The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade, For talking age and whisp'ring lovers made--
were amended by the substitution of "youthful converse" for "whisp'ring lovers." Assuming the character and style of Dr. Johnson, _Punch_ castigates this "pseudo-purifier of Goldsmith" in round terms. "Sir, he is a noisome fellow, Sir, he is a male prude and a hypocrite. Sir, he is a dunce."
_Punch's_ hostility to Exeter Hall, which has undergone structural and other vicissitudes even more remarkable than those of the Crystal Palace, was originally based on what may be called its foreign policy, which he regarded as indistinguishable from the worst form of Jellybyism. This is how he described Exeter Hall in 1842:--
It is at the Hall that the fireside philanthropist, the good and easy man, for whom life has been one long lounge on a velvet sofa--it is there that he displays his practical benevolence, talking for hours on the glory of shipping white pastors to Africa to baptise the negro; or, if the climate will not have it so, to die there. And it is from the Hall that the good and pious, having voted a supply of religion to the black, depart for their own comfortable homes, having, to their exceeding content, indicated their Christianity by paying a pound, singing a hymn, and--taking care of themselves.
In 1846, in "A word on the May meetings" (June 6), he appeals to the Exeter Hall people to drop their foreign philanthropy and educate the poor at home--multiply ragged schools by ten thousand, and aid in the housing movement, social reform, the establishment of baths and wash-houses. As a matter of fact, many of the Exeter Hall people, with Lord Shaftesbury at their head, took an active part in these movements, but _Punch_ could not forgive them for their rigid insistence on Sunday observance, and labelled them indiscriminately as Pharisees, Pecksniffs and Chadbands.
His hostile criticisms of the Church, especially the bishops and archbishops, were equally uncomplimentary but better founded. As _The Times_ wrote in 1847: "The chief practical difficulty of the Church of England is how to engage and secure the affections of the poor." _Punch_ re-echoed the sentiment (October 16, 1847), adding the sarcastic comment: "Bishops, with tens of thousands a year, cry 'Hear, hear!'" But he overlooked the fact that one of the remedies advocated by "Young England" for existing evils was the reorganization of the Church--to make it the friend, comforter and protector of the people. "Young England," however, was an aristocratic movement, and its leaders were almost as great _bêtes noires_ to _Punch_ as Dr. Sumner, the Archbishop of Canterbury (commonly regarded as the incarnation of Cant), "Soapy Sam" (Wilberforce), "Henry of Exeter" (Dr. Phillpotts), and Blomfield, the Bishop of London.