PUNCH'S DERBY PROPHECY. Y noble Father (if you have the happiness of bearing that name, and if you have not I don't care), I do perceive here a divided duty. Half to you, half, and the better half, to myself. You want a Prophecy? Well, your reasons, -come, pronounce, "Oh, you have had one every year for such a time?" Call that a reason? Seems to me it pulls the other way. When the Frenchman showed Revolutionary the Tribunal that a certain estate had been in his family for four hundred years, the Judges told him that, by his own admission, the family had held it quite long enough, so they took it away. Do you see the application? Why then rejoice, therefore, as SHAKSPEARE says. Now comes a beseeching look. "But, Mr. Punch, your Prophecy is so delightful!" Ah, that's another pair of knickerbockers. I am not marble, wish I were, this hot weather. This brings me to my duty to myself. Ought I to write with the glass at 80°? To be sure, I daresay it will not be that when you read what I write. Perhaps it will be raining, snowing, or east-windy. What a lark! "Then you will need the Prophecy to comfort you." Ah, there you go! I'm too soft-hearted, and that's a fact. What's to happen on the Derby Day, "that Mysterious Wednesday,' as my friend MR. GLADSTONE, Member for Greenwich, calls it. You may have heard of him? Not to know him, argues yourself uncommon obscure. But obscurity is not a crime, except in argument. Don't be downcast. MR. GLADSTONE called the Derby Day by that name, and that's enough. "What's to happen?" Well, several things. TOM BLOBUS will go out in the morning, shrugging his shoulders in the most superior manner when his wife hints Epsom, and making a face as if that pretty woman offered him a glass of Epsom salts. "I go to the Derby?" or, for his grammar is not his forte, -he'll perhaps begin, " Me go?" He will go, though; and when he comes home late, with his hat stuck full of penny dolls, and his eyes winking like those of a mortified owl, he'll say, with more or less distinctness, that he "hadn't the slightest idea of going, but as BOB TOPPER-" You don't seem amused? You've had this sort of anecdote before. Who said you hadn't? Will you tell me to my face that you expect anything new about the Derby? Isn't this the kind of thing served up every year?"But not by Mr. Punch." There you come with your compliments again. Well, "go on flattering, Sir," as is said in the Angel in the House. "A woman's like the Koh-i-Noor, Worth just the price you put on her." What has that to do with it? Who said it had anything? But that's the finish of the quotation. I despise anybody who leaves things unfinished. What do you say? Clear that you will not get a prophecy. Do not be cheeky"the pig was killed because he had too much cheek," quo' INSPECTOR BUCKET. I may be allowed to proceed in my own way, I hope. Did you read the debate on Horse Racing initiated (I dare say you'd say eliminated, you idiot) by MR. THOMAS HUGHES? He made a very good speech. He always makes good speeches. He also writes good books. Is there a better book than Tom Brown? If so, I shall be obliged to you to nominate it. Looking sulky, are you, because I don't immediately come to Macgregor and the rest? I never write for sulky people. At school we sang, JIMMEY'S in the sulks, Send him to the hulks. "Well, but seriously "Serious before the Derby? You are an Antinomianism, Anacreontism, what is it?-help us, PISISTRATUS CAXTON -yes, an Anachronism. After the Derby is the time to look serious; that is, if you mean to pay your losses. "LAURA, LAURA, FREDERICK's come,"-I needn't parody, but I mean " Wait till you 're diddled, my dear." to school, with proverbs for his rules, and he "took care of Number One" so particularly, that he was expelled in a week, for being greedy, cruel, and dishonest. Not that all proverbs are absurd or misleading. I will recite to you a few which appear to me to be epigrams of merit. You are yawning? Got up too early this Derby Day, I'm afraid? Diluculo surgere saluberrimum est, but if you yawn it shows that such surgery doesn't agree with you. Take a cigar. Aggravating, am I? Very likely; but don't you call hard names, because they butter no parsnips; and if they did, I wouldn't eat the latter, for I hate them. You must take butter with truffles, MR. DISRAELI mentions that in Lothair. Haven't read that ? And have I demeaned myself to talk on a Derby Day with a fellow that hasn't read Lothair? I am ashamed of myself. Get the book, and read it directly. I do not suppose that you will understand it, you being, as I have previously remarked, a duffer; but still, don't walk about as if you belonged to the human race, and yet own that you have not read Lothair. You should blush to walk among the race of men, as Achilles says, stating his own feelings until he shall have killed Hector. Did you ever read HOMER? What? "Yes?" I say, my good fellow, there is a limit to everything. Even on the Derby Day you should not. It's the biggest that will be told all day, and that's saying something of a day devoted to a harmless national amusement, and the improvement of the breed of English horses. You read HOMER! He wrote the Eneid, did he not? A charming poem, isn't it, all about the deliverance of Jerusalem? Beautifully illustrated by M. GUSTAVE DORE? Describes the Demon of the Cape? Fine passage, ADAM's Address to the Sun? Get out with you, Impostor! "Take off his skates!" said MR. PICKWICK. "Off with his head!" said KING RICHARD. "They're off!" -who said that? Oh, by Jove, it's the Million. 