Punch (86.1884)

100

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[March 1, 1884.

Oh, for the Muse that laughed, and stung
On Gulliver's indignant tongue !

Curt was his speech and tierce and strong,
In lofty scorn of Cant and Wrong,—

And small indeed the times that teach
Weakness of grip for strength of speech,
Craving once more that Muse to lire
The chords of Satire’s slackened lyre!

Oh, little day of little men,

What themes invite the mocker’s pen!
What rush for wealth at any cost,

Honour and Health defied and lost;

What blatant parodies of Fame
(That hardly won and noble name),
Dragged in the sickly spectral lee
Of sallow Notoriety;

Ambition’s highest aim to quaff
The rinsings of a paragraph,

And Life’s whole purpose sunk and spent
To furnish an advertisement!

Oh, for some Juvenalian verse
Thy sound and fury to rehearse,

AVhile Indignation pours the strain
Which Nature may desire in vain.*

Where’er the stifled spirit Hy,

What sights and sounds obscure the sky!
The Statesman’s cut-and-dried abuse,

And frothy violence turned to use,

Dead Christian hatreds spurred to life,

To serve the ends of party strife ;

The Lawyer’s paeans in his fees;

The Actor’s noisy juggleries,

As every little journal tells

Where last he shook the cap and bells;

THE ZEIT-GEiST.”

The Critic in his newest dress,

Sans scholarship or kindliness,

With no credentials under Heaven
For worthy work or asked or given,

And nagging, after Insult’s wont,

At those who “ do,” for those who don’t;
Patriots by bravos hired and sung,

For bright sword carrying fish-fag’s tongue ;
The Poetaster’s mixture, made
Of pitch and darkness for a trade ;

The Man of Science, self-crowned Ling
Of Learning and of everything,

Serenely squatting on his throne,

Fogged with conundrums of his own,

And prohmg with his two-foot rod
His muddy substitutes for God,—

While tambourines and banjos raise
The Hymn of Noise for that of Praise ;—
Our very island’s sea-girt rock
Disked to be land-bound into “ stock ” ;

Ay,—even Woman’s tarnished crown
Hawked through the windows of the town,
And all our sires held first and best
In pufferies of all sizes dressed,—

Till England watch, through England’s
Press,

The fall of English manliness !

Vexed soul, seek out some other shore ;
Houses are castles here no more ;

Vain in the penny-age to fly
From all the penny-trumpetry:

Or hide thee from the watchful zeal
Of those who serve the weekly meal
For jaded gluttons, keen to gloat
On savoury sauce of Anecdote.

* “Si Natura negat, facit indignatio versurn.”

Yet let nor cook nor eaters rue,—

The eaten seem to like it too,

For in Society’s new game

Cooks, food, and eaters are the same,

And Fashion, spider-like, supplies
Her self-spun web to catch her flies !

Thou boastful “ Spirit of the Time,”

*Wake prose itself to angry rhyme!

Soon shall the dark forbid the light
To any hand with power to write,

And the new myriad scribbling-race,

Like locusts shroud all Sense’s face,
Hushing (where angels are not seen)

Into the Prigs’ Own Magazine,

While Upper-Tens profusely scraAvl
In grammar from the servants’ hall,

Till Ink itself shall blush to tint
Nothing but amateurs in print,

And the true child of letters learn
He has no space to breathe or turn,

And scorn accept the Century’s plan,

That all may write,—save those who can.

I turn me, wearied, at my desk,

From the last “ thinker’s ” last burlesque,

The last Agnostic’s windy plea

That none knows anything,—but he,-—

In English carefully destroyed
To hide his meaning’s outer void ;

And, bowing to the wisdoms old,

Head simpler lessons writ in gold :

And would but in a single word
The “ Spirit of the Age ” be heard,

Let him take up his glass and see

His image this—Vulgarity. Marius.

ROBERT DOWN AT THE OUSE.

We’ve begun werry well down at the Ouse this Season. To be
sure, there ain’t bin no werry late sittins, and so no briled bones and
“ Hideandseek ” for the sleepy Members, but it’s much cumfertabler
for us Waiters to git home at a resonabel our, and not havin to anser
a lot of aukward questshuns from our several curious wives, than to
be anaring about all night praying for them 2 trew Paytriots, Bigger
and Warton. Ah, them’s the Members for my money, leastways,
they would be if I had any. Many and many a time did them reel
Waiter’s frends blockade the hole bizziness last Season, and sent us
all home appy and smilin. And sumtimes even quite hurly in the
evenin, when noboddy ain’t a-thinkin of nufhn but their dinner,
like reel Gentlemen and men of breading, has that dear Mr. Bigger
—tho’ he ain’t so big as one would expect by his name—a-gone and
counted out the Ouse, and cum out a-smiling in that contented and
happy way, as if he know’d how.we should all bless him, tho’ the
langwidge as sum of the werry biggest swells used on these joyfool
ocashuns, was as egstrornery to me as it was plezzant to him.

