# The Atlantic Monthly/Volume 2/Number 7/Punch

Featured in Vol 2., No.7 of The Atlantic Monthly.
PUNCH.
Not inebriating, but exhilarating punch; not punch of which the more a man imbibes the worse he is, but punch of which the deeper the quaffings the better the effects; not a compound of acids and sweets, hot water and fire-water, to steal away the brains,—but a finer mixture of subtler elements, conducive to mental and moral health; not, in a word, punch, the drink, but "Punch," the wise wag, the genial philosopher, with his brevity of stature, goodly-conditioned paunch, next-to-nothing legs, protuberant back, bill-hook nose, and twinkling eyes,—to speak respectfully, Mr. Punch, attended by the solemnly-sagacious, ubiquitously-versatile "Toby," together with the invisible company of skirmishers of the quill and pencil, producing in his name those ever-welcome sheets, flying forth the world over, with hebdomadal punctuality. Of the ingredients and salutary influence of this Punch—an institution and power of the age, no more to be overlooked among the forces of the nineteenth century than is the steam-engine or the magnetic telegraph—we propose to speak;—not, however, because of the comicality of the theme; for the fun that surrounds, permeates, and saturates it would hardly move us to discourse of it here, if it had not higher claims to attention. To take Punch only for a clown is to mistake him egregiously. Joker as he is, he himself is no joke. The fool's-cap he wears does not prove him to be a fool; and even when he touches the tip of his nasal organ with his fore-finger and winks so irresistibly, meaning lurks in his facetious features, ​to assure you he does not jest without a purpose, or play the buffoon only to coin sixpences. The fact, then, we propose to illustrate is this:—that Punch is a teacher and philanthropist, a lover of truth, a despiser of cant, an advocate of right, a hater of shams,—a hale, hearty old gentleman, whose notions are not dyspeptic croakings, but healthful opinions of good digestion, and who, though he wear motley and indulge in drolleries without measure, is full of sense and sensibility.
The birth-place and parentage of Punch are involved in some doubt,—a fate he shares with several of the world's other heroes, ancient and modern. Accounts differ; and as he has not chosen to settle the question autobiographically, we follow substantially the narrative—that ought to be true; for, mythical or historical, it appropriately localizes and fitly circumstances the nativity of the humorist of the age.
In 1841, Mark Lemon, a writer of considerable ability, was the landlord of the Shakspeare Head, Wych Street, London. A tavern with such a publican and such a name was, of course, frequented by a circle of wits, with whom, in the year just mentioned, originated "Punch." Lemon (how could there be punch without a lemon?) has been the editor from the outset. From which of the knot of good fellows the bright idea of the unique journal first emanated does not appear. The paternity has been ascribed to Douglas Jerrold. Its name might have been suggested by the place of its birth. If so, it at once lost all associations with the ladle and the bowl, and received a wider and better interpretation. The hero of the famous puppet-show was chosen for the typical presiding genius and sponsor of the novel enterprise. And there is no neater piece of allegorical writing in our language than the introductory article of the first number, wherein is exquisitely shadowed forth "the moral" of the work, "Punch,"—suggestive of that "graver puppetry," the "visual and oral cheats," "by which mankind are cajoled." Punch, the exemplar of boldness and philosophic self-control, is the quaint embodiment of the intention to pursue a higher object than the amusement of thoughtless crowds,—an intention which has been adhered to with remarkable fidelity. The first number appeared July 17th, and the serial has lived over a decade and a half, and grown to the bulk of thirty-four or thirty-five volumes. It was not, however, built in a day. It knew a rickety infancy and hours of peril, and owes its rescue from neglect and starvation, its subsequent and constantly increasing prosperity, to the enterprising publishers,—Bradbury and Evans,—who nursed and resuscitated it at the critical moment. Well-known contributors to the letter-press have been Jerrold, Albert Smith, à Beckett, Hood, and Thackeray; whilst Henning, Leech, Meadows, Browne, Forrester, Gilbert, and Doyle have acted as designers. Of these men of letters and art, Lemon and Leech, it is said, alone remain; some of the others broke off their connection with the work at different periods, and some have passed away from earth. Their places have been supplied by the Mayhews, Tom Taylor, Angus Reach, and Shirley Brooks, and the historical painter, Tenniel. These changes have mostly been made behind the scenes; the impersonality of the paper—to speak after the Hibernian style—being personified by Mr. Punch himself,—ostensibly, by a well-preserved and well-managed conceit, its sole conductor through all its vicissitudes and during the whole of its brilliant career. Whatever becomes of correspondents, Punch never resigns and never dies. The baton never falls from his grasp. He sits in his arm-chair, the unshaken Master of the Revels,—though thrones totter, kings abdicate, and revolutions convulse empires. Troubles may disturb his household; but thereby the public does not suffer. He still lives,—immortal in his funny and fascinating idiosyncrasies.
