Chapter X: Part II: The Social Fabric (4)

The treatment of the Higher Education of Women follows much the same course--from ridicule to respect. When a Women's Library was founded in New York, it is seriously suggested in 1860 that a similar institution might with advantage be established in London, with Miss Bessie Parkes, who was an active promoter of the Social Science Association, as Librarian. But when in the summer of 1862 Mlle. Emma Chenu was admitted to the degree of Bachelor of Science at the Sorbonne, _Punch_ contents himself with drawing up a burlesque list of Lady Professors for the University of Cambridge, most of them popular actresses of the time, including Marie Wilton, Patty Oliver, Lydia Thompson, etc. By way of contrast to this carnival of punning facetiousness we may note the rebuke administered in May, 1863, to the students of University College, who hissed the proposal to admit women to degrees.

[Sidenote: _Girton College_]

Great capital was made out of "Sweet Girl Graduates" by Du Maurier in many characteristic variations on the "Princess Ida" theme. But the movement was rapidly passing beyond the stage in which it could only be treated sentimentally or in a spirit of ridicule. Huxley was lecturing to women at South Kensington in 1870, and in 1871 the Ladies' College at Hitchin (founded in 1869), which owed its origin to the enterprise and liberality of Madame Bodichon--the friend of George Eliot and the zealous advocate of the improvement of women's position in the state--had so far justified itself as to earn _Punch's_ commendation, under the typically frivolous heading of "The Chignon at Cambridge," a good example of inept alliteration's artless aid:--

At the examination lately held at Cambridge a number of students
from the Ladies' College at Hitchin passed their "Little-go"; the
first time that such undergraduates ever underwent that ordeal. It
is gratifying to be enabled to add, that out of all those flowers
of loveliness, not one was plucked. Bachelors of Art are likely to
be made look to their laurels by these Spinsters, and Masters must
work hard or they will be eclipsed by Mistresses, more completely
than the Sun was the other day by the Moon. And we may expect that
when such competitors of both sexes come to perform upon the
classical and mathematical Tripos, a Pythoness will be first upon
the former, and another young lady will dance off triumphantly
Senior Wrangler.

_Punch's_ prophecy was fulfilled by the exploits of Miss Ramsay (afterwards Mrs. Montagu Butler) and Miss Philippa Fawcett, daughter of Henry and Millicent Garrett Fawcett. The College at Hitchin was moved to Cambridge in 1873, when it entered on a new and prosperous career under the title of Girton. But _Punch_, reverting to his facetious manner, availed himself of the opportunity to publish a set of burlesque regulations and syllabus of lectures for the new College. The same spirit is betrayed in the comments on the proposed Ladies' Club in 1869:--

A Ladies' Club is said to be in process of formation. How the male
mind shudders at this most tremendous news! What a field for
fearful questions the intelligence suggests! Will there be a Club
Committee? and, if so, at its meetings how many ladies' tongues
will be allowed to speak at once? Will there be a smoking-room?
And, if so, will cigars be suffered to be lighted, or will the fear
of being ill restrain the ladies from indulgence in anything except
the very mildest cigarettes? Will conversation be restricted to the
politics of the nursery and the latest news in bonnets; or what
will be the limits sanctioned to recounters of a thrilling bit of
scandal, or to narrators of a tale of love, or marriage, or
divorce, which has just been set a-wagging in high life? Instead of
billiards we presume the younger members will amuse themselves with
tatting, while the elder are engaged in a fierce battle at
Bézique....

The ladies will, of course, want a title for their Club. Perhaps
"The Femineum" would be a fitting name for it; or would its members
prefer to call themselves "The Chatterers" while the present
fashion lasts? Should the Ladies' Club prove popular, there may
doubtless be some little ducks desirous to belong to it. But we
trust, however silly may be certain of its members, nobody will
ever dream of calling it "The Goose Club."

The promoters might have retorted that such criticisms were worthy of the members of the "Asineum." But _Punch_ was fairly entitled to make such capital as he could out of the advertisement quoted in 1874: "Philosopher wanted, as Secretary to a Ladies' Club."

[Sidenote: _The Economics of Marriage_]

As we have seen, _Punch_ had frankly recognized that matrimony was not and could not be the be-all and end-all of all women--that there were some girls who, though they might marry if they chose, did not wish to; girls who preferred independence to matrimonial servitude; girls, again, who would make excellent wives, but were not chosen because men were stupid enough to be governed in their choice by looks and looks alone. The economics of marriage, again, were becoming an increasingly important consideration as a result of the raising of the standard of life and the cost of living. In the 'forties _Punch_ printed a song of which the refrain was "If I had a thousand a year," which represented a sum almost beyond the dreams of middle-class avarice, to judge by all the things the dreamer would do and all the luxuries he would indulge in, if his income reached four figures. In 1858 _The Times_ started a serious discussion of the problem "Marriage on £300 a year," which the same audience nowadays would regard not as practical politics but an act of insanity. _Punch,_ however, satirized the discussion from the point of view of an agricultural labourer earning a wage of 10s. a week.

Though in the golden days of Gladstonian finance the income tax came down to 4d. and even 3d. in the pound, the standard of living rose, and £500 a year is mentioned in 1867 as a possible basis for matrimony. From whatever the cause--possibly the prevalence of large families had something to say to it--the rapidity with which married people of both sexes grew old, as compared with the juvenile grandparents of to-day, is strikingly illustrated in the pages of _Punch._ Take for example the two pictures "Twelve months after Marriage" and "Twenty years after Marriage" in 1862. When we take into account the earlier age at which people married sixty years ago, the couple in the picture on p. 265 need no be more than forty-five; yet they both look at least seventy. One is reminded of a passage in _Sense and Sensibility_ (though, that, of course, was fifty years earlier), in which John Dashwood, speaking of his mother, who is "hardly forty," suggests that "she may live another fifteen years." The pictures given here represent a happy marriage. _Punch_ had no panacea for unhappy marriages; but he remained of the same opinion, so often expressed in his earlier days, that a cheap Divorce Act was a better cure than the punishment of cruel wife-beaters. And throughout this period he remained constant in his support of the campaign for the amendment of the Women's Property Acts, on the lines of his summary of Lord Brougham's three resolutions moved in the House of Lords on February 13, 1857. They were "First, that their present rights were all wrongs. Second, that a woman was entitled to her own property; and third, that if our ridiculous theory of marriage prevented a woman from having this justice, at all events a profligate husband should be restrained from wasting her possessions." Lastly, he remained unshaken in his adhesion to the cause of marriage with a deceased wife's sister, or, as he termed it, "the Bill for Emancipation of Sisters-in-Law from the tyrannical disqualification which prevents their taking the matrimonial oath when elected by a Briton and a widower."

