Punch (93.1887)

November 19, 1887.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 229

THE LETTER-BAG OF TOBY, M.P.

Feom a Dejected Letter-Weiteb.

D-v-nsh-re House, Saturday.

«> : \ iftj ;v<;'-'^/*3*ff?%y

If 11 *

I ear ToiiY,

I dabesay you will have
been expecting for some time to
hear from me, and it is quite
true I owe you a letter. But
the fact is, I'm sick of letter-
writing, which, always a bore,
has of late been invested with
fresh terrors. The way I am
being used un by our Conserva-
tive friends is perhaps a little
audacious. It certainly is quite
embarrassing. Whenever any
of their men get into a tight
place, or embark upon a difficult
enterprise, they write to me for
a character, quite regardless of
my personal predilections, and
even of my actual pledges. You
will have seen a good deal of
this, including the latest produc-
tion touching the Aberdeen University Election, where G-sch-n hopes to ride in
°n my back.

But that was nothing to the letter they got me to write about the Glasgow
University Rectorship. That was, unhappily, not my first production on the
subject. Months ago I was asked what I thought of R-s-b-by as Rector, and I
let them have my opinion straight. A better fellow, take him all round, there
isn't in either House. Just the man to be Lord Rector of a Scotch University,
« he cares to undertake the office. Since then, however, L-tt-n comes along,
and with that stupendous ambition for personal distinction which I don't under-
hand, not, satisfied with being Ambassador to Paris, wants to be Lord Rector of
Glasgow University. Of course they come to me to back him up,—a peculiarly
hot corner to put a fellow in. It happens not only that I have published my
opinion about R-s-b-by, but all the world knows what I think of L-tt-n.

as the M-rk-ss says, we must keep out Gl-dst-ne from Downing Street;
and so we '11 put in L-tt-n for Glasgow University. A hard pill to swallow,
but I gulped at it, and the letter was written. But between you and me, Toby,
-1 felt nearer being mean than I ever did in my life, and would go a long way
round rather than look a Glasgow University lad in the face.
T, Still, it is no new experience for me to be persuaded to do things I don't like.
| ,ni swallowing hard, pills in the Conservative interest now, but many a box
1 ve cleared out in former days to make things pleasant for Gl-dst-ne. You've
seen rue, I daresay, reluctantly brought up to the box on the table of the House,
Patted, pushed, placed in position, and made to support all kinds of thing3,
Which a few months or weeks earlier I honestly believe I loathed. As I write I
8ee Gl-dst-ne nodding encouragingly as I proceed. I hear the rapturous
Vvp8 °^ tne Radicals, delighted to find me won over. I am conscious of the
emllir,g. silence on the benches immediately behind, and I am roused to more
desperate declaration by the satirical cheers of my friends on the benches
opposite. I recall, as it were but yesterday, the effect H-bc-et's cheer used to
nave upon me—the strong temptation to turn round, publicly chuck up the whole
business, and g0 t,aok to the expression of my opinion on the particular topic
before Gl-dst-ne took me in hand. ,

■that's all over now; at least in that particular development. But it s the
same old thing over again in altered circumstances.

After I had consented to support Gl-dst-ne's last Land Bill, he sent me a
gushing letter, in which he said that, turning over the pages of T-bt-ll-n,
ne had come upon a passage which might well be engraved on my tombstone.

I thought at the time it was, in chronological circum-
stances, rather cool his preparing a tombstone for me.
But that by the way. Here is the epitaph:—

"Sic vita erat; facile omnes perferre ac pati;
Cum quibus erat cunque una, his sese dedere ;
Eorum obsequi etudiis; adversus nemini,
Nunquam praeponens se aliis.-"

But that was, of course, before I bolted on the Home-
Rule question. I fancy he has found another passage
since.

I know I'm not a person of any conspicuous ability.
If I had not been born a C-v-nd-sh I would never have
been even a Ch-el-it. But as things fell out, I am like
the boy in the middle of the balanced plank, at the end of
which two others sit. According as I move to the right
or to the left, one end of the plank goes up, and the other
down. So the friends on either side constantly shoulder
me one way or the other; which is all very well for them,
but rather a nuisance to me.

It is part of this perpetual little game by which I am
used for the convenience of others, that you get all the
talk about my being Premier. I am not at all sure that
I should not be shouldered into that by-and-by, if it
were not for Gk-nd-lph. I do not pretend to see further
through a ladder than an ordinary passer-by ; but it is
clear to me that you can never have a Government rival
to the regular Liberals (observe, I do not say a Conserva-
tive Government) without Ge-nd-lph. It is no secret
that I have never hankered after Gb-nd-lph, neither
liking him, nor believing in him. You know what Dr.
J-hns-n said about C-ll-y C-bb-b. I don't exactly, but
it was something to the effect that "as for Cibbek, if
you take away from his conversation all that he should
not have said, he is a poor creature." That is a/way of
putting it curiously applicable to Gb-nd-lph. 'If you
take away from his political speeches all that he"should
not have said, he is a poor creature, a presumptuous
rattle-trap, the gamin of Conservative politics. But if
T undertake the titular headship of the Conservative
Party, I shall have to deal with him, and that, as they
say in a circular space of which I now see too little, is
not good enough.

That is my present opinion. But, bless us all! I may
be talked round on this point, and used by a Party as I
was when I made my first appearance in the House of
Commons nearly thirty years ago, and, a mere stripling,
was made the instrument of turning out a powerful
Government. Yours dejectedly,

H-et-ngt-n.

SUSPIRIA.

(By a Disappointed Sportsman,)

The plane's broad plates of weather-beaten gold
Lie shrunk and sodden in the miry way,
Never around the dappled trunk to play

Again with tricksy beams, and breezes bold.

Nieht swathes the sober light in thickening fold,
Like a grey moth, webb'd in a prison grey,
And the wan willow to the dying day

Gleams like despair, unsolaced and untold.

Now from the village tow'r the bells begin
Their sad- soul'd chiming, as a sullen boy

Wails on in wantonness. Oh, to greet again
Thames's bright Strand, his theatre-studded joy,

The postman's frequent rap, the newsboy's din,

The constant cab, the ever-circling train.

"In the So-called Nineteenth Centtjey."—When
giving three Bishops a little touching up in Mr. Kkowles's
Nineteenth Century, why does the playful Professor
always write " a priori" instead of " a priori f " As no
one would accuse Mr. Huxley of falling into a "clerical
error," the explanation must be that he had nothing to
do with it, or didn't know any better, or his printer would
have it so. or the Printer's Devil possessed him or Bathy-
bius got loose and played the mischief with the type.
Perhaps it is we who are wrong, if so, we ask has it any-
thing to do with the new accent which is to be used in
the pronunciation of Latin ? A trifling matter- but for a
Professor so "acute" tuch an accent may be considered
a "grave" mistake.

vol. xcm.