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Theft, mutilation, or defacement of library materials can be causes for student disciplinary action. All materials owned by the University of Illinois Library are the property of the State of Illinois and are protected by Article 16B of Illinois Criminal Law and Procedure. , TO RENEW, CALL (217) 333- 8400. University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign When renewing by phone, write new due date below previous due date. L162 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. . Tee PP a THE MYNTAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. A VISTA OF THE LUDICROUS SIDE OF LIFE! AT ecosiqy : EDWIN PAXTON HOOD, AUTHOR OF “‘OLD ENGLAND,” ‘‘GENIUS AND INDUSTRY, y “JOHN MILTON, THE PATRIOT AND POET,” ETC. LONDON: PARTRIDGE & OAKEY, PATERNOSTER ROW. =—— MDCCCLIi, 1992 NTS. a CONTENTS eerste PAGE. Cuap. I. THE WISDOM AND MYSTERY OF LAUGHTER 9 II. THE VARIATIONS OF THE LUDICROUS pa III. wit AND HUMOUR i . , 36 TV. THE DIVINITY OF RIDICULE a ay et aes V. THE LOGIC OF WIT “ : ; 56 VI. THE, HUMOURIST AND THE SATIRIST . 107 VII. MENTAL ‘AND MORAL INCONGRUITIES . 128 ¥ VIII. CONVERSATIONAL AND PICTORIAL WIT Hie Y SKETCHES. BAMBOO AND BAMBOOZLE 4 “ : ean A ot ' THE) MORAL PHILOSOPHY OF CRUTCHES . 4 174 “WON'T, CAN'T, AND TRY ‘ ; . 185 810837 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. CHAPTER I. THE WISDOM AND MYSTERY OF LAUGHTER. Tuer is no circumstance of our life more mys- terious than laughter. Sir Richard Steele has said “it is a good piece of service one man does another when he tells him the manner of his being pleased.” But, surely no task is more difficult, for pe mental or physical phenomena are more won- derful. Doubtless, lau hter i is the fetes i oe, 7 on? “Liki sympathies of our nature. ie bee ty nearly related to the highest and most in- )pstive wisdom; it bears a high aoe :,agethe noblest children of the brain; it stands fai no distant remove from Judgment on the one ‘ and, and Imagination on the other; and it is a & % 10 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. proof of a healthy nature, for both thinking and _ acting. He must be regarded as a foe to man who endeavours to preach down laughter. It is so good a piece of common property that all should possess it; and: when its cheerful ringing music is only upon healthy themes, it leaves no man the | worse for it, and many a man much the better. The saouses, the provocatives to laughter are many, V and it is evident that man is intended to laugh. PO te eee |The love of the mirthful, the ‘perception of the ludicrous, is natural to him, and many things assist it which will be noticed in the course of this paper. The two great causes of laughter every- where, are wit and humour, or the Iudicrous expressed, and the ludicrous exhibited; but the chief cause of laughter is our love of order, and beauty, and consistency. — We seem to be con- stituted thus for laughter, ag a natural consequence of our perception of the most decorous and beauti- ful things in nature, and viewed in this light, the ludicrous becomes the safeguard of society, a great teacher of every kind of truth. We could have no knowledge of disorder, but from our know) “ge of relation and order; no knowledge of defor: — . but from beauty; no knowledge of the ridicu ~ but from the natural and the lovely. : In other words, the perception of resemble - and proprieties gives the perception of differen. and improprieties; and literary history abomi "Ce gs ee Ae _ WISDOM AND MYSTERY OF LAUGHTER. 11 with instances of men who illustrate this view. Just as minds, gifted with exquisite sensibility of the beauty of tones, are most exquisitely pained by jarring notes, or as persons in whom the love of order and exactness predominates, are most shocked by disarray or disorder ; so, those eyes so keen to notice the graces and beauties, the ovals and circles, and lovely shades of nature, are excited to mirth, when in their stead gracelessness and conceit, rugged angles and blots are presented to them. ‘The poet, therefore, most exuberant and overflowing with just and admirable appreciation of delightful scenes, and thoughts, and impressions, will, by consequence, frequently overflow too with the contrastive affluence of words, moulding them- ‘selves into wit, of a mode of discourse admirably ‘humoursome; will easily construct pictures and | designs full of contraries\ and incongruities, but | both illustrating the speaker’s insight into\the | lovely and the natural. aa nee sources of laughter lie then in incongruity, , >. This is only another name for the ludicrous and | | the mirth- provoking. _When we speak, therefore, | i" \jo' 1e who has a keen sense of the ludicrous, what i. we mean is, that there is an acute perception of differences, and the causé of the laughter is the . 2 i Weston of surprice [thas the same causo-which “\prompts laughter in the child by some unexpected ry, or by the removal of the mask. from. the face; 12 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. prompts laughter on the cheek in mature years, when hypocrisy and deceit are unmasked. All deformity is ludicrous, unless sheltered by huma- nity, and that, sometimes finds even superior love- liness there. Perhaps this theory of the ludicrous tends to confirm the generally received and ac- knowledged theory of the Beautiful ; namely, that all beauty depends on the law of association ; that it is the result of accustomed observations, and common combinations, and circumstances of nature ;__ and, therefore, whatever departs from the common routine,—whatever becomes eratic is ridiculous, if it is not of sufficient magnitude to be terrible, | and provokes to laughter, if it does not excite horror. We could not get on without laughter ; | the pools of life would become stagnant; care would be too much for us; the heart would corrode, life would be all bas relievo and no alto; our faces would assume a less cheerful aspect, and become like those of the men who never laugh ; the river of Life, as we sailed over it, would be like “the lake of the Dismal Swamp,” we should have to’ / put all humanity through a revolution, we should. indeed have to begin life with a sigh, and end it with a groan, while cadaverous faces and words, to the tune of “ The Dead March in Saul,” would make up the whole interlude of our existence. | Doubtless, a man’s character may be read in his) laughter. Show to us what a man laughs at, and WISDOM AND MYSTERY OF LAUGHTER. 15 how he laughs, and some estimate may be formed of the whole man. “In order to look into any person's temper,” says Sir Richard Steele, “ I gene- rally make my first observation on his. laugh, whether he is easily moved, and what are the passages which throw him into the agreeable kind | of convulsion. People are never so much un~| guarded, as when they are pleased; and_ laughter fre OW EROP PAREN TOE: beings a visible ‘symptom of some inward satisfac- tion, it is then, 3 if ever, that you ou may believe the face; There is no better index to point us to the particularities of the mind, than this, which is in itself one of the most distinguishing marks of our rationality.” For, as Milton says ** Smiles from reason flow, to brutes denied, And are of love, the food’— “Laughter,” Sir Richard continues, “is a vent. of any sudden joy that strikes upon the mind, which being too volatile and strong, breaks out in the tremor of the voice. The poets make use of this metaphor, when they would describe Nature in her richest dress, for beauty is never so lovely, as when adorned by the smile, and conversation neyer . ay ’ sits easier upon us, than when we now and ttn « discharge ourselves in a symphony ef laughter, ‘which may not improperly be called the chorus of conversation.” \ 14 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. We need not follow up Sir Richard's classifica-. tion of laughters into The Dimplers ; The Smilers ; The Laughers ; The Grinners ; The Horse Grinners ; although something might still be said upon all these classes as representing character. Now-a-days, sentimental ladies and gentlemen, have transformed the hand writing into a kind of Delphian Oracle, from whose prelections the cha- racter may be traced; but laughter shows the man. Does he wear an everlasting unmeaning simper? Does the smile glitter coldly over his face like the shining of ice? There are sniffings, titterings, husky cachinations, as if the man were laughing through wool; ‘from none of these,” says Thomas Carlyle, “comes good. The man. who cannot laugh, is not only fit for treasons, stra- | tagems, and spoils; but his whole life is already | a treason and a stratagem.’* | Our readers have heard of the laughter of Tue~_ felsdrockh, ‘“‘upon the proposal of Jean Paul, for a cast metal king. Gradually a light kindled in his | eyes and face, a beaming, mantling, loveliest light ;- | through those murky features a radiant ever young | Apollo looked, and he burst forth like the neigh-— * Sartor Resartus. | 4 | | ee WISDOM AND MYSTERY OF LAUGHTER. 15 ing of all Tattersalls,—tears streaming down his cheeks,—pipe held aloft,—foot clutched into the _ air,—loud, long continuing uncontrollable ; a laugh * —not of the face and the diaphragm only, but of the whole man from head to heel.” What think our readers of an eruption like that? No wonder if Swift ever laughed like that, (of which, how- ever, we suppose him to have been incapable ;) that he described laughter as the best and ‘the most innocent of all diuretics.” Yet laughter, which is certainly the world’s best.medicine, when ‘taken in proper doses, has like other physic, been ‘shamefully abused. With some people, it has not been the fortieth article of their religion, but the first,—not to laugh at all ;—others have made grim hyena faces, and called them laughter, although neither the intellect or the sympathies ever dic- tated a smile to their countenances; but to laugh truly, is to enter into the heart of a mystery, to understand character, to perceive the infinite truthfulness of Nature, and the utter folly of all unnaturalness, whether fiendish or foppish. Every faculty of man has a mission to perform ; the grave « and serious faculties have their tasks ; the mirthful and the merry have theirs. Why lay under ex--~ communication and interdict the fairy children of: the brain? From causality and comparison,—from decision and colour, from benevolence and form, we deduce lessons of moral philosophy and natural 16 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. theology ; but there is‘a moral philosophy in the ludicrous, and a theology in laughter; nay, these last ‘hold in the hand the balance and the rod,” and adjudicate to. the other powers their propor- tions and their places. 209 Adee: ey 17 CHAPTER II. THE VARIATIONS OF THE LUDICROUS. Giver me the man,” says Sterne, “who laughs without knowing why.” Well, there are very few people who have any idea why they are pleased ; very few care to look beneath the surface of laugh- ter ; and this carelessness has its philosophical and unphilosophical character. We profess to belong to the number of those who are disposed to analyse the sources both of mirth and of melancholy.— “Why do we laugh? Why are we pleased? What are those hidden springs, which, when touched, give the tone to such exquisite pleasures, respond- ing to such wonderful sensations. That man should possess the power to laugh—he alone of all ani- mals—he who carries about with him the most wonderful weight of woe—who suffers most from sickness—he who mourns most for the loss of his loved ones—he who is the only being apparently smitten with disappointment, anxiety, and the B 5 18 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. perpetual weight of care—he who looks forward to the future with so much gloom—he over whom the present hangs a fearful roof of leaden-coloured — sky—to whom the past is a remembered, pleasant, deplored dream—that this being of all beings should possess the power to laugh—surely this is \ a mystery, and a great one; a mystery—but a \\beauty as well as a mystery. | ) Here, too, we are compelled to say, is one of ¢ God’s beautiful com- pensations ; He has set one thing over against another, and made everything beautiful in His — time ; and this compensation, as we have said, goes _ farther ; He has not only set rejoicing against sor- — row—making our smiles instructors as well as our : tears—but He has dispensed this dowry of enjoy- — ment in proportion to the dowry of pain. We . sigh for some tender beings—sensitive, nervous, — thrilling to every sharp wind, shrinking from all unkindness. We mourn when we think of the 7 pain they suffer; how severely fall the blows of © life upon natures so sensitive as theirs !—how words which we never feel, cut and cleave to the | ee reer Raed very marrow of their nature! But we frequently — overlook the compensation: as their sufferings, so— their joys. They lie very near to them too; the | brighter things of this life come to them very | readily : for God has ordained that the normal : man shall thus carry an open soul—shall rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them VARIATIONS OF THE LUDICROUS. 19 that weep; he will spell out the great book of mysteries about him; and smiles or tears will make him only more perfect in love. Is it not true? Do not laughers teach you ?— From whom, then, come the most chaste snow- flakes of tenderness, of sympathy, chastity, cha- rity? Who have loved the world most ?—who proffer to you the most consolatory words ?—who speak most truly and naturally of their own suf- fering? Isit not ever your good-tempered, merry beings? We do not mean the mere merryman of the world’s stage—the clown; but the man who has learned to read the harmonies and coherencies of things amidst worlds of disorder and misdoing, —to whom beautiful forms have come amidst the fevers of pain,—to.whom a thousand tricksy spirits have disported themselves. Gentle, genial, glad- some loving. We know how many persons dread the laugher—the so-called wit—the punster; bunt no one need dread this gentle being. Pretensive charlatans are the only beings we need dread—and _ these again, let us say, we need never dread; their wounds irritate, but do not hurt. The man who has entered into the meaning of laughter— who sees its wise why and wherefore—who sees that it has its sacred side—that it is the glass by which to detect folly, by magnifying it,—he cannot recklessly and lavishly launch his shafts around him. Keen when he strikes, he will not strike till 20 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. you deserve the blow,—and it will be a blow for Humanity and Truth. Most persons regard laughter and the perception of the ridiculous as pleasant companions with whom one may be merry round the fire on winter nights, but few are they to whom they are the best and truest teachers ; few are they who regard them as the world’s great reformers, and who not only Jearn to laugh but laugh to learn. Even Dr. Thomas Brown, usually so acute, saw nothing in laughter beyond its power to add to cheerfulness ; butin truth it should be so: The man who laughs wisely can instruct us; the fountains of this man’s sympathies are easily moved ; his mind is not only readily awakened by the ludicrous, but the in- fluences of kindness, and the impulses of love also readily stir his spirit. In a word, he is deeply sympathetic with all the tones and utterances of nature. And thus it is that error is best con- fronted by a good humoured face and smiling coun- tenance, Angry sarcasms and biting rankling words of venom can effect but little for the world; on the contrary quiet inuendo, and cheerful laughter, have done, and will domuch. We would have all, who wish to be the teachers of their fellows, to inake the characters of our Uncle Toby or Sancho Panza their own; to make men laugh in love, not in terror; to fascinate their eyes to the bright ovals and erderly ways of Nature, not to the VARIATIONS OF THE LUDICROUS. 