"Bobby ought to love his pet for taking such care of his beautiful whiskers."]

"My dear Bobby, you must let me pull it off your nose; it looks so ugly."]

[Sidenote: _The English Feminine Type_]

By way of conclusion we may add that if _Punch_ reserved to himself the right of castigating the follies of his countrywomen, he was valorous in their defence when they were depreciated or caricatured by foreign critics or artists. In 1858 he falls foul of a German journalist, under the head of "British and German Beauty":--

The Berlin _Charivari_ contains the following humorous remarks on
English beauty:--

"Each Nation thinks itself the handsomest in the world. We paint
the devil black; the blacks will have him white. Miss Pastrano
delights in her beard, and every Englishman thinks his red-haired,
crooked-nosed, rabbit-toothed, goggle-eyed, loose-legged, calfless
Dulcinea the very perfection of human beauty."

Not quite that. Not so perfect as the raven-haired, Grecian-nosed,
white-and-sound-toothed, sloe-eyed, neat-legged young Teutonic
lady, with such pretty little feet and ankles at the end of her
legs. Of course the Prussian _Charivari's_ notion of an English
girl is a bit of fun, complimentary irony; and we are sure our fair
countrywomen will feel highly honoured by the mock-depreciation of
our cousin German.

Much later on the French caricaturists, who habitually represented Englishwomen as lean, gaunt, ill-favoured and ill-dressed, and with long projecting teeth, roused him to protest with equal vigour against their gross and unseemly libels.

LITERATURE

There is probably no better means of testing a man's literary sense than his estimate of poetry other than that written by authors of established reputation. And as with individuals so is it with papers. _Punch_ deserves no special credit for his devotion to Shakespeare, or for his ridicule of the Baconians who, in his phrase, sought to make the Swan of Avon a Goose. It is curious, however, in this context to note that, on _Punch's_ authority, Lord Palmerston suspended judgment on the question. In the arm-chair commentary on current events which appeared in 1865 under the heading, "_Punch's_ Table-Talk," we read:--

When Ben Jonson's verses, in laudation of William Shakespeare, were
mentioned to the late Premier, he said, "Oh, these fellows always
stand up for one another. Besides, he may have been deceived like
the rest."

It is only one and a small proof of Shakespeare's "myriad-mindedness" that _Punch_ throughout his career has drawn more freely from his plays for subjects for cartoons than from any other source. Shakespeare, as a modern writer puts it, "has always been there before." It was partly no doubt due to _Punch's_ distrust of the national capacity to organize and carry out picturesque demonstrations that led him to treat the Shakespeare Tercentenary Celebrations in 1864 with scant respect. But an honourable jealousy for the repute of our greatest writer was enough to warrant his dissatisfaction. There were wide divergences of opinion and considerable friction among the members of the National Memorial Committee, a huge unwieldy body representing all professions and interests, and containing, along with many great and honoured names, not a few thrusting notorieties and even nonentities. The festival at Stratford was a _fiasco_, and the grandiose schemes of the promoters came to little practical result. One is indeed tempted to draw the conclusion that it is almost unnecessary to attempt a special celebration of one who is being celebrated every day and all the time.

As a critic of letters _Punch_ is subjected to more searching ordeal in his references to living and rising than to dead or risen authors. His recognition of James Montgomery--the author of one of the very few fine modern hymns--has been noticed elsewhere. There was chivalry as well as appreciation in his defence of Alexander Smith when the charge of plagiarism was brought against the "City Poems" by the _Athenæum_. The ridicule of the "Spasmodic" school in Aytoun's brilliant burlesque drama _Firmilian_ was a much more damaging criticism, but in recognizing Smith's force and originality _Punch_ ranges himself on the side of Clough and Matthew Arnold, John Forster, Arthur Helps and G. H. Lewes--in other words, the most enlightened and best equipped critics of the time.

Though Tennyson had been Laureate for several years, he was still regarded--surprising and even painful as it may seem to the neo-Georgian reader--with a certain amount of suspicion by austere critics bred up in eighteenth century traditions. Both as regards matter and manner he was considered to be an innovator. _Punch's_ admiration for Tennyson was already an old story. He had lent him the hospitality of his pages in 1846 to reply to Bulwer Lytton's defamatory abuse in _The New Timon_. But in some quarters judgment was still suspended, and Tennyson was not yet held to have completed the period of probation. So when in 1859 the bust of the Laureate was denied admission to the Library at Trinity College, Cambridge, on the ground that the honour was premature, _Punch_ printed a satirical "Fragment of an Idyll" in which the poet's detractors were rebuked in his own manner.

