The restoration of the monarchy in Spain under Alfonso XII, in the same year, also gave Punch occasion for serious thought. We may pass over the cartoon representing John Bull's anxiety about Spanish bonds as a satire on British commercialism. But there is shrewd political insight in the picture of Alfonso between two fires—Bismarck and the Pope. The German Chancellor makes his support conditional on the withdrawal of the anti-Protestant edicts; while the Pope, on the other hand, maintains the claims of his Church.
In 1876 the Queen assumed the title of Empress of India; Disraeli went to the Lords as Earl of Beaconsfield, Sir Stafford Northcote succeeding him as Leader of the House of Commons; and the "Bulgarian Atrocities" proved the first phase in the conflict which made the Balkans the cockpit of Europe for over forty years. Punch did not cavil at Disraeli's earldom, though he thought his refusal of the Garter in 1878 well calculated rather than modest. He suggests, moreover, that Earl of Coningsby would have been a better title; and in the cartoon headed, "Empress and Earl, or One Good Turn deserves Another," shows Dizzy kneeling to the Queen and saying, "Thank your Majesty! I might have had it before! Now I think I have earned it!" More sympathetic are the verses in which Punch describes the realization of Disraeli's triple dream of success in Fashion, Letters and Politics—the dream that inspired him when he was only an articled clerk and a Jew boy:—
After forty years' fighting, he steps from the fire
To the height scarcely scaled in his Old Jewry dream;
Adds a third to his two wreaths of boyish desire,
Though sore set against him the stress of the stream.
And all who can honour faith, patience, and power
And the strenuous purpose that runs a life through
Like a muscle of iron, are glad of the hour
That sees his hand close on the honour his due!