Mr. Punch's History of Modern England. Volume 2 of 4.—1857-1874

As a set-off to this special hostility to the Roman Communion, it is only fair to admit that other Churches and Sectarianism generally came in for a great deal of shrewd and, at times, bitter criticism. Punch was by no means an orthodox Churchman. Kingsley and Maurice and Stanley were his heroes. He stood for comprehension and toleration, and fair play for the "Higher Criticism." He had far more sympathy with underpaid curates than opulent bishops – indeed, he had little respect for the episcopal bench, if we except Temple and Tait.

The Sabbatarianism of Evangelicals, Presbyterians, and Nonconformists generally, continued to excite him to indignation or derision – as when in 1858 Sunday walking was tabooed by some Scots fanatics, who also sought to stop all Sunday sailings, or when early in 1861 a controversy arose in Scotland as to whether the sale of milk was permissible on that day.7

In 1868 the Lord's Day Observance Society addressed a memorial to the Brighton Railway Company against Sunday trains, which ended as follows: —

"Lastly, as recognizing the Christian principle of a particular Providence, we cannot conceal from ourselves the conviction of the signal instances of the Divine displeasure in two accidents on the Sabbath Day, one of which in the Clayton Tunnel ended in the hurrying of several lives in a moment of time into eternity and which, in a financial point of view, resulted in a loss to the proprietary of not less than £50,000."

Punch acidly comments on the authors of this "pretty specimen of snuffle," that they evidently know no more about the Grand Prix than they do about the Tower of Siloam.

The notion that Sunday should be a day of gloom and that religion should be divorced from cheerfulness found no support in Punch. A few years later, that is in 1871, he records with amazement the utterance of a Scottish minister who, at a children's soirée held at Kincardine, forbade them to applaud, and told them "there would be nothing of that kind, and no laughter in Heaven." In the same year, under the heading of "Sabbatarian Progress," we read: —

The Sunday Closing Bill's referredTo a select committee,We view concession to absurdFanaticism with pity.

It was the same year that Punch got into hot water over a picture of Keene's. In it an old lady remarks to a guest: "They're all alike, my dear. There's our Susan (it's true she's a Dissenter), but I've allowed her to go to Chapel three times every Sunday since she has lived with me, and I assure you she doesn't cook a bit better than she did the first day!!" The Young Men's Christian Association at Dover, in consequence of this flippancy, decided that they would not take in Punch as being a paper hostile to religion. Punch displayed a ribald impenitence, making great play with the speeches delivered by the Mayor, Mr. Knocker, and a Mr. Mowll, and the hostile decree was rescinded shortly afterwards.

Glaring Contrasts in the Church

When the scandal of the sale by public auction of pews in fashionable churches came up in 1858 it was used as a stick with which to beat Puseyism. But when the Bishop of Exeter, on April 23, made an eloquent appeal in connexion with the want of church accommodation for the people, denounced the pew system as illegal, and declared that to seat only fifty-eight per cent. of the inhabitants of London 670,000 sittings would be required, Punch, forgetting his ancient feud with "Henry of Exeter," congratulated him on these gleams of real liberality. But what chiefly concerned Punch as a Church Reformer were the glaring contrasts which existed in the "richest and poorest Church in the world." He was disgusted at the "snobbery" of the archbishops in kindly sanctioning a Registry for Curates, like a Registry for Servants: —

… It would appear from these figures [quoted from The Times], that Curates are expected to perform the cure of souls about as cheaply as the salters work the cure of herrings. Well, Floreat Ecclesia! and Heaven bless the Bishops! Of course, it's all just as it should be, or the Registry of Church Servants would never have been sanctioned. The Bishops have full knowledge of the present scale of wages at which Curates may be hired, and by sanctioning the registry they, of course, approve the scale. So, Floreat Ecclesia! and Heaven bless the Bishops! The Curates are the men-of-all-work in the Church, and receive as recompense a maid-of-all-work's wages. Proportionally, their pay is really not much more: for they have to live like gentlemen, which kitchen servants have not.

"Ah, Bishop, what a heavenly sermon that was of yours last Sunday, about worldliness and the vanities of the flesh! – it nearly made me cry! And I say, Bishop, how hard it hit you and me!!!"

When the question of revising and shortening Church Services was discussed in the same year, Punch suggested as an alternative the discontinuance of all sermons except on special occasions. But the most pointed of his criticisms throughout this period are directed against Ritualism and in particular the use of the Confessional. High Anglican Ritualism was to him the Chambermaid of the Vatican. As for the Confessional, it was "a dangerous and disgusting practice."

