Various

“ On the contrary, the healing, with Tory doctors, has ever been in an inverse ratio to the reward. Like the faculty at large, the Tories have flourished on the sickness of the patient. They have, with Falstaff, “turned diseases to commodity;” their only concern being to keep out the undertaker. Whilst there’s life, there’s profit,—is the philosophy of the Tory College; hence, poor Mr. Bull, though shrunk, attenuated,—with a blister on his head, and cataplasms at his soles,—has been kept just alive enough to pay. And then his patience under Tory treatment—the obedience of his swallow! ”

“ Is not England, with spinning-jenny PEEL at the head of its affairs, in this precise predicament? England may live; but inactive, torpid; unfitted for all healthful exertion,—deprived of its grandest functions—paralyzed in its noblest strength. We have a Tory Cabinet, but where is the brain of statesmanship?
Now, however, there are no Tories. Oh, no! Sir ROBERT PEEL is a Conservative—LYNDHURST is a Conservative—all are Conservative. Toryism has sloughed its old skin, and rejoices in a new coat of many colours ”

“ For, within these few days, the Victor of Waterloo expressed his conviction that England was the only country in which “the poor man, if only sober and industrious, WAS QUITE CERTAIN of acquiring a competency!” And it is this man, imbued with this opinion, who is to be hailed as the presiding wisdom—the great moral strength—the healing humanity of the Tory Cabinet. If rags and starvation put up their prayer to the present Ministry, what must be the answer delivered by the Duke of Wellington? ”

“ I once knew a country ostler—by name Peter Staggs—he was a lower species of the same genus—a sort of compound of my friend Tom and a waggoner—the delf of the profession. He was a character in his way; he knew the exact moment of every coach’s transit on his line of road, and the birth, parentage, and education of every cab, hack, and draught-horse in the neighbourhood. ”

“ Thrice did the flattered statue bow its head, and once it laid its hand upon its grateful bosom, in acknowledgment of the honour that was paid it. As soon as the applause had partially subsided, the manager, in the character of Midas, surrounded by the nine Muses, advanced to the foot of the pedestal, and, to use the language of the reporters of public dinners, “in a neat and appropriate speech,” deposed a laurel crown upon the brows of Shakspere’s effigy. Thereupon loud cheers rent the air, and the statue, deeply affected, extended its right hand gracefully towards the audience. ”

“ All the coachmen cough, strike an attitude, and look wise.
“Now here comes a sort of chap I despises,” remarks Tom, pointing to a steady-looking man, without encumbrance, who had just entered the yard, evidently a coachman to a pious family; “see him handle a hoss. Smear—smear—like bees-waxing a table. Nothing varminty about him—nothing of this sort of thing (spreading himself out to the gaze of his admiring auditory) , but I suppose he’s useful with slow cattle, and that’s a consolation to us as can’t abear them.” And with this negative compliment Tom has broken up his conversazione. ”

“ With an old meerschaum and a pint of tolerable sherry, we seat ourselves at our window, and hold many an imaginative conversation with our friend Tom. Sometimes we are blest with more than ideality; but that is only when he unbends and becomes jocular and noisy, or chooses a snug corner opposite our window to enjoy his otium—confound that phrase!—we would say his indolence and swagger—
“A pound to a hay-seed agin’ the bay.”
Hallo! that’s Tom! Yes—there he comes laughing out of “Box 4,” with three others—all first coachmen. ”

“ Satire, when based upon truth, is the highest province of the stage, which enables us to laugh away folly and wickedness, when they cannot be banished by direct exposure. Ladies’ boarding-schools form, in the mass, a gross and fearful evil, to which the Haymarket author has cleverly awakened attention. Why they are an evil, might be easily proved, but a theatrical critique in PUNCH is not precisely the place for a discussion on female education. ”

“ We have the happiness to know a gentleman of the name of Tom, who officiates in the capacity of ostler. We have enjoyed a long acquaintance with him—we mean an acquaintance a long way off—i.e. from the window of our dormitory, which overlooks A—s—n’s stables. We believe we are the first of our family, for some years, who has not kept a horse; and we derive a melancholy gratification in gazing for hours, from our lonely height, at the zoological possessions of more favoured mortals. ”

