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As we hope, gentle public, to pass many happy hours in your society,
we think it right that you should know something of our character and
intentions. Our title, at a first glance, may have misled you into
a belief that we have no other intention than the amusement of a
thoughtless crowd, and the collection of pence. We have a higher
object. Few of the admirers of our prototype, merry Master PUNCH, have
looked upon his vagaries but as the practical outpourings of a rude
and boisterous mirth. We have considered him as a teacher of no mean
pretensions, and have, therefore, adopted him as the sponsor for our
weekly sheet of pleasant instruction. When we have seen him parading
in the glories of his motley, flourishing his baton (like our friend
Jullien at Drury-lane) in time with his own unrivalled discord, by
which he seeks to win the attention and admiration of the crowd,
what visions of graver puppetry have passed before our eyes! Golden
circlets, with their adornments of coloured and lustrous gems, have
bound the brow of infamy as well as that of honour--a mockery to both;
as though virtue required a reward beyond the fulfilment of its own
high purposes, or that infamy could be cheated into the forgetfulness
of its vileness by the weight around its temples! Gilded coaches have
glided before us, in which sat men who thought the buzz and shouts
of crowds a guerdon for the toils, the anxieties, and, too often, the
peculations of a life. Our ears have rung with the noisy frothiness of
those who have bought their fellow-men as beasts in the market-place,
and found their reward in the sycophancy of a degraded constituency,
or the patronage of a venal ministry--no matter of what creed, for
party _must_ destroy patriotism.
The noble in his robes and coronet--the beadle in his gaudy livery
of scarlet, and purple, and gold--the dignitary in the fulness of his
pomp--the demagogue in the triumph of his hollowness--these and other
visual and oral cheats by which mankind are cajoled, have passed in
review before us, conjured up by the magic wand of PUNCH.
How we envy his philosophy, when SHALLA-BA-LA, that demon with the
bell, besets him at every turn, almost teasing the sap out of him! The
moment that his tormentor quits the scene, PUNCH seems to forget the
existence of his annoyance, and, carolling the mellifluous numbers of
_Jim Crow_, or some other strain of equal beauty, makes the most of
the present, regardless of the past or future; and when SHALLA-BA-LA
renews his persecutions, PUNCH boldly faces his enemy, and ultimately
becomes the victor. All have a SHALLA-BA-LA in some shape or other;
but few, how few, the philosophy of PUNCH!
We are afraid our prototype is no favourite with the ladies. PUNCH
is (and we reluctantly admit the fact) a Malthusian in principle, and
somewhat of a domestic tyrant; for his conduct is at times harsh and
ungentlemanly to Mrs. P.
"Eve of a land that still is Paradise,
Italian beauty!"
But as we never look for perfection in human nature, it is too much
to expect it in wood. We wish it to be understood that we repudiate
such principles and conduct. We have a Judy of our own, and a little
Punchininny that commits innumerable improprieties; but we fearlessly
aver that we never threw him out of window, nor belaboured the lady
with a stick--even of the size allowed by law.
There is one portion of the drama we wish was omitted, for it always
saddens us--we allude to the prison scene. PUNCH, it is true, sings in
durance, but we hear the ring of the bars mingling with the song. We
are advocates for the _correction_ of offenders; but how many generous
and kindly beings are there pining within the walls of a prison, whose
only crimes are poverty and misfortune! They, too, sing and laugh, and
appear jocund, but the _heart_ can ever hear the ring of the bars.
We never looked upon a lark in a cage, and heard him trilling out
his music as he sprang upwards to the roof of his prison, but we felt
sickened with the sight and sound, as contrasting, in our thought,
the free minstrel of the morning, bounding as it were into the
blue caverns of the heavens, with the bird to whom the world was
circumscribed. May the time soon arrive, when every prison shall be
a palace of the mind--when we shall seek to instruct and cease to
punish. PUNCH has already advocated education by example. Look at his
dog Toby! The instinct of the brute has almost germinated into reason.
Man _has_ reason, why not give him intelligence?
We now come to the last great lesson of our motley teacher--the
gallows! that accursed tree which has its _root_ in injuries.
How clearly PUNCH exposes the fallacy of that dreadful law which
authorises the destruction of life! PUNCH sometimes destroys the
hangman: and why not? Where is the divine injunction against the
shedder of man's blood to rest? None _can_ answer! To us there is but
ONE disposer of life. At other times PUNCH hangs the devil: this is as
it should be. Destroy the principle of evil by increasing the means
of cultivating the good, and the gallows will then become as much a
wonder as it is now a jest.
We shall always play PUNCH, for we consider it best to be merry and
wise--
"And laugh at all things, for we wish to know,
What, after all, are all things but a show!"--_Byron_.
As on the stage of PUNCH's theatre, many characters appear to fill
up the interstices of the more important story, so our pages will be
interspersed with trifles that have no other object than the moment's
approbation--an end which will never be sought for at the expense of
others, beyond the evanescent smile of a harmless satire.
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