Punting

“ The flame burns on with an unquenchable ardour. Beautiful beings, the Punch of your affections is true to you all. He takes you in a lump and loves you. He takes you singly and adores you, passionately but paternally. Here, therefore, is the letter:—
DEAREST MR. PUNCH,
We have all been so delighted to read your articles about shooting. ”

“ THE MORAL OF PUNCH.
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. ”

“ Punch, that godless old rebel, breaks every law and laughs at it with odious triumph, outwits his lawyer, bullies the beadle, knocks his wife about the head, and hangs the hangman,—don't you see in the comedy, in the song, in the dance, in the ragged little Punch's puppet-show,—the Pagan protest? Doesn't it seem as if Life puts in its plea and sings its comment? ”

“ Punch is not merry in himself, but ‘he is the cause of heartfelt mirth in other men.’ The wires and pulleys that govern his motion are conductors to carry off the spleen, and all ‘that perilous stuff that weighs upon the heart.’ If we see numbers of people turning the corner of a street, ready to burst with secret satisfaction, and with their faces bathed in laughter we know what is the matter—that they are just come from a puppet-show. ”

“ If a man puns upon a stable, you may pun upon a cornfield, a meadow, a horse-park, a smith's or sadler's shop; ex. gr. One says, His horses are gone to rack.' Then you answer, 'I would turn out the rascal that looks after them. Hay, sir, don't you think I am right? I would strike while the iron is hot; and pummel the dog to some purpose.' [Pg 53]
R. 15. The Rule of Alienation; which obliges you, when people are disputing hotly upon a subject, to pitch upon that word which gives the greatest disturbance, and make a pun upon it. ”

“ We may say with justice, "a pun spoken in good season, how good is it!" Time, and place, and persons too, must be regarded. The punster, while he enlivens conversation, is one of the greatest acquisitions to a company; when he only interrupts it, he is one of its greatest nuisances. ”

“ How often have the asperities incident to conversation been instantly softened down by the means of a well-timed pun? How many a rising storm of colloquial debate and controversial wrath has been dispelled by the same salutary agency, when wisdom would have failed to convince, or mediation to conciliate? The able punster has perhaps more frequent opportunities than any other character, of securing the blessing pronounced upon the peace-maker. ”

“ Punch. Pray, sir, bestow your charity upon a poor blind man, with a bad cough. (coughs.)
Punch. Get along, get along; don’t trouble me: nothing for you.
Blind Man. Only a half-penny! Oh, dear! my cough is so bad! (coughs and spits in Punch’s face.)
Punch. Hollo! Was my face the dirtiest place you could find to spit in? Get away! you nasty old blackguard! Get away! (seizes the Blind Man’s staff, and knocks him off the stage. Punch hums a tune, and dances to it; and then begins to sing, in the mock Italian style, the following words, pretending to play the fiddle on his arm, with the stick) ”

“ Punch has always greeted our ear. We therefore say by all means let it so continue. A little practice will soon enable you to articulate the sound of words intelligibly, and until you are proficient in its use, the answer of the other figure will convey the meaning. Thus, Punch, in his squeaking voice, asks for the baby. Judy answers, “Oh, Mr. Punch, you want the baby, do you? Well, I’m afraid it’s asleep, but I’ll go and see.” Let the squeaker be (a good one) placed on the centre of the tongue, held close to the roof of the mouth and the words spoken through it. ”

“ It may be the custom to allow such things in this house, but it's not the kind of behaviour that I've been used to see displayed, and so I don't mind telling you, Kenwigs. A gentleman has a glass of punch before him to which he is just about to set his lips, when another gentleman comes and collars that glass of punch, without a 'with your leave,' or 'by your leave,' and carries that glass of punch away. ”

