Punch (60.1871)

January 7, 1871.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI,

STRAWBERRY LEAVES.

a selection from the vert latest letters of the honourable
horace walpole, of strawberry hill. favoured by our
private spiritual medium.

To Sir Horace Mann.

Do you remember—pooh, my dear Sir, a diplomatist's business is
to remember everything—besides, this was only t' other day, that is
to say, in the winter of 1739—that I met with a cruel accident on
Mont Cenis ? I was travelling with Gray. My poor dear little King
Charles's dog, Tory, the prettiest, fattest, dearest creature in the
world, was snapped up by a wolf, and carried away to be eaten ? I
screamed with rage and grief at the time, and have been ready to
do so ever since when I have thought of it. I hate Mont Cenis. I
have read with savage joy that the engineers and their iron have
entered into his very soul, and made a great hole right through him,
and henceforth and for ever shrieks shall come forth from his pene-
tralia. It is something to be revenged on a great hideous mountain.
You have influence with the sub-Alpine King. Ask him to ordain
that the first railway engine shall be called Tory. So shall my lost
darling's manes be appeased.

The distinguished family of Prince Pigwiggin have been plunged
into mourning bv a melancholy and unexpected event—he has
recovered, and will probably long survive to afflict them. To offer
them consolation in the circumstances is what I dare not attempt.
I think I told you that there was a philosopher over here some years
ago who held, or at least preached, that the soul was merely
glue. I suppose that Pigwiggin's, if he have one, is more than
usually sticky.

You have been educated, and you know that there is a place called
Timbuctoo. Well, it is civilised, and there are fashionable squares,
and_ great folks dwell therein, and give great feasts. They keep
Christmas, it seems, in our own heathenish way, over-eating and
over-drinking. One night last week there was a big dinner in a
fine house. It was given by a notable called the Great Wangdoodle,
whom you are not to confound with the one in Mr. Marks's famous
sermon. You might; for this great Wangdoodle, like the other,
howleth for his first-born, but then it is by reason that the said first-
born is a silly horse-racing boy, and hath got into the hands of

Messrs. Mordecai, Mephibosheth, Mahershahalhashbash, and Co. But
that is not the matter. The Wang, not being much talked to at his
own table, comforted himself by taking his own wine as freely as if
he did not know how cheap and bad it was. When it was time to
join the ladies, he saw two suns and double Thebes appear. But as
nobody noticed their host, this was not observed until he _ got up-
stairs. Now, some of the Timbuctoo ladies had been getting up a
bazaar in aid of the conversion of the English, and just as the Great
Wang entered, one of them held up a great large doll, which she
had been dressing for the sale. Wang gazed at it with optics that
reversed the stereoscopic process, and presently shouted forth fu-
riously, " I hate twins ! " and struck in the direction of the double
image' he beheld. There would have been confusion, but one of the
Chief Sacrificers (I suppose he would be called a bishop here) who
was one of the guests, sailed in a portly manner forward, like a
worthy member of the Church navigant there at sea, took his lay
friend Wang in tow, moored him in another room, and talked him
to speedy sleep, I presume with a bit of a sermon. I hope Wang
will be grateful. Make no mistake in repeating this story, and be
sure you do not say that Timbuctoo is in Belgravia, and if you are
asked how I heard so quickly from a distant part of the world, say
that the Jersey telegraph has just been completed. That will be
explanation enough for your Italians, who have no geography. This
is not trovato, mind.

We have a new show of old pictures at the Academy. I hear it is
a good one, but I never go to private views, and the public have not
had it long enough to leave the place decently free. I like to go to
such things when I can be quiet, and escape the instructive remarks
of the Scrubbers and Scumblers.

Would you believe it P—yes, you should believe everything—the
enemies of the Government were so eager to find out a job in the
retirement of Mr. Bright, that they triumphantly accused him oi
having remained in office exactly two years in order to qualify him-
self for a pension. Such are our public writers! I do not believe
that their malice prompted a wilful blunder. I believe that as old
Bear Johnson had the courage to say when asked how he came to
give the wrong definition of a horse's pastern, it was "Ignorance,
Madam, sheer ignorance." Yet they might have remembered that
last year Mr. Gladstone carried an Act by which -five years of service
is necessary before a pension can be earned.

I published, in 1746, my Scheme for a Tax on Message Cards and

Vol. 60.

1