21 sharp angles and crude crotchets of conventional Man. For, although, few men are capable of expressing the ludicrous, or uttering the sharp periods of bril- liant wit, who is insensible to the ludicrous when presented? The ludicrous to the eye, or to the mind, the unwonted circumstance in strange asso- ciation. How fond we all are of the anecdote bring- ing to light some incongruity of character ; some eccentricity of habit or manner. We enjoy those biographies which abound with them. Can any reader be insensible to the following, of a most dis- tinguished Biblical scholar, preacher, and writer ; yet it contains neither wit nor fancy: its odd quaint- ness attracts us; we are surprised by an apparently most incongruous association of idea, and this, in: all instances, kindles to mirth. The Rev. Dr. Brown, of Haddington, the well known author of the “Self-Interpreting Bible,” wasa man of singular bashfulness. In token of the truth of this statement, I need only state that his courtship lasted seven years. Six years and a half passed away, and Mr. B had got no further forward than he had been the first six days. This state of things became intolerable; a step in advance must be made, and Dr. Brown summoned all his courage for the deed. *¢ Janet,” said he, as they sat one night in so- Jemn silence, “we've been acquainted now for six 22 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. years an’ mair, and I’ve ne'er gotten a kiss yet ;— d’ye think I might take one, ma bonnie girl ?” “‘ Just as you like, John; only be becoming and proper wi’ it.” “‘ Surely, Janet; we'll ask a blessing.” The blessing was asked—the kiss was taken, and the worthy man, perfectly overpowered with the blissful sensation, most rapturously exclaimed, ‘“*O woman! but it is gude—we'll return thanks.” Six months made the pious couple man and ° wife, and, added his descendant, who humorously told the tale, “‘a happier couple never spent a long and useful life together.” The source of the ludicrous, then, is ever incon- rruity ; the most unexpected combination of oppo- sites of things and ideas, utterly unlike in them- selyes. This is‘always the cause of laughter. There is a story told of three chimney sweepers, who met three Chinese, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Both were astonished ; the black figures with the — black bags and the white teeth only visible, upset the gravity of the Chinese: and the curious figures — with long tails, small caps upon the head, dark brown or olive skin, curious dress, these surprised the chimney sweep: the chimney sweep laughed at the Chinese, and the Chinese at the chimney — sweep, until, saith the story, “both parties rolled — upon the pavement laughing at each other.” Say- | ings which would make no impression upon us at _ a " f / ix y VARiqriONS OF THE ‘LUDICROUS. 98 other times, compel us to laughter if they are ut- tered in incongruous places, or uttered to singularly inapplicable people. Whether the English House = » of Commons be a grave place or not, no doubt the speaker is a grave person, and fills a very grave office. There once happened to be a dead silence in the house, when its members were all present ; this was broken bya startling hiccough in the gallery, and the voice of a drunken reporter putting the stunning interrogation, “Mr. Speaker, will you favour us with a song ?” A friend once sent to Sidney Smith a note, re- questing him to sit for his portrait to Landseer, the great dog painter. Sydney wrote back, ** Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing ?” Is it not the incongruity that startles us here? An exchange paper, im speaking of the growing importance of Memphis, Tennessee, says : ** The population amounts to six thousand persons, and sixty-five thousand bales of cotton.” This is very like a learned professor’s descrip- tion of Albany : “It contains six thousand houses, and twenty- five thousand inhabitants, all standing with their ij gable ends to the street.” & Incongruity of dress may make us smile. Thus | it is that we laugh at mere absurdity, which is but another name for incongruity. Much that compels y ee tan most unrestrained merriment, fre+ Cel ior Haars ee a t 24 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGLTER, quently has no other claim than that we behoid the most perfect intermingling and marriage of opposites. Frequently words come dancing to- . gether like people of all sizes, and shapes, and dresses, at a. carnival. There is no merit in such ludicrous representations; it is a form of the ludi- - crous even lower than the burlesque. The Ameri- — can newspapers, more than any productions in the world, abound with this kind of absurdity, which - appears to consist only in taking words, without any selection, from the dictionary, and tumbling them pell mell over the paper. Hereisan instance, in a touch of mock sublimity from the “New Or- leans Sun :”— “J rise, Mr. President, to argue the case of the rich man and the poor man, and I believe, that before I shall have concluded, you will allow that it admits of no argument. The rich man, Mr. President, declines his emaciated form on a ma- hogany sofa, cut down, hewed out, carved, and manufactured from the tall cedars of Lebanon, which grew upon the lofty and cloud-clapt summit of the ever-memorable mountain of Jehosophat. Then, Mr. President, he lifts to his cadaverous lip, the golden china cup—manufactured, as is well known, Mr. President, in Chil, Peru, and other unknown and uninhabited parts of the universe. While on the other hand, Mr. President, the poor man declines his expectation in a cottage, from - - VARIATIONS OF THE LUDICROUS. 25 which he retires to the shade of some umbrageous stream—there to contemplate the incomprehenst- bility of the vast constellation and other fixed and immoveable satellites that devolve around the celes- tial axletree of this teroquous firmament on high. Then, Mr. President, after calling around him his wife, and the rest of his little children, he teaches — them to ee to scenes of arsine beyond the grave.” And it is not wit, but the utterly absurd com- bination of ideas that compels us to laugh at the story of the facetious old lady, who, describing the ram- bling sermons of her minister, said : “If his text had the small pox, his sermon would never catch it.” Altogether without arrangement, connection, or method. | We laugh at nonsense ; ‘we are told i d_ itis very wrong: well, but we cannot ot help its There are J SSpseeenr so called, where truisms are dis: tended to absurdities. The following lines are a ‘part of a very touching poem sent to the editor of the ‘Christian Citizen,” whereupon he remarks, “The sympathy of friends in the hour of trial is a blessing of which we would not lightly speak, but when that sympathy takes the form of poetry, and the wounded spirit is treated Aydropathically, and absolutely drenched with the eaters of Helicon— why we must laugh. Here is something now 26 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. which would have made Job himself forget his afflictions :— «* But sickness and afflictions is trials sent By the will of a wise creation, And always ought to be underwent With fortytude and resignation. Then mourn not for yer pardner’s death, But to submit endevver; For sposen she hadent a died so soon, She couldent a lived for eyer.” Laughter is legitimate enough here, but the most of people, when they see these things, do not believe that there are left persons who can thus exhibit the gift of their genius. Yes, once upon a time, lines were addressed to us, the writer of this book, mostly made up of such triplets as *«*« The night was dark, the moon was hid, Nostars were seen, but clouds instid, As o’er the roaring waves we rid Across the mighty main.” ‘“‘ believe they were talking about me, for they laughed most consumedly,” said Scrub ; and when absurdity heaps and jumbles things together that should ever be kept separate, tossing all the rules of speech about in wonderful malpropriety; jolting image against image, till maids from the scullery and maids of honour, courtiers and chimney sweeps, and all the odds and ends of things appear to swim VARIATIONS OF THE LUDICROUS, 27 in one great ocean of folly: what can we do but langh? But all this is higher in its conception than the reach of mere absurdity. The following are nonsense verses :— Somebody in the London Forget-Me-Not, thus poetizes :— «¢ Oh, were I a swan on the blue bosomed lake, Or a squirrel in greenwood, sweet pastime to take; From the durance of walls I would set myself‘free, And bound from this lattice to thee,” To which a Wisconsin editor thus responds : «© Though you’re neither a swan on the blue bosomed lake, Nor a squirrel in greenwood, sweet pastime to take; The refiection may surely some pleasure produce, That at least—you’re a very respectable goose,” More than two-thirds of all the fun that shakes our spirits, crimsons our face, and sets our table in a roar, results from the perception of some absur- dity, and it very frequently comes about, that the absurdity we behold in some one particular instance suggests to us as almost unconsciously another ab- surdity, making the first suggestion to wear a mo- ral and didactic appearance. Cist, of the “ Cincinnati Enquirer,” tells a capi- tal story about a constable in Pennsylvania. He had served a legal proscript, of some sort, on a par~ ticular friend of his, who, greatly drunk at the time, rebelled against. the law and its myrmidon, 28 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. seizing the officer and shaking him almost to pieces. The parties meeting a few days after, Jim, the of- fender, was profuse in his apologies. ‘“‘ You know, Jake,” said he, “I would not have served you so if I had been sober ; it was the whisky did it all.’ The official at last mollified and relented under Jim’s expostulations. ‘As to the shaking,” said — he, “I don’t bear you any malice, or valley it a cent on my own account; but, as an officer, Jim, recollect whoever shakes me, shakes the comumon- wealth,” And other instances of the pride of a little brief — authority become in like manner absurd. ‘‘ Mamma,” said Miss Juliana Selina Carolina — Languish, “‘ who are those pedo eet zy they — anybody 2” _ “Why, my dear, young Middleton joined in the hunt last week, and was introduced at the last ball, and he keeps a tiger ; so you know he must be somebody.” “Yes, mamma; but I can’t help thinking that they are only retired. Very good sort of people, no doubt, and all that sort of thing; but there is something about them that makes me think that they are nobody, after all.” “* My dear, they must be somebody.” “No, mamma, they want to pass for somebody ; — but as everybody knows, there is always a some-_ thing which tells you djrectly whether anybody is — tt i VARIATIONS OF THE LUDICROUS.- 29 anybody, and it is not a bit of use for anybody who is nobody to pretend to be somebody.” We may note a few of the variations of the ludicrous, especially those of the lower order of the laughable. The simplest forms of incongruity are in exaggeration and caricature ; these are pictorial witticisms which appeal to the mind through the eye. We all remember the nose of Slawkenbergius, but what is even that nose to the nose of Bardolph ? But there is more humour in the single line with © which Sterne introduces Slawkenbergius to us, than in the tale itself. ‘ Learned men, brother Toby, don’t write dialogues upon long noses for nothing.” The witty and the humoursome must always be distinguished from the merely droll and odd. We laugh at drollery in dress, at drollery in manners. The lowest order of the ludicrous is representative, but it is obvious that every day of our life we may find topics to engage our risibility. Imagine a dispassionate foreigner, walking through our city streets; the objects that would strike him as exaggerations are endless, even as we have been similarly struck when in foreign countries. Thus if our mental eyes were open, all society would present to us its various distortions. Un- doubtedly the disposition to laugh at the foibles of the world, is far more healthy than to sneer at them: one or the other we must frequently do. All societies, and institutions, and states, have 30 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. more or less of symbol worship,—nothing is more laughable than this, when you detect nothing behind the symbol. . Figure a dwarf throwing his arms of protection round Gog or Magog ; figure an elephant dancing a minuet; or a monkey acting Hamlet, or dying in love with Juliet. This spirit of exaggeration is the source of the Fabulist’s power, the mighty spirit of Prosopopea which makes dead, mute, and material things to give forth lessons of instruction ; this, too, is the foun- dation of the burlesque. Sometimes things noble in themselves, frequently great and true, have been the subjects of its mockery,—in such instances we need not say the wit fails. But if you hear tones elevated to extraordinary magniloquence—(and of this all our greatest poets have been not infre- quently guilty) ; if the loss of a lover, or a slipper, or a fortune, be celebrated in the same verse as Paradise Lost; or if the battles of two rival flunkies be related in the same measure as Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered; in instances like these we recognize the legitimate burlesque. Thus, Fielding in Tom Thumb ridicules the stately triviality of Dryden— ** So when two dogs are fighting in the streets, With a third dog one of the two dogs meets ; With angry tooth he bites him to the bone, And this dog smarts for what that dog had done.” Leigh Hunt in his Essay on Wit and Humour, VARIATIONS OF THE LUDICROUS. Oa quotes a similar mock heroic, from Christopher Stuart— ' «¢ Thus when a barber and a collier fight, The barber beats the luckless collier white. In comes the brick dustman with rouge bespread, And beats the barber and the collier red ; The rallying collier whirls his empty sack, And beats the brick dustman and barber black; Black, white, and red, in various clouds are tost, And in the dust they raise, the combatants are lost.” Let us quote a few more of these illustrations, with which the literature of England, a century since, teemed. Pope uttered them most opulently. ‘© Here thou, great Anna, whom three realms obey, Dost sometimes counsel take—and sometimes—tea.” Again, in. Branston’s “ Man of Taste: “My hair I’d powder in a woman’s way, And dress, and talk of dressing more than they ; I’ll please the maids of honour if I can; Without black velvet breeches—what is Man ?” Thus, for a fine illustration, Johnson’s parodies of the Ancient Ballads are all admirable. ** Hermit hoar, in solemn cell, Wearing out life’s evening grey, Strike thy bosom, sage, and tell, What is bliss—and which the way? 32 -PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. Thus I spoke, and speaking sigh’d. Scarce repressed the starting tear, When the hoary sage replied, «Come, my lad, and drink some beer.’ ” Tt might be proper here to notice a few of the elements of laughter, or rather those mental con- stituents, which combine to produce what we call wit or humour: but principally the wit, or hu- mourist, needs secretiveness. Every shaft of wit, every peal of humour, is caused more or less by a reservation, upon which the author was hugging himself, or keeping his readers or hearers in mys- tery as to what he was about. The following scene from the ‘‘ Comedy of Errors” is excellent in this. Adriano is led on to criminate herself as she piles up her accusations against her husband ; and in the last line the laugh is turned against her by the reply of the Abbess. Enter the Abbess. Ass. Be quiet, people: wherefore throng you hither ? Apriano. To fetch my poor distracted husband hence : Let us come in, that we may bind him fast, And bear him home for his recovery. ANGELO. I knew he was not in his perfect wits. : VARIATIONS OF THE LUDICROUS. 