The method also of exhibiting the puppets is not very modern, for a very interesting figure of a show embellishes the celebrated MS. of the “Roman d’Alexandre” (see Figure [152]) which is preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and was executed between the years 1338 and 1344. The figures were evidently worked by the hands as in Punch and Judy, and that it was intended to amuse children is shown by three little girls who are represented as looking on.
Though sticks are not strictly a part of dress, unless we consider the canes of the dandies as being so, yet their usefulness in puppet-shows is so great that we are tempted to digress for a moment to give the comments of M. Lemercier de Neuville on the subject:—
“The stick! that is the great argument of Guignol, as well as of Polichinelle. The stick settles everything. It puts an end to disputes, it pays debts, it sends away troublesome people, it disciplines wives, it takes vengeance on men, it is the ‘Deus ex machina’ of all this Lilliputian world. What a marvellous dramatic resource it is. If a situation becomes difficult to manage, settle it with a blow of the stick. If a dénouement seems to hang fire, hasten its progress by a thrashing. The stick is above all criticism; it checkmates it, it destroys it, for it is in the right, in spite of everybody, because it is the strongest. The stick has no respect of persons. With it Guignol beats his creditors, his friends, his wife, the constable, the judge, the hangman, and the more he strikes the more he makes people laugh. There is no spoken joke that is as good as this. And yet the stick is not beautiful, nor is it new. One sees that it has done duty for a long time, for it is worn out and cracked.”
We have, in fact, a record of Italian players coming to act their farces in this country in 1577, but as Punch in the capacity of a person is now obsolete with us, we shall only incidentally refer to him as a living actor, though perhaps we might recall the fact that Molière introduced him into his play Le Malade Imaginaire.
We have spoken already of Punch’s hump in front, and it may be interesting in this connection to give the opinion of a Frenchman on the subject of Punch’s bodily characteristics. M. Magnin says that with a sufficient amount of exaggeration and caricature to set aside the suspicion of disloyalty, the Punch figure recalls the appearance of some Gascon officer imitating the walk and demeanour of Henri IV in the Guard Chamber of St. Germain or in the Louvre. The hump in front, he says, was derived from the protuberance of the heavy cuirass. This is much the same explanation as that which we have already given, though the cuirass probably stuck out in front of its wearer even more than did the doublet.
There is no doubt but that the French like gayer dresses than the Italians, and we have seen that even in 1630 the clothes of Harlequin, Pantaloon, and Scaramouch in Italy were, like those of Punch, plain and simple; but in order to be popular in France the Pulicinella had to dress in a new style, and it is known that already in 1649 the puppet-show of which he is the hero had set up on the left bank of the Seine, opposite the Louvre. When Punch got to England it was at a time when gay clothes were worn, and some relics of these he has retained to the present day.
Red and yellow play a considerable part in the dress of the Punch figures used by Mr. W. H. Jesson, the members of whose family have for generations been performers of Punch and Judy, and who is one of the few that are still left. Punch has a very high cap of antique appearance, with turned-up brim and a bow of ribbon on the top. The hump on his back is almost horn-like, and forms a complete circle. It seems unlikely that this appendage was developed from any part of costume unless it were perhaps the liripipe; but we may rather imagine that in the past Pulicinella may have been represented as being a hunchback, and certainly Figure [151], taken from the statuette mentioned previously, suggests an individual suffering from such a deformity.
Punch also wears a ruff (see Figure [153]), though it is not a separate part of his costume, as in Judy’s case, where it is of lace and its character is well shown, as it consists of more than one thickness. Judy’s head-dress is the mob cap which was fashionable in the time of George III. (See Figure [154].)
The beadle, with his three-cornered hat and his brightly trimmed coat and cape, has survived for a century or so after his clothes first became fashionable, and no doubt in the puppet-show he will persist for many years when every living representative of his kind has passed away. (See Figure [155].) Of two more characters we have a word to say,—in the first place, of the doctor, who is brought before us in clothes of almost clerical cut, which remind us of the fact that the members of the medical profession were once more easily recognized by their dress than they are now (see Figure [156]); in the second, of Toby, whose sole costume consists of a ruff, that once more takes us back to the time of Good Queen Bess.