Punch (74.1878)

May 25, 1878.] PUNCH, OK THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 229

MYOPIA.

Little Binks (to Unsteady Party who had lurched heavily against him). " I beg
tour Pardon, I'm sure, but I'm very shortsighted-"

Dissipated Stranger. " Do' mensh't, Shir—I 've met goo' many shor'sight
Peopl'sh Morn', bu' you 're firsh Gen'l'm'sh made 'shli'sht 'Pology !"

THE PLEASURES OE IMAGINATION.

fragments of a projected ^sthetico-political epic.

By the E-el op B-c-nsf-ld.

" Of late years the English School has given an indication of aiming at a higher range
of imaginative composition than has hitherto prevailed; and I am not surprised at such an
indication, because a national School of Art must inevitably in the long run represent the
character of the nation to which it belongs. And certainly if there is an imaginative
Nation in the World, it is the English Nation."—Lord Beaconsfield at the Academy
Dinner.

These are thy works, Supernal Phantasy !
Dower divine of the Caucasian mind,
And heritage of England ! Some there be
Who sneer at Saxondom as dull and slow ;
Myself in earlier days—but there, no matter !
Standing amidst this annual Art-array,
This periodic Paradise of Paint,
Who dares deny the G-ods' divinest gift
To the imperial race I deign to rule,
And, ruling, to inspire ?

* * * * " Inspire ? " Precisely.
Semitic inspiration, Asian fire,

And Orient finesse, these things it needs
To supplement the Shakspeare in its blood.
A Polyphemus huge, to which I lend
Touch of Ulysses, quickening its bulk
With alien energy.

* * * But standing here
Amid his yearly yield of phantasy,

I laud the Titan. So Titania

Might deftly tickle waking Bottom1's ears,

And praise him for the beauty of his dreams,

******

Dreams rule us, and great dreamers rule the World,
That is, when they can well discriminate

'Iwixt Vision and mere Nightmare. Here be
dreams,

A twelvemonth's tale of them from May to May,
Set forth on canvas. I work out my dreams
On the world's solid stage ; but Phantasy
Is fashioner of both.

* _ * * The High Ideal,
Like la haute politique, attracts high souls,
Imagination's favourite realm. And here P
Humph ! No Madonnas simper from these walls ;
Lords of the Silver Bow are absent here;

But the Ideal is a Protean Sprite,
And hath as many Avatars as Vishnu.

Job, Psyche, Hamlet, Faust, Sidonia-

What matter, so the constant soul inform

The changing shape ? Here, truly, it takes many!

Religious P Here what Syrian fervour burns !

What more than Orecian fire and Grecian glow

Tasked to excogitate that infant Samuel,

Or plan the wild perspective of yon plain !

Lacks not the wondrous power which " bodies forth

The form of things unknown.'''' Historic ? Humph !

" Historic Conscience " has been charged with freak

And whim, but what are they to the strange work

Of Art's historic fancy ? Then again

The Idyllic! With what fervour does rapt fancy

Devote itself to pools and pretty girls

In classic poses ! Last (which should be first),

The dear Domestic, idol of the day,

In every phase of moony sentiment

And mild facetiousness!

* * * * Imagination ?
Stage-properties, and pap, and pretty-pretty !
With spurts of the fantastic and the insane !
So sums the Cynic. So might I have summed,
In days when I was Ishmael undisguised.
But now,—well, my Boeotian Behemoth
Likes titillation ; since he's well in hand,
The spur's superfluous, and might spoil all.
'Twill please poor Polyphemus to imagine
That he's imaginative. Bourgeois taste,
Parochial inspiration, homespun feeling,
And bagman comicality, alike

Are rampant here, and war with the Ideal,
Ay, e'en as nigger minstrelsy might war
With the Olympian music of Apollo.
Cockney conceptions and bizarre conceits,
Are these Imagination's rightful issue,
Or births of smug complacent commonplace
And straining impotence ?

* * * No matter! Could they,
These solid Britons, soar, they'd scarcely stoop
To my manege. The dullards once derided
My own Ideals ; called them tawdry, turgid,
Mere soapsud bubble, pyrotechnic glitter :
Now is't not a magnanimous return,
In view of this array of housewife Art—
Frith's tragedy, the comedy of Crowe,
The poesy of Poole, the historic force
Of Cope, or Hart, or Thorburn—is't not kind
To laud their wealth of latent sentiment,
Their passion for heroic incident,
Ideal beauty, intellectual grace ?
Sphinx compliments ChimEera ! Well, at need
Phcebus divine, Lord of the Silver Bow,
May sometimes draw the long one ; ay, and hit
The white, although his target is not Truth.
But, say, the pleasures of Imagination.

Beer and Biscuits.

Palmer, Quaker, Liberal, Gladstonite, Anti-Jingo,
and great local biscuit-baker, has been returned for
Reading by a triumphant majority. Call you this
nothing? Attenborough, the Tory, had no chance,
though he offered the electors a perfect assortment of
pledges. After Tarn worth, Beading ! Is there no reac-
tion here? Or will the Jingoes, as they thrust " Beer "
down our throats in the one case, cram " Biscuits" into
our mouths in the other ?

all the difference.

"Fingoes"—our black defenders. " Jingoes "—our
black guards.

vol. lxxiv.

X