Punch: Punch (54.1868)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI

[April 18, 1868.

5 70

“ QUALIFICATIONS.”

Painter {who has always been ambitious of “writing himself clown an R.A.”). “Think they might hays Elected me, haying

Exhibited and had my Name down all these Years ! I might haye-”

Friend (Man o’ the World). “My dear Fellovy, I’ve always told you, you don’t go the Right Way to Work. You see
they could only Elect you for your Painting, for-why do you wear such Thick Boots? ! !”

ALEXANDRAS OFFERING TO ERIN.

Air— “ The Four-leaved Shamrock."

I’ve found this four-leaved shamrock, beside a fairy well,

Take, Erin, take the charmed growth, and let it work its spell.”

To giver and receiver it brings blessing from above ;

Tim letters on its leaflets make the legend, TRUTH, and LOVE.
And that’s a spell diffuses a magic all around,

And clothes with bud and blossom the hardest hungriest ground.

To the fairv-well it grew by two streams run side hv side,

One from TRUTH’S bitter fountain, one from LOVE’S sweet spring
supplied.

But round about the margin sharp shards and flints were piled,

Aud thistles thorns and nettles grew stinging rank and wild.

And it any water struggled through those stones and weeds to day
’Twas now the bitter, now the sweet, that forced its separate way.

And ever and anon came they who filled their pipkins full
From the bitter stream for Erin, who thereat wry mouths would
pull,

And turn away to them that drew of Love’s stream warm and sweet,
Though if quaffed by truth untempered it un-nerved head, hands,
and feet.

While it one stooped to clear the stones and pluck the weeds away
Thousands of eager hands opposed, of clamorous tongues shrieked
“ Nay ! ”

Until at last there came the hour, and with the hour, the man
Who set at naught opposing bauds, nor heeded shriek nor ban.

But thrust the hard and heaped-up stones aud stinging growths aside,
And made way for those parted rills henceforth in one to glide :

So letting warm attemper cold, aud bitter season sweet,

That the waters mixed were cordial, whereof each was poison, neat.

And where these streams first mingle for blessing and lor boon,
Aud ripple golden to the sun, and silver to the moon
This four-leaved shamrock hangs its head the sister founts above—
And proclaims upon its leaflets its nurses TRUTH and LO\ E.
And who should bind on Erin’s brow and in Erin’s pathway strew
Those leaves, but Alexandra, the Loving and the True ?

WHINE AND WATER.

Rum parties—we beg pardon for naming rum—we mean queer
persons are these Temperance Apostles. “Drinking ought to be
made difficult instead of easy,” writes Sir Edward Sullivan, “ every
legal hindrance should be pur, in the way of procuring drink.” What
a pity that we can’t, go to the fountain head, and indict Nature for
hanging her wealth of grapes where they can most easily be picked.
Had Nature been a Sullivan, she would have hung these wine-fruits
on the top of the Wellingtonia gigantea, instead of putting them close
to the hand, as if to contradict Sir Edward’s creed. No, Irish,
baronet darling, punish the man who makes another drunk, punish
the man who sells bad liquor, punish the man who gets drunk, but
Eree Vintners and a Free Vintage for a jovial yet rational Englishman.
Your ancestor was Clerk of Cork, and his descendant should not
break Bottles.

Over Indulgence.

Mr. Gladstone is almost too liberal to the Irish Church. Not
only would he respect vested interests, but in his anxiety to give com-
pensation to those young gentlemen who have been brought up iu the
expectation of good livings, he is willing also to provide for vestmeuted
interests.

The Spirit of the Age.—Gin.