As a symptom of the general speeding-up of life, and the resort to

short cuts of all sorts in speech, as well as in action, one may

note the appearance of a group of new words, of which "leaderette"

and "sermonette" were the most notable until the arrival, many years

later, of the "Suffragette." With the arrival of the 'nineties another

formidable phrase, _fin-de-siècle_, sprang into prominence, and soon

achieved a popularity that exasperated _Punch_ beyond the bounds of

endurance:--

WANTED, A WORD-SLAYER

_Fin-de-siècle_! Ah, that phrase, though taste spurn it, I

Fear, threatens staying with us to eternity.

Who _will_ deliver

Our nerves, all a-quiver,

From that pest-term, and its fellow, "modernity"?

[Illustration: WHAT OUR ARTIST (THE INTENSELY PATRIOTIC ONE) HAS TO PUT

UP WITH!

_Just as he is pointing out to Monsieur Anatole Duclos, the Parisian

journalist, how infinitely the English type of female beauty

(especially amongst our Aristocracy) transcends that of France, or

any other nation--who should come up from the beach but Lady Lucretia

Longstaff and her five unmarried daughters!_

--"And as for those idiotic old French caricatures of les Anglaises,

with long gaunt faces and long protruding teeth and long flat

feet--why, good heavens! my dear Duclos, the type doesn't even

_exist_!"]

_Punch_ was much preoccupied with "modernity" and its numerous

manifestations in these years, and his preoccupation took the form

of a comprehensive series of "Modern Types," to which reference has

already been made. Some of them will appear anything but modern to

the Georgian reader, and, indeed, are not so much new as recurrent

types--for example, the precocious undergraduate who gambles, drinks,

fails in his schools, emigrates and dies miserably. The "Young

Guardsman" is an eminently conventional portrait of a type which

disappeared in the Great War, and is almost a libel on a Brigade whose

social prestige is of infinitely less importance than its magnificent

record of heroic achievement. The "Average Undergraduate" is in the

main a handsome tribute to the public school system. He is not an

Admirable Crichton, a Blue or a Scholar, but a decent fellow, truthful

and ingenuous, who will always be a "useful member of the community."

The tone of the whole series, however, is very far from ministering

to national complacency. The bitterest of all these portraits is that

of "The Adulated Clergyman," an effeminate, self-indulgent, insincere

and unwholesome impostor, at all points a base variant of the type

satirized in Thackeray's fashionable preacher, Charles Honeyman.

_Punch's_ handling of social pests and evils throughout this period

is decidedly pessimistic. The frank verses on divorce by consent--or

rather collusion--in 1886 are a legitimate criticism enough. But at

times he quite overshoots the mark, as, for example, in the acrimonious

and grotesque tirade against the House of Lords, published in December,

1883, under the heading of "The Speaker: A Handbook to Ready-made

Oratory." After giving a few notes on the personal appearance of some

"titled types," the writer continues:--

There is a motto which every Peer is supposed to adopt as a rule of

life--"_noblesse oblige_." It is presumed that every bearer of a

hereditary title, carrying with it a right to receive numberless Blue

Books published at the expense of the Public, is willing, in virtue

of his position, to please everyone. Now it gratifies the community

at large to hear a Peer talking in public, and, as some Peers cannot

talk in public, it may be as well to give the specimen of the sort

of speech which would cause unlimited satisfaction in all quarters

but the highest. Of course, the imaginary speaker is a myth--a

foolish but frank Lord, with the courage of his opinions. Should

such a person, however, be found, there would be no doubt about his

popularity--again, in certain circles. It must be remembered that, as

the speaker would be a Peer addressing Commoners, all his Lordship's

remarks would be received with the deepest approval.

[Sidenote: "_Noblesse Oblige_!"]

[Illustration: FLOWERS OF MODERN SPEECH AND SENTIMENT

OUR GALLANT COLONEL: "And where and how have _you_ spent the

Summer, Miss Golightly?"

MISS GOLIGHTLY: "Oh, I sat in a punt with my favourite man--a

quite too _delicious_ man!"]

Noble Orator (rising at the right of the Chairman).

Gentlemen--(enthusiastic applause)--I am sure I must thank you

for the honour you have conferred upon me. ("No, no!") Yes, it

is an honour, because I believe I am verily the most uneducated

dolt in all this brilliant assembly. (Cheers.) I am, indeed: and,

although a great many of my peers--perhaps the majority--are highly

respectable, still in my class you will discover many who resemble me

in nearly every particular. (Applause.) As a lad I refused to learn

anything, and could scarcely spell my name--certainly it was a long

one--at fifteen. (Great cheering.) I was a dunce at school, and a

cad at the University. (Frantic enthusiasm.) It is my great pride

to remember that at this latter seat of learning I had the honour

to burn half the College library, and to screw up the door to my

tutor's apartments. (Roars of laughter.) But from this you must not

imagine that I am fond of squandering. On the contrary, I audit my

own butcher's book, and superintend the store-cupboard of my Lady's

housekeeper. (Cheers.) I never go by a cab when I can take an omnibus,

and if asked for a shilling by a genuinely starving beggar, would,

after mature consideration, advance him a halfpenny on account,

chargeable on approved security. (Cheers.) And yet I am very rich,

enormously rich. (Renewed applause.) Many of the slums of the greatest

city in the world belong to me. (Cheers.) And although slums are not

pretty to look at or live in, they are good ones to pay. (Shouts of

enthusiasm.) From this slight confession you may imagine that I am

ignorant, vicious, mean, and grasping. (Prolonged cheering.) Well, I

am all these, and more, for I am an ass into the bargain. (Thunders of

applause.) Besides this, I have no birth to boast of. A hundred years

ago or so, my great-grandfather swept a crossing, and his wife dealt

in hare-and rabbit-skins. But what matter the past when we have the

present before us! I am crassly ignorant and intolerably offensive,

but I am a Lord. (Enormous enthusiasm.) And, as a Lord, I can give you

what laws I please--("You can; you can!")--or never go near the House

of Lords from one year's end to another. I generally adopt the latter

course, except when the interest of my own class, or the gratification

of a fad, cause me to perform my highly responsible duties. On these

occasions, however, I take care that I represent none but myself. (A

storm of applause.) Under these circumstances, as I am bored out of

my life, and have just enough sense to see that I am a nuisance to

everyone, inclusive of myself, I am sure you are glad that you are not

me. "_Noblesse oblige_," I want to console you! (The noble speaker

here resumed his seat amidst the wildest enthusiasm.)

Such a speech as the above would, no doubt, reconcile many listeners

to cease to envy the Peerage, the more especially if they happened to

be either Baronets of James the First's creation or members of the

oldest (not the mushroom) county families.

[Sidenote: _Punch's Pessimism_]

The speaker was "imaginary," though the burning down half a College

library was a true bill, and the ringleader in this exploit afterwards

attained high rank as a politician. But these composite portraits are

seldom satisfactory, and in this instance the resultant monstrosity

ceases to be representative. The House of Lords was not exclusively

composed of black sheep at any time, and on the whole more dangerous

scoundrels have made their way into the elected House. But here, as so

often happens, _Punch_ provides the antidote to his own bane. In 1886,

under the heading "A Radical Snob," he reprints what Thackeray wrote in

his own pages just forty years earlier:--

"Perhaps, after all, there's no better friend to Conservatism than

your outrageous Radical Snob. When a man preaches to you that all

Noblemen are tyrants, that all Clergymen are hypocrites or liars,

that all Capitalists are scoundrels, banded together in an infamous

conspiracy to deprive the people of their rights, he creates a

wholesome revulsion of feeling in favour of the abused parties, and a

sense of fair play leads the generous heart to take a side with the

object of unjust oppression.

"The frantic dwarf ... becomes a most wicked and dangerous Snob when

he gets the ear of people more ignorant than himself, inflames them

with lies, and misleads them into ruin."

Yet, when all allowance has been made for inconsistency and

extravagance, we cannot deny that a strongly marked vein of discontent

and dissatisfaction--often too well-grounded--with the "scheme of

things in general" runs through the pages of _Punch_ throughout these

years, culminating in a dismal explosion of pessimism in March, 1884,

over the decadence, the degeneracy and the vulgarity of the age:--

THE "ZEIT-GEIST"

Oh, for the Muse that laughed and stung

On _Gulliver's_ indignant tongue!

Curt was his speech and fierce and strong,

In lofty scorn of Cant and Wrong,--

And small indeed the times that teach

Weakness of grip for strength of speech,

Craving once more that Muse to fire

The chords of Satire's slackened lyre!

Oh, little day of little men,

What themes invite the mocker's pen!

What rush for wealth at any cost,

Honour and Health defied and lost;

What blatant parodies of Fame

(That hardly won and noble name),

Dragged in the sickly spectral lee

Of sallow Notoriety;

Ambition's highest aim to quaff

The rinsings of a paragraph,

And Life's whole purpose sunk and spent

To furnish an advertisement!

Oh, for some Juvenalian verse

Thy sound and fury to rehearse,

While Indignation pours the strain

Which Nature may desire in vain.[9]

Where'er the stifled spirit fly,

What sights and sounds obscure the sky!

The Statesman's cut-and-dried abuse,

And frothy violence turned to use,

Dead Christian hatreds spurred to life,

To serve the ends of party strife;

The Lawyer's pæans in his fees;

The Actor's noisy juggleries,

As every little journal tells

Where last he shook the cap and bells;

The Critic in his newest dress,

_Sans_ scholarship or kindliness,

With no credentials under Heaven

For worthy work or asked or given,

And nagging, after Insult's wont,

At those who "do," for those who don't;

Patriots by bravos hired and sung,

For bright sword carrying fish-fag's tongue.

The Poetaster's mixture, made

Of pitch and darkness for a trade;

The Man of Science, self-crowned King

Of Learning and of everything,

Serenely squatting on his throne,

Fogged with conundrums of his own,

And probing with his two-foot rod

His muddy substitutes for God,--

While tambourines and banjos raise

The Hymn of Noise for that of Praise;

Our very island's sea-girt rock

Risked to be land-bound into "stock";

Ay, even Woman's tarnished crown

Hawked through the windows of the town,

And all our sires held first and best

In pufferies of all sizes dressed,

Till England watch, through England's Press,

The fall of English manliness!

