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Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Volume 103 September 10 1892 by Various
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SONGS OF SOCIETY;
Dear Lyre, your duty now you know! If one would sing with grace and glow Songs of Society, One must not dream of fire, or length, Or vivid touch, or virile strength, Or great variety.
Among the Muses of Mayfair A Bacchanal with unbound hair, And loosened girdle, Would be as purely out of place As Atalanta in a race O'er hedge or hurdle:
Our Muse, dear Lyra, must be trim, Must not indulge in vagrant whim, Of voice or vesture. Boudoir decorum will allow No gleaming eye, no glowing brow, No ardent gesture.
Society, which is our theme, Is like a well-conducted stream Which calmly ripples. We sing the World where no one feels Too pungently, or hates, or steals, Or loves, or tipples.
And therefore, though Society feel The Proletariat's heavy heel Its kibe approaching, Some luxuries yet are left to sing, The Opera-Box, the Row, the Ring, And Golf, and Coaching.
Not e'en the Socialistic scare The dandyish and the debonair Has quite demolished; Whilst Privilege hath still a purse, There's yet a chance for flowing verse, And periods polished.
If IBSEN, BELLAMY, and GEORGE, Raise not the boudoir critic's gorge Beyond all bearing, Light lyrics may she not endure, On social ills above her cure, Below her caring?
Muse, with Society we may toy Without impassioned grief or joy, Or boisterous merriment; May sing of Sorrow with a smile; At least, it may be worth our while To try the experiment.
QUITE THE TREBLE GLOUCESTER CHEESE!--The Three Quires' Festival this week. Do the Three Quires appear in the Cathedral? If so, as each quire means twenty-four sheets, there'll he quite a "Surplice Stock."
MORE REASONS FOR STOPPING IN TOWN.
CRICKETERS WHO OUGHT TO BE GOOD HANDS AT PLAYING A TIE.--"The Eleven of Notts."
UN-BROCKEN VOWS.
THE MENAGERIE RACE.
LADY GAY'S SELECTIONS.
DEAR MR. PUNCH,
To the mast-head high we nail the Burge, When the north wind snores its dismal dirge! In the trough of the sea with a mighty splurge, The quiv'ring Yacht beats down the surge, And weathers the Warner Light!
Yours devotedly, LADY GAY.
ST. LEGER SELECTION.
STUDIES IN THE NEW POETRY.
IS LUNCH WORTH LUNCHING?
Is Lunch worth lunching? Go, dyspeptic man, Where in the meadows green the oxen munch. Is it not true that since our land began The horn?d ox hath given us steaks for lunch?
Steaks rump or otherwise, the prime sirloin, Sauced with the stinging radish of the horse. Beeves meditate and die; we pay our coin, And though the food be often tough and coarse,
We eat it, we, through whose bold British veins Bold British hearts drive bubbling British blood. No true-born Briton, come what may, disdains To eat the patient chewers of the cud.
Or seek the uplands, where of old Bo Peep lost all her fleecy flocks; There happy shepherds tend their grazing sheep .
Ay, surely it would need a heart of flint To watch the blithe lambs caper o'er the lea, And, watching them, refrain from thoughts of mint, Of new potatoes, and the sweet green pea.
Is Lunch worth lunching? The September sun Makes answer "Yes;" no longer must thou lag. Forth to the stubble, cynic; take thy gun, And add the juicy partridge to thy bag.
Out in the fields the keen-eyed pigeons coo; They fill their crops, and then away they fly. Pigeons are sometimes passable in stew, And always quite delicious in a pie.
Or pluck red-currants on some summer day, Then take of raspberries an equal part, Add cream and sugar--can mere words convey The luscious joys of this delightful tart?
Is Lunch worth lunching? If such cates should fail, Go out of country bread a solid hunch, Pile on it cheese, wash down with country ale, And, faring plainly, yet enjoy thy lunch.
Yea, this is truth, the lunch of knife and fork, The pic-nic lunch, spread out upon the earth, Lunches of beef, bread, mutton, veal, or pork, All, all, without exception all, are worth!
NINETY-NINE OUT OF A HUNDRED CANDIDATES MUST BE "PILLED."--The Living of "Easington-with-Liverton, Yorkshire, worth ?600 per annum," is vacant. Is it in the gift of the celebrated Dr. COCKLE? or of Dr. CARTER, of Little-Liverpill-Street fame?
PLAYFUL HEIFERVESCENCE AT HAWARDEN.
SONGS OUT OF SEASON.
It's a pleasure worth the danger, Deems your gorgeous DE LA PLUCHE, To become the main arranger Of a drive in your barouche; And your Coachman, honest JOE too, When approached thereon by JEAMES, Doesn't say exactly "no," to Such inviting little schemes.
