DOI issue:
October 17, 1863
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16872#0172
October 17, 1863.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
161
To hunt the Polish patriot down,
Or the baser hound, that for the crown,
Betrays whom lie inveigles ?
Comes the storm from the bed that heaves
With the groans of “ the sick man ” lying,
With his heirs all cursing him in their sleeves,
Because he’s so long a-dying?
Conies the storm from Venice or Home ?
Or comes the storm from across the foam? '
Where, as North and South, the tempest rages,
And threatens e’en tbeir ancient Home,
Once place of Pilgrimages,
But now their scoff and scorn and hate,
Because we have watched their storms rage on.
And only prayed they might abate,
Nor calch up Englishman, Prank, or Hon,
And tangle Europe with Union’s fate?
But howsoever we hoist the drum.
Or whencesoever the storm may come,
A watchful, wily, Eagle I see
With the banks of the Seine for his aery,
That wheels and wheels about the piles
Of cloud, all sullen with stormy war,
Now soaring, sinking otherwhiles,
As if he scented the prey a-far,
And meant that the storm where’er it break,
Should bring him food for his yellow beak.
We know not whence the storm may come,
But its coming’s in the air,
And this is the warning of the drum,
Against the storm, Prepare !
A HANDFUL OF HAWTHORN.
.Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of the Scarlet Letter and the
House with the Seven. Gables (you see we at once endeavour to create a
prejudice in your favour) you are a ’cute man of business besides being
a pleasing writer. We have often credited you with literary merit, and
your style, dear boy, puts to shame a good many of our own writers
who ought to write better than they do. But now let us have the new
pleasure of congratulating you on showing that you are as smart a man,
as much up to snuff, if you will pardon the colloquialism, as any Yankee
publisher who ever cheated a British author. You have written a book
about England, and into this book you have put all the caricatures and
libels upon English folk, which you collected while enjoying our hos-
pitality. Your book is thoroughly saturated with what seems ill-nature
and spite. You then wait until the relations between America and
England are unpleasant, until the Yankee public desires nothing better
than good abuse of the Britisher, and then like a wise man, you cast
your disagreeable book into the market. Now we like adroitness, even
when displayed at our own expense, and we hope that the book will
sell largely in America, and put no end of dollars to your account.
There was once a person of your Christian name, who was said to be
without guile. Most American pedigrees are dubious, but we ibink
you would have a little extra trouble to prove your descent from
Aathaniel of Israel. In a word, you are a Smart Man, and we can
hardly say anything more likely to raise you in the esteem of those for
whom you have been composing. Come, there is none of the “ insular
narrowness,” on which you compliment us all, in this liberal tribute to
your deserts. You see that in spite of what you say, “ these people ”
(the English) do nor, all “ think so loftily of themselves and so con-
temptuously of everybody else that it requires more generosity than you
possess to keep always in perfectly good humour with them.” You
will have no difficulty in keeping in perfectly good humour with us.
We are pleased with you, too, on another point. You stick at
nothing, and we like earnestness. Not content with smashing up our
male population in the most everlasting manner, you make the most
savage onslaught upon our women. This will be doubly pleasant to
your delicate-minded and chivalrous countrymen. And we are the more
inclined to give you credit here, because you do not write of ladies
whom you have seen at a distance, or in their carriages, or from the
point of view of a shy and awkward man who sculks away at the rustle j
ot a crinoline, and hides himself among the ineligibles at the ball-room |
door. Everybody knows that you have had ample opportunity of culti-
vating ladies’ society, and have availed yourself of that opportunity to j
tlie utmost. Everybody in the world know3 that the gifted American
Consul at Liverpool is an idoliser of the ladies, and is one of the most
ready, ffuent, accomplished talkers of lady-talk that ever fascinated a
sofa-lull of smiling beauties. His gay and airy entrance into a drawing-
room, his pleasant assurance and graceful courtesy, his evident revel in
the refined atmosphere of perfume and persiflage, are proverbial^ and
therefore he is thoroughly acquainted with the nature and habits of
English women. Consequently his tribute has a value which would not
appertain to the criticisms of a sheepish person, either so inspired with
a sense of his own infinite superiority, or so operated on by plebeian
mauvaise honte, that he edges away from a lady, flounders and talks
nonsense when compelled to answer her, and escapes with a red face,
like a clumsy hobbadehoy, the moment a pause allows him to do so.
