Napier came, saw, and conquered; the battle was o'er; There's an end of the war and of King Theodore. The prestige is recovered that England had lost, And the popular voice cries "A fig for the cost!" Lo, the tyrant's abolished, the captives are free! And there isn't a fraction to pay on our tea, Or our sugar: how sweet so cheap glory to win! No additional tax on tobacco or gin! Let us drink, then, success to Disraeli and Hunt, Who exempted the many from finding the blunt; And laid all the expense of the War on the few-- For the Income-Tax payer will pay all that's due. Ah, tremble, ye tyrants, whom England can crush, At a price which her millions won't care for one rush; In the scale as a feather the money will weigh, For a national war when a part has to pay. [Sidenote: _French and German Ambitions_] Meanwhile the upper classes had been spending their money freely at the great French Exhibition of 1867, that crowning manifestation of the art and opulence, the magnificence and cynicism of the Second Empire, with Schneider as high priestess of the revels, and all the rank and fashion of Europe paying homage at her shrine. _Punch_, however, took a friendly personal interest in the exhibition, for Leech's drawings were exhibited there. The Federation of Canada, an event of first-rank importance to the British Empire, with a Constitution framed mainly on the lines of Lord Durham's Report in 1840, was overshadowed by the more spectacular and dramatic events of the year 1867. Disraeli succeeded Lord Derby on his resignation in February, 1868, and _Punch_ handsomely acknowledged "the genius and perseverance" which, after thirty years of strife, had thus been rewarded; but the new Premier only held office till December, when the Liberals were returned with a majority of 112. The peerage which he declined for himself, but accepted for his wife, who was created Viscountess Beaconsfield, inspired a graceful tribute from his old critic _Punch_. Parliament, before the prorogation in July, had been mainly occupied with the battle over Gladstone's Irish Church resolutions, which brought about the Government's downfall. It is worthy of note that in 1868 it was the Militarism of France, not of Germany, that excited _Punch's_ misgivings and animosities, to the extent of his describing the Emperor's proposed Army Loan of 440 million francs as a measure to establish a reign of "terror and preponderance." A map, which was said to have been published by order of the Emperor, illustrating French ambitions, gravely exercised _Punch_ later in a year which witnessed the Revolution in Spain and the flight of the notorious Queen Isabella, events which awakened little sympathy or interest in England. Yet the eviction of Isabella opened the door to the Hohenzollern candidature for the throne of Spain, the proximate cause of the war of 1870.