Father Ignatius

In the autumn of 1858 Punch printed a cartoon on "Soapy Sam's" dangerous flirtation with the Scarlet Lady, accompanied by a letter advocating more drastic treatment of those who practised the Confessional, and later on in the year Tait, then Bishop of London, is applauded for his intention to deal faithfully with Ritualists and credited with saying: "You must not bring your toys to Church." Punch's attacks on the Ritualists exhibit a steady crescendo in freedom and even brutality through the 'sixties, and, admitting the sincerity of his dislike, little excuse can be found for the publication of such tasteless pictures as that, for example, of the sentimental young lady who observes to her sister, à propos of a sandalled curate, that "it is no use working slippers for him, and mother says he doesn't wear braces." Throughout the years 1864 and 1865 the vagaries of Brother, or Father Ignatius (the Rev. Joseph Leycester Lyne) are held up to unqualified contempt. But this "Histrio Anglicanus," as Punch called him, invited ridicule by his extravagances and those of his troop of mimic monks. The point of Punch's attack was that they were not real members of a monastic order, but mountebanks who played at being Romanists and occasionally imposed on Roman Catholics by their "profane tomfoolery." Father Ignatius, moreover, was doubly obnoxious to Punch, for he was not only a mock monk, but an extreme obscurantist who fulminated against the Higher Criticism and all liberal theologians. No quarter was therefore given to him in verse or prose. He is treated in "Spoiling the Game" as a dangerous lunatic: —

Brother Ignatius wears a monk's gown(A strait waistcoat were suitable wear),Brother Ignatius shaveth his crown —'Twould be well were his whole head shaved bare.

Ardent Ritualist: "Oh, Athanasius, it's charmingly becoming!"

At this time Father Ignatius was established in Norwich; it was in after years that he moved to Llanthony Abbey in the Black Mountains, a most appropriate choice of residence; and the campaign of contempt reached a ribald climax in the issue of July 15, 1865, which contained "A Modern Gregorian Tone: a Chaunt pointed according to the Use of Norwich." This Chaunt, which was founded on an actual dissension amongst the brotherhood, gives an extremely diverting account of the mutiny provoked by the rigorous dietary imposed by the Superior – with dispensations in his own favour. It is "funny without being vulgar." But the prose article on the next page, "Ignatius and his Monkeys," deviates into scurrility at the outset: —

It is not true that Brother Ignatius and the monks, his associates, have removed from their monastery at Norwich to the Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park, and there taken up their abode in the Monkey House.

Where Punch showed a want of justice as well as of perspective was in treating all or nearly all Ritualists as if they were on the same level with Father Ignatius. In 1869, when Mr. Mackonochie maintained the claim of "Church Courts for Church Causes," Punch was not content with declaring that parsons were unfit to do legal justice; he challenged them to declare whether they were prepared to emulate the example and martyrdom of Becket; he bade them get their heads shaved or betake themselves to Rome. The "Pastoral to Mr. Mackonochie and Co." shows a slightly more conciliatory spirit, and admits that they were gentlemen and scholars, and did a great deal of practical good and hard work among the poor. None the less Punch charges them with playing a game – "a game dangerous to your own morality and that of your party-spirited followers, who almost believe in your infallibility." Hence Punch's final advice: "If you cannot become wholly Roman or wholly Greek, set up for yourselves, but do not remain the ecclesiastical mermen you are at present."

The Purchas case was treated lightly at first in the lines on "The Dean and the Parson": —

DEAN OF RIPON TO PARSON PURCHAS

Dean (Sings) —

The Judges have spoken. Now don't be irascible:Off with your Tunicle, Stole, Alb and Chasuble.

Parson P. (Sings) —

That's true, Mr. Dean, but they also declareThat a cope in Cathedrals all clergy must wearOn high days and Sundays —

Dean (Sings fortissimo) —

What me wear a cope!On Sunday or AnydayGo to the – Pope. (Exeunt in opposite directions.)

A Ritualist A B C

But Punch was seriously annoyed by the report of a meeting of Ritualists at which it was unanimously resolved to disobey the judgment of the Privy Council; and made no secret of his satisfaction when the Archbishop of Canterbury "turned down" the protest of 5,000 Anglicans headed by Pusey. A little earlier he had published an A B C for youthful Anglicans, showing a considerable knowledge of, but absolutely no respect for vestments. It may suffice to quote two entries: —

T is the Thurible, whose very smellIncenses the people and makes them rebel.Y is the Yeoman who now never entersHis old Parish Church, and has joined the Dissenters.

