With this resolve their currents turn or glide
The Pen, the spring, of action!
Shakespen.
This trade Parody was written by Mr. T. Thatcher, of College Green, Bristol.
——:o:——
The following Parody appeared originally in Punch, February 9, 1884, and was afterwards reprinted, without the slightest acknowledgement, in a silly little pamphlet entitled “The Burlesque of Liberal Government,” published by Stoneham, of Cheapside, in 1884. It referred to Sir William Vernon Harcourt’s proposals to reform the abuses in the government of the Metropolis:—
Irresolution.
Scene—The Home Office—Tables covered with huge heaps of official returns, from the Corporation, the Metropolitan Board of Works, and the Thirty-Eight Districts of the Metropolis.
The Home Secretary discovered, looking weary and worn. He throws himself back in his uneasy chair, and soliloquises—
To be, or not to be, that is the question;—