[94] Lord Westbury.
[95] Bishop Colenso died after a brief illness, in 1883, leaving behind him the memory of an honest and fearless thinker, and of a true and devoted missionary.
[96] Sir William Harcourt.
[97] Mr. Whitbread, the brewer, who was very active in the rebuilding of Drury Lane Theatre.
[98] This appeared soon after a tremendous fire at Whiteley’s stores, in Westbourne Grove, London.
[99] G. V. Brooke, the tragedian herein referred to, was lost in the ill-fated steamer London which foundered in the Bay of Biscay in January, 1866.
[100] This and subsequent allusions to the Valentino, the Poses Plastiques, Brixton Treadmill, and other familiar objects of our youth, since swept away by the broom of Time, would fix the authorship of this ballad at a date anterior to the present generation. For instance, in stanza xiv., the students are described as singing now obsolete melodies of Ethiopian origin. In the present day the chosen chorus under similar circumstances would have been the “Ratcatcher’s Daughter,” or possibly, “Villikins.” The allusion to Cowell in stanza viii., reads like an interpolation.—Ed. “O.M.”
[101] At a meeting of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers held in Manchester, on November 5, 1875, Mr. Charles Cochrane, of Stourbridge, read a paper entitled “On the Ultimate Capacity of Blast Furnaces” (for making pig iron.) As was appropriate to such a burning question, the discussion was somewhat heated, although, as need hardly be said, the parodist has availed himself largely of poetical lie-sense in his account of the proceedings. Mr. C. Cochrane asserted that he had effected a great saving in fuel by the construction of his large furnace, in conjunction with Cowper’s patent stoves for heating the blast. The most eminent engineers of the day spoke in the discussion, Messrs. I. L. Bell (now Sir I. L. Bell, M. P.), E. A. Cowper, Sir. Charles W. Siemens, E. H. Carbutt, Sir Frederick Bramwell, and others.
[102] Mr. W. P. Marshall, Secretary of the Institution.
[103] Lord Hartington, then Secretary of State for War, was responsible for the measures taken for the relief of General Gordon.