MERRY MILESTONES

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3197, 22 September 1917, Page 12

MERRY MILESTONES

THROUGH TIME AVITH "PUNCH"

[By Jessie M'ackiiy.]

v: 1881. ■ • The milestone of 1881 is more than merry. It begins to be beautiful. The long-suffering, Graces ask .with dawning "Where are the hoops of yosteryeur?" Greatly shrunken, they now alternate with the clinging robes of a new order. A suggestion of the Mehisina fish-tail is not unattractive, while from «tho men there has gone that gelatinous drooij, that essential "Hop" that maundered. through the early seventies. At "I'unch's" table now sits one George du Maurier, scattering largesso of Trilbys nn<l Taffys over the pages that record the glories' of Grosvenor and Bunthorne. For those are tiie days of the "utter;" the "too-too," the "precious," tho day?, in a word, of the acstlietic revival, with Wilde and Swinburne for its laureates. How Du Maurier trounces the faithful in the persons of "Handle" and "Mrs. Ciniabuo Brown" 1 Behold that tragic lady with the artistically dishevelled'' M iss Bilderbogie malting wild eyes at her feet. In that chaste sorrow which was joy tinto the aesthete born, Miss Bilderbogie says: "Yes, dearest Joconda, I am going to marry young Peter I'ilcox. "We shall bo very poor, indeed. how we are going to live I cannot tell." ... "Never mind how, my beautiful Manana; that is so noble of yon. But wlfero are you going to live?" astis tne soulful' matron. "Oh,, in dear old Kensington, I suppose. . Everything so cheap there—peacock leathers a penny each." To. this we naturally add a verse of a later "Maudlc-in'Ballad": My languid lily, my lank limp lily. My Ion", lithe lily-love, men may grin- . Say that' I'm soft and supremely silly: What care I, while you whisper stilly? What care I, while you smile? Not a. pin. While you smile, while you whisper,. " 'lis sweet to decay!" I have watered with, chlorodyne. tears of chagrin, The churchyard moujd I have planted you in, Upside down in an intense way, • In a rough red flower-pot, sweeter than sin, That I bought lor a halfpenny yesterday. Another priestess of the Ultimate and Utter, Mrs. Vamp, strives to convert her Philistine friend, Betsinda, by means of a cracked blue teapot, "a symbol of what dear Matthew Arnold calls the 'eternal -, and nnseizable shadow of Beauty, a thing to love, to languish over, to clasp and covertly caress, to gasp and ruptul'ously groan at/', etc. i The long-sutfering'Betsinda inquires if it is the thing that, is given away with, a pound of tea. Du Maurier finds more material game in t:h& inimitable Sir Gorgius Midas, who,, heeding the soft call.of contemporary culture, grandly order's "a couple of hundred feet of* books, in best bindings, for.,his library." • . .''... And the. Bu Maurian pencil revelled I-in the handsome lineaments and sumptuous furs .of that later Mrs. Leo. Hunter, Mrs. Ponsonby db Tompkyns, who ruled T.'r world with the wand of fashion as Sir Gorgius ruled h/s with a wand or gold. • - The shadow of death falls across fhe pages where two brief manly approbations aro laid upon the bier of George Eliot, and of Lord Beacimsfield. Something of the giamo'ur of the aesthete, perhaps, had been affected by the young .Disraeli; there . had been a tinsel thread' through all he wrote, from "Popanilla," through "Alrov,* to tho literary debacle of "Endymion. J But hero nothing is remembered save the briilianco and the Jewish faithfulness that endeared this favourite minister to the English Queen■ whom he made Empress. ■ And George Eliot—what' part hn.d she the strongest, unshowiest of English writing women, with the trailing cerements of that dyii])? school of poseurs and phrasemongersi ' .Nothing. But her court, was -still there,- among those' who had the mid-Victorian fibre i and purpose yet unfrittered and unbroken amid the wreckage of an ageing, changing century. ' Far on in the year, too, (hero is ,a verse for Garfield dying,. a, verso that makes the Anglo-Saxon chord vibrato that should never have been jarred between, impcrjous 'mother and proud daughter:— • So fit-Jo die—so fit (o live: Equal to either (ate. he'll prove. May heaven's high will incline the scale The way our prayers would fain avail To weight it—to long life and love. To ( return to gayer themes.—Tho good old art of-fancy lying was far from languishing .in tho eighties that lay between -Munchausen and .Do Hougeinont. .An artist who hides his fame under the title of "Tho Veteran" is moved to heroic reminiscence by the appearance of Lady (then ilrs.) Butler's picture, "Scotland for Ever."

