DOI issue:
July to December, 1847
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16545#0150
138
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
long as it doesn't touch us, we may as well be beneath it as above it*
We brave ridicule; we defy derision, like jolly trumps—and like George
Jones. We don't cant about our intention and our principle. We
know that the swindle won't do. So, go ahead Punch, and drop your
virtue. "lis precious lumber. _ 'Tis dummy, dreary, slow stuff; all that.
Don't attempt to come the disinterested ; people in these times are too
fly to believe in it, any more than in the sublime and the beautiful:
which have had their Burke. _ Be persuaded of the truth of this im-
portant fact, and that the feelings you go upon are as decidedly mer-
cenary, as those to which you owe this communication from your
"Bast Man."
*** Our Bast Man says that there is no fun in our calling him an
Ape. Every schoolboy cries out that a blow is no joke. He must ex-
cuse us for not thinking, with him, that Suakspeare was a humbug, or
had, as a dramatist, an object simply pecuniary. We suspect that
Suakspeare, in some measure, wrote out of the" fulness of his heart.
We conceive that even if he had lived in these times he would have
written Hamlet, the Tempest, and the Midsummer Night's Bream. To find
the materials for these productions, we do not believe he would have
ransacked either the salons or slums. He would have derived them, we
apprehend, from the treasury of his imagination. We suppose he would
have depicted modern manners ; but still have illustrated human nature.
We surmise that his productions would still have glowed with poetry,
and been pregnant with wisdom, and would not have been replete either
with common-place absurdities or crimes. Consequently we fear they
would not have interested our Bast Man's feelings. We agree with our
Bast Man that the views of writers are partly mercantile. But we dis-
sent from his opinion that they are wholly mercenary. We would
suggest to our Bast Man that a trader may wish to sell his wares,
and also be anxious that his commodities should be genuine. We do
not wonder at our Bast Man's estimate of men and morals. He cannot
understand what he does not feel. His notions on these subjects are
of course derived from self-consciousness, which evidently does not
recognise the existence of those sentiments that distinguish mankind
from Jocko.
0 Mr. Punch, I am very much obliged to you, for
calling me essentially an Ape. I am, indeed. There
is no fun in it, though. But I take it as a compli-
ment. Why, you blinking old barn-owl, doesn't an
ape make you laugh? What would a comic writer
wish to do beyond that ? I asked this very question
of our Slow Man, who answered me with some rub-
bish out of Horace or Virgil, (I forget which,) to
the effect that there was no reason why a joker
should not instruct. This I deny—with all due
deference, which is none at all, to the ancient buffer.
Instruction in a joke is so much dead-weight. The
only purpose of a pun should be to get a scream;
sink every other—which you easily can, for it is heavy. Bhilosophy in
fun is dreariness in earnest. Don't be proud. Take a lesson from
the Mountebank. You can't, as a writer, tling summersets, or balance
ladders on your chin. You can't shave your eye-brows, and tip your
nose with sky-blue. But if you can't do the mountebank yon can do
the tantamount. Do it thenj you old Bump: or stand out of the sun-
shine, and let me.
"And now, Gaffer P»>;ch, let us have a bout at singlesticksTor staves,
■if you would rather have my cartel in Elizabethan. I am going to take
■up the cudgels with you on behalf of an injured individual; and let me
particularlv recommend you t o mind your eye. I mean to go in at you
in behalf of a gentleman whom 1 respect, I allude, Punch, to Mr.
George Jones ; at whom, I see, you had a fling again in your last
Number. You seem to go at George Jones as a quack. Well, never
mind: if he is a quack, he is a clever one ; a character which 1 highly
revere. Depend upon it, Punch, it takes a sharp man to make a Holeo-
way. It's all very well to object to Barr's Bills, but they go down- so
does George Jones. I believe in Jones. His object has been to get a
name, and he has got it. He wants to see himself in the papers; and
there he is. He calls a meeting, and it is attended. He brings lots of
people together to hear him lecture, and impresses them with a notion
that he is a genius. He went for a reputation as the author of Tecumseh,
and gained his point. You may rip up his grammar ; very well! 1
could pick you fifty instances of bad English out of Suakspeare.
"You see, Punch, that I put Suakspeare by the side of Jones. 1
do this for two reasons. Birst, because you sueer at Jones for mixing
up his name with that of Suakspeare. You attack him for making
himself conspicuous at the sale of Siiakspeare's house. You seem to
think he has missed his tip. No, he hasn't. Scores and scores of the
British public, in spite of anything you may say, will connect Suak-
speare with George Jones. You may compare him to the wren on
the eagle's back: so be it. The wren was a downy bird; and the
dodge answered. George Jones has made a pood move. Ho got up
a meeting for the Suakspeare subscription. There's a fact. He made
an offer—gammon or no gammon—of two thousand pounds for Shau-
speare's house. That will be on record. Yes, Punch, do your worst
to choke him off, G. J. will stick to the skirts of W. S.
