The Kaiser is shown with a toy spade making sand castles for his soldiers. Yet these soldiers were giving ground for anxiety--witness the cartoon in January on the armed peace of Europe with Peace holding out the olive in one hand, with the other on a sword hilt. The inevitable verses allude to the "truculent Kaiser" and evince mistrust of one who comes in such equivocal guise. _Punch_ credited Bismarck with exerting a restraining influence on the warlike activities of the Triple Alliance. He showed him in the spring playing Orpheus to this Cerberus, and lulling it to sleep. But the Kaiser inspired no such confidence, and at the close of the year he is shown posing as a peacemaker but preparing for war--fondling the dove on his hand, while behind is the eagle, with bayonets for feathers, feeding on the Army estimates. [Illustration: THE RIVAL PETS; OR, FONDLING AND FEEDING] Another sovereign whom _Punch_ failed to read with the same penetration was King Leopold II of the Belgians. On the occasion of the International Anti-Slavery Congress at Brussels in November, 1889, _Punch_, while very properly applauding the occasion as tending to the overthrow of "the demon of the shackle and the scourge," acclaimed Leopold II as a "magnanimous King." Cecil Rhodes, some years later, after an interview with the same monarch, said that he felt just as if he had been spending the morning in the company of the Devil. _Punch_, like other critics, was happier in dealing with the dead than the living, and the death of John Bright in March inspired a generous though discriminating tribute to the memory and achievements of "Mercy's sworn militant, great Paladin of Peace":-- For Peace, and Freedom, and the People's right, Based on unshaken Law, he stood and fought; If not with widest purview, yet with sight Single, sagacious, unobscured by aught Of selfish passion or ambitious thought; Seeing day's promise in the darkest night, Hope for the weak 'midst menaces of Might: Careless of clamour as of chance-blown dust, Stern somewhat, scornful oft, and with the stark Downright directness of a Roundhead's stroke, Who drew a Heaven-dedicated sword Against the foes of Freedom's sacred ark, The friends of the oppressor's galling yoke, All fierce assailants of the Army of the Lord. These memorial verses, however, if I may say so without incurring the charge of unfilial disrespect--suffer throughout this period from prolixity. The writer says excellently, but diffusely, in ninety lines what is summed up in the majestic quatrain of Scott which stands at their head:-- Now is the stately column broke, The beacon-light is quench'd in smoke, The trumpet's silver sound is still, The warder silent on the hill! [Sidenote: _Dropping the Pilot_]