But, sir, there's one performance that eclipses all these,
tragedy, comedy, farce, and pantomime put together, and that is Mister
Punch--for a right-down, jolly, split-my-side burst of laughter, he's
the fellow; name me any actor or author that can excite the risibilities
of the multitude, or please all ages, orders, and conditions, like
the squeaking pipe and mad waggeries of that immortal, merry-faced
itinerant. If any man will tell me that he possesses genius, or the
mellow affections, and that he can pass Punch,
'Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind;'
then, I say, that man's made of 'impenetrable stuff;' and, being too
wise for whimsicality, is too phlegmatic for genius, and too crabbed for
mellowness." Mark, what a set of merry open-faced rogues surround Punch,
who peeps down at them as cunningly as "a magpie peeping into a marrow
bone; "--how luxuriantly they laugh, or stand with their eyes and mouths
equally distended, staring at the minikin effigy of fun and phantasy;
thinking, no doubt,
"He bin the greatest wight on earth."
And, certainly, he has not his equal, as a positive, dogmatic,
knock-me-down argument-monger; a dare devil; an embodied phantasmagoria,
or frisky infatuation. I have often thought that Punch might be
converted to profitable use, by being made a speaking Pasquin; and,
properly instructed, might hold up his restless quarter staff, in
terrorem, over the heads of all public outragers of decency; and by
opening the eyes of the million, who flock to his orations, enlighten
them, at least, as much as many greater folks, who make more noise
than he, and who, ~64~~like him, often get laughed at, without being
conscious that they are the subjects of merriment.
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