[Sidenote: _A Wonderful Three-penny-worth_]

_Punch's_ championship of Tennyson never faltered, though he was reconciled to Bulwer Lytton, who had called the Laureate a "School-miss," and it dated back to a time when Tennyson's claims to recognition were vehemently canvassed. Still we are inclined to regard as a much more remarkable sign of his _flair_ and enlightenment, the quoting of Meredith's poem, _Modern Love_, in his "Essence of Parliament," in the year 1865. It is only a scrap--four words; yet when one remembers how remarkably small Meredith's audience was in the 'sixties, even for his prose, the quotation is a notable sign of grace. But Shirley Brooks, who distilled the "Essence," was a scholar and something of a poet into the bargain. There was also a special bond between _Punch_ and George Meredith. In 1860, under the heading "An Honest Advertisement," _Punch_ refers to _Once a Week_ as having been enlarged to thirty-two pages, and speaks of it as "already one of the most extraordinarily cheap publications in the world when you consider the brilliancy of the literature and the beauty of the illustrations." This was admittedly a puff, for the proprietors of _Punch_ and _Once a Week_ were the same, but it was no more than the truth. _Once a Week_ was the most wonderful three-penny-worth in the whole journalistic history of the nineteenth century, with Millais, Rossetti, Sandys, Frederick Walker, G. J. Pinwell and Charles Keene as regular illustrators. As for the letterpress, it is enough to say that Meredith's _Evan Harrington_ (illustrated by Charles Keene) appeared in its pages, as well as many of his and Tennyson's poems. In spite of this galaxy of talent the magazine was not a commercial success, and after a few years passed into other hands.

In extending a welcome to Kingsley's[26] _Water Babies_, and later on to _Alice in Wonderland_, our friend _Punch_ did no more than might have been expected of him. But his praise of the former story is pitched in a pretty high key: the author of the "Table Talk" in 1865 declaring that he "would rather have written the _Water Babies_ than any book in the last fifty years." In the controversy that raged over _Poems and Ballads_, in 1866, _Punch_ committed himself truculently to the side of the angels of decorum. In consequence he writes pungently, that "having read Mr. Swinburne's defence of his prurient poetics, _Punch_ hereby gives him his royal licence to change his name to what is evidently its true form--"Swine-born." Name-twisting, with a view to casting odium on an antagonist, is an old but dangerous game. The most that can be said in _Punch's_ defence, which is not much, is that he was not the only offender. In the acrimonious pamphlet warfare that raged between Swinburne and Dr. Halliwell Phillipps, the latter called the poet "Pigsbrook," and the poet retorted by referring to his opponent as "Hell-P." Apart from this error of taste, _Punch_ had at least the support of powerful and distinguished allies in his condemnation. But he overdid his disparagement when four years later he observed that "certain Songs before Sunrise are promised us ere long, from the pen of a young poet." Nor was the allusion to Walt Whitman as "an impostor" in 1869 any happier than his previous description of him as a Yankee rough.

[Footnote 26: In 1858 _Punch_ had chaffed Kingsley for his _Ode to the North-East Wind_ in a parody purporting to be written by a dyspeptic valetudinarian, who resented the strenuous "muscular Christianity" of the original.]

[Sidenote: _Martin Tupper_]

Though by no means an infallible or judicial critic, _Punch_ made no mistakes about bad poets, even though they were popular. Throughout this period he was the champion of the middle-classes in politics; but his championship did not extend to their literary preferences. In the 'sixties, Tupper was widely read and, judged by circulation, the most successful poet of the day. To this generation his name has become a synonym for platitude; and as an author, he survives, if at all, in the immortal parody of Calverley. Yet we can never get away from the fact that he gave pleasure to scores of thousands of decent people by his blameless banalities. Though his _Proverbial Philosophy_ was the quintessence of commonplace and orthodoxy, there are passages in it, as Professor Elton has pointed out, which deviate into something like poetry. He was, though vain, a kindly, good man, and a patriotic citizen, who did good service in promoting the Volunteer Movement. He was not a fool: did he not defeat Mr. Gladstone in the competition for a prize for a theological essay at Christ Church? The University of Oxford conferred on him the honorary degree of D.C.L. in 1847. He was also an inventor in a small way, and patented a screw-top for glass bottles. He was even a Fellow of the Royal Society! But to _Punch_ he was simply a bad poet, and as such a subject for ridicule and parody. Thus, _à propos_ of his _Three Hundred Sonnets_, _Punch_ published in 1860 what purported to be the three-hundred-and-first on "My Five New Kittens," winding up with the couplet:--

O cook, we'll keep the innocents alive,
They're five, consider, and you've fingers five.

The illustration alluding to a girl who writes to her lover with the aid of "Tupper's poems and a Dictionary," acquires a peculiar point from the fact, recorded in Spurgeon's Life, that he proposed to the lady who became his wife by help of a passage from Tupper.

AUNT: "And how's Louisa, my dear? Where is she?"

SARCASTIC YOUNGER SISTER (fancy free): "Oh, pretty well, but she won't be on view these two hours. She's writing to her 'Dear Fred'; at least, I fancy I saw her come out of the library with Tupper's poems and a Dictionary!!"]

Owing to heavy financial losses Tupper accepted a Civil List pension of £120 at the end of 1873, and _Punch_ supported the grant on the ground that though philosophers might have learned little from _Proverbial Philosophy_, there could be no doubt that a work read by the million had either taught or entertained them a good deal. He also hailed it as an earnest of better times coming for authors in general; for if Tupper had received £120 a year, how many times that sum should be awarded to writers of really durable works? This mitigated approval prepares us for _Punch's_ subsequent malice in publishing a burlesque poem, purporting to come from Tupper's pen, on a Royal wedding in January, 1874. But the bestowal of those pensions too often invited direct censure. The notorious "Poet Close" of Kirkby Stephen, Westmorland, who described himself as "Poet Laureate to the King of Bonny," was patronized by Lord Palmerston (who indirectly compared him with Burns) and had been put on the Civil List in 1861, though the pension was afterwards withdrawn. But when _Punch_ learned in 1863 that the poet was poor in more senses than one, he promised him an immunity from ridicule, and wished success to his next work. The promise was hardly fulfilled in the following year when "English literature was enriched" by Poet Close's _Grand Sensation Book_ and by _Cithara_--a selection from the Lyrics of Martin Tupper. Of the latter _Punch_ cruelly remarks: "it contains some new pieces, in which Mr. Tupper has excelled himself: but _Nemo repente fuit Tupperrimus_." The two poets are bracketed (as in one of Gilbert's _Bab Ballads_) in some ironical stanzas, but the conjunction was hardly fair to Tupper, who at his worst was assuredly a cut above "Poet Close." A lower depth, however, was sounded by the poet Young, whose pension was a positive scandal. Tupper is very generously treated in the D.N.B.; "Poet Close" appears, though more as a curiosity than as a writer of any literary merit whatsoever, his verses being described as "metrical balderdash"; but for Young we have to go to _Hansard_ or _Punch_, whose comment in 1867 runs as follows:--

