Punch, April 24, 1880.
——:o:——
The following lines are in imitation of the opening of Canto III., entitled The Gathering. They are apropos of Mr. Gladstone’s visit to Scotland in August, 1884, during the agitation about the Franchise Bill.
Raising the “Fiery Cross.”
(Some way after Sir Walter Scott).
Time rolls his ceaseless course. That fight of yore,
When the Great Earl was beaten to his knee,
When Gladstone’s rhetoric rolled from shore to shore,
Herald and harbinger of victory,
Is not yet blotted from man’s memory.