JEAMES has doffed them "'orrid knee-things;" Plush gives way to tweed and socks; And a hamper with the tea-things, Fills his place upon the box; With MARIA, JANE, and HEMMA, He is playing archest games, And they're in the sweet dilemma, Who shall make the most of JAMES.
Mr. COACHMAN smokes his pipe on His accustomed throne of pride, And, through driving, keeps an eye 'pon All the revellers inside. Mrs. COACHMAN there is seated; Children twain are on her lapped, Who alternately are treated, And alternately are slapped.
THE PALLIUM AND ARCHIEPISCOPAL OATH CONTROVERSY IN THE "TIMES."--No wonder this is a very dry subject, when they've got such a strong THURST-ON among them. Our advice, by way of moistening it, is, "Drop it!"
A NIGHTLY CHEVALIER.
Music-Hall Artists are not by any means "Fixed Stars." During the evening they manage to accomplish the somewhat paradoxical-sounding feat of shining in the same parts, yet in different places and at different times, appearing everywhere with undiminished brilliancy. The Student of the Music-Hall Planetary system, has only by observation to ascertain the exact time and place of the appearance of his favourite bright particular Star, and then to pay his money, take his choice between sitting and standing, and like a true astronomer, he will--glass in hand, a strong glass too,--await the great event of the evening, calmly and contentedly.
If the Wirtuous Westender wandering down the Strand, after having on some previous nights exhausted the Pavilion and the elaborately gorgeous Variety Shows given at the Empire and Alhambra, seeks for awhile a resting-place wherein to enjoy his postprandial cigar, and be amused, if such an one will drop into the classic Tivoli, he will find excellent entertainment, that is as long as their present programme holds the field. The Holborn and the Oxford may delight him on other nights, for it seems that much the same Stars shine all around; but for the present, taking Tivoli as synonymous with Tibur, he may, with Horation humour, say to himself :--
"Holborn Tibur amem ventosus, Tivoli Holborn,"
NOVEL QUARTETTE.--At the next Hereford Festival there will be performed a concerted piece by four Short Horns.
THE POOR VIOLINIST.--AN EPISODE, IN THE STYLE OF STERNE.
"Indeed, EUGENIUS," replied YORICK, "it is extremely touching. I protest I never read, or hear it, without emotion."
"The violin," pursued EUGENIUS, "most sensitive, and, as it were, soulful of human instruments, lends itself, with particular aptness, to the purposes of literary pathos."
"Dear Sensibility!" said I, "source inexhausted of all that is precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows!"
"It were well," continued YORICK, drily, "if it were also the source inexhausted of more that is quick in our sympathy, and practical in our beneficence. It is scarcely in the columns of the daily news-sheet that Sensibility usually seeks its much-sought stimulus. And yet but lately, in the corner of my paper, I encountered a piteous story that 'dear Sensibility' might deliciously have luxuriated in. I protest 'twas as pathetic as those of MARIA LE FEVRE, or LA FLEUR. It was headed, "Sad Death of a Well-known Violinist."
"Prithee, dear YORICK, let me hear it," cried EUGENIUS.
"'Twas but the prosaic report of a Coroner's Inquest," pursued YORICK. "Sensibility would probably have 'skipped' the sordid circumstance. 'FREDERICK MARTIN, aged seventy-two, a well-known Violinist, and Professor of Music, formerly a member of the orchestra of the Italian Opera at Her Majesty's and Covent Garden Theatres,' found life too hard for him. That is all. 'The deceased, a bachelor.'--Heaven help him!--'had of late been afflicted with deafness, which hindered his pursuit of his profession, and' 'he was recently in straitened circumstances, but he was too proud and independent to ask or accept assistance.' The old friend, Mr. LEWIS CHAPUY, Comedian, had 'frequently offered him hospitalities, which he never accepted.' Offered him hospitalities! Worthy comedian! In faith, EUGENIUS, 'tis delicately worded. True 'Sensibility' here, supplemented by practical sympathy. Both, alas! unavailing. Somewhat of the doggedly independent spirit of the boot-rejecting Dr. JOHNSON in this poor deaf violinist apparently. Verily, EUGENIUS, the story requires but the 'decorative art' of the literary sentimentalist to make it moving, even to the modish. The ingeniously emotional historian of LA FLEUR would have made much of it."
"'Tis short and simple," responded YORICK. "'The afflicted Violinist' occupied a room at 34, Compton Street, Brunswick Square, in which he lived alone. He suffered from lumbago, as well as from a proud spirit and a broken heart. He had a dread of 'coming to the Workhouse.' Spectral fear which haunts ever the sensitive and poverty-stricken! Unreasonable? Perhaps. But not the less agonising. What comfort may Political Economy and an admirable Poor Law yield to proud-spirited victims of poverty?"
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