No, no, this is the testimony of the lady-killer, the sparkling yet tender
Liverpool Lovelace, Nathaniel Hawthorne, to the merits of our
English women.
“ English girls seemed to me all homely alike. They seemed to he country
lasses, of sturdy and wholesome aspect, with coarse-grained, cabbage-rosy cheeks,
and, I am willing to suppose, a stout textui’e of moral principle, such as would bear
a good deal of rough usage without suffering much detriment. But:how unlike the
trim little damsels of my native land ! I desire above all things to be courteous.”
Courteous. Of course. How can the drawing-room idol be anything
but courteous? He simply sketches our young ladies truthfully. Indeed
he says so :—
“ Since the plain truth must be told, the soil and climate of England produce
feminine beauty as rarely as they do delicate fruit, and though admirable specimens
of both are to be met with, they are the hot-house ameliorations of refined society,
J and apt, moreover, to relapse into the coarseness of the original stock. The men
! are man-like, hut the women are not beautiful, though the female Bull be well
| enough adapted to the male.”
“ The female Bull.” Cow would have been neater, and more enter-
taining, perhaps, to Broadway ; but one would not mend after a master.
But our matrons. We rather, in our weakness, piqued ourselves
upon our matrons, with what we’ve thought their handsome faces,
ready smiles, cheerful kindness, and tongues that talk freely because
i the hearts are innocent. Thanks to our Lovelace-Adonis, we now know
that we must abandon this superstition. Here is his sketch of the
English married lady of middle age :—
“ She has an awful ponderosity of frame, not pulpy, like the looser development
of our few fat women, but massive with solid beef and streaky tallow; so that
(though struggling manfully against the idea) you inevitably think of her as made
up of steaks and sirloins. When she walks, her advance is elephantine. When she
sits down, it is on a great round space of her Makei’'s footstool, where she looks as
if nothing could ever move her. She imposes awe and 1‘espect by the muchness of
her personality, to such a degree that you probably credit her with far greater
moral and intellectual force than she can fairly claim. Her visage is usually grim
and stern, seldom positively forbidding, yet calmly terrible.”
Calmly terrible. Is not this a momentary weakness, Nathaniel?
Can any created woman be terrible to you ? Away, eater of hearts.
You don’t fear any matron. You show it in your next passage:—
“ You may meet this figure in the street, and live, and even smile at the recol*
lection. But conceive of her in a ball-room, with the bare brawny arms that she
invariably displays there, and all the other corresponding development, such as is
beautiful in the maiden blossom, but a spectacle to howl at in such an overblown
cabbage-rose as this.”
Well painted, Nathaniel, with a touch worthy of Rubens, who was
we think, your great uncle, or was it Milton, or Thersites, or some-
body else, who, in accordance with American habit, was claimed as
your ancestor. Never mind, you are strong enough in your own works
to bear being supposed a descendant from a gorilla, were heraldry
unkind. Mr. Hunch makes you his best compliments on your smart-
ness, and on the gracious elegance of your descriptions of those with
whom you are known to have been so intimate, and he hopes that you
will soon give the world a sequel to Transformation, in the torin ot
an autobiography. Eor he is very partial to essays on the natural
history of half-civilised animals.
A GOOD WORD EOR THE POPE.
The Tablet's own Correspondent at Rome writes as lollops about
Victor-Emmanhel, whom most people in their senses call the King
oe Italy :—
“ The King of Piedmont has been seriously ill, but has, however, recovered his
usual health, by means of very severe remedies, and the popular mind in Rome
connects his indisposition with the late devotions, a pretty clear indication that tho
people have not lost their faith.”
That is to say, we presume, the faithful Romans believe that the
Sovereign abovenamed owes his recovery from his indisposition to the
devotions ordered by the Pope, which have rendered the operation oI
the very severe remedies, resorted to for its cure, effectual. We rejoice
to learn that his Holiness prays for his enemies with such success as
that which is attested by the restoration of the King oe Italy’s
health.
Black ancl White.
The King oe Dahomey is expected at St. Petersburg on a visit to
the Emperor oe Russia. After a short sojourn with Alexander the
Second, his sable Majesty will proceed to Wilna, and stay some time
with General Mouravieee in order to witness the butcheries which
are going on in Poland.