Vexed soul, seek out some other shore;

Houses are castles here no more;

Vain in the penny-age to fly

From all the penny-trumpetry:

Or hide thee from the watchful zeal

Of those who serve the weekly meal

For jaded gluttons, keen to gloat

On savoury sauce of Anecdote.

Yet let nor cook nor eaters rue,

The eaten seem to like it too,

For in Society's new game

Cooks, food, and eaters are the same,

And Fashion, spider-like, supplies

Her self-spun web to catch her flies!

Thou boastful "Spirit of the Time,"

Wake prose itself to angry rhyme!

Soon shall the dark forbid the light

To any hand with power to write,

And the new myriad scribbling-race,

Like locusts shroud all Sense's face,

Rushing (where angels are not seen)

Into the _Prigs' Own Magazine_,

While Upper-Tens profusely scrawl

In grammar from the servants' hall,

Till Ink itself shall blush to tint

Nothing but amateurs in print,

And the true child of letters learn

He has no space to breathe or turn,

And scorn accept the Century's plan,

That all may write, save those who can.

I turn me, wearied, at my desk,

From the last "thinker's" last burlesque

The last Agnostic's windy plea

That none knows anything, but he,

In English carefully destroyed

To hide his meaning's outer void;

And, bowing to the wisdoms old,

Read simpler lessons writ in gold:

And would but in a single word

The "Spirit of the Age" be heard,

Let him take up his glass and see

His image this--Vulgarity.

MARIUS.

[Footnote 9: "_Si Natura negat, facit indignatio versum._"]

[Sidenote: _The Spirit of the Time_]

What a list it is! The quest of notoriety, blatant advertisement,

party rancour and sectarian strife, forensic greed, mummer-worship,

incompetent and ungenerous criticism, fleshly poetry, the arrogance

of science, "Corybantic Christianity," tarnished womanhood, the decay

of manly fibre, prying journalism, amateurism in letters, windy

Agnosticism, with vulgarity enthroned as high priestess of the age!

Modern Juvenals, when they are Jeremiahs into the bargain, are not

exhilarating companions. Here _Punch_ saw life in England neither

steadily nor whole, and made the mistake, not surprising in a Londoner,

of confounding the extravagances, the eccentricities and the vices of

London coteries and cliques, and, above all, of her idle rich, with the

tone and temper of the nation at large. "Smart" London Society did not

represent England or even London. But _Punch_ spoke with many voices,

and in the "Voces Populi," with which, towards the end of this period,

Mr. Anstey had begun to refresh and rejoice the hearts of his readers,

you will find an agreeable corrective of the unqualified pessimism

of "Marius." The "people" whose "voices" are recorded were often

ridiculous, vulgar and semi-educated, but they were not corrupt or

degenerate. Twenty years later the extravagances castigated by "Marius"

were even more pronounced, but were confined to the same limited though

highly advertised circles. Yet many of those who seemed most wedded to

self-indulgence were capable of a noble regeneration in the hour of

their country's need. And outside these circles there was, in 1884, as

at a later date, a great if unobtrusive throng of men and women who

stood in the authentic line of the heroes and heroines of the past,

only waiting for an opportunity to prove themselves the inheritors of

their spirit.

RECREATION, SPORT, AND PASTIME

The second half of the nineteenth century was not only notable for

the organization of Labour. It was also the age of the organization

of Recreation, the age of Exhibitions. The Exhibition of 1851 was a

serious affair in which entertainment was subordinated to the demands

of Commerce, Industry and Science. The series of Exhibitions which

marked the decade of the 'eighties, though their names and their avowed

aims were serious, practical or scientific, were run with an ever

increasing tendency to emphasize the spectacular element, to cater for

the amusement and entertainment (in all senses) of the public.

_Punch_ summarized this tendency happily enough in the phrase that he

applied to the possibilities of the Imperial Institute--"Commerce _v._

Cremorne." He had already deplored the decline of institutions, such

as the Crystal Palace, which beginning with high educational aims,

had come to rest their popular appeal on dangerous acrobatics and

freak performances. He was even more outspoken in his comments on the

degeneracy of the Aquarium at Westminster in 1879 and 1880.

References to "Zazel," the acrobat who was nightly shot from a cannon,

and to Zazel's successor, "Zæo," abound in protests not only against

the enterprising manager, and the cynical indifference of the Home

Secretary, but above all against the public who went simply because

of the risk, the chance of seeing accidents. "Zazel's" performance,

as a matter of fact, was not as dangerous as it appeared; it proved

a theme of fruitful burlesque on the part of Nellie Farren at the

Gaiety Theatre; and when it was rumoured that Zazel was going to marry

an Archdeacon, _Punch_ did not refrain from a ribald allusion to her

passing "out of the mouth of a Canon into the arms of an Archdeacon."

At the same time he was equally critical of the ostentatiously

labelled "Entertainments for the People" organized as a sort of

compromise between High Art, the Penny Reading and the Variety

Stage. The efforts of the Kyrle Society to "bring Beauty home to the

working-classes" left him cold or facetiously intolerant of patronizing

preciosity. So, too, the performances at the Victoria Coffee Music-Hall

in 1881 are damned with less than faint praise in a criticism put into

the mouth of one of the class they were intended to reach, on the

grounds that they were not only teetotal, but third-rate music-hall,

and dull at that. The whole thing was spoiled by an atmosphere of

conscious edification and of condescending patronage.

_Punch's_ attitude to the series of annual exhibitions which began

with the "Fisheries" in 1883, underwent many phases. It began in hope

and mild praise, but ended in disillusion, as the side-shows, _al

fresco_ entertainments, bands and illuminations, and the everlasting

"Welcome Club," became the stereotyped and dominating attractions of

each successive show. _Punch_ wanted the site of the Fisheries made

into a permanent Public Garden with a shilling gate money. But while he

applauded the good intention of the promoters, he represented the West

End fishmonger as "none the worse for it": the price of fish had not

come down as it was thought it would.

[Sidenote: _Exhibition Absurdities_]

The "Healtheries" and "Inventories" followed in 1884 and 1885, and

_Punch's_ verdict was that "The Fisheries and the Healtheries were

very much the same, especially the Inventories." The Colonial and

Indian Exhibition (the "Colinderies" as _Punch_ christened it) in 1886

prompts the usual mock-serious account of the opening ceremony. Some

distrust was excited by the suggestion of the Prince of Wales that

the Exhibition should be given a permanent existence as an Imperial

Institute, to be founded as a Jubilee Memorial, and _Punch_ gave his

blessing to a proposal which was carried into effect. The subsequent

history of the Imperial Institute affords an interesting commentary on

the fear, expressed by _Punch_ in 1888, that it would degenerate into

another popular Exhibition, with bands, side-shows, etc. He regarded it

at the moment as "a big-sounding name, signifying nothing; to conjure

with but nothing more"; and some of the names of the organizing

committee filled him with astonishment at the ineptitude of their

choice.

Buffalo Bill's "Wild West" Show in West Kensington in 1887 struck a

somewhat new note. _Punch_ was impressed by the buck-jumping, but

the rest smelt too much of footlights and sawdust, and he asks, "Why

should Noble Savages be always beaten by the Cowboys?" Still "Buffalo

Bill" was a picturesque figure, with a not undistinguished record of

active service; the Queen's visit is appropriately described in the

"Hiawatha" metre, and Du Maurier, in a spirited fantasy, hints that

the introduction of a team of buck-jumping ponies would brighten the

monotonous decorum of the meets of the Four-in-Hand Club.

The absurdities of the annual Exhibitions did not escape _Punch_ in

their earlier days. At the "Healtheries" he describes a representation

of a street in Old London, in which there was a girl in Tudor

costume selling photographs! The strange miscellaneous international

exhibitions which followed the first four were rich in material for

ridicule. A prominent attraction at the Anglo-Danish Exhibition of 1888

was a "grotto of Mystery," consisting chiefly of skeletons. At the

Italian Exhibition which followed, the great feature was the "Triumph

of Titus," a representation of a gladiatorial contest, and chariot

races by "wild omnibus horses." The sons of Belial, as represented by

Master Freddy, who was disappointed because "they didn't have lions

and--and real martyrs," were dissatisfied, but Mr. Anstey in his "Voces

Populi" had a glorious time.

Ridicule predominates in the notice of the Spanish Exhibition in 1889,

and in the same year _Punch_ devoted a special number to the Paris

Exhibition, containing the impressions of his staff, and bristling with

references to the Eiffel Tower, Paulus, the comic singer, and other

delights. In 1889 also Barnum returned, "the greatest Showman," in

_Punch's_ opinion, "of this or any other age"; and the autobiographic

speech which he made on the occasion of the opening of his show at

Olympia prompted _Punch_ to revive old memories:--

Forty-five years ago Albert Smith wrote in Bentley's _Miscellany_ a

paper entitled "A Go-a-head Day with Barnum." The article wound up by

saying: "As we expressed our fatigue at supper, Barnum said, 'Well, I

don't know what you call work in England; but if you don't make thirty

hours out of the twenty-four in Merekey, I don't know where you'd be

at the year's end. If a man can't beat himself in running, he'll never

go ahead; and if he don't go ahead, he's done.'" The Great Barnum is

apparently as active in 1889 as he was in 1844. He is as enthusiastic

on the wrong side of eighty as he was on the right side of forty. If

he has not beaten himself in running, he has allowed no one to beat

him. He has caught most people, but the old bird himself has never yet

been caught. If you look in just now at Olympia, you will find him up

to time and smiling, and going ahead more than ever.

The last and one of the very best of the Exhibitions in this period

that I have to record was held at Chelsea in 1891. _Punch_ renders

justice to the Royal Naval Exhibition in light-hearted style, but

"Robert, the City Waiter," is righteously indignant that none but

German waiters were employed.

The increasing predominance of pastime throughout this period is

faithfully illustrated in the pages of _Punch_. It is true that he

never was much of a racing man, though always ready to find parallels

in the classic events for political situations, and, as we have noted

elsewhere, anxious to safeguard the privileges of the equestrian.

