Punch (68.1875)

34

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[January 23, 1375.

A BUMPER AT PARTING I

dL

C « /-T\


AREWELL!

Can it be that the time has come for that saddest
of sad words ?

“ Ergo sibi dabit ipse rudem (si nostra movebunt
Consilia) et vitse diversum iter ingredietur,

Ad pugnam qui rhetorica descendit ab umbrA! ”

Or, if Punch may paraphrase Juyenal,—

Will he who, from Llandudno’s calm retreat,
Late hurst, at once, on battle and defeat,

Will he, though Haroourt gird, and Granville
pray,

Himself the Leader’s truncheon fling away r
Still in his prime of power, unbent by years,

Renounce the joy of battle with his peers,

Unmoved by Punch's counsel or his prayer,

Hor to his realm relinquished name an heir f

Can such a transmigration indeed be true—from the battle of the Benches to
the battle of the Books, from Politics to Polemics, from Hansard to Homer F
Yes! He has chosen—and set us all asking, as Cicero asked Pomrey, but without his irony, “ Tam bonus gladiator rudem.
tarn citb accepisti f ”—Can such a fighter take his discharge so soon! With Russell still politically combative and controversial, still
sensitive to a party raw, still hot over the memory of a party defeat and proud in the recall of a party triumph, at eighty-three ! With
Disraeli, only ten years younger, still in the Head-Master’s Chair, still wielding the Head-Master’s birchen sceptre over his Tory pupils
and subjects—Gladstone throws up the leadership of the Liberals at five years over the three score!

It cannot be true that time has done this, nor can we see in it the force of that destructive “ tide in the affairs of men,” which has
swept away so much good work—washed out all traces of so much gratitude.

Can it be that W. E. G. has found Pen a pleasanter or more potent weapon than Tongue—capable of being used with more
ieisurelmess in its aim, more precision in its stroke, more profit in the triumphs it secures? But there are so many possible contri-
butors to the Contemporary of translations from Homer, even of translations as bad as W. E. Gr.’s of the speech of Achilles last year ; so
many who could have set the Churches by the ears on the Yatican Decrees, and so few who can

“ "Wield at will the fierce democracy ”

which shares between it the Benches of the House of Commons; so few who can unite in a party-firm men and minds so far apart as
lEA aiic* Ycland, Bright and Granville, Rylands and Lubbock, Plate air and Peter Taylor; so few under whom all that
call themselves “Liberal” can be content to serve and sink their differences; so few we can all be proud of: so few at whose feet
defeated enemies can lay their colours without shame !

v TU if the retrospect saddens, what is Punch to say of the prospect? “ Follow my Leader ” was a game hard enough for some of the live-
her Liberals to keep the rules of. But ‘1 Choose my Leader ” . . ! What are those skittish and skipping spirits likely to make of that game ?
And when our Alexander—even if he have passed his ring to Granville—has made no sign to guide the choice of his successor .
But that successor must be found. “ Le Roi est mart! ” Whose name is Punch to couple with his “ Vive le Roi ! ” ?