Punch (73.1877)

264

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [December 8, 1877.

A SPORTING PATTERN

(Suggested by the last New Old Thing in Bonnets).

FROM THE SPIRIT OP THE GREAT SAM.

Elysian Fields, November, 1877.

Sir,

Among the Spirits most recently arrived hither from the
English upper-world, are a few qualified at once by observation
and opportunity to furnish us, who are happily removed from
terrestrial influences, with information as to the changes in that
mighty Metropolis which has given its name to one of the finest of
my poems. Inasmuch as it is your profession, Sir, to inculcate
morality by means of wit, irony, and fancy, it is more than probable
that you are not totally unacquainted with the works of an ancient
author whose functions, like his figure, resembled your own. I
allude, Sir, to the famous fabulist and hunchback, JEsop. One of
the most familiar of his apologues concerns an individual who,
whether from a wanton love of mischief, or a malicious pleasure in
diffusing alarm among the apprehensive, was wont to startle his
neighbours by frequently raising the cry of " Wolf ! " when there
was, in fact, no such beast of prey in the neighbourhood. Sir, we
too have our criers of " Wolf! " in these Fields of Asphodel.

For some years past, these mischievous or malicious Spirits have
brought us, again and again, unwelcome intelligence of the ap-
proaching demolition of Temple Bar. Hitherto, such reports have
proved to be mere cries of "Wolf! " where no Wolf was. Our
latest intelligence, however, seems to be such as no sensible Spirit,
however sceptical, would be justified in refusing to entertain. If,
however, Temple Bar, so long threatened, be doomed at last to fall,
what, I would ask, Sir, as a former inhabitant of your great Metro-
polis, is to be set up on or near its site, as a memorial of an edifice
that will scarce be permitted to pass away without some commemo-
rative erection ? While the Bar itself, carefully removed stone by
stone, and then set up again, might find an appropriate destina-
tion in the riverside enclosure of the Temple, its place in Fleet
Street should not be left without a memorial of this venerable com-
bination of the architecture of Wren with the sculpture of
Bushnell.

I understand that you have lately introduced in England not only
legislative but_ practical machinery of Compulsory Education. As
to the effect this may have upon your rising generation, it would be
premature, not to say rash, to speculate. To judge by the conversa-
tion of many of our latest arrivals from England in these Fields,
the step has not been taken before it was needed.

One effect such an enforced development of education can hardly
fail to produce—a more general acquaintance with my writings. My
works, I have reason to believe, are now unknown, except to the
curious. My London is forgotten; my Rasselas unread, or but
referred to to point the empty braggadocio of a frivolous Minister.

Such fame as I may still claim rests, I hear, on the anecdotes of
me, compiled and given to the world by one, whose reverence for
me in life seemed alike inconsistent with his nationality, incommen-
surate with his intelligence, and irreeoncileable with his habits.
That Samuel Johnson should owe what reputation he still retains
to James Boswell, is an instance of the irony of fate as startling
as any I have employed to point the moral of the most pungent of
my Poems.

One anecdote of me, transmitted by my Scottish Biographer,
recalls a conversation between myself and Dr. Goldsmith on the
heads which then crowned Temple Bar. Others record my love of
the great thoroughfare in which it stands; and one of the latter
connects my name with the observation, at first sight trivial,
" Sir, let us take a walk along Fleet Street I "

Sir, I am not at this distance of time disposed to retract that re-
commendation. Nor do I think that any one who may have fol-
lowed it intelligently, will have had reason to regret his compliance
with my advice.

I should be glad to learn that my statue was to be set up in the
Strand, opposite the site of Temple Bar, looking towards St. Paul's,
and with these words inscribed on its pedestal. I fear that, except
yourself, Sir, there are not many now living who know the spirit
in which Fleet Street should be perambulated, or are capable of
deriving from their walk those lessons which it is capable of affording
to the observer of men and manners. I was: so was Dr. Goldsmith :
so was Sir Joshua : so was William Hogarth.

Let me hope that such a statue, so inscribed, may lead some to
walk where I and these once loved to walk, and in a kindred spirit.

I address this letter to you, Sir, as I understand that you follow,
at whatever distance, in the footsteps which I left imprinted in the
Rambler and the Idler, and that, like me, you are at once an in-
habitant and a perambulator of the most crowded, and, as such, the
most instructive, thoroughfare in the world.

I have the honour to inscribe myself, Sir,

Your most faithful, humble servant,

Samuel Johnson".

TEAPOT AND TIARA.

The Times' Prussian Correspondent at Berlin announces that the
German Government, in contemplation of a probable Conclave,
'' have signified their intention to devise a more amicable modus
vivendi, it a temperate Pope, averse from interfering with the new
political arrangements of Germany, be elected." A "temperate"
Pope! Nobody needs be told how absurd is the insinuation ima-
ginable in that invidious epithet. It used, indeed, to be said, truly
or falsely, that Pio Nono's predecessor, Gregory the Sixteenth,
was somewhat given to plenary, if not sometimes more than plenary,
indulgence in "intoxicating liquors." Of his present Holiness, to
be sure, it may have been truly affirmable that, vexations notwith-
standing—

" The Pope he leads a happy life."

Perhaps, too, although averse from a political modus vivendi, yet
personally ever a model of good living, he has habitually so lived as
to justify the statement that

"He drinks the best of sparkling wine."

Still, nobody has ever so much as hinted that the present vene-
rable occupant of the See of Peter was ever in the slightest risk of
being half-seas over. The German Government's expression of a
wish that the next Pope may be temperate, may possibly be one of
Bismarck's equivocal jokes ; but to be a more temperate Pope in
respect of his glass than the Prisoner of the Yatican, the next
Pope would have to be a Teetotaller. It is on the cards that he
may be. Time will, perhaps, show whether or no Prince Bismarck
will be able to arrange a modus vivendi with Cardinal Manning,
and Italy come likewise to terms with a Pope so temperate that
he approves of the United Kingdom Alliance.

"J'y suis et J'y reste!"

Il restera f Will he ? Still the line's ablock,
The look-out, never bright, grows duller ;

Yet 'gainst the Duke we Tl back the Gallic cock!
Magenta's not a staying colour.

wisdom erom the east.

Here is a military maxim which, it is hoped, the big wigs of the
Horse Guards have by this time worked into their system :—

" The rifle for your adversary, and the spade for yourselves, are the tools
of modern war."—(Colonel Loyd Lindsay at the Westminster Dinner.)