Devotion self-respecting, sober, just,
Lifts lowliest tendance to ennobling state.
A good Queen's faithful follower! His the fate
To wear the honours of the antique school,
Right Service, nobler than unrighteous rule.
Punch's alternations of loyalty and exceedingly frank criticism of Royalty during this period are, it must be admitted, abrupt and even bewildering. In the following extracts from The Speaker; a Handbook to ready-made Oratory, we find him in his most unbridled and unmuzzled mood:—
PART I.—LOYAL TOASTS.
Duke of Edinburgh.—Sailor. Plays the fiddle like an angel. Married to rich Russian Princess. Friend of Sir Arthur Sullivan.
Duke of Connaught.—First-class Soldier, covered with Egyptian Medals.... His Royal Highness may be called "the heroic and beloved son of our revered Sovereign"—by a provincial Mayor. Name may be introduced in connexion with Ireland, the Franco-German War, Foreign Stocks—"Prefs." and "Unified"—the late Duke of Wellington, and "the Patrol Camp Equipage Hold-all."
Duke of Albany.—Scientific. Called after the King of the Belgians. Was at Oxford. Connected more or less with South Kensington, Upton Park Road, Bedford Park, the Kyrle Society, and Cremona violins. Is walking in the steps of the late greatly lamented Prince Consort.
Prince Teck.—Served with distinction as a letter-carrier on the field of Tel-el-Kebir, sold furniture of Kensington Palace by auction, and retired abroad. Name of no great value to anyone.
Here Punch, consciously or unconsciously, was satirizing himself in his ceremonial moods. He was on much safer ground in the excellent pictorial burlesque of the life of the Duke of Clarence at Cambridge, based on a series of illustrations in a serious picture-paper in which, amongst other incidents, the Prince had been depicted as "coxing" a racing boat from the bow! This was fair game. There is a spice of malice in the prospectus of an hotel which would supply "a long felt want" by catering at cheap prices for Royal visitors, foreign Princes and potentates, who could not be suitably accommodated in Buckingham Palace. The publication in February, 1884, of a further instalment of "Leaves from her Journal in the Highlands" is claimed as the Queen's Valentine to Mr. Punch. When the Duke of Albany died in March, Punch did not err on the side of underestimating the promise and achievement of that estimable Prince, but there is an uncanny resemblance between his graceful elegiac stanzas and the points outlined in the handbook of loyal toasts noted above. For a few months the irresponsible satirist is silent; but he explodes again towards the close of the year over the rumour that the Crown of Brunswick had been offered to the Duke of Cambridge, and that he absolutely refused to resign the command of the British Army. As the rumour was groundless, there was no excuse for Punch's malicious imaginary dialogue between the Duke and the foreign officer who had come to make him the offer. In representing the Duke as being discovered writing an article for the Sunday Times on "Dress," Punch was only reverting to the old familiar gibe at the passionate preoccupation of the Royal Family with tailoring.
A Pacific Prince