But hunting and fishing cuts are far less frequent than in the days

of Leech and Mr. Briggs, and in 1881 we find _Punch_ lamenting the

degeneracy of modern sports-big battues, champagne luncheons on the

moors, the lavish refreshment of the shooters and the facile butchery

of tame birds.

[Sidenote: _Futile Feats_]

In 1882 we meet a series of sporting illustrations from the victims'

point of view--e.g., a coursing match as envisaged by the hare with

a crowd of yelling "sportsmen" looking on. _Punch_ had respected and

admired the pugilists of the old school, but here, again, he found

signs of decadence. In 1890 Slavin, an Australian, fought Jem Smith

in France, and the crowd intervened and ill-treated the former, who

won. _Punch_ treats the affair in a neo-Virgilian episode (somewhat in

the style of his lay on the Sayers-Heenan contest), which takes the

form of a dialogue between "Punchius" and "Sayerius" in the Elysian

Fields; and when _Punch_, after narrating the fight, asks the shade

of Sayers what he thought of it, Sayers thinks the sooner the P.R.

is put down the better. The craze for contests for futile endurance

met with no encouragement from _Punch_. When swimming for women was

advocated in the _Medical Press and Circular_ in 1878, _Punch_ printed

a letter on "Maids and Mermaids" in the style and over the signature

of "William Cobbett" vigorously recommending this exercise. But a

year or so later, when Miss Beckwith swam for a hundred hours in a

tank, _Punch_ registered a vehement protest against these "agony-point

Amusements." The spectacle of a girl of eighteen floundering in a tank

for a hundred hours at a stretch was to him as objectless as it was

penitential, as ungraceful as it was degrading. The exploits of Gale,

the pedestrian, at Lillie Bridge in 1880 only disgusted _Punch_, who

marvelled at the folly of the promoters of a "stupid, cruel, degrading

piece of tomfoolery" in sending him tickets to witness it. "I knew," he

says, "that were a horse treated as this man consented to be treated,

the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals would

interfere. But there's no Royal Society and no power in the world that

can prevent a man making an ass of himself if he chooses to do so."

Even in the noble sport of mountaineering _Punch_ found symptoms of a

vainglorious love of self-advertisement. His tribute to Mr. Whymper in

1880 is decidedly two-edged. Under title of "Excelsior, Excelsissimus"

_Punch_ salutes his achievements with a strong undercurrent of satire,

suggesting, e.g., that he should "change his name from Whymper to

Crow and take for his crest a Chanticleer _struttant_, _chantant_

on a mountain reduced to a molehill." _Punch_ winds up on the same

disparaging note;--

If ever a Gentleman was entitled to advertise himself as "in the

perpetual Snow line," Whymper is the man, a self with no Company.

We propose that the Empire he has so proudly assisted over the

old-established inaccessibilities of the world should be recognized as

a higher form of Imperialism--Whymperialism.

The overdoing of athletics at schools is a favourite topic in these

years, but on the whole _Punch_ acquiesced in the new and formidable

organization of pastimes of all sorts that went on in the 'seventies

and 'eighties. He saw nothing but wholesome rivalry in contests with

the Dominions. The early visits of the Australian cricket teams

are dealt with at great length. In 1878, the year of Spofforth's

"demoniacal" exploits, we read how,

The Australians came down like a wolf on the fold,

The Mary'bone cracks for a trifle were bowled;

Our Grace before dinner was very soon done,

And our Grace after dinner did not get a run.

Criticism was not wanting, but it was not directed against the

visitors. At the close of the season _Punch_ gives wholesome advice

to English cricketers to repair their bad taste, bad management and

bad play, and the advice is not without its point in 1921. _Punch_ had

already adapted Byron for his purpose; now he turned to Campbell:--

The Cricketers of England!

They yet may have their turn,

When pique, and fuss, and funk depart

And good pluck and luck return.

Meanwhile, ye smart Australian lads,

Our parting cup shall flow

To the fame of your name,

Who have laid our wickets low;

Who have bowled great Grace, and scored from Shaw,

And laid all our wickets low!

[Sidenote: _Dr. W. G. Grace_]

In the valedictory lines a week later _Punch_ wishes the Australians

godspeed on their homeward journey, with special mention of Spofforth,

Gregory, Bannerman, Blackham and Boyle. They returned in 1880, and

the match at the Oval inspired the usual Lion and Kangaroo cut. W. G.

Grace made 152 and Murdoch 153, but England won. _Punch_ celebrates

the heroic contest in the manner of Macaulay. "W. G." was now one of

_Punch's_ special heroes. He had even in 1878 bracketed him with Mr.

Gladstone in "The Two W. G.'s" (based on "The Two Obadiahs," a popular

song of the hour), and in July, 1880, the verses on "Grace: an Ode à

la mode," are a good picture of W. G. in his large mastery of the grand

style:--

[Illustration: "THE LEVIATHAN BAT"

_Or Many-Centuried Marvel of the Modern (Cricket) World, in his

high-soaring, top-scoring, Summer-day Flight. (Dr. William Gilbert

Grace.)_

As Champion him the whole World hails,

Lords! How he smites and thumps!

It takes a week to reach the Bails

When he's before the Stumps.

"_Chevy Chase_" (_revised_).

]

Praxiteles should have sculped thee, not that thou

Art slim, soft-moulded, sleek-limbed, epicene,

Nay, faith, but swart, square-shouldered, stalwart, keen,

With bellying shirt back-blown and beaded brow,

Brawny bat-gripping hands, and crisp-curled beard

As black as Vulcan's own.

[Illustration: CRICKETANA: YOUNG LADIES _v._ BOYS

FAIR BATTER (ætat. 18): "Now, just look here, Algy Jones--none

of your Patronage! You _dare_ to Bowl to me with your Left Hand again,

and I'll Box your Ears!"]

[Sidenote: _Two Views of Lord's_]

In 1888 when Grace made 215 runs at Brighton _Punch_ saluted him as

"my black-bearded, cricketing Titan," and in 1889 he figures in a

fancy portrait as "The Leviathan Bat" with scores on his wings. From

1880 onwards notices of matches abound; Eton and Harrow, and the

Canterbury Week in 1881, and in 1882 Southey is laid under contribution

to celebrate the "famous victory" of Australia at the Oval with

Spofforth as hero of the occasion. Surrey _v._ Notts in 1887 inspires

a column of verses from an enthusiastic Surreyite with due praise

of W. W. Read, K. J. Key and the exhilarating and intrepid George

Lohmann. But even in these years _Punch_ had his moments of misgiving,

his cold as well as his hot fits. The lines professing to bewail the

feminine invasion of man's last stronghold in pastime--cricket--in

1884, are facetious, or semi-ironical. Women had competed in croquet,

roller-skating and lawn tennis, and man had successively yielded these

various fields of pastime, hoping to retain the mastery of the cricket

field, now threatened. But the verses on "Lord's" in the same year

contain a serious and even ponderous indictment of the fetish-worship

of athleticism, "the Muscle-Cultus forced into a fever," with a lurid

portrait of the "adipose Old Blue," and the decline of the popular

compiler of centuries into that "unvirile _vaurien_ a Town-dangler"

with no profession, no intellectual resources, no interests save his

own past. Yet in the very next year _Punch_ glorified Lord's in an

illustration of the Pavilion crowded with portraits of cricketing

celebrities--"W. G.," I. D. Walker, A. J. Webbe, Lord Harris, A. P.

Lucas, C. J. Thornton, Alfred Lyttelton, A. G. Steel, C. T. Studd, etc.

Whether this was intended as an _amende_ or not, I cannot say, but it

was certainly a considerable advertisement.

[Illustration: LAWN TENNIS UNDER DIFFICULTIES--"PLAY?"

If space is limited, there is no reason why one shouldn't play with

one's next-door neighbours, over the garden wall. (One needn't visit

them, you know.)]

Passing on to 1892, we find that _Punch_ was petrified in that year by

the exploits of "Ranji," who scored eleven centuries in that season.

His laudatory ode, however, is largely taken up with efforts to wrestle

with the spelling and pronunciation of the hero's name, for the now

familiar abbreviation had not been generally adopted.

Cricket was still the national pastime _par excellence_, but new rivals

were already creeping up. Lawn tennis, even in 1878, had ceased to

be the monopoly of fashionable circles; it was already invading the

suburbs. In 1885 _Punch_ sang, after Tennyson,

For other games may come and go,

Lawn Tennis lives for ever.

Two years later Du Maurier satirized the social importance attached to

the stars of the "Lawn-Tennis world." Football was not yet regarded,

by _Punch_ at any rate, as a serious competitor. Professionalism was

as yet in its infancy. _Punch_ greeted the Maori team which visited

England in 1888, and complimented them on their successes over Surrey

and Kent:--

Your kicking, brother Maoris,

Has given us the kick;

You're well matched all, well "on the ball,"

And strong, and straight, and quick.

By Jove, this is a rum age,

When a New Zealand team

Licks Bull at goal and scrummage!

It beats Macaulay's dream.

You're welcome, brother Maoris,

Here's wishing you good luck!

With you there pace and power is,

And skill, and lots of pluck.

A trifle "rough." Why, just so!

But that you'll mend, no doubt,

And win, all Sportsmen trust so,

In many a friendly bout.

[Sidenote: _Baseball Arrives_]

The allusion to rough play is not an isolated mention; John Bull is

shown protesting in the same month (October, 1888) against "this

brutal sort of thing," in a cut in which the players are arrayed

in knee-breeches and long stockings; and a year later two football

players, after losing the match, are shown carrying off the referee

in a bag. Lacrosse was already acclimatized in England in the early

'eighties, and the visit of the Toronto Club in 1888 gave impetus to

a fine game which has never seriously threatened the popularity of

cricket and football.