​The ingredients of Punch, the instrumentalities by which he has won fame and victories, are almost too multifarious for enumeration. All the merry imps which beset Leigh Hunt, when about to compile selections from the comic poets, belong to Punch's retinue. Doubles of Similes, Buffooneries of Burlesques, Stalkings of Mock Heroics, Stings in the Tails of Epigrams, Glances of Innuendoes, Dry Looks of Irony, Corpulencies of Exaggerations, Ticklings of Mad Fancies, Claps on the Backs of Horse Plays, Flounderings of Absurdities, Irresistibilities of Iterations, Significances of Jargons, Wailings of Pretended Woes, Roarings of Laughter, and Hubbubs of Animal Spirits, all appear, singly or in companies, to flash, ripple, dance, shoot, effervesce, and sparkle, in prose and verse, vignettes, sketches, or elaborate pictures, on the ever-shifting and always entertaining pages of the London Charivari. Of one prominent form of the exhibition of this inexhaustible arsenal, namely, the illustrations, special notice is to be taken. These, notwithstanding their oddity, extravagance, and burlesqueness, by reason of their grace, finish, and good taste, frequently get into the proximity of the fine arts. This elevation of sportive drawing is mainly to be put to the credit of manly John Leech,—"the very Dickens of the pencil." He and his associates have proved that the humorous side of things may be limned with mirth-provoking truth, and that vices and follies may be depicted with a vigorous and accurate crayon, without coarseness or vulgarity, or pandering to depraved sentiments. Herein is most commendable success. Punch's gallery—with but few, if any exceptions—may be opened to the purest eyes. In it there is much of Hogarthian genius, without anything that needs a veil. In alluding to the agencies of Punch, it would be doing him great injustice to leave the impression that they are all of a mirthful character. Often is he tearfully, if at the same time smilingly, pathetic. Seriousness, certainly, is not his forte, and he is not given to homilies and moral essays. Usually he gilds homoeopathic pills of wisdom with a thick coating of humor. Yet, now and then, his vein is an earnest vein, and he speaks from the abundance of a tender and deeply-moved heart. This is especially true of some of his poetical effusions, which rank high among the best fugitive pieces of the times. That Hood's "Song of the Shirt" was an original contribution to his columns is almost enough of itself to show that Punch, like some other famous comedians, can start the silent tear, as well as awaken peals of laughter. And this is but one of many instances in point that might be cited. In his productions you often meet golden sentences of soberest counsel, beautiful tributes to real worth, stirring appeals for the oppressed, and touching eulogies of the loved and lost.
Thus much of the history and machinery of Punch. His salutary influence is to be spoken of next. But before venturing upon what may seem indiscriminate praise, let it be confessed that our hero is not without his weaknesses. Nothing human is perfect, and Punch is very human. The good Homer sometimes nods; so doth the good Punch. He does not always perform equally well,—keep up to his highest level. If he never entirely disappoints his audience, he fails sometimes to shoot the brightest arrows of his quiver and hit his mark so as to make the scintillating splinters fly. Now and then he has been slightly dull, forgotten himself and his manners, gone too far, got into the wrong box, missed seizing the auricular appendage of the right pig, run things into the ground,—blundered as common and uncommon people will. Under these general charges we must, painful as it is to speak of the errors of a favorite, enter a few specifications.
