Punch (10.1846)

PREFACE.

Punch has had his Midsummer Night's Dream. Sitting in his honeysuckle bower, his body drinking at
every pore, as a sponge would drink honey-dew, the blessed balm of the season, he had a sort of vision; fell
into that state of dreaminess when the soul sees earth in a new garment of beauty, and hears sweet new music,
as from a far-off world. And then Punch saw trees, bowing with golden fruits; and flowers, such as
only grow in the world of dreams. And the fruits became pictured, as though every fruit bore a cut; and
in the million, million flowers grew syllables and words—(not woful words, that stain the classic hyacinth)—
and from the cells of cup-moss, and half-unfolded buds, leapt a myriad of things—faithful likenesses, as our
spirit then imparted to us, of kings, and queens, and lords, and law-makers, and little bullies, and great
■impletons, all to people this world, in its spinning course, for the next handful of centuries, and all to
make up the engraven pictures and the picture-writing of the future Punch.

And this was a dream, " but was not all a dream.-" Punch feels that his leaves will be
multitudinous as the leaves of the roses of old Bagdad ; and although in the course of time it will
indubitably be necessary to build a new wing or two to the British Museum, to contain the many-
volumed Punch, in his published bulk, that the hard students of life, the minute philosophers of the
human heart, may patiently study every letter of hinx,—yet can Punch, lifting the curtain of the year
2000, see his leaves of centuries—like the roses of the East—submitted to the chemist, that his essence
may be extracted, as a most enriching gift for the great and virtuous—or rather for the virtuous, for
in that time virtue only will be greatness. The attar of Punch is—Punch knows it—destined to save
and sweeten Mr. Cabxyle's " decadent generations;" to arrest them, by sweet intoxication, in their
railway speed to " final perdition.1'

When a Hero is to be born, some tremendous event always foreruns the call of the midwife. And
thus it is—and very properly—with the birth of every Volume of Punch. Corn-Law is dead—is a " clod
of the valley." Already predictions of large-brained lords are about to be fulfilled. Tho joyous, jocund
peasantry of Suffolk—Richmond's own—are losing their native Doric, and (fast becoming like unto Polish
serfs) already swear in pure Sclavonic ! All landowners—save those who grow their own mignionette at
their windows — are ruined. Pockets worn inside out will speedily be the only fashion for a country
gentleman. The social evil would be tremendous, but—

BUT—Punch publishes his Tenth Volume. And a Richmond is reconciled to Britain ; and, with a
full belief in other volumes, a Buckingham wanly smiles, and more than half consents to live and die in
desolate England !