are many faces that would be improved by
horizontal enlargement, by having the corners of the mouth curved
upward. Let him write and draw "as funny as he can"; there are dull
talking and melancholy pictures in abundance to counterbalance his
pleasantry. Let him amuse the children, relax with jocosity the
sternness of adults, and wreathe into smiles the wrinkles of old age.
Let him, in a word, be a Merry Andrew,--the patron and promoter of
frolicsomeness. To be only this is nothing to his discredit; and to
esteem him for being only this is not to pay respect to a worthless
mountebank.

But Punch is and can be something more than a caterer of sport. Kings,
in the olden time, had their jesters, who, under cover of blunt
witticisms, were permitted, to utter home-truths, which it would have
cost grave counsellors and dependent courtiers their heads to even
whisper. Punch should enjoy a similar immunity in this age,--and society
tolerate his free and smiling speech, when it would thrust out sager
monitors. If it be true that

"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,"

something like the converse of this saying is also true. Not fools
exactly, but wisdom disguised in the motley of wit, often gains entrance
to ears deaf to angelic voices. There are follies that are to be laughed
out of their silliness and sinfulness. There are tyrants, big and
little, to be dethroned by ridicule. There are offences, proof against
appeals to conscience, that wince and vanish before keen satire. Even as
a well-aimed joke brings back good-humor to an angry mob, or makes mad
and pugnacious bullies cower and slink away from derision harder to
stand than hard knocks,--even so will a quizzical Punch be efficient as
a philanthropist, when sedate exhortations or stern warnings would fail
to move stony insensibility.

As an element in effective literature, a force in the cause of reform,
the qualities Punch personifies have been and are of no slight service.
And herein those qualities have an indefeasible title to regard. Let
there be no vinegar-faced, wholesale denunciation of them, because
sometimes their pranks are wild and overleap the fences of propriety.
Rather let appreciation of their worthiness accompany all reproving
checks upon their extravagances. Let nimble fun, explosive jokes,
festoon-faced humor, the whole tribe of gibes and quirks, every light,
keen, and flashing weapon in the armory of which Punch is the keeper, be
employed t