When in the coming-time, 'neath the dim ocean line,
Our dear sun shall sink in the wave serene,
Tears will fill these eyes of mine, tears will fill those eyes of thine,
Lowly kneeling, all will pray, God save the Queen!
Jubilee Tributes
In his "Jubilee Celebrator's Vade Mecum" Punch did not spare criticism of the arrangements and the profiteering of speculators in seats. Yet with all deductions and drawbacks the Jubilee "was a gigantic success, for it has shown that a quarter of the world loves and appreciates a blameless Queen, and rejoices to be her subjects." The visit of the Duke and Duchess of York to Ireland in July prompts the usual cartoon attributing to Erin the familiar suggestion of a Royal residence in Ireland, a cure for discontent which Punch was never weary of prescribing. Queen Victoria's eightieth birthday fell in 1899, and in the same number in which Punch welcomes the anniversary he indulges in an unflattering pictorial comment on "Imperial Bruin" breathing forth compliments and pacific professions while carrying on dangerous intrigues in the Far East. Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, had renounced the succession to the Dukedom of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in the lifetime of his brother, the Duke of Edinburgh, who had succeeded to the title in 1893. Punch in 1899 congratulated the Duke of Connaught on a decision the wisdom of which was amply justified in the sequel. Here Punch made no claims to prophecy: he merely showed the Duke of Connaught waving aside the proffered honour and gave as his motto Gilbert's often-quoted lines:—
In spite of all temptations
To belong to other nations,
He remains an Englishman.
Punch's lines on the death of the Duke of Edinburgh in the following year attain to a positively "lapidary" excellence in their discretion and brevity:—