Mr. Punch's History of Modern England (Vol. 1-4). Charles L. Graves
they are only jeering at your battles. … The people in this country will learn to read and write; they will not let the parsons set their sums and point out their lessons, or meddle in all their business of life. And as for your outcries about infidelity and atheism, they will laugh at you (as long as they keep their temper) and mind you no more than Mumbo Jumbo.
Sound doctrine this, but it was all forgotten in the frenzy of the "No Popery" movement a few months later. Punch, in a poem on "Consolation amid Controversy," gives thanks that the days of persecution are past:—
We've now some sharpish mutual slanging,
But, Heaven be thanked, there is no hanging!
No axe, no chopping-block, no drawing,
But only just a little jawing.
There's no Jack Ketch his business plying,
People beheading, throttling, frying.
Punch, and he says it without boasting,
Does all the cutting up and roasting.
As a matter of fact, the whole of Volume xix. is dominated by the one subject. The "cutting up and roasting" of the Pope and Cardinal Wiseman, of Passionists and Puseyites, is conducted on every other page. The Pope's message was "the greatest bull ever known." In "Pontifical News" we have a series of imaginary appointments, including a Papal Lord Chancellor, miracles and conversions, winding up with the announcement that the Palace of Bedlam will be proposed as the residence of the new Primate of England. Simultaneously, burlesque rival claims are put forward on behalf of other creeds—Mohammedan, Buddhist and Brahmin.
THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE
Daring Attempt to Break Into a Church
Cardinal Wiseman
On November 4 Lord John Russell, then Prime Minister, addressed a letter to the Bishop of Durham, in which, without pronouncing definitely whether the law had been transgressed, he vigorously condemned the Papal claims as "inconsistent with the Queen's supremacy, the rights of our bishops and clergy, and with the spiritual independence of the nation as asserted even in Roman Catholic times." Lord John confessed, however, that he was less alarmed by any aggression of a foreign sovereign than by the practices of "clergymen of our own Church, who have been most forward in leading their flocks, step by step, to the verge of the precipice." In conclusion he relied with confidence on the people of England, feeling sure that the great mass of a nation "which looked with contempt on the mummeries of superstition" would be faithful to "the glorious principles and the immortal martyrs of the Reformation." Punch lost no time in improving on this text, and in the number of November 16 his "No Popery" campaign reached a climax in "A Short Way with the Pope's Puppets." Punch had no desire, he declares, to bring back the days of the hurdle, the halter, the axe and the quartering-knife. But if a Roman Catholic Pope-appointed Cardinal called upon the City of Westminster to do him, in the name of Rome, all spiritual obedience, he would "immediately seize such Cardinal, try him for high treason, and on conviction send him, in convict gray, to the Antipodes." Yet the lines just quoted on "Consolation amid Controversy" appeared a month later, while the anti-Papal crusade was still raging its way through Punch's columns! The acrimony displayed with pen and pencil was deplorable. In extenuation it can only be pleaded that Punch was following the lead of the Premier, and not misinterpreting the sentiments of a very large section of the community as exhibited in addresses to the Crown, county meetings and other demonstrations. Cardinal Wiseman's conciliatory statement, in which he maintained that the proposed change had been adopted "for the more regular administration of the Roman Catholic Church of England, and only at the request of English communicants," left Punch cold and derisive. He suggests that as a counterblast to the Pope the Queen should be prayed to create Mazzini President of Rome. In the "Bull" fight of London, in "Fashions Papal and Puseyite," in the comparison between aggressive Papists and Cuffey, the transported Chartist—very much to the advantage of the latter—in satiric comments on Romanist interpretation of history, in repulsive caricatures of slinking, intrusive priests, Punch continued to heap odium and ridicule on the Papal claims. He was more than a little wrathful with the Morning Chronicle for asserting that in the "No Popery" crusade "the tide of opinion is already turned." But the Morning Chronicle was not far out, and it is noteworthy that from this point onwards Punch's attacks were chiefly directed against Puseyites and Ritualists—such as Mr. Bennett, the vicar of St. Barnabas, Pimlico—and Tractarians, of whom he wrote:—
Rome, Rome, sweet sweet Rome,
For all us Tractarians, there's no place like Rome.
Cardinal Wiseman did not "take it lying down," but retaliated vigorously on Punch in the Dublin Review, denouncing his opponent as once facetious, but now old, drivelling, and malignant, "down to his old street occupation of playing the hangman," and ironically complimented him on the concession, in his letter to Lord John Russell, of commuting the capital punishment of offending Roman Catholic bishops to mere transportation for life. Punch promptly hit back, but he did not get the better of the exchange. Wiseman was a skilful controversialist; he was also an extremely accomplished and learned man, a considerable Orientalist, and much in request as a lecturer on social, artistic and literary topics. Of this side of the Cardinal there is no trace in Punch's pages, least of all in the cartoons and portraits, in which he is represented as a man of gross, plebeian and repulsive appearance. If, as is generally believed, Wiseman was the original of Browning's Bishop Blougram, the poet took him more seriously. Browning's portrait is certainly not flattering, but he put into the bishop's mouth a saying which probably represented the Cardinal's view of Punch accurately in the verse:—
You, for example, clever to a fault,
The rough and ready man, who write apace,
Read somewhat seldomer, think perhaps even less.
Public opinion was divided and unexpected convergences were revealed—illustrated, to take only one instance, by Punch's satirical picture of John Bright embracing Wiseman. But in the heat of the controversy Punch showed refreshing signs of good sense and good feeling, and sternly rebukes the precursors of the "Kensitites," who made a vulgar demonstration, in which the ringleader masqueraded as a mock Pope outside Wiseman's house. "To play the fool about the street on behalf of Protestantism can only discredit it." Still, the Pope and Wiseman remained the targets of Punch's obloquy for several years. Oxford he regarded as "the halfway house to Rome." Indeed, one is tempted to sum up his views in an adaptation of an old rhyme:—
Roman dictation is my vexation;
Oxford is just as bad;
Papal aggression is my obsession,
And Pusey drives me mad.
In "Roman Candles in Hampshire" we find him attacking Keble's ritual at Hursley. This was in February, 1852, and when the Tablet attributed the riots and loss of life at Stockport to the Government's proclamation "against processions, vestments, and the free exercise of the Catholic religion," charged the Ministers responsible with planning murder, and described the Queen's speech as "a vile and hypocritical document," Punch replied to the editor that "we, the mass of Englishmen, look upon your viperine expectorations with simple antipathy and disgust." A bitter cartoon on the interference of Irish priests at elections followed up this exchange of opinions; not more bitter, however, than the repeated onslaughts on Canon Moore, the Anglican pluralist registrar of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, who drew £13,000 a year, according to Punch, yet doing nothing to earn it. The controversy died down during the Crimean War, and then, four years elapsing, the Clapham Evangelicals are rebuked for the "profane vulgarity and sanctified slang" of their campaign against the Redemptionist Fathers.
THE PET PARSON
A More