DOI Heft:
October 31, 1863
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16872#0188
October 31, 1863.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
respected relative. You can assume the costume of bis chief enemies.
You can wear the Stuart tartan.”
“ Hm,” says I. “ I should look well in it, no doubt; but then
I have no hostility to the present House of Brunswick.”
“ Why,” says he, laughing; “ Her Majesty dresses her own princes
in the Stuart tartan, /ought, to know that.”
“ Then that’s settled,” I replied.
Ha! You would indeed have been proud of your contributor, had
you seen him splendidly arrayed in that, gorgeous garb, and treading
the heather of Inverness High Street like a young mountaineer. He
did not look then like
Inverness Castle.
Epicurus Rotundus.
IRREVERENCE IN ITALY.
Everybody knows that the Art of Punch is strictly regulated by the
higher sentiments. But even if it were not, Punch would venture at
his peril to publish a cartoon such as the. caricalure described in the
following extract from a letter in the Tablet from its correspondent at
Rome:—
“ I think any one with a talent for profanity in any other country would he
astounded at the inventive powers displayed by the Unionist press in the kingdom
of Italy, and were I to point to one thing more than another calculated to spread
contempt for Christianity, it is these publications. I have one just published before
me. Gabibabdi with a nimbus, flowing robes, and a tricolor flag and cross labelled
‘ Roma o la morte ’ in hand, rises from the tomb, which is represented as a broken-
bombshell of Aspromonte, and the Minister Visconti Venosta, with Napoleon
astride on his nose, and ’Francis-Joseph, dumb with terror, are struck down as the
two soldiers keeping watch. It has Surrexit secundvm Scripturas under it, and is a
patent and blasphemous parody of our Lord’s Resurrection.”
Exactly so ; and if any publication professin? to supply a want which
Punch does not, were to appear with such an illustration as that above-
described, it would almost immediately disappear from circulation.
There would be no need to fine and imprison, still less to hang or burn
the proprietors, artists, editor, and writers, of a paper so illustrated.
Swimming, like pigs, against the stream, those unhappy buffoons would
assuredly do for themselves, as pigs, under the like circumstances, are
said to do. How is this where there is no Index Expurgatorius, no cen-
sorship, and no condemnation of a profane parody but that pronounced
by society ? The correspondent of the Tablet appeals to “our separated
brethren,” against the countenance given by them to the cause of Italian
unity, supported, as he represents it to be, by blasphemous caricatures.
On consideration he may discover himself to be mistaken in supposing
that, if there is “ one thing more than another calculated to spread con-
tempt for Christianity, it is these publications.” Where such things
are popular, contempt for Christianity has been spread already; and
were Punch to point to one thing likely to have spread contempt for
Christianity, it would be the association of Christianity with winking
Madonnas and other cock-and-bull fables and superstitions. Were he to
point to another thing at least equally likely to bring Christianity into
contempt, it would be the complicity of those who profess to repre-
sent Christianity with brigands and assassins. There is no other thing
Mr. Punch can think of, more than these two things, calculated to
spread that contempt for Christianity of which profane parodies are not
the cause but the effect.
ELEGY ON THE PORPOISE.
BY THE STURGEON.
Dear, is he ? Yes, and wasn’t I glad when they carried away his
corpus ?
A great, black, oily, wallowing, wallopping, plunging, ponderous porpus.
What call had Mr. Frank Buckland, which I don’t deny bis kindness,
To take and shove into my basin a porpoise troubled with blindness?
I think it was like his impudence, and praps a little beyond,
To poke a blundering brute like that in a gentlefisk’s private pond.
Did he know as I am the King of Fish, and written down in histories
As meat, for his master, that is to say, for Victoria the Queen, his
mistress,
And, if right was done, I shouldn’t be here, but be sent in a water-
parcel ,
To swim about in a marble tank in the gardings of Windsor Castle :
And them as forgets the laws of the land which is made to rule and
control.
And keeps a, Royal Eish to themselves, may find themselves in a hole.
Is a King like me, I umbly ask, to be put in a trumpery puddle,
For Fellows to walk about and spy and talk zoological muddle,
And swells to come for a Sunday lounge, with French, Italians, and
Germans,
Which would better become to stop at home and think of the morning
sermons,
And then of a Monday to be used in a more obnoxious manner,
Stared at by tags and rags and bobtails as all come in for a Tanner ?
And me the King of Fish, indeed, which its treating China like delf,
Mr. Kingfisher Buckland, Sir, 1 think you might be ashamed of
yourself.
And then I can’t be left alone, but you come and stick in a big
Blind blustering snorting oily beast which is only an old Sea-Pig.
I’m heartily glad he’s dead, the pig: I was pleased, to my very marrow,
To see the keeper wheel him away in that dirty old garding barrow.
