looking, before coming down to supper. A clue was now given to the
otherwise unaccountable train of feelings, which had possessed me ever
since I saw Miss Snooks. From the moment when I first set my eyes upon
her, I fancied I had seen her before; but where, when, and upon what
occasion I found it impossible to tell. Her squeaking voice, her blue
twinkling eyes, her huge frilled cap, and above all, her mighty nose, all
seemed familiar to me. They floated within my spirit as a half-forgotten
dream; and without daring to whisper such a thing to myself, I still felt
the impression that all was not new--that the novelty was not so great as
I imagined.

"But Punch and Judy set all to rights. I had seen Miss Snooks in George
Cruikshank, and at once all my perplexing feelings were accounted for.
_She_ was Judy--_she_ was Punch's wife. Yes, Miss Snooks, the old maid,
was the wife of Mr. Punch. There was no denying the fact. The same small
weazel eyes, the same sharp voice and hooked chin, and the same nose--at
once mountain, cape, &c. &c. belonged alike to Judy and Miss Snooks. They
were two persons; the same, yet, different--different, yet the same--the
one residing in the pages of Cruikshank, or chattering and fighting in the
booths of mountebanks at Donnybrook or St. Bartholomew's Fair--the other
seated bolt upright, at the head of her cousin's table, beside a small
_coterie_ of _littérateurs_.

"I know not whether it was the effect of the old port, but, strange to
say, I could not for some time view Miss Snooks in her former capacity,
but simply as Judy. She was magnified in size, it is true, from the pert,
termagant puppet of the fairs, and was an authoress--a writer of tragedies
and novels--in which character, to the best of my knowledge, the spouse of
Punchinello had never made her appearance, but then the similitude between
them, in other respects, was so striking as to constitute identity. Eyes,