We had some fun by way of ending an important week. Palmerston had
his Close, and Derby has his Young, only the doggerel of the latter
is not merely vulgar and foolish, but offensive. However, he is
pensioned. Mr. Whalley (probably thinking that Young was author of
the _Night Thoughts_) defended the grant, and said that Young's
sentiments were truly Protestant. Mr. Disraeli said what he could,
which was that Lord Derby had been hoaxed, and that it would be a
warning to himself never to sign or believe in a Memorial.

The vigilance displayed by _Punch_ in this matter no doubt helped
to improve matters, but even as I write, in 1921, the world of
letters has been staggered by the bestowal of a decoration on the
strength of literary achievements of which no record could be
discovered in any publisher's catalogue or library.

[Sidenote: _Thackeray and Dickens_]

One of the great novelists of the Victorian Age, Thackeray, had been for many years a regular and brilliant contributor to _Punch_, and though he retired from the staff in 1854, remained a constant member of the council and sat with them only eight days before his death on Christmas Eve, 1863. The tribute in the issue of January 2, 1864, pays homage more to the affectionate and loyal comrade than to the great writer; but in the following number _Punch_ repels with spirit the charge that Thackeray was a cynic. Thackeray's contributions to _Punch_ belong to an earlier period, but the brilliant burlesques of popular novelists, which he initiated by his travesties of Bulwer Lytton, Disraeli, G. P. R. James and Lever were carried on with great spirit by Burnand in _Mokeanna_ (suggested by the romances in the _London Journal_), _Chikkin Hazard_ (founded on Charles Reade's _Foul Play_), and _One and Three_ (after Victor Hugo's _Quatre-Vingt-Treize_). Burnand's burlesques were not nearly so subtle or artistic as Thackeray's; they relied more upon farcical quips and ingenious puns; but still they served a useful purpose in the elevation of parody from mere verbal mimicry into a genuine function of literary criticism, a process in which _Punch_ has played an increasingly active and successful part in recent years.

Dickens's intimate relations with the _Punch_ staff have been noted in the previous volume. There had been friction with the proprietors, but all was forgotten on his death in June, 1870. The lines which recognize him as in the same category as Shakespeare, only say what even modernist critics admit to-day--that he created a new world and peopled it with creatures of his imagination who are as real as those of real life. In the same number _Punch_, with some slight reserves, espoused Disraeli's side when Goldwin Smith had rashly "put on the cap" fitted for him in _Lothair_, and publicly and vehemently protested against being libelled as a "social parasite." In some doggerel verses _Punch_ made acid reference to the professor's bilious temper, intellectual arrogance and general cantankerousness. If Disraeli's attack was cowardly and contemptible, why notice it with such passion?

OLD-FASHIONED PARTY (with old-fashioned prejudices): "Ah! Very clever, I dare say. But I see it's written by a lady, and _I_ want a book that my _daughters_ may read. Give me something else!"]

Trollope is genially commended in the "Honest Advertisement" mentioned above. The popularity of Miss Braddon's _Lady Audley's Secret_ and _Aurora Floyd_ is attested in 1863; Miss Broughton's novels are barely referred to, but the reference clearly indicates disapproval of their audacity. Nor can we find any appreciation of the now unduly neglected novels of George Eliot, though there is a curious mention in 1859 of an anonymous sequel to _Adam Bede_ brought out by an obscure publisher named Newby. It may be recalled that a claim to the authorship of _Adam Bede_ was set up on behalf of a Mr. Liggins, a gentleman as unscrupulous as his name was unromantic.

[Sidenote: _Carlyle and Ruskin_]

The imposture caused great annoyance to the real author, and hastened the divulging of the secret which had hitherto been well kept.

_Punch_ had welcomed Macaulay's peerage, and on his death at the end of 1859 spoke of his as "the noblest name our Golden Book could show." In spite of occasional sharp divergences of opinion, Carlyle is nearly always treated with honour and respect. When he was elected Lord Rector of Edinburgh University in 1866, _Punch_ saluted him in his own peculiar style as a "brave, wise old man" who in an age of "eternal butter and testimonial-plasterings of mediocrity," had flagellated windbags, scourged sham patriotism, spoken words of manly cheer, and in general shown that the root of the matter was in him. _Punch's_ further salute in 1874 when "the Prussian Royal Order of Merit was presented to the English historical biographer of Frederick the Great," is pitched in a key that jars on modern ears by its eulogy of Bismarck and the Emperor William; but the last stanzas of "True Thomas and his Order" are worth quoting:--

Our mother England has no stars
For soldiers of the Pen:
With us such honours spring from wars
Watered with blood of men.

Then let us rather smile than sneer,
When from the Vaterland,
Whose thought to us he has brought near,
There is stretched forth a hand,

To pin the badge of merit fair
On Carlyle's manly breast:
The star can shed no honour there,
'Tis honoured there to rest.

