Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Shanna D. Bokoff, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net [Illustration: PUNCH VOL CVII] LONDON: PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICE, 85, FLEET STREET, AND SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLERS, 1894. LONDON: BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. * * * * * [Illustration: PREFACE.] SCENE--Mr. PUNCH'S _Sanctum at "the Season of the Year." Enter_ Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY _and_ Dr. SYNTAX. "You may not recognise me, Mr. PUNCH?" quoth the old Knight, with stately modesty. "Not recognise Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY?" rejoined Mr. PUNCH, urbanely. "Why, even disguised as a Saracen's Head--ha! ha! ha!--I should know those well-loved lineaments." "I perceive, indeed," said the Knight, with scarcely-veiled complacency, "that you have perused my friend ATTICUS-ADDISON'S all-too flattering account of me and my several adventures." "I know my _Spectator_ by heart," replied Mr. PUNCH. "Nor," added he, turning to the quaint, black-vestured, bob-wigged figure at Sir ROGER'S elbow, "are Dr. SYNTAX'S Tours unfamiliar to my memory. Like yourself, I can say-- 'You well know what my pen can do, And I employ my pencil too. I _ride_, and _write_, and _sketch_, and _print_, And thus create a real mint; I _prose_ it here, I _verse_ it there, And _picturesque_ it everywhere.'" "Marvellous man!" cried Dr. SYNTAX, lifting his eyebrows until they almost met the downward curve of his tilted wig. "TOBY," cried Mr. PUNCH, "call for clean pipes, a roll of the best Virginia, a dish of coffee, wax candles, and the Supplement (otherwise my Christmas Number). Tell them, TOBIAS, to follow with a bowl of steaming punch--my own particular _merum nectar_--and Sir ROGER shall see what I have forgotten of his story, his tastes, and the duties of Amphitryon!" In two minutes the Illustrious Trio were "making the centuries meet" under the benignly blending influences of Good Tobacco, Sound Tipple, and Cheery Talk. "And how fares 'Our Village' (to quote Miss MITFORD) in these revolutionary days?" queried Dr. SYNTAX. Mr. PUNCH smiled, and promptly quoted:-- "'And liquor that was brew'd at home Among the rest was seen to foam. The Doctor drank, the Doctor ate, Well pleased to find so fair a treat. Then to his pipe he kindly took, And, with a condescending look, Call'd on his good Host to relate What was the Village's new state.'" "Exactly so," cried the pursuer of the picturesque, profoundly flattered by Mr. PUNCH'S prodigious memory. "Aye, prithee, Mr. PUNCH," said the old Knight, seriously, "tell us what means all this new-fangled nonsense of Parish Meetings, Village Councils, Hodge pitchforked into power, and Squire and Parson out of it, and I know not what revolutionary rubbish and impious absurdity?"