Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, October 23, 1841Various
General
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, October 23, 1841
Various
English wit and humor -- Periodicals
a parish constable as a Paymaster of the Forces; and the dough she had
intended to swallow knives and eat fire at wakes and fairs gravely
responded to as "an honourable and gallant member!" Whereupon, who can
wonder at the amazement and indignation of Mother Nature, and that, with a
keen sense of the misapplication of her skulls, she sometimes abuses
Mother Fortune in good set terms, mingling with her reproaches the
strongest reflections on her chastity?
We have thought it due to the full consideration of our subject so far, to
dwell upon the natural difference between the skull of a Peer and the
skull of a Commoner. The skull of the noble, as we have shown, is a thing
made to order--fitted up, like Mr. MECHI'S pocket-dressing-case, with the
ornamental and useful: no instrument can be added to it--the thing is
complete. Hence, to employ historical painters for the education of the
House of Lords would be a useless and profligate expenditure of art and
money. It would be to paint the lily LONDONDERRY--to add a perfume to the
violet ELLENBOROUGH. All Peers being from the first--indeed, even _in
utero_--ordained law-makers, statute-making comes to them by nature. How
much history goes to prove this, showing that the House of Lords--like the
Solomons of the _fleur-de-lis_--have learned nothing, and forgotten
nothing! To attempt to instruct a Peer would be as gross an impertinence
to the instinct of his order as to present MINERVA--who no doubt came from
the head of JOVE a Peeress in her own right--with a toy alphabet or
horn-book.
For the skulls of the House of Commons,--that is, indeed, another
question! We are so far utilitarian that we would have the pictures for
which Mr. BARRY offers a thousand feet selected solely with a view to the
dissemination of knowledge amongst the many benighted members of the House
of Commons. We would have the subjects so chosen that they should entirely
supersede _Oldfield's Representative History_; never forgetting the wants
of the most illiterate. For instance, for the politicians on the fifth
form, the SIBTHORPS and PLUMPTRES, whose education in their youth has been
shamefully neglected, we would have a nice pictorial political alphabet.
We do not pride ourselves, be it understood, upon writing unwrinkled
verse; we only present the subjoined as a crude idea of our plan, taken we
confess, from certain variegated volumes, to be had either of Mr. SOUTER,
St. Paul's Churchyard, or Messrs. DARTON and HARVEY, Holborn.
A was King ALFRED, a monarch of note;
B is BURDETT, who can well turn a coat.
Here we would have the chief incidents of Alfred's life nicely painted,
with BURDETT, late Old Glory, and now Old Corruption. As for the poetry,
when we consider the capacities of the learners, _that_ cannot be too
simple, too homely. The House, however, may order a Committee of
Versification, if it please; all that we protest against is D'ISRAELI
being of the number.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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