It was Punch's practice during the earlier years of his career to produce a new cover with each succeeding volume.[1] Richard Doyle, however, signalized his accession by the contribution of a wrapper which was considered too good to be thrown aside at the expiration of a few months. The well known and admirable design was stereotyped, and still forms, with certain modifications, the permanent cover of Punch's weekly series.
Specially worthy of note amongst his Punch designs may be mentioned The Napoleon of Peace (Louis Philippe), and The Land of Liberty, "recommended to the consideration of Brother Jonathan." In the latter, allusion is made to the Mexican war, rifle duelling and rowdyism, repudiation, Lynch law, and the then but no longer "peculiar institution." These will be found in the thirteenth volume, with a design of great excellence, Punch's Vision at Stratford-on-Avon, supposed to occur in the house of Shakespeare.
A new English (?) party had been growing up and gradually forcing itself into English politics. This was the Peace-at-any-price party, the members of which, oblivious of the fact that the best preservative of peace is to be found in a perpetual state of readiness for war, erased from their minds all remembrance of the position won for the nation by our glorious army and navy, and ruled that national honour and national obligations must now be considered subordinate to the interests of peace, trade, and commerce. Conspicuous among these men of the new school was Mr. Cobden, an able, earnest, but (so far as our foreign policy was concerned) thoroughly mistaken enthusiast. He figures as "Peace" in Doyle's cartoon of John Bull between Peace and War (i.e. the Duke of Wellington). In Gentlemen, make your Game while the Ball is Rolling (1848), the best cartoon ever designed by Richard Doyle, the various European monarchs are engaged at roulette under the auspices of Punch himself. The ball is the world, and the edges of the board are respectively inscribed, "Reform," "Progress," "Republicanism," "Equality," "Constitutional Government,"
- ↑ One of these (and a very effective one) was the work of the present Sir John Gilbert.
