Anacreontics (Benson, 1872)/That Punch

by Carl Benson

 

THAT PUNCH!!!

(February 11, 1865.)

They who aspire to carry higher the standard art-ideal,
If circumspect, will not neglect some phases of the real;
And if you ask the bard to show by an example terse it, he
Appeals to what he used to know of Cambridge University;
Where, of the dainty feasters all, and supper-giving fellows,

There were none more æsthetical than Hallam or than Ellis,^[1]
'Tis thus, the logical may think to obviate all strictures,
Our Johnston brews the best of drink, and buys the best of pictures.

When Noah safely reached dry ground, he couldn't bear a minute
To drink the flood that sinners drowned, with all the sinners in it;
So, making for his weary crew a curious transformation,

A current^[2] from the grape he drew, a marvellous libation;
And tippling up his new-found wine grew more and more ecstatical,
Until it forced him to recline in posture problematical.
Thus No A's drink became no ease, and brought him to disaster,
While Johnston's liquor only frees our tongues to talk the faster.

When Noah grew too old and staid to follow out his mission,

Young Bacchus started in the trade, and set up opposition;
He gave his foes no end of fits, and gave his friends their wishes.
Made women tear their king to bits, and turned men into fishes;
Raised Ariadne to the skies, and 'verted^[3] all the East,
But Johnston's doings more surprise the sharers of his feast.
He turned us all to demi-gods with such a punch as this,
And took us up, with a loving cup, to the seventh heaven of bliss.

Dame Helen, when her husband brave hung out to young Telemachus,^[4]
Nepenthe to the party gave, (by no means unto them a cus.)
A word which Wilkes^[5] mistook one week, and thought it was the same as is
A different word in Heathen Greek, no more nor less than Nemesis.
It conquered wrath and grief so quick, that, after tasting it,
An alderman you couldn't kick or cry at Harper's wit,
No better brew was e'er displayed at any classic lunches,

But the punch that J. T. Johnston made was the punch of all the punches.
The great Panurge went under ground,^[6] so says his curious story,
And there a wondrous sign he found, St. Bottle in his glory,
It stirred his mighty wits to song, a song which I'm afraid is
A bit too broad, though none too long, to sing before the ladies.
There was a better oracle for Johnston's congregation,
For it required no priest to tell a word of explanation;^[7]

Champagne and hock, and oranges, Bohemian crystal crowning,
Are very explicit, I guess, and not at all like Browning.

See, see, around that brimming bowl's concomitant utensils
How gather all the goodly souls immortal in their pencils!
E. L. is holding forth to Hays, and serious as a quaker, he
Is throwing light, sir, on the days of ornamental drapery.
There's Eastman J. and Haseltine, a looking at a Venus,^[8]

And Beard, the glass his lips between, has visions of Silenus.
While Benson^[9] for an essay smart is seeking inspiration,
Stone mingles science with his art, and takes an observation.^[10]

There's Bierstadt, recreant to his name, does what he "hadn't oughter,"
Though canvas gives him all his fame, he really paints on water.
He passes by the ruby brink, the aggravating creature,

And C. B. couldn't make him drink, no more than Stone could Beecher.^[11]
Brevoort has left his cloudy skies, Suydam his streams and shores,
And little Lang one dimly spies, as through the crowd he bores.
Says Gray to Hicks, "I'm fain to think there is a slight omission,
We ought to have, with such a drink, some glowing blondes of Titian."

There's Rossiter, whose brilliant hues in old time would allure all eyes,

Now seems to stand in other shoes, he's been so long to ruralize.
He boasts the charm the country yields, and tells us what the hens ate,
While Cranch the ladle deftly wields, and fills a glass for Kensett.
If ars, celare artem be, their worth is undenied,
For this artistic draught you see how rapidly they hide.
But one has left us in the lurch—and should we deem this hap ill?
No! Johnston wouldn't have a Church; he couldn't use a chap ill.

So one glass round before we start to toast the new Mæcenas,
Who illustrates the spread of art, in every style and genus.

Let's all, whate'er our creed or cause, both Orthodox and Arians,
Join in this damnatory clause, Jeff Davis take aquarians!
For Greeley shall stop talking trash, and Bennett shall stop lying;
And Seward shall do something rash, and Hoppin set us crying,
And Sala grow respectable and —— —— cease to bore us,
And Bayard Taylor cease to tell his elephantine stories,^[12]
Before a man of us forgets this day and all its glories.

 

1. Two good men and true, who have "gone to the majority" (abierunt ad plures). Henry Fitzmaurice Hallam was the second son of the historian; Robert Leslie Ellis, senior wrangler of his year, and one of the editors of Bacon. They were both worthy disciples of Brillat-Savarin, and Ellis had, moreover, a most un-English dexterity in dress.
2. All the punlings are italicized, to prevent mistakes. Swinton of the Times, who is not easily permeable by the common domestic joke, once advised me to put my jests into Roman capitals, not considering them capital, but possibly intimating that they were rum-uns.
3. When an individual "renounces the errors" of one church and "adopts those" of another, it is now polite English to call him a 'vert (without con or pro), so as not to offend either the sect he is 'verted from, or the sect he is 'verted to. Quære, whether vert, in this sense, has any connection with the French word for green. "Apology" Newman thinks it hasn't.
4. See Odyssey, book iv., 219–30.
5. Not '45 John but 2′ 40″ George. A man of great courage, who sometimes makes desperate raids into foreign tongues with such success as that recorded above.
6. See Rabelais, book v., ch. 44–5.
   
7. As the priest Bacbuc was required to explain the oracle of the Holy Bottle. By the way, St. Bottles has a church to this day in Cambridge (England). The name is sometimes erroneously written Botulph's.
8. Now I think on't, 'twas a Diana. But as she was in the usual costume of a Venus, it comes to the same thing, so I let the couplet stand.
9. The real Benson, not the pseudo; Eugene not Carl. He is well known as an art critic, also as the depictor of a young lady in various costumes and attitudes. Wherefore it was said by an irreverent person that Benson would be the fittest man to paint the recent peace conference, because he was accustomed to represent d—m sels.
10. "With a glass operated on by means of a bottle." See Orpheus C. Kerr.
11. The story goes that Stone, being at the Athenæum one night, approached the punch bowl as his wont is, and distributed of the same to the passers-by. Now, of these passers chanced to be Henry Ward Beecher, and it was Beecher's boast that no one ever dared to offer him a glass of liquor. Therefore, on being thus accosted by Stone, he felt that he had lost his aquarian virginity, and rushed frantically from the premises, and mirabile dictu, was not seen or heard of in public for the next twelve hours.
12. Elephantine—of, or relating to the elephant, also enormous, prodigious, colossal. It is here used in both senses.