The writer of the prospectus, before referred to, seems to have had a premonitory fear—growing out of his bad treatment of Judy—that Punch in his new vocation might fail of uniform gentlemanliness towards the ladies; and time ​has shown that there were some little grounds for the apprehension. The droll hunchback's virulent dislike of mothers-in-law seems the nursed-up wrath of an unhappy personal experience. Vastly amusing as were the "Caudle Lectures," it is a question whether excessive indulgence in the luxury of satire upon a prolific theme did not infuse into them over-bitter exaggeration, not favorable to the culture of domestic felicity. Did these celebrated curtain-homilies stand alone, their sharp and unrivalled humor might save Punch from the censure of being once in a while the least bit of a Bluebeard. But, for the most gallant gentleman, on the whole, in the United Kingdom, he is not so invariable in fairness towards the fair as could be wished. The follies and frivolities of absurd fashions are his proper game; and he does brave service in hunting them down. Still, his warfare against crinoline, small bonnets, and other feminine fancies in dress, has been tiresomely inveterate. Even Mr. Punch had better, as a general rule, leave the management of the female toilette to those whom it most nearly concerns. But in his case, the scolding or pouting should not be inexorable; for in one way he atones amply for all his impertinence. He paints his young ladies pretty and graceful, being, with all his sly satire, evidently fond of the sex, the juvenile portion at least. Surely, a Compliment so uniform and tasteful must more than outweigh his teasing and banter with the amiable subjects of both.
Of Punch as a local politician we are hardly fair judges, and it may be a mistaken suspicion that he has occasionally given up to party what was meant for mankind. With respect to "foreign affairs," we shall be safer in saying, that, with all his cosmopolitanism, he is a shade or two John-Bullish. Thanking him for his fraternal cordiality towards "Jonathan," we must doubt if it will do to trust implicitly his reports and impressions of men and things across the Channel. That he is more than half right, however, when lingering remains of insular prejudice tinge his solicitude to save his native land from entangling alliances, and keep its free government from striking hands with despotism, we incline to believe; and we honor him that his loyalty is not mere adulation, but duly seasoned with the democratic principle that would have the stability of the throne the people's love,—the people being of infinitely greater importance than the propping-up or the propagation of royal houses. In one sad direction Punch's patriotism and humanity, it seems to us, were wrathful exaggerations, open to graver objection than yielding unconsciously to a natural bias. In his zeal against terrible outrages, he forgot that two wrongs never make a right. We refer to his course on the Indian Revolt. From the way he raised his voice for war, almost exterminating, and with no quarter, one would think the British rule in the East had been the rule of Christian love,—that Sepoys and other subjects had known the reigning power only as patriarchal kindness,—and so, without excuse, a highly civilized, justly and tenderly treated people, suddenly, and without provocation, became rebellious devils, and rebellious only because they were devils. In the hour of horror-struck indignation, was not Punch too blood-thirsty, vindictive, unjust, and oblivious to the truth of history, that the insurgents are poor superstitious heathens, whom a selfish policy may have kept superstitious and heathenish? True, he was the witness of broken hearts and desolate hearth-stones at home, and daily heard of hellish atrocities inflicted on the women and children abroad,—enough to crush out for the moment every thought but the thought of vengeance. Yet, even at such a crisis, he should have remembered, that England, in strict accordance with the stern, unrelenting logic of events, having sown to the wind, might therefore have reaped the whirlwind. It is among the mysteries of Providence, that retributive justice, when visiting nations, often involves innocent victims,—but it is retributive justice still; and tracing up ​rightly the chain of causes and effects, it may be that the tragedies of Delhi and Lucknow are attributable, to say the least, as much to the avarice of the dominant as to the depravity of the subjugated race. The bare possibility that this might be the truth a philosopher like Punch ought not to have overlooked, in the suddenness and fire of his anger.
