Mr. Punch's History of Modern England. Volume 3 of 4.—1874-1892. Graves Charles Larcom

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СКАЧАТЬ Speakers" in Ireland, "the Loyalist Cæsar, and the Nationalist Pompey seem 'very much alike' indeed – in the matter of noisy mischief… One feels that the Orange Champions would not hate 'disloyalty' so much did they not hate their 'Green' fellow countrymen more."

      Dick: "I've chose my Three Acres – next to the Parson's. I mean to dig and grow 'Taters. Where 'ave you chose yours?"

      Harry: "I ain't chose no Land. I shan't grow no 'Taters. I shall take your 'Taters!"

      Yet in the autumn of 1885, when Lord Carnarvon was Viceroy, Punch developed a strong distrust of the conciliatory policy of the Conservatives. In one cartoon he shows Captain Moonlight masked and armed at an open door, the bar of the Crimes Act having been removed. In October he wrote, "when Tyranny alone is free where is the safety – save for slaves." In another cartoon he showed the National League as the Irish Vampire, hovering over Hibernia in her uneasy sleep, and bade her awake and banish the hideous monster that was sapping her strength. Mr. Punch's "Political Address," issued shortly before the resignation of the Salisbury Cabinet, claimed that he was the only real Independent Candidate, the nominee of no party, section, or sect; bound to no programme, but "all for the four P's – Principle, Progress, Patriotism and Peace" – in fine, "whichever Party he returned to office, Mr. Punch, the non-partisan Member for Everywhere, will be in power." The new cry of "Three Acres and a Cow" raised at the close of 1885 left him cold, witness Du Maurier's "Sauce for the Goose." The verses in the same number on "New Words and Old Songs" imply that it was a mere vote-catching device, and at the same time mock at the cadging tactics of the Knights and Dames of the Primrose League founded in 1884.

      Home Rule Rejected

      On the resignation of the Salisbury Cabinet, Mr. Gladstone returned to power with Mr. Morley as Chief Secretary for Ireland. The story of his conversion to Home Rule, his failure to convert his colleagues, the split in the Cabinet and the introduction and rejection of the Home Rule Bill of 1886 is well told in the series of cartoons which begin with "At the Cross Roads" in February. There Gladstone is shown hesitating between Land Purchase and Home Rule, while Chamberlain as the cowboy advises the former. In "The Thanes fly from me" we see Gladstone as Macbeth asking Morley (Seyton) to give him his armour: "This push will cheer me ever or disseat me now." The Home Rule Bill is typified as the "Divided Skirt." Gladstone as the Grand Old Man Milliner is trying in vain to reconcile Britannia to her new dress. The sequel is shown in the "Actæon" cartoon in which Gladstone is pulled down by his own hounds – Chamberlain, Hartington, Goschen – and in the adaptation of Meissonier's "Retreat from Moscow," where Gladstone figures as the defeated Napoleon. It is rather curious, by the way, to note that during the debates Punch, in his "Essence of Parliament," describes Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and Mr. Labouchere as the "two drolls of the House" at Question time.

      Grand Old Man-Milliner (persuasively): "Fits beautifully, Madam! A little alteration here and there!"

      Mrs. Britannia: "It's very uncomfortable, and I'm sure it isn't becoming. I shall never get along with it as it is!!"

      On the merits of Home Rule Punch is rather non-committal, and speaks with more than one voice. The secession of the Liberal Unionists impressed him greatly; but he was bitterly antagonistic to the Ulster extremists, witness this epigram printed in May: —

Lucus a non Lucendo

      Loyal? Nay, Ulster, you, for very shame

      Should cede your long monopoly of that name.

      Loyal – to whom – to what? To power, to pelf,

      To place, to privilege, in a word, to self.

      They who assume, absorb, control, enjoy all,

      Must find it vastly pleasant to be "loyal."

