Black Eagle, murder's proper meed! Well doth its colour match the stain Of guilt, that dyes that coward's deed Who female slew and infant Dane, Black Eagles are for blackguards right, White feather who with black combine. No English Prince shall be a Knight Of such black Chivalry as thine.
The proclamation of General Falkenstein, commander-in-chief of the Prussian troops in Jutland, regulating the scale of contributions to be levied on Danish landlords, is quoted in the issue of June 4 as a villainous edict, worthy of cut-throats and felons. Earlier in the year _Punch_ had fallen heavily on Professor Max-Müller for his letter, "A German Plea for Germans," in _The Times_. The Prussians and Austrians were depicted, accurately enough in view of the sequel, as bandits quarrelling over their spoil, and this free criticism was bitterly resented throughout Germany. When Müller was tried and executed for the murder of Mr. Briggs in the autumn of this year, the judge was accused of anti-Prussian bias. Meanwhile _Punch_ found little worthy of comment in the American war beyond the allegations of malingering among Federal troops, and the report that Irishmen were induced to emigrate, with promises of help, in order to furnish recruits for the Northern army.
[Illustration: THE AMERICAN GLADIATORS--HABET!]
The end of the American war came in 1865. Of its magnitude and of the deeper issues involved; of the achievements of the heroes on either side--Sherman and Grant and Farragut, Stonewall Jackson and Lee--_Punch_ showed himself strangely deficient in appreciation. The _amende_ to Lincoln was handsome and complete, but it was not made until after the assassination of the greatest of Americans:--
Yes, he had lived to shame me from my sneer, To lame my pencil and confute my pen-- To make me own this hind of princes peer, This rail-splitter a true-born King of men.
It is truly said that Lincoln lived through four long-suffering years--years of ill-fate, ill-feeling, and ill-report--and lived to hear "the hisses change to cheers, the taunts to tribute, the abuse to praise," and took both with the same unwavering mood. Unhappily, as we have seen, by the change in _Punch's_ view not being expressed until Lincoln was dead, the tribute lost its grace.