Finally, Punch is no ascetic, but quite the reverse. He cannot be expected, any more than his namesake, the beverage, to go down with the apostles of temperance. He is a convivialist,—moderately so,—and no teetotaler. He evidently prefers roast-beef and brown-stout to bran-bread and cold water, and has gone so far as to sing the praises of pale-ale. He thinks the laboring classes should have their pot of beer, if the nobility and gentry are to eat good dinners and take airings in Hyde Park, on Sundays. He is a Merry Englishman, as to the stomach,—and, like a Merry Englishman, enjoys good living. There is no denying this fact; but here is the whole front of his offending. Remember that he was born at the Shakspeare's Head, and has had a publican for his right-hand man.
These are defects, it may be; and yet not by its defects are we to judge of a work of Art. Of that generous and just canon Punch should have the full benefit. Try him by that, and he has abounding virtues to flood and conceal with lustrous and far-raying light his exceptional errors. To brief notices of some of these—regretting the want of room to enlarge upon them as it would be pleasant to do—we gladly turn.
Punch is to be loved and cherished as the maker of mirth for the million. Saying this, we do not propose to go into an argument to excuse, justify, or recommend hilarity for its own sake or its medicinal effects on overtasked bodies and souls. Desperate attempts have been made to prove the innocence of fun, and the allowableness of wit and humor. Assuming or conceding that the jocose elements or capacities of human nature need apology and defence, very nice distinctions have been drawn, and very ingenious sophistry employed, to prove that the best of people may, within certain limits, crack jokes, or laugh at jokes cracked for them. These efforts to accommodate stern dogmas to that pleasant stubborn fact in man's constitution, his irresistible craving for play, and irresistible impulse to laugh at whatever is really laughable, are about as necessary as would be an essay maintaining the harmlessness of sunshine. The fact has priority over the dogmas, and is altogether too strong to need the patronizing special-pleading they suggest. Instead of going into the metaphysics of the question about the lawfulness and blamelessness of humor shown or humor relished, suppose we cut the knot by a delightful illustration of the compatibility of humor with the highest type of character.
No one will deny the sincerity, earnestness, devotedness, sublime consecration to duty, of the heroine of the hospitals of Scutari. No one will dispute the practical piety of the gentle, but fearless, the tenderhearted, but truly strong-minded woman, who made the lazar-house her home for months together,—ministered to its sick, miserable, and ignorant inmates,—put, by the unostentatious exercise of indomitable faith and unswerving self-sacrifice, the love and humanity of the Gospel in direct and strongest contrast with the barbarisms of war. No one will deny or dispute this now. That heroic English maiden, whose shadow, as it fell on his pillow, the rude soldier kissed with almost idolatrous gratitude, has won, without thought of seeking it, and without the loss of a particle of humility and womanly delicacy, the loving admiration of all Christendom. Well, she
"whose presence honors queenly guests, Who wears the noblest jewel of her time, And leaves her race a nobler, in her name,"
shall be the sufficient argument here,—especially as none have paid finer, more delicate, or truer tributes to her virtue than Punch. In a recent sketch of ​her career, accompanying her portrait in the gallery of noted women, this sentence is given from a descriptive letter:—"Her general demeanor is quiet and rather reserved; still, I am much mistaken, if she is not gifted with a very lively sense of the ridiculous." Here is a delightful, and, we doubt not, true intimation. Since the springs of pathos lie very near the springs of humor, in the richest souls, the fair Florence must, in moments of weariness, have glanced with merry eyes over the pages of Punch, or handed, with smiling archness, his inimitable numbers to her wan and wounded patients, kindly to cheat them into momentary forgetfulness of their agonies. If this were so, who shall say that the use or enjoyment of wit is not as right as it is natural? None, unless it be the narrowest of bigots,—like those who objected to this heroic lady's mission of mercy to the East, because she did not echo their sectarian shibboleths, and would not ask whether a good nurse were Protestant or Romanist.
