The very name of our
old friend Punch inspires us in our social moments. What other actor
has been commemorated by the potential cup? is not the sacred bowl of
friendship dedicated to the wooden hero? would you forget the world, its
cares, vexations, and anxieties, sip of the mantling, mirth-inspiring
cordial, and all within is jollity and gay delight.
"For Punch cures the gout, the cholic, and the phthisic,
And it is to every man the very best of physic."
Honest, kind-hearted Punch! I could write a volume in thy praise, and
then, I fear, I should leave half thy merits untold. Thou art worth a
hundred of the fashionable kickshaws that are daily palmed upon us to
be admired; and thy good-humoured efforts to please at the expense of a
broken pate can never be sufficiently praised.
But now the curtain rises, and Mr. Punch steals from behind his two-foot
drapery: the very tip of his arched nose is the prologue to a merry
play; he makes his bow to the multitude, and salutes them with all the
familiarity of an old acquaintance. What a glorious reception does
he meet with from an admiring audience! And now his adventures
commence--his "dear Judy," the partner of his life, by turns experiences
all the capricious effects of love and war. What a true picture of the
storms of life!--how admirable an essay on matrimonial felicity! Then
his alternate uxoriousness to the lady, and his fondlings of that
pretty "kretur" with the family countenance; his chivalrous exploits
on horseback, and mimic capering round the lists of his chequered
tilt-yard; his unhappy differences with the partner of his bosom, and
her lamentable catastrophe; the fracas with the sheriff's substitute;
and his interview with that incomprehensible personage, ~65~~the knight
of the sable countenance, who salutes him with the portentous address
of "schalabala! schalabala! schalabala!" his successive perils and
encounters with the ghost of the martyred Judy; and, after his combat
with the great enemy of mankind, the devil himself, "propria Marte" his
temporary triumph; and, finally, his defeat by a greater man than
old Lucifer, the renowned Mr.
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