 A contributor to Bentley 's Miscellany wrote in 1846 : " To those who never saw him , description is fruitless ; to those who have , no praise comes up to their appreciation of him . We therefore shake our heads and say ' Ah ! You should have seen Grimaldi ! ' " Another writer commented that his performances elevated his role by " acute observation upon the foibles and absurdities of society . ... He is the finest practical satyrist that ever existed . ... He was so extravagantly natural , that [ no one was ] ashamed to laugh till tears coursed down their cheeks at Joe and his comicalities . " The British dramatist James Planché worried , in a rhymed couplet , that Grimaldi 's death meant the end of a genre : " Pantomime 's best days are fled ; Grimaldi , Barnes , Bologna dead ! " 