30 Mercuant. I am sorry now that I did draw on him. Ass. How long hath this possession held the man ? Apr. This week he hath been heavy, sour, sad, And much, much different from the man he was ; But, till this afternoon, his passion Ne’er brake into extremity of rage. Ass. Hath he not lost much wealth by wreck at sea ? Buried some dear friend? Hath not else his eye Stray’d his affection in unlawful love ? A. sin prevailing much in youthful men, Who give their eyes the liberty of gazing. Which of these sorrows is he subject to ? Apr. To none of these, except it be the last ; Namely, some love that drew him oft from home. Apps, You should for that have reprehended him, Apr. Why, so I did. 3 ABB. Ay, but not rough enough. Apr. As roughly as my modesty would let me. Ass, WHaply in private. ADR. And in assemblies too, App. Ay, but not enough. Apr. It was the copy of our conference : In bed, he slept not for my urging it ; At board, he fed not for my urging it; Alone, it was the subject of my theme ; c 34 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. In company, I often glanced at it ; Still did I tell him it was vile and bad. Ass. And thereof came wt that the man was mad |” The ludicrous to which we first referred is mostly antithetical and verbal ; and to this order of the ridiculous punning must be assigned—to quite an inferior order of humour. Many men of rich genius, however, have excelled in these clenches of words; and many men of great imagination and power of conception have been quite incapable of the pun. Thomas Hood was the prince of all punsters, in verse or prose—in picture sketching or conversation. He could scarcely use his pen, or open his lips, without uttering a double meaning, or listen to a sentence without making one; and a better illustration cannot be furnished, in our times, of the close neighbourhood of humour and pathos, of exquisite sensibility to the softness of the rose and the pungency of the nettle: at the same time one laments that a mind constituted like his, so clearly to perceive resemblances and differences should have wasted its oil of life in mere verbal pantomimes. Before we close this volume, we shall turn back to Hood again, to notice some of those truths which he told with such delightful humour. Many who enjoy the fun and merriment of these exaggerations to which we have now referred,— VARIATIONS OF THE LUDICROUS. 35 the grotesque allusion, the burlesque, and the double entendre, do not care for the higher meanings of mirth, and are even too mentally lazy to deci- pher many of the hieroglyphs in which humour writes her lessons to their eyes. 36 CHAPTER III. WIT AND HUMOUR. But what are those two mirth-provoking spirits Wit and Humour 2? Wow many efforts have been made to define them, and to limit their functions ? We may notice some of the manifold opinions.— Thus, Locke has described wit ‘as lying most in the assemblage of ideas, and putting those together with quickness and variety, wherein can be found” any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy.” The definition of Locke is sufficient for poetry, but it does not define wit or witticism ; but the meaning attached to the term in Locke’s day, appears to have differed greatly from ours, and included general talent and accomplishment. Addison heightened the properties mentioned by Locke, and added to them Delight, Surprise, and Dissimilitude, as completing ingredients. ‘* Every resemblance in the ideas,” he observes, is not that. Sete to = = WIT AND HUMOUR. 37 which we call wit, except it be such a one as gives delight and surprise to the reader, particularly the last; and it is necessary that the ideas should not lie too near one another, in the nature of things, for, where the likeness is obvious, it creates no surprise.’ And upon this hint all succeeding writers upon this subject have spoken. The two ablest and most instructive, as well as entertaining essays in our language, on the metaphysical cha- racteristics of wit, are by William Hazlitt* and Leigh Hunt.t From them we learn that “‘ Wit is the clash and reconcilement of incongruities,” “ that two ideas are as necessary to wit, as couples are to marriages ;” hence “keeping in comic character is consistency in absurdity. Wit is the eloquence of ‘ indifference hovering around the borders of light, and trifling, whether in matters of pleasure or ‘pain; for, as soon as it describes the serious seri- _ ously, it ceases to be wit, and passes into a different form. _ Again, wit has been described as the marriage _ of ideas lying wide apart by a sudden jerk of the understanding. In the delineation of the ludicrous it is not difficult to perceive the wide difference between wit and humour. Wit is much less ami- _ able than humour; the function of the one seems to be to sneer and to curse; of the other to smile * Lectures on the English Comic Writers. | Wit and Humour, e 5 38 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. and instruct. The essence of wit is cleverness, sharpness, hawk-eyed intellectual cunning ; the es- sence of humour is wisdom gleaned from every- thing, and intensified by sympathy with the uni- versal-All. Humour lies nearest to seriousness,— wit nearest to melancholy. The soul of humour is faith; the soul of wit is doubt, mistrust, scepticism. There is no ease in wit; but you may know hu-— 'mour by its invariable and proverbial ease. Wit isolates itself, retires into the corner, watches and gibbers ; humour fraternises, comes into the com- pany and sings. Humour is usually cheerful: wit is as usually morose. Wit is objective; it says ‘““Give me something to hate and to attack !’— humour is subjective ; it says ‘‘ Give me something to love, to paint, to describe, to defend!” And hence, then, of the wit, the satirist,—we feel rather the terror of his genius; the humourist, we feel — the usefulness of his aim. Perhaps it may further be said that wit is Celtic, and humour Teutonic; of course, excep~ tions may be instanced ; but the mind of France and Ireland, and of England and Germany, confirm the generalization. We might say something upon — the resemblances of Irish and French wit. We have never seen the resemblance pointed out, but who does not immediately detect the resemblance ? — The Celtic people are the most purely witty race — in the world—they turn ideas inside out. Their f WIT AND HUMOUR. 39 - wit is not spiritual, but it is ethereal; it does not soar, it is too material for that—but for that very reason it is better understood. French and Irish wit—French and Irish poetry—French and Irish oratory much resemble each other—they all dis-— play the brilliancy of the rocket. The humblest bourgetose you meet in the Rue St. Honore is a wit. You cannot say the same for the humblest Irishman, yet the characteristic holds in the same degree. The gallantry of both people is very noticeable too. The ready wit of a true-born Irishman, however humble, is exceeded only by his gallantry. “A few days since, says an exchange paper, _ “ we observed a case in point. A sudden gust of wind took a parasol from the hand of its owner, and before one had a chance to recollect. whether it _ would be his etiquette to catch the parasol of a lady to whom he had never been introduced, a _ lively Emeralder dropped his hod of bricks, caught the parachute in the midst of its Ellsler gyrations, and presented it to the loser, with a low bow, which reminded us of poor Power. ‘Faith, ma- dam, said he as he did so, ‘if you were as strong as you are handsome, it wouldn't have got away from you.’ ‘Which shall I thank you for first, the service or the compliment ?’ asked the lady smilingly. ‘Troth, madam,’ said Pat, again touch- ing the place where once stood the brim of what ae eN = é 40 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. was a beaver, ‘that look of your beautiful eye thanked me for both.’ ’”’* . ~ ieee Excepting Cervantes (an Iberian) and Le Sage, r almost all the real humourists in the world were ' of the great German Family... And no literature boasts of such abounding illustrations of every kind of humour, from the simplest quaintness to the highest dramatic delineation, as the English. Vol- _ taire, writing and speaking in this respect, em- — bodied the characteristics of the Celtic Mind, when — he described Frenchmen as ‘hyenas in breeches.” He said a thing we would not have dared to quote had it not been uttered by a Frenchman. Almost every witticism is a sneer, when, for instance, he tells us that Penn’s treaty with the Indians was | the only one unratified by an oath, and the only — one that was ever kept.” His description of a battle-field Satan as personified in that poem. He railed at the invention as extravagant, and made it the © principal subject of his sarcasms. Young sat si- * Liverpool Mercury. ‘a hundred thousand mad animals, — with hats on, assembled to blow one another's ‘ brains out.” Voltaire, himself, was once discom- — fited by Dr. Young, with a smart hit of true Celtic — sharpness ;—-Voltaire ran down, in the presence of — the doctor, Milton’s talents. He particularly con-_ demned in the ‘ Paradise Lost,” Death, Sin, and — WIT AND HUMOUR. 41 lently listening, but, indignant at the irreverence and the levity of the Frenchman, he lifted his finger, and pointing it at him, said, ‘© Thou art so witty, wicked, and so thin, Thou art at once the Devil, Death, and Sin.” We have said that wit is aggressive, while humour is defensive. The quaint old Thomas ‘Fuller said that the “Negro was the image of God carved in ebony ;” to which Johnson added, that ‘‘the slave holder was the image of the Devil ? carved in ivory ;” the first of these sentences is an instance of humour, the second is an instance of wit. Something like Johnson’s sharp sentence are these from America, perhaps, as true, yet not so good. Parker Pillsbury, speaking upon one occasion of the so-called ‘cottonocracy” of Boston, said that they would “dam up the river of life, that they might build cotton-mills in the city of the New Jerusalem.” And the American definition of mustachios is like unto it. “The upper lip going in mourning for the loss of brains.” Both of these are instances of wit. Sheridan’s description of Mr. Addingon’s admi- nistration as the fag end of Mr. Pitt's, who had remained so long on the bench, that like Nicias in 42 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. the fable “he left the sitting part of the man be- hind him,” is an instance of wit. The reply of Porson who, to the remark, that certain modern poets would be read and admired, when Homer and Virgil were forgotten, made answer—and not till then ; might be cited as an instance of sarcasm, } but the humour overflows the bitterness. When Boswell wished to relinquish his lodgings, and no- inducement would avail with the landlord to con- sent to his departure, as they had been taken for a term of years; Johnson suggested that he should “say he wished to make some experiment in na-_ tural philosophy, and burn a large quantity of assafoetida in the house.” This is an instance of humour. No doubt, we feel better what humour is than we can describe it; though even in a mere etymological sense, the word is not incomplete or inexpressive? Does it not imply the incessant play of lively and natural feeling, which finds na-— tural resemblances everywhere; which continues” for the longest period of time unruffled, and undis- turbed ; which extends its sympathies to all being, and finds an answering lesson of instruction every-_ where and in everything ; is it not that homeliness” of heart, which never so much sighs for com- panionship because always in company; which is too great for contempt and for sneering, and too humble for ostentation or pride; which ctatt by _ intuition into the feelings of many minds, and by a ae WIT AND HUMOUR. 43 its own intensity understands theirs; is it not large liberality of soul which beareth all things, believeth all things, as far removed from the frown of bigotry, as from the callowness of indifference ? and therefore it may again be repeated, that there is no foe more terrible than good humour. What ean you do with a healthy hearted, healthy headed being, moving on his way in down-right earnest when you let him alone; but who, if you venture a moment to interfere with, you find, has not only the spirit of truth, but the fearful spirit of humour ‘too; who will in a moment impale you on a sharp and unexpected retort, hang up your argument quivering on the point of some joke, or even hold up your dear error, as a very scarecrow for even yourself to laugh at. Humour is Nature oozing out of a man—Independence from restraint—a sense of freedom; a sense of sympathy and fellow- ship. We can refer to a passage in Dr. Chalmers’ Posthumous Discourses, which conveys much that we would imply. | “There is,” says he, “a set of people whom I cannot bear—the pinks of fashionable propriety— whose every word is precise, and whose every movement is unexceptionable; but who, though versed in all the categories of polite behaviour, have not a particle of soul or of cordiality about them. We allow that their manners may be abundantly correct. There may be elegance in e? 44 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTE::. every gesture, and gracefulness in every position ; not a smile out of place, and not a step that would bear the measurement of the severest scrutiny. This is all very fine; but what I want is the heart. and gaiety of social intercourse—the frankness that spreads ease and animation around it—the eye that speaks affability to all, that chases timidity from every bosom, and tells every man in the company to be confident and happy. This is what I con- ceive to be the virtue of the text, and not the sickening formality of those who walk by rule, and would reduce the whole human life to a wire- bound system of misery and constraint.” | And this natural ease, this grace and elegance of manner translated into conversation, or dis- course, into the poem or the pulpit, when it may take place in a most happily instructive temper. This unreserved openness of soul; this beautiful entireness and simplicity of tongue, pen, or life, is humour. ; This is the spirit of old English literature.—_ fumour is interlaced in the style of all our old English writers, like threads of gold. By it, in a sentence they described—in a sentence they con- futed: quaint and axiomatic, they showed at once ~ the richness of their minds, the depths of their experience, and the condensed grandeur of their style. To go up to times beyond our essayists—are our readers acquainted with a book too seldom read 5 WIT AND HUMOUR. 45 or referred to—the Microcosmography of good old Bishop Earle? Although very small, “’tis full as an _ egg”—full of that downright thinking, and talking, which humour likes:—‘“* A she-hypocrite” is “ one that thinks she performs all her duties to God in hearing, and shows the fruits of it in talking.” — _ * An idle gallant’ is ‘* one that was born and shaped for his clothes; and if Adam had not fallen, had lived to no purpose.” And to the life is the por- trait of the Formalist sketched. ‘* The chief burden of whose brain is the carriage of his body, and the _ setting of his face in a good frame, which he per- forms the better, because he is not disjointed with _ other meditations. * ty He apprehends a jest by seeing men smile, and laughs orderly him- self when it comes to his turn.” The humourist convinces you how much he loves his own medita- tions. The wit must be ever caustic; he has but ‘few gentle paintings or emotions; but the hu- mourist overflows with these. How sweet’is that closing touch of Harle’s picture of the good old man :—‘** He goes away at last—too soon whenso- ‘ever, with all men’s sorrow but his own; and his “memory is fresh when it is twice as old.” And in the same spirit is the picture of a child:—“A man ina small letter, yet the best copy of Adam béfore he tasted of Eve or the apple. Nature and his parents alike dandle him, and ‘tice him on with 2» bait of sugar to a draught of wormwood. We | D 46 . PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. laugh at his foolish parts, but his game is our ear-. nest; and his drums, rattles, and hobby-horses, but the emblem and mocking of men’s business.— The elder he grows, he is a stair lower from God, and, like his first father, much worse in his breeches.”* Thus humour dilates over a subject. with alternate tears and smiles; its eye is not. wanting in a certain roguish twinkle—nay, it some- times winks at an absurdity, but laughs on. “DT understand you,” it says, as if it put the sentence in words ; but everywhere its geniality and health- fulness make the delightful instructor and com= panion. Those dear old English Writers, Preachers, Bed sayists, Historians—Jeremy Collier, Owen Felt= ham, South, Cowley, Fuller—thus they spoke.— How pleasant it would be to sit down and note all the racy passages of these ancient men! ‘True, to the spirit of humour, they did not aim so much, in their writings, to express the opinions of other men as their own; they did not, in every page, hunt like the spaniel for praise, and, therefore,, with a graceful bluntness, if the phrase is not too paradoxical, they uttered their saying and went their way. Fuller is one of the most quaint and graphic writers of the Old England of that day.