f Delhi and Lucknow are attributable, to say the
least, as much to the avarice of the dominant as to the depravity of the
subjugated race. The bare possibility that this might be the truth a
philosopher like Punch ought not to have overlooked, in the suddenness
and fire of his anger.

Finally, Punch is no ascetic, but quite the reverse. He cannot be
expected, any more than his namesake, the beverage, to go down with the
apostles of temperance. He is a convivialist,--moderately so,--and no
teetotaler. He evidently prefers roast-beef and brown-stout to
bran-bread and cold water, and has gone so far as to sing the praises of
pale-ale. He thinks the laboring classes should have their pot of beer,
if the nobility and gentry are to eat good dinners and take airings in
Hyde Park, on Sundays. He is a Merry Englishman, as to the
stomach,--and, like a Merry Englishman, enjoys good living. There is no
denying this fact; but here is the whole front of his offending.
Remember that he was born at the Shakspeare's Head, and has had a
publican for his right-hand man.

These are defects, it may be; and yet not by its defects are we to judge
of a work of Art. Of that generous and just canon Punch should have the
full benefit. Try him by that, and he has abounding virtues to flood and
conceal with lustrous and far-raying light his exceptional errors. To
brief notices of some of these--regretting the want of room to enlarge
upon them as it would be pleasant to do--we gladly turn.

Punch is to be loved and cherished as the maker of mirth for the
million. Saying this, we do not propose to go into an argument to
excuse, justify, or recommend hilarity for its own sake or its medicinal
effects on overtasked bodies and souls. Desperate attempts have been
made to prove the innocence of fun, and the allowableness of wit and
humor. Assuming or conceding that the jocose elements or capacities of
human nature need apology and defence, very nice distinctions have been
drawn, and very ingenious sophistry employed, to prove that the best of
people may, within certain limits, crack jokes, or laugh at jokes
cracked for them. These efforts to accommodate stern dogmas to that
pleasant stubborn fact in man's constitution, his irresistible craving
for play, and irresistible impulse to laugh at whatever is really
laughable, are about as necessary as would be an essay maintaining the
harmlessness of sunshine. The _fact_ has priority over the dogmas, and
is a