Page:Punch and judy.djvu/38

Rh the notices of the same notorious and amusing actor by Sir Richard Steele. Dr. Johnson was one of the first, if not the very first, to broach the notion that his age had become too wise for the periodicals of Queen Anne's time; as if supposing the fact to be so, there was nothing else to be gained from the lucubrations of the wittiest and ablest men of that day, but their out-of-date learning. The effect has been, with the co-operation of no small share of self-conceit in the present generation, to throw the best of our essayists far into the shade; and the "Tatler," "Guardian," and "Spectator," are now considered works very well for the period at which they were written, but far behind the rapid "march of intellect" during the last forty or fifty years. On this account we shall not content ourselves with bare references, because we are aware, that many of those who read our pages will not have the contemned productions we have named within their reach.

The great exhibitor of Punch immortalized, we will say, by Steele, notwithstanding the disesteem into which that delightful writer has fallen, is Mr. Powell; and in No. 44 of the "Tatler," Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., complains that he had been abused by Punch in a Prologue, supposed to be spoken by him, but really delivered by his master, who stood behind, "worked the wires," and, by "a thread in one of Punch's chops," gave to him the appearance of enunciation. These expressions are important, inasmuch as they shew a method of performance and a degree of intricacy in the machinery not now known. At present the puppets are played only by putting the hand under the dress, and making the middle finger and thumb serve for the arms, while the fore-finger works the head. The opening and shutting of the mouth is a refinement which does not seem to be practised in Italy; and it will be seen by a quotation we shall make presently from another contemporary work, that Powell's puppets were "jointed." No. 50 of the "Tatler," contains a real or supposed letter from the showman himself at Bath, insisting upon his right of control over his own puppets, and denying all