Note 465 — Chapter XXIII · MORALITIES, PUPPET-PLAYS, AND PAGEANTS

Collier, Punch and Judy (1870), 11 sqq.; Frost, The Old Showmen and the Old London Fairs, 29. The earliest English notice of Punch in England is in the overseers’ books of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields for 1666 and 1667, ‘Recᵈ of Punchinello, yᵉ Italian popet player, for his booth at Charing Cross.’ In a Bartholomew Fair playbill of the early eighteenth century, ‘the merry conceits of Squire Punch and Sir John Spendall’ were attached to the puppet-show of the Creation of the World. Punch was also amongst the dramatis personae of Robert Powell. The nature of these earlier Punch plays is unknown. That now traditional in England is implied by the ballad of Punch’s Pranks (†1790). Collier, who prints it as given by one Piccini in Drury Lane, with cuts by Cruikshank, considers it to be derived from Don Juan. But it seems to me to come still nearer to the morality plays. French Punch plays have many other themes.