404. 
Punch and Judy. [Or . 
Yet not all laugh: and thus this merry game: 38 
Calls upin me the philosophic mood, 
Shewing how objects in themselves the same 
Are different still, as differently viewed; 
And'‘seem, according to the mental frame, 
Delightful or repulsive, bad or good ; 
And wake, as feelings vary with man’s years, 
The fountains of his mirth, or of his tears. 
For ’tis the teeming mind that doth create 
More than tbe half of things it dwells upon :— 
Their qualities, like colours not innate, 
Have only with a false existence shone; 
Where now the hues are brilliant, now sedate— 
Now flash effulgent forth, and noyware gone; 
E’en as the rays of intellectual i 
Come and depart, and make them or bright. 
Thus look at Punch: his pranks appear to these 
A source of laughter most legitimate ; 
These marvel how such fooleries e’er can please, 
And hold themselves erect in awful state. 
And e’en ourselves, in health or in disease, 
Busy or idle, care-worn or elate, 
Now stop and gaze, with joyous satisfaction, 
Now hurry by in silence and distraction.* 
The child with feelings fresh and gushing o’er, 
Feels sure, ere half the witty feats are done, 
There never could have been a Punch before 
So full of frolic and resistless fun : 
But grey beholders, who where gay of yore, 
Deem this poor Punch a most degenerate one, 
And seek, as im grave matters, to be told 
Why modern times thus lag behind the old. 
* Here I consider Punch to be a test 
Of human character, as good as any :—. 
He who with too much wonderment and zest, 
Admires “ consumedly,”’ will prove a zany ;— 
He who affects to scorn so light a jest, 
But a grave fool, and such fools there are many :— 
But just to look and smile, and soon depart, 
Speaks the sound head and the well-tempered heart. 
All men of wit and genius, I conjecture, 
Lov’d Punch: and Spurzbeim £ would ask forgiveness 
For former doubtings, and at thy next lecture, 
Believe at once in all and every “‘ iveness,”’ 
~ If you can only shew, by bust or picture, 
That Shakespeare’s skull had Punch-and-Judy-tiyeness. 
Prince Hal, methinks too, looked at Punch mid quafiing, 
And Falstaff shook his jolly sides with laughing. 
Voltaire, in France, must have pronounced Punch “ good:”” 
Here Sheridan and Scott the “ myriad-minded,” 
And Byron also in his happier mood : 
Of Southey I’m not sure—he may be blinded 
By Lakes and Laureateships—but humbly should 
Suppose owr king liked Punch (forsome, I find, did) 
And of the Statesmen, placed to guard our weal,_ S «a 
_ Fox more than Pitt, and Canning more than Peel... Bougersdichius. 
