DOI issue:
February 23, 1884
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17756#0094
February 23, 1884.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
Not its erect rigidity. Good lack !
Jknew the virtue of the supple back,
Elastic foot, and shifty guard, as well
As Angelo, or Mace ; but there’s no spell
In sheer invertebrateness!
True, the time
Fits for remembrance ; and if speech, and rhyme,
And primrose wreaths were Policy, no doubt
You ’d grasp success. But the mere platform shout
Shakes not the Treasury Jericho ; hymns of praise
And Primrose Leagues, no more than busts and hays,
Perpetuate my spell. Their wizard weaves
His word-webs still. You scarce can reach his greaves
With your dwarf smitings ! Oh, to stand again
And match him, blow for blow, brain against brain,
A s in a hundred fights ; with one straight thrust
To thread his maze of foinings, which, like dust
Wheel-raised in the arena, blind and foil
The fumbling swordsmen who now strain and toil
To break his iron guard !
Mettle ? A blade
Of lath or lead by Pantaloon arrayed
Against Excaiibur at fiercest flash,
Might type good Stafford’s style ; nor skill nor dash
In onset or defence. In such a cause !
With such a case! He might have wrung applause
From half his foes ; he made his best friends groan !
Botched passes and missed points ! To stand alone
Against a hundred such were no great task
For the triumphant Sophist. To unmask
His rhetoric-shrouded weakness needed strength
Such as his own ; the subtly-woven length
Of his audacious argument bore down
Your duller souls. Achilles ’gainst a clown
Were scarcely harder put to it.
How he stood
The last survivor of our elder brood
Of mettled fighters, aged, yet untamed
As the old Lion, he has gagged and shamed
With his long-halting Policy, but which yet
May slip his toils and snap his subtle net.
And then f
I seem to see him in his room,
The battle-light quenched in the haggard gloom
Of troubled thought. That band of leaguered men
Long waiting England’s looked-for help, and then
Deserted, dashing out to death, will haunt
His fine-strung spirit, though it may not daunt
His foe-affronting courage.
Firm ? Go to !
My sour, thrasonic Cecil, ’twill not do.
There is no firmness left; the flaccid age
Is all a flux—in words as deeds. Your rage
Which rises like the wave, falls broken back
Like the rock-baffled foam. You have the knack
Of sorrel speech, but had your tartness force
Like Hannibal’s “vinegar,” to give clear course
To Valour's steadfast steps, you were more like
The mighty Carthaginian. How to strike
A Joab blow you know, but Gideon’s skill
The flashing judgment and unfaltering will
You cannot compass. Nebulous Northcote firm ?
Yes, as the cloud Ixion clutched. What worm
So slow to turn ? Lord of—the gentle jape !
And he the loose-tongued lad (my would-be ape,
The quidnuncs cry) potent at platform pelt
And boyish mire-bespatterings, nothing felt;
But master, when strong men large issues raise,
Neither of principle, policy nor phrase !
These be your gods, 0 Israel!
Better let
The curtain drop again ! Not yet, not yet
The hour when my mere memory may inspire
Eire without force, and Virtue void of fire !
A BAD CASE.
“Good Heavens, Child ! what is the matter with your Husband ?”
“Oh Papa! He always goes on like that when I ask him to take me to a Theatre! And the worst of it is, he
says there is Apoplexy in his Family !—and so of course I have to give in/” [Bursts into tears.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
Not its erect rigidity. Good lack !
Jknew the virtue of the supple back,
Elastic foot, and shifty guard, as well
As Angelo, or Mace ; but there’s no spell
In sheer invertebrateness!
True, the time
Fits for remembrance ; and if speech, and rhyme,
And primrose wreaths were Policy, no doubt
You ’d grasp success. But the mere platform shout
Shakes not the Treasury Jericho ; hymns of praise
And Primrose Leagues, no more than busts and hays,
Perpetuate my spell. Their wizard weaves
His word-webs still. You scarce can reach his greaves
With your dwarf smitings ! Oh, to stand again
And match him, blow for blow, brain against brain,
A s in a hundred fights ; with one straight thrust
To thread his maze of foinings, which, like dust
Wheel-raised in the arena, blind and foil
The fumbling swordsmen who now strain and toil
To break his iron guard !
Mettle ? A blade
Of lath or lead by Pantaloon arrayed
Against Excaiibur at fiercest flash,
Might type good Stafford’s style ; nor skill nor dash
In onset or defence. In such a cause !
With such a case! He might have wrung applause
From half his foes ; he made his best friends groan !
Botched passes and missed points ! To stand alone
Against a hundred such were no great task
For the triumphant Sophist. To unmask
His rhetoric-shrouded weakness needed strength
Such as his own ; the subtly-woven length
Of his audacious argument bore down
Your duller souls. Achilles ’gainst a clown
Were scarcely harder put to it.
How he stood
The last survivor of our elder brood
Of mettled fighters, aged, yet untamed
As the old Lion, he has gagged and shamed
With his long-halting Policy, but which yet
May slip his toils and snap his subtle net.
And then f
I seem to see him in his room,
The battle-light quenched in the haggard gloom
Of troubled thought. That band of leaguered men
Long waiting England’s looked-for help, and then
Deserted, dashing out to death, will haunt
His fine-strung spirit, though it may not daunt
His foe-affronting courage.
Firm ? Go to !
My sour, thrasonic Cecil, ’twill not do.
There is no firmness left; the flaccid age
Is all a flux—in words as deeds. Your rage
Which rises like the wave, falls broken back
Like the rock-baffled foam. You have the knack
Of sorrel speech, but had your tartness force
Like Hannibal’s “vinegar,” to give clear course
To Valour's steadfast steps, you were more like
The mighty Carthaginian. How to strike
A Joab blow you know, but Gideon’s skill
The flashing judgment and unfaltering will
You cannot compass. Nebulous Northcote firm ?
Yes, as the cloud Ixion clutched. What worm
So slow to turn ? Lord of—the gentle jape !
And he the loose-tongued lad (my would-be ape,
The quidnuncs cry) potent at platform pelt
And boyish mire-bespatterings, nothing felt;
But master, when strong men large issues raise,
Neither of principle, policy nor phrase !
These be your gods, 0 Israel!
Better let
The curtain drop again ! Not yet, not yet
The hour when my mere memory may inspire
Eire without force, and Virtue void of fire !
A BAD CASE.
“Good Heavens, Child ! what is the matter with your Husband ?”
“Oh Papa! He always goes on like that when I ask him to take me to a Theatre! And the worst of it is, he
says there is Apoplexy in his Family !—and so of course I have to give in/” [Bursts into tears.