We may repeat, therefore, as a prime excellence of Punch, that he is the maker of mirth for the million. He is mainly engaged in furnishing titillating amusement,—and he furnishes an article, not only marketable, but necessary. All work makes Jack a dull boy,—and not infrequently an unhappy, if not bad boy,—whether Jack be in the pulpit, the counting-room, the senate-house, or digging potatoes; and what is true of Jack is equally true of Gill, his sister, sweetheart, or wife. That Punch every week puts a girdle of smiles round the earth, interrupts the serious business of thousands by his merry visits, and with his ludicrous presence delights the drawing-room, cheers the study, and causes side-shakings in the kitchen,—entitles him to be called a missionary of good. Grant this,—then allow, on the average, five minutes of merriment to each reader of each issue of Punch,—then multiply these 5 minutes by—say 50,000, and this again by 52 weeks, and this, finally, by 17 years, and thus cipher out, if you have a tolerably capacious imagination, the amount of happiness which has flowed and spread, like a river of gladness, through the world, from that inexhaustible, bubbling, and sparkling fountain, at 85, Fleet Street, London.
Punch is the advocate of true manliness. Velvet robes and gilded coronets go for nothing with him, if not worn by muscular integrity; and fustian is cloth-of-gold, in his eyes, when it covers a stout heart in the right place. He has no mercy on snobbism, flunkeyism, or dandyism. He whips smartly the ignoble-noble fops of the household-troops,—parading them on toy-horses, and making them, with suicidal irony, deplore the hardships of comrades in the Crimea. He sneers at the loungers, and the delicate, dissipated roués of the club-house,—though their names were once worn by renowned ancestors, and are in the peerage. Fast young men are to him befooled prodigals, wasting the wealth of life in profitless living. He is not, however, an anchorite, or hard upon youth. On the contrary, he is an indulgent old fellow, and too sagacious to expect the wisdom of age from those sporting their freedom-suits. Still, he has no patience with the foppery whose whole existence advertises fine clothes, patronizes taverns, saunters along fashionable promenades, and ogles opera-dancers. In this connection, his hits at "the rising generation" will be called to mind. Punch has found out that in England there are no boys now,—only male babies and precocious men;—no growing up,—only a leap from the cradle, robe, and trousers to the habiliments and manners of a false manhood. Punch has found out and frequently illustrates this fact, and furnishes a series of pictures of Liliputians aping the questionable doings of their elders. It is observable, however, that he confines these portraits of precocity chiefly to one sex. Whether this be owing to his innate delicacy and habitual gallantry, or to the English custom of keeping little girls—and what we should call large girls also—at home longer, and under more ​restraint, than in our republic, we cannot say. Were he on this side of the Atlantic, he might possibly find occasion to be less partial in the use of his reproving fun. Young misses seem to be growing scarce, and young ladies becoming alarmingly numerous. The early date at which the cry comes for long skirts, parties, balls, and late hours, for lace, jewelry, and gold watches, threatens to rob our homes of one of their sweetest charms,—the bright presence of joyous, gentle, and modest lasses, willing to be happy children for as many years as their mothers were, on their way to maidenhood and womanhood.
Punch is a reformer,—and of the right type, too; not destructive, declamatory, vituperative; not a monomaniac, snarly, and ill-natured,—as if zeal in riding a favorite hobby excused exclusiveness of soul and any amount of bad temper. He would not demolish the social system and build on its ruins a new one; being clearly of the opinion that the growths of ages and the doings of six thousands of years are to be respected,—that progress means improvement upon the present, rather than overthrow of the entire past. Calm, hopeful, cheerful, and patient, he is at the same time bold and uncompromising, and a bit radical into the bargain. In his own delicious way, he has been no mean advocate of liberal principles and measures. He has argued for the repeal of the corn and the modification of the game laws, the softening of the cruelties of the criminal code, and the fair administration of law for all orders and conditions of men and women. He has had no respect for ermine, lawn, or epaulets, in his assaults upon the monopolies and sinecures of Church and State, circumlocution offices, nepotism, patronage, purchase, and routine, in army or navy. He wants the established religion to be religious, not a cover for aristocratic preferments and dog-in-the-manger laziness,—and government administered for the whole people, and not merely dealing out treasury-pap and fat offices for the pensioned few. Punch is loyal, sings lustily, "God Save the Queen," and stands by the Constitution. He is a true-born Englishman, and patriotic to the backbone; but none are too high in place or name for his merciless ridicule and daring wit, if they countenance oppressive abuses. It is a tall feather in his fool's-cap, that his fantastic person is a dread to evil-doers on thrones, in cabinets, and red-tape offices. Crowned tyrants, bold usurpers, and proud statesmen are sensitive, like other mortals, to ridicule, and know very well how much easier it is to cannonade rebellious insurgents than to put down the general laugh, and that the point of a joke cannot be turned by the point of the bayonet. "Punch" was seized in Paris on account of the caricature of the "Sphinx," but after twenty-four hours' consideration the order of confiscation was rescinded, and the irreverent publication now lies upon the tables of the reading-rooms. So, iron power is not beyond the reach of the shafts of wit; once make it ridiculous, and it may continue to lie dreaded, but will cease to be respected.
