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  PUNCH,

  OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

  VOLUME 98.

  MARCH 1, 1890.

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UNTILED; OR, THE MODERN ASMODEUS.

"Tres volontiers," repartit le demon. "Vous aimez les tableaux
changeans: je veux vous contenter."

_Le Diable Boiteux._

[Illustration:]

    XXI.

  "Though cold the coxcomb, and though coarse the boor,
  Though dulness haunts the rich and pain the poor,
      In this colossal city,
  Yet London is not Rome, O Shade!" I said.
  "A later JUVENAL should not find her dead
      To purity and pity."

  "Satire, of shames and follies in sole quest,
  Is a one-eyed divinity at best,"
      My guide responded, slowly.
  "The tale of ZOILUS hath its moral still.
  Such critics are but blowflies, their small skill
      To carrion given wholly.

  "Not all the Romans of DOMITIAN's days
  Were such as live in JUVENAL's savage lays;
      Not all the Latian ladies
  Were HIPPIAS or COLLATIAS. Neither here
  May all be gauged by satire's rule severe,
      Or earth would be a Hades.

  "The scalpel hath no terrors for the sound,
  Nor is the hand that wields it harshly bound
      To ceaseless vivisection.
  The Cynic sharply sees, but sees not far;
  The eye that hunts the mote may miss the star
      Too great for scorn's detection.

  "Dream not, oh friend, because I let the light
  On lurid London through the cloak of night
      (As was my undertaking.)
  That I've a spirit wholly given to scorn,
  Or blind to all, save sin, that with the morn
      Will see a bright awaking.

  "Yet could the freedman's son but wield his flail
  In London, there are those might shrink and pale
      As did DOMITIAN'S minion.
  PARIS lives yet, pander and parasite
  Still flaunt in bold impunity, despite
      A custom-freed opinion.

  "Dull in the drawing-room, our beardless boys
  Can sparkle in the haunts of coarser joys,
      Coldness and muteness vanish
  When TULLIA dances or when POLLIO sings.
  With riotous applause the precinct rings,
      There chill restraint they banish.

  "Behold Lord LIMPET in his gilded Box,
  His well-gloved palms and scarlet silken socks
      Actively agitated;
  He who erewhile about the ball-room stood
  A solemn, weary, whispering thing of wood,
      And sneered, and yawned, and waited."

  "Wondrous!" I cried. "The youngster's cheeks flush red,
  Wide laugh his lips, and swiftly wags his head,
      He cheers, he claps, he chuckles.
  Can he, the languid lounger limp and faint
  Give way to mirth with the mad unrestraint
      Of boys with ribs and knuckles?

  "Frankly _canaille_ is that dancing chit
  Slang and suggestiveness serve her for wit,
      And impudence for beauty.
  Yet frigid 'Form' melts at her cockney spell,
  'Form,' which votes valsing with the reigning belle
      An undelightful duty.

  "Bounds on the arch-buffoon, with flexile face,
  With bagman smartness and batrachian grace.
      Is he not sweet and winning?
  Mime of the gutter, mimic of the slum,
  Muse of the haunts unspeakable, else dumb,
      A satyr gross and grinning?

  "LIMPET smiled," he said. "SHAKSPEARE'S boldest wit
  Leaves LIMPET listless, but each feature lit
      At that last comic chorus.
  London is full of LIMPETS; clownings please
  The well-groom'd mob, though ARISTOPHANES
      Would miserably bore us.

  "Untile the Town entirely? Nay, good friend,
  That were to affright the timid, and offend
      The tender and the trustful.
  Unlifted yet must lie the dusky screen
  That veils the viler features of the scene,
      The dread and the disgustful."

  "Shadow!" I said, "Civilisation fails,
  While surfeits Idleness, and Labour pales.
      For all its spread and glitter,
  The Titan City lacks its crowning grace
  And glory, whilst its pleasure is so base,
      Its bondage is so bitter."

  "True!" sighed the Shadow, and a softened smile
  Seemed to illume the coldness, void of guile,
      Of those phantasmal features.
  "When from the City's gloom shall flash to light
  This truth: The sleek and selfish sybarite
      Is meanest of God's creatures?"

  "Shadow!" I cried. But in the darkness dim
  Those lineaments did waver and dislimn
      Like clouds at the sun's waking.
  Alone I stood; fled was the night, the dream,
  And o'er the sleeping City's sullen stream
      Babylon's grey dawn was breaking.

  THE END.

       *       *       *       *       *

A DIAG-NOSE-IS OF WINE.--The Case of Champagne set before Mr. Alderman
and Sheriff DAVIES. Of course, the worthy Alderman, who is a judge of
wine, needed only to raise the glass to his nose. He smelt it to see if
it was Corke'd. But in answer to the charge of false labelling, it
should have been simply pleaded that, at the manufactory, the labels
were not simply put on, but Clapt-on. Whether this defence would have
gone to mitigate the fine of twenty pounds, is another matter. The
Alderman's decision was given, much as the public generally pay for
Champagne,--good or bad,--that is, "through the nose."

       *       *       *       *       *

THE CHAMELEON "REPORT".

_Entirely New Version._

    ("The bearings of it lie in the application,"--to a certain Report.)

  Time to the eager seems to lag,
    Howe'er his glass be shaken;
  Yet struck the hour when from