I
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
161
To hunt the Polish patriot down,
Or the baser hound, that for the crown,
Betrays whom lie inveigles ?
Comes the storm from the bed that heaves
With the groans of “ the sick man ” lying,
With his heirs all cursing him in their sleeves,
Because he’s so long a-dying?
Conies the storm from Venice or Home ?
Or comes the storm from across the foam? '
Where, as North and South, the tempest rages,
And threatens e’en tbeir ancient Home,
Once place of Pilgrimages,
But now their scoff and scorn and hate,
Because we have watched their storms rage on.
And only prayed they might abate,
Nor calch up Englishman, Prank, or Hon,
And tangle Europe with Union’s fate?
But howsoever we hoist the drum.
Or whencesoever the storm may come,
A watchful, wily, Eagle I see
With the banks of the Seine for his aery,
That wheels and wheels about the piles
Of cloud, all sullen with stormy war,
Now soaring, sinking otherwhiles,
As if he scented the prey a-far,
And meant that the storm where’er it break,
Should bring him food for his yellow beak.
We know not whence the storm may come,
But its coming’s in the air,
And this is the warning of the drum,
Against the storm, Prepare !
A HANDFUL OF HAWTHORN.
.Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of the Scarlet Letter and the
House with the Seven. Gables (you see we at once endeavour to create a
prejudice in your favour) you are a ’cute man of business besides being
a pleasing writer. We have often credited you with literary merit, and
your style, dear boy, puts to shame a good many of our own writers
who ought to write better than they do. But now let us have the new
pleasure of congratulating you on showing that you are as smart a man,
as much up to snuff, if you will pardon the colloquialism, as any Yankee
publisher who ever cheated a British author. You have written a book
about England, and into this book you have put all the caricatures and
libels upon English folk, which you collected while enjoying our hos-
pitality. Your book is thoroughly saturated with what seems ill-nature
and spite. You then wait until the relations between America and
England are unpleasant, until the Yankee public desires nothing better
than good abuse of the Britisher, and then like a wise man, you cast
your disagreeable book into the market. Now we like adroitness, even
when displayed at our own expense, and we hope that the book will
sell largely in America, and put no end of dollars to your account.
There was once a person of your Christian name, who was said to be
without guile. Most American pedigrees are dubious, but we ibink
you would have a little extra trouble to prove your descent from
Aathaniel of Israel. In a word, you are a Smart Man, and we can
hardly say anything more likely to raise you in the esteem of those for
whom you have been composing. Come, there is none of the “ insular
narrowness,” on which you compliment us all, in this liberal tribute to
your deserts. You see that in spite of what you say, “ these people ”
(the English) do nor, all “ think so loftily of themselves and so con-
temptuously of everybody else that it requires more generosity than you
possess to keep always in perfectly good humour with them.” You
will have no difficulty in keeping in perfectly good humour with us.
We are pleased with you, too, on another point. You stick at
nothing, and we like earnestness. Not content with smashing up our
male population in the most everlasting manner, you make the most
savage onslaught upon our women. This will be doubly pleasant to
your delicate-minded and chivalrous countrymen. And we are the more
inclined to give you credit here, because you do not write of ladies
whom you have seen at a distance, or in their carriages, or from the
point of view of a shy and awkward man who sculks away at the rustle j
ot a crinoline, and hides himself among the ineligibles at the ball-room |
door. Everybody knows that you have had ample opportunity of culti-
vating ladies’ society, and have availed yourself of that opportunity to j
tlie utmost. Everybody in the world know3 that the gifted American
Consul at Liverpool is an idoliser of the ladies, and is one of the most
ready, ffuent, accomplished talkers of lady-talk that ever fascinated a
sofa-lull of smiling beauties. His gay and airy entrance into a drawing-
room, his pleasant assurance and graceful courtesy, his evident revel in
the refined atmosphere of perfume and persiflage, are proverbial^ and
therefore he is thoroughly acquainted with the nature and habits of
English women. Consequently his tribute has a value which would not
appertain to the criticisms of a sheepish person, either so inspired with
a sense of his own infinite superiority, or so operated on by plebeian
mauvaise honte, that he edges away from a lady, flounders and talks
nonsense when compelled to answer her, and escapes with a red face,
like a clumsy hobbadehoy, the moment a pause allows him to do so.
