Portions of the following drama are founded upon the performances of an old Italian Punch and Judy performer of the name of Piccini, who has perambulated the towns and country hamlets of England for the last forty or fifty years. Like the representations of our early stage, it was not by him distinguished into acts and scenes, but the divisions were easily made. The writer is a professional player of Punch and Judy, and now gives the public, in this book, not only the Italian Piccini’s earlier introduction, but the records of his own experience, with gleanings from that of other first-class players. The whole now assumes a shape in which it may rival most of the theatrical productions of the present era, whether by Poole, popular for his “Paul Pry,” Peake for his puns, Planche for his poetry, Peacock for his parodies or Payne for his plagiarisms.

Piccini lived in the classical vicinity of the West End of London, and up to the time that ourselves left England (in 1869) was still travelling, considering it “no sin to labor in his vocation.” He is thus described by a writer in a discontinued periodical called the Literary Speculum, which we quote because it is the only printed notice we have seen of an individual so generally known. It is to be observed that the article to which we are indebted was published many years ago, and the author of it speaks of his own youth, when Piccini’s age was “as a lusty winter, frosty but kindly,” and before “time, the old clock-setter,” had nearly let him run the whole length of his chain without winding him up again. “He (Piccini) was an Italian; a little thick-set man, with a red, humorous-looking countenance. He had lost one eye, but the other made up for the absence of its fellow by a shrewdness of expression sufficient for both. He always wore an oil-skin hat and a rough great-coat. At his back he carried a deal box, containing the dramatis personÆ of his little theatre, and in his hand the trumpet at whose glad summons hundreds of merry, laughter-loving faces flocked round him, with gaping mouths and anxious looks, all eager to renew their acquaintance with their old friend and favorite, Punch. The theatre itself was carried by a tall man, who seemed a sort of sleeping partner in the concern, or mere dumb waiter on the other’s operations.” The woodcut on our title-page precisely corresponds with this lively description, making some allowance for the difference of age in the master of the puppet-show; still, however, not too old to carry his deal box and to blow an “inspiring air.”

There is one peculiarity about Piccini’s puppets which deserves notice: they were much better carved, the features having a more marked and comic expression than those of his rivals. He brought most of them over with him from Italy, and he complained that in England he had not been able to find any workman capable of adequately supplying the loss if by chance one of his figures had been broken or stolen. Why his Punch was made to squint, or, at least, to have what is known by the epithet of a swivel-eye, unless for the sake of humor or distinction, does not appear.

Besides Piccini’s representation, we have compared the following pages with, and corrected them and made additions according to, the text of our professional performances and the exhibitions of other perambulatory artistes (as our neighbors term them) now flourishing.

The reader’s attention should be specially directed to the acting drama of the Persecuted Dutchman, in Mrs. Barrisnobes Hotel, and to Punch’s famous $25,000 Box Trick.