Limits permitting, it would be pleasant to refer at length to various other marked graces of Punch,—such, for example, as his care for true Art, by exposing to merited contempt the abortions of statuary, painting, and architecture that come under his accurate eye,—his concern for good letters, exhibited in fantastic parodies of affectations, mannerisms, absurdities of plot, and vices of style in modern poets and novelists,—his "nil nisi bonum," and, where there is no "bonum," his silent "nil," of the dead, whom when living he pursued with unrelenting raillery,—his cool, eclectic judgments, freedom from extremes, and other manifestations of clear-headedness and refined sentiment, glimmering and shooting through his rollicking drollery, quick wit, and quiet humor. But we must pass them by, to emphasize a quality that out-tops and outshines them all,—his humanity.
This is Mr. Punch's specialty, generating his purest fun and consecrating his versatile talents to highest ends. ​Wherever he catches meanness, avarice, selfishness, force, preying upon the humble and the weak, he is sure to give them hard knocks with his baton, or home-thrusts with his pen and pencil. His practical kindness is charmingly comprehensive, too. He speaks for the dumb beast, pleads for the maltreated brutes of Smithfield Market, craves compassion for skeleton omnibus-horses, with the same ready sympathy that he fights for cheated fellow-mortals. In the court of public opinion, he is volunteer counsel for all in any way defrauded or kept in bondage by pitiless pride, barbarous policy, thoughtless luxury, or wooden-headed prejudice. His sound ethics do not admit that the lower law of man's enactment can, under any circumstances, override or abrogate the higher laws of God. Consequently, he judges with unbiased, instinctive rectitude, when he shows up in black and white the Model Republic's criminal anomaly, by making the African Slave a companion-piece to the Greek Slave, among "Jonathan's" contributions to the great Crystal Palace Exhibition. In this same vein of a wide-ranging application of the Golden Rule, he is ever on the alert to brand inhuman deeds and institutions, wherever found. You cannot very often hit him with the "tu quoque" retort, insinuate that he lives in a house of glass, or charge him with visiting his condemnation upon distant iniquities whilst winking at iniquities of equal magnitude directly under his nose.
Punch is no Mrs. Jellyby, brimful of zeal for Borrio boolas in far-off Africas, and utterly stolid to disorders and distresses under his own roof. Proud of the glory, he feels and confesses the shame of England; and the grinding injustice of her caste-system, aristocracy, and hierarchy does not escape the lash of his rebuke. He is the friend of the threadbare curate, performing the larger half of clerical duty and getting but a tittle of the tithes,—of the weary seamstress, wetting with midnight tears the costly stuff which must be ready to adorn heartless rank and fashion at to-morrow's pageant,—of the pale governess, grudgingly paid her pittance of salary without a kind word to sweeten the bitterness of a lonely lot. He is the friend even of the workhouse juveniles, and, as their champion, castigates with cutting sarcasm and stinging scorn the reverend and honorable guardians, who, just as, full of hope, they had reached the door of the theatre, prohibited a band of these wretched orphans from availing of a kind-hearted manager's invitation to an afternoon performance of "Jack and the Bean-Stalk." Truly, Punch is more than half right, as, in his indignation, he declares, "It will go luckily with some four-faced Christians, if, with the fullest belief in their own right of entry of paradise, they are not 'stopped at the very doors'"; and the parson, in the case, gets but his deserts, when at his lugubrious sham-piety are hurled stanzas like these:—
"Their little faces beamed with joy Two miles upon their way, As they supposed, each girl and boy, About to see the play. Their little cheeks with tears were wet, As back again they went, Balked by a sanctimonious set, Led by a Reverend Gent.