“ In awkward gestures awkward mirth be shown,
Yet, spite of gesture, man still laughs alone."
Now to the exercise of this high and distinguished prerogative of our nature, what is a more certain stimulant than a pun? If it be good, you laugh at the pun; if bad, at the punster; and in either case, he is almost certain to laugh himself. More [Pg 12] over, the punster is one of all others, "quem jocus risusque circumvolat;" not only witty himself, but the cause of wit in others; for it is rarely, indeed, in the social circle, that one pun is not the signal for a series of others. ”

“ Punch. He held in his right hand a tremendous bludgeon, with which he amused himself by rapping on the head every one who came within his reach. This exhibition seems very absurd, yet not less than one hundred were present—children, boys, old men, and even gentlemen and ladies, were standing by, and occasionally greeting the performer with the smile of approbation. Mr. Punch, however, was not to have it all his own way, for another and better sort of Punch-like exhibition appeared a few yards off, that took away Mr. Punch's audience, to the great dissatisfaction of that gentleman. ”

“ Hot punch is a pleasant thing, gentlemen—an extremely pleasant thing under any circumstances—but in that snug old parlour, before the roaring fire, with the wind blowing outside till every timber in the old house creaked again, Tom Smart found it perfectly delightful. He ordered another tumbler, and then another—I am not quite certain whether he didn’t order another after that—but the more he drank of the hot punch, the more he thought of the tall man. ”

“ Punch, when the squire, the colonel, and the admiral are to be at once expressed, together with all that they legislate or fight for, in the symbolic figure of the nation, to present the incarnate Mr. Bull always as a farmer—never as a manufacturer or shopkeeper—and to conceive and exhibit him rather as paymaster for the faults of his neighbours than as watching for opportunity of gain out of their follies? ”

“ Punch, a mysterious and delectable compound, we had better not order in the bar, its consumption is so much more pleasant upstairs; but there is no reason why we should not admire the punch bowls, and having considered them and studied the portrait of an erstwhile waiter over the fireplace as much as they deserve, we probably turn about, and, as the eyes become accustomed to the darkness, find ourselves confronted with the way out. ”

“ A youth was incurably addicted to the vile sin of punning. His father, who detested a pun not less than old Mr. Shandy himself, imposed a fine of half a crown for each commission of this offence. One day the father and son passing along, saw a man in the pillory. The punster could scarcely refrain from a pun with which he was big. The presence of dad, however, restraining his tongue, he indulged his wit by whistling, "Through the wood, laddie."
[Pg 172]
A MANAGER'S PUN.
A new comedy, on its third representation, being thinly attended, the author observed that it was all owing to the war. ”

“ Don't let the punt swing round like that, man, I was nearly over, and my tackle's fouled.
G-sch-n (struggling with pole) . All very well for you to sit coolly there and criticise me, ARTHUR! Wh-o-o-of! Confound the punt, it's all over the place, and the stream's like a mill-race.
B-lf-r. Well, hold on to the pole, JOKIM, or we shall be all adrift. We'd better have kept to our first pitch; it was quiet there, and we hooked one or two sizeable ones. (Aside.) Fact is, you're such a fidget, you lose your fish, and then want to change the pitch. ”

“ Punch, I find under date twenty-five years back, women of all degrees presented under cover of monstrous hoops. Everybody wore crinoline in those days. It was the thing, the only possible thing, and the average human mind could not grasp the idea of there being any other way of arraying the female form. But the prophetic eye of one of the most brilliant of Mr. Punch's Young Men peered into the future and beheld what was to come. ”

“ Begs to acquaint the dull and witless, that he has established a class for the acquirement of an elegant and ready style of punning, on the pure Joe-millerian principle. The very worst hands are improved in six short and mirthful lessons. ”

“ The Bells themselves were higher. Higher, Punch and Toby, in their fascination, or working out the spell upon them, groped their way; until, ascending through the floor, and pausing, with his head raised just above its beams Punch came among the Bells. It was barely possible to make out their great shapes in the gloom; but there they were. Shadowy, and dark, and dumb. ”

