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MORAL OF PUNCH'S PERFORMANCES.
[PUNCH.
of some of these variations presently; and in the meantime, and before we lose sight of the connection between Don Juan and the personage, who may now be justly called Don Juan of the multitude, we wish to add in this place the only printed account we ever saw of the plot of one of Punch's exhibitions, and which differs from the story of any of the numerous shows we have witnessed. It is given as a sort of theatrical criticism in a letter from a watering-place, and was published in the "Morning Chronicle" of 22nd September, 1813. The narrative is as follows:—
"Mr. Punch, a gentleman of great personal attraction, is married to Mrs. Judy, by whom he has a lovely daughter, but to whom no name is given in this piece, the infant being too young to be christened. In a fit of horrid and demoniac jealousy, Mr. Punch like a second Zeluco, strangles his beauteous offspring. Just as he has completed his dreadful purpose, Mrs. Judy enters, witnesses the brutal havoc, and exit screaming; she soon returns, however, armed with a bludgeon, and applies it to her husband's head, "which to the wood returns a wooden sound." Exasperated by jealousy and rage, Mr. Punch, at length, seizes another bludgeon, soon vanquishes his already weakened foe, and lays her prostrate at his feet; then, seizing the murdered infant and the expiring mother, he flings them both out of the window into the street. The dead bodies having been found, police officers enter the dwelling of Mr. Punch, who flies for his life, mounts his steed, and the author, neglecting, like other great poets, the confining unities of time and place, conveys his hero into Spain, where, however, he is arrested by an officer of the terrible Inquisition. After enduring the most cruel tortures with incredible fortitude, Mr. Punch, by means of a golden key, (a beautiful and novel allegory), opens his prison door and escapes. The conclusion of the affecting story is satirical, allegorical, and poetical. The hero is first overtaken by weariness and laziness, in the shape of a black dog, whom he fights and conquers; disease, in the disguise of a physician, next arrests him; but Punch "sees through the thin pretence," and dismisses the doctor with a few derogatory kicks. Death