"And if such Reverend Gents as he Could get the upperhand, Ah, what a hateful tyranny Would override the land! That we may never see that time, Down with the canting crew That would out of their pantomime Poor little children do!"
Punch is the friend of all who are friendless, and, with a generous spirit of protection, gives credit to whom credit is due, whatever conventionality, precedent, monopoly, or routine may say to the contrary. During the Crimean War, he took care of the fame of the rank-and-file of the army. The dispatches to Downing Street, reporting the gallantry of titled officers, were more than matched by Punch's imitative dispatches from the seat of war, setting forth the exploits of Sergeant O'Brien, Corporal Stout, or Private Gubbins. He saw to it that those who had the hardest of the fight, the ​smallest pay, and the coarsest rations, should not be forgotten in the gazetting of the heroes. Indeed, our comic friend's fellowship of soul with the humblest members of the human family is a notable trait; it is so ready, and yet withal so judicious. It is no part of his philosophy, as already intimated, violently and rashly to disturb the existing order of things, and set one class in rebellion against other classes. He simply insists upon the recognition of the law of mutual dependence all round. This is observable in his dealing with the vexed question of domestic service. The prime trouble of housekeeping comes in frequently for a share of his attention; and underneath ironical counsels, you may trace, quietly insinuating itself into graphic sketches, the genial intent fairly to adjust the relations between life above and life below stairs. Accordingly, Punch sees no reason why Angelina may have a lover in the parlor, whilst Bridget's engagement forbids her to entertain a fond "follower" in the kitchen; and he perversely refuses to see how it can be right for Miss Julia to listen to the soft nonsense of Captain Augustus Fitzroy in the drawing-room, and entirely wrong for Molly, the nursery-maid, to blush at the blunt admiration of the policeman, talking to her down the area. Punch is independent and original in this respect. His strange creed seems to be, that human nature is human nature,—whether, in its feminine department, you robe it in silk or calico, and, in its male department, button a red coat over the breast of an officer of the Guards, or put the coarse jerkin on the broad back of the industrious toilsman. And according to this whimsical belief, he writes and talks jocosely, but with covert common sense. His warm and catholic humanity runs up and down the whole social scale with a clear-sighted equity. His philanthropy is what the word literally signifies,—the love of man as man, and because he is a man. Without being an impracticable fanatic, advocating impossible theories, or theories that can grow into realities only with the gradual progress of the race,—without indulging in fanciful visions of unapproached Utopias,—without imagining that all, wherever born and however nurtured, can reach the same level of wealth and station,—he holds, not merely that
"Honor and shame from no condition rise,"
but also, be the condition high or low, the worthy occupant of it, by reason of the common humanity he shares with all above and all beneath and all around him, has a brother's birthright to brotherly treatment, to even-handed justice and open-handed charity.
We have taken it for granted that Punch is a household necessity and familiar friend of our readers; and, resisting as far as possible the besetting temptation to refer in detail to the many pictorial and letter-press illustrations of his merits, have spoken of him as "a representative man,"—the universally acknowledged example of the legitimate and beneficent uses of the sportive faculties; thus indirectly claiming for these faculties more than toleration.
The variety in human nature must somehow be brought into unity, and its diversified, strongly contrasted elements shown to be parts of a symmetrical and harmonious whole. The philosophy, the religion, which overlooks or condemns any of these elements, is never satisfactory, and fails to win sincere belief, because of its felt incompleteness. All men have an instinctive faith that in God's plan no incontestable facts are exceptional or needless facts. Science assumes this in regard to the phenomena of the natural world; and, in its progressive searches, expects to discover continual proof that all manifestations, however opposite and contradictory, are parts of one beneficent scheme. Accordingly, Science starts on its investigations with the conviction that the storm is as salutary as the sunshine,—that there is utility in what seems mere luxury,—and that Nature's loveliness and grandeur, Nature's oddity and grotesqueness, have a substantial value, as well as Nature's wheat-harvests. ​Now the same principle is to be recognized in dealing with things spiritual. It may not be affirmed that anything appertaining to universal consciousness—spontaneous, irresistible, as breathing—is of itself base, and therefore to be put away; since so to do is to question the Creative Wisdom. The work of the Infinite Spirit must be consistent; and you might as truly charge the bright stars with malignity as denounce as vile one faculty or capacity of the mind. Consequently, there is a use for all forms of wit and humor.