And though it was not flattering, last Sunday as ever were,
To hear the swells as had read the Times come rushing up for a stare,
And crying Bother the Sturgeon, it’s the Porpus I want to see,
And going away in a state of huff because there was only Me,
It was pleasant (and kings has right divine to feel a little malicious)
To see’em sent to behold his cops in the barrow behind the fish-house.
So when Mr. Buckland next obtains a porpus as wants a surgeon,
Perhaps he won’t insert that pig beside of a Royal Sturgeon.
I’ve heard the Tench is a curing fish and effects a perfect cure
Of other fish put into his pond, which he’s welcome to do, I’m sure.
But don’t bring sick porpuses up to me, I’m kin to the old Sea-Devil,
And though a king I’m not inclined to be touching fish for the evil.
Besides, a porpus isn’t a fish, but a highly deweloped man.
Lmproved, of course, with a tail and fins, on the famous Westiges plan,
The Phoccena Rondoletii, though his scent in this sultry weather
Was not like rondolet.ia nor frangipanni neither,
But that is neither here nor there, and as I previously said,
From the bottom of both my heart and pond I’m glad the Porpus is
dead.
Royal Zoological Gardens. The Sturgeon.
I
P.S. The Reverend Spurgeon gives it out he’s related to me, a
nigger,
He’s no such thing, and much more like the Above Lamented, iu
figger,
If one may judge by the fottergraffs, which his congregation treasures.
And where he shows himself enjoying no end of domestic pleasures.
A FACT IN ZOOLOGY.
It was observed by those, who always keep a close eye upon royalty,
that on each occasion the Prince of Wales has been to the Adelphi
Theatre, he has been moved to tears by the charm of Miss Bateman’s
most excellent acting. On this being mentioned to Paul Bedford,
he exclaimed, “ Perfectly true to nature, my boy—what can you expect
from Wales but blubber.” For giving way to this irreverent tom-
foolery, Mr. Paul Bedford has since been compelled to study twenty
pages of Joe Miller. We hope it will act as a caution to him in future.
A Drop of Comfort.
There is just one consolation arising out of this new old New
Zealand War. It' we abolish the New Zealanders, we shall abolish that
eternal fellow, of Lord Macaulay’s creation, who, on an average,
finishes three hundred and sixty-five leading articles every year. If
there is no New Zealander, he can’t well come and sit on the broken
arch and sketch the ruined cathedral.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
respected relative. You can assume the costume of bis chief enemies.
You can wear the Stuart tartan.”
“ Hm,” says I. “ I should look well in it, no doubt; but then
I have no hostility to the present House of Brunswick.”
“ Why,” says he, laughing; “ Her Majesty dresses her own princes
in the Stuart tartan, /ought, to know that.”
“ Then that’s settled,” I replied.
Ha! You would indeed have been proud of your contributor, had
you seen him splendidly arrayed in that, gorgeous garb, and treading
the heather of Inverness High Street like a young mountaineer. He
did not look then like
Inverness Castle.
Epicurus Rotundus.
IRREVERENCE IN ITALY.
Everybody knows that the Art of Punch is strictly regulated by the
higher sentiments. But even if it were not, Punch would venture at
his peril to publish a cartoon such as the. caricalure described in the
following extract from a letter in the Tablet from its correspondent at
Rome:—
“ I think any one with a talent for profanity in any other country would he
astounded at the inventive powers displayed by the Unionist press in the kingdom
of Italy, and were I to point to one thing more than another calculated to spread
contempt for Christianity, it is these publications. I have one just published before
me. Gabibabdi with a nimbus, flowing robes, and a tricolor flag and cross labelled
‘ Roma o la morte ’ in hand, rises from the tomb, which is represented as a broken-
bombshell of Aspromonte, and the Minister Visconti Venosta, with Napoleon
astride on his nose, and ’Francis-Joseph, dumb with terror, are struck down as the
two soldiers keeping watch. It has Surrexit secundvm Scripturas under it, and is a
patent and blasphemous parody of our Lord’s Resurrection.”
Exactly so ; and if any publication professin? to supply a want which
Punch does not, were to appear with such an illustration as that above-
described, it would almost immediately disappear from circulation.
There would be no need to fine and imprison, still less to hang or burn
the proprietors, artists, editor, and writers, of a paper so illustrated.
Swimming, like pigs, against the stream, those unhappy buffoons would
assuredly do for themselves, as pigs, under the like circumstances, are
said to do. How is this where there is no Index Expurgatorius, no cen-
sorship, and no condemnation of a profane parody but that pronounced
by society ? The correspondent of the Tablet appeals to “our separated
brethren,” against the countenance given by them to the cause of Italian
unity, supported, as he represents it to be, by blasphemous caricatures.