"In the next place, there is a resemblance between Jones and
Suakspeare. Stow your indignation. There is. Jones, you will
admit, goes in for clap-trap. Didn't Suakspeare ? What purpose
had Suakspeare at the Globe Theatre beyond what Mr. Bunn has at
ithe Surrey? He wrote the kind of drama that he thought would
jplease, with the sole view of cramming his house. What is called your
profound thought, and your superhuman imagination, took then. Hamlet
was composed on spec. The Ghost was introduced in it merely for
■effect, like the Bleeding Nun, or the Castle Spectre. Were Suakspeare
alive now, he would go into society and the slums, study life in both,
and represent it high and low. He'd bring out a good, stirring, mixed
melodrama, full of regular home-spun domestic distress, and downright,
■ordinary police-report murders and suicides, with comic incident—
something that would interest our feelings. He would pnff' and adver-
tise himself, if necessary, right and left—adopting the very judicious
course of George Jones. He would sack tin, and obtain popularity—
.and consequently be pitched into by Punch.
" You pretend to quarrel with a man for being a humbug. I should like
to know, spooney, what you call yourself. Why is it that you abuse
the Boor-Law, and take the part of injured innocence, and oppose
hanging? Why, but from a notion, which I must consider erroneous,
that these are popular subjects to work. They're not funny. Do you spread of chartism.
mean to say that you wouldn't take this line if you hadu't gammoned
yourself into an idea that it was profitable ? Will you pretend that you
have any other object whatever than your circulation ? Get. out with
you! You are a humbug, and you know it. We are all humbugs. Wc
are exactly like so many haberdashers ; all we want is to sell our stuff.
We cater for the taste of the British Bublic : and provided our articles
please and take, never mind if the pattern is tawdry or vulgar. All
this may seem very low and despicable. We may be looked upon as
beneath" contempt. What odds ? Contempt breaks no bones, and so
The Trench are jealous that they have not a member in their Chamber
of Deputies like Mr. Wyld, the mapseller, in the House of Commons ;
as there might be a chance, they say, then, of the " Charte" being made,
at last, " une verite ! "
" To be continued once a Month," would not make a bad inscrip-
tion for the Nelson Monument. As for its ever being finished, we
imagine it will be like the series now publishing of Mr. James's novels :
none of us will ever live to see the completion of it.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
long as it doesn't touch us, we may as well be beneath it as above it*
We brave ridicule; we defy derision, like jolly trumps—and like George
Jones. We don't cant about our intention and our principle. We
know that the swindle won't do. So, go ahead Punch, and drop your
virtue. "lis precious lumber. _ 'Tis dummy, dreary, slow stuff; all that.
Don't attempt to come the disinterested ; people in these times are too
fly to believe in it, any more than in the sublime and the beautiful:
which have had their Burke. _ Be persuaded of the truth of this im-
portant fact, and that the feelings you go upon are as decidedly mer-
cenary, as those to which you owe this communication from your
"Bast Man."
*** Our Bast Man says that there is no fun in our calling him an
Ape. Every schoolboy cries out that a blow is no joke. He must ex-
cuse us for not thinking, with him, that Suakspeare was a humbug, or
had, as a dramatist, an object simply pecuniary. We suspect that
Suakspeare, in some measure, wrote out of the" fulness of his heart.
We conceive that even if he had lived in these times he would have
written Hamlet, the Tempest, and the Midsummer Night's Bream. To find
the materials for these productions, we do not believe he would have
ransacked either the salons or slums. He would have derived them, we
apprehend, from the treasury of his imagination. We suppose he would
have depicted modern manners ; but still have illustrated human nature.
We surmise that his productions would still have glowed with poetry,
and been pregnant with wisdom, and would not have been replete either
with common-place absurdities or crimes. Consequently we fear they
would not have interested our Bast Man's feelings. We agree with our
Bast Man that the views of writers are partly mercantile. But we dis-
sent from his opinion that they are wholly mercenary. We would
suggest to our Bast Man that a trader may wish to sell his wares,
and also be anxious that his commodities should be genuine. We do
not wonder at our Bast Man's estimate of men and morals. He cannot
understand what he does not feel. His notions on these subjects are
of course derived from self-consciousness, which evidently does not
recognise the existence of those sentiments that distinguish mankind
from Jocko.
0 Mr. Punch, I am very much obliged to you, for
calling me essentially an Ape. I am, indeed. There
is no fun in it, though. But I take it as a compli-
ment. Why, you blinking old barn-owl, doesn't an
ape make you laugh? What would a comic writer
wish to do beyond that ? I asked this very question
of our Slow Man, who answered me with some rub-
bish out of Horace or Virgil, (I forget which,) to
the effect that there was no reason why a joker
should not instruct. This I deny—with all due
deference, which is none at all, to the ancient buffer.
