rightly the chain of causes and effects, it may be that the tragedies of Delhi and Lucknow are attributable, to say the least, as much to the avarice of the dominant as to the depravity of the subjugated race. The bare possibility that this might be the truth a philosopher like Punch ought not to have overlooked, in the suddenness and fire of his anger.
Finally, Punch is no ascetic, but quite the reverse. He cannot be expected, any more than his namesake, the beverage, to go down with the apostles of temperance. He is a convivialist,—moderately so,—and no teetotaler. He evidently prefers roast-beef and brown-stout to bran-bread and cold water, and has gone so far as to sing the praises of pale-ale. He thinks the laboring classes should have their pot of beer, if the nobility and gentry are to eat good dinners and take airings in Hyde Park, on Sundays. He is a Merry Englishman, as to the stomach,—and, like a Merry Englishman, enjoys good living. There is no denying this fact; but here is the whole front of his offending. Remember that he was born at the Shakspeare's Head, and has had a publican for his right-hand man.
These are defects, it may be; and yet not by its defects are we to judge of a work of Art. Of that generous and just canon Punch should have the full benefit. Try him by that, and he has abounding virtues to flood and conceal with lustrous and far-raying light his exceptional errors. To brief notices of some of these—regretting the want of room to enlarge upon them as it would be pleasant to do—we gladly turn.
Punch is to be loved and cherished as the maker of mirth for the million. Saying this, we do not propose to go into an argument to excuse, justify, or recommend hilarity for its own sake or its medicinal effects on overtasked bodies and souls. Desperate attempts have been made to prove the innocence of fun, and the allowableness of wit and humor. Assuming or conceding that the jocose elements or capacities of human nature need apology and defence, very nice distinctions have been drawn, and very ingenious sophistry employed, to prove that the best of people may, within certain limits, crack jokes, or laugh at jokes cracked for them. These efforts to accommodate stern dogmas to that pleasant stubborn fact in man's constitution, his irresistible craving for play, and irresistible impulse to laugh at whatever is really laughable, are about as necessary as would be an essay maintaining the harmlessness of sunshine. The fact has priority over the dogmas, and is altogether too strong to need the patronizing special-pleading they suggest. Instead of going into the metaphysics of the question about the lawfulness and blamelessness of humor shown or humor relished, suppose we cut the knot by a delightful illustration of the compatibility of humor with the highest type of character.
No one will deny the sincerity, earnestness, devotedness, sublime consecration to duty, of the heroine of the hospitals of Scutari. No one will dispute the practical piety of the gentle, but fearless, the tenderhearted, but truly strong-minded woman, who made the lazar-house her home for months together,—ministered to its sick, miserable, and ignorant inmates,—put, by the unostentatious exercise of indomitable faith and unswerving self-sacrifice, the love and humanity of the Gospel in direct and strongest contrast with the barbarisms of war. No one will deny or dispute this now. That heroic English maiden, whose shadow, as it fell on his pillow, the rude soldier kissed with almost idolatrous gratitude, has won, without thought of seeking it, and without the loss of a particle of humility and womanly delicacy, the loving admiration of all Christendom. Well, she
"whose presence honors queenly guests,
Who wears the noblest jewel of her time,
And leaves her race a nobler, in her name,"
shall be the sufficient argument here,—especially as none have paid finer, more delicate, or truer tributes to her virtue than Punch. In a recent sketch of