“ The Duke of WELLINGTON, who is to be the moral force of the Tory Cabinet, is a great soldier; and by the very greatness of his martial fame, has been enabled to carry certain political questions which, proposed by a lesser genius, had been scouted by the party otherwise irresistibly compelled to admit them. ”

“ The “intellectualization of the people” must not be neglected: the gallery of the Victoria invites to its instructive benches the young, whose wicked parents have neglected their education—the ignorant, who know nothing of the science of highway robbery, or the more delicate operations of picking pockets. National education is the sole aim of the sole lessee—money is no object; but errand-boys and apprentices must take their Monday night’s lessons, even if they rob the till. By this means an endless chain of subjects will be woven, of which the Victoria itself supplies the links ”

“ Newgate—a “stock” scene at this theatre—an execution, a lady in black and a state of derangement, a muffled drum, and a “view of Kennington Common,” terminate the life of “James Dawson,” who, we had the consolation to observe, from the apathy of the audience, will not be put to the trouble of dying for more than half-a-dozen nights longer.
Before the “Syncretic Society” publishes its next octavo on the state of the Drama, it should send a deputation to the Victoria. There they will observe the written and acted drama in the lowest stage it is possible for even their imaginations to conceive. ”

“ Ay, why? for the best of all possible reasons—condensed in the smallest of all possible space, and yet establishing his perfect taste, unequalled judgment, and peculiarly-heroic self-esteem—he courted her because she was
“The fairest maid in all the town.”
Magnificent climax! overwhelming reason! Could volumes written, printed, or stereotyped, say more? Certainly not; the condensation of “Aurora’s blushes,” “the Graces’ attributes,” “Venus’s perfections,” and “Love’s sweet votaries,” all, all is more than spoken in the emphatic words—
“The fairest maid in all the town.” ”

“ Mr. Hampton, with singular presence of mind, threw out every ounce of ballast, which caused the balloon to ascend a few feet higher, when a tremendous gust of easterly wind took us triumphantly out of the gardens, the palings of which we cleared with considerable nicety. The scene at this moment was magnificent; the silken monster, in a state of flabbiness, rolling and fluttering above, while below us were thousands of spectators, absolutely shrieking with merriment. ”

“ We, who are conversant with all the mysteries of the flats’ side of the green curtain, beg to assure our readers, that the Punch scene hath taken wing, and that the dressing-room of the above-named characters will no longer be redolent of the fumes of compounded bowls. We may here remark that, had our hint of last season been attended to, the Punch would have still been continued:—Mr. Harley would not consent to have the flies picked out of the sugar. Rumour is busy with the suggestion that for this reason, and this only, Keeley seceded from the establishment. ”

“ The cut of the dress-coat is of paramount importance, that being the garment which decorates the gentleman at a time when he is naturally ambitious of going the entire D’Orsay. There is great nicety required in cutting this article of dress, so that it may at one and the same moment display the figure and waistcoat of the wearer to the utmost advantage. ”

“ Tom has taken his seat on an inverted pail, and the others are grouped easily, if not classically, around him.
One is resting his head between the prongs of a stable-fork; another is spread out like the Colossus of Rhodes; whilst a gentleman in a blue uniform has thrown himself into an attitude à la Cribb, with the facetious intention of “letting daylight into the wittling department” of the pot-boy of the “Ram and Radish.”
Tom has blown the froth from the tankard, and (as he elegantly designates it) “bit his name in the pot.” A second has “looked at the maker’s name;” ”

“ The painter of a picture worth so high a sum needs not the assistance which the lottery affords; and although it may be urged, that some one possessing sufficient taste, but insufficient means to indulge that taste, might, perchance, obtain the high prize, it is evident that such bald reasoning is adduced only to support individual interest. ”

