DOI issue:
November 20, 1880
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17764#0244
November 20, 1880.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 237
THE GRIFFIN’S LAMENT.
As sung by the Fleet Street Selkirk.
Looking down from this horrible place !
I’m out of humanity’s reach,
Stuck up here on the summit alone ;
And as for the music of speech,
All I get is a hiss or a groan!
For no beast of the plain, old or new,
No brute from the depths of the sea,
No bird that you ’ll find at the Zoo—
Has the vaguest resemblance to me !
No wonder I can’t inspire love!—
Why, at dusk I ’m the cause of such dread,
That, had I the wings of a dove,
I'd make for the Duke of York's head.
Up there, I my grief might assuage,
And at least limit critical truth
To such chaff as might come from the cage,
In the shape of the sallies of youth!
But, alas! spite rebuke and report,
And letters, and threats, by the score,
I’ve been fixed ! And, henceforth, without sp.ort,
I shall hear my name mentioned no more!
My friends in the City, do they
Send a wish or a thought after me F
I trust that they do ; for this way
Not a friend but old Birch shall I see!
So the traffic each night sinks to rest;
The barrister turns to his square :
The bustle all hurries due West,
Yet still I sit here in the air!
And if you could then see my face,
You’d say, “ He has had it so hot,—
Has that brute, that he knows his disgrace,
And admits he’s a precious bad lot! ”
A LADIES’ MAN.
Man is at length about to concede the rights of Woman. They
have been acknowledged by the Elective Branch of the Manx Legis-
lature. The House of Keys has amended its Election Act by the
extension of the franchise to all women of' full age not labouring
under legal disqualification. In so doing the Manx House of Keys
has opened its doors to Man’s better half.
The other Assembly of the Legislature of Man may he confidently
expected to confirm the decision of the Elective Branch, and prove
itself, as it were a House of Lords, no less disposed and determined
to do justice to the Ladies. The experiment of Female Suffrage,
successfully tried in Man, must shortly cause that manly example
to he followed by the Imperial Parliament, and then the electoral
influence of the Gentler Sex will advantageously serve to counteract
that exerted by the Roughs.
A PHILISTINE.
Take away all your adornments lesthetical,
Plates of blue china and bits of sage green,
Though you may call me a monster heretical,
I can’t consider them fit to be seen.
Etchings and paintings I loathe and abominate,
Grimly I smile at the name of Burne Jones,
Hating his pictures where big chins predominate—
Over lean figures with angular bones.
Buy me what grinning stage rustics call “farniture,”
Such as was used by our fathers of old ;
Take away all your nonsensical garniture,
Tapestry curtains and borders of gold.
Give me the ancient and solid mahogany,
Mine be the board that will need no repairs ,
Don’t let me see, as I sit at my grog, any
Chippendale tables or spindle-legged chairs.
Hang up a vivid vermilion wall-paper,
Covered with roses of gorgeous hue,
Matching a varnished and beautiful hall-paper,
Looking like marble so polished and new.
Carpets should all show a floral variety,
YJreaths intermingling of yellow and red ;
So. when it enters my home, will Society
Say, here’s a house whence aesthetics have fled.
Academicians at Play.
At the Fishmongers’ Banquet Mr. Horsley, 11. A., expressed a i
hope that the Rich City Companies would turn their attention to !
Mural Decoration, and wisely mixing a little business with plenty of
pleasure, he suggested that he himself was not altogether inexperi- i
enced in this department of Art. Evidently he had his eye on some !
particular wall—without being wall-eyed—and perhaps "is eager to j
purchase spaces and start as a rival to Mr. Willing, whose works !
Mr. Horsley must consider “ willinous.” Mr. Leslie, R.A., who
evidently didn’t take the same view of the stroke of business to be
done, replied that the “ City Companies had no idea of going to the
wall,” which was rather hard on his brother Academician, who won’t
be able to get any of the City Companies’ hoardings to cover the
expenses of his wall. But the idea is good, all the same.
Here’s a “Little-go”!
[The proposal that French or German should be substituted for a classical
language in the Previous Examination, was rejected amid loud cheers in the
Cambridge Senate House, Nov. 11, by a majority of 40.]
Latin and Greek are all that we want here.
German ! Absurd ! And French—cela va sans dire.
