Mr. Punch's History of Modern England. Volume 3 of 4.—1874-1892. Graves Charles Larcom
Cæsar's simulacrum, seen by day,
Scarce envious Casca's self would stoop to slay,
And mounting mediocrity, once o'erthrown,
Need fear – or hope – no dagger save its own.
The Kaiser's visit to attend the Naval Review at Spithead is treated in a somewhat jocular and cavalier spirit in the cartoon, "Visiting Grandmamma": —
Grandma Victoria: "Now, Willie dear, you've plenty of soldiers at home; look at these pretty ships– I'm sure you'll be pleased with them!"
Mistrust of the Kaiser
The Kaiser is shown with a toy spade making sand castles for his soldiers. Yet these soldiers were giving ground for anxiety – witness the cartoon in January on the armed peace of Europe with Peace holding out the olive in one hand, with the other on a sword hilt. The inevitable verses allude to the "truculent Kaiser" and evince mistrust of one who comes in such equivocal guise. Punch credited Bismarck with exerting a restraining influence on the warlike activities of the Triple Alliance. He showed him in the spring playing Orpheus to this Cerberus, and lulling it to sleep. But the Kaiser inspired no such confidence, and at the close of the year he is shown posing as a peacemaker but preparing for war – fondling the dove on his hand, while behind is the eagle, with bayonets for feathers, feeding on the Army estimates.
Another sovereign whom Punch failed to read with the same penetration was King Leopold II of the Belgians. On the occasion of the International Anti-Slavery Congress at Brussels in November, 1889, Punch, while very properly applauding the occasion as tending to the overthrow of "the demon of the shackle and the scourge," acclaimed Leopold II as a "magnanimous King." Cecil Rhodes, some years later, after an interview with the same monarch, said that he felt just as if he had been spending the morning in the company of the Devil.
Punch, like other critics, was happier in dealing with the dead than the living, and the death of John Bright in March inspired a generous though discriminating tribute to the memory and achievements of "Mercy's sworn militant, great Paladin of Peace": —
For Peace, and Freedom, and the People's right,
Based on unshaken Law, he stood and fought;
If not with widest purview, yet with sight
Single, sagacious, unobscured by aught
Of selfish passion or ambitious thought;
Seeing day's promise in the darkest night,
Hope for the weak 'midst menaces of Might:
Careless of clamour as of chance-blown dust,
Stern somewhat, scornful oft, and with the stark
Downright directness of a Roundhead's stroke,
Who drew a Heaven-dedicated sword
Against the foes of Freedom's sacred ark,
The friends of the oppressor's galling yoke,
All fierce assailants of the Army of the Lord.
These memorial verses, however, if I may say so without incurring the charge of unfilial disrespect – suffer throughout this period from prolixity. The writer says excellently, but diffusely, in ninety lines what is summed up in the majestic quatrain of Scott which stands at their head: —
Now is the stately column broke,
The beacon-light is quench'd in smoke,
The trumpet's silver sound is still,
The warder silent on the hill!
Dropping the Pilot
Mr. Gladstone's golden-wedding day in July furnished the theme for friendly and affectionate congratulations to a couple who stood for "Darby and Joan" in excelsis. Mr. Gladstone's domestic happiness was unclouded, but he was subjected to a painful ordeal in 1890 by the disclosures of the Parnell-O'Shea divorce case and the split in the Irish Party which followed. Punch supported Gladstone in his breach with the Irish leader. He is shown in one cartoon refusing to give his hand to Parnell: —
The hand of Douglas is his own
And never shall in friendly grasp
The hand of such as Marmion clasp.
Gladstone is acquitted of "mere Pharisaic scorn." But an element bordering on the ridiculous enters into the succeeding cartoon of Gladstone and Morley as the Babes in the Wood, while Parnell and Healy as the wicked uncles are seen fighting in the background. The further developments of the struggle are shown in an adaptation of Meissonier's famous "La Rixe," in which Parnell is held back by Dillon and O'Brien from Healy, who is restrained by Justin McCarthy. Parnell's sun was setting in gloom and storm, but a greater than Parnell was passing from the stage of high politics in 1890. For this was the year of the dismissal of Bismarck by the Kaiser, commemorated in the issue of March 29 by Tenniel's famous "Dropping the Pilot" cartoon. Punch saw no good in the change; he indulges in ominous speculations. Was Bismarck animated by faith or fear of the future in quitting his post? Would the new Pilot strike on sunken shoals or "wish on the wild main, the old Pilot back again"? The Kaiser's gifts are seen to be no solace for the wound of dismissal. As a matter of fact, Bismarck never used the ducal title of Lauenburg conferred on him. In little more than a month the Kaiser is shown as the Enfant Terrible of Europe, "rocking the boat," while France, Italy, Austria and Spain all appeal to him to be more careful and not tempt fate. The Kaiser's dabbling in industrial problems, in the hope of propping his rule by concessions to Socialism, meets with no sympathy. But a more serious ground for discontent arose over the cession of Heligoland. Punch waxes indignantly sarcastic over Lord Salisbury's deal in East Africa by which Germany gained Heligoland as a bonus. It was "given away with a pound of tea"; Salisbury's weakness was worse than Gladstone's scuttle and surrender, and Punch ruefully recalls the verses he printed nineteen years earlier: —
On June 24, 1871, Mr. Punch sang, à propos of the Germans desiring to purchase Heligoland:
Though to rule the waves, we may believe they aspire,
If their Navy grows great, we must let it;
But if one British island they think to acquire,
Bless their hearts, don't they wish they may get it?
And they have got it!
The Surrender of Helgoland
But the fashionable world went on its way unheeding. Du Maurier satirized this indifference in a picture in which one lady asks another: "Where is this Heligoland they're all talking so much about?" and her friend replies, "Oh, I don't know, dear. It's one of the places lately discovered by Mr. Stanley."
Russia, it may be added, also incurred Punch's censure in 1890, the legalized persecution of Jews forming the theme of a prophetic cartoon in August, in which the shade of Pharaoh warns the Tsar, as he stands with a drawn sword and his foot on a prostrate Hebrew: "Forbear! That weapon always wounds the hand that wields it."
In 1891 the new "orientations" of the European Powers attract a good deal of notice. The Franco-Russian entente is symbolized by the Bear making France dance to the tune of the Russian loan. Punch's distrust of Russia – semi-Asiatic and half-Tartar – dated from the 'forties. The tightening of the Franco-Russian Entente in 1891 gave him no pleasure. He quotes with manifest approval the comment of a daily paper on the infatuation of France: —
The success of a Russian Loan is not dearly purchased by a little effusion, which, after all, commits Russia to nothing. French sentiment is always worth cultivating in that way, because unlike the British variety, it has a distinct influence upon investments.
The cartoon of President Carnot embracing, and being hugged by, the Bear was founded on an episode at Aix-les-Bains where he kissed a little girl in Russian dress who gave him a bouquet, saying: "J'embrasse la Russie." Punch's verses represent Carnot as fully conscious of