Mr. Punch's History of Modern England. Volume 2 of 4.—1857-1874. Graves Charles Larcom

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СКАЧАТЬ him in yon hallowed mould.

      Guarded to a soldier's grave

      By the bravest of the brave.

      Strew not on the hero's hearse

      Garlands of a herald's verse:

      Let us hear no words of Fame

      Sounding loud a deathless name:

      Tell us of no vauntful Glory

      Shouting forth her haughty story.

      All life long his homage rose

      To far other shrine than those.

      "In Hoc Signo," pale nor dim,

      Lit the battle-field for him,

      And the prize he sought and won,

      Was the Crown for Duty done.

      Lucknow was recaptured in March, 1858, but the pacification of Oudh by Sir Colin Campbell, now Lord Clyde, and the clearance of Central India by Sir Hugh Rose, afterwards Lord Strathnairn, occupied the whole of the remainder of the year: indeed, order was not completely restored till the close of 1859, or more than a year after the rule of "John Company" had been abolished and its executive powers transferred to the Crown.

      John Bull's Foreign Policy

      The process begun under Palmerston was completed by the Derby-Disraeli administration after long and acrimonious debates and recriminations, cabals and intrigues, in the course of which Punch vehemently assailed the East India Company, disgraced but impenitent, for its misdeeds, Bright for his impracticable independence and pro-Indian sympathies; Ellenborough and Canning; Palmerston and Disraeli. Palmerston in particular had fallen from favour because of the Conspiracy Bill introduced after the Orsini attempt to assassinate the French Emperor. The plot had been hatched in London, but Punch bitterly resented the notion of making this a ground for depriving England of her position as the "sanctuary of Europe," and held that Palmerston had brought defeat on himself by knuckling down to Louis Napoleon. The fury of the Moniteur against England's alleged harbouring of criminals only excited Punch's derision. Relieved from the Indian tragedy, he was now free to revert to his old inveterate distrust of Louis Napoleon, and to preach for years to come the need of a strong navy. The lines on "John Bull's Foreign Policy" in the autumn of 1858, addressed to the Peoples of Europe, frankly admit that self-interest mingles with his love of Liberty: —

      To hold you down, your despots arm,

      And keep me always in alarm.

      Confound them! – they mean me no good;

      Abolish, well I know they would,

      My Constitution, if they could.

      I, too, must arm in self-defence;

      And armaments involve expense:

      Expense taxation means – my curse;

      Despotic power alone is worse:

      Your masters thus myself amerce.

      Oh, how I wish I could retrench!

      But I must keep pace with the French,

      And for the Russians stand prepared,

      The cost whereof I should be spared,

      To shake your yokes off if you dared.

      Rise, therefore, and your rights assert,

      Ye Peoples, trodden in the dirt.

      Strike for your freedom, nations brave,

      Whom monarchs absolute enslave:

      And so enable me to save.

      So along with appeals to Lord Derby to make up his mind like a man to Reform, we find repeated and even more urgent appeals to England to keep up the Channel Fleet. The imposing display of force at Cherbourg by Louis Napoleon in the autumn of 1858 only enhanced Punch's misgivings and prompted the suggestion of an alliance with the United States. Punch greeted Sir Francis Head's renewed scare-mongering about a French invasion with ridicule, but he was more seriously impressed by French pamphleteers and novelists who spoke of war with England as inevitable.

      The defeat of the Derby-Disraeli Government over their Reform Bill in the spring of 1859 brought back Palmerston and Russell at a critical time in the history of the struggle for Italian unity. Of that cause both these statesmen were true friends, but the sympathy of England was impaired by distrust of Louis Napoleon, and this nervousness and anxiety as to his intentions is repeatedly illustrated in the pages of Punch. Victor Emmanuel is shown as the Piedmontese farmer between the two Eagles, Austria and France. Again the French Emperor's phrase "L'Empire c'est la paix" is satirized in a cartoon showing him as a porcupine bristling with bayonets. England's line should be one of extreme watchfulness: "We'll keep our powder dry." On the eve of the outbreak of the war between France and Austria Punch gives his "Neutral Advice" in the following lines: —

      Let France delight to go and fight

      If 'tis her folly to:

      Let Austria cry for "territory!"

      With that we've naught to do.

      Our shout must be "Neutrality!"

      To England peace is sweet;

      But, friends, that she may neutral be,

      Let's man our Forts and Fleet.

      He may be an inoffensive animal, but he don't look like it.

      Napoleon III and Cavour

      After Magenta the share in the fighting between Italy and France is symbolized in the fable of the Giant and the Dwarf: Victor Emmanuel was to do all the fighting while France, forsooth, claimed half the honours of war. No opportunity was lost of putting the worst construction on Louis Napoleon's patronage of Savoy. His pacific statements are constantly contrasted with his policy of aggrandisement. In the autumn Punch quoted the New York Herald's tribute: "We are seriously of opinion that if Louis Napoleon were not Emperor of the French, he would have made a first-rate newspaper editor. His style is like that of the American papers." The report that Cavour had retired in disgust inspired a bitter attack on the two Emperors in July: —

      Count O'Cavourneen, the bubble is breaking,

      You've had the last scene, Solferino's red hill,

      The cannons no longer the echoes are waking,

      Count O'Cavourneen, what, Minister still?

      O hast thou forgot the diplomacy clever

      In which thou didst bear so distinguished a part,

      Thy vow to clear out all the Hapsbugs for ever?

      The vermin still linger, Cavour of my heart.

      Cavourneen, Cavourneen, the dead lie in numbers

      Beneath the torn turf where the living made fight;

      In the bed of My Uncle the Emperor slumbers,

      But Italy's Hapsbugs continue to bite.

      Well done, my Cavour, they have cut short the struggle

      They fired all the pulses of Italy's heart;

      And in turning thy back on the humbug and juggle,

      Cavour, thou hast played a proud gentleman's part.

      Militia Officer: "Ah, this is Smithers! Why, you're getting very fat, Smithers. Let's see – this is your fifth training, isn't it?"

      Stout Private: "Yes, sir. After we was disembodied, sir, the Adj'tant he took an' reintestined me, sir!!!"

      (Note.– Militiamen, after serving four trainings, can be "Re-attested" for СКАЧАТЬ