Punch and Judy/Punch's Pranks

by John Payne Collier

PUNCH'S PRANKS.

Oh! hearken now to me awhile,
A story I will tell you
Of Mr. Punch, who was a vile
Deceitful murderous fellow:
Who had a wife, a child also,—
And both of matchless beauty;
The infant's name I do not know,
Its mother's name was Judy.
Right tol de rol lol, &c. 

But not so handsome Mr. Punch,
Who had a monstrous nose, sir;
And on his back there grew a hunch
That to his head arose, sir:
But then, they say, that he could speak
As winning as a mermaid;
And by his voice—a treble squeak—
He Judy won—that fair maid.

But he was cruel as a Turk;
Like Turk, was discontented,
To have one wife—'twas poorish work—
But still the law prevented
His having two, or twenty-two,
Though he for all was ready;
So what did he in that case do?
Oh! sad!—he kept a lady.

Now Mrs. Judy found it out,
And, being very jealous,
She pull'd her husband by the snout,
His lady gay as well as.
Then Punch he in a passion flew,
And took it so in dudgeon,
He fairly split her head in two,
Oh! monster!—with a bludgeon.

And next he took his little heir—
Oh, most unnatural father!—
And flung it out of a two-pair
Window; for he'd rather
Possess the lady of his love,
Than lady of the law, sir;
And cared not for his child above
A pinch of Maccabau, sir.

His wife's relations came to town,
To ask of him the cause, sir;
He took his stick and knock'd 'em down,
And serv'd 'em the same sauce, sir.
And said the law was not his law,
He car'd not for a letter;
And if on him it laid its claw,
He'd teach it to know better.

Then took to travel o'er each land,
So loving and seductive,
Three ladies only could withstand
His lessons most instructive.
The first, a simple rustic maid;
The next, a pious abbess;
The third I'd call, but I'm afraid,
The tabbiest of tabbies.^[1]

In Italy, the dames were worst;
In France, they were too clamorous;
In England, altho' coy at first,
Yet after quite as amorous.
In Spain, they all were proud, yet frail;
In Germany, but coolish;
But further north he did not sail,
To do so had been foolish.

In all his course he scrupled not
To make a jest of murder,
So fathers, brothers, went to pot:—
It really makes one shudder
To think upon the horrid track
Of blood he shed on system;
And, though with hump upon his back,
The dames could not resist him.

'Tis said, that he a compact sign'd
With one they call "Old Nich'lass;"
But if I knew them, I've no mind
To go into partic'lars.
To it, perhaps, he ow'd success
Wherever he might go, sir;
But I believe we must confess,
The ladies were so so, sir.

At last he back to England came,
A jolly rake and rover,
And pass'd him by another name,
An alias, when at Dover.
But soon the police laid a scheme,
To clap him into prison:
They took him, when he least could dream
Of such a fate as his'n.^[2]

And now the day was drawing near,
The day of retribution;
The trial o'er, he felt but queer
At thought of execution.
But when the hangman, all so grim,
Declar'd that all was ready,
Punch only tipp'd the wink at him,
And ask'd after his lady.

Pretending he knew not the use
Of rope he saw from tree, sir,
The hangman's head into the noose
He got, while he got free, sir.
At last, the Devil came to claim
His own; but Punch what he meant
Demanded, and denied the same;
He knew no such agreement!

"You don't! (the Devil cried:) 'tis, well;
I'll quickly let you know it:"
And so to furious work they fell,
As hard as they could go it.
The Devil with his pitch-fork fought,
While Punch had but a stick, Sir,
But kill'd the Devil,^[3] as he ought.
Huzza! there's no Old Nick, sir.
Right tol de rol lol, &c. 

In a previous part of this chapter, we have established, that Dr. Faustus was a principal character in puppet-shows of that date;^[4] and every body knows from the old Romance^[5] and from Goethe's Drama, if not from Marlow's tragedy, that that renowned conjuror had entered into a similar bond with the potentate of the infernal regions. There may be, therefore, some link of connection between Powell's performance and that upon which the preceding ballad has been framed, which in the lapse of a century has been lost. In our day, we hear nothing of such a compact; but the Devil is brought in to carry away the hero to the punishment merited by his boasted crimes. In this respect, we should rather have taken Punch for a Frenchman than an Italian, according to the opinion of old Heylin; who, speaking of our near neighbours, and of that vanity which, when he wrote, made them vaunt of their vices, exclaims, in a sort of uncharitable rapture, "foolish and most perishing wretches, by whom each several wickedness is twice committed: first in the act, and secondly in the boast!"^[6]

1. In this stanza, the writer (we regret that so pleasant an effusion should be anonymous) seems to have had in his mind Spenser's Squire of Dames ("Fairy Queen," Book 3, canto 7), who had been commanded by his mistress to go forth a "colonelling" against the virtue of the female sex. He returned in less than a year, with tokens of three hundred conquests; and she then set him a penance to bring testimonies of as many women who had resisted his arts and entreaties. In three years he had only found three.
   "The first which then refused me," said he,
   "Certes was but a common courtesane,
   Yet, flat refused to have a-do with me,
   Because I could not give her many a Jane."
   (Thereat full heartily laugh'd Satyrane.)
   "The second was an holy nun to chose,
   Which would not let me be her chapelaine.
   Because she knew, she said, I would disclose
   Her counsel, if she should her trust in me repose."
   
   

   "The third a damsel was of low degree,
   Whom I in country cottage found by chance, &c."
   
   
2. This sounds like an ignorant vulgarism; but it is, in fact, only an abbreviation, per illipsin, of his own. We find it applied to the pronoun her in George Chapman's "Humorous Day's Mirth," a comedy printed in 1599, sign: G.

   "What shall I do at sight of her and her'n?"

3. "To kill the Devil," and "to drive the Devil into his own dominions," cacciar il Diavolo nell' inferno, meant the same thing in Italian, as is fully explained in Boccacio, as well as Sacchetti, (Novel 101,) and in Bandello, (Novel 9, vol. 1, edit. Venice, 1566.) It is only used in English in its literal sense, and it is, of course, so to be understood in this ballad. In its figurative application, perhaps no hero, not even Don Juan himself, oftener was the death of his Satanic Majesty than Punch. More we cannot say.
4. Mountford, the stage Adonis of his day, in 1697, wrote what was at that time called "a Farce," on the Life and Death of Dr. Faustus, in which Harlequin and Scaramouch both figured, but nothing is said of Punch in it. Lee and Jevon, two distinguished comic performers, took the parts of Harlequin and Scaramouch, and it seems to have met with success, as, after having been acted in Dorset Gardens, it was revived at the Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
5. An elegant reprint of it, under the care of Mr. Thoms, has recently made a scarce and curious work very accessible. We will take this opportunity of pointing out an error in the Introduction (p. 8) where Marlow's Tragedy is spoken of as if it had first appeared in 1610. Marlow was killed in 1593, (before the date assigned by Mr. Thoms to "the Second Report of Dr. Faustus," and his play was printed in 1604. We know of no edition in 1610.
6. "France painted to the Life"—London, 1656, p. 53. with the motto Quid non Gallia parturit ingens. Dante was no great admirer of the French, whom he thinks only just better than the people of Sienna:
   ————Hor fugiammai
   Gente si vand coma la Sanese?
   Certo non la Francesca si d' assai.
   Inferno, chap. 29. 
   
   

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