No, no, this is the testimony of the lady-killer, the sparkling yet tender
Liverpool Lovelace, Nathaniel Hawthorne, to the merits of our
English women.
“ English girls seemed to me all homely alike. They seemed to he country
lasses, of sturdy and wholesome aspect, with coarse-grained, cabbage-rosy cheeks,
and, I am willing to suppose, a stout textui’e of moral principle, such as would bear
a good deal of rough usage without suffering much detriment. But:how unlike the
trim little damsels of my native land ! I desire above all things to be courteous.”
Courteous. Of course. How can the drawing-room idol be anything
but courteous? He simply sketches our young ladies truthfully. Indeed
he says so :—
“ Since the plain truth must be told, the soil and climate of England produce
feminine beauty as rarely as they do delicate fruit, and though admirable specimens
of both are to be met with, they are the hot-house ameliorations of refined society,
J and apt, moreover, to relapse into the coarseness of the original stock. The men
! are man-like, hut the women are not beautiful, though the female Bull be well
| enough adapted to the male.”
“ The female Bull.” Cow would have been neater, and more enter-
taining, perhaps, to Broadway ; but one would not mend after a master.
But our matrons. We rather, in our weakness, piqued ourselves
upon our matrons, with what we’ve thought their handsome faces,
ready smiles, cheerful kindness, and tongues that talk freely because
i the hearts are innocent. Thanks to our Lovelace-Adonis, we now know
that we must abandon this superstition. Here is his sketch of the
English married lady of middle age :—
“ She has an awful ponderosity of frame, not pulpy, like the looser development
of our few fat women, but massive with solid beef and streaky tallow; so that
(though struggling manfully against the idea) you inevitably think of her as made
up of steaks and sirloins. When she walks, her advance is elephantine. When she
sits down, it is on a great round space of her Makei’'s footstool, where she looks as
if nothing could ever move her. She imposes awe and 1‘espect by the muchness of
her personality, to such a degree that you probably credit her with far greater
moral and intellectual force than she can fairly claim. Her visage is usually grim
and stern, seldom positively forbidding, yet calmly terrible.”
Calmly terrible. Is not this a momentary weakness, Nathaniel?
Can any created woman be terrible to you ? Away, eater of hearts.
You don’t fear any matron. You show it in your next passage:—
“ You may meet this figure in the street, and live, and even smile at the recol*
lection. But conceive of her in a ball-room, with the bare brawny arms that she
invariably displays there, and all the other corresponding development, such as is
beautiful in the maiden blossom, but a spectacle to howl at in such an overblown
cabbage-rose as this.”
Well painted, Nathaniel, with a touch worthy of Rubens, who was
we think, your great uncle, or was it Milton, or Thersites, or some-
body else, who, in accordance with American habit, was claimed as
your ancestor. Never mind, you are strong enough in your own works
to bear being supposed a descendant from a gorilla, were heraldry
unkind. Mr. Hunch makes you his best compliments on your smart-
ness, and on the gracious elegance of your descriptions of those with
whom you are known to have been so intimate, and he hopes that you
will soon give the world a sequel to Transformation, in the torin ot
an autobiography. Eor he is very partial to essays on the natural
history of half-civilised animals.
A GOOD WORD EOR THE POPE.
The Tablet's own Correspondent at Rome writes as lollops about
Victor-Emmanhel, whom most people in their senses call the King
oe Italy :—
“ The King of Piedmont has been seriously ill, but has, however, recovered his
usual health, by means of very severe remedies, and the popular mind in Rome
connects his indisposition with the late devotions, a pretty clear indication that tho
people have not lost their faith.”
That is to say, we presume, the faithful Romans believe that the
Sovereign abovenamed owes his recovery from his indisposition to the
devotions ordered by the Pope, which have rendered the operation oI
the very severe remedies, resorted to for its cure, effectual. We rejoice
to learn that his Holiness prays for his enemies with such success as
that which is attested by the restoration of the King oe Italy’s
health.
Black ancl White.
The King oe Dahomey is expected at St. Petersburg on a visit to
the Emperor oe Russia. After a short sojourn with Alexander the
Second, his sable Majesty will proceed to Wilna, and stay some time
with General Mouravieee in order to witness the butcheries which
are going on in Poland.
I