Punch (33.1857)

September 1!L 1857.]

115

HOW TITUS MANLIUS MACAULE1US WAS MADE A PATRICIAN.

■3 3Lag of Undent foonu.

The Consul Palmerstonius

Hath ta'en down his Debrett,
And o'er its storied pages
His anxious brow is set.

Dry and a-dust, sat Levius,

Scanty of words and slack :
And he proved the Consul's figures,
And the slate he gave him back.

Those are not age's wrinkles "Now, read off the sum total,"
The Consul's cheek that plough, And Levius read it through-
It is not time that sprinkles Prom left to right, not right to left—
That snow upon his brow. Nought, two, eight, six, and two !

The wrinkles are such wrinkles So the united ages

As a Consul should display : Of the Patricians stood,

"Up to a wrinkle " meaning When Consul Palmerstonius
Up to the time of day. Vowed they must have new blood.

And if the grey hairs mattered,
Their presence 'twould explain

To call them snow-flakes scattered
To cool that hot young brain.

The Consul closed the volume—

He closed it with a bang !
And he seized his slate and pencil

Prom the wall where they did hang
And straight he set to ciphering,

And out a sum he brought;
And his sum was of six figures,

And it ended with a nought.

Then gailv tripped the Consul

To the jErarium straight,
And before Cornelius Levius

He thrust the scribbled slate.
"Check thou, Cornelius Levius

These figures all and each ;
All figures at thy finger-ends,

Hast thou, save thobeof speech."

" What though your novi homines

Do not always wax in wit:
Oft Pairicius, like Pveta,
Proves "nascitur nonjit"

' Besides, as after physic

The matron gives her child
A crust of blandest honey,

To make the bitter mild ;
So I, for the Patricians,

A pleasant peer must find,
To take away the savour

Wens'dalius left behind.

" Patres ma jorum gentium,

Patres minorum, too,
Your seats upon those benches

To sources strange are due :
The fruit of royal bye-blows,

The growths of courtier-slime,
The brawny sons of rapine,

The heirs of reckless crime.

" The sword hath dibbled often

Holes for patrician seed ;
And many a lawyer's tongue hath licked

All shoes, and oft unfee'd,
No stooping found too lowly,

No crawling thought too mean,
If but a Conscript Pather

He might at last be seen.

"The Sword, the Tongue, the Pursehave there

Their representing men—
Remains one tool of greatness

Unhonoured there—the Pen.
The consulship of Plancus

An era still we see :
Why should not Palmerstonius

Be notable as he ?

" I '11 raise to the Patricians,

One who ne'er wore steel, nor lied,
Whose weapon was his goose-quill,

Whose pleadings were world-wide ;
Whose foes were Falsehood, Prejudice,

Praud, Sophistry, and Wrong—
With which he held wit-combat,

Wit-combat, brave and long !

" So, when that Palmerstonius

Hath gone where all must go—■
E'en those whose brains glow fiery

'Neath coronals of snow:
Write by the Appian way-side,

On the tomb where he is laid,
' Of Manlius Macauleius

He a Patrician made.' "

bread of idleness, richly buttered, without incurring the condemnation
of Simon Magus.

The patron-ess of this jolly fat living, all rights included, was
Lady St. John Mildmay, and the incumbent is a St. John Mild-
may also, the Rev. O A. This St. John, the evangelist of Shor-
well sinecure, is also evangelist or vicar of Burnham, in Essex,
worth £700 a-year; and is moreover supposed to preach the gospel
at Chelmsford at £800 a-year as rector, besides perambulating the
highways and hedges for the capture of souls in the capacity of
Rural Dean of Rochester. Notwithstanding this evangelical man is
only fifty-eight, the purchaser of Shorwell may reasonably count on early
succession to that paradise of laziness; for although St. John has
nothing whatever to do there, the highly plural nature of his employ-
ments elsewhere renders it tolerably certain that he must very soon be
worked to death.

A HEAD AND A BLOCK.

A LITTLE SURPRISE FOR MUGGINS.

Blacksmiths may be interested by the following advertisement,
extracted from the Scotsman :—

FRENCH.

WANTED, A PERSON who would endeavour to hammer into a
Middle-Aged Man as much FRENCH a8 would carry him through Railway?
and Hotels in Prance. Hours of Teaching say from Half-past Nine to Half-pa*t
Ten, a.m., for Two Months. State terms.—Address, A. b. c., <fcc. &c.

A correspondent, who has sent us the above cutting, suggests,
" Lark ! I say ! What'll my Old Man think when he sees : indeed, that to hammer anything into the head of a middle-aged
me in this 'ere 'At ]" i Scotchman, a Nasmyth's patent hammer would tie necessary; and a

.________j Nasmyth is equal to some thousands of blacksmiths. No doubt the

sons of Caledonia are from birth hardheaded, and by the time they have
AN OPENING POR AN INDOLENT PARSON. \ reached middle age, their heads have in general arrived at an equality

with adamant in hardness, although interior to it in density, lhe
A Curious question is suggested by an impudent advertisement, ; heads of these iron men for the most part may require a blacksmith at
quoted by the Times, which offers for sale— I least to hammer an idea into them—especially the idea of a joke : but

a sinecure rectory in the isle of wight, the annual amount of the tithe rent-! probably the head of A.B.C. (into which it perhaps took some beating

charge for the last five years being £350, with 3£ acres of glebe, with two cottages
producing £20 per annum ; the present incumbent in his 58th year."

As this rectory is a sinecure of souls, there is certainly some reason
to doubt that it is a spiritual benefice, and if it is not, ought the sale
of it, even if it were sold outright, to be considered simony ?

Shorwell, near Newport, is the benefice referred to—a material
benefice decidedly we should say, not at all a spiritual one ; therefore
purchasable by any idle parson, who wishes to continue eating the

to force the rudiments of learning expressed by those characters) may
be of a softer material than iron—of a substance which would more
naturally be operated on by the carpenter.

Warning to Wine-Bibbers.—Before you buy "Port from the
Wood," endeavour if possible to ascertain that the wood whence the
wine is derived is not log-wood.