These jocularities, though not delicate, may pass. The worst examples of Punch's controversial zeal were prompted by the Confessional; and the worst of all is the set of verses headed, "A good sound Confession," describing how a priest was soundly horsewhipped and kicked downstairs by an irate husband who returned home to find his wife on her knees before her Confessor. The priest, be it added, unctuously professes to have enjoyed his flagellation as an exquisite mortification.

It is pleasant to turn from these exhibitions of virulent if honest antipathy to the treatment of those controversies in which freedom of thought was involved. Punch's earlier verses on Essays and Reviews, published in 1861, are more distinguished for their wisdom than their elegance of versification: —

A WORD OF ADVICE TO THE BISHOPSDenounce Essayists and Reviewers,Hang, quarter, gag them or shoot them —Excellent plans – provided thatYou first of all refute them.By all means let the Hangman burnTheir awful book to ashes,But don't expect to settle thusTheir heterodox hashes.Some heresies are so ingrainedE'en burning won't remove them,A shorter and an easier way,You'll find it – to disprove them.Be this, right reverends, your revenge,For souls the best of cures,Essay Essayists to upsetAnd to review Reviewers.

The long and ignoble campaign, as a result of which Jowett was for ten years deprived of the emoluments of his office as Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford, roused Punch in 1863 to a satiric and imaginary account of the proceedings in the "Small Debts and Heresies Court at Oxford."

Jowett, it need hardly be explained, was doubly obnoxious to the heresy-hunters. He had long been suspect for the liberality of his religious opinions; he had also contributed to Essays and Reviews: —

DE HAERETICO COMBURENDOA little book8 Professor Jowett made,And argued not as one of truth afraid;But Oxford Dons alike fear truth and Jowett,And their proceedings not a little show it.

Punch goes on to give utterance to the wishes of the obscurantists: —

Oh for a holocaust of hereticsWith Jowett in one common van to mix,For leave to burn, hang, quarter, disembowel,Maurice and Williams, Temple, Wilson, Powell!To teach admiring minds those Acts who followThat Oxford toleration's wide of swallow,As wide as from Geneva to Maynooth,But one thing it won't tolerate – the truth!

Punch returned to the charge just a year later, at the time of the vote in Convocation on the question of Jowett's salary: —

IN RE JOWETTHeresy's seed is rank! Shall Jowett sow it?Tell me not, sciolists, Greek's not theology:As if there's not a heterodox philologyThat can be wrapped up cunningly in articles,Impregnate accents, propositions, particles,Poisoning texts as strychnine poisons wheat.The silly crows, no doubt, scoff at alarming;"What's toxicology to do with farming?"And peck, and peck and drop dead as they eat.E'en so Greek roots poisoned may be by Jowett,And who's to know it.

Jowett and Colenso

When the proposed statute to give Jowett a decent remuneration for his services was rejected, Punch suggested that the Crown might make suitable amends for their persecution of the Regius Professor by making him a Bishop (March 26, 1864). The question of the salary was satisfactorily settled in 1865. The suggestion of the Bishopric was well meant rather than wise: a far more suitable sphere of activity and influence awaited him as Master of Balliol (1879-1893).

The famous case of Bishop Colenso, which synchronized with the Oxford heresy-hunt of Jowett and other contributors to Essays and Reviews, is dealt with very much in the same spirit. By way of introducing the subject to a generation who do not know Colenso as an arithmetician and take for granted the method of applying scientific criticism to scripture history, which he was the first English Bishop to adopt, it may be as well to state that while Bishop of Natal he had incurred the displeasure of his metropolitan, Dr. Gray, the Bishop of Cape Town, by the publication of his critical studies of the Pentateuch. Dr. Gray claimed the right to try and depose Colenso for heresy, and did so. Colenso protested against Gray's jurisdiction and appealed to the Crown, with the result that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council pronounced the whole of the proceedings null and void. The episode created a stir by the side of which the Kikuyu controversy is reduced to insignificance. Colenso's searching historical criticisms did not merely alarm orthodox theologians; they estranged his friend, the broad-minded F. D. Maurice. Punch was with Colenso in his refusal to acquiesce in Dr. Gray's claim to override the secular courts; he respected Colenso's fearless courage and honesty; but for the rest he declined to enter into the theological issues involved and hovered on the outskirts of the dispute: —

COLENSO AND CONVOCATIONTruth is great; must prevail;Reason, Parsons, don't rail;You will hinder, not help, her defence so.But confute the man's sums;You may then snap your thumbsAnd make faces at Bishop Colenso.