The only other great Victorian literary lion of whom mention is made is Ruskin, and _Punch's_ attitude towards him is somewhat mixed. In 1871 he addressed an open letter to Ruskin, _à propos_ of his suggestions for preventing inundations of the Tiber, the gist of it being that, whatever he might be as an art critic, he was not infallible as an engineer. _Punch_ admitted the "mystical and musical" eloquence of Ruskin, whom he was quite content to regard as an oracle--though not always intelligible--on Art and Nature, Paintings Old and Modern, Lamps of Architecture, Crowns of Wild Olive, and so forth, but he refused to take him seriously as a writer on economics or social problems. He showed unexpected sympathy with him, however, over the famous road-making experiment in 1874 at Hincksey, when the not very expert efforts of his disciples moved Philistine undergraduates to ribald mirth:--

HINCKSEY DIGGINGS

(See recent Correspondence in _Daily News_, and elsewhere)

'Tis well for snarlers analytic,
Who the art of the snarl to the sneer have brought,
To spit their scorn at the eloquent critic,
Leader of undergraduate thought.
Heart of the student it will not harden
If from the bat and the oar he abstain,
To plant the flowers in a cottage garden,
And lay the pipes of a cottage drain.

Pity we have for the man who thinks he
Proves Ruskin fool for work like this.
Why shouldn't young Oxford lend hands to Hincksey,
Though Doctrinaires may take it amiss?
Careless wholly of critic's menace,
Scholars of Ruskin, to him be true;
The truths he has writ in _The Stones of Venice_
May be taught by the Stones of Hincksey too.

Other papers laughed at the "amateur navvies," Oxford caricaturists were busy, and "to walk over to Hincksey and laugh at the diggers became a fashionable afternoon amusement." But the road was wanted, and Ruskin, according to his biographer,[27] saw in it a means of practical protest against the fetish-worship of athletics, to say nothing of his probable desire to dissociate himself from the Postlethwaites and Maudles who had stolen some of their catchwords from Ruskin, but whose creed of "art for art's sake" he cordially loathed. And perhaps the best vindication of the experiment was the fact that the undergraduate road-diggers included Alfred Milner and Arnold Toynbee; and that in encouraging his disciples in the "gospel of labour" Ruskin formulated principles of social service on lines which have been faithfully carried out in the Universities' Settlements in East London and other cities.

[Footnote 27: See the _Life of John Ruskin_, by Sir E. T. Cook.]

[Sidenote: _Punch and American Humorists_]

American humour is not always to English taste. And, conversely, English humour, as represented by _Punch_, has not always commended itself to American critics, though nothing could be more generous than the tribute to _Punch_ paid by New York _Life_ during the late war. At an earlier date we remember a picture in an American comic journal representing a room of torture, crowded with thumbscrews and racks and other engines of malignity, with a pile of volumes of _Punch_ enthroned in the place of honour. In this context one recalls with satisfaction that _Punch_ extended a cordial welcome to two great American humorists--Artemus Ward and Mark Twain--in the 'sixties and early 'seventies. Artemus Ward was in broken health when he visited our shores in 1866, but his lectures at the Egyptian Hall were an immense success, and elicited the admiration of such diverse critics as John Bright, Richard Holt Hutton, of the _Spectator_, who wrote an admirable appreciation of them in his paper, and _Punch_. Hutton once told the present writer that he was never so convulsed with laughter in his life as when listening to the lecture. It may be read in Artemus Ward's collected works, and it is very good reading in cold print, but the effect was enormously enhanced by the contrast between the lecturer's cadaverous appearance and melancholy manner on the one hand, and the extravagant farce of his utterances on the other. This is well brought out in _Punch's_ notice of "A Ward that deserves watching":--

_Mr. Punch_ would recommend "funny men" on or off the stage, to
hear Artemus Ward "speak his piece" at the Egyptian Hall, and then,
in so far as in them lies, to go and do likewise....

Oh, if these unhappy abusers of gag, grimace, and emphasis--these
grating, grinding, grinning, over-doing obtruders of themselves in
the wrong place--could take a leaf out of Artemus Ward's "piece,"
and learn to be as quiet, grave, and unconscious in their delivery
of the words set down for them as he is in speaking his own! Unlike
them, Artemus Ward has brains. That is, of course, beyond hope in
their case. But if they could once be made to feel how immensely
true humour is enhanced by the unforced way it drops out of A.W.'s
mouth, they might learn to imitate what, probably, it is hopeless
to expect they could understand.

To be sure, Artemus Ward's delivery of fun is eminently
"un-English." But there are a good many things English one would
like to see un-Englished. Gross overdone low comedy is one of them.
Snobbishness is another. The two go hand in hand. One of the best
of many good points of Artemus Ward's piece is that it is quite
free from all trace of either of these English institutions. And it
is worth noting, that we owe to another native of the States,
Joseph Jefferson, the best example lately set us of unforced and
natural low comedy. His _Rip Van Winkle_ was very un-English, too.

[Sidenote: _Artemus Ward in London_]

But _Punch's_ approval was not confined to applause. He invited Artemus Ward to contribute to his columns, and the invitation led to a series of delightful papers--"Artemus Ward in London"--which appeared in 1866. Some have found in them signs of flagging spirits--Artemus Ward died of consumption at Southampton on March 6, 1867--but the mixture of extravagance and "horse-sense" was never better shown than in the visit to the Tower:--

"You have no Tower in America?" said a man in the crowd, who had
somehow detected my denomination.

"Alars! no," I anserd; "we boste of our enterprise and
improovments, and yit we are devoid of a Tower. America, oh, my
onhappy Country! Thou hast not got no Tower! It is a sweet Boon."

The gates was opened after awhile, and we all purchist tickets, and
went into a waitin-room.

"My frens," said a pale-faced little man, in black close, "this is
a sad day."

"Inasmuch as to how?" I said.

"I mean it is sad to think that so many peple have been killed
within these gloomy walls. My frens, let us drop a tear!"

"No," I said, "you must excuse me. Others may drop one if they feel
like it; but as for me I decline. The early managers of this
institootion were a bad lot, and their crimes was trooly orful; but
I can't sob for those who died four or five hundred years ago. If
they was my own relations I couldn't. It's absurd to shed sobs
over things which occurd durin' the reign of Henry the Three. Let
us be cheerful," I continnerd. "Look at the festive Warders in
their red flannil jackets. They are cheerful, and why should it not
be thusly with us?"