Yol. 79.
8—2
THE GRIFFIN’S LAMENT.
As sung by the Fleet Street Selkirk.
Looking down from this horrible place !
I’m out of humanity’s reach,
Stuck up here on the summit alone ;
And as for the music of speech,
All I get is a hiss or a groan!
For no beast of the plain, old or new,
No brute from the depths of the sea,
No bird that you ’ll find at the Zoo—
Has the vaguest resemblance to me !
No wonder I can’t inspire love!—
Why, at dusk I ’m the cause of such dread,
That, had I the wings of a dove,
I'd make for the Duke of York's head.
Up there, I my grief might assuage,
And at least limit critical truth
To such chaff as might come from the cage,
In the shape of the sallies of youth!
But, alas! spite rebuke and report,
And letters, and threats, by the score,
I’ve been fixed ! And, henceforth, without sp.ort,
I shall hear my name mentioned no more!
My friends in the City, do they
Send a wish or a thought after me F
I trust that they do ; for this way
Not a friend but old Birch shall I see!
So the traffic each night sinks to rest;
The barrister turns to his square :
The bustle all hurries due West,
Yet still I sit here in the air!
And if you could then see my face,
You’d say, “ He has had it so hot,—
Has that brute, that he knows his disgrace,
And admits he’s a precious bad lot! ”
A LADIES’ MAN.
Man is at length about to concede the rights of Woman. They
have been acknowledged by the Elective Branch of the Manx Legis-
lature. The House of Keys has amended its Election Act by the
extension of the franchise to all women of' full age not labouring
under legal disqualification. In so doing the Manx House of Keys
has opened its doors to Man’s better half.
The other Assembly of the Legislature of Man may he confidently
expected to confirm the decision of the Elective Branch, and prove
itself, as it were a House of Lords, no less disposed and determined
to do justice to the Ladies. The experiment of Female Suffrage,
successfully tried in Man, must shortly cause that manly example
to he followed by the Imperial Parliament, and then the electoral
influence of the Gentler Sex will advantageously serve to counteract
that exerted by the Roughs.
A PHILISTINE.
Take away all your adornments lesthetical,
Plates of blue china and bits of sage green,
Though you may call me a monster heretical,
I can’t consider them fit to be seen.
Etchings and paintings I loathe and abominate,
Grimly I smile at the name of Burne Jones,
Hating his pictures where big chins predominate—
Over lean figures with angular bones.
Buy me what grinning stage rustics call “farniture,”
Such as was used by our fathers of old ;
Take away all your nonsensical garniture,
Tapestry curtains and borders of gold.
Give me the ancient and solid mahogany,
Mine be the board that will need no repairs ,
Don’t let me see, as I sit at my grog, any
Chippendale tables or spindle-legged chairs.
Hang up a vivid vermilion wall-paper,
Covered with roses of gorgeous hue,
Matching a varnished and beautiful hall-paper,
Looking like marble so polished and new.
Carpets should all show a floral variety,
YJreaths intermingling of yellow and red ;
So. when it enters my home, will Society
Say, here’s a house whence aesthetics have fled.
Academicians at Play.
At the Fishmongers’ Banquet Mr. Horsley, 11. A., expressed a i
hope that the Rich City Companies would turn their attention to !
Mural Decoration, and wisely mixing a little business with plenty of
pleasure, he suggested that he himself was not altogether inexperi- i
enced in this department of Art. Evidently he had his eye on some !
particular wall—without being wall-eyed—and perhaps "is eager to j
purchase spaces and start as a rival to Mr. Willing, whose works !
Mr. Horsley must consider “ willinous.” Mr. Leslie, R.A., who
evidently didn’t take the same view of the stroke of business to be
done, replied that the “ City Companies had no idea of going to the
wall,” which was rather hard on his brother Academician, who won’t
be able to get any of the City Companies’ hoardings to cover the
expenses of his wall. But the idea is good, all the same.
Here’s a “Little-go”!
[The proposal that French or German should be substituted for a classical
language in the Previous Examination, was rejected amid loud cheers in the
Cambridge Senate House, Nov. 11, by a majority of 40.]
Latin and Greek are all that we want here.
German ! Absurd ! And French—cela va sans dire.
Yol. 79.
8—2