(_May 7_, 1864)]
Mr. Punch was no enemy of Germany. He remembered--none better--the debt we
owe to her learning and her art; to Bach and Beethoven, to Handel, the
"dear Saxon" who adopted our citizenship; to Mendelssohn, who regarded
England as his second home; to her fairy tales and folk-lore; to the
Brothers Grimm and the _Struwwelpeter_; to the old kindly Germany
which has been driven mad by War Lords and Pan-Germans. If Mr. Punch's
awakening was gradual he at least recognised the dangerous elements in the
Kaiser's character as far back as October, 1888, when he underlined
Bismarck's warning against Caesarism. In March, 1890, appeared Tenniel's
famous cartoon "Dropping the Pilot"; in May of the same year the Kaiser
appears as the _Enfant Terrible_ of Europe, rocking the boat and
alarming his fellow-rulers. In January, 1892, he is the Imperial
Jack-in-the-Box with a finger in every pie; in March, 1892, the modern
Alexander, who
Assumes the God,
Affects to nod,
And seems to shake the spheres;
though unfortunately never nodding in the way that Homer did. (This
cartoon, by the way, caused _Punch_ to be excluded for a while from
the Imperial Palace.)
In February, 1896, Mr. Punch drew the Kaiser as Fidgety Will. In January,
1897, he was the Imperial actor-manager casting himself for a leading part
in _Un Voyage en Chine_; in October of the same year he was "Cook's
Crusader," sympathising with the Turk at the time of the Cretan ultimatum;
and in April, 1903, the famous visit to Tangier suggested the Moor of
Potsdam wooing Morocco to the strains of
"Unter den Linden"--always at Home,
"Under the Limelight," wherever I roam.
[Illustration:
"AU REVOIR!"