A Warder now took us in charge, and showed us the "Trater's Gate,"
the armers and things. The Trater's Gate is wide enuff to admit
about twenty traters abrest, I should jedge; but beyond this, I
couldn't see that it was superior to gates in gen'ral.

Traters, I will here remark, are a onfortnit class of peple. If
they wasn't, they wouldn't be traters. They conspire to bust up a
country--they fail, and they're traters. They bust her, and they
become statesmen and heroes....

ENTHUSIASTIC PEDESTRIAN: "Am I on the right road for Stratford--Shakspere's town, you know, my man? You've often heard of Shakspere?"

RUSTIC: "Ees. Be you he?"]

Mark Twain did not visit London until seven years later, and _Punch_ greeted the "distinguished humorist" in the quatrain headed "Welcome to a Lecturer":--

"'Tis time we Twain did show ourselves." 'Twas said
By Cæsar, when one Mark had lost his head:
By Mark whose head's quite bright, 'tis said again:
"Therefore, go with me, friends, to bless this Twain."

The greeting was renewed a couple of months later, and _Punch's_ admiration, thus early expressed, never wavered in all the years that elapsed before Mark Twain was entertained by _Punch_ at his table on the occasion of his last visit to England in 1907, when he came over to receive the degree of Doctor of Literature from the University of Oxford.

[Sidenote: _W. S. Gilbert_]

The relations of W. S. Gilbert with _Punch_ were made public property to a certain extent by Gilbert's statement, in the preface to the collected edition of the _Bab Ballads_, that the _Cruise of the Nancy Bell_ had been "offered to the Editor and declined by him on the ground that it was too cannibalistic to suit the taste of his readers." The _Bab Ballads_ (so called from the signature "Bab" which Gilbert appended to his illustrations) appeared in _Fun_, which was founded in 1861, and were, while they lasted, the chief attraction of that paper. Gilbert was undoubtedly nettled by Mark Lemon's decision; had it been otherwise, he might very probably have become a regular contributor to _Punch_. But it is not strictly correct to say, as the author of the notice of Gilbert in the _Encyclopædia Britannic_a does, that Gilbert continued to contribute to _Fun_ because he had failed to gain the _entrée_ into the pages of _Punch_. As a matter of fact he had frequently contributed, both with pen and pencil, to _Punch_ in the early 'sixties. In 1865 his contributions included an amusing illustrated squib on the hydrophobia scare, the lines to "An Absent Husband," and a long prose piece "A wonderful Shilling's worth!" on the performances at the Polytechnic. The last named was Gilbert's final contribution to _Punch_.

_The Nancy Bell_ was offered and rejected early in 1866, and appeared in _Fun_ of March 3 without illustrations. The nonsense verses, "Sing for the Garish Eye," which appeared in _Punch_ on April 16, 1873, were from Gilbert's pen, but the explanation given a fortnight later showed that they had been printed inadvertently; a "valued contributor" having forwarded them for _Punch's_ private diversion and not for publication. They had actually been printed elsewhere ten years earlier. The _amende_ was handsomely made, but Gilbert never contributed again to _Punch_. One cannot help regretting that he began the _Bab Ballads_ with just the only one to which exception could have been taken, for it _is_ cannibalistic!

Holding that a Free Press was an advantage to a nation, _Punch_ had supported the Memorial to Leigh Hunt, who had been sent to prison "for publishing opinions which _Mr. Punch_ in perfect safety may now put forth when he pleases, and the fact that _Punch_ can just say what he likes without a fear of Newgate is owing in great measure to the battles Leigh Hunt fought," for which _Punch_ was content to overlook Leigh Hunt's self-indulgent improvidence--so cruelly satirized by Dickens in Harold Skimpole. But when Charles Knight died in 1873 there was no need for reservation in the homage paid to that life-long and stalwart fighter for the repeal of the taxes on learning:--

Oft times the fuel well nigh failed his flame,
And Ruin stood between him and his aim,
But manfully he grappled the grim foe,
Nor ever yielded sword though oft struck low.
And his reward was that he lived to see
Cheap Letters broad-cast sown, and knowledge free!

DRAMA, OPERA, MUSIC AND THE FINE ARTS

Before the middle 'fifties critics of the Stage in England--apart from the extreme Puritans--had three main grounds for complaint: the monopoly of the patent theatres, the patronage of foreigners by the Court and fashionable Society, and the popularity of degrading sensational plays; and up to 1857 the pages of _Punch_ were eloquent on all three counts. In the period covered by this volume not only was royal patronage more judiciously and impartially bestowed, but the abolition of the exclusive privileges of the patent theatres had cut at the root of the evil and rendered possible such enlightened ventures as those of Phelps and Mrs. Warner at Sadler's Wells. The immediate result of the Free Trade policy in plays was to stimulate the legitimate drama, and in particular the cult of Shakespeare. Phelps's work in this connexion comes in for repeated approval, especially for his good all-round casts. Shakespearean actors are prominent throughout. The announcement of the death of Scribe in 1861 inspires the comment that the Members of the Dramatic Authors' Association are as well as can be expected. _Punch_ had no love for endless _réchauffés_ of French plays, but he was no bigot where foreign actors of merit were concerned, and cordially welcomed Fechter as Hamlet in 1861, while deprecating the preliminary puffing of his manager. It was not needed, for while admitting that Fechter's accent was disconcerting, _Punch_ had nothing but praise for his admirable play of feature, his graceful ease of attitude and gesture and his intelligent conception of the character. As for the interpretation as a whole, foreigners were entitled to read Shakespeare for themselves: _Punch_ held no brief for the Protection of British Stage Traditions, but believed in free trade in intellect as well as in cotton.