The American baseball team who came over in the spring of 1889 not

only failed to impress _Punch_, they excited him to hostile and

unsympathetic comment on a game which he didn't understand and didn't

want to. Still, he had the grace to admit that he was a prejudiced

spectator; also that the players were as agile as cats and threw like

catapults. He had not the vision to foresee a time when "baseball

results" would be a daily feature of the tape and an Exalted Personage

would be credited with the confession that he thought it was a better

game to watch than cricket, adding, however, "for goodness' sake, don't

say that I said so, or there might be a Revolution."

[Illustration: "NOUVELLES COUCHES SOCIALES!"

"I say, Uncle, that was Young Baldock that went by--Wilmington Baldock,

you know----!"

"Who the dickens is _he_?"

"What! Haven't you heard of him? Hang it! He's making himself a very

first-rate position in the _Lawn-Tennis_ world, I can tell you!"]

[Sidenote: _Lawn Tennis v. Golf_]

Pastime was not only being organized, systematized, commercialized.

It was beginning to be the subject of serious literary and scientific

study. The _Badminton Library_ series dates from 1885, when the first

three volumes were published. _Punch_ made excellent fun of the Duke of

Beaufort's preface, repeated in each volume, with its glowing account

of the Prince of Wales's accomplishments as a sportsman, and of the

literary lapses of the Duke and his editors. The volume on Golf, by

Horace Hutchinson, with contributions by Mr. Balfour and Andrew Lang,

certainly did not lay itself open to this rebuke. It was a delightful

tribute to the charm of a pastime which had invaded England seriously

in the 'eighties. Golf had been played sporadically in the south

ever since the days of James I. But until the 'eighties, the golfer

was looked upon as a species of lunatic. _Punch's_ first notable

acknowledgment of the fascinations of the Royal and Ancient Game dates

from 1885, when Du Maurier in "The Golf Stream" shows the stream of all

ages and both sexes that "flows along the Eastern Coast of Scotland

during the summer and autumn."

[Illustration: THE GOLF STREAM

Flows along the Eastern Coast of Scotland during the summer and autumn.

(_Vide Report of British Association--Section V._)]

The jealousy of the votaries of other pastimes is made vocal in Keene's

lawn-tennis player, who sees no fun in a game which consists in

"knockin' a ball into a bush and then 'untin' about for it." Even in

1890 Du Maurier represents the newcomer in an invidious light when he

makes a weedy little man say to an Amazonian lady lawn-tennis player

that "golf is the only game for _men_ nowadays. Lawn tennis is only for

girls." _Punch_ prophesied more truly in the verses, "Golf Victor!" at

the close of the same year. There it is the ladies who say, "Golf is

the game for the girls":--

[Illustration: THE PILLION-BICYCLE]

Henceforward, then, Golf is the game for the fair--

At home, and abroad, or in pastures Colonial,

And the shouts of the ladies will quite fill the air

For the Links that will turn into bonds Matrimonial,

And for husbands our daughters in future will seek

With the powerful aid of the putter and cleek!

In 1892 the confessions of the "Duffer" at Golf after forty years'

experience are interesting from the classified gradations of

competence:--

The Learned have divided golf into several categories. There is

Professional golf, the best Amateur golf, enthusiasts' golf, golf,

Beginners' golf, Ladies' golf, Infant golf, Parlour golf, the golf of

Scotch Professors. But the true Duffer's Golf is far, far below that.

The born Duffer is incurable. No amount of odds will put him on the

level of even Scotch Professors.

To-day these categories need revising; the ladies have gone up two or

three classes; amateurs have not for the first time held their own with

the best professionals, and even the infants are becoming formidable.

Mentions of cycling in the 'eighties are mainly confined to the

tricycle. There is a strange picture of a kind of tricycle for four

in 1882. Du Maurier's Pillion-Bicycle is a romantic anticipation of

the "Flapper-rack" of a later age. The four chapters on "Cyclomania"

in 1885, including an account of a "spin" to Brighton ending in a

smash, are largely burlesque, but indicate that, though clubs were

multiplying, the cult had not yet outgrown its fashionable phase, or

established itself on a democratic basis.

Signs of advancing popularity, however, are manifest in 1887, when

the old Scotswoman in Keene's picture observes: "Ah dinna ken what's

come ower the Kirk. Ah canna bide to see our Minister spankin'

aboot on yon cyclopaedy!" The publication of a new edition of Mr.

Sturmey's _Handbook of Bicycling_ in the same year inspires a set of

verses reviewing the immense progress made since the days of the old

"bone-shaker," the expansion of the industry at Coventry, and the

exploits on the racing track of Keen and other professionals. The

safety bicycle associated with the name of J. K. Starley dates from

1885, but it was not until the invention of the pneumatic tyre by

Dunlop in 1888 that what had been a pastime was revolutionized and

became an universal mode of locomotion. _Punch_ celebrates the coming

of the "Safety" in October, 1890, in "Breaking a record on the Wheel"

(after Tennyson's "Break, break"), but his admiration of the exploits

of Messrs. Mecredy and Osmond is tempered by regret for the heroes of

the "ordinary"--Keen and the Hon. Ion Keith Falconer. _Punch_ was not

aware that he was in the presence of an epoch-making invention, the

most wide-reaching in its influence in our time between the railway

engine and the coming of the motor. The verses make no mention of

the pneumatic tyre; the present writer saw a bicycle race in 1891 at

Eastbourne at which all the competitors save one rode on the high

model, and he proved the winner.

[Illustration: PAST AND PRESENT]

[Illustration: A SLIGHT MISUNDERSTANDING

"Do you evah _Wink_, Miss Evangeline?"

"Do I ever _what_, Mr. Smythe?"

"Wink?"

"What _do_ you mean, Sir?"

"Well, _skate_, if you pwefer the expwession!"]

[Sidenote: _The Vicissitudes of Pastime_]

In contrast with the ever-increasing speeding-up of life one may

note _Punch's_ tribute in 1889 to the charms of caravanning; its

inevitable slowness being compensated by freedom from hotel bandits and

extortionate lodging-house keepers.

Rifle-shooting is a serious pursuit rather than a pastime or sport,

but may claim a word of notice in this survey. The National Rifle

Association came of age in 1881, and _Punch_ celebrated the event in a

cartoon in which he toasts a handsome young rifleman in a Jeroboam of

Perrier-Jouet, 1859, and in verses congratulating the comrades of the

rifle on their long survival and triumph over official snubbing.

Lastly I may note that in the Jubilee number of _Punch_ in 1891 the

popular or rather fashionable recreations in the 'sixties, 'seventies,

'eighties and 'nineties are shown in four illustrations of croquet,

roller-skating, lawn tennis and golf. Of these roller-skating has

temporarily disappeared. In the 'seventies "Rinkomania" was a

short-lived but acute malady. It led to a good many accidents and

much speculation, mostly disastrous. Much money was made and more

lost by the financiers who embarked on rink-building. At the end of

1875 _Punch_ notes a report that the Albert Hall was to be converted

into a Grand Skating Rink. At the moment the rumour was by no means

incredible; and the scenes of social and political revelry enacted in

that building of recent years must have often disturbed the _manes_ of

its eponymous hero.

Lawn tennis and golf have become democratic, international and

spectacular pastimes; while croquet continues to hold its own in a

select, scientific and secluded circle of votaries.

FASHION IN DRESS

Men's dress had already ceased to be decorative long before the

'seventies were in their mid career. There had been spasmodic attempts

to introduce a note of colour and picturesqueness into male attire,

and a fresh effort was made by the apostles of the æsthetic movement,

but the average man of fashion took no heed of these eccentricities.

His aim was to be unobtrusively well dressed, though in the domain of

pastime one may note an increasing addiction to highly coloured hose

and the multiplication of club colours and ribbons.

As a chronicler and illustrator of the vagaries of Mode, _Punch_

continues to pay far more attention to the costume of women than of

men. But here also one notes a change--a tendency which warrants

the labelling of this period as the Age of Approximation, in which

in regard both to material and design women were more and more

inclined to take a leaf from the fashion books of their brothers. The

increasing addiction of girls to athletic pastimes was no doubt largely

responsible for a change which could not be better exemplified than

in Du Maurier's picture in 1877 of an old gentleman who mistakes the

Dean's three daughters for young men and is gravely corrected by the

verger. The mistake was venial, for the young amazons in their ulsters

and hard hats presented a decidedly masculine appearance. In a word,

they were "tailor-made"--a word of vast and epoch-making significance.

[Sidenote: _The Divided Skirt_]

References to this approximation recur throughout the 'eighties. In

1880 Sambourne, taking for his text an article in the _Journal des

Modes_, gives us a design of evening dress entitled, "Man or Woman--a

Toss Up," and in the same year Du Maurier, in a picture of the "_Ne

Plus_ Ulster," represents a customer expostulating with the shop-woman,

"But it makes one look so like a man," only to be told, "That's just

the beauty of it, Miss." Within limits _Punch_ applauded the change.

When short dresses for dances were said to be coming in, in the same

year, he dilates in verse on the salutary innovation. To the year 1881

belongs the foundation of the "Rational Dress Society." "Bloomerism,"

as I pointed out in an earlier volume, never appealed to Mayfair.

But the Rational Dress Society claimed a live Viscountess--Lady

Harberton--as its President, and recommended the adoption of a "dual

garmenture" or "divided skirt" as its cardinal tenet. _Punch_ declared

that the "divided skirt" was simply the old Bloomer costume slightly

disguised, and saw in the movement only a fresh proof of woman's

conscious inferiority:--

True that another skirt hides this insanity

Miss Mary Walker in old days began;

Yet it should flatter our masculine vanity,

For this means simply the trousers of Man!

[Illustration: LEVELLING TENDENCY OF MODERN DRESS

OLD GENTLEMAN (shocked beyond description) to Verger: "Don't

you think those youths had better be told to take their hats off?"

VERGER: "Take their 'ats off! Bless you, Sir, those are the

_Dean's_ young ladies!"]

The Rational Dress reformers were tremendously in earnest, but they

entirely failed to convert the fashionables, and _Punch_, who refused

to take them seriously, ridiculed the movement in a burlesque cut of

"United Trousers _v._ Divided Skirts," in which retaliation effects a

_reductio ad absurdum_. An exhibition of Rational Dress was held in

Prince's Hall in the summer of 1883, but _Punch_ remained unconvinced,

and even obscurantist in his comments:--

We look at the models--they puzzle our noddles--

Regarding them all with alarm and surprise!

