A Mr. Robinson, a clergyman.
The "Mr. Robinson," thus disparagingly referred to, was that learned divine, Dean of Westminster from 1902 to 1911, and since then Dean of Wells. It should therefore be remembered that he was Dean of Westminster when Irving was buried in the Abbey.
Driver (approaching Hyde Park Corner and pointing out the sights to country visitors): "On the left's the statute erected to the memory of the great Dook o' Wellington, and that 'ere on the right's a statute erected to the memory of the pore ole 'oss-'buses wot's bin run orf the street by them stinkin' motors."
"Our Robert"
Mention has already been made of the widening of the Mall as part of the Queen Victoria Memorial. Brock's statue and monumental group were pronounced by Punch in 1911 "worthy of a great Queen and a great City," an acknowledgment truly remarkable in one so chary of approval. Captain Adrian Jones's Peace "Quadriga" on Constitution Hill prompted a burlesque alternative design in 1908, with "four typical pedestrians rampant and a motor-car urgent." In 1912 an old lady is seen asking a policeman, "Is that what they call the Quadruped, officer?" and the obliging Robert replies, "Yes, Mum; all except the lady." Towards "Robert," by the way, Punch was in the main sympathetic and appreciative throughout this period, and in one of the "Lays of a Londoner" pays a generous tribute to the benevolent autocrat of the highway:—
In vain the dray-horse paws the air,
The flow of low abuse grows brisker;
He never turns an injured hair,
Or lifts a deprecating whisker,