fair fame nor the reputation of
_Punch_ that the facts of his birth have never yet been definitely and
honourably established. It is not that his parentage has been lost to
history in a discreet and charitable silence; on the contrary, it is
rather that that honour has been claimed by over-many, covetous of the
distinction. He seems to come within the category of Defoe's true-born
Englishman, "whose parents were the Lord knows who," not because there
should be any doubt upon the subject, but because none suspected at the
time the latent importance of the bantling and the circumstances of his
birth until it seemed too late to decide by demonstration or simple
affirmation who was father and who the sponsors. Had it then been known
that _Punch_ was born for immortality, I should not now be at the pains
of setting forth, at greater length than would otherwise be necessary or
justifiable, the proofs of his parentage and of his natal place.

"Great Homer's birth seven rival cities claim,
Too mighty such monopoly of Fame."

Rubens was born both at Antwerp and Cologne. One knows it to be so, when
one has visited both houses. Hans Memling, again, was native of Bruges
and Moemelingen too. It is hardly surprising, then, that several
roof-trees claim the honour of having sheltered the new-born _Punch_,
and that many men have contended for his paternity.

I say "his" paternity; for the absolute personality of _Punch_ has
long been recognised. It has been the usual custom of comic papers
to indulge in a similar fiction, mildly humorous and conveniently
anonymous--"Figaro in London," "Pasquin," "The Puppet Show"-man, "The
Man in the Moon," and the rest. But _Punch_ was not only a personality
himself, but at the outset began by introducing the rest of his family
to the public. Nowadays he ignores his wife, especially since a
contemporary has appropriated her name. But this was not always so. In
his prospectus he announces that his department of "Fashion" will be
conducted by Mrs. J. Punch, whose portrait, drawn by Leech's pencil,
appeared in 1844 (p. 19, Vol. VI.), and who was seen again, under the
name of Judina, in honourable companionship with her husband, in the
preface to Vol. XLVII., for 1864, and once more in "Mrs. Punch's Letters
to Her Daughter." His daughter Julia, too, being then, in 1841, "in
service," wrote a letter to the journal in that style of damaged
orthography afterwards adopted by the immortal Jeames and his