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ORIGIN OF PUNCH IN ITALY.
[PUNCH.
He tells us that, in Italy, "Harlequin's part is made up of blunders and absurdities: he is to mistake one name for another, to forget his errands, to stumble over queens, and to run his head against every post that comes in his way. This is all attended with something so comical in the voice and gestures, that a man who is sensible of the folly of the part can hardly forbear to be pleased with it."[1] Much of this character has been transferred to the clowns of our pantomimes, since Harlequin was elevated in station and degraded in understanding.[2]
Concluding, then, that Punch is one of the familia Harlequini, and that their common parent was the Vice of the old Moralities, the question arises, to what circumstance he owes the deformity of his figure, and why his nose, by its length, is rendered so obtrusive a feature? We can only answer, that it pleased his inventor, Silvio Fiorillo, to make him so; and, perhaps, he did it in some degree with a view of rendering him more ridiculous, and to distinguish him more effectually from other characters of not dissimilar habits and propensities in the impromptu comedies: hence too, probably, the peculiar quality of his voice, to which Addison alludes. One striking characteristic of Punch is his amorous inclination; and it is generally supposed that individuals with the personal defect for which he is remarkable, are peculiarly "given to the feminines;" and the Italian proverb relating to the length of nose, needs not, if it could, be repeated. Among- ↑ Travels, p. 77, edition 1718.
- ↑ A good deal has been written on the etymology of the word Harlequin: it is very clear that the fanciful derivations from Francis the First's ridicule of Charles Quint, and from M. de Harlay-quint, in the reign of Henry III, of France, are unfounded. The Rev. Mr. Todd quotes a letter of M. Raulin, dated 1521, which affords clear evidence that the "familiam Harlequini" was even then "antiquam;" and as early as the time of Odericus Vitalis, a.d. 1143, the same family is mentioned as the familia Herlechini. This decisive authority, from its high antiquity, was not known to Mr. Todd. Whether Harlequinus, or Herlechinus, were really the name of any family, or whether it was a corruption of the old French arlot, a cheat, must still, and perhaps will ever, remain a matter of dispute among the learned.
