When the question of the title of the next King was discussed, Punch boldly suggested Lazarus:—
Let Henry the Fifth have his Agincourt; let him, in history, sit upon a throne of Frenchmen's skulls; our LAZARUS THE FIRST shall heal the wounds of wretchedness—shall gather bloodless laurels in the hospital and workhouse—his ermine and purple shall make fellowship with rags of linsey-wolsey—he shall be a king enthroned and worshipped in the hearts of the indigent!
LAZARUS THE FIRST! There is hope in the very sound for the wretched! There is Christian comfort to all men in the very syllables! By giving such a name to the greatest king of the earth, there is a shadowing forth and a promise of glorification to the beggars in eternity. Poverty and sores are anointed—tatters are invested with regality—man in his most abject and hopeless condition is shown his rightful equality with the bravest of the earth—royalty and beggary meet and embrace each other in the embrace of fraternity.
O ye thousands famished in cellars! O ye multitudes with hunger and cold biting with "dragon's tooth" your very vitals! shout, if you can find breath enough, "Long live Lazarus!"
In those days there was a "Pauper's Corner" in Punch, in which the cry of the people found frequent and touching utterance. We have quoted from "The Prayer of the People" as a heading to this chapter. Another short poem deserves to be rescued from these old files, and added to the lyrics inspired by the Anti-Corn Law movement:—
Disease and want are sitting by my hearth—
The world hath left me nothing of its good!
The land hath not been stricken by a dearth,
And yet I am alone and wanting food.
The sparrow on the housetops o'er the earth
Doth find its sustenance, and surely HE