[Sidenote: _Fechter and Ristori_]

At the foot of the notice there is a picture of a stout, shabby tragedian exclaiming "Fechter! Pah! Hamlet with light hair and no points. Pah! The drama's gone." This professional jealousy is again ridiculed in "The Groan of a True Briton" a month later. The "boom" in Shakespeare this winter was quite remarkable, with _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ at Sadler's Wells, Booth in _The Merchant of Venice_ and _King Richard II_, Brooke at Drury Lane, and Fechter at the Princess's. Othello's occupation (on the stage) was extremely popular. We read in the issue of November 9, under the heading "Great Fall of Blacks":--

Five Othellos are stabbing themselves regularly, just now, and
there will soon be a sixth, Mr. Charles Kean having ordered the
largest pot of blacking Messrs. Day and Martin supply, and having
announced that he is cubbing dext.

The vendetta against Charles Kean, it will thus be seen, was so implacable that _Punch_ could not resist the temptation of dragging him in without any provocation.

Another and a greater foreigner dominated the scene in 1863. Of Adelaide Ristori, "the greatest of living actresses" in his opinion, _Punch_ confessed that her genius beggared description. When she appeared at Her Majesty's in the summer of 1863 he declared that "in no English or American dictionary could be found words of sufficient strength" to express his admiration of Adelaide Ristori, or "his compassion for the unhappy person who does not go and behold one or two of her performances. This is a debilitated under-statement of the case.... What a magnificent voice hers is, and how artistically managed. The _vox humana_ is the first musical instrument in the world, but then so few can perform upon it. Our Adelaide is one of the few." Here, at least, _Punch's_ estimate never varied, and was only heightened by further familiarity. When Ristori played Lady Macbeth in English ten years later, _Punch_ owned to some misgivings as to her accent,[28] but on the second performance he only noticed it twice. Otherwise "there was not, from first to last, one single fault to be found with this remarkable performance."

[Footnote 28: The present writer saw and heard Ristori in the sleep-walking scene at Manchester in the early 'eighties, and her foreign accent was undoubtedly most pronounced. Her first words provoked laughter from the gallery, drowned immediately in a storm of cheering, renewed at the end of an impersonation so powerful and even terrifying that one entirely forgot the accent. The episode had an amusing sequel. An old theatre-goer wrote to a Manchester paper to express indignation at Ristori's reception by the gallery. The laughers could not be Manchester men: they must have been boors from Chowbent. A couple of days later a letter appeared from an equally indignant resident at Chowbent repelling the aspersion on a community so civilized that it possessed a Town Hall!]

[Sidenote: _The Drama in Russia_]

Foreign actors and actresses were in the main treated handsomely and on their merits by _Punch_. Bandmann, the German-American actor, was highly commended in 1868 and advised to act Shakespeare. The visit of the audacious Schneider belongs to another phase of the drama, but the condemnation of French acting as a mere "swindle" put into the mouth of "Opie Wing," a "British Veteran--legitimate lead and blank verse heavies," is purely ironical. The methods of the Comédie Française troupe visiting London in 1871 are attacked precisely for the qualities which were their greatest distinction--their refusal to force the note or play to the gallery, their delicacy and self-effacement in the interests of ensemble, as when Delaunay came on in livery just to give a message. _Punch's_ readiness to admit that fruitful suggestions for the improvement of the British Stage might come from the most unexpected foreign quarters receives a curious and even prophetic illustration in his remarks on "The Theatre for the People":--

Russia may well be described as a benighted country! But of all the
queer notions ever bred of barbarism, commend us to one in the
_Pall Mall's_ latest "Notes from Russia." Conceive a Commission
appointed to examine the question of the establishment of a
"Theatre for the People"! And more; imagine the Commission
reporting strongly that such a theatre should be constructed! A
theatre with a moral object! A theatre meant "to divert the people
from foolish, vulgar and gross amusements, by providing them with
healthy and elevating spectacular entertainments at a cheap rate"!
A theatre to contain seats for 2,350 people--say something between
Drury Lane and the Lyceum--with 1,300 of the seats at prices
varying from 2d. to 4d., and the others from 4d. to 3s. 2d.! This
infatuated Committee further report that such a theatre might be
made to bring in a profit of £5,000 a year--or ten per cent, on
the capital employed. They recommend that the management should be
entrusted to a competent private person, of experience, taste and
refinement, and have prepared a repertory of 140 pieces in the
Russian language, original and translated, calculated, they think,
to forward their object of entertaining and elevating.

They further recommend that lotteries, masked balls, and the sale
of spirituous liquors be forbidden in the "Theatre of the People."

Hear that, ye stunning sons of the music-halls--hear that,
frequenters of our splendid saloons and brilliant bars! Contrast
this barbaric dream of a Russian Blue Book, with the civilized
reality of London, where Free Trade in theatres does its work, and
the demand is allowed to create the supply of theatrical pabulum
for the people, from the Victoria[29] to the penny gaff! The idea of
the people being condemned to "healthy and elevating"
entertainment; when their betters can revel in the Schneider, the
Menken, the Cancan and the Opera Bouffe, the indecent burlesque,
the breakdown, and the sensational drama!

[Footnote 29: The "Old Vic," now reclaimed very much on the lines of the Russian ideal.]

MATRON IN STALLS (reads from programme): "'Overture to L'Onfong Prod-eeg.' What does that mean? The prodigious child, eh?"

ACCOMPLISHED DAUGHTER (shocked): "Mamma, dear! No--'L'Enfant Prodigue'--it means the Infant Prodigy!!"]

The historic invasion of the Russians did not occur till about forty years later. Of the famous French players who delighted English audiences between 1857 and 1874 the last and not the least fascinating was Aimée Desclée, who, after an arduous apprenticeship to her art and ten years of weary waiting, had been discovered by Alexandre Dumas _fils_, and leapt into fame in _La Femme de Claude_, _Diane de Lys_, _Princesse Georges,_ and, above all, as the original Frou-Frou in the play of that name. Of her it was well said by a French critic that "she had a strange, wandering, unbalanced look that revealed the troubled depths of her soul. Her voice had a most peculiar _timbre_, and her abrupt utterances, every word of which stung like the strokes of a whip, fell upon a spellbound audience that hung on every word." After fulfilling a brilliant engagement at the Princess's Theatre in 1873 she returned to Paris to die at the age of thirty-seven. The tragedy of her brief success and the exacting temper of the Parisian public are well summed up in _Punch's_ memorial tribute:--

But too late came the harvest of her pains;
The roots of Death had struck deep in her heart;
And what cares Death for glory or for gains,
Guerdon of that short life, so spent for Art?

