_Ecce tamen subitò, et medio discrimine rerum, Ridiculus vultu procedit Homuncio, tergum Cui riget in gibbum, immensusque protruditur alvus: PUNCHIUS huic nomen, nec erat petulantior unquam Ullus; quinetiam media inter seria semper Importunus adest, lepidusque et garrulus usque Perstat, permiscetque jocos, atque omnia turbat. Sæpe puellarum densa ad subsellia sese Convertens,—sedet en! pulchras mea, dixit, amica Illic inter eas! Oculo simul improbus uno Connivens, aliquam illarum quasi noverat, ipsam Quæque pudens se signari pudefacta rubescit; Totaque subridet juvenumque virumque corona. Cum vero ambiguis obscœnas turpia dictis Innuit, effuso testantur gaudia risu._ In one particular only this description is unlike the Punch of the Ingleton Company. He was not an _homuncio_, but a full grown personage, who had succeeded with little alteration either of attributes or appearance to the Vice of the old Mysteries, and served like the Clown of our own early stage, and the _Gracioso_ of the Spaniards, to scatter mirth over the serious part of the performance, or turn it into ridicule. The wife was an appendage of later times, when it was not thought good for Punch to be alone; and when as these performances had fallen into lower hands, the quarrels between such a pair afforded a standing subject equally adapted to the capacity of the interlocutor and of his audience. A tragic part was assigned to Punch in one of Rowland Dixon's pieces, and that one of the most popular, being the celebrated tragedy of Jane Shore. The Beadle in this piece, after proclaiming in obvious and opprobrious rhyme the offence which had drawn upon Mistress Shore this public punishment, prohibited all persons from relieving her on pain of death, and turned her out, according to the common story, to die of hunger in the streets. The only person who ventured to disobey this prohibition was Punch the Baker; and the reader may judge of the dialogue of these pieces by this Baker's words, when he stole behind her, and nudging her furtively while he spake, offered her a loaf, saying, “_tak it Jenny, tak it!_” for which act so little consonant with his general character, Punch died a martyr to humanity by the hangman's hands. Dr. Dove used to say he doubted whether Garrick and Mrs. Cibber could have affected him more in middle life, than he had been moved by Punch the Baker and this wooden Jane Shore in his boyhood. For rude as were these performances, (and nothing could possibly be ruder,) the effect on infant minds was prodigious, from the accompanying sense of wonder, an emotion which of all others is at that time of life the most delightful. Here was miracle in any quantity to be seen for two-pence, and be believed in for nothing. No matter how confined the theatre, how coarse and inartificial the scenery, or how miserable the properties; the mind supplied all that was wanting.