Each artful customer revives Mrs. Bloomer,

And often produces an army of guys.

The costume elastic, the dresses gymnastic,

The wonderful suits for the tricycle-ess--

Though skirts be divided, I'm clearly decided,

It isn't my notion of Rational Dress!

See gowns hygienic, and frocks calisthenic,

And dresses quite worthy a modern burlesque;

With garments for walking, and tennis, and talking,

All terribly manful and too trouseresque!

And habits for riding, for skating, or sliding,

With "rational" features they claim to possess;

The thought I can't banish, they're somewhat too mannish,

And not quite the thing for a Rational Dress!

Note robes there for rinking, and gowns for tea-drinking,

For yachting, for climbing, for cricketing too;

The dresses for boating, the new petticoating,

The tunics in brown and the trousers in blue.

The fabrics for frockings, the shoes and the stockings,

And corsets that ne'er will the figure compress;

But in the whole placeful there's little that's graceful

And girlish enough for a Rational Dress!

'Tis hardy and boyish, not girlful and coyish--

We think, as we stroll round the gaily-dight room--

A masculine coldness, a brusqueness, a boldness,

Appears to pervade all this novel costume!

In ribbons and laces, and feminine graces,

And soft flowing robes, there's a charm more or less--

I don't think I'll venture on dual garmenture,

I fancy my own is the Rational Dress.

[Sidenote: _Punch the "Anti-Rationalist"_]

Strong-minded women, in _Punch's_ view, only emphasized their

angularity by the masculinity of their attire--witness his "Aunt

Jemima," an uncompromising Blue Ribbonite, in an ulster and hard felt

hat, explaining to a French cab-driver that the extra half-franc

is a "_pour-manger_" and not a "_pour-boire_." The allusion to

corsets in the lines quoted above may be supplemented by a paragraph

which appeared early in 1891 showing that the "rationalizing" of

dress had spread to the Dominions. At Sydenham, Ontario, corsets

had been declared, in a memorable phrase, to be "incompatible with

Christianity." To the end of this period _Punch_ discourages the

extremes of the "Rational" school. His wittiest criticism is the

paradoxical remark put in the mouth of one girl who disapproves of the

mannish costume of a friend in a covert coat with a man's hat: "It

makes you look like a Young Man, you know, and that's so effeminate!"

The small deer-stalking cap worn by the lady, salmon fishing with a

formidable gillie, in 1885, is identical with that worn by the male

sportsman. The ulsters and "golf-capes," worn by women when travelling,

and the narrow-brimmed felt hats shown in 1891, are practically

identical for men and women; and in 1892 _Punch_ laments (after

Herrick) the introduction of the loose "sack" coat, in imitation of the

masculine model:--

Whenas my Julia wears a sack,

That hides the outline of her back,

I cry in sore distress, Alack!

Later on in the same poem his clothes philosophy is summed up in six

lines:--

Although men's clothes are always vile--

The coat, the trousers and the "tile"--

Some sense still lingers in each style.

But women's garments should be fair,

All graceful, gay, and debonair,

And if they lack good sense, why care?

[Sidenote: _Slaves of Fashion_]

In the last three lines we find the whole essence and spirit of Du

Maurier's method. He proved to demonstration again and again that women

could dress in the fashion of the moment and be delightful to look at,

so long as they were the judicious interpreters and not the Slaves of

Mode. If he saw no beauty in the designs of the "Rationalists," and

habitually ridiculed the sprawling attitudes, the shapeless garments,

and unwholesome languor of the female "æsthetes," he did not spare the

monstrosities and barbarities of the ultra-fashionables. The age of

lateral expansion had given place to a craze for compression, to the

"eel-skin" model. Skirts were so tight in 1875 that Du Maurier suggests

that upholsterers should devise a special sort of chair suited to the

peculiar exigencies of ladies who can neither stoop nor sit down. Three

years later a lady and a hussar officer at a dance are depicted as

both equally unable to depart from a rigidly perpendicular attitude.

Tight lacing was again in fashion but met with no approval from

_Punch_. In 1877 Du Maurier depicts a lady resolutely determined to

lace down to the waist measurement of a rival, and _Punch_ quotes with

approval Miss Frances P. Cobbe's indictment of the causes which led to

the "Little Health of Women." Besides tight lacing the list includes

the neglect of exercise, the discouragement of appetite, sentimental

brooding over disappointments, the lack of healthy occupation for

mind and body, false hair, bonnets that don't protect the head, heavy

dragging skirts, high heels and "pull-backs"--a tolerably comprehensive

catalogue. _Punch_ renews his attack on tightly-laced pinched-in

figures in his Horatian ode to "A Modern Pyrrha" in 1880, and in 1889

Jones, after offering the wasp-waisted Miss Vane tea and strawberries

at a garden party, remarks to himself: "By Jove! she takes 'em--she's

going to swallow 'em! But where she'll put 'em--goodness knows!"

[Illustration: A MODERN WAIST

JONES (_to himself, as he offers Miss Vane a cup of tea and

some strawberries_): "By Jove! She takes 'em--she's going to swallow

'em! But where she'll _put_ 'em--goodness knows!"]

[Illustration: TO UPHOLSTERERS, etc.

Now that fashionable skirts are worn so tight that the fair wearers

thereof can neither stoop nor sit down, it might be worth somebody's

while to devise a chair suited to the peculiar exigencies of the

positions.]

[Illustration: FASHIONABLE EMULATION

LADY (_speaking with difficulty_): "What have you made it

round the waist, Mrs. Price?"

DRESSMAKER: "Twenty-one inches, ma'am. You couldn't _breathe_

with less!"

LADY: "What's Lady Jemima Jones's waist?"

DRESSMAKER: "Nineteen-and-a-half just now, ma'am. But her

Ladyship's a head shorter than you are, and she's got ever so much

thinner since her illness last autumn?"

LADY: "Then make it _nineteen_, Mrs. Price, and _I'll_ engage

to get into it!"]

The crusade against wearing birds' wings is an old story. The Baroness

Burdett-Coutts' efforts in 1875--cordially supported by _Punch_--were

prompted by the cruel practice of obtaining rare feathers by plucking

birds when alive. The Baroness had approached Mme. Louise, who was

sympathetic but pointed out that there was an increasing demand for

this kind of decoration. _Punch_ repeatedly protests against the

practice, and in 1889, when flowers were once more in fashion as hat

trimmings, expressed his delight at a change which checked wholesale

bird slaughter:--

When lovely woman stooped to folly,

And piled bird plumes upon her head,

She no doubt fancied she looked jolly,

But filled the woodland choirs with dread.

His delight, however, was short-lived, and in 1892 he was again moved

to denounce the "Modish Moloch of the Air," and pillory, under the

title of "A Bird of Prey," the woman of fashion who decked herself out

in feathers.

[Sidenote: _Fringes and Bustles_]

This was the age of the fringe, another of _Punch's_ pet aversions,

whether worn by 'Arriet or the maidens and matrons of Mayfair. Du

Maurier lent his aid in the triple cut headed "Alas!" representing

"Pretty Grandmamma Robinson" as she was in 1851, as she is now in 1880,

in a tight dress cut low in front with a monstrous frizzed fringe,

and finally as she might and should be--altogether a most instructive

sermon on the art of growing old gracefully and the reverse.

[Illustration: A VIKING ON MODERN FASHION

"What does t'lass want wi' yon _Boostle_ for? It aren't big enough to

_Smoggle_ things, and she can't _Steer_ herself wi' it!"]

It is interesting to note, by way of contrast, that caps were still

worn in the house by quite young married women. The affectation of

perennial youth was not universal in 1880. The popularity and drawbacks

of the jersey are attested in the same year, when we are shown the

fearful struggles of Jones in his efforts to help his lovely wife

to divest herself of this garment. In 1881 reference is made to the

agitation against a revival of the crinoline. The successful stand made

against the "crinolette" by the Princess of Wales in 1883 is alluded to

elsewhere. _Punch_ declares that the very large fans used at this time

were almost as great a nuisance in the stalls as crinoline had been,

but this is obviously a gross exaggeration. The red veils which were

introduced in 1884 were to him a sheer abomination. "It makes girls

look blear-eyed and red-nosed. It gives them the appearance of just

recovering from the measles."

In the same year the ultra-smart ladies are shown wearing hats, while

others still have bonnets. In 1886 Du Maurier shows ladies in a

brougham specially built to match the fashion of hats with high conical

crowns. The small fur capes of a few years back give place in 1887 to

long fur boas--so long that one picture shows a lady walking between

two men with the ends of her boa round their necks.

A more formidable monstrosity of these years was the "bustle,"

admirably criticized by the fisherman in Du Maurier's picture. By 1889

_Punch_ celebrated its departure along with other excrescences in a

parody of Browning:--

EVELYN'S HOPE

The hideous bustle at last is dead.

Come and talk of the beast a minute!

Never again will it flourish, it's said;

What on earth we women saw in it,

Or why we liked it, is hard to discover;

Only the world is a nicer place,

Now that the pest called a "dress-improver"

Is improved, by Fashion, right off its face.

There's the tall hat, too, which they say is doomed.

One rather liked it, or viewed it with awe,

Till one sat in a theatre, and far away loomed

A rampart of feathers, frilling, and straw,

Hiding the stage, the footlights, and all,

Save perhaps the top of a paste-board tree;

Oh, then one's fingers did certainly crawl

To fling a book at the filigree!

But, some day, in Fashion's whirligig,

The monstrous bustle, the Eiffel hat,

May arise once more, even twice as big,

For our great-grandchildren to wonder at.

Well, that's Posterity's matter, not mine.

The one thing now is to put up a hymn

Of praise, and of hope that, when new suns shine,

Good taste may flourish instead of whim!

[Sidenote: _Æsthetic Children_]

In 1891 a new fashion of dressing hair in the "teapot handle" style

arose and was pronounced by _Punch_ to be "frightful," and the epithet

is at least justified by _Punch's_ caricature.

