Punch (47.1864)

178

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI

[October 29, 1864.

BROUGHAM DRIVES UP—TWO LADIES IN TOXOPHILITE COSTUME ON THE BOX, ONE DRIVING—PAIR OF TOP-

BOOTED LEGS STICKING OUT OF WINDOW.

Driving Lady {log.) “Oh, Frank, dear, only fancy, George has got so Tipsy at the Archery Meeting, that we’ve been

OBLIGED TO PUT HIM INSIDE, AND DRIVE HOME OURSELVES—AND POOR CLARA HAS PINCHED HER FINGERS DREADFULLY PUTTING ON THE

Drag, coming down Blunsden Hill ! ”

PITY THE SORROWS OF A POOR OLD-BISHOP.

I ’m an elderly prelate, well up on the Bench—

Not a mere novas homo like Thomson or Trench—

I belong to the good easy-going old times,

When Inquiry was heresy, Donbt worst of crimes.

When to drift with the tide and take things as they came.

And stand on old ways, was th’ episcopal game.

When a man of good blood, and sound views, in priest’s orders,
Found a liberal profession and liberal rewarders ;

When a Bishop was never seen out of his wig;

When his lawn-sleeves were ample, his revenues big;

When a seat on the Bench if one’s way one could win to.

There was no mean Commission one’s rents to pry into—

Heaven knows what might now be our abject position,

If the Bench were not pretty strong on the Commission!

Then the Bench was a place of Right-Reverend repose,

Whereon round, smooth, and stout, we church-pillars arose;

We might not be strenuous, but we were solid—

Nay, some of us, p’raps, may have verged upon stolid—

But their function, I take it, the mitre that don,

Is to stand, not to stir, to maintain, not move on.

You may whip Peers through school, edit Greek plays at College,
But you ’re bound to scout Progress and snub useful knowledge.
These Conservative duties we nobly discharged,

And no one can say we the Church-pale enlarged :

Hooker, Pearson, and Bull, summed our stock of Theology,

We pooh-poohed the Germans, and smiled at Geology,

None then heard that vile dogma, which holds all sins’ seeds,

“ Honest doubt has more faith in’t than half of the creeds ! ”

But now-a-days storm-tossed is every see,

Say, “ Good bye, peace of mind ! ” you that Bishops would be:

As for quiet and ease, they are dreams of the past,

Now even Church-pillars are asked to move fast.

What with all sorts of heretics, printing and. gabbling,

Theologists, Rationalists, Socialists squabbling—

And, as if such outsiders had not enough vexed us,

Here’s a Bishop (Colonial,’tis true) loose on Exodus !

Then one’s friends who’d defend from the foes who’ve attacked one,
Display an activity lit to distract one—

Show all sorts of new lights, raise all sorts of vexed questions—
Convocations and Congresses, schemes and suggestions,

Till, a real Church militant, all seem at strife,

And a Bishop is doomed to “ hard labour for life.”

We are poked up to cut out Neology’s cancer :

To condemn’s not enough, they expect us to answer !

When heretics argue ’tis we must oppose ’em,

And, besides opening questions, we ’re called on to close ’em.

And all for a stipend that barely affords
A subsistence for one who takes rank with the Lords.

While one can’t give a living to son or relation,

But the Press bawls out “ nepotism” all through the nation.
Sidney Smith made a joke how Fejee soon would vary
Its diet of bread-fruit with cold Missionary—

And the practice that loose canon thus shrined his wit in
Has spread, in an awfuller form, to Great Britain—

Till for popular carving no meat you can dish up
So sure to be relished all round, as roast Bishop !

Quite Accounts for it.

Among the names included in the Proclamation of Outlawry, made
i by t hat well-known officer, who bears the ominous name of “ Hemp,” on
| Wednesday last, we find that of “Easterly Rains.” This fully accounts
| for the iate dry weather.