Punch (54.1868)

98

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

February 29, 1868.

OUR INSPECTION.

Lieutenant-Colonel. “Hullo! Confound it! There’s a Man blowing his Hose—and with a Pocket-Handkerchief, too !

Tot-t-t-t-t ! ”

LORD MACAULAY’S VALENTINE.

It is not Mr. Punch’s way to come under the window of a newly-
married couple, and make a congratulatory row. He cannot consider
that custom elegant or delicate. But a young lady who has been so
fortunate as to be complimented in verse by Lord Macaulay, becomes
almost an historical personage, and when she weds, the graceful Punch
may be allowed to raise and even to wave his hat. Surely if it were
permitted to a courtly bard of other days to celebrate the hour

“ When Hervey the handsome was wedded
To the beautiful Molly Lepel,”

Mr. Punch, courtlier still, may venture to note that at St. George’s
Church, last week, the prophecy in Lord Macaulay’s celebrated
Valentine was fulfilled. Writing to a “ gentle child ” of seven years
old, he said,

“ Prophetic rage my bosom swells,

I taste the cake : I hear the bells 1
Prom Conduit Street the close array
Of chariots barricades the way
To where I see with outstretched hand
Majestic, thy great kinsman stand,

And half unbend his brow of pride
At welcoming so fair a bride.”

TO MR. BEALES.

Mr. Beales, accept a compliment from Mr. Punch who, you will
admit, has not precisely plastered you with eulogy. At a meeting of
the Council of the Reform League last week, a resolution was proposed
in favour of the instant destruction of the Irish Church. You ap-
proved the proposal, but you demanded that vested interests should be
respected, and compensation provided. You were yelled down, and
the Irish Clergy were called “ thieves and robbers.” You were indig-
nant, but the Bubblyjocks were your masters, and the motion for
destruction, “ without regard to vested interests,” was carried by a
large majority. You insisted on recording your protest against dis-
honesty. Accept Mr. Punch's compliment. Protest again when the
Bubblyjocks carry a resolution for the obliteration of a National Debt
incurred by aristocrats for tyrannic purposes. Protest for the third
time when the Bubblyjocks carry a resolution that you have had your
own comfortable house long enough, and ought to resign it, without
compensation, to some Citizen Bubblyjock who is tired of his own
garret. Then abdicate ; and, if you have nothing better to do, take to
a crossing. It would be far more respectable than being the tool of
men who could carry the resolution of last week, and who have thereby
added their meeting-place to the list of Thieves’ Kitchens.

Whether Mr. Pitt smiled or not Mr. Punch was too much interested
to notice, but Mr. Punch smiled in his sweetest manner, and he has
the utmost pleasure in thus inscribing with a pen of diamond, and
encircling with an eternal garland of orange-flowers, the record that
on the 18th February, 1868, the Lady Mary Stanhope became the
wife of the Earl Beauchamp, late Fellow of All Souls.

“ She did not waste on fops her beauty’s dart,

Bat boasts the triumph of a lettered heart.”

NOT IN THE BOOKS.

The definition that Tytheleigh, the great High Church lawyer,
gives of “ sittings in error” is—a pew in a dissenting chapel.

“ Here h.e Goes Up ! Up! Up ! ”

The Telegraph points to Mr. Disraeli for Premier, in the event of
Lord Derby’s secession. If this designation is verified by the fact
Yivian Grey will stand perched on a Dizzy pinnacle indeed ! At this
dangerous elevation, Punch's prayer is, “May his head be cool, his feet
firm, and his balance more satisfactory than last year ! "

A NEDDY EYING REMARK.

The Boundaries Commission has reported, and among other things,
throws Hampstead Heath into Marylebone. To judge by elections,
the latter had already donkeys enough.

I