My task would have been greatly simplified by the exclusion of politics altogether. But to do that would have involved the neglect of what is, after all, perhaps the most interesting and in many ways the most honourable phase of _Punch's_ history, his championship of the poor and oppressed, and his efforts to bridge the gap between the "Two Nations"--the phrase which was used and justified in the finest passage of Disraeli's _Sybil_, and which I have chosen as the title for the first part of the present volume. To write a Social History of England at any time without reference to the political background would be difficult; it is practically impossible in a chronicle based on _Punch_ in the 'forties and 'fifties. In the second part I have endeavoured to redress the balance. Here one recognizes the advantages of _Punch's_ London outlook in dealing with the Court and fashion and the acute contrasts furnished between Mayfair on the one hand and the suburbs and slums on the other. No attempt has been made to represent _Punch_ as infallible whether as a recorder, a critic, or a prophet. He was often wrong, unjust, and even cruel--notably in his view of Peel and Lincoln, and in his conduct of the "No Popery" crusade--though he seldom failed to make amends, even to the extent of standing in a white sheet over Lincoln's grave. But the majority of these confessions took the form of posthumous tributes. As for the gradual cooling of _Punch's_ democratic ardour, that may be attributed partly to the removal or remedying of abuses by legislation and the education of public opinion; partly to the fact that newspapers follow the rule of individuals, and tend to become more moderate as they grow older. The great value of _Punch_ resides in the fact that it provides us with a history of the Victorians _written by themselves_. This is no guarantee of the accuracy of the facts recorded. We have had painful proof in recent years that contemporary evidence, when based on hearsay, even though written down red-hot in a diary, is, to put it mildly, incapable of corroboration. But, as reflecting the nature and mood of the writer, contemporary evidence is always interesting. My aim has been to supply a critical commentary, and, where possible, to verify or correct the statements or judgments recorded in _Punch_. Acknowledgments of the various authorities consulted will be found in the footnotes, but I should like to express my special indebtedness to the _Dictionary of National Biography_; to the _New English Dictionary_; to _The Political History of England_, by Sir Sidney Low and Mr. Lloyd Sanders; to Mr. C.R. Fay's _Life and Labour in the Nineteenth Century_; and, where the inner or domestic history of the paper is concerned, to Mr. M. H. Spielmann's _History of Punch_.