he Marigold Family--
Sketches of the Alderman, his Lady, and Daughter--Anecdote
of John Liston, and the Citizen's Dinner Party--Of the
Immortal Mr. Punch--Some Account of the Great Actor--A
Street Scene, sketched from the Life--The Wooden Drama--The
True Sublime.

[Illustration: page056]

~56~~

You may sing of old Thespis, who first in a cart,
To the jolly god Bacchus enacted a part;
Miss Thalia, or Mrs. Melpomene praise,
Or to light-heel'd Terpsichore offer your lays.
But pray what are these, bind them all in a bunch,
Compared to the acting of Signor Punch?
Of Garrick, or Palmer, or Kemble, or Cooke,
Your moderns may whine, or on each write a book;
Or Mathews, or Munden, or Fawcett, suppose
They could once lead the town as they pleased by the nose;
A fig for such actors! tied all in a bunch,
Mere mortals compared to old deified Punch.
Not Chester can charm us, nor Foote with her smile,
Like the first blush of summer, our bosoms beguile,
Half so well, or so merrily drive caro away,
As old Punch with his Judy in amorous play.
Kean, Young, and Macready, though thought very good,
Have heads, it is true, but then they're not of wood.

~57~~

Be ye ever so dull, full of spleen or ennui,
Mighty Punch can enliven your spirits with glee.
Not honest Jack Harley, or Liston's rum mug
Can produce half the fun of his juggity-jug:
For a right hearty laugh, tie thorn all in a bunch,
Not an actor among them like Signor Punch.

--Bernard Blackmantle.

It was the advice of the prophet Tiresias to Menippus, who had travelled
over the terrestrial globe fend descended into the infernal regions in
search of content, to be merry and wise;

"To laugh at all the busy farce of state,
Employ the vacant hour in mirth and jest."

"The merrier the heart the longer the life," says Burton in his Anatomy
of Melancholy. Mirth is the principal of the three Salernitan doctors,
Dr. Merryman, Dr. Diet, and Dr. Quiet. The nepenthes of Homer, the
bowl of Retenus, and the girdle of Venus, are only the ancient types of
liveliness and mirth, by the free use of which the mind is dispossessed
of dulness, and the cankerworm of care destroyed. Seneca calls the