The Chancellor (after reading aloud his "Memorandum"): "Awake, adorable dreamer!"
The Awakening of Oxford
In 1904 Punch ranged himself unfalteringly on the side of compulsory Greek. Oxford had decided to retain it, and Punch, garbed as a Hellenic sage, appeals to Cambridge not to be outdone in loyalty to the old faith by her sister. It is hard to avoid reading into the cartoon "Breaking the Charm" in 1909 more than Punch meant to express. Lord Curzon, as the Fairy Prince, is seen, with his Memorandum on University Reform, appealing to the Sleeping Beauty in Matthew Arnold's phrase, "Awake, adorable dreamer!" Of course, the "adorable dreamer" was bound to be pictorially represented by a woman, but recent concessions have lent a special significance to the awakening. Strange to say, the most powerful and eloquent impeachment of the intrusion of women into Oxford comes from the New World; from the pen of the most brilliant of American essayists—Mr. Paul Elmer More. "With petticoats," he writes of Oxford, "came the world and the conventions of the world; manners were softened, the tongue was filed, angles of originality were ironed out; the drawing-room conquered the cloister."
Punch's practical abandonment of the rôle of religious controversialist was noticed in the previous volume. In the period under review references to the churches are for the most part confined to the part they played in connexion with the Education Bills already mentioned. The echoes of the "No Popery" campaign had so far died down that, on the publication in 1898 of Mr. Wilfrid Ward's review of Cardinal Wiseman's life, Punch's notice was not merely sympathetic but laudatory. "The storm that arose in England on his return from Rome to England with the rank of Cardinal was sufficient to have blown a punier man clean off the island. The Cardinal stood four square to it and lived it down." This is a notable tribute from Punch, who had blown and stormed with the best of the Cardinal's assailants. As for the now forgotten but once notorious "Kensitite" demonstrations, Punch's attitude is seen in his advertisement printed in the same year:—
To Prize-Fighters and others.—Wanted, MUSCULAR CHRISTIANS to act as sidesmen; used to mêlées and capable of using their fists. Liberal terms. Free doctor. Pensions in case of personal injury. Apply, stating qualifications, to High Church Clerical Agency, Kensiton, W.
A propos of muscular Christians, in 1900 Punch mentions that a country curate had recently received notice to quit because though unexceptionable in other respects, his vicar declared that "what this parish really needs is a good fast bowler with a break from the off." Modern clerical methods of acquiring popularity were satirized in 1905. A Congregational minister had taken part in a theatrical performance, and Punch gave a burlesque account of a bishop appearing at a music-hall in a travesty of Hamlet for the benefit of a Decayed Curates' Fund.
Anti-Clericalism in France
Bishops and deans have done wonderful things of late years, but this particular forecast remains fortunately unfulfilled hitherto. To 1906 belongs one of the few cartoons in this period in which the relations of Church and State are directly referred to. For this was the year in which the French Government cancelled the Concordat and laid an interdict on the Religious Orders. The policy found no favour from Punch. In "The Triumph of Democracy" he showed a French priest, a dignified figure, standing outside a doorway guarded by a French soldier, and bearing the notice: "République Française. Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. Entrée interdite au Clergé."