“ The great fault of modern poetasters arises from their extreme love of spinning out an infinite deal of nothing. Now, as “brevity is the soul of wit,” their productions can be looked upon as little else than phantasmagorial skeletons, ridiculous from their extreme extenuation, and in appearance more peculiarly empty, from the circumstance of their owing their existence to false lights. ”

“ When adders shall become eels, then will we believe that Conservatives cannot be Tories.
When folks change their names—unless by the gracious permission of the Gazette—they rarely do so to avoid the fame of brilliant deeds. ”

“ The riding-coat is the connecting link between the DRESS and the rest of the great family of coats, as one button, and one only of this garment, may be allowed to be applied to his apparent use.
It is so cut, that the waistcoat pockets may be easy of access. Any gentleman who has attended races or other sporting meetings must have found the convenience of this arrangement ”

“ His breeches are of cord about an inch in width, and of such capacious dimensions, that a truss of hay, or a quarter of oats, might be stowed away in them with perfect convenience: not that we mean to insinuate they are ever thus employed, for when we have seen them, they have been in a collapsed state, hanging (like the skin of an elephant) in graceful festoons about the mid-person of the wearer. These necessaries are confined at the knee by a transverse row of pearl buttons crossing the genu patella. ”

“ Any person eminently gifted with patience, and anxious to give it a fair trial, cannot have a better opportunity of testing it than by spending a couple of hours in seeing that single incident drag its slow length along, and witnessing a new comedian, named Bass, roll his heavy breadth about in hard-working attempts to be droll. ”

“ Nothing but the rejoinder—a rejoinder in which the talented author not only stands proudly forward as a poet, but patriotically proves the amor propriæ, which has induced him to study the staple manufactures of his beloved country! ”

“ To-morrow I retire into private life; but though fortune has made me great, she has not made me proud, and I shall be always happy to shake hands with a friend when I meet him.”
At the conclusion of this pathetic address, loud cheers, mingled with tears and sighs, arose from the audience, one-half of whom sunk into the arms of the other half, and were borne out of the house in a fainting state ”

“ However, when the day cum that we was to go, it fell upon us like a thunderboat. You can’t imagine the kunfewshion we was all threw into—every body packing up their little afares, and rummidging about for any trifele that wasn’t worth leaving behind. The sarvunts as is cum in upon us is a nice sett; they have been a long wile trying after our places, and at last they have suckseeded in underminding us; but it’s my oppinion they’ll never be able to get through the work of the house;—all they cares for is the vails and purkussites. ”

“ But these need not be so gifted: the proprietor of the Victoria Theatre supplies the deficiency: the dramatic edition of Old-Bailey experience he is bringing out on each successive Monday, will soon be complete; and when it is, juvenile Jack Sheppards and incipient Turpins may complete their education at the moderate charge of sixpence per week. ”

“ FINE ARTS. SUFFOLK-STREET GALLERY.—ART-UNION.
The members of this institution have, with their usual liberality, given the use of their Galleries for the exhibition of the pictures selected by the prize-holders of the Art-Union of London of the present year. The works chosen are 133 in number; and as they are the representatives of “charming variety,” it is naturally to be expected that, in most instances, the selection does not proclaim that perfect knowledge of the material from which the 133 jewel-hunters have had each an opportunity of choosing ”

“ The scarcity of money is frightful. As much as a hundred per cent., to be paid in advance, has been asked upon bills; but we have not yet heard of any one having given it. There was an immense run for gold, but no one got any, and the whole of the transactions of the day were done in copper. ”

“ Under such instructors the young ladies make great progress, the governess being absent to see after the imaginary daughter of a fictitious Earl of Aldgate. On her return, however, she finds her pupils in a state of great insubordination, and suspecting the teachers to be incendiaries, calls in a major of yeomanry (who, unlike the rest of his troop, is an ally of the lady) , to put them out. ”

“ He would therefore induce France to disarm, that by reductions at home he may not be compelled to risk what would certainly jerk him out of the premiership—the imposition of new taxes. He may then keep his Corn Laws—he may then securely enjoy his sliding scale. Such are the hopes that dictate the intimation to disarm. It is sweet to prevent war ”