On consideration he may discover himself to be mistaken in supposing
that, if there is “ one thing more than another calculated to spread con-
tempt for Christianity, it is these publications.” Where such things
are popular, contempt for Christianity has been spread already; and
were Punch to point to one thing likely to have spread contempt for
Christianity, it would be the association of Christianity with winking
Madonnas and other cock-and-bull fables and superstitions. Were he to
point to another thing at least equally likely to bring Christianity into
contempt, it would be the complicity of those who profess to repre-
sent Christianity with brigands and assassins. There is no other thing
Mr. Punch can think of, more than these two things, calculated to
spread that contempt for Christianity of which profane parodies are not
the cause but the effect.
ELEGY ON THE PORPOISE.
BY THE STURGEON.
Dear, is he ? Yes, and wasn’t I glad when they carried away his
corpus ?
A great, black, oily, wallowing, wallopping, plunging, ponderous porpus.
What call had Mr. Frank Buckland, which I don’t deny bis kindness,
To take and shove into my basin a porpoise troubled with blindness?
I think it was like his impudence, and praps a little beyond,
To poke a blundering brute like that in a gentlefisk’s private pond.
Did he know as I am the King of Fish, and written down in histories
As meat, for his master, that is to say, for Victoria the Queen, his
mistress,
And, if right was done, I shouldn’t be here, but be sent in a water-
parcel ,
To swim about in a marble tank in the gardings of Windsor Castle :
And them as forgets the laws of the land which is made to rule and
control.
And keeps a, Royal Eish to themselves, may find themselves in a hole.
Is a King like me, I umbly ask, to be put in a trumpery puddle,
For Fellows to walk about and spy and talk zoological muddle,
And swells to come for a Sunday lounge, with French, Italians, and
Germans,
Which would better become to stop at home and think of the morning
sermons,
And then of a Monday to be used in a more obnoxious manner,
Stared at by tags and rags and bobtails as all come in for a Tanner ?
And me the King of Fish, indeed, which its treating China like delf,
Mr. Kingfisher Buckland, Sir, 1 think you might be ashamed of
yourself.
And then I can’t be left alone, but you come and stick in a big
Blind blustering snorting oily beast which is only an old Sea-Pig.
I’m heartily glad he’s dead, the pig: I was pleased, to my very marrow,
To see the keeper wheel him away in that dirty old garding barrow.
And though it was not flattering, last Sunday as ever were,
To hear the swells as had read the Times come rushing up for a stare,
And crying Bother the Sturgeon, it’s the Porpus I want to see,
And going away in a state of huff because there was only Me,
It was pleasant (and kings has right divine to feel a little malicious)
To see’em sent to behold his cops in the barrow behind the fish-house.
So when Mr. Buckland next obtains a porpus as wants a surgeon,
Perhaps he won’t insert that pig beside of a Royal Sturgeon.
I’ve heard the Tench is a curing fish and effects a perfect cure
Of other fish put into his pond, which he’s welcome to do, I’m sure.
But don’t bring sick porpuses up to me, I’m kin to the old Sea-Devil,
And though a king I’m not inclined to be touching fish for the evil.
Besides, a porpus isn’t a fish, but a highly deweloped man.
Lmproved, of course, with a tail and fins, on the famous Westiges plan,
The Phoccena Rondoletii, though his scent in this sultry weather
Was not like rondolet.ia nor frangipanni neither,
But that is neither here nor there, and as I previously said,
From the bottom of both my heart and pond I’m glad the Porpus is
dead.
Royal Zoological Gardens. The Sturgeon.
I
P.S. The Reverend Spurgeon gives it out he’s related to me, a
nigger,
He’s no such thing, and much more like the Above Lamented, iu
figger,
If one may judge by the fottergraffs, which his congregation treasures.
And where he shows himself enjoying no end of domestic pleasures.
A FACT IN ZOOLOGY.
It was observed by those, who always keep a close eye upon royalty,
that on each occasion the Prince of Wales has been to the Adelphi
Theatre, he has been moved to tears by the charm of Miss Bateman’s
most excellent acting. On this being mentioned to Paul Bedford,
he exclaimed, “ Perfectly true to nature, my boy—what can you expect
from Wales but blubber.” For giving way to this irreverent tom-
foolery, Mr. Paul Bedford has since been compelled to study twenty
pages of Joe Miller. We hope it will act as a caution to him in future.
A Drop of Comfort.
There is just one consolation arising out of this new old New
Zealand War. It' we abolish the New Zealanders, we shall abolish that
eternal fellow, of Lord Macaulay’s creation, who, on an average,
finishes three hundred and sixty-five leading articles every year. If
there is no New Zealander, he can’t well come and sit on the broken
arch and sketch the ruined cathedral.