DOI issue:
September 24, 1892
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17694#0143
138
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[September 24, 1892.
A GOOD BEGINNING.
Uncle Jack {Umpire). " Love all ! " Monsieur le Baron. Love all ? Parbleu ! Je crois bien ! Zey are adorables, your Nieces 1"
PAN THE POSTER.
{A Modern Pervers-ion of Mrs. Browning's
powerful Poem, "A Musical Instrument.")
["We are presented just now 'with, two spec-
tacles, which may help us to take modest and
diffident views of the progress of the species. . . .
At home there is an utterly unreasonable and un-
accountable financial panic among the depositors
in the Birkbeck Bank, while in America the free
and enlightened democracy of a portion of New
York State has suddenly relapsed into primitive
barbarism under the influence of fear of cholera."
—The Times.']
"What is he doing1, our new god Pan,
Far from the reeds and the river ?
Spreading mischief and scattering ban,
Screening 'neath " knickers " his shanks of a
goat,
And setting the wildest rumours afloat,
To set the fool-mob a-shiver.
He frightened the shepherds, the old god
Him of the reeds bv the river ; [Pan,*
Afeared of his faun-face, Arcadians ran;
Unsoothed by the pipes he so deftly could
play,
The shepherds and travellers scurried away
From his face by forest or river.
And back to us, sure, comes the great god
. Pan, [river;
With his pipes from the reeds by the
Starting a scare, as the goat-god can,
Making a Man a mere wind-swayed reed,
And moving the mob like a leaf indeed
By a chill wind set a-quiver.
* Pan, the Arcadian forest and river-god, was
held to startle travellers by his sudden and terror-
striking appearances. Hence sudden fright, with-
out any visible cause, was ascribed to Pan, and
called a Panic fear.
He finds it sport, does our new god Pan
(As did he of the reeds by the river),
To take all the pith from the heart of a man,
To make him a sheep—though a tiger in
spring,— _
A cruel, remorseless, poor, cowardly thing,
With the whitest.or cheeks —and liver !
"Who said I was dead?" laughs the new
god Pan
(Laughs till his faun-cheeks quiver), [plan.
"I'm still at my work, on a new-fangled
Scare is my business ; I think I succeed,
When the Mob at my minstrelsy shakes like
a reed,
And I mock, as the pale fools shiver."
Shrill, shrill, shrill, 0 Pan!
Your Panic-pipes, far from the river!
Deafening shrill, 0 Poster-Pan !
Turning a man to a timorous brute [flute
With irrational fear. From your frantic
Good sense our souls deliver!
Men rush like the Gadaree swine, 0 Pan!
With contagious fear a-shiver,
They flock like Panurge's poor sheep, 0 Pan !
What, what shall the merest of manhood
In geese gregarious, panic-stricken [quicken
Like frighted fish in the river.
You sneer at the shame of them, Poster-Pan,
Poltroons of the pigeon-liver.
Your placards gibbet them, Poster-Pan,
Who crowd like curs in the cowardly crush,
Who flock like sheep in the brainless rush
With fear or greed a-shiver.
You are half a beast, 0 new god Pan!
To laugh (as you laughed by the river)
Making a brute-beast out of a man :
The true gods sigh for the cost and pain
Of Civilisation, which seems but vain
When the prey of your Panic shiver!
SIR GEORGE AND THE DRAG ON.
By a Writer of Boolcs.
[Sir George Trevelyan, speaking to the
Institute of Journalists, said that " No one was
under the obligation of writing books, unless he was
absolutely called to do so by a commanding genius."]
Oh ! tell me quickly—not if Planet Mars
Is quite the best for journalistic pars,
Not if the oholera will play Old Harry,
Not why to-day young men don't and won't
marry—
For these I do not care. Not to dissemble,
My pen is, as they say, " all of a tremble "—
The pen that once enthralled the myriad
crowd,
The pen that critics one and all allowed
Wrote pleasantly and well, was often funny,
The pen that brought renown, and—better—
money.
My pen is stilled. That happy time is o 'er,
Like that old English King, I smile no more.
Now that Sir (Secretary) George has spoken,
My fortunes (and alas ! my heart) are broken;
For though I may not lack all understanding,
My "genius" cannot claim to be "com-
manding."
Flowery, but not Mealy-mouthed.—To
those who suggested that sending troops to
compel the barbarous Long-Islanders to be
humane would lose Democratic votes, Gover-
nor Flower is reported to have replied,—" I
don't care a-for votes. I am going to
put law-breakers down, and the State in pos-
session of its property." There was an old
song, of which the refrain was, "I don't
care a-for the people, But what will the
Governor say ? " Now we know what the
Governor says. 'Tis well said. Henceforth
he will be known as The Flower of Speech.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[September 24, 1892.
