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In: Humour·Essays, Letters & Speeches·British Literature
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I DARESAY you will have been expecting for some time to hear from me, and it is quite true I owe you a letter. But the fact is, I'm sick of letter-writing, which, always a bore, has of late been invested with fresh terrors. The way I am being used up by our Conservative friends is perhaps a little audacious. It certainly is quite embarrassing. Whenever any of their men get into a tight place, or embark upon a difficult enterprise, they write to me for a character, quite regardless of my personal predilections, and even of my actual pledges. You will have seen a good deal of this, including the latest production touching the Aberdeen University Election, where G-SCH-N hopes to ride in on my back.
But that was nothing to the letter they got me to write about the Glasgow University Rectorship. That was, unhappily, not my first production on the subject. Months ago I was asked what I thought of R-S-B-RY as Rector, and I let them have my opinion straight. A better fellow, take him all round, there isn't in either House. Just the man to be Lord Rector of a Scotch University, if he cares to undertake the office. Since then, however, L-TT-N comes along, and with that stupendous ambition for personal distinction which I don't understand, not satisfied with being Ambassador to Paris, wants to be Lord Rector of Glasgow University. Of course they come to me to back him up,--a peculiarly hot corner to put a fellow in. It happens not only that I have published my opinion about R-S-B-RY, but all the world knows what I think of L-TT-N. Still, as the M-rk-ss says, we must keep out GL-DST-NE from Downing Street; and so we'll put in L-TT-N for Glasgow University. A hard pill to swallow, but I gulped at it, and the letter was written. But between you and me, Toby, I felt nearer being mean than I ever did in my life, and would go a long way round rather than look a Glasgow University lad in the face.
Still, it is no new experience for me to be persuaded to do things I don't like. I'm swallowing hard pills in the Conservative interest now, but many a box I've cleared out in former days to make things pleasant for GL-DST-NE. You've seen me, I daresay, reluctantly brought up to the box on the table of the House, patted, pushed, placed in position, and made to support all kinds of things, which a few months or weeks earlier I honestly believe I loathed. As I write I see GL-DST-NE nodding encouragingly as I proceed. I hear the rapturous cheers of the Radicals, delighted to find me won over. I am conscious of the chilling silence on the benches immediately behind, and I am roused to more desperate declaration by the satirical cheers of my friends on the benches opposite. I recall, as it were but yesterday, the effect H-RC-RT'S cheer used to have upon me--the strong temptation to turn round, publicly chuck up the whole business, and go back to the expression of my opinion on the particular topic before GL-DST-NE took me in hand.
That's all over now, at least in that particular development. But it's the same old thing over again in altered circumstances.
After I had consented to support GL-DST-NE'S last Land Bill, he sent me a gushing letter, in which he said that, turning over the pages of T-RT-LL-N, he had come upon a passage which might well be engraved on my tombstone. I thought at the time it was, in chronological circumstances, rather cool his preparing a tombstone for me. But that by the way. Here is the epitaph:--
"Sic vita erat; facile omnes perferre ac pati; Cum quibus erat cunque una, his sese dedere; Eorum obsequi studiis; adversus nemini, Nunquam præponens se aliis.----"
But that was, of course, before I bolted on the Home-Rule question. I fancy he has found another passage since.
I know I'm not a person of any conspicuous ability. If I had not been born a C-V-ND-SH I would never have been even a CH-PL-N. But as things fell out, I am like the boy in the middle of the balanced plank, at the end of which two others sit. According as I move to the right or to the left, one end of the plank goes up, and the other down. So the friends on either side constantly shoulder me one way or the other; which is all very well for them, but rather a nuisance to me.
It is part of this perpetual little game by which I am used for the convenience of others, that you get all the talk about my being Premier. I am not at all sure that I should not be shouldered into that by-and-by, if it were not for GR-ND-LPH. I do not pretend to see further through a ladder than an ordinary passer-by; but it is clear to me that you can never have a Government rival to the regular Liberals (observe, I do not say a Conservative Government) without GR-ND-LPH. It is no secret that I have never hankered after GR-ND-LPH, neither liking him, nor believing in him. You know what Dr. J-HNS-N said about C-LL-Y C-BB-R. I don't exactly, but it was something to the effect that "as for CIBBER, if you take away from his conversation all that he should not have said, he is a poor creature." That is a way of putting it curiously applicable to GR-ND-LPH. If you take away from his political speeches all that he should not have said, he is a poor creature, a presumptuous rattle-trap, the gamin of Conservative politics. But if I undertake the titular headship of the Conservative Party, I shall have to deal with him, and that, as they say in a circular space of which I now see too little, is not good enough.
That is my present opinion. But, bless us all! I may be talked round on this point, and used by a Party as I was when I made my first appearance in the House of Commons nearly thirty years ago, and, a mere stripling, was made the instrument of turning out a powerful Government.
The plane's broad plates of weather-beaten gold Lie shrunk and sodden in the miry way, Never around the dappled trunk to play Again with tricksy beams, and breezes bold.
Night swathes the sober light in thickening fold, Like a grey moth, webb'd in a prison grey, And the wan willow to the dying day Gleams like despair, unsolaced and untold.
