Punch (45.1863)

148 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [October 10, 1863.

PARTRIDGE SHOOTING.

Keeper {who has never seen a breech-loader). “I don’t think werry much op ’ih ; why he’s bin and Broke his Gun the werry

Fust Shot ! ”

ULYSSES.

Freely translated from the Twelfth Book of the Odyssey of Homer.
whoever he was, or they were.

Then spoke Jackides, England’s briefest: Peer,

“ Have no vain terrors, friends, for I Am Here,

Through direr straits than these, and seas more dark
This hand hath safely steered the Lion bark.

Remember former perils, not a few,

And how triumphantly I brought you through.

’Twas I who rode the master of the storm,

When three roused nations rose and roared ‘Reform! ’

I gave Reform, but gave with cautious hands.

And stronger fixed our Constitution stands.

Remember when large Wiseman dared assume
An English title given by Pope of Room,

I clove his mitre with a downright blow,

And quick abased your Ubramontane foe.

So never need Britannia blanch and pale,

Until she sees her tried Jackides quail.

“ Such as I was, I am, with courage high,

A daring pilot in neutrality.

The waves are rough, I own, and fearful shocks
Threaten to dash our vessel on the rocks.

’Twixt North and South to keep our steady course
Demands the wise man’s skill, the strong man’s force ;

But wait in trust, and you shall surely see
Wiseman and Strongman both combined in me.

The Yankee Scylla vainly scowls on you,

As vainly scowls the Slave Cbarybdis too.

I see no terror in those Eederal glooms,

Whence Lincoln’s long and rugged visage looms,

I see no terror in that Southern cloud
That wraps the face of Davis, keen and proud.

Let Abraham disport in jocund tales,

And split his Union as he split his rails ;

Let Jeeperson renew his fierce attacks,

And whip his foemen as he whips his blacks:
Neither shall hail Jackides as his friend,

Jackides, sternly neutral to the end.

Only be ruled by me, whom kindly Fate,

Or Providence, hath sent to save the State,

And who, serenely leaning, as of yore.

On Magna Charta, and Lord Grenville’s lore,
Smiles at the Tory’s fears, the Liberal’s dreams.

And rears the Whig’s blue motto, ‘No Extremes.’ ”

LITERARY FLAT-FISHING.

The race of fools and nincompoops is not yet quite extinct, at least if
we may trust the following advert,isement, which appeared the other
morning in the Baity Telegraph:—•

YU ANTED, by Miss J. M. BROOKE, who Advertised for a HUSBAND
’ • on the 21st inst., ALL the YOUNG LADIES of ENGLAND to Read 800 Replies,
now publishing in the MORNING MAIL.

This of course is merely a bait thrown out for catching people to buy
the Morning Mail, and we have no doubt the “replies” now being pub-
lished in that paper are manufactured by the gentleman who, when he
advertised for a husband, announced his name to be “ Miss Brooke.”
The joke is rather stale, and we should fancy that a paper must be sadly
short of readers when driven to such dodges as that quoted above. If
we could believe the announcement to be genuine, we should say that of
the fools and nincompoops nowextant, eight hundred of the biggest were
they who wrote replies to “Miss Brooke’s” advertisement; but we
prefer to view that lady as a myth, and therefore think the fools and
nincompoops to whom we have referred are simply those who simply
purchase a cheap newspaper on the faith of such advertisements as that
quoted above.