There is as pleasant a little hostelrie in Lulworth Cove as is to be found anywhere in a quiet sort of way, with lunch made and provided, ready for all comers, be they never so plentiful. Mind always on this coast command the lobster, he is toujours à vos ordres. Those who can be content with the minimum of variety in the way of amusement, and with the maximum of health will assuredly find it here, where they can live the life of a sort of luxurious Robinson Crusoe—bathing, fishing, walking—five or six miles from the nearest railway station, and visited occasionally by steamboats, which cannot come in quite close to shore, bringing passengers, from whom tidings may be obtained of what is going on in the outer world.
Note—Of music on board.—Almost every steamboat is accompanied by a couple of instrumentalists—a harpist and a violinist. These duettists do uncommonly well pecuniarily, and musically too, considering the difficulties presented by the sea passages. One of their more favourite performances is the intermezzo from the Rusticana. Returning from Swanage the wind rather interferes with the strings by attempting to unfasten the music paper. But the violinist, well on the alert, has foreseen the probability arising of there being "three sheets to the wind," and has nailed his colours to the mast, that is, has tied the music-paper firmly on to the stand. Still, in order to grapple with rude Boreas, he has to drop a few bars of his part in the intermezzo, a proceeding that causes no sort of inconvenience to the harpist, who ingeniously "slows off," and adapts time and tune to the exceptional situation, until the wind, being out of breath with its mischievous exertions, allows the fiddle-strings to resume their part in the concert, and kindly permits the two musicians to finish triumphantly. Their gallant efforts are well rewarded, and the musical pilgrims collect largesse in a scallop-shell. Back again to P'm'th.
THEN AND NOW.
Mr. Punch's Reply to the Premier.
["There is a popular periodical which, whenever it can, manifests the Liberal sentiments by which it has been guided from the first—I mean the periodical Punch. At that time I had the honour of figuring, if I remember right, in a Cartoon of Punch, in connection with the rejection of the Paper Duty, and a clever Cartoon it was, for I was represented as a little lad in school, sitting (it was standing, Sir—Mr. P.) upon a small stool, and Lord Derby—the Lord Derby of that day, who led the House of Lords—was standing over me with an immense sheet of paper, made into a fool's-cap, which he planted on my head."—Mr. Gladstone at Edinburgh, Sept. 27, 1893.]
See Cartoon, "The Paper Cap," in Punch (p. 223, vol. xxxviii.), June 2, 1860.
Thirty-three years ago, my William, thirty-three years ago,
Yet you, as of yore, are well to the fore, and Punch, too is in front also;
And that paper cap was a popular crown, as Punch at the time suggested;