Punch (66.1874)

118

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[March 21, 1874.

PARLIAMENTARY PRELIMINARIES.

OFFICIAL HAY-MAKING.—FROM THE TENT OF ACHILLES.

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UNCH hopes it is not profane to quote the Psalmist’s—“All
flesh is Grass ; ” and when M.P.’s are cut down in the
prime of their Parliamentary life, what more natural than
that, like other Grasses, they should become Hay, and in that
form be pitchforked from the lower level of the Commons
to that receptacle for ripened reputations — that Parlia-
mentary hay-loft—the Upper House ?

Hence, the last act of W. E. G.’s official life was to make
Hay when the sun did not shine, and to pitchfork into the
Upper House a hatch of his most loyal and laborious lieu-
Cardwell, and Chichester Fortescue, Lord Eneleld and Lord Eliot (live sons of live

tenants, in and out of Office—Monsell and
Lords), Mr. Edmund Hammond, and Sir Thomas Fremantle.

There, in that Lotus-land whither Bruce, that most ill-used, and well-abused, of Ministers, has gone before them—that upper region

“ Of purer sunlight and diviner air,

Where never winds breathe keenly,”

these, being translated, sit as my Lords Emly and Cardwell, Carlingeord and Cottesloe, Staeeord and Kirkella.

It would he hard to deny our Upper Benjamin his spell at Hay-making too, particularly now his sun is shining so bright. And
where could he find a better fork-full than in Punch's good friend, Sir John Paexngton, always so “ cut and dry ” that he may be
said to have been half way to Hay already—marked, as it were, for the pitchfork, even before his elevation? So Sir John is translated
into Baron Hampton.

We would fain say of the whole hatch, as Shakspeare sings of the roses,—

“ Of their sweet deaths are sweeter odours made.”

May they hear with them, to the existence they are entering, a whiff of the wisdom gathered in that they are leaving—a wholesome
breath of the Commons, to freshen the closer atmosphere of the House Hereditary.

A Voice from the Tent of Achilles!

But not such a clarion-note as the son of Peleus sent forth, when standing at the ditch—

“ Thrice great Achilles spake,

And thrice in heat of all the charge the Trojans started back.”

The trumpet of our Achilles sends forth but an uncertain sound, —

“ I will be your leader, an you must needs have me—though for my own part, look you-”

In short, we have here a most qualified acceptanceship of the responsible duties of Head of Her Majesty’s Opposition, in the tone
of a General who, seeing his troops in hopeless confusion, and already demoralised on the eve of battle, resumes, half-heartedly
and reluctantly, the command he had laid down in the discouragement of recent and. unexpected defeat—more after the fashion of a
Spanish than an English Captain.

But better a leader on any terms, even such shrewdly qualified ones as those of this letter, than a pack of riotous hounds without a
whip, an army of sheep without a shepherd—such as our Liberal array seemed dissolving into—with just “vis” enough to quarrel
among themselves, none to face their foemen in the field.

But let Achilles only take the field, and we may trust his temperament to show fight.

So let Britannia bring him his arms, wrought by Vulcan, including the famous Shield, (in his own version,) and let us await his
battle-cry, till (in old Chapman’s rendering)—

“ As a voice is heard
"With emulous attention, when any town is sphered
"With siege of such a foe as kills men’s minds, and for the town