Punch or The London charivari (4.1843)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

51

Mars revenons d—pshaw ! that hacknied sentence is quite worn out
!n the service of a species of literary police-officers, in bringing back
runaway subjects to their proper place,so we will not use it, but discard
it henceforth. We meant it to imply that we were about to return
to the Misses Lacquer. Next to the horticultural fete and perhaps
Ascot course, the great effects in dress and appearance are econo-
mised for the autumnal visit to the sea-side, where they always
migrate and remain, while there, in a fashionable expensive board-
ing-house. Their chief amusement here is carrying on a matrimonial
game of chess, as soon as they become assured of the actual great
expectations of any bachelor therein abiding. They have several
times met with such a one, and endeavoured, by driving him about
the squares and giving him check, to compel him to take them. Up
■to the present time, they have not succeeded, from want of proper
finesse ; but they will doubtless improve, since they leave London
every year with the rest of their world. Indeed, of such vital im-
portance is this migration, that one season, when they were compelled
to stay in town, Mrs. Lacquer and her daughters never left the
house, but papered up their blinds and shut the shutters of the front
drawing-room and parlour ; and lived for six weeks in the back
rooms that overlooked the dead wall of the mews.

PUNCH'S HEATHEN MYTHOLOGY.

down, philandering at masquerades in all sorts of disguises, and
behaving altogether like a gay Lothario. lie went courting to
Europa in the form of a bull, paid his addresses to Leda as a swan,
and made strong love to Antiope in the shape of a satyr. It will
readily be conceived that Juno was highly displeased with this
unsteadiness. In her paroxysms of jealousy she would box his ears
and scratch his face, aud he in return would beat and kick her ; so
that they lived a very cat-and-dog sort of life together, just like
Punch and Judy.
The family of his Majesty Jupiter soon became very extensive ;
and to give the devil, or rather the divinity, his due, he provided
handsomely for them all. Of the most noted of these and the other
subordinate deities it is now time to give an account, which will
most conveniently be done in alphabetical order, beginning with
Apollo.
Apollo was the son of Jupiter and Latona. According to Cicero
there were four of that name, to whom, if we add Apollo Belvy,
who was personated by Mr. Liston, we shall have five. Apollo
used to preside over the fine arts, music, poetry, medicine, elo-
quence, and humbug. lie presides at present over terraces and
crescents ; as Apollo Terrace, Apollo Crescent. He is the patron of
National Galleries and Art Unions ; but whether as the god of the
fine arts or the god of humbug (though some say, that the latter is
one of the fine arts), mycologists are not agreed upon. Under his
patronage also, were the concerts of the ancients, and so the Ancient
Concerts are still ; as likewise are the Philharmonic and the Pro-
menade Concerts, which last he conducts in the shape of a funny

CHAPTER IV.—OF JUPITER, HIS WIFE, AND FAMILY.
Jupiter, with his crown and sceptre, was sitting, one fine day,
in a contemplative mood, amusing himself by watching affairs in
general, of which his throne commanded a fine view. But presently htt!e Fre"f m*n ?n a jangled waistcoat and white kid gloves. Ihe
Lis attention was diverted from mundane things to an object more pra,,SeS °f AP°Ho have been set forth m divers odes in former times,
particularly under his nose-namely, to Master Cupid, who was "1 m0^e ™cent y m a celebrated glee-'Krlorious Apollo, from on

high behold us," which is sung at harmonic meetings with great
applause.
Apollo, according to Lempriere and Lord Byron, was born at
Delos 11 yviiere Delos rose and Phcebus sprung."
For Apollo was also called Phoebus. This, however, was not an alias,
but rather a sort of pra'nomen, as he was often termed Phoebus-Apollo.
Phoebus, therefore, would have been his Christian name, if he had
been a Christian ; but as he was one of the heathen deities, of course
it could not be that. The word Phcebus corresponds to our verna-

Robinson.

running about before the hall window, playing with a little bow and
irrc ws.
" Hallo, you young sir," cried Jupiter, " what are you about
there ?"
" Nothing, sir," answered Cupid.
" Nothing, you rogue ; do you call that nothing ? You'll put some
jod's eye out presently. Come here."
Cupid obeyed.
" Don't you know," said Jupiter, " that bows and arrows are very
fan^erous things ?"
"Mine are not sir," replied Cupid. "See." And with this he Cular' "bright one;" or more vernacularly still " bright 'un ;" and
suddenly twanged his string and sent a shaft through the heart of I there 18 SOme reaS0U to suPPose that' as the last-mentioned epithet
Jupiter and out at his back, before the monarch could say Jack P™uld be now-a-days, it was a sort of nick-name; for it was con-
ferred upon him in his capacity of coachman, or, as the vulgar say,
jarvey ; as he drove the Sun fast coach, which started every morning
from the public-house of that name over against the palace of Neptune.
Apollo was the best hand at an oracle of all the gods in Olympus :
the reader will recollect that he has already been described as the
god of humbug. 1 lis oracles had the repute of being infallible,
which they owed to being invariably capable of being understood
two ways. Nevertheless he was a great shot with the long-bow, for
he killed the serpent Python (the skeleton of which creature is now
in the British Museum), a few minutes after he was born—an age
when ordinary children lie in bed. Python was a great snake of the
boa-constrictor species, which had been raised (there is reason to
suppose) in Kentucky by the jealous Juno, and sent to eat Latona
up. As president of poetry, Apollo was of course the god of fiction ;
and, consequently, of lying—though whether he invented the lyre or
not has been disputed; everybody, however, admits that he played it.
In external form, Apollo resembled a nice young man ; such, at
least, he would have seemed if he had sported whiskers ; but he was
beardless, lie wore his locks a la jeune France, and his head was sur-
rounded with beams of light ; it is therefore probable that he had
recourse to Macassar oil, which communicates that glossy appearance
to the hair which is so great an addition to personal beauty.
His Majesty instinctively seized a thunderbolt, but feeling that Lambs were sacrificed to Apollo ; but whether with or without
e was not hurt, he stayed his uplifted arm ; while a smile which 1 mint sauce, the learned cannot tell. He had a grand temple at
stole over his features, and a slight cachinnation, evinced a con- Delphi, and a Colossus at Rhodes, which places must not be con-
sciousness agreeable rather than otherwise. Cupid ran away laugh- founded with the ^delphi, where Cupid was once to be seen every
ing. " A little monkey ! " exclaimed Jupiter. " Confound his im- night ; nor with the Coal Hole, kept by Mr. Rhodes,
pudence ! But what new sensation is this?" And he placed his Apollo had the credit of occasioning epidemics and contagions,
hand upon his heart and turned up his eyes. i which he naturally would do, not only as the God of medicine, but as
It were needless to pursue his soliloquy further. Suffice it to say, having a son, .ZEsculapius, formerly physician to the Argonauts, in
that not an hour had elapsed after his having been shot at, when extensive practice. We read that this JEsculapius was killed by
J^no, coming in unexpectedly, caught him on his knees to his sister Jupiter, with a thunderbolt, for raising the dead to life; but his
Latona. The rowthat ensued transcends a single man's imagination. crime more probably was another sort of resurrectionism ; the Ana-
Arter this Jupiter went on very ill. He turned Turk and married tomy Bill not then having become law. However he was slain, aj
four or five more wives, and took to lurking and wandering up and I aforesaid ; and Apollo, exasperated at the fate of his son, shot th»