"But how do 1 know," asks this courtlier 'Bill Adams in the style of patriarchal meander the world once had time for—'"how do I know that the whole of. Mrs. Hutler's mise-en-scene ("Bury me," said the Great Emperor in his will, "ou the"b:uiks of the Mise en Seine, among that French people whom I have humbugged so well") is historically accurate? Sir, on the eighteenth, of June, 1815, there was somebody else preeent on the battlefield' besides Wellington and Napoleon, Blucher and George IV (under the nora-de-plume—three ostrich plumes—of Colonel Pumpernickel of. the King's .German Legion). If the

Veteran was not at Waterloo I should very much like to know who wag present at that Battle of Giante. What did Napoleon say to ine just before his contemptuous order to tho Old Guard, 'Sauve qui pooh, pooh!'" Then follows some of the Veteran's delightful i'renck of Strati'ord-atte. Bowe, running something like this:— " 'Veteran, the grouse is on top. The terrible Soots Greys havo struck iny army into a three-peaked hat. It is time to cut our staff, let iis bolt.' What did Carabrouue say to me? The Guard dies/ eaid tho fiery old warrior, 'but its heart has still the largest circulation in the world.' And to whom, if you please, did Wellington utter the immortal words, '0 for the night, that I might take off my Bluchers'?" Tho stormy light of Imperialism is gone from France, and there is curiously little from over the Channel this year, savo the cartoon of a Gainbetta prinking before the glass, an/1 swelling with the adopted shibboleth of ihe old Louis. Quatorze days: "L'Etat, C'Est nioi"—a ruffling soon to be smoothed into the impersonal lines of death. Aβ with the politician, so with the litterateur. Not far from the Gambetta picture is a brief birthday note; the octogeuariau Victor Hugo has now decided, wo are told, to be known as Victor Ego.

But "Punch's" French is scattered richly over the pages, however unattached to the things of the hour. Tho stiff Saxon tongue, inept at every form of linguistic gymnastics, is a perpetual jest to John Bull's mirth-maker.

If tho ghost of Tenniel has visited tho mundane shore this decade he has had some startling answers to hie question of 1881. A black, bland Vulcan, and a King Steam with flowing- misty beard 'like Kuhleborn's in "Undine" are uneasily watching a plump, radiant baby, Ele'rtricity, sucking at a bottle of "Stored Force," and asking each other, "What will he grow to?" How many of us remember that "Punch" was tho first "Fresh. Air" godmother to London's little Cinderellas? He is grateful for what wo would call the snlall mercy of .E26S to take the children of 68 schools fov a day in tho country. ' The gentle Limerick was then in the dew.of it 3 youth, as we gather from the literary news of the time. We have condemned ourselves so often as tho papfed children; of an. age of snippets that it revives a little self-esteem when we read things like this:— There was a Romancer. Jfise Braddon, Her brain a queer notion she had on— * To boil Walter Scott ' Down to rags in a pot, Then serve for a penny, 0 mad 'un! This cardinal act of snippeteering , inspires Mr. Punch to surmise:— "That the Author of the 'Heir of Bedclyffe' is busily engaged cutting dowa the works of diaries Dickens. The first of the 6cries, admirably christened the 'Penny Pickwick,' will be issued at no distant date. We need not say that the ivreligion and the coarse fun will be eliminated. Indeed, the name of the Author of the 'Heir of Bedclyffe' assures us that nothing approaching a gleam of humour "will be permitted in a work edited by her. TOe understand that Mr. Winkle, Mr. Tupma.n, Jfr. Snodgrass, Sam Weller, and Mr. Jingle, save in. his miserable moments in Fleet Street Prison, have all been taken out, and t.hat in the interests of "morality the famous Trial Scene has also been cut out, and that tbe novel ends with the marriage of Mrs. Bard'ell and Mr. Pickwick. This is as it should be." A fine gallery of "Fancy Portra.ite" depicts many that have already passed ,io tho limbo of oblivion, and here find, there a, lingering Tithorais of to-da.y, like "the bold Brassey, who -went round tho world on a Sunbeam." Alas lit is this'yea.r of all years when ''Punch's" "Glacial Diary" is onco more appropriate, as if the fires of Arras and Messines had stirred up the Ice Demons in retaliation. The shivering diarist writes:— Feb. 3.—Tenth dav of thermometer SOdeg. below, zero. Sold my last ton of coals to a iioval Duke for .£15,000, a Scotch, moor, the Order of Ihe Garter, and five lucifer matches. To bed ia an anthracite stove. Fel). 10.—Shot, my first mastodon in Cranburne Street. Met a batch of frozen-out Peers in the Cromwell Koad. , Gave them into custody -and wrote to a Charity Organisation Society. Feb. 21.—Palaeolithic pterodactyl shooting commenced. Jlarch'2.—A Primeval Jfan eeom in Rotten. 'Bow, and subsequently put. up at the Beefsteak Club, where ho was twice blackballed. Low i.ecks etill worn at the Drawing-Itoom. "Hot , Codlins" declared , the National Anthem. This Polar Popye had: an apt, satiric pen. But the diary of all diaries begins this year, when first Tpby, M.P., gives , us that Essence of Parliament ou which England has feasted for thirty and odd years. The Diary is a canvas against which (he figures of tho (rreat and the little-great, long sorted out by time, mingle again, pass and repass. Toby experiences the blandishments of Jiord P>andolph Churchill, who wants him to join the Fourth Party:— "Balfour is a nice young man and has an uncle. But he is so lady-like in. his manners, and drives me nuwUby sitting ou his shoulder-blades, with his legs more than, half-way across the House. 1 want a fellow like you, Toby." '

