Punch: Punch (36.1859)

192

[Mat 14, 1859.

A LITERARY WAIF.

he day after the Finsbury
Election a letter was put
into our box containing two
or three proof sheets of what
seems to have been the
commencement of an Uni-
versal History. As the word
" Cancelled " appears upon
them, we conclude the in-
tention of completing the
work is abandoned for the
present. That the world
may know what they have
lost, we venture to reprint
the portion which has
reached us.

" It was at the battle of
Pharsalia, which was fought
during the Wars of the
Roses, in the spring-time

Brute!' was made, in his death-gasp, by the assassinated Regulus
who fell upon his helmet in the thirty-second round, and expired
exclaiming, Veni! vidi! viei!'"

LAMENT BY A TRUE BLUE M.P.

{Touching the state of the Clock and the state of Parties)

When the Clock's hands they won't work,
And the Clock's wheels they won't play,

How are poor old boys in Westminster
To be up to the time o' day ?

" Look at your private tickers,"

That's all very well to say;
What we want is something to set 'em by,

And tell us the time o' day.

Oh, our father's times were the good old times!

When, according as your lay
Was Tory or Whig, you'd a leader so big,

To show you the time o' day.

of the year b.c. 1G72, that You'd no reasons to find, nor to make up your mind,

But by what Pitt or Pox might say
You set your ticker—be it slower or quicker—
And that was the time o'dt*".

Like a tall clock-tower that tells the hour,

To the town miles and miles away,
Those leaders so great, in matters of state,
Gave small folks the time o' day.

But in these wild times men scorn tower-chimes,

Por what their own fobs may say;
Big leaders are dumb, and the bis Clock's mum,

ay.

Well—a watch of your own, and a mind of your own,

Are very good things in their way,
But I've no wat ch to wind up, and I can't make my mind up—
And I don't know the time o' day.

Edward the Blue Prince,
the eldest son of Old King
Cole, after slaying fifteen
Saracens with his Colt's
revolver, engaged in single
combat with his mortal foe,
Prince Rupert, who was a
rival suitor for the hand and the affections of Pair Rosamond. After
they had fought for upwards of six hours by Canterbury clock, the
gauntlet was thrown up in favour of Prince Rupert, who, in strict
conformity with the old law of duelling, mounted on the shoulders of his
defeated foe, and sounded his own trumpet in defiance of all-comers.

Being then carried pig-a-back to the Ladies' Gallery, he was crowned And none gives us the time o d

with cabbage-leaves by the Queen of Beauty, impersonated by the grand-
mother of the Lady Jane Godiva. A photograph of this extremely
interesting ceremony is still preserved in the Assyrian Room at the
British Museum. The motto which encircles it was composed for the
occasion by the Man of Ross, who, it is believed, was the poet-laureate
of the period. The honour of its composition has, however, since been
claimed by Chaucer, Bunyan, Robinson, and Alexandrine Smith.
In the spelling of the period, the scroll stands thus :—

p?appic, happir, bappic $3ant£!

$Ltm tmtte' Btatbc ocsscrbc * Jagrc."

" Alexander the Great (who was complimentarily called so by j
his courtiers, being, in reahty, of a somewhat dwarfish stature) sue- \
ceeded to the throne of Troy upon the death of Cleopatra, the mother
of his wife. His coronation was attended with more than usual pomp,
Widdicomb the First being master of the ceremonies. Under the i
system of one Rari, a trainer of the period, the king was quite
successful in taming the White Horse, and drove him in his curricle
to the Augean stables, where he was put up. On the same day, the
king sat down to a lunch of lampreys, at which, to please Queen
Helen, he dissolved his finest pearl in a butt of Malms buryIt was i
during his reign that the declaration of independence was signed by |
the Athenians, and the colony of Macedonia received a constitution at
the hands of Nero, and was enrolled by William Penn among the
Free Trade States."

"The long-vexed question, which has so disturbed historians, from
Homer and Herodotus up to Joseph Hume and Fletcher, as to
who dragged whom round the walls of what, has been set at rest by
the researches of Williams, 'the divine,' an antiquarian of Lambeth.
From a Chaldean MS. exhumed by this gentleman in his Nineveh
exploration, which was undertaken in the hope of finding out the
North-west Passage, and of discovering the Sauce of the Niger, the
true facts of the case have been clearly brought to light. The truth is
plainly patent to all who can decipher*the Sanscrit hieroglyphics, that
the dragsman in question was Uesar Heliogabalus ; who, after the
capture of Philippi from the Jews, harnessed to his drag the horses of
King Diomed, and so ' dragged' the conquered Hector home to dine
with Clytemnestra at her villa near Vesuvius."

" The meeting at Philippi, to which Congreve was indebted for his
drama of The Rivals, was a duel that took place b.c. 165L between
Regulus the Nineteenth, champion of Christendom, and the
heathen crusader, Brutus Africanus. The meeting, as originally
fixed, was arranged to have come off upon the plains of Pompeii; but
as the Amazon queen Dido had electrically telegraphed her strong
wish to be present, and as there was then no railway from her palace
to Pompeii, the valley of Philippi was appointed for the meet. It was
on this occasion, saith Asser the historian, that the expression ' Et tu

Charity Measure.

By the Toast Master of the London Tavern.

One Pound.....elicits No Cheering,

Two Pounds.....draw out The Faintest Response.

Five Pounds....., Hear ! Hear ! Hear !

Twenty Povinds . . . . „ Doud Applause.

Hundred Ponnd3 . . . Tumultuous Clattering