Punch represents a genuine phase of human nature,—none the less genuine because human nature has other and far different phases. That there is a time to mourn does not prove there is no time to dance. Punch has his part, and his times to play it, in the melodrama, the mixed comedy and tragedy, of existence. What we have to do is to see that he interferes with no other actor's rôle, comes upon the stage in fitting scenes, keeps to the text and the impersonations which right principle and pure taste assign him. His grimaces are not for the church. He may not sing his catches when penitent souls are listening to the "Miserere," drop his torpedo-puns when life's mystery and solemnity are pressed heavily upon the soul,—be irreverent, profane, or vulgar. He must know and keep his place. But he should have his place, and have it confessed; and that place is not quite at the end of the procession of the benefactors of the race. Punch, as we speak of him now, is but a generic name for Protean wit and humor, well and wisely employed. As such, let Punch have his mission; there is ample room for him and his merry doings, without interfering with soberer agencies. Let him go about tickling mankind; it does mankind good to be tickled occasionally. Let him broaden elongated visages; there are many faces that would be improved by horizontal enlargement, by having the corners of the mouth curved upward. Let him write and draw "as funny as he can"; there are dull talking and melancholy pictures in abundance to counterbalance his pleasantry. Let him amuse the children, relax with jocosity the sternness of adults, and wreathe into smiles the wrinkles of old age. Let him, in a word, be a Merry Andrew,—the patron and promoter of frolicsomeness. To be only this is nothing to his discredit; and to esteem him for being only this is not to pay respect to a worthless mountebank.
But Punch is and can be something more than a caterer of sport. Kings, in the olden time, had their jesters, who, under cover of blunt witticisms, were permitted, to utter home-truths, which it would have cost grave counsellors and dependent courtiers their heads to even whisper. Punch should enjoy a similar immunity in this age,—and society tolerate his free and smiling speech, when it would thrust out sager monitors. If it be true that
"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,"
something like the converse of this saying is also true. Not fools exactly, but wisdom disguised in the motley of wit, often gains entrance to ears deaf to angelic voices. There are follies that are to be laughed out of their silliness and sinfulness. There are tyrants, big and little, to be dethroned by ridicule. There are offences, proof against appeals to conscience, that wince and vanish before keen satire. Even as a well-aimed joke brings back good-humor to an angry mob, or makes mad and pugnacious bullies cower and slink away from derision harder to stand than hard knocks,—even so will a quizzical Punch be efficient as a philanthropist, when sedate exhortations or stern warnings would fail to move stony insensibility.
As an element in effective literature, a force in the cause of reform, the qualities Punch personifies have been and are of no slight service. And herein those qualities have an indefeasible title to regard. Let there be no vinegar-faced, wholesale denunciation of them, because sometimes their pranks are wild and overleap the fences of propriety ​Rather let appreciation of their worthiness accompany all reproving checks upon their extravagances. Let nimble fun, explosive jokes, festoon-faced humor, the whole tribe of gibes and quirks, every light, keen, and flashing weapon in the armory of which Punch is the keeper, be employed to make the world laugh, and put the world's laughter on the side of all right as against all wrong. If this be not done, the seriousness of life will darken into gloom, its work become slavish tasks, and the conflict waged be a terrible conflict between grim virtues and fiendish vices. If you could shroud the bright skies with black tempest-clouds, burn to ashes the rainbow-hued flowers, strike dumb the sweet melodies of the grove, and turn to stagnant pools the silver streams,—if you could do this, thinking thereby to make earth more of a paradise, you would be scarcely less insane than if you were to denounce and banish all
"Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles, Nods, and becks, and wreathèd smiles, Sport, that wrinkled care derides, And laughter, holding both his sides."
This work was published before January 1, 1930, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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