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Having made arrangements for a ‘morning performance,’ one of the window frames on the first-floor of the public-house was taken out, and the stand, or Punch’s theatre, was hauled into the ‘club-room.’ Mr. Payne Collier (who was to write the description), the publisher, and myself, formed the audience; and as the performance went on, I stopped it at the most interesting parts, to sketch the figures, whilst Mr. Collier noted down the dialogue, and thus the whole is a faithful copy and description of the various scenes represented by this Italian, whose performance of ‘Punch’ was far superior in every respect to anything of the sort to be seen at the present day. The figure whose neck he used to stretch to such a great height was a sort of interlude. Piccini made the figure take off his hat with one hand, which he defied all other puppet-show performers to do. Piccini announced the approach of Punch by sound of trumpet.”
Even now I have but glanced at the more important subjects on the list. How infinitely various is the humour! how wide and searching, I must repeat, is the observation! Could anything be better than these “Four Specimens of the Reading Public”? Here is Romancing Molly, a servant-girl, asking for “rum-ances in five wollums;” at her elbow is Sir Harry Luscious, a feeble old sinner, inquiring for the first volume of “Harriette Wilson” (to which, by the way, Cruikshank furnished some etchings after Dighton’s caricatures); next to Sir Harry comes, of course, Cruikshank’s favourite figure, the Dustman, his dirty hand thrust into his pocket for the price of a “Cobbett”; and the fourth reader is “Frank à la Mode,’ a scented fop, with his poodle, who wants to know whether “Waverley’s new novel is out.” After Punch, in quick succession came illustrations to Hood’s “Epping Hunt,” and to Cowper’s Mr. “John Gilpin,” wherein Cruikshank, as a pure humourist, is at his best.
