Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, November 6, 1841,Various
General
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, November 6, 1841,
Various
English wit and humor -- Periodicals
of a score or so of years he would return to this life in an entirely new
character. The Doctor has kept his word. HERR VON TEUFELSKOPF, as Sir
THOMAS BROWNE says, is "lived over again" in Sir ROBERT PEEL!
It is impossible to reflect upon the enlarged humanity of Sir ROBERT--for
though, indeed, he is no other than the old German quack revived, we will
not refuse to him his new name--toward the sufferers of Paisley, without
feeling that the fine spirit of finesse which made the reputation of the
student of the Black Forest has in no way suffered from its long sleep;
but, on the contrary, has risen very much refreshed for new practice. The
Doctor never compassed so fine a sleight as Sir ROBERT when lately,
playing the philanthropist, he struck his breeches' pocket with a spasm of
benevolence, and pulled therefrom--fifty pounds! Only a few weeks before,
Sir ROBERT had sworn by all his list of former cures, that he would clothe
the naked and feed the hungry, if he were duly authorised and duly paid
for such Christian-like solicitude. He is called in; he then prorogues
Parliament to the tune of "Go to the devil and shake yourself," and sits
down in the easy chair of salary, and tries to think! Disturbed in his
contemplations by the groans and screams of the famishing, he addresses
the starving multitude from the windows of Downing-street, telling them he
can do nothing for them in a large way, but--the fee he has received to
cure them can afford as much--graciously throwing them fifty pounds from
his private compassion! As a statesman he is powerless; but he has no
objection to subscribe to the Mendicity Society.
It is an old hacknied abuse of NERO, that when Rome was in flame he
accompanied the crackling of doors and rafters with his very best fiddle.
We grant this showed a want of fine sympathy on the part of NERO; there
was, nevertheless, a boldness, an exhibition of nerve, in such
instrumentation. Any way, it leaves us with a higher respect for NERO than
if he had been found playing on the burning Pantheon with a penny squirt.
His mockery of the Romans, bad as it was, was not the mockery of
compassion.
"I will make bread cheap for you," says Sir ROBERT PEEL to the Paisley
sufferers; "I will not enable you to buy the quartern loaf at a reduced
rate by your own industry, but I will treat you to a penny roll, at its
present size, from my own purse." Whereupon the Tories clap their hands
and cry, "What magnanimity!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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