Much neater and better, however, is the summary of the correspondence between the Bishop and the Archbishop of Canterbury given three weeks later: —

THE NATAL CORRESPONDENCEIMy dear Colenso,With regret,We hierarchs, in conclave met,Beg you, you most disturbing writer,To take off your colonial mitre.This course we press upon you strongly:Believe me,Yours most truly,Longley.Lambeth.IIMy dear Archbishop,To resignThat Zulu diocese of mine,And own myself a heathen darkBecause I've doubts of Noah's Ark,And feel it right to tell all men so,Is not the course forYours,Colenso.Kensington.

Dean Stanley and Père Hyacinthe

Stanley was appointed to the Deanery of Westminster in 1863, and the lamentations of the Record, the organ of ultra-orthodox Evangelicalism, gave Punch his opportunity: —

That the wisdom and justice of the appointment of Canon Stanley to the Deanery of Westminster might be clear to everybody, the Record gives its certificate that such appointment is "a melancholy fact." Disapprobation by the Record having been thus signified, of course every sensible person must now be convinced that the Dean is the right man in the right place.

Comments of this sort add to the liveliness of newspaper controversy, but they do not conduce to the popularity of those who indulge in them. But at any rate they are an improvement on Punch's references to the "viperine expectorations" of the editor of the Tablet in earlier years.

The welcome extended to Père Hyacinthe in 1869 showed that Punch was not restricted in his sympathies to Protestant heretics only. But we fear that his welcome was not entirely disinterested. In his verses on "Hyacinthus Redivivus," Punch attacks Pius IX for favouring Père Hyacinthe as long as he was a winning card, and then rending him as a heretic. The lines are friendly, but reading between them one can detect a warning to M. Loyson to shun the dangers that beset the fashionable preacher in New York, whither he was then bound. We cannot resist the feeling that Punch was more pleased by the Pope's embarrassment in dealing with this modernist than anxious to see Romanism reformed from within.

In the high affairs of Church and State the year 1868 was a great landmark. After a long debate Gladstone's Resolutions on Irish Disestablishment were carried against the Government on April 5. The discussions were followed closely in Punch's "Essence of Parliament," and two interesting points are brought out. Disraeli maintained that the House had no mandate, as we now say, to deal with the Irish Church. They ought not to be asked at eight days' notice to repeal the Union. On the other hand, Gladstone argued that it would be ultra-democratic, if not anarchic, to say that Parliament could not act without appeal to the constituencies. The Government were beaten by 328 votes to 272, but remained in office till the autumn, when they appealed to the country. By the return of a Liberal majority Gladstone was left free to introduce the first instalment of his scheme for pacifying Ireland. This view is clearly set forth in Punch's doggerel stanzas headed, "Out and In": —

Gone is Dizzy,From the busyCares of State repose he can.In comes GladdyWho of PaddyMeans to make a loyal man.

Punch acquiesced in the measure, but showed some anxiety lest it should be interpreted as a concession to Fenian intimidation. His cartoon, which bore the inscription "Justice to Ireland," shows the figure of Justice blindfolded, with sword and scales, enthroned in the background. In front and at her feet Gladstone, laying the Irish Church on a flaming altar, says: "This is a sacrifice to Justice, not to Papists or Assassins. And if they – " Turning their backs on him are a sulky-looking priest and a Fenian desperado levelling a gun. The Bill for Disestablishing and Disendowing the Irish Church was introduced by Gladstone on March 1, 1869. A month later Punch published another cartoon entitled, "Disendowment and Disarmament." Here a Fenian says to a priest: "Be jabers, your Riv'rence, it's spoilin' our thrade they are entirely"; and his Riv'rence replies: "Thrue for you, me boy." During the course of the debates the "Essence of Parliament" contains an entry with an unpleasantly familiar ring: —

Thursday (April 29). Another and another Irish murder. The desire of Members to know that the Government is doing something cannot be blamed. The Irish Secretary stated that the Executive would proceed with the utmost vigour, but deprecated the entering into details. There is a Ruffian called the Mayor of Cork, who has presided at a dinner to two of the released Fenian convicts, and who eulogized O'Farrell, who wounded the Duke of Edinburgh. Mr. Gladstone said that the fellow's language could not be too severely condemned.

