and Son_ (Dombey being Sir Robert, and the son Lord John),
"Mr. Dombey was in a difficulty. He would like to have given him (_the
boy_) some explanation involving the terms circulating medium, currency,
depreciation of currency, paper, bullion, rates of exchange, value of
precious metals in the market, and so forth." The _Portrait of a Noble
Lord in Order_ refers to one of those exhibitions of want of tact,
taste, and temper in which Lord Brougham would seem to have
delighted.[140] "Who calls _me_ to order?" cries the "noble and learned"
lord, "Who calls _me_ to order? Pooh! Pooh! Fiddle-de-dee! I never was
in better order in my life. Noble lords don't know what they are about;"
a conspicuous and aggressive appurtenance of the "noble and learned," by
the way, is his preposterous umbrella. One of the most barbarous and
disgraceful of London neighbourhoods in 1847, and for many years
afterwards, was Smithfield; the present generation can form no idea of
the state of things thirty years ago, which is referred to in the
cartoon of _Punch and the Smithfield Savages_, the artist borrowing his
idea from West's well-known picture of "Penn's Treaty with the Indians."
The odious matrimonial swindle perpetrated by Louis Philippe with the
idea of ultimately seating a member of his family on the Spanish throne,
which has cast an indelible stain on his memory, had now been found out,
and attracted universal indignation. We find him, in reference to this
shameless piece of business, figuring as the _Fagin of France after
Condemnation_, the idea being suggested of course by Cruikshank's famous
etching in "Oliver Twist." Retribution overtook the mercenary monarch in
the year of disquietude and national unrest--1848; foreign kings and
potentates were sent flying in all directions, and Louis Philippe, who,
like the rest of his family had learnt nothing by misfortune, was among
the first to go. _Put Out_, one of the best of the artist's political
cartoons, represents an armed _ouvrier_ clapping the cap of _liberte_ by
way of extinguisher on the French candle (King Louis). Uneasy were the
heads which wore crowns in that year; and to the throned and unthroned
sovereigns, the former of whom watched these untoward events with
nervous interest, John Leech presented a seasonable gift in the form of
_A Constitutional Plum Pudding_, served up by Mr. Punch on Magna Charta,
and curiously compounded of "Liberty of the Press," "Common Sense,"
"Order,"