Punch (98.1890)

February i, 1890.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. _ ^

UNTILED; OR, THE MODERN ASMODEUS.

"Tres volontiers," repartit le demon. « Yous aimez les tableaux changeans : j.e ^ yous contenter.
XVIII.

" ' Mrs. M^icenas 1' So some

would-be wit
Dubbed the fair dame. The title

may not fit
With accurate completeness;
It soars some shades too high, this

modish mot,
As ' Mrs. Lton-Huntee ' sinks too

low;

Both nick-names fail in neatness.

" The ' acu tetigisti,' tribute rare,
Not oft is earned, in Fleet Street or
Mayfair,
In these hot days of hurry.
Salons, Symposia, both have met
their doom, [room,
And wit, in the Victorian drawing-
Finds a fell foe in flurry."
So spake the Shadow, with the
covert sneer [ing ear.

That struck so coldly on the listen-
Soft was his'speeeh, as muffled
By some chill" atmosphere surcharged with
snow,

In unemphatic accents, level, low,
Unhasting and unruffled.

" Mrs. M^cenas, then, no Horace finds
In all her muster of superior minds,

Her host of instant heroes ?
That's hard!" I said. "She does not

greatly care,"
My guide rejoined. "Behold her seated

there!

Her court's as fulVas Neeo's.
" Seneca stands beside her. He's a prim,
Sententious sage. If she is bored by him,

The lady doth not show it.
But there's a furtive glancing of her eye
Toward the entry. There comes Marx M'Eay,

The Socialistic Poet.
" His lyric theories mean utter smash
To all his hostess cares for. Crude and rash,

But musically ' precious.'
His passionate philippics against Wealth
Mammon's own daughters read, 'tis said, by
stealth,

And vote them ' quite delicious!'
"All that makes life worth living to the
throng

Of worshippers who mob this Son of Song,
Money, Monopoly, Merriment,

He bans and blazes at in 1 Dhse' dread ;

But then they know his Muse is merely Red
In metrical experiment.

"Well-dressed and well-to-do, the naming
Bard

Finds life in theory only harsh and hard.
t> .ttiscAeuefare looks shaggy,
But his black broad-cloth's glossy and well-
brushed,

And he'd feel wretched if his tie were crushed,

His trousers slightly baggy.
" Kaul Maex in metre or Lassalle in verse,
The vampire-horde of Capital he '11 curse,

And praise the Proletariat;
But having thus delivered his bard-soul,
He finds it, practically, nice to loll

With Dives in "his chariot.
" Lyrical Communism will not fright
Those 'Moloehs of the Mart' this Son of Light
, Keeps his poetic eye on.
Who takes a Singer au grand serieux t'
Mrs. M.ecenas asks. So he's on view,

Her Season's latest lion.
" But not alone," I said. " If all this host
Are right authentic Leos, she must boaBt

As potent charm as Circe's.

What is her wand.? Is't wit, or wealth, or
both?" [loth,
" Listen! That's Mcmps the mimic, nothing
Rolling out Vamper's verses !

"Vamper looks on and smiles with veiled
delight.

Boredom's best friends are fellows who recite,

None like, not many listen,
Kut all must make believe to stand about
And watch a man gesticulate and shout,

With eyes that glare and glisten.
"'Tis hard indeed to hold in high esteem
The man who mouths out Eugene Aram's
Dream

In guttural tones and raucous.
All these have heard a hundred times before
Young Vox, the vain and ventriloquial bore

They'd fain despatch to Orcus.
'' So have they listened many and many a time
To little Jinks, the jerky comic mime,

And his facetious chatter.
But ill would fare Town's guest if he refused
For the five hundredth time to be ' amused'

By gush, or cockney patter.

" Horace's Piso were a pleasant chum
Compared with slangy laureates of the slum.

Hist! There's a tenor twitter, _
A tremulous twangle of the minor strings.
'Tis Seeaphin, sleek Amateur, who sings,

' Glide where the moonbeams glitter!'

