LETTER VI.
London, Nov. 25th, 1826.
Beloved,
It is sometimes a perfect want with me to spend a day entirely alone in my own room. I pass it in a sort of dreamy brooding. I go over the past and the future,—all that I have felt and suffered,—till, by the mixture of so many colours, one misty grey tint overspreads the whole; and the dissonances of life melt away at length, in a soft objectless melancholy.
The barrel-organs which resound day and night in every street, and are at other times insufferable, are favourable to such a state of mind. They too mingle a hundred different airs, till all music loses itself in an indistinct dreamy ringing in the ears.
A much more entertaining thing is another sort of street performance,—a genuine national comedy. It afforded me great amusement from my window, and is well worth a somewhat particular description.
The hero of this drama is Punch,—the English Punch,—perfectly different from the Italian Pulcinella. I send you a faithful portrait of him in the act of beating his wife to death;—for he is the most godless droll that ever I met with; and as completely without conscience as the wood out of which he is made;—a little, too, the type of the nation he represents.
Punch has, like his namesake, something of rum, lemon and sugar in him; he is strong, sour and sweet, and withal pretty indifferent to the confusion he causes. He is, moreover, the most absolute egotist the earth contains, ‘et ne doute jamais de rien.’ He conquers everything by his invincible merriment and humour, laughs at the laws, at men, and at the devil himself; and shows in part what the Englishman is, in part what he wishes to be, in one composite picture;—on the native side, selfishness, perseverance and high spirit, and, wherever it is called for, reckless determination;—on the foreign, unconquerable levity, and ever ready wit. But allow me to paint Punch to you by his own proper words, and to take my further account of him from his biography.
As a descendant of Pulcinella of Acerra, he is, in the first place, unquestionably a nobleman of ancient stock. Harlequin, Clown, the German Casperle and others are his near of kin;—but he, for his great audacity, stands best as head of the family. Pious, alas! he is not: being a true Englishman, he doubtless goes to church on Sundays; though, may be, would beat any parson to death who bored him with attempts to convert him. It is not to be denied that Punch is a wild fellow,—no very moral personage, and not made of wood for nothing. No man can be better fitted for a boxer,—other men’s hits he feels not, and his own are irresistible. With that, he is a true Turk in his small respect for human life; endures no contradiction, and fears not the devil himself. On the other hand, we can but admire his great qualities in many respects. His admirable insensibility, and his already-commended invariable good humour; his high heroic egotism; his unalterable self-complacency; his exhaustless wit, and the consummate cunning with which he gets himself out of every scrape, and triumphs victoriously over every antagonist,—throws a bright lustre over all the little freedoms which he is apt to take with human life. In him has not inaptly been observed a compound of Richard the Third and Falstaff. Even in his outward man he unites the crooked legs and hump-back of Richard, with the portly rotundity of Falstaff; to which are added the long nose and the fiery black eyes of Italy.
His dwelling is a box, with suitable internal decorations, set on four poles,—a theatre which can be erected in a few seconds in any place; a drapery falling over the poles, or legs, conceals Punch’s soul, which animates the puppets and lends them the needful words. The drama in which he daily appears in the streets, varies, therefore, with the talents of the person who acts as interpreter between Punch and the public. The course of the incidents is however always essentially the same, and pretty nearly as follows: