OUR BOTTLE-HOLDER.
So, Palmerston's out! and the cannie Scotch Peer
Whom he cuts, is in haste to be first with the story,
And, to poison our Pam in the popular ear,
Proclaims that for years our old friend's been a Tory.
But Punch is afraid that another Scotch mull
Is marking the course of the friend of St. Nicholas;
For the good Mr. Bull is by no means so dull
As not to perceive that the charge is ridiculous.
What! Palmerston, Liberty's champion in need,
Who confronted oppressors with England's broad ægis,
And haughtily ordered the despots to read
On its blazon, the duties that Lords owe to Lieges.
Who has fluttered, not pigeons (like us, dear Lord A.,
Who all "pigeon-livered, lack gall" to sustain us)
But Eagles, Spread, Double, Red, Black, White, and Grey,
And cried "kennel!" to Kings with his Civis Romanus.
Whose name gives the sign for a chorus of groans,
Where, crowned and anointed things gibber in ermine,
And, where slaves crawl and slaver the footsteps of thrones,
Sends them off to their holes, as the light does night vermin.
It really won't do. To your patron, the Czar,
When the now forming file of the newspapers comes, he
Will laugh out in scorn with a royal "Ha! ha!
To think Aberdeen was so helplessly clumsy."
So, call him what you, for about forty years,
Were—a Tory—or aught that comes into your noddle,
One only regrets that in these days one hears
Of so very few Tories who're built on his model.
He remembers the service by Palmerston done
Since he took the portfolio, but yesterday hawked about;
How, shoulder to wheel, he went through at a run,
The work that all others had dawdled and talked about.
The grind for "six moons" to the wife-beating brute;
The foot on the dens where turf-gamblers would cozen;
The foul furnace throats made to swallow their soot;
The yet fouler charnel yards closed by the dozen.
The lecture your Lordship's Scotch friends would not print,
Who against Sabbath-breaking so tipsily hiccup;
And the scourge he was knotting, by way of a hint
To bid ruffians reflect before taking the stick up.
All this, my dear Lord, in our tablet's enrolled;
And we'd very respectfully say to your Lordship,
That the tales of your organs had better be told
To those worthies, the resident soldiers on board ship.
For all the Scotch Lords who e'er blessed Duke Argyll,
Pouring out all their spleen by the gallon—Scotch measure,
Could not poison John Bull from his jolly frank smile,
When he says, "Punch, here's Pam!" and Punch says, "John, with pleasure."
[And they drink Lord Palmerston's health.