'Tis the voice of the Million, I heard 'em complain, Some have started too soon; you must start 'em again. Like a door on its hindlegs, so he "Too late now?" Stuff, nonsense! never too late. You want to know who is the real Winner of the Derby? Well, I am a gentleman, if ever there was one, and I apologise, d'avance, for mentioning such a name to you, or in connection with nonsense. Still, it is no secret, for I was in the House of Lords, and heard what was said, and saw how gratified he looked; and well he might look gratified. The real Winner of the Derby is the Lady who, it has been announced, allies herself to the Nobleman formerly advantageously known as LORD STANLEY, and I humbly and respectfully offer my congratulations on the arrangement. I think I have read you a lesson, my noble Father, about teasing me for a Prophecy. COLUMBUS IN THE CALENDAR. The North German Correspondent announces that the beatification of CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, of which there was some talk a few years ago, seems now about to be carried through in good earnest." We are advised by an ancient sage to call no man happy before his death. COLUMBUS has been dead 364 years. Should his beatification be pronounced now, it will exemplify a customary pontifical extension of the old philosopher's rule to an extreme. Centuries generally elapse after the death of a Saint before he is enrolled amongst the beatified at Rome. "Call no man happy until long after his death" appears to be the papal maxim as touching beatification. To the foregoing announcement is added the suggestion that little difficulty will probably occur in proving the one or two miracles which are de rigueur in all cases of the kind in question. One alone, we should think, will suffice in the case of COLUMBUS; and the discovery of America had the great advantage of being a fact. Tufts Tailing Off! "You won't be diddled if I tell you what horse will win ?" Don't know that. Some fellows can't help losing, especially if they think they know how to make a book. Isn't it in Coningsby the friend looks over his friend's book, and says that whatever event in the world happens he must lose £500. Have you read Coningsby? You are not sure. Then you must be a muff, and a prophecy will not be of the least use to you, any more ONLY seven fellow-commoners have been matriculated than Sunday to the man who looked nine ways for it when he sat up after being knocked for 1869-70, to 530 pensioners. It is a comfort to think down. "Try you?" I hate throwing away labour. I hate labour also. An open foe there is at least, one race which is not in vogue at the may prove a kuss, But a pretended friend is wus. You don't see the connection? I'Varsity-the 'race of fellow-commoners! They will said you were a muff; I now begin to suspect you of being a duffer. soon be "fellow-uncommoners.' The sooner the better. Here's to the last "tuft," and may he end by being plucked, as tufts" should be! But "the horses, the horses!" You are a beggar that wants to be set on horseback, and nothing will do for you, you beggar, but the winner of the Derby. "Ask for a gold coat," says you," and you may get a gold button." Don't come bothering me with your proverbs. A man whose life is guided by proverbs will certainly come to the bad. Did you ever read Sancho, or the Proverbialist, by the late REV. J. W. CUNNINGHAM, of Harrow? It is a book of the last generation, and exceeding clever. Sancho was sent WHEN UNMARRIED LADIES GET VOTES, What will their rule be but Miss-rule ? Mistress (surprised). "WHY, WHAT'S THE MATTER?' Cook. "THE FACT IS, MUM, I'M GOING TO GET MARRIED!" Cook. "WHICH I HAM NOT AZACTLY ENGAGED AS YET, MUM; BUT I FEELS MYSELF TO BE OF THAT 'APPY DISPOSITION AS I COULD LOVE HANY MAN, MUM!" TEMPORA MUTANTUR. (Apropos of the University Tests Bill.) OH, WALPOLE the weeper and HARDY the heady, Oh, WALPOLE and HARDY, and MOWBRAY, and NEWDY! The Church and its Bench folks will make bold to handle, With a freedom that seems to your feelings a scandal; Will persist in regarding their hold on the test As a grasp on the fishes and loaves they love best. And their rude hands are laid on the Fellowship pale! * MR. NEWDEGATE, a remarkably hard man to drive. Oh, HARDY and NEWDY, oh, MOWBRAY and WALPOLE! See, a couple of hats each set up on a tall pole Both from heads that by rights should be lopped by a cleaver And neither the orthodox clerical beaver One's the papal tiara, with cross-keys upon 'it, The other's JOHN KNOX's Genè van blue-bonnet. "Twixt Dissenters on one side, the POPE on the other, And HUXLEY, who Faith under Science would smother; Her King Storks thrust on one side, to raise her King Logs, Newgate and Epsom. AMONG the horses entered for the Derby there is one named Recorder, and another Kingcraft. But, for fear of bad luck, Kingcraft might have been more sensationally named Calcraft. Then he might have been ridden with a halter, and have run close upon Recorder. A Privilege and a Bore. THERE certainly will be no turn-out on the road to Epsom anything like that by which MR. CRAUFURD, through insisting that he saw strangers in the Gallery, distinguished himself last Tuesday night in the House of Commons. HORSE AND HEATHER. "My foot is on my native heath, and my name is MACGREGOR." it may at Epsom, downy as Epsom is. + See MR. LOVE JONES PARRY's letter published in Wednesday's Times on The thought of that might have affected the odds at Newmarket. So the power of clerical influence over ladies' politics. JUNE 4, 1870.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. JONES ON THE DOWNS. AFTER PRACTISING FOR THE LAST TWO MONTHS IN THEIR OWN SUBURBAN LANES, JONES AND HIS FRIENDS TURN OUT THEIR TEAM AT EPSOM. J. MANAGES THE RIBBONS FAMOUSLY AS LONG AS SMITH HOLDS THE WHIP, AND THE GREY MARE HAS NOT GOT HER TAIL OVER THE REINS ONCE ALL DAY TILL NOW! |