Now from the village tow'r the bells begin Their sad-soul'd chiming, as a sullen boy Wails on in wantonness. Oh, to greet again Thames's bright Strand, his theatre-studded joy, The postman's frequent rap, the newsboy's din, The constant cab, the ever-circling train.
"IN THE SO-CALLED NINETEENTH CENTURY."--When giving three Bishops a little touching up in Mr. KKOWLES'S Nineteenth Century, why does the playful Professor always write "_à priori_" instead of "_a priori?_" As no one would accuse Mr. HUXLEY of falling into a "clerical error," the explanation must be that he had nothing to do with it, or didn't know any better, or his printer would have it so, or the Printer's Devil possessed him, or Bathybius got loose and played the mischief with the type. Perhaps it is we who are wrong, if so, we ask has it anything to do with the new accent which is to be used in the pronunciation of Latin? A trifling matter--but for a Professor so "acute" such an accent may be considered a "grave" mistake.
"As regards Home Rule for Ireland, I may say I am prepared to go as far as Mr. Gladstone's own words warrant," &c., &c.--_Times_, Nov. 9.
Joe, the Incomplete Angler (to himself), "I THINK I'LL CATCH 'EM WITH THIS!"]
It was all very well, when afar from the "swim," With tackle unready, and plans rather dim, To go in for splashes and plunges. Though, whether Lord S-L-SB-RY thought it so well, I am not quite assured. How the papers did yell At my whirls, and my whisks, and wild lunges!
But now, on the spot, with the fish all about, The Waltonian rôle, there is not the least doubt, Befits a diplomatist Angler. I must not dance war-dances, shy heavy stones, Or talk in the strident stentorian tones Of a partisan public-house wrangler.
I frighten the fish with my shindy? No, no! I will show there's a fisherman's tact about Joe. I make a fiasco? No, thankee! I'll be as discreet as Piscator could wish, In a style will enchant the Canadian fish, And utterly ravish the Yankee.
But now, as to bait? Well, ahem!--yes, I fear, The Gladstonian minnow is popular here,-- It's a bait I abominate wholly. And yet--if I fish as I fancy--I feel I perhaps may go home with no fish in my creel,-- And that would be most melancholy!
I am sure my own patent assortment of flies Ought to make any fish in the universe rise; My spoon-bait is terribly killing In some Irish waters. But here,--well, my hook Must be hidden with something from Hawarden's old book, Though to use it I own I'm unwilling.
Ha! ha! Yes, I have it. I've made up a bait That some will think Old, and that some will think Great, And all will deem Grand--if it nicks 'em. It's green--shot with orange; the fins have a look Of a pair of big collars. Great Scott, what a hook! Yes, this, I am certain, must fix 'em.
It is--and it isn't--the very same bait That the Nottingham fellows--as anglers so great-- Consider the pink of perfection. Why, WILLIAM himself might well capture a dish With this bait; did he use it, I'm sure, not a fish Would so much as think of rejection.
Now, my Starred-and-striped beauties! Canadian pets! Crossed-Irish, so doubtful of hooks and of nets! I drop it in--so! Won't it rummage 'em? Some sneer at my angling. How savage they'll be When the secret of my great success they will see Is Gladstonian bait--_à la_ Brummagem!
By GEORGE!--A first-rate speech was made by the new Patent Commander-in-Chief GEORGE RANGER, Duke of CAMBRIDGE, at the dinner of Volunteer Sergeants, Justice COTTON,--Gun-Cotton on this occasion--in the Chair. "I have always stated," said the Brave old Chief, "that the best way to avoid war, is to be so strong that nobody would think of attacking you." Hear! Hear! F. M. Punch likes this sort of strong language from GEORGE RANGER, and hopes that His Royal Highness will be made Patent President of the International Arbitration Court.
In consequence of the great success attending the sale of Mr. GLADSTONE'S "Chips," the Grand Old Chief is in future to be known as "the Last of the Ochipaways!" But he refuses to bury the hatchet.
O'BRIEN the thin his own breeches would wear, And have nothing to do with the Government pair. "If my patriot legs they those pants would thrust in, They must do it themselves," said O'BRIEN the thin.
On the 22nd, the [OE]dipus Tyrannus is to be produced at Cambridge. One of the members of the A. D. C. wanted to bring out an old burlesque on [OE]dipus at the Club Theatre on the same night, but Mr. J. W. CLARKE of Trinity, General Manager and University Entrepreneur, immediately objected that it would be irreverent to turn the awful story of [OE]dipus and Jocasta into a jest, "For," said he, "you certainly cannot 'joke as ta' that." The Master of Trinity has summoned the Fellows to consider what ought to be done to the other Fellow.
A NEW LIFE.--Mr. JOSEPH HATTON, author of Clytie, and quite recently of The Gay World, a novel which has created a considerable sensation, is coming out as the biographer of "Friend TOOLE." Author and Actor have been about together a great deal lately; in fact so much so, as to give rise to the report that Mr. J. L. TOOLE was dreadfully afraid of catching cold, as he was never seen anywhere without his Hat on.
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