Punch. How should I know?
Judy. I heard you make the pretty darling cry.
Punch. I dropped it out at window.
Judy. Oh you cruel horrid wretch, to drop the pretty baby out at window. Oh! (cries, and wipes her eyes with the corner of her white apron) You barbarous man. Oh!
Punch. You shall have one other soon, Judy, my dear. More where that come from.[1]
Judy. I'll make you pay for this, depend upon it.
Exit in haste.
Punch. There she goes. What a piece of work about nothing![2]
(dances about and sings, beating time with his head, as he turns round, on the front of the stage)
Judy. I'll teach you to drop my child out at window.
Punch. So—o—oftly, Judy, so—o—oftly! (rubbing- ↑ This may remind the reader of an anecdote in Machiavelli's "Discorsi" (Lib. 3, cap. 6, Delle Congiurie), where Caterina the wife of Girolamo Riorio, Count of Forli, in a very extraordinary manner, defied her enemies, and shewed how little she valued the lives of her sons. Mr. Roscoe ("Life of Lorenzo de Medici," 2, 164, edition 1825), does not seem to be aware that the story is to be found in Machiavelli, and he quotes Muratori's "Annals," 9, 556, for his authority. Muratori treats the point with great decorum;—"Rispose loro quella forte femmina che se avessero fatti perir que' figliuoli, restavano a lei le forme per farne de gli altri."
- ↑
"This nothing's more than matter," and yet Punch was right in the sense in which Shakespeare speaks in "Coriolanus;"—
"It was a thing of nothing—titleless,"
for the infant has no name, and it is uncertain whether it ever was christened. We have heard it invariably spoken of as "the child;" and even its sex is doubtful, unless we take the word of Thomson,—"Heroes are sires of boys,"—and then we shall, of course, conclude that Punch's offspring was a man-child.
