalk.