In a wonderful land of wax I've been,
And houris fairer than Heaven I've seen;
To the Inglees Bank a visit I've paid
Where Reuter's gold for me is laid;
And all that have seen me, and all I have seen,
As dust in the path of the Shah hath been,
And instead of eating dirt, I see
But Kaffirs eating dirt to me.
We need not be surprised, after reading this scathing poem, to find that, when the Shah left our shores, Punch had no difficulty in enduring his bereavement with fortitude. The net result, so far as the million were concerned, was the addition of "Have you seen the Shah?" to the catchwords of the hour.
In the eternal competition between London and the provinces, centralization and local autonomy, it was hardly to be expected that Punch, in his jealousy for London, should adopt a judicial or impartial attitude. In earlier years he had protested vigorously against Celtic egotism, when developed at the expense of English sobriety, and the growth of the movement in favour of the vernacular in Wales and the spread of Eisteddfods provoked him to contemptuous antagonism. In the "Essence of Parliament" for May 5, 1862, this hostility is sufficiently outspoken:—