And she was dying, with the pitiless cry
Of box and pit and gallery in her ear,
"Give us thy life, but act, and, after, die;
It is to live with thy life we are here."

While extending salutations to the foreigners _Punch_ was not slow to acclaim native talent. In 1865 he recognized in Kate Terry "one of the most consummate actresses of her own range of parts we have ever seen on the English Stage." That was said of her appearance in _Henry Dunbar_ in December, 1865, and in June, 1867, in Reade's _Dora_, "a real English Idyll, sweet, simple, natural and breathing of the country," he found her completely satisfying in a part unlike her usual stage self. Three months later _Punch_ bade her farewell on her marriage and withdrawal from the stage, paying homage to her triple endowment of Genius, Goodness and Beauty, her "innocent sensitive face," and her gentle, gracious and womanly presence. Her "delicate influence" was a standing disproof of the arguments of those who despaired of true art and its reign on the stage, and she was retiring "from the top of the ladder reached fairly at last with her laurels still springing and none of them blighted."

[Sidenote: _The Coming of Irving_]

The rise of Irving from comedy and melodrama to Shakespearean drama is attentively and sympathetically followed. His performance in the "nightmare play" of _The Bells_ is pronounced to be a triumph of merit; the sense of relief experienced on the fall of the curtain was in itself the highest praise. The programme at the Lyceum ended with _Pickwick_, with Irving as Jingle. _Punch_ regarded it as an incongruity: he preferred to see Irving play _The Bells_ without the Jingle. There was nothing wrong with _Charles I_ but the play. "His make-up was admirable, his playing of the first and the last Act well-nigh faultless; but between these two Acts the actor was left to make the best bricks possible out of the scantiest wisps of straw.... I have no hesitation in saying that the last Act is as affecting a spectacle as anything I have ever seen on the stage." With Irving's _Richelieu_, in 1873, _Punch_ was disappointed, though allowing him some pathetic moments. But Irving, it is suggested, may have been the victim of the bad traditions attaching to what was after all a pretentious and "wind-baggy" play. Irving's _Hamlet_ was another matter altogether, and is treated very seriously and exhaustively by _Punch_. It was a "genuine and well-deserved success." No such strong and general sensation had been produced since Fechter, over whom Irving had the great advantage of speaking as a native the tongue in which Shakespeare wrote. No impersonation with which _Punch_ was familiar, including that of Macready, displayed a more consistent conception, more sustained intention, more intelligent mastery of this many-sided character. This much granted, _Punch_ severely criticized Irving's cavalier treatment of the text, his suppressions and omissions, his handling of all the scenes with the Ghost. The psychological interpretation of Hamlet's madness erred through over-emphasis on his pathetic and gentle side. The unsound strain was kept too much in the background, and consistency was attained at the expense of the text. Sundry scenic innovations are also condemned, and altogether high praise is tempered with a good deal of acute and legitimate criticism. On the vexed question of Hamlet's madness _Punch_ writes intelligently, but without the wit which inspired the immortal couplet in Gilbert's _Rosencrantz and Guildenstern_:--

Hamlet is idiotically sane,
With lucid intervals of lunacy.

There are some good lines, however, in the issue of December 12, 1874, on "Hamlet's Right Hair," whether flaxen or raven. After all, as _Punch_ argues, it is not a question of the thatch of Hamlet's upper storey:

... It is a brain
Fitting the part, that's asked to play the Dane.

[Sidenote: "_The Menken_"]

Turning from serious drama to melodrama and comedy high and otherwise, we find a liberal acknowledgment of the excitement furnished by the _Colleen Bawn_, Boucicault's bedevilled version of Gerald Griffin's fine novel _The Collegians_, when it was produced towards the close of 1860. The plot is fully set forth, and "Jack Easel" confesses that he enjoyed the evening very much. "Whatever may be the opinion of the learned regarding Mr. Boucicault as a dramatist, there can be little doubt of his merits 'on the boards.' I can hardly imagine a better stage Irishman." But _Punch_, who had no mercy for Boucicault's resentment of criticism, in March, 1862, printed a mock notice signed "Dion Boucicault," threatening condign punishment on all who disparaged his genius or dared to leave the theatre before the curtain fell and D.B. appeared before the same. And a month later we read a mock trial of an unfortunate pittite who had ventured to make some unfavourable comments on the Cave scene. The production of the melodrama founded on Charles Reade's _Never Too Late to Mend_, in 1865, met with _Punch's_ approval. Some of the audience hissed the prison scenes: yet Menken had been tolerated. This was the famous and notorious Adah Isaacs Menken, a native of Louisiana; dancer, actress, school teacher, journalist and poetess, married first of all to a Jew, whose faith she adopted, and then to the "Benicia Boy," Heenan, the prize-fighter. After a chequered career on and off the stage in America she appeared at Astley's in _Mazeppa_ in 1864, when _Punch_ made reference to her as "a bare-backed jade on bare-backed steed." It was certainly a _succès de scandale_, but "the Menken" made a stir in the literary world and found patrons and friends in Charles Reade, Charles Dickens (to whom her volume of poems, _Infelicia_, was dedicated), and Swinburne. In Paris, to which city she migrated, and where she died in 1869, she enjoyed the friendship of Dumas and Théophile Gautier. "The Menken" was not intended for a placid domestic life; she would not have been in her element at a Mothers' Meeting; but she was a highly educated woman, had studied Latin and Greek, had played Lady Macbeth, and, though not a Sappho, was a much better poetess than Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

Happy thought: Incognito secured--blushes concealed--and self-respect preserved (at least outwardly).]