— His sentences lie short and sharp over his passages. Yet there is no ill feeling, there “his doctrine ‘i a ; 5 * Bishop Earle’s Microcosmography, 1628, WIT AND HUMOUR. Ay always distils as the dew.” THe is full of anecdote, —garrulous, the old man will talk on, and as he sits and chats, he holds you with a smile, and now with some unexpected pleasantry—and now by some bolder witticism, honest cheerfulness charac- terizes all he has to say to us. There were, ques- tionless, dunces in England in that day; but it is certain that the literature of the time floats to us upon a perfect sea of humour. We have quoted a sentence from him already, and space forbids to cite many of the grains of his gold dust, It was he who first’ defined “ policy to consist in serving God in such a manner as not to offend the devil. It was he who said :— “Tet him who expects one class in society to prosper to the highest degree while others are in distress, try whether one side of his face can smile while the other is pinched.” A magician is Wit. Poetry is a magician, too ; but the one builds and creates—the other does not so much invent as reconstruct, in the true spirit of Flibbertigibbet; a mischievous fairy is wit. Poetry hangs domes of crystal in the air, and spars and arches of alabaster for diademed princes and coro- netted queens to walk over; plants gardens of Eastern magnificence, and makes the universe a temple andasong. Wit disarranges all this, and introduces you to a king in his night-cap, pking his treacle possett; sends you into the 48 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. chamber of a beau, whose killing graces had but this evening won tender looks from Chloes, and Delias, and Belindas innumerable, and shows you his teeth, his wig, his false hair, his false eye, his stays; everything that will not bear looking at en dishabille is fair game for Wit. Wit would take down a palace-dome to build a kennel for the buck- hounds—would take a cobbler from his stall, and set him on a throne; fine food for laughter there, ‘ ** A court of cobblers, and a mob of kings.” Many a time has Wit sent a fat alderman to pass through a turn-stile ; has compelled a hungry Jew to dine from pork, to the scandal of his con= science; has surprised sentimental ladies perpe- trating ruinous work beneath the walls of old abbeys ; has sent some raw right honourable youth of twenty-one or twenty-two to legislate for hig country ; has in a most jocose mood persuaded him to crucify himself for ever in a speech, to be quoted when he shall be fifty years of age. Wit stands by the shoulders of public functionaries, when they write letters to their inferiors in station—bids them subscribe themselves obedient, humble servants. | There never was such a mischief-making elf as Wit. With wonderful avidity it seizes upon the paradoxes of humanity ; into every avenue of life it darts its porcupine quills; it interprets what little or ridiculous by light derived from its opp WIT AND HUMOUR. 49 site idea; it deals with the nicest refinements of the ludicrous ; and also with what Sterling calls, in his strong, graphic way, ‘‘the trivial and the bombastic—the drivelling, squinting, sprawling clowneries of Nature, with her worn-out stage properties, and Rag-fair emblazonments.” Inter- preting wit thus, in its simplest meaning, as the perception of the ludicrous—the detection of con- tradictions, we find how vast is the field, and how numerous are the objects of its observation! In a word, it tolerates no sham, no disarray, no un- ‘couth proportions ; wherever these are, there is ‘cause for dread. Wit lives ever close in such neighbourhoods. Wherever there is a nervous terror, a dread, a fidgetiness, an anxiety to please ‘and conciliate everybody, every institution, every- ‘thing, there is precisely that against which Wit “lifts its terrible finger, and bursts forth in its loud : merriment. _ Humour is the Great Teacher : When a man sits in cheerfully to impart himself to the mind of ‘his readers; when he determines to invest the "didactic in a silvery haze of pleasantry, how his _lessons glide into the spirit! Those rough angles, ‘so harsh in the discourse of some, even of the “wisest men, are explained away ; there is a pater- nal kindness about the instruction. However old ‘the lesson may be, it seems to come to us fresh “and new ; for cheerfulness is ever vernal—its face anttpe giils 50 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. ‘ is ever renewed with smiles—it sheds an influence — over the spirit, like a chaste May-day morning. | A sly allusion peeps out from a description of the — oldest and most antique thing. We feel that the — writer was looking at us while he said that; that : he had an eye upon modern things, and intended, ~ from the oldest text, to preach to us a new sermon, — We have lying before us a description of the first A wedding, and we think we discern in it Nicholas — Hawthorn’s method of discourse, that sweet Ame- i rican humourist, whose words so readily move us to mirth or to tears. In America are more fre- quently delivered discourses upon the propriety of — early marriages. Such lessons are for infant states. A Alas ! in ancient civilizations, like ours, we should . rather call the humourist to teach us to put a rein — upon the impulses of Nature, and make us the disciples of a Malthusian Utilitarianism. a “We like short courtships, and-in his, Adam ; acted sensibly—he fell asleep a bachelor, and awoke to find himself a married man. He appears to have popped the question almost immediately after : meeting Mademoiselle Eve, and she, without any j flirtation or shyness, gave him a kiss and herself. Of that first kiss in this world we have had, how- j ever, our own thoughts; and sometimes, in a poe-_ tical mood, have wished we were the man ‘ wot, did it.’ But the deed is done—the chance way _Adam’s and he improved it. WIT AND HUMOUR. 51 “ We like the notion of getting married in a gar- den. It is in good taste. We like a private wed-) ding. Adam’s was private. No envious beaux were there ; no croaking old maids; no chattering aunts, or grumbling grandmothers. The birds of heaven were the minstrels; and the glad sky flung its light upon the scene. “* One thing about the first wedding brings queer ideas to us, in spite of its Scriptural truth. Adam. and his wife were rather young to be married (some two or three days old, according to the sagest speculations of theologians,) mere babies— larger but not older—without experience, without. a house, without a pot or kettle, with nothing, but love and Eden.” . We have already said a thousand times, and we shall say a thousand times again, let no man imagine he has a mission to teach his fellows from the plat- form, or even from the pulpit, unless he have that -sunshiny qualification of the soul, called humour. Ibis as indispensable to give effect to the gravest, as well as to the gayest paintings. The possession of it will be the measure of the power to enter the minds of other men; to please the humblest, to charm and overawe the highest. It is when this quality is not possessed that preachers merit the Satiric stroke of Sidney Smith, who, speaking of ‘the prosy nature of certain sermons, said, a‘ They are written as if sin was then taken out 52 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. of man like Eve out of Adam, by putting him to _ sleep.” } It is this genius of gay and instructive humour , in which Eliza Cook sings, in which most of her © melodies are inspired, and which leads her to say ** Out upon the calf, I say, Who turns his grumbling head away, And quarrels with his feed of hay Because it is not clover. Give to me the happy mind That will ever seek and find, Something good and something kind, All the wide world over. Give me the heart that spreads its wings, Like the free bird that soars and sings, And sees the bright side of every thing, From Bherings straits to Dover. It is a bank that never breaks, It is a store thief never takes, it is a rock that never shakes, All the wide world over. We may be poor, but then, I guess, Our trouble with our pomp is less; “And they who wear a russet dress, May never fear the tumbling. And though champaigne froth never hums Between our fingers and our thumbs, Red apoplexy seldom comes To dine with plain stone dumpling. Then, out upon the calf, I say, Who turns his grumbling head away, NF 0 : And quarrels with his feed of heart | ' pa We - Because itis not ‘clover, Re OE CRG Give to me the happy bite art Ae ce _ That will for ever seek and find, _ Something good and something kind, - All the wide world over.” re CHAPTER IV. THE DIVINITY OF RIDICULE. TaeRE has been a very interesting and ancient discussion, ‘* Whether Ridicule is the friend or foe of — Lruth?2” {n harmony with our previous observa- tions, our readers will not be surprised at the affir- mation, that, as the sense of the ridiculous results from the perception of the inharmonious and dis-__ proportionate ; so truth, which is but another name for moral harmonies and properties, can never be injured by ridicule. Truth may be hated, but can neyer be ridiculed. In order that the sarcasm and the sneer, the banter or the burlesque, may have any effect, Truth must be invested in robes which are not hers: to laugh at Religion she must be represented as Superstition, or Fanaticism ; to © laugh at Liberty she must be represented as Anar- chy, and Confusion. Truth is so essentially lovely, that we can no more laugh at ber than we can laugh : ! u 4 5 at a beautiful flower, or ridicule a beautiful woman, ' DIVINITY OF RIDICULE. as, or sneer at the loveliness of a bright May.-morning. Truth, withal, has so much of holy sternness com- bined with sweetness, that when she is represented to the eye in her own character, she awes the lookers on, and compels admiration from even un- congenial hearts. Lord Shaftesbury, in his essay ‘‘ On the Freedom of Wit and Humour,” comments in a most inte- resting manner on the saying of an ancient sage : “That humour was the only test of gravity, and gravity of humour; for a subject which would not bear raillery was suspicious; and a fact which would not bear a serious examination was certainly false wit.” There was one famous occasion in the History of Ancient Athens, when truth and ridicule came into contact with each other, and truth achieved a signal victory. The representatives in the dis~ pute were Aristophanes, the Comedian, and So- crates, the moralist. Our readers have not now to be acquainted that Socrates sought, by his teaching, to lift the Athenians from their superstitions: by the wonderful rapidity and justness of his reason-- ings, he confounded the sophists, and priests, and orators of his day; but while he was away from his city, with extraordinary bravery fighting the battles of his country, at Delium, where he saved the life of the great historian, Xenophon, and per- formed such prodigies of valour aud heroism, that 56 PHILOSOPHY OF aR tule eeuuNie va even the scurrilous Lucian places iia above the — greatest heroes of antiquity. While thus absent : from his city, a party had been formed against him, and Aristophanes hired, as seems likely, by this — party, to produce upon the stage a comedy, ridi- | culing Socrates. This comedy was, ** The Clouds :” in it Socrates was represented hanging up im @ basket in the air, uttering numberless chimerical _ absurdities, and blaspheming, as it was then re- puted, his country’s gods. Soerates never fre- | quented the theatre, except when the tragedies of 4 Euripides were performed; in the composition of q which it is reported he had no inconsiderable share. But hearing much of the piece—‘ The Clouds’— ~ he determined to see it when produced, the first — time. He went to the theatre; he sat unmoved — during the gross abuse offered to his character ; he did not show the least resentment or anger: but some strangers knowing that the original of the © scenic picture was present, and, desiring to see © him, he, with great good nature, stood up in the © middle of the performance, and continued standing © the rest of the time: that rising was fatal to the © piece—the spectacle of that well-known face, so a serene beneath the confidence of innocence and | personal merit, was the best contradiction to the malicious portrait of the venal poet. The edge of | the ridicule being misapplied, turned from the ~ moralist to the comedian ; and when “ The Clouds” DIVINITY OF RIDICULE, Re was a second time produced upon the stage, it was rejected with contempt. Had “ The Clouds” been successful in its exhibition, the enemies of the mo- ralist would have immediately brought him to trial: but four-and-twenty years elapsed between the performance of the comedy and his condemnation.* It is very remarkable, therefore, that Bishop War- burton, in his “ Divine Legation of Moses,” should cite this as an instance of the pernicious effects of ridicule. Here are his words :— “ We have upon record the most illustrious ex- ample of this contention that ever was—viz., be- tween Truth and Ridicule. The dispute I mean was between Socrates and Aristophanes. Here truth had all the advantage of place, of weapons, and of judges: the first employed his whole life in the cause of virtue; the other only a few comic scenes against it. But, Heavens! against what virtue? Against the purest and lightest portion of it that ever enlightened the Gentile world. For all this the comic poet triumphed, and with the coarsest kind of buffoonery,—little fitted, . one would think, to take so polite a people—had the art to tarnish all this virtue; and, what was more, to make the owner resemble his direct opposite — that character he most hated—that very character he had employed all his wit to detect, lay open, and confound ; in one word,—the sophist.” * See Cooper’s Life of Socrates, 1729. 58 - PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. The consequence was, as we have stated above, that the jester received a castigation for his pains. Many persons, however, still connect the perform- ance of “The Clouds” with the condemnation of Socrates. But that event brought forth more prominently into triumph those virtues, and that intelligence which it was the object of Aristophanes to destroy. The whole of the remarks of War- burton only prove that truth may be su disguised, - as to be injured by ridicule; but this, so far from proving that truth shrinks from the keen flashes of humour and wit, does but confirm its irresistible — dignity and superiority ;—and hence, we see the justice of the propositions of Lord Shaftesbury, that nothing is ridicalous except what is deformed. Nor is any thing proof against raillery, except what is handsome and just. The most natural beauty in the world is honesty and moral truth,— — for all beauty is truta. True features make the - beauty of the face, and true propositions the beauty of architecture—as true measures that of harmony and music. How, therefore, can one possibly make a jest of honesty? One may defy | the world to turn real bravery or generosity into 7 ridicule. A glutton, or mere sensualist, is as ridiculous as the other two characters. Nor can ~ an unaitected temperance be made the subject of contempt to any besides the grossest and the most contemptible of mankind. Now, these three in- ee ee ee ee ee ete, Ce ee DIVINITY OF RIDICULE. 59 gredients make up a virtuous character—the op- posite then must be a vicious one. To laugh both ways is nonsensical ; and if the ridicule lie against sottishness, avarice, and cowardice, you see the consequence. A man must be soundly ridiculous who, with all the wit imaginable, would go about to ridicule wisdom, or laugh at honesty or good manners,* And this, then, is the great lesson taught us by reading the ludicrous side of life; that men’s better perceptions teach them, that honesty, truth, and virtue, are best in the long run; that kuavery does not pay—that it does not pay twenty shillings in the pound, even to the poor knave himself. The humourist laughs—yet in no spirit of bitterness— when he beholds inflated bankruptcy dashing by in coach-and-four, and fancyivg that dishonoured bills and sleek seal skin lies, always escape de- tection and reckoning. Ben Jonson has a play called, ‘‘ The Devil is an Ass.” We will not too nicely criticise the intel- Jlectual character of that personage, but in the re- view of Life, the thing that strikes the humourist is, that all falseness is folly, that dishonestness outwits itself. ‘A knave,” said Coleridge, “is a round-about fool; a fool in circumbendibus.” The laughter of the humourist is heard over all the surges, and heavings of unreality and pretence; * Shaftesbury’s Characteristics, Vol. 1. 