And we shall hear his song of fear, and shrillest squeal and squeak,
Come from his Fleet Street counting house for nearly half a week—
For three long days and three long nights, list to those sounds of fear,
When Punch's wails will cease to rend the listening public ear.
In the absence of evidence as to the origin of the physical frame of the English Punch, perhaps as good a speculation as any may be that in the English puppet-shows of the olden time were one or more conventional figures which were ordinarily used for comic work, their dresses being slightly altered to suit the particular character represented. Economy would naturally bring this to pass. A figure with a hooked nose and hump might have been Mother Goose one day, and somebody else the next; thus, when Punchinello proper came from Italy, his figure may have been already here, as depicted in the portrait of Mother Shipton engraved in 1663. The minds of the artists in former times, who drew rough pictures of celebrities for engraving, would be likely to limn them as they
