Toby. (snarls) Arr! Arr![1]
Punch. What! Toby! you cross this morning? You get out of bed the wrong way upwards?
Toby. (snarls again) Arr! Arr!
Punch. Poor Toby. (putting his hand out cautiously, and trying to coax the dog, who snaps at it) Toby, you're one nasty cross dog: get away with you! (strikes at him)
Toby. Bow, wow, wow! (seizing Punch by the nose)
Punch. Oh dear! Oh dear! My nose! my poor nose! my beautiful nose! Get away! get away, you nasty dog—I tell your master. Oh dear! dear!—Judy! Judy!
Punch. (solus, and rubbing his nose with both hands) Oh my nose! my pretty littel nose ![2] Judy! Judy! You nasty, nasty brute, I will tell you master of you. Mr. Scaramouch! (calls) My good friend, Mr. Scaramouch! Look what you nasty brute dog has done!
- ↑ In reference to this sound, Shakspeare tells us that "R is the dog's letter. "Romeo and Juliet." Act 2. Scene 5.
- ↑ Punch's nose, which he here calls "little," ironically, according to the authority of one of our old play-wrights, would lead us to conclude him rather of Florentine than of Neapolitan origin.—Lodowick Barry, in his laughable comedy of manners, called "Ram Alley," printed in 1611, and reprinted in the last edition of "Dodsley's Old Plays," vol. 5. has a curious and humorous passage on the diversity of noses, a part
Pulcinello made his appearance. He gives the title to Ravencroft's comedy, and in D'Urfey's "Madam Fickle," licensed in 1676, Toby, the son of Mr. Tilbury, is made to employ it as a fashionable term of abuse, "Scaramouchi, Rascal, Poltron, Popinjay!—Son of twenty fathers!" &c. Act 2. Soon after the year 1720, Punch became a common character in afterpieces. In the "Weekly Journal" of Dec. 14, 1723, the plot of "Harlequin and Dr. Faustus" is given, in which it appears that Punch performed the part of one of the Doctor's Scholars. Duplessis was a celebrated Punch, and performed for Chetwood's benefit, in 1726.