[Illustration: THE HEIGHT OF ÆSTHETIC EXCLUSIVENESS

MAMMA: "Who are those extraordinary-looking children?"

EFFIE: "The Cimabue Browns, Mamma. They're _Æsthetic_, you

know!"

MAMMA: "So I should imagine. Do you know them to speak to?"

EFFIE: "Oh dear no, Mamma--They're most _exclusive_. Why, they

put out their tongues at us if we only _look_ at them!"]

Throughout this period the children in Du Maurier's pictures, however

dressed, are a joy to look at. The fashion of arraying them in

"æsthetic" costumes meets, however, with no favour. It is even implied

that such a garb impairs their manners and conduces to arrogance,

witness Du Maurier's picture of the young Cimabue Browns putting out

their tongues in derision at ordinary normally clad children in the

park. In 1881 we read:--

The poor little Guys who have been compelled by unthinking parents to

walk about in long skirts, antique cloaks, and coal-scuttle bonnets,

have caused so much laughter that the dress is now called "The

Grinaway Costume."

It may have been by _Punch_; but against his churlish condemnation must

be set the enthusiastic approval of Kate Greenaway's illustrations by

leading art critics, including Ruskin, throughout the world; and the

extraordinary success of her revival of old-fashioned costumes for

children. In spite of _Punch_, and in virtue of the exquisite charm

of her designs, she went a long way toward justifying the verdict of

one of her admirers that "Kate Greenaway dressed the children of two

continents."

[Illustration: THE DANCING MAN

SHE: "Awfully nice Dance at Mrs. Masham's last night?"

HE: "Yaas. Were you there?"

SHE: "_Was I there?_ Why--I danced with you Three Times!"

HE: "Really! So glad!"]

[Sidenote: _The Demon "Topper"_]

Allusions to men's attire in this period are few and far between, and

a careful study of _Punch's_ illustrations reveals little substantial

divergence between the fashions of 1880 and 1920. The only approach to

a crusade or campaign in which _Punch_ engaged was directed against

his old enemy the "chimney pot." When Dr. Carpenter in 1882 declared

that Englishmen "would rather suffer martyrdom than give up its use,"

_Punch_ enlarged on this text in an "anti-sanitary ballad." He reverts

to the theme in "All round my hat" in 1889:--

Incarnate ugliness, bald, tasteless, flat,

My stove-pipe hat!

A rigid cylinder that engirts

My cranium close, and heats, and hurts

My head most frightfully.

It cuts, it chafes, it raises lumps,

Each vein beneath it throbs and thumps

Fiercely and spitefully;

An Incubus of woe, and yet I wear it

And grin and bear it.

Its pipy structure, black and hollow,

Would make a guy of bright Apollo,

Clapt on his crown.

It takes one's top-locks clean away,

And turns the scanty remnant grey,

Once thick and brown.

And oh! how terrible its torrid tether

In sultry weather!

Ever the same, though fashion's whim

Wide-bell the body, curl the brim,

Or more or less;

Play little tricks with shape or size,

And Yankeefy or Quakerize

Design or dress,

Long, short, broad, narrow, curled this way or that,

'Tis still a hat!

The centenary of the tall-hat (according to the _Daily News_) arrived

in 1890, and _Punch_ heaped scorn on this unlovely centenarian:--

Mad was the hatter who invented

The demon "topper," and demented

The race that, spite of pain and jeers,

Has borne it--for One Hundred Years!

For holiday or sporting wear Tyrolese hats came into vogue in the late

'eighties, and the picture of two "chappies" at Monte Carlo in what is

presumably the height of the fashion presents them in check tweeds,

spats and Austrian _jäger_ hats. The Homburg hat belongs to a slightly

later period.

Mr. A. C. Corbould, in an illustration of the correct costume for

Rotten Row in 1885 and 1889, shows that for men the tall hat and

frock coat had yielded in the latter year to the bowler and tweeds.

The dress of the ladies shows less change, but the tall hat has gone

and the skirts are grey not black. Short tailless coats for morning

wear were coming in, and _Punch_ welcomes in 1889 the introduction of

brown boots as a relief from "that dual despotism, dreadful grown, of

needless nigritude and futile polish." Whiskers were still worn, but,

amongst young men, were severely restricted in length, and shorn of the

ambrosial exuberance of the 'fifties and 'sixties.

"Æsthetes" were once described as a set of long-haired men and

short-haired women, and Du Maurier's pictures justify the summary, but

these peculiarities were confined to a coterie; they never seriously

affected the usages of Mayfair or involved any revision of the "petty

decalogue of Mode." Spats were generally worn, and the "mashers" of

the 'eighties carried very slim umbrellas when they took their walks

abroad in the park for Sunday parade. Evening dress presents few and

negligible differences from that in vogue to-day. One of the very few

references to military uniforms in these years indicates the reaction

against "useless flummery." A military correspondent in _The Times_

had said, in 1890, that the day of cocked hats and plumes was gone,

and _Punch_ availed himself of the saying to design a new and rational

uniform for general officers, so that they might be mistaken by the

enemy for harmless gentlemen farmers.

LETTERS AND JOURNALISM: DRAMA AND MUSIC

As I ventured to remark in an earlier volume, a literary critic's

acumen and _flair_ are better shown in his estimates of writers

whose fame is as yet unassured, or who are just emerging above the

horizon, than of authors of established reputation. No special credit

attaches to _Punch_ for writing with reverence of Shakespeare, Milton,

Wordsworth, Scott or Charles Lamb, whose centenary evoked a charming

tribute in 1875, when the Headmaster of Christ's Hospital appealed

in _The Times_ for support in erecting a memorial to Elia in his old

school. A better test is furnished in his references to Browning and

Swinburne, Matthew Arnold, Charles Reade and Trollope, Jefferies and

Stevenson and Thomas Hardy, George Eliot and Mrs. Humphry Ward, and,

to come down to the end of this period, Kipling and Barrie. Yet all

established reputations were not respected by _Punch_. When Rabelais

was included in Professor Henry Morley's series of World's Classics in

1883 _Punch_ uttered a vehement protest against the choice. He calls

Rabelais a "dirty-minded, scurrilous, blasphemous, witty, broadly

humorous and extravagantly grotesque clerical buffoon." The _Saturday

Review_ thought otherwise, but _Punch_ declared that the defence

was only put forward as "a stalking-horse for a malicious attack on

ourselves."

The lines on George Eliot in 1881 are brief but laudatory. The phrase

declining to rank her "among the tricksy mimes" is not happy; but she

is spoken of as "this large-orbed glory of our times," and _Punch_

prophesies for her "unfading bays," a prophecy to which the present

generation would seem inclined to demur. _Punch_ had little to add to

his previous tributes to Carlyle when the Sage of Chelsea passed away

in the same year, except to express the view that he was profoundly

discontented with the England of to-day:--

He lived through England's triumph, but he heard

With dying ears the shadow of decline.

[Illustration: CULTURE--1881

MISTRESS: "As you've never been in Service, I'm afraid I can't

engage you without a 'character.'"

YOUNG PERSON: "I have three School Board certificates, Ma'am!"

MISTRESS: "Oh, well--I suppose for honesty, cleanliness----"

YOUNG PERSON: "No, Ma'am--for 'Literatoor,' Joggr'phy and

Free'and Drawin'!"]

[Sidenote: _Relations with American Authors_]

The founding of the Browning Society in the same year met with no more

encouragement from _Punch_ than Miss Braddon's boiled-down versions

of Scott's novels. _Punch_ dimly recognized Browning's greatness

while resenting his obscurities and eccentricities, and in a further

skit on the Society carefully disclaims any disrespect for Browning

himself. This mitigated appreciation is developed in the memorial

verses in 1889 which hail him as a gallant and manly singer and apostle

of healthy optimism, while denying his Muse the quality of elegance.

_Punch_ was nearer the mark in his laconic reference to Tupper, who

died in the same year:--

"HIS NAME HAS PASSED INTO A PROVERB."

Martin F. Tupper, famed for his _Proverbial Philosophy_, has joined

the majority. He was thoroughly in earnest, and said many a true thing

in what popularly passed for poetry. He will be remembered as "The

Great Maxim Gun" of the nineteenth century.

The _Annual Register_ reminds us that in twenty-five years over 100,000

copies of _Proverbial Philosophy_ were sold in England and nearly half

a million in America.

_Punch_ was happier in dealing with Longfellow than with Emerson; the

description of the latter as "the cheery oracle, alert and quick,"

is hardly adequate. _Punch_, however, protested against the proposed

monument to Longfellow in the Abbey. He had learned to appreciate J. R.

Lowell, who, on leaving England in 1885 after his four years' tenure

of office as American Minister, said that "he had come among them as

a far-away cousin, and they were sending him away as something very

like a brother." _Punch_ refused to say good-bye to this great and

wise American, and his "au revoir" verses contain pleasant allusions

to _The Biglow Papers_ and _Study Windows_. Nor was his welcome of

Oliver Wendell Holmes a whit less cordial, when the beloved "Autocrat"

visited England to receive a D.C.L. degree in 1886. Bret Harte had been

welcomed by _Punch_ in 1879 as a master of wit and wisdom, humour and

pathos. Though, as was said of a famous composer, he began as a genius

and ended as a talent, the influence of _The Luck of Roaring Camp_[10]

on the development of the short story was fruitful and abiding. To

complete the record of _Punch's_ relations with American authors it may

be noted that in 1881 he greeted Joel Chandler Harris, the author of

_Uncle Remus_, as a benefactor; that he resented Mr. W. D. Howells's

critical depreciations of Dickens and Thackeray; and that, when Walt

Whitman died in 1892, he indited what was virtually a palinode:--

Whilst hearts are generous and woods are green,

He shall find hearers, who, in a slack time

Of puny bards and pessimistic rhyme,

Dared to bid men adventure and rejoice.

His "yawp barbaric" was a human voice;

The singer was a man.

[Footnote 10: It was translated in the feuilleton of an Italian paper

as _La Fortuna del Campo Clamoroso_!]

