PUNCH, a principal character in a well-known puppet-show, seems to be a corruption of the Italian Policinella, who is usually the leading character in Neapolitan puppet-shows. According to Galiani, in his Vocabolario del Dialecto Napoletano, Policinella, or Polecenella, was the name assumed by the successors of a facetious vintager with a very large nose and grotesque appearance, named Puccio d'Aniello, who, taking to the stage, crowded the theatres with his antic tricks and farcical drollery. By degrees, personifications of the original Polecenella were multiplied all over the country. On being transported into Britain, the name became Pochinella, and Puchinella, and, for shortness, Punch. Hence the name also of that popular publication the London Charivari.