Give them their hour to spend at night, In altercation dreary, oh! And England’s good, and England’s light, May gang all tapsalteerie, oh! Loud, &c. Although the above lines appeared in _Punch_ more than forty years ago, they apply almost equally well to the present Parliament. [Illustration] THOMAS CAMPBELL. THE LAST DUKE. (After _The Last Man_.) All selfishness must meet its doom; Humbug itself must die, Before the Dukes give us their room ’Stead of their company. I saw a vision in my sleep, Of Tainboffcoon, a fearful heap, And Belgian cattle prime:―― I saw the last of Ducal race, Who in the steamer took his place, To seek a foreign clime. His Grace had quite a bilious air; His cheek with woe was wan; The Ducal glories center’d were, All in that lonely man! Some had gone to Boulogne――the hands Of mortgagees were on their lands―― To Rome and Baden some; The House of Peers was drear and dead, And _Punch_ himself as dull as lead, Now that the Dukes were dumb. Yet, donkey-like that lone one stood, In seediness still high, And, turning on the pier of wood To England gave good bye: Saying, “Thou hast set, my country’s sun! Thou may’st shut up――the thing is done; The Dukes are forc’d to go; The Corn Laws, that for eighteen years Have kept up rents and paid the Peers, Have fallen at a blow! “What though beneath them we had dearth, And no reward for skill? What though the tillers of the earth Their bellies ne’er could fill? Henceforth to men in toil grown grey, The new coat with its buttons gay, No Ducal hand imparts―― Henceforth no Duke shall teach the throng, With curry-powder warm and strong, To cheer the labourers’ hearts. “But I, for one, won’t vote supplies To men who thus conspire To lower the Duke in vulgar eyes, And poke fun at the Squire. I quit my country, doomed to death; Hard soil, where first I drew my breath, Where long I ruled the roast; I’ll take the Corn-Laws for a pall, And, wrapping them around me, fall―― Wept by the _Morning Post_! “Go, JOHN――the steam will soon be up, A sandwich I would taste; I shall be too sea-sick to sup―― Unto SIR ROBERT haste; Tell that man to his brazen face, Thou saw’st the last of Ducal race Quitting this classic spot, PEEL and Potato-blight defy To make him hold his tongue, or try To talk aught else but ‘rot’!” _Punch_, 1846. (The Duke of Richmond opposed the repeal of the Corn Laws, and declared that if they were repealed, landed proprietors would be driven out of the country.)