Punch (28.1855)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

22 i

MEDALS FOR THE MILLION.—THE CLOUD

OF BEES.

IMULTANEOUSLY

with the time
when bluff John
Bull throws up
hishead,distends
his nostrils, and
fillips his thumb
and finger at
the pomps and
gim-crackeries of
the aristocracy—
John has, by fits,
such an indif-
ference to aLord
— at the very
hour of John’s
democraticphiio-
sophy—when he
holds even Lord
Aberdeen’s
blue riband of
less worth than
his little girl’s
little doll’s sash
— John pauses
to give ear to a
suggestion that
says, let the mil-
lions be decorated, let the popular button-hole carry a medal. Rejecting
the notion of a Legion of Honour—(for why should we borrow from
friends? borrowing being the sure decay, the inevitable dry-rot of
friendship)—let us have an Order of our own. Suppose we say—The
Cloud of Bees. The bees, even in the Garden of Eden, were shop-
keepers, and would prettily enough represent the counter-industry and
counter-sympathies of Englishmen. There is, however, a difficulty;
and let us at once manfully wrestle with it. The difficulty is in the
selection of the judge and bestower. Who shall determine upon the
virtues worthy of the Bee ? Who shall bestow it? What particular
moral qualities shall the Bee reward? Shall it be claimable by the
husband who, within an area of a given space—to be duly determined
upon—has, ungrudgingly and with cheerful looks, eaten within a year
the greatest number of dinners of cold mutton ? Shall the Bee be given
to the wife who “never banged the door?’’ Shall the spouse, who
never kept even a night-light sitting up for him, be permissible, at the
latter end of a long life, to claim the Bee ? What we want to know is
—are the household virtues to be rewarded ? Are Bees to swarm in
the bosoms of families, rewardful of domestic goodness ; and if so, who
shall bestow them ? The Parson of the parish, or simply one of the
Churchwardens ? The Order of the Legion of Honour numbers exactly
52/709 persons; a pretty fair per centage upon merely thirty millions
of people. Indeed, in Erance, there must be some diffiulty in avoiding
a decoration; a philosopher must watch for and dodge it, even as we
learn our Enslish military philosophers watch and dodge a cannon-ball
or bomb-shell. And even then, in Erance, a man may suddenly lose
his head under a Grand Cross.

Our great difficulty is, as a nation, in our great excellence. We are
such a virtuous people; our governors are so ready and anxious to
reward merit, that every other man and woman would have a Bee about
them. Consider, for instance, how Grace Darling was all but over-
whelmed with honours! How she was summoned to the Court; and
how she left it enraptured and enriched by courtly generosity, courtly
admiration! Again; look at Lieutenant Waghorn. He made India
and England all but shake hands ; and did not the East India Company
present him with an elephant of solid gold, with a trunk of emerald ?
At this hour, is not the Lieutenant’s mother—aged, honored woman !—
amply and withal most delicately provided for by the British Nabobs of
Leadenhallpatam ? Have we not another instance of even the profuse-
ne^s of reward in the right quarters—where the right hands are in the
right pockets—in the case of Nelson’s daughter? It is true that
Nelson’s Trafalgar monument is still unfinished; but the living monu-
ment of Nelson’s flesh and blood is enriched and honoured to the
utmost. Our last instance—for we have really not space to give a
twentieth of the number—shall be that of Captain Smith, the genius
of the Screw. Britannia—with her characteristic magnanimity—as
she gave that £100,000 to the man of brain, declared that she never
did, and never could rule the waves, like Captain Smith.

One Doctor Bigsby in some way shares our fear that the Cloud of
Bees would be so great that the undecorated only would be the dis-
1 inguished. When Lord Castlereagh attended the Vienna Congress
lus plain coat was of all diplomatic coats the most remarkable.
Doctor Bigsby, however, would have the Bee—should such be the

badge, as we have proposed it—accompanied with a lump of honey.
He says—“ Privileges merely honorary would be productive or no real
advantage to the possessor in humble life, but rather tend to obstruct
the welfare of the individual entitled to them.” In fact, very piobably,
be only another cross the more. “We may imagine,” writes the
philosophic Doctor, “ the probable disgust which a London rag-picker
would feel, did be receive, a mere badge as the symbol of his country’s
approbation of his individual merit.” We confess the disgust of the
decorated rag-picker is beyond our imagination—for that rag-picker so
distinguished will be found when a Unicorn is discovered to set him
astride upon. It is very true that men have picked up Orders from
out of the very mud, but then it was the mud of a Court; and that mud
must be sweet and pleasant as black-currant jam, or so many folks
could scarcely have swallowed so much of it. The Doctor cares not
a straw lor an Order of Merit if unaccompanied with an Order on the
Treasury. The Order of Praise is very well; but the Order of Pudding
is infinitely more sustaining.