Ghost of Queen Elizabeth: "Agreed, have they? Ods boddikins! Gads my life, and marry come up, sweetheart! In my time I'd have knocked all their addlepates together till they had agreed!"

John Bright, who had joined the administration as President of the Board of Trade, donned a court uniform and (if Punch is to be believed) actually danced a quadrille at a Court Ball with the Princess of Wales as partner, is applauded for his eloquence in the House and rebuked for his unbridled vehemence outside it. Ministers mustn't bully, but think of their colleagues. They must, in short, wear a muzzle, and if Bright could not bear to wear one, he certainly had no right, Punch argued, to be where he was. The debates in the Commons were fiery and protracted, and those who regarded the measure as one of confiscation secured important concessions, but the battle was really joined in the Upper House. Lord Derby maintained a non possumus attitude, but the eloquence of Magee (then Bishop of Peterborough) and the arguments of Cairns did not avail to prevent thirty-six Conservative Peers from voting with the Government. But, even so, the Lords' amendments threatened a constitutional crisis, only averted by the compromise arrived at by Granville and Cairns in July, 1869. The Bill became law and was put into operation on January 1, 1871. That Punch entertained misgivings as to its effect in encouraging intimidation may be gathered from his cartoon, "How not to do it," in which "Pat" threatens Britannia with unspeakable things if she does not release those noble patriots, the Fenian prisoners.

"Mr. Disraeli's Religion"

The prevalence of religious cant and snobbery and sensationalism is frequently chastised in the 'sixties and 'seventies. In the spring of 1866 Punch copies an advertisement in which a young man wished "to find a home with a pious family, where his Christian example would be considered sufficient remuneration for his board and lodging." And in January, 1870, he pilloried an even more glaring example of complacent and well-connected religiosity: "A Gentleman, born and bred, kinsman of an Earl … will preach Christ." The infection of the pulpit by sensation is deplored in 1867 à propos of an announcement in the Islington Gazette: —

"Caledonian Road Chapel. – Next Sunday Sermons will be preached, afternoon, by Mr. Geo. B. Clarke, a Black Brother, from Jamaica, Son-in-law of the late excellent Paul Bogle. Evening, by Mr. Henry Varley the Butcher, from Notting Hill, whose 'words sink, like flame-tipped darts, into the souls of his hearers.'"

It is easy to make too much of isolated instances of self-conscious and self-advertising rectitude. There is far greater justification for the animated protest which Punch registered against the attempts made to discredit Disraeli at the time of his first Premiership on the score of his religion or irreligion. Disraeli had to some extent anticipated this criticism when in his first speech as Premier, on March 5, 1868, he said that he knew that in his position there were personal and peculiar reasons which would aggravate the burden and augment the difficulties. On this Punch made the following comment: —

People can interpret these words as they please. Those who give them a significance connected with birth, and who have intelligence enough to take a large view of pedigree, may note that they were uttered by a man descended from one of the Hebrew families expelled from Spain by the Inquisition, and who settled in Venice as merchants.

The campaign of curiosity met with no encouragement from Punch, who returned to the subject a few weeks later under the heading, "The Modern Inquisition": —

Perhaps the Premier, who has now got to make a Bishop of Hereford, will write one more letter and satisfy the British Booby on the subject of "Mr. Disraeli's Religion," which appears to afflict divers. Scarcely a day passes but some new conjectural impertinence, or some particularly unnecessary information is tossed out. Mr. Disraeli knows that Punch has not refrained from a great lot of good-natured allusions to the nationality of which the former is so justly proud; and it is possible that we may have many another cartoon of which he will be the smiling or scowling hero. But we protest – and we are as good a Protestant as Mr. Hardy – against sneaking into a gentleman's study, and taking notes as to whether Prayer Book, Missal, Watts's Hymns, Koran, or Shaster, be most thumbed, and publishing inferences. We do not see whose business it was to announce that Mr. Disraeli had no particular religion until he was five, and that he was then taken by Samuel Rogers to Hackney Church, especially as we believe the latter statement to be false, Mr. Rogers and his father having been regular attendants at the Unitarian Chapel at Hackney, of which the celebrated Dr. Price was, in older days, Minister. Nor do we see why the pastor of Hughenden should gratify vulgar curiosity by proclaiming that the Premier has been a regular Church-goer for seventeen years, and was a Communicant at Easter. Is this England or America? We do not habitually admire French legislation, but the late edict against ransacking Private Life is not without its merits. Somebody will be asking about our religion next, and will need all his own to bear the consequences.