Instruction in a joke is so much dead-weight. The
only purpose of a pun should be to get a scream;
sink every other—which you easily can, for it is heavy. Bhilosophy in
fun is dreariness in earnest. Don't be proud. Take a lesson from
the Mountebank. You can't, as a writer, tling summersets, or balance
ladders on your chin. You can't shave your eye-brows, and tip your
nose with sky-blue. But if you can't do the mountebank yon can do
the tantamount. Do it thenj you old Bump: or stand out of the sun-
shine, and let me.
"And now, Gaffer P»>;ch, let us have a bout at singlesticksTor staves,
■if you would rather have my cartel in Elizabethan. I am going to take
■up the cudgels with you on behalf of an injured individual; and let me
particularlv recommend you t o mind your eye. I mean to go in at you
in behalf of a gentleman whom 1 respect, I allude, Punch, to Mr.
George Jones ; at whom, I see, you had a fling again in your last
Number. You seem to go at George Jones as a quack. Well, never
mind: if he is a quack, he is a clever one ; a character which 1 highly
revere. Depend upon it, Punch, it takes a sharp man to make a Holeo-
way. It's all very well to object to Barr's Bills, but they go down- so
does George Jones. I believe in Jones. His object has been to get a
name, and he has got it. He wants to see himself in the papers; and
there he is. He calls a meeting, and it is attended. He brings lots of
people together to hear him lecture, and impresses them with a notion
that he is a genius. He went for a reputation as the author of Tecumseh,
and gained his point. You may rip up his grammar ; very well! 1
could pick you fifty instances of bad English out of Suakspeare.
"You see, Punch, that I put Suakspeare by the side of Jones. 1
do this for two reasons. Birst, because you sueer at Jones for mixing
up his name with that of Suakspeare. You attack him for making
himself conspicuous at the sale of Siiakspeare's house. You seem to
think he has missed his tip. No, he hasn't. Scores and scores of the
British public, in spite of anything you may say, will connect Suak-
speare with George Jones. You may compare him to the wren on
the eagle's back: so be it. The wren was a downy bird; and the
dodge answered. George Jones has made a pood move. Ho got up
a meeting for the Suakspeare subscription. There's a fact. He made
an offer—gammon or no gammon—of two thousand pounds for Shau-
speare's house. That will be on record. Yes, Punch, do your worst
to choke him off, G. J. will stick to the skirts of W. S.
"In the next place, there is a resemblance between Jones and
Suakspeare. Stow your indignation. There is. Jones, you will
admit, goes in for clap-trap. Didn't Suakspeare ? What purpose
had Suakspeare at the Globe Theatre beyond what Mr. Bunn has at
ithe Surrey? He wrote the kind of drama that he thought would
jplease, with the sole view of cramming his house. What is called your
profound thought, and your superhuman imagination, took then. Hamlet
was composed on spec. The Ghost was introduced in it merely for
■effect, like the Bleeding Nun, or the Castle Spectre. Were Suakspeare
alive now, he would go into society and the slums, study life in both,
and represent it high and low. He'd bring out a good, stirring, mixed
melodrama, full of regular home-spun domestic distress, and downright,
■ordinary police-report murders and suicides, with comic incident—
something that would interest our feelings. He would pnff' and adver-
tise himself, if necessary, right and left—adopting the very judicious
course of George Jones. He would sack tin, and obtain popularity—
.and consequently be pitched into by Punch.
" You pretend to quarrel with a man for being a humbug. I should like
to know, spooney, what you call yourself. Why is it that you abuse
the Boor-Law, and take the part of injured innocence, and oppose
hanging? Why, but from a notion, which I must consider erroneous,
that these are popular subjects to work. They're not funny. Do you spread of chartism.
mean to say that you wouldn't take this line if you hadu't gammoned
yourself into an idea that it was profitable ? Will you pretend that you
have any other object whatever than your circulation ? Get. out with
you! You are a humbug, and you know it. We are all humbugs. Wc
are exactly like so many haberdashers ; all we want is to sell our stuff.
We cater for the taste of the British Bublic : and provided our articles
please and take, never mind if the pattern is tawdry or vulgar. All
this may seem very low and despicable. We may be looked upon as
beneath" contempt. What odds ? Contempt breaks no bones, and so
The Trench are jealous that they have not a member in their Chamber
of Deputies like Mr. Wyld, the mapseller, in the House of Commons ;
as there might be a chance, they say, then, of the " Charte" being made,
at last, " une verite ! "
" To be continued once a Month," would not make a bad inscrip-
tion for the Nelson Monument. As for its ever being finished, we
imagine it will be like the series now publishing of Mr. James's novels :
none of us will ever live to see the completion of it.