When I sed as we had begun the Season werry well, what I ment
was as how we had had the blooming Sherryiffs, in their gorgeous
crimson. robes of OfRs, to present a petition from the Copperashun
about gitting cheaper water, which shows what reel true Paytriots
they is, and.how carefoolly they looks arter the intrest of the'werry
Poor, for, of coarse, as far as they theixselves is concerned, the price
of water, excep of coarse for washing pupposes, can’t be of the least
consekwence. We had a goodish sprinkling of Hem Peas, mixed
with just a few C. C.s to give ’em a relish like, at the Sherryffs sub-
sequent Bangkwet, as usual. Sum calklating genus said it was
about 5 per cent, of the hole lot, which was of course not bad for a
beginning. We gave ’em a werry good dinner, and a werry helegant
Maynew, one of which I collared as ushual for mv little boy, who puts
’em in his Album, which he calls his “ Guide des Gourmands,”
which I believe is french for “the trend of the Copperashun,” but
I’m not a very good french Sehollar, excep what I learns from
Maynews. I don’t think as Hem Peas quite understands the art of
Lining grandly, like my City trends. They ain’t I spose quite so
much used to it, and so they takes everythink as we offers ’em insted
of making a wise slection. But there really is one thing as I must
speak to our Hed Shef about, and that is his Turtel Soup. I acshally
had to hand to a heminent Common Councilman a plate of clear
Turtel as had got a peace of meat in it about the size of harf a Coker
Nut! _ When I handed it to him he looked down at it, and then he
looked up at me with his clear gray eyes, as much as to say, “ Why,
what on airth have we got here, Robert ? ” and I felt so ashamed,

that I feels sure as I blusht up to my werry eye brows as I urried
away. As there may be the same amount of hignerance in others as in
the Hem Pea’s Shef on this werry iruportant subjeck, I may as well at
wunce inform the world, that Turtel should be cut into squares
slightly hoblonged, and should never, not on no account, ever exseed
wun hi rich in cirkumfrence, the peace as I anded to the estonished
C. C. was more like arf a foot!

How many of the most himportant matters in the Pollytickle
World depends upon dinner! If I had to write the histery of Parties,
in course I don’t mean dinner Parties and such like, but Conserwer-
tive and Libral Parties, tho’ I don’t spose as there’s much fear of my
havin to do that (although, of course, Mr. Long Man and Mr.
Black Wood, I am always hopen to a hoffer !), I should draw slitely
on my notes, and then largely on my memmery, in regard to the
warious himportant ewents as I’ve seen either halltogether hupset,
or werry considerably haltered, by suckemstances connected with
what ought to be the most importent ewent of the day to a sensible
man, namebly, his dinner.

Take that Tiusday evening for hinstance when all the Pollytickle
World was a-wundring- why Sir Charles Dilke didn’t rush into the
Ouse like a Mayniack and reply to the subblime and bootiful speech of
Mr. Bijrke, the great Orator’s grandson, I spose. Sum of the papers,
as thinks as they nose everythink, have give one reason and sum
another, but of course they was all rong, as ushal. The reel and
true and rashernal and only reason was, that, like a sensihel fellow
as he is, he didn’t chews to be disterbed at his dinner. What more
nat’ral than his onest remark, when the Wip wanted him to leave his
“ Caneton de Houen et Petit Pois,” “ Bother Mr. Burke, I won’t go
in and smash him ’till I’ve finisht my dinner! Put up Wolf.”
And the consekwence was, as all the world knows, that Mr. Burke
wasn’t smashed at all, but the Ouse was saved about a week’s useless
talk, becoz the Shef gave Sir Charles a good dinner. And cheap at
the price, as the Wip smilingly remarked to me arterwards. And
that’s one of the many reasons why I almost washup’s the Ouse of
Lords. No matter what’s on, weather it’s Pigeon Shooting, or Irish
Landlord Shooting, or Foot and Mouth Disease, or Intoxicating
Liekers Act, which is much the same thing, or any other ekally
himportent matter, drectly the Clock pints to 7'45 p.m., out they
marches in sollem file, and. gos to their sev’ral dinners, leaving all
the busness to be finished by the hungry few as is obligated to stop.
That’s wot I caHs true Patriottism ! They sets a grand egsampel to
the lower orders of mankind, never to let any other bizziness interfere
with the principle bizziness of civilised life—Dinner.

On that ewentful Mundy, when the Hev. Mr. Bradlaw took his
oath as he’d go and swear hisself in, in spite of Mr. Speaker, and in