128. 60 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. of vanity, selfishness, hypocrisy, and scandal; of vapid respectability, fashionable false hood; of impudence, cant, and stupiditarianism. There is an admirable passage in an old number of the *¢ Dial,” that famous organ of American Transcen- dentalism, in which this esthetic view, this phi- — losophy of the comic is most admirably put. It is from the pen of Ralph Waldo Emerson. “‘ The pedantry of literature belongs to the sam® ~ category. In both cases there is a lie, when the — mind, seizing a classification to help it to a sincere knowledge of the fact, stops in the classification ; or learning languages, and reading books, to the end of a better acquaintance with man, stops in the languages of books; in both the learner seems to — be wise and 7s not. The same falsehood, the same confusion of — the sympathies, because a pretension is not made ~ good, points the perpetual satire against poverty, — since, according to Latin poetry and English — doggerel, s*¢ Poverty does nothing worse Than to make man ridiculous.’ ‘‘Tn this instance the halfness lies in the preten- — tion of the parties to some consideration on account — of their condition. If the man is not ashamed of : his poverty, there is no joke. The poorest man, 5 who stands on his manhood, destroys the jest. — DIVINITY OF RIDICULE. 61 The poverty of the saint, of the rapt philosopher, of the naked Indian, is not comic. The lie is in the surrender of the man to his appearance; as if a man should neglect himself, and treat his shadow on the wall with marks of infinite respect. It affects us oddly, as to see things turned upside down, or to see a man in a high wind run after his hat, which is always droll. The relation of the parties is inverted,—hat being for the moment master. The multiplication of artificial wants and expenses in civilised life, and the exaggeration of all trifling forms, present innumerable occasions for this discrepancy to expose itself. Such is the story told of the painter, Astley, who, going out of Rome one day, with a party, for a ramble in the Campagna, and the weather proving hot, re~ fused to take off his coat when his companions threw off theirs, but sweltered on; which, exciting remark, his comrades playfully forced off his coat, and behold, on the back of his vest a gay cascade was thundering down the rocks with foam and rainbow, very refreshing in so sultry a day ;—a picture of his own, with which the poor painter had been fain to repair the shortcomings of his wardrobe. The same astonishment of the intel- lect at the disappearance of the man out of nature, through some superstition of his house or equipage, as if truth and virtue should be bowed out of cre- ation by the clothes they wore, is the secret of all 62 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. the fun that circulates concerning eminent fops and fashionists.” There is a point of vision, from whence we may look on many of the characters of every-day life, — and smile while we look. ‘Thus we may unravel the meaning of that dear book of kindly and most genial humour, ‘‘ Knickerbocker’s History of New © York.” Never were the follies of mankind more © gently laughed at; every page presents to us a ‘ picture, or pictures of moral incongruities. We — ourselves, have known Wouter Van Twiller; Wou- — ter the Doubter, is a common character. We all — know the golden days of Wouter, when a sweet : and holy calm rested over the whole province, Blessed memory of the Dutchman, when there was nothing to do, and plenty of time to do it in; >! when the days were dozed away in the blissful . regions of smoke ! What reader's heart has not beat with admira- — tion while meditating on those slow days of the — olden time? Who does not cast back an involun- : tary glance to the times of the Twiller? and who _ has not pictured him, too; the venerable man F whose eyes, perched up in the top part of his body like pigeon holes, seemed ever in their glassy — greyness to be courting sleep ; whose body moved to and fro—large, shambling, and shuffling, like ; the Lord Mayor's coach on the ninth of November; ~ DIVINITY OF RIDICULE. 63 who did not so much live as debate the point with himself whether he were alive or no, dying before he came to the solving of so profound a problem ? Who, in reading, does not figure him fat and greasy ; most of all like a bladder of lard with a pipe in it? Significantly, enough, we are told, that in the days of Wouter the Doubter, grass grew before the doors, and sheep, and calves grazed inthe broad way. Blessed family of the Doubters ! _ the men to whom Heaven's sweetest atmosphere was a gale of smoke ; who were born amidst the becorning silence of the long pipes, and who closed their eyes amidst the whiffing of tobacco. This character once suited “a country parson much _ bemused by beer.”* It must now be limited to the town or village beadle. Rip Van Winkle is just such another sketch, from the same sly and quiet pen. Every body knows the story of Van Winkle and his strange ramble to the Kaatskill mountains, and his twenty years sleep, and how he came back to his own 4 village again, and how he expected, after that long unconscious slumber, to find everything unchanged ; and how all was changed,—the village sign of George III., to George Washineton ;—wife, daugh- ters, friends, all‘gone. While Rip slept, the World and Time, and Change had all been upon the move. We read the moral meaning in this plainly * Pope. 64 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. enough. Everybody loves Washington Irving. His merriment does not glare and glitter ; it plays harmlessly round the foibles, rather than the sins and crimes of humanity; and the lighter follies and small infirmities of mankind furnish some of the choicest hints for the lovers of the ludicrous. In this connection we note the absurdities of great — minds, and the egotism and foppishness of little — ones. It is the perception of the ludicrous which — presents to us the weaknesses of others; and let ~ us hope that same perception of consistency is a safeguard to ourselves! in the absence of this per- — ception we walk on stilts; we parade our virtues; ~ we worship appearances ; we studiously misrepre- — sent ourselves ; we visit sublime scenery, preparing — our emotions beforehand, and laying in a stock of wonder and awe. All cant is but appearance of — this self-exaggerating foible. Instances of these ridiculous traits of humanity © crowd upon us. ‘Dr. Parr,” saida young stu- ~ dent once to the old lingnist,—“let you and I — write a book!” “Very well;” said the doctor,— ~ *¢ put in all that I do know, and all that you don’t # know, and we'll make a big one!” The doctor, ~ we know, was a smart satirist ; but, as is often 4 the case, he saw the foibles of others better than F his own. He once said, in a miscellaneous com- © pany, England has produced three great classical 3 scholars :—the first was Bentley ; the second was 4 DIVINITY OF RIDICULE. _ 65 Porson; and the third, Modesty forbids me to mention.” One of the most pleasant pictures in the world is to see an egotist take down an egotist, as in the case of the strutting captain of a militia company in America, who, once in a fit of tempo- rary condescension, invited a ragged negro to drink negus with him. “Oh, certainly,” said the negro, “Ym not proud. I'd just as leives drink with a militia captain as anybody else.” Johnson possessed a wonderful power of smash-. ‘ing “the thin egg-shells of conceit” which partly concealed the mental impotence of some of his au- ditors. A gentleman once maintained in his com- pany the future life of brutes. Johnson wished to discountenance the conversation, but the metaphy- sician, with lack-a~daisical pensiveness continued ; “But, really, sir, when we see a very sensible dog, we don’t know what to think of him.’— Johnson, with his usual chuckling, when any one lay open, by extreme folly and pertinacity, to severe reprehension, replied, “ True, sir, and when _we see a very foolish fellow, we don’t know what to think of him!” On another occasion, when one of his auditors shook his head gravely, and said he could not see the force of the doctor’s remarks, he was instantly crushed by the gruff retort :—“ It is my business, sir, to give you arguments; not to give you brains!” The masters of ridicule have an audacity and daring by which they instantly 66 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. overpower, and frequently, without condescending to glance at argument, the attempts of feeble ad~ versaries. When Lord Chatham, as a member of — the House of Commons, had concluded a speech, determining the prosecution of the great English ~ War, one of the members rose to put what pro- bably was a very serious and unanswerable ques- — tion,—“* Where can we find means to carry on such a war?” he turned round a moment by the lobby of the house, and chaunted, gaily, by way of a re- ply,—“ Gentle shepherd, tell me where?” Very different was the answer by Burke, who ~ had all Chatham’s self-possession, but none of Chatham’s tact. He made, on one occasion, an — attack on the ministry, when George Onslow, who — probably thought that he had some chance of dis- tinction by grappling with Burke, in the House, i when he was listened to very impatiently. Onslow was very desirous of sharing, if not his wisdom, at © least his zeal, started up and said, haughtily, that 3 he must call the honourable member to a sense of — his duty, and that no man should be suffered in — his presence to insult the sovereign. Burke lis- — tened, and when Onslow had disburdened himself ) 4 of his loyalty, gravely addressed the Speaker.— — _ “Sir, the honourable member has exhibited much — ardour but little discrimination. He should know — that, however I may reverence the king, 1 am not — at all bound, nor at all inclined to extend that Ee ng DIVINITY OF RIDICULE. 67 reverence to his ministers. I may honour his majesty, but, sir, I. can see no possible reason for honouring’—and he glanced round the treasury bench—“ his majesty’s man-servant, and maid- servant, his ox, and his ass /” In all these instances, the ludicrous puts on a most amiable visage. We laugh rather at the drollery, than either the humour or the wit: these are merry things that are said. We come in and enjoy our laugh with the rest. _ Wonderful is the detective power of ridicule and mirth. Penetrating through the finest pretences, all the most brilliant but shallow patriotisms, exag- gerated opinions, and well drest shams in top boots, are transparent to its eye; the defects of character are instantly weighed and understood ; the defects of an argument, or a book, the defects of faith or of formalism: the orator strides across the rostrum and clothes himself with a kind of sanctity to the eye of wonder, but mirth detects the flimsiness, and, perhaps, without a sneer or a scorn, proclaims the rapturous harangue to be bom- bast and bathos. We can never have entire faith in selfishness ; and although there is nothing good, or true, or noble, or holy, but it is perverted to the ends and aims of selfishness, yet humour pene- trates the disguise, and detects the impostor beneath the borrowed name. To the eye of humour he stands unmasked; he is wanting in the wholeness 68 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. of the true soul, and it is that very wholeness which so charms the human eye and heart, and the absence of which the instincts of men every where are so quick to perceive. Whipple, whose smart “and eloquent papers are but little known in Eng- land, well says, ‘“‘ Eyerybody knows that fanati- cism is religion caricatured, bears, indeed, about the same relation to it that a monkey bears to a man; yet with many, contempt of fanaticism is” received as a sure sign of hostility to religion. Thus things go moaning up and down for their lost words, and words are perpetually engaged in dodging things, and it becomes exceedingly dan- gerous for a prudent man to discriminate between a truth and its distortion, between prudence and avarice, acuteness and cunning, sentiment and sen- timentality, sanctity and sanctimoniousness, justice and ‘ Revised Statutes,’ the dignity of human na- ture and the Hon. Mr. ——-—; yet it is just in this discrimination that the ludicrous side of life is. revealed.” The wit of sense and observation delights to seize on the quaint image, and the far-fetched alle- gorical conceit, to illustrate these human infirmi- ties and sins. Very much that is indeed most witty or humoursome, is only the setting down of some accurate observation of life. Is it notso with the celebrated lines of Pope ? 1 BS x | DIVINITY OF RIDICULE. 69 **?Tis with our judgments as our watches, none Go just alike, yet each believes his own,” So Butler, ** Th’ extremes of glory and of shame, Like east and west become the same; No Indian prince has to his palace, More followers than a thief to the gallows,” And again, the same writer, ‘* The truest characters of ignorance “¢ ; Are vanity, and pride, and arrogance ; As blind men use to bear their noses higher, Than those that have their eyes and sight entire.” So Thomas Hood, in his Ode to Rae Wilson, “© You have been to Palestine,—alas ! : Some minds improve by travel, others rather Resemble copper wire, or brass, Which gets the narrower by going further,” The writings of Douglas Jerrold abound in this method of conveying truths in proverbs, and the proverbs i in parables. Thus in the ‘ Man made of “Money,” “ Robert, my dear,” said Jenny, with the deferential air of a scholar; ‘ Robert, what did Sir Carraways mean when he said he hated dog— dogmatism?” Topps was puzzled. “ Robert, my dear,” Jenny urged, ‘“‘ what—what, in the world js dogmatism?” Now it was the weakness of 70° PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. Topps never to confess ignorance of any thing-so-- ever to his wife. A man should never do it. Topps had been known, in convivial seasons, to declare, “it makes ’em conceited ;’ whereupon Topps prepared himself as was his wont to make solemn satisfying answer. Taking off his hat, and smoothing the wrinkles of his brow, Topps said-— “Humph! what is dogmatism? why, it is this, of course—dogmatism is happyism come to its full growth. Something like this is that other merry saying, inthe same book, not inaptly describing much of the pseudo-benevolence of the world. “’Pon my word, you are so good, you would pour rose water over atoad.” “It is in this sense,” say Hazlitt, dilating upon the power of wit, “thus to give forth aphorisms and rules for the conduct of life, and to tell home-truths in a most unexpected man-_ ner. In this sense /Zsop was the greatest wit and moralist that ever lived. Ape and slave, he looked askance at human nature, and beheld its weaknesses and errors transferred to another spe- | cies. Vice and virtue were to him as plain as any objects of sense. He saw in Man a talking, ab-_ surd, obstinate, proud, angry animal; and clothed. these abstractions with wings, or a beak, or a tail, or long ears, or claws, as they appeared embodied in the brute creation. His moral philosophy is. natural history. He makes an ass bray wisdom . DIVINITY OF RIDICULE. 