To return to native writers, _Punch_ happily linked a great Churchman

and a great Victorian novelist in the stanza which appeared at the

close of 1882:--

Two men whose loss all Englishmen must rue,

True servants of the Studio and the State.

No manlier Churchman Trollope ever drew

Than History will portray in gentle Tait.

_Punch_ had long acclaimed Tennyson as one of the major poets; but a

slight element of reserve mingles in the congratulations on his peerage

in 1883. Approval is tempered by chaff, and allusion is made to the

Laureate's being prevented from taking his seat in the Lords by having

lost his robes. There are no reserves in the tribute to the "beloved

Cambridge rhymer" C. S. Calverley, when he passed away in early middle

age in 1884. The memorial verses omit all mention of Calverley's

genius for high parody, and incorrectly speak of the Ode to Beer as

being written in Spenserian stanzas, but are otherwise affectionately

appreciative:--

Well, well, omnivorous are the Shades;

But seldom hath that Stygian sculler

Oared o'er a gayer ghost than "Blayds,"[11]

Whose transit leaves the dull world duller.

[Footnote 11: The surname borne by C. S. C. until his branch of the

family resumed that of Calverley.]

[Sidenote: _Literary Controversies_]

Charles Reade, who died in the same year, is not ineptly described as

the "Rupert of Letters," and his indiscretions and exuberances are

overlooked in virtue of his services both as a dramatist and novelist,

and the "noble rage" with which he vindicated "the master-virtue,

Justice."

Echoes of a controversy over the censorship exerted by the libraries,

revived periodically in later years, come to us from the years 1884

and 1885, when the banning of Mr. George Moore's novels led to a

correspondence in the _Pall Mall Gazette_. Here the late Mr. George

Gissing, while professing little sympathy with Mr. Moore, had fallen

foul of Thackeray for truckling to the demands of Mrs. Grundy and

betraying his artistic conscience--_à propos_ of the Preface to

_Pendennis_. This was altogether too much for _Punch_, who belaboured

Mr. Gissing to his heart's content in his most truculent vein, and did

not abstain from his old and ugly habit of making offensive capital out

of an antagonist's name: "humbly we own that we never heard of his name

before, though it seems suggestive of a kind of guttural German embrace

performed by the nationalizer of the Land [Henry George]."

Another famous literary quarrel broke out in 1886, the year of the

trenchant attack, recalling the style and temper of Macaulay, on Mr.

Gosse in the _Quarterly Review_ for October. As _Punch_ had already

indulged in a good deal of acid pleasantry at the expense of the

mutual admiration of "Poet Dobson" and "Poet Gosse," it was easy to

guess on which side his sympathies would be enlisted. The sting of the

_Quarterly's_ indictment lay in the statement that "the men who write

bad books are the men who criticize them," and _Punch_ did not refrain

from rubbing in the charge:--

Quarterly pay was dear to man

Since or ever the world began,

Chances vanish, and ventures cross,

Even sometimes for bards like Gosse;

Since or ever the world began.

Quarterly pay was dear to man.

But there's a something in quarterly pay

Which doesn't please all men alway!

Less than half-truth is a _quarter-lie_,

Bound to be found out by-and-by;

Since or ever the world began,

Quarterly pay has been strict with man.

Play straight and honest--for, if you don't,

The public meed 'tis receive you won't;

The mutual arts of puff and praise,

Even in these degenerate days,

Sink at last in the scorn they raise;

Since or ever the world began,

Quarterly pay has been straight with man.

* * * * *

Poet Dobson shall claim on high

From Poet Gosse immortality!

And Poet Dobson shall shed the same,

No doubt, upon Poet Gosse's name--

While a weak world wonders whence they came,

And never a weakling dares deny

(For there's no such thing as puffery)

To each his immortality!

Yet Quarterlies dare to say, for once,

That dunce's works are reviewed by dunce.

Shocking! Anonymous donkeys speak

Donkey's dislike of a cultured clique--

("Fudge," by Goldsmith; but now called "cheek")--

Yet since or ever the world began,

Quarterly reckoning's good for man!

The _Quarterly_, not for the first time, overshot the mark by its

"savage and tartarly" methods, and the incriminated critic survived

an attack fortified by accurate learning but impaired by unrestrained

animosity.

[Sidenote: _Punch Salutes Mr. Kipling_]

_Punch_ resumed his genial strain in his tribute to Richard Jefferies,

when that admirable prose poet of rural England and the pageantry

of the seasons died prematurely in 1887. Matthew Arnold was not

exactly one of _Punch's_ literary heroes. His urbanity was admitted,

but _Punch_ slightly resented his intellectual superciliousness.

Yet the verses on his death in 1888, cast in the "Thyrsis" stanza,

acknowledge the value of his crusade against Philistinism, and the

beauty of his elegiac poetry; he was "the great son of a good father."

Towards Matthew Arnold's distinguished niece, Mrs. Humphry Ward,

_Punch_ was less benevolent on the occasion of the appearance of

_Robert Elsmere_ in the same year. The sorely tried hero is described

as "wandering about, a married Hamlet in clerical attire, undecided

as to his mission to set everything right and dying a victim to

the Mephistophelean-Betsy-Prig spirit." Nor was _Punch_ altogether

appreciative of R. L. Stevenson, though he pays a reluctant homage to

his genius in one of the "Mems for the New Year" for a literary man in

January, 1889: "Resolutely to avoid making the most distant reference

to 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.'" The standard of precision in the editing

of _Punch_ at this time was not above reproach. In the same year "Mr.

J. L. Stevenson's _Master of Ballantine_" is reviewed though there

was no such author and no such book. _Punch_ made amends, however, in

1890 in his salutations of two notable newcomers. In February he was

delighted by "the homely simplicity," the keen observation, shrewd wit

and gentle pathos of Barrie in _A Window in Thrums_. Six weeks later

he recognized in Rudyard Kipling's _Plain Tales from the Hills_ a "new

and piquant flavour," as of an Anglo-Indian Bret Harte. _Punch_ found

an "excessive abundance of phrases and local allusions which will be

dark sayings to the uninitiated." But here adverse criticism ends. For

the rest he acknowledges in the new writer a surprising knowledge of

life, civil, military and native, and a happy command of pathos and

humour. This tribute was followed up a few weeks later by a much more

characteristic act of homage in doggerel verse:--

TO THE NEW SCRIBE AND POET

Air:--"_O Ruddier than the Cherry._"

O Rudyard, in this sherry,

I drink your very, very

Good health. I would

That write I could

Like Kipling, sad or merry.

(Signed) INVIDIUS NASO.

The literary quality of _Punch's_ literary criticism was not high in

these days and his outlook was decidedly limited. It is therefore a

welcome surprise to find him not only recognizing the beauty of Cory's

_Ionica_ in 1891, but specially singling out the famous version of the

epitaph on Heraclitus. _Punch_ could not dissect it as Walter Headlam

did afterwards, but he noted one blemish--the confusion of "thou" and

"you." Almost as unexpected, in view of his attitude towards much

contemporary realism, is _Punch's_ eulogy of Hardy's _Tess_ in 1892.

Barring the "absurdly melodramatic character of the villain" _Punch_

has nothing but praise for its essential truth; acquits the author

of "foolhardiness" in "boldly telling ugly truths about the Pagan

Phyllises and Corydons of our dear old Christian England," and accepts

his word for the faithfulness of the portraiture.

_Punch_ had rejoiced over the dissolution of the Browning Society

formed by Dr. Furnivall in 1891:--

Lovers of Browning may laugh and grow fat again,

Rid of the jargon of Furnivallese.

He was not, however, any better disposed to Swinburne, Furnivall's

antagonist and rival in the art of ferocious obloquy, of whom he wrote

in the same year:--

There was a poor poet named Clough;

Poet Swinburne declares he wrote stuff--

Ah, well, _he_ is dead!

'Tis the living are fed,

By log-rollers on butter and puff!

[Sidenote: _Parodies and "Limericks"_]

Of _Punch's_ relations with Ruskin we speak in another place. The

most detailed notice of Meredith grew out of a real incident, the

calling of the illustrious novelist as a witness in a libel action

in the year 1891. _Punch_ professes to give a full report of his

evidence, in which Judge and Counsel are overwhelmed in a deluge of

Meredithyrambics. It is a perfectly friendly and by no means inexpert

parody of the contortions and obscurities which induced Tennyson

to declare that reading Meredith was like wading through glue.

_Punch's_ friendly irreverence to his old friend of thirty years'

standing prompts me to add that, throughout this period, parody was

continually and increasingly employed, not like the bladder with which

the Fool belabours bystanders, but as a weapon of genuine criticism.

Here is a list, though not a complete list, of the authors who were

subjected to this method in the period under review. Rhoda Broughton

(for her emotional sentimentality) in _Gone Wrong_; Captain Hawley

Smart, the sporting novelist; "Ouida"; Trollope; Disraeli, the florid

magnificence and aristocratic atmosphere of whose _Endymion_ is

amusingly travestied in 1880; J. C. Harris, the author of _Uncle

Remus_; Rider Haggard; Lord Lytton ("Owen Meredith") in "Fitzdotterel,"

a parody of Glenaveril; Stevenson; F. C. Philips, the author of _As

in a Looking Glass_; Oscar Wilde; Barrie; Kipling; Hardy; Henley and

Maeterlinck (in the style of Ollendorff).

Burnand was not a parodist of the class of Calverley or Sir Owen

Seaman, Max Beerbohm or Mr. J. C. Squire; but what he lacked in

literary felicity and scholarship and in that impersonation which

assumes the habit of mind of the author travestied, he made up in

his unfailing sense of the ludicrous, his high spirits and audacious

burlesque. He confined himself mainly to prose. At the end of this

period Mr. Anstey was a veritable tower of strength to the paper.

His _Voces Populi_ and his burlesques of recitations and music-hall

songs are masterpieces of close observation and high-spirited fun. The

extravagances of the æsthetic poets engaged other pens, but the best

literary parodies belong to a rather later date. There is, however,

a good specimen in the "domestic threnody" on Oleo-Margarine in the

manner of Swinburne, which appears in 1881, and opens impressively:--

I am she whose nameless naked name to utter

The strong are weak;

The suet-sprung soft sweet sister of bad butter,

Yet rid of reek.

