Punch (58.1870)

March 26. 1870.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

117

PROSPECTIVE.

" A THING OF BEAUTY IS A JOY FOE
EYEK."

Down 'neath the social waters,

'Mid ocean's wildest cells;
Far from the busy haunts of men,

My thing of beauty dwells.

Not; frisking through the abysses

With fast and foolish whirl;
But nestling in them, soft and slow,

Most like some hidden pearl.

Green as the verdant sea-fieids

That round about it lie;
Or as the leaves that deck the woods

With summer's greenery.

So gentle is my loved one

That he reminds me quite
Of Nature's strongest marvel

The social Zoophyte.

Men with their scornful glances

Pass him unheeded by ;
And women, fond of faster swains,

Go with averted eye.

They dream not of the riches

That there may lie concealed,
Like nuggets 'neath the surface

Linking all unievealed.

Yet still he moves among them,

With footstep slow and sure:
Siill gazes on their smiles and frowns

With face alike demure.

And still for those who love him

Leaves no one thing to wish ;
Moving among our giddy throng

Mute as a quiet fish.

He is a fish, and has been

Dissipated Customer (for (lie ninth time, of asking, a.m.) " Mttsht jtjsht have Since a small boy at school;

Vother s'heeb Penn'th, Missh ! (hic !) Goix' t' have S-h-alt Fish f' Our soft green poisson d'Avril-

Dinner ! ! " Our coming April Fool!

ST. PATRICK'S MISTAKE.

May there not be, possibly, in the Irish problem something more
than, is dreamt of in your philosophy—you whose philosophy comes
from Jeremy Bentiiam? A conceivable solution of that problem is
suggested by certain statements made by one great exponent of
mysteries, the fellow-countryman of LiNNiaus and of Mbs. Otto
Goldschmidt. In one of his numerous works Emantjel Swedenborg
discourses of certain things which he calls "evil uses." Thereby he j
means beasts and other creatures noxious to man, and used to injure
man, but also subserving some beneficial end, by, as he says, contri-
buting " to absorb malignities." Among these " evil uses " he expressly
mentions "poisonous serpents," and "frogs." Now Irishmen boast
that Ireland breeds no vipers. The batrachians as well as the ophidians
were put out of the way by St.Patrick, as we all know by preaching :—

" He drove the frogs into the bogs,
And banished all the varmint."

But, in so doing, it may be that his Sanctity conferred somewhat
the reverse of a boon upon the land on the top of whose " high hill"
he delivered the discourse which had that preternatural effect. What
if the trouble which even our Gladstone experiences in governing
Ireland be in truth owing to the want of frogs, toads, poisonous
serpents, and other "evil uses" to "absorb malignities" imparted to
the air of the Emerald Isle from a worse atmosphere ? Those maligni-
ties, in the absence of venomous snakes and the like, may for aught we
know, embody themselves in Fenian journalists and sympathisers with
lenians; in agrarian assassins, and incendiary priests. Pending,
therefore, the discussion of the Irish Land Bill, would not the Govern-
ment do well to propose a vote for the immediate importation into
Ireland of adders, toads, frogs, in numbers large enough to constitute a
variety of "evd uses" sufficient for the absorption of "malignities"
at present rampant amongst Irishmen in human forms? To be sure
it. migut be found that no common adders or vipers in any quantity-
would have capacity to absorb and condense into material venom the

"malignities" of the Irish " Irreconcileables," and that, to get them
effectually absorbed by the means, if practicable, indicated by the
Swedish Seer, it would be necessary to acclimatise a lot of cobras, cop-
perheads, and rattle-snakes.

PHILOSOPHY FOR FREE LIVERS.

A Learned Doctor of Physic has augmented Medical Literature
with a new treatise on The Philosophy of Rheumatism and Gout. What
philosophy is that ? The Epicurean, rightly understood, which teaches
epicures what to eat, drink, and avoid ; what to avoid no less than
what to eat and drink. The philosopher whose philosophy keeps him
free from gout and rheumatism is always a peripatetic one ; he walks
about a great deal to equalise his circulation, and to work off in vapour
the superfluities which a philosophical turn, generally combined with a
predilection for good living, is apt to introduce into the bodily system.
For the rheumatic or gouty patient the only possible philosophy would
be the Stoic, if the idea that any quantity of wisdom, knowledge, and
reflection, can operate in the least degree as an anodyne, were not
moonshine.

A Responsible Police.

By telegraph from Dublin, on St. Patrick's Day, we were edified by
the information that:—

"This evening the Armagh grand jury found a true bill of manslaughter
against Sub-Inspector Neenan for faring on the crowd on the evening of the
1st of July, when a person namtd Watson was shot by the eonttabulary."

The Grand Jurymen of Armagh apparently know how to encourage
the Irish Gonstabulary to do their duty.

Contradicted by Desire.—Our friend Watermore (the teeto-
taller) has again been sadly put out by a report that he was seen riding
in the Park on a " groggy " horse.