Charles Graves - Mr. Punch's History of Modern England. Volume 3 of 4.—1874-1892

And so on with praise of the Good Queen and Holy Father, Punch , as a "true freeman unfettered by servile fear or hate's poor purblind heat," being free to celebrate them both.

It was also the Centenary year of the United States, welcomed by Punch in John Bull's song on Miss Columbia's Hundredth birthday to the air of "I'm getting a big boy now." Mr. Gladstone was invited to the celebrations but did not cross the Atlantic. John Bull abounds in professions of good-will, but there is a slight sting in the last chorus: —

The Salisbury Cabinet was strengthened by the inclusion of Mr. Goschen as Chancellor of the Exchequer – Mr. Goschen whom Lord Randolph "forgot," and whom Punch styled the "Emergency man," a phrase now also forgotten, but then applied to the volunteers who assisted boycotted farmers and loyalists in Ireland. Mr. Balfour was at the Irish Office, the scene of his greatest administrative successes, and the Crimes Act and the Land Act were the two principal measures of the Session. In those days The Times was the great champion of the Unionist policy, and in the summer of 1887 is shown prodding on Lord Salisbury and Mr. Balfour, armed with Crimes Act blunderbusses, in their attack on the Land League wild boar. The Land League was "proclaimed" in August; and already the controversy had begun between Mr. Parnell and The Times over the former's alleged participation in the responsibility for the Phoenix Park murders. The question was raised in a series of articles on "Parnellism and Crime"; but the charges were not made specific until the following year. John Bright's secession from the Gladstonian Liberals had been a serious blow, and his contributions to the Unionist armoury were so vigorous and pointed, that it is rather strange to find Punch assailing him in March, 1887, for his pacificist tendencies: —

John Bright certainly spoke daggers against those who, in his own phrase, kept the rebellion pot always on the boil.

Germany's Momentous Year

The Earl of Iddesleigh, better known as Sir Stafford Northcote, died in January. There is an unmistakable reference to Lord Randolph Churchill's treatment of his one-time leader in the verses in which Punch paid homage to a statesman "worn yet selfless, disparaged and dispraised," yet a "pattern of proud but gentle chivalry": —

Here the reference to Lord Randolph is inferential though unmistakable. But an opportunity for having a dig at him is never missed. When the Bulgarian throne was offered to Prince Ferdinand, and his cautious and diplomatic tactics resulted in long delays, Punch in pure malice suggested that the crown should be offered to Lord Randolph. He may be forgiven, however, in view of the remarkably accurate estimate which he formed of the slyness, timidity and meanness of "Ferdinand the Fox," and the alternations of servility and insolence in his attitude towards Russia. Bismarck again comes in for honorific notice this year in the guise of Sintram, accompanied and menaced by Socialism (the Little Master), but confidently riding along on his steed Majority. But 1888 was a momentous year for Germany – the year in which two Kaisers died and a third succeeded to the heritage of the Hohenzollerns. The old Emperor Wilhelm, the " Greise Kaiser ," died on March 9; within a hundred days his son, the " Weise Kaiser ," had fallen to the fatal malady which had sapped his splendid physique, to be succeeded in turn by the " Reise Kaiser ," the nickname bestowed on Wilhelm II for his passion for movement and travel. At the moment of his accession Punch was not inclined to be critical. The cartoon of "The Vigil" in June of that year expresses no misgivings, but only sympathy for one called to bear so heavy a burden. And this view is amplified in the verses in which the lessons of the past are used to fortify the hopes of the future: —

Only a fortnight before the death of the old Emperor, Bismarck's Army Bill had awakened Punch's misgivings. He reluctantly admired the strength of the lion combined with the shrewdness of the fox; and put into Bismarck's mouth the sonorous couplet: —

( Founded on the first part of an old Fable of Dædalus and Icarus, the Sequel of which Mr. Punch trusts may never apply. )

But by September it was the young Kaiser, not Bismarck, who invited "A Word in Season." The counsel was prompted by a speech in which he declared, "It is the pride of the Hohenzollerns to reign at once over the noblest, the most intellectual and most cultured of nations," a sentiment mild when compared with later utterances, yet sufficiently thrasonic to earn a rebuke for indulging in demagogic flattery, coupled with the advice to read Lord Wolseley's article in the Fortnightly on Marlborough, Wellington and Napoleon, and to emulate the reticence of Moltke. In less than a month the inevitable cleavage between the Kaiser and his Chancellor is foreshadowed in the splendid cartoon reproduced, where Bismarck as Dædalus warns Wilhelm as Icarus, in a paraphrase of Ovid: —