71 and a frog croak humanity. The store of moral truth, and the fund of invention in exhibiting it, in its eternal forms palpable and intelligible, and delightful to children and grown persons, and to all ages and nations, are almost miraculous. The invention of a fable is to me the most enviable exertion of human genius: it is the discovering a truth to which there is no clue, and which, when once found out, can never be forgotten. “I would rather have been the author of Aisop’s Fables than Euclid’s Elements.” The discussion of this matter leads right on to an analysis of the method by which to rectify the evils of society ;—and the further the matter is — urged, the more do we see that the power of doing this is greatly in the hands of the humourist. The disposition to gag the lips of Wit and Humour, it may be suspected, hides the design, to hold back the light from revealing too freely abuses it is thought desirable to hide. A mistress rebuked her servant girl for not dusting the furniture. “‘ These things are very dusty—look, look!” “If you please, ma'am,” said the girl, “it’s not the things that’s dirty, but it’s that nasty sun that comes in and shows the dust on things.” Humour is, as we have said, a wonderful re- _yealer ; it shows the disposition of things. That curious old paradox of the philosophy of society, Mandeville’s “ Fable of the Bees,” will be known + (2 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. in some measure to most of our readers. This, and Burke’s “‘ Vindication of Natural Society” may be classed together as satiric pictures; nor is the first, unpopular as it has ever been, more severe than many of the essays of other cynics. Neither is it wholly without truth or instruction; but the refutation of it is carried by every person in the intellect and the affections. It is, perhaps, the best satire and the worst philosophy ever written. Mandeville, in this celebrated book, ascribes the greatness of England to two causes—to the Re- formation, and to the invention of hooped and quilted petticoats. A certain amount of ignorance is necessary to the order and _ stability of society. Everybody is a knave; every woman is a rake; and the reason why these pleasant doctrines are not believed, is because everybody loves to hear the things well spoken of that he has a hand in— even. bailiffs, jail-keepers, and hangmen. If this pleasant book be true, there is no such thing as virtue, no such thing as honesty. Cleanliness is a matter of constitution—no more ; crime is a matter of taste—no less. “Should one who had the countenance of a gentleman ask me,” said Shaftes- bury, “why I would avoid being nasty when no- body was present ?—in the first place I should be _ fully satisfied that he was himself a very nasty gentleman who could ask the question.” Thus the - central question of old Mandeville’s book is—why DIVINITY OF RIDICULE. 73 should a man be honest in the dark? Ii is cha- racterised by a bluntness in the moral sense, which is best displayed by simply reading the book itself. Vice is beneficial to society ; the frugality of virtue is Injurious; men are preserved honest, not be- cause there is any sense of justice in the world, or in the mind of man, but because, somehow, or other, jails and gallowses stand most unpleasantly in the front of the dishonest or unjust actions ; thus, there is no virtue. Virtue, whether for re- ward in this life, or the next, is but another name for vicious interest. Yet, Mandeville’s book has passed into more actions than libraries ; and where- ever society is infected by a virtue so diseased as this, there is a fair field for the humourist or the satirist to display his power. We discover now, then, not only that Humour the Teacher, but Wit the Scourger, have their value ; not merely in the market, at the bookseller’s shop, but in the world; they fulfil an office and a mis- sion for the moral health of man. Wit, perhaps, may be reprobated as a perpetual disposition, not as an occasional manifestation. There are pachy- dermatious animals in the moral world, there are thick-skinned sins, that can only be pierced by the sharp shafts of wit and satire. «© IT own I’m proud, I must be proud, tosee Men not afraid of God, afraid of me,” B 2 “4 a 74 . PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER, Was the daring boast of Pope, in what may be called the Age of Satirists, in Eneland ; it was an age of corruption, peculation, and fraud; and in- famy abounded everywhere; every man appeared to have his price, every thing was bought and sold ; the coronet of the earl, the star of knighthood, the ermine of the judge, and the lawn of the prelate, they were the badges of apostacy, the regimentals of libertinism. Gentlemen, drest out in the span- gles of infamy, walked about, and thought them- selves very pretty fellows, after selling their sister, their wife, or themselves: dissimulation and effron- tery went forth, bold and unblushing ; here were targets for the scorn of the satirist. And we find, during this period, that all the greatest names of our literature distinguished themselves in this arena, Dryden, Pope, Swift, Young, Gay, and Arbuthnot, all these writers flourished between the period of the restoration of Charles II., and the accession of George II. The social life of England during those years is very mournful to contemplate ; the satirist did contemplate it, and the history of the period in its domestic aspects is written in the poetry of Pope, and the fancies of Swift. For the love of our mothers, and our wives, we grieve that any great poet writing, from his experience, a moral essay, should say, ** Nothing so true as what you once let fall, Most women have no characters at all.” i a sia DIVINITY OF RIDICULE. 75 That most charming poem “The Rape of the Lock” abounds in satires, is itself a great satire (as well as the most exquisite effort of ludicrous poetry, ) upon the age ; we may easily quote, almost at random, a few of the witty antithetical couplets, revealing the state of indifferentism to all principles, which that age especially developed in the neigh- bourhood of its courts :— s* Not louder shrieks to pitying heaven are cast, When husbands,—or when lap-dogs breathe their last.” * * * * So ** To fifty chosen sylphs of special note, We trust the important charge—the petticoat. 2 * * x x 5 Sooner let air, earth, sea, to chaos fall; Men, monkeys, lap-dogs, parrots, perish all.” The philosophy of Mandeville is very appro- priate to the age in which he lived. The Poetry " of Pope is a very clear exposition of the age; well ' did he describe its objects as to a Te ta ‘* Dash the proud gamester from his gilded ear, Bare the base heart, that lurks beneath a star;” : and, notwithstanding the bitter scorn, the fiery- winged satire, with which his pages abound, it is 76 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. impossible not to see the independence, honesty, and good sense, at once of his character and his writings. He was far beyond his age. He sati- rized dukes—he eulogised the Man of Ross ;—in a time of universal sycophancy he moved through a circle of courtly parasites, far more upright than, perhaps, any one of them. He provoked the ire of the writing craft, too, upon the publication of the “ Dunciad.” He was usually accompanied © through the streets by a huge Irishman, armed ~ with a club, so that if any Grub-Street author, or — scoundrel peer sought to avenge themselves on him, for having been “ gibbeted in his rhymes, the — Trishman had full commission to conduct the con- troversy according to the most approved logic of the shelalah.” Pope, no doubt, by his poems, did much to clarify the atmosphere of his age. Indeed the worst features died out before he fairly came into the ascendant. Looking back upon those times, they appear to us one great absurdity. No ; other period of our country’s history is so inglo- © rious. Public life was without honour, and pri- — vate without trust. Man lived without friendship, | without soul. It is the utter absence of every- | thing conducing to the welfare of society, of | everything that appears to us beautiful and wor- thy of estimation that lends to the literature of the times so absurd an interest; thus in the “ Country Wife of Wycherley,” a comrade is ad-— DIVINITY OF RIDICULE. LE dressed, “I can deny thee nothing: for though I have known thee a great while, never go,—if I do not love thee as well:as a new acquaintance.” Everything about that age was absurd ; its speech, its dress, its manners, its morals, and its amuse- ments. Even its wit was so incessant that it became absurd too; there was an everlasting imitation of French manners and conversation. Every word was expected to sparkle; the lips were not to open: except to utter an antithesis, or a double entendre. In the writings of the time, those dramatists, espe- cially to whom we have made reference, this is ridiculously observable. Leigh Hunt, in his edi- tion of Congreve, Vanburgh, and Wycherly, notices it, and says :— “ Above all, we find the wit becomes tiresome. We love it heartily in its proper place, in Butler, Swift, and Addison, where it is serving some pur- pose greater than itself; and we love it still more when it issues out of sheer animal spirits, and is happy as a child. But wit, for wit’s sake becomes a task and a trial: and in Congreve's days it was cant, like the talk about ‘sense,’ and ‘reason ;’ as if all sense, and reason, and wit had been com- prised in the substitution of the greater faculties of Man for the less, and the critical for the uncon- scious. Everybody was to be ‘witty ;’ letters were to be full of ‘ wit,’ and end in some ‘ witty 78 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. turn ;’ coffee-houses were to talk nothing but wit. Ladies were to have ‘ wit and sweetness,’ and men ‘wit and fire; not the old mother-wit of Shak- speare and his fellows, which was a gift from the whole loving frame of Nature, but a trick of the fancy and of words, which you might acquire from the brother-wit of the tavern, and which dealt chiefly in simile, with a variation of antitheses.— Everything seemed to be of value, only in as much © as it could be likened or opposed to something else ; | till at length a simile and a metaphor came to be ! taken for a ‘reason, and ‘sense’ itself was occu- pied, not in seeing into anything very deeply for — its own sake, but in discovering how far it was er panes of being split off into a couple of images.’ There was plenty of work for satirists, especially © r for an honest one like Pope. Stung to indignation — by finding in every circle the “ morals of a brothel and the manners of a dancing-master,” the sparks _ of his pen fell swift and fast, straight upon the - fools and the follies by which he was surrounded ; ~ and pity, indeed, it is, that useful as he was to his | age, he was not reserved for one less artificial. | Had he been surrounded less by the charlatans _ and fops; by the magnificence and meanness, and the prating poverty of empty pride; had reality met him in his dealings with life, how much more ~ worthy might have been his works than they are ! DIVINITY OF RIDICULE. EaMy how much less artificial in their structure! how much more noble and universal in their aim! and, therefore, how much more abiding in their influence ! 80 CHAPTER V. THE LOGIC OF WIT. Tue influence of satire upon the moulding ors changing of manners, leads us to say something of the Logic of Wit, one of its chief intentions. It / is the most flaying logic ever wielded, and dashes © down immense piles of scholastic reasoning and ; rhetoric with a single blow—sometimes with a_ gentleness scarcely amounting to.a blow. The wit plays and trifles with the time-worn error, dandles and pats it even as a cat might a mouse. In this way wit has done good service to the world: this is a mode of reasoning usually adopted in propor-_ | tion to the enslavement of a great and spirited. people. In England we know nothing of the fierceness of the Italian pasquinade, or the ebulli- | tion of political fervour and vehemence in French ‘songs and theatrical performances ; where expres-_ sion may be safely and freely indulged, it does not’ seek vent in inuendoes and caricatures—it does not LOGIC OF WIT. OSE make subterfuges of words, and with a tremulous hand sketch pictures to the eye. Perhaps if it were not for social or political esclavage, a satirist would seldom find occasion or opportunity to speak ; his destructiveness would flow forth in altogether another channel—in declamation and denunciation ; for the satiric temper is usually not unmixed with fear or hesitancy. Satirists are seldom disposed to be martyrs; spleen and disappointment enter in no inconsiderable degree into the hidden motives, dis- guised although they may be, frequently from themselves. From time immemorial, the method of repre- senting Satan, the terrible Spirit of Evil, was by a sort of grotesque painting. In old times the pulpit gave some representations; and, worse still, the nursery abounded with tales of the frightful gestative powers and tendencies of this fearful being. 2 Tt is said of Cuvier, that one day, walking where Aineas is said to have walked, a certain repulsive personage met him, and demanded of him worship. “‘ No, I will not worship you,” said Cuvier. “Yes, you must,” said the horrible. “* No, I will not,” replied the other. “Then,” said the demon, “if you will not, I will eat you.” Cuvier eyed him deliberately ; and instead of Jefying him, as no doubt he might have done, pre- B 82 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. ferred falling back upon the natural-history lessons of his mundane life, and said, ‘Horns and cloven feet—graminivorous. You eat me—Nonsense.” The logic of irony has no slight influence in changing the absurdities and conventionalisms of society: take, for instance, the cant of criticism.— Sterne’s blow at it would be scarcely felt by some — of the thick-skinned offenders in this walk, in our — time; the would-be critics who hang up their atrocious and monstrous daubs in their drawing- _ rooms, and talk learnedly to you of chiaro obscura, boldness of outline, breadth of expression, warmtl ; of colouring, delicacy of the tint, fineness of the — flesh, &c.,—and call upon you to admire a piece of , horrid deformity, because it tapped their pocket a the tune of several hundreds of pounds. These_ rhapsodical creatures, who never were touched by. the feeling of the beautiful, would discourse and rant for hours upon the chasteness of colouring, and the beauties of light and shade, and fore- ground and perspective upon a board-fence. Now. N. P. Willis brings the logic of irony into fine mock gravity upon these gentlemen. Thus he criticises pictures in his exhibition. ; ‘No. lL. Boy twisting a pig’s tail. The tone) of this picture is admirable. The pig’s foot in th o foreground is capital, and the melancholy express sion of his face, when enduring the torture, is wor- thy of Raphael. The turn in the boy's ar 1s LOGIC OF WIT. ' 88 while giving the twist, is perhaps too much in shadow, but this is a trifling blemish. The picture was formerly in possession of Cardinal Lazzaront. Price, 201 dollars, 37 cents. “No. 2. Woman selling doughnuts. Titian. We should know this to be one of Titian’s by its chiaro obscuro. Mark the beautiful “ done brown” appearance of the doughnut in the left corner of the basket. It is nature itself. The heel of the Woman's shoe is in admirable keeping with the hole in her stocking. The picture was formerly in the palace of Prinve Muzby uzzy, at Florence.— Value, 313 dollars, 12 and a half cents.” There is another kind of cant—the cant of “ the good old times,” of the “ Old England” school— “our glorious constitution,” aud “our ancient in- stitutions.” To these people the beau ideal of all times was England some ¢enturies since. We are sad people to what we were then. There was hap- piness in the old times, freedom in the old times, plenty in the old times, equality in the old times. “Now Douglas Jerrold, that great master of the logic of irony, in ‘Punch,’ thus brings the old times under its burning lashes :— “One of the toasts proposed at the conservative dinner, at Covent Garden was, ‘Our Ancient In- stitutions.’ Punch very much questions if those who drank it knew what they weredrinking. By this, he means no insinuation against the wine ; al- 84 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. though he will confess, for himself, that he never dined at a public dinner yet, at which he did not wonder what the Port and Sherry were made of.— He would ask whether, when ‘ Our Ancient Insti- tutions were drunk, the company had any idea of what they swallowed? Because, if not, he begs to tell them—and, in case they are jolly fellows, the information may be worth having, that the said toast may be very advantageously subdivided © into several others, which, celebrated with a bum-_ per each, would go far to make any. gentleman | comfortable. He will just mention a few: ‘The forest laws.’ | ‘The Feudal System: with the Power of Pit— and Gallows.’ | ‘Trial by Battle and Ordeal ;’ which last toast might be coupled with ‘Speed the hot Plough-— share. ’ ‘ The application of Dental Surgery, for the in- f crease of the Crown Revenue, to Gentlemen of the Hebrew Persuasion.’ : ‘The Statue De Azretico Comburendo.’ ‘ Ditto, against Witchcraft.’ ‘The Star Chamber.’ , ‘The ‘“ Peine Forte et Dure ;’ and Examination — 4 by Torture.’ ‘ ‘ Hanging, Drawing, and Quartering.’ ‘The Penal Laws, with the Test and Corpora- tion Acts.’ LOGIC. OF WIT. 85 ‘The good old Criminal Code, with its Punish- ment of Death for stealing a yard of muslin,’ ‘In connection with the above, various accessory tables, emblematical of the wisdom and goodness of our ancestors, so evinced in their institutions, might be proposed ; as, ‘ The Rack,’ ‘ The Thumb- screws, and ‘The Scavenger’s Daughter.’ ” A fine example of the Logic of Irony may be cited from a speech by Mr., now Lord Brougham, delivered during the visit of George 1V. to Scot- land :— “His Majesty, almost at the time in which I am speaking, is about to make a progress through the northern provinces of this island, accompanied by certain of his counsellors—a portion of men who enjoy unenvied, and in an equal degree, the’ admiration of other countries and the wonder of their own,—and there the prince will see much loyalty, great learning, some splendour, the remains of an ancient monarchy, and of the institutions which made it flourish—but one thing he will not see, (strange as it may seem, and to many who _hear me, incredible,) from one end of the country to the other, he will see no such thing as a bishop ; not such a thing is to be found from the Tweed to John o’Groat’s: not a mitre; no, not so munch as a minor canon, or even a rural dean! and in all the land, not even a single curate. So entirely rude are they in Scotland—in such outer darkness do 86 PHILOSOPIIY OF LAUGHTER. they sit, that they support no cathedrals, main- tain no pluralists, suffer no non-residence ; nay, the poor benighted creatures are even ignorant of tithes. Not a sheaf, or a lamb, or a pig, or the value of a plough-penny, do the hapless mortals ~ render from years end to years end! Piteous is their lot! What makes it infinitely more touching is to witness the return of good for evil in the demeanour of this wretched race. Under all this eruel neglect of their spiritual concerns, they are actually the most loyal, contented, moral, and reli- gious people anywhere, perhaps, to be found in the world! Let us hope that his majesty may return safe from the dangers of his exeursion into such a © country ; an excursion most perilous to a certain portion of the church, should his royal mind be — infected with a taste for cheap establishments, a — working clergy, and a pious congregation.”* “‘Js it not right,” said a gentleman, advocating — the justice and propriety of a hereditary nobility, — ‘in order to hand down to posterity the virtues of those who have been eminent for their services to the country, that their posterity should enjoy the y EY 4 t ) honours conferred on them as a reward for such ~ services!” ‘By the same rule,” said a lady, “if © a man is hung for his misdeeds, all his posterity should be hanged too.” And the justness: of this | logical witticism cannot be disputed. * Speech for Ambrose Williams, August 6, 1822. Fp nl an Bale 5 tall ems aN ae LOGIC OF WIT. 87 Sydney Smith wielded the logic of wit with wonderful power. Curt, smart, and unanswerable fell his blows. Thus, on the wants of Ireland, “ what,” says he, ‘is the object of all good govern- ment? The object of all good government is roast mutton, potatoes, claret, a stout constable, an honest justice, a clean highway, a free chapel. What trash to be bawling in the streets about the Green Isle, and the Isle of the Ocean; the bold anthem of Erin go Bragh! a far better anthem would be Erin go bread and cheese! Erin go cabins that keep out the rain! Erin go pantaloons with- out holes in them!” This, to be sure, does not altogether settle the Irish question, but the logic of wit is usually the logic of common sense too. Rightly used, without the licence in which only indeed, unbalanced minds indulge, wit is of far more value in the senate than eloquence; nay, probably, every where wit has better served the world. It places topics and subjects in a strong, but usually in a true, hight; if it did not this, it would not be wit. It places the follies of an argu- ment in full clear view ; it relieves the monotony of the most vexatious details or impalpable abstrac - tions. Wit of this kind of the logical order is too full to be diffuse in language; the thing has to be said, and it is said; to wrap it up in fold on fold of language, would only be to maim its power; the ‘shaft flies, if it fly from the true hand it sticks 88 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. there, it is irresistible, fatal to the doctrine or the teacher against which it is aimed. By the logic of wit we do not mean_ bravado, inuendo, sarcasm, or irony; neither the pert sneer, or the rounded phrase, but the insight into the moral defects of a — calculation, its inconsistency with humanity, its hollowness, and unfitness. More than any modern political writer, Colonel Thompson possesses the power of making error ridiculous, in a phrase, by — giving importance to a truth by holding up its light in the shade of its opposite. How clever is his definition of political economy, as “the art of pre- venting ourselves from being robbed by our betters. It is the grand expositor of the peccadilloes of those — who volunteer to benefit mankind by governing ; its professors form the grand Anti-felony-Associa- tion of modern times. It picks up swindlers of all calibres, as the Roc does elephants; and is a very ferret to the vermin that nestle in our barns and manufactories.” These remarks upon the logic of wit, lead us to say further, that a man is unfitted to communicate truth to others, in the degree in which he is want- ing in humour. It is this faculty which brings out into plain and clear view the meaning of a matter, it illustrates a truth and makes it human; the — people read the humourist, they follow him when he appears on the platform or at the lecturer's desk, because he makes things plain and intelligible to LOGIC OF WIT. 89 the eye and to the heart; and if a man possess this power, he will make everything plain, however abstract, and apparently inappropriate. To cite one instance from hundreds, let us mention the writings of Dr. Edward Johnson. Medicine has usually a most forbidding and revolting aspect to the popular mind; it is not a subject with which the humourist can often deal; but, as a humourist, Dr. Johnson seizes its details, and amuses while he instructs us. Thus he talks to us about cancer, and the necessity of a thorough change in the system, before cancer can be eradicated. f “If we would cure cancer, therefore, we must & ‘cure the habit of body which produces it, * # The cancer is to the system what the dirt-heap is to the Irish cabin. The dirt-heap grows bigger and bigger by continual additions thrown outside the door. Clear away the dirt-heap, and block up the door. What then? Why, a new dirt-heap will appear on the other side of the cabin, which will be formed, and will grow, by continual addi- tions, thrown out through a new door, or through the window. How, then, is this Irish dirt-heap to be cured? Why, by turning the pigs and the cows, the cocks and the hens, out of the cabin, to be sure, and so keeping the cabin clean within, in order that there may be no dirt to be thrown out. The Irish dirt-heap may be called a local disease, if you will; butit clearly depends upon the general F 2 99 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. disease of the cabin—that is, the general filthiness within. The dirt-heap is only the result of general internal dirtiness,”’* And thus Dr. Johnson illustrates the reason why as fast as one cancer is cured, another appears in the same, or a different place. Again and again, then, are we reminded that Ridicule is a logician ; to be sureit has for the most part the object of analogy rather than induction ; but analogy is comprehended by thousands, to whom the ratiocinative method would be obscure ; and therefore all teachers, who would be successful in their mission to the people, should arm them- selves with the cheerful, obvious, homely illustra- tion. re We have been pleading for laughter; we are pleading for the proper and restricted introduction of humour into popular discourse. This is thought frequently beneath the dignity of the platform or the lecturer's table : nothing is beneath the dignity : of the lecturer's office that tends to make truth — more palpable to the understanding. feeling in his pockets for his change. ** Three pence, sir, if you please,” said the lady. “In your office of highwayman, young woman, you will subtract the amount of your demand from this piece, and return me the balance, as conve- niently quick as your ordinary locomotion will allow,” said the dandy gentleman, at the same time purposely dropping a shilling piece into the mud beneath his waggon. ‘Ah! there it is in the mud, I declare. I wouldn’t dirty my fingers for twenty of them.” The young lady took the shilling from the mud where he had dropped it—went into the house, and returned with nine pence, which she placed imme- diately under the wheel, where she had taken up the shilling. ‘illo, hillo, young woman, what is it you mean?” said the dandy. ‘*Why don’t you put that coin into my hand—eh ?” The girl replied, “Sir, I found your money under the waggon—there you will find your change ;’ and as she turned to go into the house, she gave the fellow a most significant smile, and added, ‘I wouldn’t dirty my fingers for twenty of them! would you, Mr. Dandy-man ?—ha, ha, ha !—there’s your change, sir ;” and she closed the door. 148 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. The gentleman dismounted—picked up “ hig coppers,” and was off at full speed, impatient to get out of sight and hearing. If he should ever happen to be in this country again, he will take care how he makes change with English girls. But practical jokes, practical wit, and painted wit, do not please ; they usually please neither the patient, nor the spectator. There is a coarseness about all of them ; it is as if one should attempt to paint music: hence the impossibility of illustrating the great standard monuments of wit—Gil Blas, Don Quixote, Hudibras. Mere thought cannot be painted.* Very much of the most vivid wit is essentially bodiless and invisible. There is much difference between the pictorial pun and caricature, and the nice ethereal abstraction we call. wit. We might conceive Ithuriel’s spear; and we might conceive, too, the ‘toad squat at the ear of Eve ;” but could any pencil represent the touch of the spear? To paint wit is almost to be endowed with the power of painting electricity. Sheridan, — in “The Duenna,’’ compares Isaac, the Israelite, — —neither Jew nor Christian—to a dead whale be- — tween the Church and the Synagogue, or to the blank pages between the Old and New Testament. — Let the reader run over in his mind the most cele- — brated pieces of wit with which he is acquainted, and he will find that wit cannot be represented ; * See Hartley Coleridge’s Marginalia, Vol. ii. p. 263. \ j CONVERSATIONAL AND PICTORIAL WIT. 149 it is work for the thought, not for the eye. Even the higher order of puns cannot be represented thus. The work in wit and poetry is purely spi- ritual,—like sharpness, brightness,—it belongs to the polished lance, and cannot be transferred. } And thus, too, we can both understand why wit, in conversation, should be electrical, and most electrical when the tongue is the only conductor ; when there is no strain to give effect to wit by grotesque or unusual action, but left lke a current of magnetic powers, to dart and find its way to the understanding. How much of what has passed for wit, tried by this test, we find to be simply impudence. Vulgar and illiterate persons are un- able to perceive the finer rays of ridicule; they demand that wit, too, shall be acted to them.— They do not believe in the existence of electricity, unless you can bottle it, and carry it in your waistcoat pocket ; or stick it on a microscopic pin; and, as this cannot be done, sceptics they must remain. Thus, it will often be found that broad grins, the merry features, the appropriate action, elicit boundless sympathy and applause; while the quiet, condensed, but most voluminous sentence excites no attention. Indeed, a spark will not fire a millstone, but it will instantly set touchwood in a blaze: and around the coarse and illiterate spirits the fine shafts of the ludicrous gleam in vain.— There is no spirit more subtle, none more powerful, 150 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER, none more penetrative, than wit. But light can paint no pictures to the blind ; and there are dull spirits who would gaze on Hogarth without'delight, read Cervantes without an emotion, and listen to Sheridan without a smile. In the wit of conversation; it may sometimes be noticed, that we laugh more at the coarseness, the bluntness, the downrightness, than the wit, or the humour of the converser. . Physicians appear upon the whole, to have been a coarse race. We have no small quantity of smart, daring answers from them to their patients. To do'them justice, how- ever, it must be said, they were usually given to those children of Fashion, whose only diseases were their fancies, and their. only business with their physicians the loitering and trifling away a por- tiion of time. It is subject for ridicule, no less than for serious thought, that there*are persons who pass their own time in wasting that of other people; and of this class, the largest section is to be found in the aristocratic circles, the suffering | subjects of ennw. We have sometimes thought, nothing so likely to effect a cure for these, as a _ little bold insolence, some smart and daring an- swer, blunt, and cant. It would waken thought - for a moment or two; would provoke the patient to cast away a ludicrous lethargy; and from its— very unusualness, make an era in a life dedicated — to the most awful of all pursuits—nothing to do, SS ee CONVERSATIONAL AND PICTORIAL WIT. 151 Sir Richard Jebb was one of these rough phy- sicians, very harsh in manner. THe said to a noble patient, to whom he had been very rude—* Sir, ié is MY way.’ ‘'Then,” replied the patient, pointing to the door, “I beg you will make that your | way. Sir Richard was not very nice in his mode of expression, and would frequently astonish a patient with a volley of oaths. Nothing used to make him swear more than the eternal question— “What may I eat? Pray, Sir Richard, may I eat a muffin?” “ Yes, madam, the best thing you can take.” “Oh, dear, I am glad of that. But, Sir Richard, you told me the other day that it was the worst thing I could eat!” “What would be proper for me to eat to-day?” says another lady. ‘*‘ Boiled turnips.” “ Boiled-turnips! you forget, Sir Richard, I told you I could not bear boiled turnips.’ “‘Then, madam, you must have a very Vitiated appetite.” Sir Richard being called to see a patient, who fancied himself very ill, told him _ ingenuously what he thought, and declined pre- scribing, thinking it unnecessary. ‘‘ Now you are here,” said the patient, ‘‘ I shall be obliged to you, Sir Richard, if you will tell me how I must live, and what I may eat, and what not.” ‘“ My direc- tions as to that point,” replied Sir Richard, “ will be few and simple. You must not eat the poker, shovel, or tongs, for they are hard of digestion; nor the bellows, because they are windy; but any- thing else you please !” 