Punch (30.1856)

Junk 14, 1&56.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

241

CIVIL SERV5CE EXAMINATIONS.
" Rhododendron Academy, Pentonville,
" May 14, 1856.
r. Punch, Sib,—It has oc-
curred to me that the
questions propounded by the
Examiners for the admission
of Candidates into the Civil
Service are hardly sufficiently
comprehensive.
" Something beyond a
mere mechanical repetition
of dates or a barren cata-
logue of events may surely
be expected from jouth
emulous of figuring in the


divines, the more striking
episodes of history, ought
surely to be stored in the
minds and memories of our
future Managing Clerks and
Under Secretaries,
" With this conviction, I
have gleaned from our old
chroniclers and other ancient
authors a few excerpta, of which I beg to inclose an extract, and
which may serve tor the nucleus of a more extended work, should jou
be able and willing, by publishing these anecdotes in jour pages, to
procure me the patronage of the Civil Service Examiners.
" Awaiting a propitious response, I subscribe myself, with great
respect and profound anticipatory gratitude,
" Your most obedient Servant,
" Frotssart Jones,
" Professor of Belles Lettres at St. Blaze's College"

itching the while for the coin. If this be meant for good manners,
methinks it is but shallow courtesy."—Bacon's Apothegm.
Boadicea, at Bunker's Hill, was unhelmed by one of the Pope's
Swiss Guards. Bishop Porteous picked up her casque, and offered it
to her on the point of his sword—for which act of courtesy she only
bestowed a buffet on the Prelate's cheek, while she swore that "a
Douglas (of which proud house she was a scion) ever loved better to
hear a bird sing than a mouse squeak."
" The worshipful Sir Digbt Somerville did keep a bountiful
house full ever of brave company at his seat in Suffolk. At one time
among his guests did happen a young gentleman from the Court, whose
apparel was more garnished with lacings and gold than his brain with
modesty or wit. One time going into the fields with his host, they did
espy a comely milk maiden with her pail. 'Prytbee, Phillis,' quoth
the courtier, leering the while at the girl, 'an I give thee a kiss, wilt
thou give me a draught of thy ware.' ' In the meadow,' quoth she,
' thou wilt find one ready to give thee milk, and glad of thy kiss, for
S10";^"1 t\\JZ»\\? she is of tfaykin-' Tbe Coart sallant looked in the mead- acd esPied
vVes of the Cot" I a she"ass- ' So sbarP> fair rustic>' 1uoth he- angrily, ' thou lookest as if
VI v>^r0 nl'tin i anrl tll0u couldest barely say, Bo to a goose.' ' Yea, that can I, and to a
rhnrfrrerKranecdotes of -ander also/ Whereat she cried out lustily, ' Bo! * The young man
characteristic^ anecdotes ot fastened away, and the worshipful Sir Digby did laugh heartily, and
great men tbe wiseland witty entertain bis guests with the tale ? »—Book of Merrie Jestes, 1609.
sayings 01 philosophers and b , . , , T' ? . .
Richard the Second was very popular with the London citizens
on account of his abolishing the window-tax. On one occasion, as the
Monarch was proceeding to the Opera in a Hansom Cab, the Aldermen,
preceded by 1 heir Mace Bearer, surrounded their King, exc'aimkg,
" God bless your Majesty and the Church. We hope your Majesty is
for Dr. Sacheverell." These happy shouts disturbed the vindictive
mind of Colonel Blood, who was in attendance on his Royal Master.
He swore vengeance at the slight offered to his own faith (for he was a
bigoted Baptist), and at the Battle of Sherriffmuir he slew King
Richard as the chivalrous monarch was in the act of lighting his cigar
from the fusee of an unexploded bombshell. Not in vain did Waller
sing that
" A favourite has no friends."

