Punch had welcomed Macaulay's peerage, and on his death at the end of 1859 spoke of his as "the noblest name our Golden Book could show." In spite of occasional sharp divergences of opinion, Carlyle is nearly always treated with honour and respect. When he was elected Lord Rector of Edinburgh University in 1866, Punch saluted him in his own peculiar style as a "brave, wise old man" who in an age of "eternal butter and testimonial-plasterings of mediocrity," had flagellated windbags, scourged sham patriotism, spoken words of manly cheer, and in general shown that the root of the matter was in him. Punch's further salute in 1874 when "the Prussian Royal Order of Merit was presented to the English historical biographer of Frederick the Great," is pitched in a key that jars on modern ears by its eulogy of Bismarck and the Emperor William; but the last stanzas of "True Thomas and his Order" are worth quoting:—
Our mother England has no stars
For soldiers of the Pen:
With us such honours spring from wars
Watered with blood of men.
Then let us rather smile than sneer,
When from the Vaterland,
Whose thought to us he has brought near,
There is stretched forth a hand,
To pin the badge of merit fair