What a list it is! The quest of notoriety, blatant advertisement, party rancour and sectarian strife, forensic greed, mummer-worship, incompetent and ungenerous criticism, fleshly poetry, the arrogance of science, "Corybantic Christianity," tarnished womanhood, the decay of manly fibre, prying journalism, amateurism in letters, windy Agnosticism, with vulgarity enthroned as high priestess of the age! Modern Juvenals, when they are Jeremiahs into the bargain, are not exhilarating companions. Here _Punch_ saw life in England neither steadily nor whole, and made the mistake, not surprising in a Londoner, of confounding the extravagances, the eccentricities and the vices of London coteries and cliques, and, above all, of her idle rich, with the tone and temper of the nation at large. "Smart" London Society did not represent England or even London. But _Punch_ spoke with many voices, and in the "Voces Populi," with which, towards the end of this period, Mr. Anstey had begun to refresh and rejoice the hearts of his readers, you will find an agreeable corrective of the unqualified pessimism of "Marius." The "people" whose "voices" are recorded were often ridiculous, vulgar and semi-educated, but they were not corrupt or degenerate. Twenty years later the extravagances castigated by "Marius" were even more pronounced, but were confined to the same limited though highly advertised circles. Yet many of those who seemed most wedded to self-indulgence were capable of a noble regeneration in the hour of their country's need. And outside these circles there was, in 1884, as at a later date, a great if unobtrusive throng of men and women who stood in the authentic line of the heroes and heroines of the past, only waiting for an opportunity to prove themselves the inheritors of their spirit. RECREATION, SPORT, AND PASTIME The second half of the nineteenth century was not only notable for the organization of Labour. It was also the age of the organization of Recreation, the age of Exhibitions. The Exhibition of 1851 was a serious affair in which entertainment was subordinated to the demands of Commerce, Industry and Science. The series of Exhibitions which marked the decade of the 'eighties, though their names and their avowed aims were serious, practical or scientific, were run with an ever increasing tendency to emphasize the spectacular element, to cater for the amusement and entertainment (in all senses) of the public. _Punch_ summarized this tendency happily enough in the phrase that he applied to the possibilities of the Imperial Institute--"Commerce _v._ Cremorne." He had already deplored the decline of institutions, such as the Crystal Palace, which beginning with high educational aims, had come to rest their popular appeal on dangerous acrobatics and freak performances. He was even more outspoken in his comments on the degeneracy of the Aquarium at Westminster in 1879 and 1880.