" 'To puling girls that listen and adore
Your love-lorn chants and wofnl wailings
pour!'

Sang Horace to Hebmogenes.
Seraphin's a Tiqellitjs, and his style
Would bring the bland Venusian's scornful
smile

The scowl of sour Diogenes.

'' 'Twere' breaking butterflies upon the wheel'
To let such fribbles feel the critic steel

With scalpel-like severity ?
Granted! But will no pangs the victims
urge [scourge
To abate that plague of bores, which is the

Of social insincerity ?

'' Wisdom is here, and Wit, Talent and Taste:
The latest wanderer from the Tropic Waste,

Sun-bronzed and care-lined, saunters
In cheery chat with mild-faced Mirabel,
Who with Romance's wildest weirdest spell

Has witched your Mudie-haunters.
"Colossal Bataed, beau-sabreur, whose

blade

A dozen desert spearmen faced and stayed,
Stoops his high-shoulder'd stature

To hear the twittering tones of Tiny Tim,
A midget, but the soul of whit and whim,

The genius of good-nature.
"Boy-faced, but virile, vigorous, and a peer,
Lord Mossmoee talks with Violet de Vere,

The latest light of Fiction ;
Steadily-rising statesman, season's star!
Calmly_ he hears, though Caste's keen
instincts jar.

Her strained self-conscious diction.

" Meldeum, the modish medico, laughs low
At ruddy Raspee's keenly-whispered mot—

Raspee, a soul all strictures,
Holds the great world a field for sketchy
chaff.

Many love not the man, but how they laugh

At his swift, scathing pictures!
" Wits of all grades, and Talents of all sorts,
With rival beauties holding separate courts,

Find here parade, employment.
And yet, and yet, they all look cross, or
tired;

Your cultured city has not yet acquired
The art of true enjoyment.

" Strange ! London's poor find' pleasure far
too dear,

But here, with wealth, and wit, and charm,
and cheer,
All should go so delightfully.
Time gay as in the Golden Age should fleet,
But the most brilliant stars in Babylon meet,
And—bore each other frightfully."
(To be continued.)

IN THE NAME OF CHARITY-
GO TO PRISON!
Last week Mr. Punch asked, "Oh, where,
and oh where, is The Public Prosecutor ? "
and he has received an answer. It appears
that the official has been recently engaged
(his letter is dated the 30th of November)
in suppressing an "illegal scheme" to aid
the funds of the North-West London Hos-
pital. It appears that, with a view to in-
creasing the revenue of that most deserving
charity, it was arranged to treat some
presents that had been made to the Institu-
tion as " prizes," to be given to those who
sent donations to the hospital. There was
to be a " drawing," which was to be duly
advertised in the daily papers. But this
could not be tolerated. Sir A. K. Stephen-
son, Solicitor to Her Majesty's Treasury,
after denouncing the scheme in the terms
above set forth, informed the Secretary of
the Hospital, "that all persons concerned
therein subjected themselves to the penalties
imposed by the Acts passed for the suppres-
sion of illegal lotteries." Well, the law is the
law, and it would never do for Mr. Punch to
dispute the point with so learned a gentleman
as Sir A. K. Stephenson—the more espe-
cially as Sir A. K. S. has just been patented
a Q..C.—but if the Public Prosecutor can
stop "illegal schemes" for benefiting the
sick, why can he not also deal with the pro-
fessional perjurers, suborners of witnesses,
and fabricators of false evidence ? Mr. Punch
pauses for a reply, but is disinclined to pause
much longer!

Our Turn Now.—An excited paragraph
in the morning papers announces that" two
Doctors of Vienna have succeeded in discover-
ing the Influenza bacillus after a series of
experiments in the Chemical and Physiologi-
cal Laboratory of the University." This is
capital. Hitherto the Influenza bacillus has
discovered us. Now the tables are turned,
and the question is, What shall we do with
our prize ? A little transaction in boiling lead
might not be bad to begin with.

voi. xcvm.