Punch: Punch (21.1851)

208

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

i

A POSER FOR A BLOOMER.

Old Gentleman. " Before i can Entertain your Proposal, and Give my Consent to your Marrying
my Son, i must ask you, Whether you are in a Position—a—to—a—Keep him in the Style to

"which—a—1 may say—He has always been accustomed? ahem ! "

BEAT IT IF YOU
CAN.

His Grace the Lord
Primate of All Ireland
has written a letter, in
which his Grace says:—

" The Catholic Church is
animated with the purest
Spirit of Charity; and her
entire career throughout past
ages has heen marked by
works of mercy and huma-
nity."

Orders are given that
the above inscription in
Latin be pasted up in
Smith field : at Oxford,
at Ridley's Cross: at
the Louvre, under the
window whence Charles
IX. fired the shot of
the glorious victory of
Saint Bartholomew: at
the Vatican, Rome,
under the inscription
commemorating the
above happy event; and
at the gates of the Inqui-
sition at Madrid.

Gentlemen doubting
the fact are referred
to his Grace the Lord
Primate of All Ireland,
All Ireland — to his
Eminence the Lord
Cardinal; and to the
Re\erend the Principal
of the Oratory, Birming-
ham.

A Thought tor the
Temperance League.
—Total abstinence may
improve the Customs of
the country, but will
ruin the Excise.

KOSSUTH.

Kossuth has made his triumphal entry into the city of London.
The Austrian Ambassador, with wise forecast of the reception that
awaited the great Hungarian—who ought, many a month since, accord-
ing to the legitimacy of despotism, to have filled a grave—the Austrian,
turned upon his heel, and for a while went his way. That Kossuth
ought to have supplied a meal to the double-headed Eagle—never to be
gorged to the full with such provender;—and the rebel had balked the
destiny prepared him, had foiled young Joseph and his master Czar,
baffled all odds, and was here—to utter a discourse confounding the
policy of the would-be " gaolers" of the human race. A most pestilent,
most perplexing change! When the rebel should have been in his
grave,—and there he was, breathing words of flame,—a living preaching
apostle of man's freedom, in the Guildhall of London! Legitimacy
had good right to bite its nails, and curse the Sultan.

Kossuth's progress from his home in Eaton-square—made, for the
while, entirely his, by the true-hearted Englishman, whose roof-tree is
for ever honoured by its sometime tenant—-Kossuth's progress to
Guildhall doors, was a triumph swelling and deepening at every step.
There was no attempt at show; the man himself was the display: the
noble spectacle. The man, whose master-mind had held all Austria at
bay—the man, whose voice was as a trumpet to his country's heart—
the man, outraged in his nation, whose living principle he embodied
and represented, was revealed to the eyes of Englishmen, and they hung
upon that glorious manifestation, with looks of reverence, of love, and
sympathy. It was not merely Louis Kossuth whom the thousands
gazed upon and cheered; it was Hungary ; bound and bleeding—but
still hopeful, resolute, defying Hungary,

Kossuth was nobly attended on his way from his home to the
Guildhall; for the hearts of Englishmen went along with him: of
the men who in their aggregate make " the people." It is true that
Kossuth had with him no English Peer; no star, no garter, made a
part of the show: the great Huagarian was not patronised by any of

the mighty ones of the House of Lords; no, Kossuth had with him
for his escort the people; nothing more ; simply, the people.

"Why is it,".asked Cobden at the Southampton Banquet, "why is
it that the name of Louis Kossuth is heard at the firesides of the
middle classes, and I would fain hope of the higher classes, one of whom
we number among our visitors to-day ? " One of whom ! That " one'
was, of course, Lord Dudley Stuart ; whom we can scare ly consider
" one." Surely, by this time, he has disfranchised himself; for so many
years has that strange Lord associated his active sympathies with the
oppressed and down-trodden of all lands, that he must have almost read
himself out of the Court Guide. Has he not sadly compromised nobility
by his doings with humanity—has he not well-nigh forfeited the Lord
in his zeal for the people ?

" One of the higher classes ! " Yet how many talking units of the
aristocracy in Parliament, and, at certain seasons on the hustings, are
loud and animated in their advocacy of popular freedom! The great
champion, great and glorious in his passing defeat, escapes the car-
nivorous jaws of despotism ; a man of consummate genius and of noblest
worth—a God's true man evades, by grace of infidel, the hangman's
hands of Christian Emperors, and—save and except that eccentric one,
Lord Stuart—there is neither Earl nor Lord to bid the exile welcome !
But their absence is their own shame ; the cause of Kossuth, as it is a
cause deep and wide as humanity, can do without, them: though, in
these days, it may be scant wisdom in themselves to aid in the preaching
of that social lesson. And yet, among the aristocracy, there might have
been found men, with at least a traditional respect for suffering
patriotism. There have been heads on the Temple Bar that Kossuth
passed through, that even now speak to us—there was a head that fell
in Lincoln's-lnn-Eields—a few paces to the left of Kossuth, on his way
to Guildhall—that now utters and will still utter solemn teachings
Yet no live Peer—no breathing liberality of the House of Lords—said
welcome to Louis Kossuth. Well, the people of London did the
honours ; and so the great Hungarian may excuse the peerage. Ic
be sure, if Radetzky or Paskevitch were to come to London—nav.