But Toby replies with a certain sevcro nonchalance:— "You won't last long, Randolph, You are funny rather than witty, more impudent than important. The joke of your setting up to lead the great Conservative Party tells x by reason of its audacity, and by- the comical spectacle of a good l man like Stafford Northcoto struggling with, tho adversity of your existence." ' But the Diary for 1881 is mainly the history of Irish politics that year.- Just as Gladstone, whom "Punch's" daring pencil never caricatures, is seen iu shilling armour riding down swirling masses of "Obstruction," so in Toby's tale the old tactics of Biggar, Healy, and Pamell are rehearsed, while the counler-com-lnentary on. the perennially., "distressful" question is furnished by the bard who gives us "Lord Burleigh" mp to date. The later Cecil addresses the guileless maiden on whom Irish hopes are fixed:— To the Bill he whispers gaily. "Land Bill. I the truth .must tell: You're a nuisance, but believe me That I really love you well." She replies, that Irish maiden. "No one I respect like thee." He is Lord of ancient Hatfield. And a simnle Land Bill she. So most kindly he receives her Merely with two hours' reproof, -Leads her to the Lords' Committee. And she leaves her Gladstone's roof. "I will strive to euard and guide you. I And your beauty not impairOnly add a few amendments. Prune a section here and there. v Lot us try these little clauses Which the wealthy Lords suseest." All he tells her makes her queerer: Evermore she seems to yearn For the Commons and her Gladstone. And the moment of return. Proudly turns the Lord of Burleisth— "I have drawn your teeth, I think." But-her Gladstone looked upon her. Lying lifeless, worn, and spent. And ho said, "Your dress is raiiEcd: These must be arrears of rent." Deeply mourns the Lord of BurleiEh: No cne more, distressed than he. When the Premier moves the Commons With the Lords to disagree. And they gathered, softly round her. i Did the Commons, and they said, ' "Bring tho dress we sent her forth in. That will raise her from the dead." The first Boer War is in progress, yet "Punch" has no great time for Africa, though he muses later on the nevva that the fallen Cetewayo will visit Loudon in the spring:— How will lie come to us? What will he say to us? Who is to board him, and who is to pay? 'Will he for kingdom and liberty pray to us. And dine on raw dog in his primitive way? Shall we lodge him iu Newgate or Feast him at Claridgo's? Guard him with "Bobbies" or let him walk free? Shall wo drive him in one of her Majesty's carriaees? What, as a fact, is his status to be? But "Punch" is never in doubt on domestic reform. Murk. Lemon's forty years of mellow rule are' over, and the shortlived Shirley Brooks now sits in (bo editor's chair, but the voice is still the voice of humanity, as in 18H. Someone has been stirring tho unctuous peace of Bumble with some, inadequate Improvement Acts. And the year goes out sadly Tvil-h this boiling note of mordant Irutli: 'Midst, mansions and palaces worthy of» How pleasant, creat Bumblf, is Poverty's homo

Gehenna-liko doom seems to circlo us there Which,. seek throuch tlio world, is scarce met with elsewhere.' Foul funics Irom the Styx seem to liane o'er the spot— Its gutters that reek, and ils rafters that rotIts rain-sodden dweUines that threaten to fall, And its squalor and saddening, drearer than all. As rilled by Kins Bumble, a sweet nlaee is home!

(To he Continued.)