Let feet be seen.
Girls to good taste return,
Paris flash modes unlearn,
No more catch fire and burn,
Thanks to the Queen!
The Empress Eugénie, it should be added by way of explanation, had already fallen under the lash of Punch's satire for supporting the crinoline, and starting absurd fashions, amongst which he specially notes the "occipital bonnet"—worn at the back of the head.
Punch and the Royal Princes
The Princess Royal was already off the Queen's and Mr. Punch's hands. The birth of her son in 1859—grande et conspicuum nostro quoque tempore monstrum—is duly celebrated in some lines "On an auspicious event" in which the Duchess of Kent is saluted as a great-grandmother. But in 1859 and 1860 Punch, who liked to take himself very seriously as an instructor of youth, is mainly concerned with the education of the Royal Princes. Prince Alfred (the Duke of Edinburgh) was already a middy, and his tour in Egypt and Palestine prompted severe comments on the obsequiousness with which he was fêted in the near East. As for the Prince of Wales, the dangers of sycophancy were (according to Punch) much less than those of over-pressure. In the cartoon entitled "The Royal Road to Learning," the Prince in cap and gown is shown surrounded by a group of stout, spectacled, bald and bottle-nosed professors and dons bowing and scraping before the Royal youth. Punch protests, too, in spirited doggerel against the process which threatened to make the Prince Jack-of-all-trades and lord of none. It is at any rate a consolation to think that the Prince of Wales evaded and survived the alleged attempt to convert him into a walking encyclopædia. The Prince's visit to Canada and the United States as "Baron Renfrew" in 1860 is followed with close interest and sympathy, and the frequent references in text and illustrations suggest many curious parallels with the experiences of his grandson in 1920. Punch welcomed the Prince's release from his arduous studies and was gratified with his reception; he did not acquit the American Press of sycophancy, but was obviously pleased when the New York Herald said that his "genial and unpretending" disposition had "gained him the affection of many true and worthy hearts." Perhaps the greatest compliment was paid him by an Irishman who accosted him in his railway car and said: "Come back four years from now and we'll run you for President."
