"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.[1] "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 liberté 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
- ↑ See the "[[Political Sketches of HB]]."