“ They were ever ready to go out of their way for the sake of a joke, and a pun, good or bad, was pleasant to them. In this congenial atmosphere Punch germinated, and in July, 1841, that shrewd observer and good-humoured satirist appeared. Mr. Punch, like some other great men, had a hard struggle in his early days; but prosperous times came, and he now combines in his own person the dignity of age with the vivacity of youth. Puck, Diogenes, and numerous other imitators of Punch, attempted to obtain a share of public favour, but most of them died after a brief existence. ”

“ A pun can rarely be considered very good, which involves a difference of orthography. It appears [Pg 17] like a descent from its true dignity to the level of a common conundrum.
Lastly, let every punster bear in mind, that punning is only the sauce of conversation, and that he who thinks to entertain by introducing it continually into his discourse, resembles a man who should present me with a dish of Cayenne pepper alone by way of a meal. It may likewise be observed, that what is usually called an inveterate, is never a good punster. ”

“ In its artistic aspect, at least, Punch is more than a comic journal: it is, and has been for more than half a century, a school of wood-drawing, of pen and pencil draughtsmanship, and of wood-cutting of the first rank; it is a school of art in itself. ”

“ The Brazen-head Rule is when a Punster stands his ground against a whole company, though there is not one to side with him, to the utter destruction of all conversation but his own. As for instance — says one, "I hate a pun." — Then he, "When a pun is meant, is it a punishment?" ”

“ Punch has a row with Judy and knocks her out. (Laughter.) Various well-intentioned and benignant fools look in on Punch to pass the time of day, and get—very properly—knocked out for their pains. (Loud and prolonged laughter.) This is followed by the side-splitting incident in which a handy clown not only eludes the thirsty bludgeon, but surreptitiously steals the inevitable sausages. ”

“ But if a needle be stuck on the end of the punch, its point upwards, the scale, instead of drawing nigh to the punch, and snapping, discharges its fire silently through the point, and rises higher from the punch. ”

“ This Bully Dawson was a famous punch brewer; his rule was precisely like that of a famous New England landlord, and is worth choosing among a score of rules:—
[Pg 120] “The man who sees, does, or thinks of anything else while he is making Punch may as well look for the Northwest Passage on Mutton Hill. A man can never make good punch unless he is satisfied, nay positive, that no man breathing can make better. ”

“ Exit Devil.)
Punch.—He, he, he! (laughing.) He is off: He who runs away will live to fight another day.
(A noise in the background is heard.)
(Punch alarmed by hearing a strange, whirring noise, like that made by a spinning-wheel, retreats to the corner of the stage.)
(Re-enter the Devil, with a stick. He makes up to Punch, who retreats round the back of the stage, and they stand eyeing one another and fensing at opposite sides. At last the Devil makes a blow at Punch which tells on the back of his head.)
Punch.—Take care of my head! What is that for? Old boy, can't we be friends. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Quibble, play upon words, make a pun. Punch, v. a. 1. Perforate, bore, pierce. 2. Push, poke. Punch, n. 1. Borer. 2. Push, poke. 3. Horse (short and thick) . 4. Buffoon (of a puppet-show) , clown, harlequin, punchinello, merry-Andrew, zany, scaramouch, fool, antic, pickle-herring, jack-pudding. Pummel, n. [Written also and preferably Pommel.] Knob, protuberant part. Pummel, v. a. [Written also and preferably Pommel.] Beat, bruise, thrash, flog, drub, bang, maul, thwack, WALLOP, LICK. Punchinello, n. Buffoon, PUNCH. Punctilio, n. Nicety (of behavior) , nice point. ”

“ A fat gentleman who was at a loss for the name of the nobleman who was shut up in a tower and starved to death, applied to the punster—"You-go-lean-O!" was the reply. [Pg 126]
"A tailor is the ninth part of a man," observed a would-be-wit, in the presence of a knight of the sheers: "But," answered R.V. "a fool's no part at all."
"He that will pun will pick a pocket," observed an old cynic. ”