Anecdotes connected with History and the Belles Lettres, culled for the
■use of Candidates for the Civil Service.
" Tout est perdu fors I'honneur" was the stern but pathetic ejaculation
of Sir Thomas Moke as he spurred furious'y across the plains of
Picardy, in the Santissima Trinidad, three-decker, after the disastrous
fight of Rocroi.
Mrs. Hannah More is well known to have greatly assisted Cbe-
billon, in the composition of his celebrated Esprit des Lois. Hence
she is generally styled "the Mother of the modern Gracchi."
Harold the Great, at the battle of Zutphen, seeing Sir Philip
Sidney spit in the face of Marshal Saxe, who was borne by wounded
in a litter, exclaimed, "Poor fools, they would do the same to their
own generals for sixpence."
Charles the Fifth, of Germany, at the siege of Leyden, observing
the women assist in making ammunition, serving the Dutch cannon,
and even converting their luxuriant tresses into percussion caps for the
pikemen, exclaimed, with a terrible oath, "Non Angli sed Angeliforent
si essent Christiani."
On few subjects are so many absurd stories told as about the origin
of the Order of the Garter. The facts are really these :—
Mrs. Barbauld was supposed to have made a deep impression on
the su-ceptible heart of James the Eirst, so much so that his sainted
wife, Diana, of Poitiers, suffered the most cruel pangs of jealousy on
account or her husband's coldness to herself. At a Ball given to the
Spitalnelds Weavers by the Great Duke of Marlborough, at his
Princely mansion m Shoreditch, the King was waltzing with the fair
bociman, when Duguesclin, then a prisoner in England on parole, •
observing the lady's garter fall to the ground, picked it up, and pre-
sented it to her with a significant smile. The monarch snatched it, from
the grinning Frenchman, observing, quite loud enough for the Queen
to hear, Semper eadem, (or it's all the same), words which have become
the motto of the proudest badge of Chivalry in Europe.
Nelson had a great contempt for Titus Gates, who was his com-
manding officer at Lepanto. " Pool! " he said when his Admiral's
timid orders were conveyed to him, "Did he never snuff a candle with
his fingers ?
n/l^fkath always seemed to me that there is no foolisher conceit than
tfcat ot one of whom you have bo-rowed a tester, who shall say on
payment being tendered, «Tu,h, 1 had forgot the debt'-his palm

Henry the Seventh was well known to have been a sad scapegrace
in his youth. Oa one occasion his father, John of Gaunt, locked him
in the buttery hatch as a punishment for some wild freak. The etourdi
young Prince resolved to annoy his Royal Sire, and availing himself of
" time-honoured Lancaster's" well-known and bitter hatred of John
Wilkes, then in the zenith of his popularity with the disaffected
Londoners, he screamed down a call-pipe which communicated with
the Banqueting Hall of the Palace, " Wilkes and 45 for ever!"
alluding to the number of that demagogue's Journal, which contained
the most scurrilous attack upon the Court.
For this offence Judge Gascoigne committed the Prince to the
Tower. On hearing his sentence the hot-headed heir-apparent smote
the aged Judge on the eye. "Happy," said the King, "thrice happy
am I to have a judge so fearless as to send my sou to prison, and a son
so wise as to black my Chief Justice's eye for his pains."
This famous episode gave rise to Milton's screaming farce of L
Penseroso, in which Garrick won such laurels as Dr. Pangloss.
It was not Cleopatra, as erroneously stated by Niebuhr, but
Scipio Africanus, who on crossing the Rubicon to attack Brennus,
addressed his troops in the well-known words, " Perdidi diem."
" Of all vulgar errours I know none soe great as that which hath
passed into a proverb of the hardness of a board—' Hard as a board,'
quotha, Goto, fool! Is aught so soft as that Board which did send
an old woman to knock down stone walls, and then marvelled that
man's work was not done by a beldame."—Sir Thomas Browne, (Sir
James Graham's edition).
When Cromwell's daughter, Lady Rachel Russell, was on her
death-bed, she bitterly reproached her father with the massacre of
St. Bartholomew. He replied with this heartless jest, "Sij'avance,
suivez rnoi; si je recule, tuez mot; si je meurs, vengez moi!"
Cromwell never used the royal arms, nor any modification of them, as
his signet. His favourite seal was a tri-coloured cornelian presented
to him by Cardinal Mezzofauti. The device was the head of
Washington trampling on a serpent, and the motto was, " Stat
nominis umbra"__
An Artistic Question.
Mr. Punch presents his compliments to Lord Palmerston, aud
desires to know, in the event of his Lordship or any other Minister
speaking of any individual, military or civil, as having achieved "a
monumental reputation," whether it is thereupon to be understood that,
past all competition, Baron Marochetti is to execute the monument
aforesaid ?
State of the American Quhstion.—Lord Clarendon wiii have
it that Crampton is Crampton ; Mr. Piebce insists that he is
Crimpton.