A GOOD BEGINNING.
Uncle Jack {Umpire). " Love all ! " Monsieur le Baron. Love all ? Parbleu ! Je crois bien ! Zey are adorables, your Nieces 1"
PAN THE POSTER.
{A Modern Pervers-ion of Mrs. Browning's
powerful Poem, "A Musical Instrument.")
["We are presented just now 'with, two spec-
tacles, which may help us to take modest and
diffident views of the progress of the species. . . .
At home there is an utterly unreasonable and un-
accountable financial panic among the depositors
in the Birkbeck Bank, while in America the free
and enlightened democracy of a portion of New
York State has suddenly relapsed into primitive
barbarism under the influence of fear of cholera."
—The Times.']
"What is he doing1, our new god Pan,
Far from the reeds and the river ?
Spreading mischief and scattering ban,
Screening 'neath " knickers " his shanks of a
goat,
And setting the wildest rumours afloat,
To set the fool-mob a-shiver.
He frightened the shepherds, the old god
Him of the reeds bv the river ; [Pan,*
Afeared of his faun-face, Arcadians ran;
Unsoothed by the pipes he so deftly could
play,
The shepherds and travellers scurried away
From his face by forest or river.
And back to us, sure, comes the great god
. Pan, [river;
With his pipes from the reeds by the
Starting a scare, as the goat-god can,
Making a Man a mere wind-swayed reed,
And moving the mob like a leaf indeed
By a chill wind set a-quiver.
* Pan, the Arcadian forest and river-god, was
held to startle travellers by his sudden and terror-
striking appearances. Hence sudden fright, with-
out any visible cause, was ascribed to Pan, and
called a Panic fear.
He finds it sport, does our new god Pan
(As did he of the reeds by the river),
To take all the pith from the heart of a man,
To make him a sheep—though a tiger in
spring,— _
A cruel, remorseless, poor, cowardly thing,
With the whitest.or cheeks —and liver !
"Who said I was dead?" laughs the new
god Pan
(Laughs till his faun-cheeks quiver), [plan.
"I'm still at my work, on a new-fangled
Scare is my business ; I think I succeed,
When the Mob at my minstrelsy shakes like
a reed,
And I mock, as the pale fools shiver."
Shrill, shrill, shrill, 0 Pan!
Your Panic-pipes, far from the river!
Deafening shrill, 0 Poster-Pan !
Turning a man to a timorous brute [flute
With irrational fear. From your frantic
Good sense our souls deliver!
Men rush like the Gadaree swine, 0 Pan!
With contagious fear a-shiver,
They flock like Panurge's poor sheep, 0 Pan !
What, what shall the merest of manhood
In geese gregarious, panic-stricken [quicken
Like frighted fish in the river.
You sneer at the shame of them, Poster-Pan,
Poltroons of the pigeon-liver.
Your placards gibbet them, Poster-Pan,
Who crowd like curs in the cowardly crush,
Who flock like sheep in the brainless rush
With fear or greed a-shiver.
You are half a beast, 0 new god Pan!
To laugh (as you laughed by the river)
Making a brute-beast out of a man :
The true gods sigh for the cost and pain
Of Civilisation, which seems but vain
When the prey of your Panic shiver!
SIR GEORGE AND THE DRAG ON.
By a Writer of Boolcs.
[Sir George Trevelyan, speaking to the
Institute of Journalists, said that " No one was
under the obligation of writing books, unless he was
absolutely called to do so by a commanding genius."]
Oh ! tell me quickly—not if Planet Mars
Is quite the best for journalistic pars,
Not if the oholera will play Old Harry,
Not why to-day young men don't and won't
marry—
For these I do not care. Not to dissemble,
My pen is, as they say, " all of a tremble "—
The pen that once enthralled the myriad
crowd,
The pen that critics one and all allowed
Wrote pleasantly and well, was often funny,
The pen that brought renown, and—better—
money.
My pen is stilled. That happy time is o 'er,
Like that old English King, I smile no more.
Now that Sir (Secretary) George has spoken,
My fortunes (and alas ! my heart) are broken;
For though I may not lack all understanding,
My "genius" cannot claim to be "com-
manding."
Flowery, but not Mealy-mouthed.—To
those who suggested that sending troops to
compel the barbarous Long-Islanders to be
humane would lose Democratic votes, Gover-
nor Flower is reported to have replied,—" I
don't care a-for votes. I am going to
put law-breakers down, and the State in pos-
session of its property." There was an old
song, of which the refrain was, "I don't
care a-for the people, But what will the
Governor say ? " Now we know what the
Governor says. 'Tis well said. Henceforth
he will be known as The Flower of Speech.