Punch (51.1866)

190

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI

[November 10, 1866,

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INDIAN

TO BENJAMIN PHILLIPS, MAYOR.

My dear Lord Mayor,

About to leave your chair,

^ Arid live in Portman Square,

(A neighbourhood I much prefer
Unto the noisy City stir)

To Gabriel resigning
The dining and the wining,

The chain so rich and shining,

The robe with costly lining,

The seat where you sit fining
The sinner, but combining
Justice with mercy, twining
The sword with ivy, signing
Stern warrants with repining ;

Now, that your sun’s declining,

Hear me Swear,

Or, perhaps, in talking to a Beak,

More discreetly I should speak,

And say Declare,

That of a many Mayors who ’ve sat in glory,

(Each having been my host),

You, for a many reasons known in story,

Have pleased me most.

Take the certificate, I’m glad to pen it,

And take the picture by my C. H. Bennett.

My Lord,

Eor so you are while I indite,

And when the Public, with delight,

To buy me go,

You’ll still be so,

(Though ere my date you quit your state)

Your Board

Throughout your Consulship, or year,

Of which the termination’s near,

Has been—well—all a Lordly Mayor’s should be,
And every dainty culled from earth and sea
Has been your guests’

Until their vests

Expanded, and their buttons started free.

But ’tis not therefore that I raise my song,
Vixere fortes ante Benjamin,

And I have sat at civic feasts too long
To be much moved by aught I find therein.

Nor, that your speeches do the City credit,

Though that’s the truth, for I, my Lord, have said it,
Nor that before a King, and not long since,

You bore you like a gallant Merchant Prince,

When Brussels cheers
Our Yolunteers

Hailed—and the wine and wassail did convince—
(Convince, I mean, that Belgian love was great,

Not in the Macbeth sense—intoxicate.)

Not for all this I raise my praiseful strain,

One that a King might sue for, and in vain.

But that because

When the fiend Eamine gnashed her cruel jaws,

And rushed along her Indian way,

While the poor dead in heaps behind her lay
(Some cheeks will blanch when England asks the cause).
And when the sister fiend, that fierce Disease,

Sent a remorseful nation to its knees.

Wailing for its neglect of Nature’s laws.

You, generous-hearted Jew,

Stood nobly out to do

Your part in work that made the Slayers pause.



So, Phillips, take, with Punch’s parting bow,
Praise rarely given by those who give it now.

REVERENCE EOR THE SEAT OF
ROYALTY.

Genuine humility is something very rare, but an
instance, or rather two instances of it, occurred the
other day in the Scotch metropolis. The Duke of
Edinburgh, sojourning in the city of his dukedom,
found himself incommoded by the multitude of flun-
keys who followed him about and thronged him.
To evade this nuisance, his Royal Highness, having
need to go shopping, took a hack-cab From the stand.
In this proceeding, however, he had been espied by
two ladies described as “ well-dressed ” in the John
o’ Groat Journal, according to which newspaper, as
soon as he got out of the vehicle, they “ stepped up
to the cabman, and in winning accents demanded,
How long will you let us sit in your cab for a
s billing P ” What Saint in all the Roman Calendar
ever performed such an act of humility as this ?
IIow very little indeed the ladies must have thought
of themselves to think they could derive any dignity
from mere contact with the cushion bearing the
recent impression of the Royalty which it had
sustained! Of course they supposed that it commu-
nicated to them some of the honour which, together
with warmth, had been imparted to it by the surface
which had rested on its own. What an utter absence
of pride, not to say of self-respect, is implied in this
truly humble idea!

But people who feel that they can contract from
a cushion honour which it has been imbued with
by Royal use, are capable of humility still deeper
than the lowliness of seeking to acquire that honour
by venturing to use the cushion likewise. In the
profundity of their self-abasement they would pro-
bably not hesitate to pay it the same homage as
that which enthusiastic Romanists render to the
Pope’s slipper.

MOULE’S NEW GROUND-PLAN OP
SANITARY REFORM.

Shakspeare, we all know, knew everything, fore-
| saw everything, had been in all lines himself, and
has put all things in his lines. It doesn’t in the
least surprise us, however it may startle some
j irreverent and un-Shakspearian people, to learn that
j he even saw—in his mind’s-eye—the earth-closet—
J that admirable invention of the excellent Vicar
J of Fordington. This is clear from the passage in
Hamlet:—

“ Well said, old Moule ! Canst work i’ the earth so fast ?

A worthy pioneer! ”

We make a present of the line, as a motto, to
the Company that is working Mr. Moule’s valuable
—or should we not rather say, Evaluable ?—dis-
covery. _ __

PRETTY PATRONS.

The Standard, in its account of the Norwich
Musical Festival, says, in reference to one of the
evening Concerts :— v

“ The attendance was inconsiderable, particularly in the
Patrons’ gallery, which was accounted for by the rumour that
the county families did not attend for fear of not being thought
to be amongst the invited, to Gostessey Hall, where there was a
ball.”

And this is what the British Rural Swells mean
by “patronising” music. They stay away from a
capital performance (Mr. Punch is glad to read much
praise of a new overture by his highly meritorious
and also young friend, Mr. Arthur Sullivan) for
fear that the rustics of the lesser sort should imagine
that the bigger ones had not been asked to a ball
given by the biggest. Truly, Art must be proud
of such “ patrons.” Is it not almost time that the
fiunkeyfied word should be got rid of by artists of
all kinds ?

A Sounding Board.—Directors of the Royal
Academy of Music.