There was an old Singer of Avon, Who, Aunty Bess thought, was a brave one; But Mamma doesn't care For this stupid swan's air, Any more than the croak of a raven. [Sidenote: _Royal Visits and Visitors_] [Illustration: CALYPSO MOURNING THE DEPARTURE OF ULYSSES Calypso, Q----n V----a; Ulysses, K--g of the F----h.] The Court was certainly not addicted to extravagance, but the Queen's "bal poudré" in June is heavily ridiculed, largely, no doubt, because of _Punch's_ frequently expressed conviction that the British never shone as masqueraders. Cobden's speech in 1848, attacking highly-paid sinecures in the Royal Household, is approved, but _Punch_ was no advocate of parsimony. The new front of Buckingham Palace is severely criticized in March, 1849: its only beauty is that of hiding the remainder of the building like "a clean front put on to make the best of an indifferent shirt." The "mountainous flunkeydom" at Royal levées is a frequent incentive to ridicule with pen and pencil; _Punch_ is happy in pillorying the _Morning Post_ for the use of the phrase, "the dense mass of the nobility and gentry" at one of Lady Derby's receptions; while he applauds the Queen for setting a good example by giving early juvenile parties in the season of 1850. Her visits and visitors were carefully scrutinized and freely criticized, beginning with the Royal tour in Belgium and France in the autumn of 1843, when Queen Victoria is represented as mesmerizing Louis Philippe with a Commercial Treaty. _Punch_ was in frequent hot water with Louis Philippe--whom, by the way, he once represented as Fagin--and the impending visit of the French Sovereign, at the close of 1844, led to some plain talk on his folly in proscribing and impounding _Punch_, followed up by a burlesque account of his arrival at Portsmouth, with an ironical reference to the omission of all literary men, painters, musicians, sculptors, etc., from the invitations to meet him at Court. When the French King left, _Punch_ burlesqued the situation by representing the Queen as Calypso. _Punch_, like the _Skibbereen Eagle_, always kept his eye on the Tsar of Russia--and, indeed, upon all foreign potentates. The Tsar Nicholas stood, to him, for all that was evil in "the King business." His attacks began in 1842 and never ceased in the Tsar's lifetime. The visit to England in the summer of 1844 was the signal for an explosion of bitter hostility. Readers of _Punch_ are advised to carry every penny of the largess he drops to the Polish Fund. They should be polite, but avoid any approval of his looks or manners. The Tsar's misdeeds and acts of harshness to Poles and Jews are minutely recalled. Queen Victoria is shown in a cartoon offering Poland as a bun to Nicholas the Bear at the Zoo. The Tsar's lavish presents are flouted and condemned. A design for the 500-guinea cup he offered for Ascot is made a hideous memento of savage repression. His subscription to the Polish Ball is compared to