It was a nice remark of the distinguished French General Moreau during his residence in this country, that the next thing in the world to a shock of cavalry is the English word, What! There exists in it an irresistible abruptness, that frequently puts to flight at once the whole array of thoughts of the foreigner whose nerves are assailed by it. 'I can stand,' said he, 'any thing better than your word, What! It is impossible to reason against it; I seem to have nothing to do, when I hear it, but to submit!'
It certainly is one of those short words of power, one of those words of pistol-shot energy, that characterize our grand tongue and give it originality and force. It is a word to conjure with; and has many a time raised Truth out of the depths of the heart of the double-dealer: it is a word of defence—and not unfrequently has it overturned or repulsed in one utterance the half-formed scheme of some wheedling knave endeavoring to make a confederate, or nefariously to win the heart of a pretty girl. May you and I, dear Editor, never hear from lips we love, in the overwhelming accents of astonishment and of disappointed hope, the English word, What!
The word at the head of my Essay, and which by the way I mean to make the subject of it, is another of these short English words of great strength and pith. This carries however no disfavour with it; no discourtesy; nor does it raise up one association that is otherwise than bland and attractive to the mind: and yet how forcible is it, alike in sound and in effect! Let us listen to it——Punch!——To the ear of my Imagination it is altogether irresistible! How impossible to parry it! what a possession it takes of the faculties, and how entirely it seems to get the better of one! Then how intrinsically, how essentially English it is in all the strength and vigour of the tongue!—Punch! Turn the word into the French, and behold how pitiable is the effect—ponche!
Now it is a curious fact in the Natural History of Liquids, that a similar and not less remarkable result occurs in the noble beverage which this short word is intended to designate! Try over the whole continent of Europe and wheresoever else the English language is not the vernacular, try I say to get Punch, and it invariably comes out ponche or something still more despicable! I have essayed it repeatedly and have always found the result the same; and yet I am neither a young, nor an inexperienced, nor, if you will allow me the word, an inextensive traveller!
On the other hand, the moment you recross the channel and 'set foot upon the sacred soil of Britain,' or come home quietly to our own unassuming United States and lay your hand upon the right ingredients, out of the sound of any foreign language, the mixture succeeds as a matter of course, and at once becomes virtually and essentially, Punch—Punch proper; Punch itself; in short, PUNCH!
'Tout Éloge d'un grand homme
Est renfermé dans son nom!'
The native merits and distinctive propriety of the word being thus established; before I enter into any consideration of the drink itself, I cannot refrain from chiming in with the general feeling of the day on this side of the Atlantic so far as to observe, how incontestably this proves the mutual interest and common origin of 'the two great nations;' and should the dark day ever arrive, when letters shall be obliterated; printing forgotten; and language lost; it is still consolatory to reflect, that a mutual and inborn affinity between the two last representatives of 'the Mother and Daughter' might be satisfactorily shown and most agreeably demonstrated by means of two lemons; four tumblers of Croton or filtered spring water; one of double refined loaf sugar well cracked; and one of old Rum!
Gentle Reader! hast thou carefully dwelt over this list of ingredients? Are earth, air, fire, and water, more dissimilar in their elementary properties than are Lemon, Sugar, Water, and Rum? and has it ever before occurred to thee, to what supernal brightness of original and fortuitous Genius thou must have been indebted for this astonishing combination? Art thou alive to the grandeur of the original conception? Alas! the name of the architect of the Temple of Ephesus might as well at this epoch be sought for as that of the author of this stupendous compound, but the irrefragable word which is universally attempted to be attached to it indicates beyond the shadow of a doubt the land that claims the honour of his birth!
I am writing to thee from the attic of the house in which I have my abode.——Canst thou tell me the name of the first artificer who planned the building of a second story? who first contemplated or imagined STAIRS? or changed the tent and the cabin into the fabrick of diversified flights? The scheme of this was taken from the invention of the Beaver——But where throughout the animal creation was the instinctive indicator to the man who first conceived the thought of Punch?
Newton by the fall of an apple is said to have determined the Theory of Gravitation: how vast and limitless in its application has been the discovery! Yet is the whole but the elucidation of one principle or element of knowledge——while four different and antagonistic elements associate and are made to combine homogeneously in the glorious beverage of Punch!