I, that, molten o'er the fires beneath me burning,

From void of vat,

Uprise supremer, in this my creamless churning,

First-born of fat!

In this context I may note an original contribution to existing forms

of verse in the ingenious doggerel French "Limericks" of Du Maurier, of

which two specimens may suffice:--

_Il était un homme de Madère

Qui cassa le nez à son père.

On demandait "Pourquoi?"

Il répondit "Ma foi!

Vous n'avez pas connu mon père!"_

_Il existe une Espinstère à Tours,

Un peu vite, et qui porte toujours

Un ulsteur peau-de-phoque,

Un chapeau bilicoque,

Et des nîcrebocqueurs en velours._

[Illustration: VICISSITUDES OF A RISING PERIODICAL

THE PROPRIETOR: "I'll tell you what it is, Shardson, I'm

getting sick of the 'ole bloomin' Show! _The Knacker_ ain't selling a

Scrap--no notice took of us anywhere--not a bloomin' Advertisement!

And yet there ain't 'ardly a livin' Englishman of mark, from Tennyson

downwards, as we 'aven't shown up and pitched into, and dragged 'is

Name in the Mud!"

THE EDITOR: "Don't let's throw up the Sponge yet, Old Man!

Let's give the dead 'uns a turn--let's have a shy at Thackeray,

Browning, George Eliot, or, better still, let's bespatter General

Gordon and Cardinal Newman a bit--_that_ ought to fetch 'em a few, and

bring us into Notice!"]

[Sidenote: _Russel and Delane_]

Turning for the moment from gay to grave, we may note that _Punch_

bestowed his benediction on the _Dictionary of National Biography_,

when the first instalment of what was the greatest act of true

sportsmanship in the publishing world of our times appeared in January,

1885. _Per contra_, the proposal for a British Academy in 1890 only met

with irreverent suggestions from _Punch_ for the constitution of the

Elective Body.

_Punch_ kept a watchful eye on the developments of journalism and

periodical literature. He notes in 1876 the impending appearance of

_Truth_, but his opinion of Society journals, discussed elsewhere,

was not flattering. When Alexander Russel, the great editor of the

_Scotsman_, died in July, 1876, _Punch_ did not fail to recognize the

conspicuous services of that fearless, honest and trenchant publicist

and _malleus stultorum_:--

The shadows that make up our night,

Were growing thin for him to fight,

But still he fights, we think with pride,

Our battle from the other side!

* * * * *

Long in our mêlée will be missed

The mace of Russel's mighty fist,

That struck and, wasting nought in sound,

Buried its blow without rebound.

Bagehot, equally distinguished in letters and journalism, passed

unnoticed in 1877, but Delane, the third and most widely renowned of

the three great editors who died in the last half of this decade, was

fitly eulogized in 1879 by one who was not the only writer who had

served on the staff of both _Punch_ and _The Times_:--

Rest in thy grave, that knew no resting here,

Editor without equal, strenuous soul,

Staunch friend, despising favour, scorning fear,

Far-seeing, forward, cleaving to thy goal.

He left a different scene from that he found,

And had a large part in all change he saw,

No slave, nor leader, of his time, but bound

Abreast of it to keep its glass from flaw.

The centenary of _The Times_, which occurred in 1888, is duly noted,

and by way of contrast to what was then a national institution there

are allusions to short-lived but now forgotten papers and periodicals,

more notorious than notable. _Punch_ kept a vigilant eye on the

provincial press, but he was, on the whole, more inclined to utilize

it when it suited its purpose and to make humorous capital out of its

shortcomings than to acknowledge its solid merits. Of _Punch's_ own

domestic history it may suffice to maintain that a mountain in the

Arctic regions was named after him by the expedition under Captain

Nares in 1876; and that he was once more banned in Paris on account of

the cartoons on Marshal MacMahon in 1878. He paid affectionate homage

to Tom Taylor on his death in 1880 as a cultivated man of letters, a

considerate and judicious editor, above all, a warm-hearted, upright

man and a staunch and loyal friend. Henry Mayhew, who died in 1887,

"comrade of _Punch_ and champion of the poor," was only associated with

the paper in its earlier days and for a short period. By the death of

the gentle Percival Leigh, of "Pips's Diary" fame, in 1889, the last

link was snapped with the days of Mark Lemon, Douglas Jerrold, Leech

and Doyle and Thackeray.

FINE ARTS

A survey of the Fine Arts from 1874 to 1892, based on a study of

_Punch_, reveals changes and even reactions in his outlook. As we have

seen in an earlier volume, he had been converted in great measure to

Pre-Raphaelitism; he had welcomed Whistler as a master etcher; he

had been a severe and at times even savage critic of the stereotyped

conventions, the opportunism, the inanities of the Royal Academy.

[Sidenote: _Punch and Æstheticism_]

Something of this spirit remains in the period under review. The annual

exhibitions at Burlington House are dealt with in no reverential

mood. As far back as 1877 we note the first appearance of an article

with illustrations very much on the lines of the modern "Academy

Depressions." The pictures exhibited in the years of his declining

powers by the late Mr. J. R. Herbert, R.A., are caricatured without

mercy in 1885, and the New English Art Club is welcomed in 1889 for

its revolt against "the dull dead level of sleek respectability, the

commonplace churchwardenism of suburban gentility." The sequel invites

quotation:--

A bold, original, impudent lot are these New Englanders, but they are

notwithstanding wonderfully refreshing. Sometimes their spirits are

too much for their strength, and they come tremendous "croppers." It

has been well said that a strikingly original writer occasionally

writes absolute nonsense, and by the same rule an artist, who turns

aside from the well-swept, carefully watered, mathematically paved

academic high road, must not infrequently paint absolute nonsense; but

he thinks for himself, he does not view Nature through the spectacles

of others, and in nine cases out of ten he is likely to produce

works that will be successful in the long run. Though there are some

pictures among the collection will make the casual visitor jump, there

are not a few will make him think.

Some of the rebels of 1889 have developed into the academics of thirty

years later, and _Punch's_ list of the most notable contributors

makes us jump as well as think: John S. Sargent, Solomon J. Solomon,

Whistler, B. Sickert, Tuke, Edward Stott, A. Roche, N. Garstin, G.

Roussell, Sidney Starr, F. Brown, A. Mann, H. Vos, W. J. Laidlaw and J.

E. Christie.

_Punch_, then, cannot be written down as a Philistine, but there is no

denying the fact that his artistic judgment was warped and impaired by

his invincible hostility to the æsthetic movement; his inability to

disentangle the good in it from the evil; his confusion of charlatanry

and sincerity; and his failure to recognize the great services rendered

by Morris in the domain of decorative design. Prejudice and ignorance

mingle with good sense and good feeling in the manifesto which _Punch_

put forth in 1882, and which may serve as a general exposition of his

artistic and literary creed in the 'eighties:--

IN EARNEST

Let us be clearly understood. The word "Æstheticism" has been

perverted from its original meaning; i.e. the perception of all

that is good, pure and beautiful in Nature and in Art, and, as now

vulgarly applied, it has come in a slang sort of way to stand for

an effeminate, invertebrate, sensuous, sentimentally-Christian, but

thoroughly Pagan taste in literature and art, which delights in the

idea of the resuscitation of the Great God Pan, in Swinburnian songs

at their highest fever-pitch, in the mystic ravings of a Blake, the

affectation of a Rossetti, the _Charmides_ and revoltingly pantheistic

_Rosa Mystica_ of Oscar Wilde, the Songs of Passion and Pain and

other similar mock-hysterical imitations of the "Mighty Masters."

Victor Hugo, Ouida, Swinburne, Burne-Jones, have much to answer for.

This Æstheticism, as it has gradually come to be known, is the

reaction from Kingsley's muscular Christianity. Exaggerated muscular

Christianity, in its crusade against canting and whining religion,

in its bold attempt to show that the practice of true religion was

for men, as well as for women, trampled on the Christian Lily, emblem

of perfect purity; and what Athleticism trod under foot, Æstheticism

picked up, cherished, and then, taking the sign for the reality, paid

to it the extravagant honours of a Pagan devotion; and the worship

of the Lily was substituted for the veneration paid to the sacred

character, in whose hand Christian Art had originally placed it. To

this was added the worship of the Peacock's Feather. It is this false

Æstheticism which we have persistently attacked, and will persistently

attack to the bitter end, and henceforward those who misunderstand us

do so wilfully, and it may be maliciously.

[Illustration: ACUTE CHINAMANIA

MAY: "Mamma! Mamma! _Don't go_ on like this, _pray_!!"

MAMMA (_who has smashed a favourite pot_): "What have I got

left to live for?"

MAY: "Haven't you got _me_, Mamma?"

MAMMA: "_You_, child! _You're not_ unique!! There are six of

you--a complete set!!"]

[Sidenote: _Whistler and Ruskin_]

_Punch_ was justified in deploring the opportunism of Millais in

painting "pot-boilers" and "pretty-pretty" pictures, such as "Bubbles."

He had powerful and well-equipped allies in his view that Whistler in

his later manner left off painting or etching where the difficulties

began, a view expressed in the lines in 1883 on "Whistler in Venice":--

Whistler is "Niminy-Piminy,"

Funny, fantastic, and quaint.

Yet he's so clever that Jimmy nigh

Makes men believe he can paint.

What of his works? Why, each etching is

Only at present half done,

And on the copper the sketching is

Simply a wild piece of fun.

Vainly the Critics will sit on him,

Why such a butterfly slay?

No one can e'er put the bit on him--

Whistler's the wag of the day.

Yet _Punch_ thought Ruskin had gone too far in the famous onslaught

which led to the historic lawsuit and verdict in 1878:--

To John Ruskin

(On a recent Verdict)

If "_Fors Clavigera_," dear Slade Professor,

Means "Force that bears a club,"

Be warned, since of a big stick you're possessor,

And more discreetly drub.

Strength unrestrained's not greater strength but lesser,

And scorn provoketh snub.