Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 108, February 9, 1895Various
General
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 108, February 9, 1895
Various
English wit and humor -- Periodicals
The House knew GRANDOLPH, as he presented himself to its notice from
various points of view. First, an unknown new Member, rising from
bench immediately behind Ministers, a situation which, deliberately
chosen, seemed to observant Whips to indicate pleasurable prospect of
docility. Next, whilst his Party was still in office, he popped up
from front bench below gangway, and pricked at ponderous hide of
SCLATER-BOOTH, pink of respectability, sublimation of
county-gentry-Toryism. Then, with sudden brilliancy and sustained
force, he rose on the firmament below the gangway in Opposition,
tilting almost single-handed at the panoplied host, a majority over a
hundred strong, that seemed to make Mr. G.'s second Administration
invulnerable. For a moment in a famous night in June he was seen
standing jubilant on his seat at the corner of the bench, waving his
hat, shouting himself hoarse with cries of victory. From this
elevation he sprang lightly on to the Treasury Bench, and astonished
Members who, with him, had heard the chimes at midnight and after, by
the quiet dignity of his manner, his unerring tact, his unfailing
skill of management. Never since the time _Prince Hal_, boon companion
of _Falstaff_, became _King Henry the Fifth_, has there been seen such
transformation.
Never was such a sudden scholar made;
Never came reformation in a flood,
With such a heady currance, scouring faults;
Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness
So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,
As in this king.
The succeeding Session had a fresh surprise. It found our GRANDOLPH,
self-reduced to the ranks, caressing his moustache on the corner seat
behind the Treasury Bench. After a while he wearied of the invidious
position, and went off to the races, to Norway a-fishing, to South
Africa to observe the ways of lions from precarious proximity. But his
heart was, after all, at Westminster. He came back broken in health,
undaunted in spirit. Nothing pluckier, nothing more pathetic seen in
the House than his long stubborn fight against the paralysis that
crept over him even as he stood at the table and tried to weave again
the magic spell by which he once held the House.
He died as he lived, fighting, keeping Death at arm's length for a
full month after the highest authorities had said it was a mistake to
be such an unconscionably long time in dying.
The House of Commons will know GRANDOLPH no more. But it will never
forget one who will through all time rank among the most brilliant of
its sons.
* * *
Something decidedly hysterical about jubilation of the hour. Prevalent
hilarity suggests case of crowded passenger ship, having been in
imminent danger of shipwreck, suddenly steams into comparatively
placid seas.
"If," says WILFRID LAWSON, an authority on Church matters, "it were
customary to commence the Session by singing a hymn I know what SQUIRE
OF MALWOOD would give out. It's the one beginning
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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