["Would his right hon. friend excuse his suggesting an
analogy of the character which he bore with that which was
systematically assumed, he believed, under ancient rules, in
the Court of Rome ... when it was proposed, in consequence
of the peculiar excellence of some happy human being who
had departed this life, to raise him ... to the order of the
saints ... there was always brought into the Court a gentleman
who went ... under the name of devil's advocate. His peculiar
function was to go through the career of the proposed saint,
to seize upon and magnify every human failing or error, to
misconstrue everything that was capable of misconstruction....
That was the case of his right hon. friend."--_Mr. Gladstone
on Mr. Chamberlain._]
* * * * *
[Illustration: A TRIAL OF FAITH.
_Bertie (at intervals)._ "I USED TO----WHAT THE----DO A LOT
OF----CONF----ROWING, ONE TIME!"]
* * * * *
"THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE."
_Old Parliamentary Pictor soliloquiseth_:--
"_As when a painter, poring on a face,
Divinely thro' all hindrance finds the man
Behind it, and so paints him that his face,
The shape and colour of a mind and life,
Lives for his children, ever at its best
And fullest._"
Aye, my ALFRED, there you hit
The portrait-painter's function to a hair;
And here I hit the essential inner JOE.
And so he'll live. But "ever at his best,
And fullest?" Humph! His Brummagem retinue
Will scarce acknowledge _that_. Some call him "JUDAS,"
But that is rude, and leads to shameful rows.
Chaff is one thing and insolence another;
E'en caricature may pass, so that its impulse
Be humorous not malevolent; but coarse spleen,
Taking crude shape in truthless graphic slander,
Is boyish work,--bad manners and bad art!
And so TAY PAY transgressed the bounds of taste,
And led to shameful shindy. HEROD? Humph!
_That_ flout "lacked finish," as great DIZZY said,
_He_ pricked, not stabbed, was fencer, not brute-bruiser,
But he of Brummagem hath much to learn
In gentlemanly sword-play.
"Devil's Advocate!"
That hits him off, I think! _Not_ Devil,--no!
(Though angry blunderheads will twist it that way)
But ruthless slater of the pseudo-saint!
The pseudo-saint, I own, looks limp and floppy,
Half-fledged and awkward at the cherub _role_.
Poor saint! He's had much mauling, must have more,
Ere he assumes the nimbus, and I would
That he looked less lop-sided. Yes, my JOE!
You'll spot some "human failings" I've no doubt.
To exercise your "double million magnifyin'
Gas microscopes of hextra power" upon.
Your "wision" is not "limited" by "deal doors"
Or "flights o' stairs," or friends, or facts, or fairness,
You hardly need suggestions diabolic
From that hook-nosed attorney at your elbow
To urge you to the attack; erect, alert,
Orchid-adorned, and eye-glass-armed, you stand
The sharpest, shrewdest, most acidulous,
Dapper and dauntless "Devil's Advocate"
That ever blackened a poor "saint" all over
Othello-wise, or robbed a postulant
For canonisation of a hopeful chance
Of full apotheosis, and the right
Of putting on the nimbus.
There, 'tis finished:
And--on the whole--'twere well I had not limned it!
'Twas tempting, yes, and pleasant in the painting,
But--well, I've paid for it, and much misdoubt
If it was worth the price. Followers applaud,
I--suffer. Oh, that mob of scuffling men,
Clawing and cursing, while the gallery hissed!
_Hissed_--not a pothouse outpour in full fight,
Not clamorous larrikins, or rowdy roughs
By prize-ring or on race-course fired with drink,
But England's Commons settling--with their fists
A Constitutional Contest! Shame, O shame!
And much I fear my Art must _somewhat_ share the blame!
[_Left lamenting._
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