      Lord Randolph Churchill's famous jingle: "Ulster will fight. Ulster will be right," inspired a prophetic forecast of the result of such action, in which Ulster does fight and is defeated: —

      The battle had been severe, but it was over at last. Belfast was taken. Derry was in ruins. Everywhere the Orange faction had been outnumbered and worsted. The reverse was crushing and complete. "We shall now," said the General commanding the National forces, "be suffered, perhaps, to hold our Parliament on College Green in peace." He turned to a batch of captured officers as he spoke. They were a motley crew. Among them figured several wearing the Queen's uniform, while here and there stood some distinguished sympathizer with the beaten cause, who had thrown in his lot to support rebellion against Queen and Empire. Among these latter a scion of a Ducal House and former well-known Member of the House of Commons, was weeping over a broken drumhead. The General singled him out, and beckoned him to approach. He drew near, surlily: "Well, my Lord," continued the Commander, in a tone of banter. "How about your prophecy? Ulster will fight. Ulster will be right. Ulster has fought. Ha! Ha!"

      "And she has been wrong!" was the submissive and humble reply.

      Lord Randolph at the Tresury

      This squib was written before the rejection of the Home Rule Bill, a result which Punch, or the writer, probably did not anticipate. The accuracy of the forecast, however, remains still to be tested.

      The Elections went against the Government, and Lord Salisbury was returned to power, with Lord Randolph as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons. The verses which accompany and expand the cartoon of "The Grand Young Man" with the shade of Dizzy looking on, almost deviate into geniality. Punch fancies that Randolph, in spite of his defects of taste and manners, is "more than a mere mime," but, in contrasting his career with that of Lord Beaconsfield, points out that he was born in the purple and that his rise to power was easier and quicker. This comparatively friendly mood soon gave way to the old distrust, and by October, in "Swag, or the political Jack Sheppard," we see Lord Randolph, anxious to eclipse Dizzy as a Tory Turpin and "disher" of the Whigs, rifling a chest labelled "Liberal Measures," while Mr. Gladstone peers into the room at the back. Punch's distrust was partly justified by Lord Randolph's impetuous resignation in December. What might have been a great career was wrecked by an impatient temper. Immense ability, industry, courage and reforming zeal were there, and it was hardly fair to represent him as a modern Curtius leaping into the pit of Popularity. The Treasury was not the only Government Office in which reform was thwarted by obstruction and mismanagement. Punch attacked the War Office in the autumn of 1886 for setting its face "not merely against change, but against experiments pointing to change," and scouting all inventors as nuisances. He simultaneously proposed the foundation of an official organ of the Admiralty to be called "Dowb," the burlesque prospectus of which obliquely satirizes the abuse of perquisites, bad stores, muddled finance, futile commissions of inquiry and general incompetence in high places. Home politics engrossed attention throughout the year, but Punch did not fail to note the gathering clouds in the Balkans, when Prince Alexander of Battenberg, the hero of Slivnitza, a gallant and picturesque figure, had abdicated the throne of Bulgaria, Russian jealousy having rendered his position untenable. In the cartoon of "The Vanishing Lady," the Tsar is shown as a juggler using the cloak of diplomacy to extinguish the freedom of the country he had helped to emancipate. The same year which witnessed the disappearance from the political scene of Prince Alexander was marked by the birth of Alfonso XIII of Spain, and Punch offered his ceremonial greeting to one of the few sovereigns who survived the monarchical débâcle of the Great War of 1914.

      The Victorian age reached its grand climacteric in 1887, the year of the Queen's Golden Jubilee and the gathering of the Kings and Captains. Of the celebrations we speak elsewhere. Punch, no longer anti-Papist, linked them with those at the Vatican – in honour of Leo XIII, who had been ordained priest in 1837 – in his lines on "Two Jubilees": —

      St. Peter's and St. James's face to face

      Exchanging with a more than courtly grace

      Their mutual gifts and greetings!

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