Without the pudding in some shape, “how soon, indeed,” cries the
pathetic Bigsby, “ would our pawnbrokers’ windows teem with those
tokens of national gratitude.” And therefore the Doctor proooses that,
an Order of Merit shall be synonymous with an Order of Mammon 1
The Doctor bursts into an aspiration!

“ May we soon hail the institution of an Order which, while giving publicity to ttie
exertions of deserving men, shall also confer a suitable honorary and pecuniary rewai d,
in recompense of those exertions. Should such an institution he established, I trust
that a proper discrimination will be evidenced as to the various kinds and degrees of
merit, and that we shall not see the ‘glorious lew.' in whose privileged breasts are
divinely born the loftier elements of a supreme genius—whose mighty destiny is to shed
a planetary illumination over the darker recesses of the firmament of liumau reason—
to add new conquests,” &c. &c. &c.

The claims of the “vulgar arts” and “mercantile enterprise” the
Doctor would have differently rewarded; though we fear be can
hardly improve upon the present system, as mercantile enterprise is
illustrated by family carriage and family villa.

: As genius cannot—like medals—be struck at the Mint, so think we

that, as a mere badge and sign, no mark is necessary. Men’s own works
are their best Orders. Do we need a Robert Stephenson to carry
a Bee at his button-bole to buzz to the world—“For the man who won
that iron victory, the Menai Bridge, enquire within!” No; he is,
though visibly undecorated, Knight of the Order of Vulcan. And in
like manner so be it with all civil men of genius. Let their conquests
be their decorations. Apollo need not be ticketed, that the world
should recognise the Godhead.

It is said—declares Doctor Bigsby—that the idea of an Order of
Merit was mooted and discussed and then abandoned by the Eahl of
1 Aberdeen. It sickens us with Orders tiiat Aberdeen himself should
be finally tied up in the Blue Riband. Did ever leg so completely take
the shine out of the Garter ?

OXFORD AND THE LITERARY FUND.

Last week the Bishop of Oxford put on a bran new a-pron to do
work for the Literary Fund at the London Tavern. The Institution
lias been deservedly mauled, therefore was Episcopal Oil the more
welcome, as the more necessary. The Bishop feared for literature at
the hands of the people. Dryden to be sure licked the shoes of any
noble patron, going down upon all fours to do the job in his page of
dedication : this was very bad, but matters might be worse—writers
might go lower still, and bow down to the people.

“ The patronage which literature now enjoyed was that of the people, and it was
possible to have a depressing tendency, by bringing down the literature to the tastes
and capacities ot' the peopie instead of strengthening and elevating their tastes to a
higher and purer standard. {Hear, hear.) ”

We trust, that Samuel op Oxford only preaches to the very rich
and the extremely respectable. Should he ever give way to the habit
of delivering bis sermons to the mere people, we fear that such dis-
courses, instead of flowing with the best and purest oil as they now do,
would full soon have the vulgar flatness of the smallest beer. Imagine
the “ depressing tendency ” of a raarged congregation on the homilies
of an Episcopal Christian of £10,000 a year!

A Lift for Maynooth,

Speaking of the Maynooth Report, the John Bull says—

“ The atmosphere of Maynooth appears to have impregnated the very Commissioners
themselves with the infection of Loyolist principles.”

Would it not suit the purpose, and accord with the principles, of
some of our Popish contemporaries, to quote this passage on Maynooth’s
behalf—making the second o in Loyolist into a ?

“The Monumental Bust.”—A Yankee says that the Poet, when
he alluded to the “Monumental Bustevidently meant to imply the
“ Crack of Dome ! ”