Farewell, young Royal Lady, Ne'er may your life wax shady, Still may your path be shiny, All rosy--nothing spiny.
_Macbeth_, when sitting stately, You were beholding lately, A point, which I may mention, Perhaps won your attention:
The line of Kings, descending From _Banquo_, never ending; I hail you the Queen Mother, Young Bride, of such another.
May the first line long sit in The royal seat of Britain, On Prussia's throne the second, From you to doomsday reckoned.
United in alliance, May those two lines defiance Bid evermore to treason, By governing with reason.
The prophecy in the third and fourth stanzas gives one a shiver: but the word doomsday may pass in the sense of the day of doom. Simultaneously the critic appears in "A Few Queries touching a late wedding":--
Can't our penny-a-liners be loyal, Without writing themselves down flunkeys? Can't our crowd gape at ciphers royal, Without such percentage of "drunkies"?
When we want a wedding cantata For our Princess Royal's espousal, Why for Tennyson Catnach barter, An owl for a singing ouzel?
When English Fiddlers find fingers, And an English composer chords, Can't we find six English singers, Who at least could pronounce the words?
Must we still in ruts of old stick, All alike, both high and humble, Our nobs the slaves of Goldstick, Our snobs the slaves of Bumble?
(A stoppage of a few minutes is supposed to take place.)
DREADFUL BOY (on lamp post): "Oh! My eye, Bill! 'Ere's a rose bud."]
[Illustration: THE ACCESSION OF THE QUEEN OF INDIA]
In the same vein is the protest in the spring of the same year, against the journalistic flunkeyism of the report of the opening concert in St. James's Hall (described as "vast in dimensions, elegant in proportion and splendid in decoration") which was "honoured by the presence of H.R.H. the Prince Consort, a large number of our aristocracy, and a very numerous company belonging for the most part to the better classes of society"--an English revival of the term _optimates_ which _Punch_ very properly disliked and deprecated.
The reorganization of the Government in India brought the Queen a new title, and in his congratulations we see _Punch_ at his best:--
To thee is given another land, Another title of renown, Another sceptre in thy hand, And on thy head another crown. To India now at last appears Hope that before she ne'er had seen. She smiles upon thee through her tears, And looks for aid to England's Queen.