152 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. Dr. Ballie was another of these same sharp operators. He was once called in great haste to see some noble lady, when his time was especially valuable. To his great annoyance, he found the lady only affected with her whims and fancies; to his still greater annoyance, she kept him very long, describing imaginary complaints; at last, he es- eaped ; he reached the hall—had seized his hat and umbrella, and was just about to step into his carriage ; the footman appeared—the lady begged the doctor to step up again, ‘Oh, my dear doc- tor, I forgot to ask you, may I have some oysters when I return from the opera this evening 2” “© Oysters, madam,” roared the doctor, ‘ yes, yes, certainly ! shells and all !” | In that bluntness, that downrightness of wit, however, we have sometimes thought that, of all people, the Quakers, (or to give the more respect- ful, as well as truthful epithet,) the members of the Society of Friends excel, in the simplicity of their character, especially when friends indeed. They glance immediately into a fallacy, or a cha- racter. Numerous instances are on record ; but, ‘any one who has moved in their circles, and ob- served their hereditary caution, not to say suspicion of character, which makes this privilege enjoyed by few, will have noticed that their invariable honesty of speech often holds them between the extremes of bluntness and wit. What surprises us is, that they : CONVERSATIONAL AND PICTORIAL WIT, 158 speak so literally ; they pounce upon a question in their reply to it. There was one once examined before court, not using any other language than “thee,” ‘‘ thou,” and ‘ friend,” who was asked by the presiding judge,— “ Pray, Mr. -, do you know what we sit here for ?’”—‘“‘ Yea, verily, do J,” said the Quaker, ‘three of you for two dollars a-day, and the fat one on the right, for one thousand dollars a-year.” Everybody remembers the Friend passing along Wapping, and hearing a sailor swearing most vehemently and blasphemously, effectually stopped his mouth by saying,—“ Swear away, till thou gets all that bad, black stuff out of thee ; for thou canst never go to Heaven with such stuff in thy heart.”’ _ Another, meeting a lady in mourning, disconso- late in face, and dark in dress, long after the death of her husband, said, “*‘ What, then, thou hast not forgiven God Almighty yet ?” One invited a Primitive Methodist minister to dine with him, who called to beg for some money. The Primitive Brother made more free than wel- come. He talked loud—he strode about the room. —he spat in the grate ; and, at dinner, he held his — plate over the table, and gruffly asked for more, saying, he supposed it was “‘ Liberty Hall, cut and come again!’—“J tell thee what it is, friend,” said the Quaker, ‘“‘thou mayest cut as soon as K £54 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. thou likes, but I'll take good care thou dost not come again.” It is an interesting circumstance in the History of Wit, that it has sometimes gleamed as brightly from lips about to be closed in death, as ever from the most gay assemblies of the living. The ruling passion has ever been said to be strong in death. Wits have been fond of indicating and satirising it, -—and life shows it. Men die as they have lived. Those who quarrel with the manifestation of the ruling propensity of the mind in the best hours of life, would have men to play the hypocrite in their last hours. The last words of men have usually _ been synonymous with their life-long character : the last words of Rabelais were quite in keeping with that wild jesting, that torrent of merriment, that flowed and flashed from his lips and pen in the ~ hey-day of his life. Whether he left that remark- able will sealed up, with the three articles, “I~ owe 2g att have nothing—I give the rest to the poor,” may be doubtful; more probable is the story, that when some persons importuned him to — sign a will, bestowing upon them legacies exceeding — his abilities, he, toybe rid of them, complied.— : They then asked him where they should find a : fund answerable to that he gave. “As for that,” ; said he, “‘ you must e’en do like the spaniel_—look § i about and search.” His last words, however, were — most characteristic, and. have ‘become proverbial ; q % CONVERSATIONAL AND PICTORIAL WIT. 155 they were uttered to the page of the Cardinal Bellay. ‘Tell my lord in what circumstances thou findest me; I am first going to leap into the dark. Let down the curtain—the farce is done.” This is quite in character with the life of the great » Frenchman. For ourselves, we would wish to draw the curtains around us with more composure and decency, yet smile cheerfully while they closed usin. The innocent mirth of Sir Thomas More upon the scaffold looks much more beautiful } it was quite in keeping with his cheerful life. As he mounted to the block, he said, merrily, ‘* Master Lieutenant, I pray you see me safe up; and for my coming down, let me shift for myself.” His Jast words were a humourous allusion to his own innocence, and the caprice of the king who had ordered his execution. He besought the execu- -tioner to wait until he had “removed his beard, or that had never offended his highness.” These ludicrous allusions were consistent with the'life of this great man. The lambent fires of his wit and pleasantry had been wont frequently to play amidst the decisions of points Of. law. The light of his quiet humour shone forth x ‘repeatedly amidst desul- tory studies. To him the seriousness of death was but one degree more present than it had been for years. Solitude, study, and devotion, had accus- tomed him to the full view of it. The lively words came as naturally from his cheerful lips, as « 156 PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. the graver sentences of martyrs not more noble.— And the same remarks apply to the philosophic courage with which Raleigh bowed his neck to the block. A-man, indeed, wonderfully inferior to More, in both the purpose and the purity of his life ; yet he also carried the perception of the ends of life, combined with the grasp of expression, which had introduced him into favour, and kept him there—at the court of the Virgin Queen,—to the scaffold. “‘ When, Sir Walter, will you cease to be a beggar?” ‘* When your majesty ceases to be a benefactor.” In those days, we looked upon him as a sad picture of magnificence and meanness, Years have swept along, and they have brought the scaffold, and the gleaming axe; but they have also brought a more vivid insight into the hollow- ness and the meanness of things, and men. He sees the ludicrousness of that cowardly fear of death, which haunts almost every life ; he becomes the consoler of his friends, and speaks to them with quiet, cheerful humour. “‘ Why, the world itself,” says he, ‘‘is but a larger prison out of which some are daily chosen for execution.” The old soldier had heard of the sad hackings made by bungling executioners, and blunt axes. He is able to judge of the fitness of this tool for its office—it will do.— “Tt is a sharp-medicine,” said he, ‘‘ but a sure one, for all ills.” Thus has Humour shed its soft light over the shining and the cruel steel ; and minds at 4 a CONVERSATIONAL AND PICTORIAL WIT. 157 ease with themselves, have made their death words sportive and mirthsome. [The indisposition of the author has prevented him from extending the present subject : which, however, will be continued in a second edition. A few suitable sketches, which were some time ago written by the author, are now added to complete the volume. | wt way Ui SKETCHES. BAMBOO AND BAMBOOZLE. Ir is not likely that I shall ever forget my two old schoolmasters. A curious pair of Siamese twins they were—inseparable—two incorrigible bache- lors, confirmed in ancient ways and observances : yet had they the most distinct characters descri- bable. Truth to say, they are both associated in my mind with recollections and emotions not of the tenderest kind; yet were they both in my school-days, to all of us fellows of the first class, more frequently a source of hearty joke and jest, than of trembling awe. At this distant day they seem to be the representatives of classical and mathematical scholarship, but withal invested in such a ludicrous, though most symbolical drapery, that I purpose making them a source of instruc- tion to my readers. We called our senior master, Bamboo: he was a stern, grim-looking pedagogue, and he placed unqualified faith in the salutary and healing virtues K 2 a L622 SKETCHES. of that Indian cane which .gave him his patro- nymic, because he was never seen but it was also beheld fl ourishing“in his hand, or waiting the san- guinary hour, in awful repose, beneath his arm; walking in the garden, or sitting on the exalted bench, he was never without it: he stood behind us, and pointed to our copies with it; it went to church with hin, far more regularly than his prayer-book ; he was often seen without the one— never srithout the other,—and he seemed the very sort of character to believe in bamboo. His eyes were small, grey, and twinkling; his*nose was large, red, and carbuncled. We were wont to prophecy, in the morning, the terrors of the day ; for when his nose wrinkled with nervous irritation, and his small eye shot rapidly round the room, we Were certain they meant mischief,—nor would it be long before he “shook his portentous cane, and gave the nod.” There was no eloquence in his diction: his words were few, concise—awful.— There was no formality in his punishment; no one knew on whom, or on what part, the blow might fall ; it was always seconded by a most determined will. It was a “crowning mercy” in those days, if the blows were prefaced | by a word,—we never expected a speech,—for, not unfrequently pell-mell they came—thwack, thwack, thwack, over shoulders, or knuckles, or back, or that. still more delicate, but unmentionable part. There BAMBOO AND BAMBOOZLE. 163 was, in all these cases, a reservation of strength, and all that we heard was the asthmatic “ ugh, ugh, ugh.” Great works go on insilence ; and fre-’ quently we are not aware of the tremendous embryo until it springs to light. Alas! we fre- quently knew not that old Bamboo meant mischief, until we heard the loud and wild cry (perhaps our own) in shrill treble to the deep base of the re- sounding cane, disturbing the silence of the school- room. But a very different character was the partner of “old Bamboo :” tall, graceful, elegant—first im - pressions always said, what a niceman! He was an M.A.too. Old Bamboo did not wear, if he possessed, University honours; yet somehow I thought then, and I think now, that the M: A. was a less worthy teacher than his bluff and surly com- panion; we were wont to call him ‘“ Bamboozle.” He ever made it a source of special boasting, that he never, except in cases of the last extremity, used the cane ; and in truth it was never seen in his hands in the ordinary hours of life. He pro- fessed to feel a sort of holy indignation at the retention of corporal punishment in schools; he longed to see it abolished, and condemned himself for want of moral courage in not abolishing it ; he was rapid in his movements, had a full, inexorable, hazel eye ; yet this benevolent man used the cane four times as frequently as old Bamboo. But what * 164 SKETCHES, made the matter most annoying was, that every caning which he inflicted was always prefaced with an oration, fuil of plaintive apologies, and elegant deprecations ; and, following the rhetorical course, he always reserved the force of his passion and his argument for the close: ‘ Master Sinclair, I am exceedingly dissatified with your translation of Ca- sar, it is exceedingly painful to my mind, that those choive, and’ elegant, and forcible words should be thus barbarised, so to speak, and lose their fresh- ness and vigour ;—it is a painful duty (Blandford, fetch me’my cane)—to allow such marked negli. gence to pass would be an insult to the ancients.— You know how [I dislike this method of punish- ment, but it must be (thwack, thwack, thwack )— and allow me to observe, Master Sinclair (thwack), that you are a little Gothic cub (thwack), and wholly unfit to penetrate into the graces and beau- ties of Latin propriety’’—(thwack, thwack). ‘‘ Mas- ter Burton, the duty I owe to society impels me to say that your progress is disgraceful; and al- though it breaks my heart, I must thus signally punish you in the presence of the whole school.” Master Johnson, forgive me if 1 intimate to you, in the most courteous language imaginable, that you are pre-eminently gifted asa dunce; and it will be my solemn duty, this afternoon, to admi- nister the condign infliction of this cane.” Did we not well to call him Bamboozle? Even as the : eee, a ee a a a BAMBOO AND BAMBOOZLE. 165 cat watches the mouse, before the last fatal spring, gently tantalizing with her paws, so did our tor- mentor exult over us with a sleek and benevolent sympathy, before he struck into us the fangs which lacerated our quivering flesh. So much for school- boy days. But, since I have left school, my two old mas- ters have seemed to me illustrations of a good many qualities ?—in fact they have represented to me the ancient aud the modern rule of things.— Of old, the world was governed by Bamboo; now, on the contrary, we have, indeed, the» reign of Bamboozle. The ancient regime was a Bamboo despotism; the modern, with all its excellencies, has frequently the appearance of a Bamboozle one. It is truly astonishing how much you may do towards fettering people, by a right disposition of words. The largest amount of liberty, sometimes, under a monarchy, seems much less so than an equal amount of serfdom would, under a republican form of government. Steel ornaments for the wrists are called handcuffs,—good ones are called bracelets. People have not much objection to slavery if you erase that rather awkward word, and substitute fashion. Everything, fortune,— fame,—honour, to a very great degree, consists in a clever arrangement of words. The highwayman meets you on the public road, and says, “stand and deliver !’—he isa ruffian, and, taken, he is 166 SKETCHES, transported for life beyond the seas. Stupid fellow, why did he rely on Bamboo? Behind the counter the sleek tradesman dresses off his goods with ten thousand imaginary and fictitious virtues, and you surrender your purse although you have no earthly need for the goods. Your friend asks you (poor lamb, that you are) to accept a bill for him, or to become his bondsman for a note of a hundred pounds. How much better, how much more civil this is than rude and vulgar robbery. Of’ old, force dwelt in feudal castles, and every turret and tower contained its grim wardens for holding in check the surrounding peasantry by the force of bamboo; but now, from agricultural fields and in city factories, force is for ever banished, and instead we have the beautiful and just arrange- ments of trade, by which, however, still, the trade baron, the large castellated monopolist, beats down «all opposition, and holds the ravening and the ragged multitudes in check ; or rears family mansions, and hands down to succeeding ages immense broad acres and piles of wealth, by a clever disposition of words: so that I have some- times thought that these two made the prime dif- ference in systems of moral philosophy. Some moral systems are based on blows. It is related that, on one occasion, when good John Wesley was admitting to a class meeting a youthful professor, he inquired of his father, who I ee ee BAMBOO AND BAMBOOZLE. 167 was already a member, “Have you reason to think he loves the Lord Jesus Christ ?” And the father, who seems to have had no notion of any pathway to the religious life but through the skin, replied, “Aye, aye, he ought to do; he’s been flogged often enough.” Here was a worshipper of bamboo ; and glorious S. T. Coleridge tells us that when he was at school he ran away, perhaps re- pelled by the tyranny of the master, (perhaps moved by some glimmerings of those eccentric fires which waved before him through his whole life long) he ran away, and sought to serve a shoe- maker. Soon was he brought back, yet might he have escaped the solemn rod of those old days but for one unfortunate answer given in the course of inquisitorial investigation. ‘‘ Why,” said the stern pedagogue, “why, sir, did you run away ?” “Because, sir—because—because, I’m not fit to be a minister.” ‘ And, why,” continued Bamboo, “Why do you not want to be a minister?” *¢ Because, —(oh the horror that must have elec- trified the auditors) —‘“ Because, sir, I think Pm an Infidel!” The master condescended no reply ‘but thrashed me,” says Coleridge, wisely, as I believe, ‘‘ soundly, as T well know.” Fine illus- trations these of the dominion of bamboo in matters of faith. Most of my readers have read in Sis- monde’s Literature of Europe, the language of 168 SKETCHES. Izarn, the Dominician missionary, inquisitor, and poet. *¢ As you declare you won't believe, ’tis fit that you should burn, And as your fellows have been burnt, that you should blaze in turn ; And as you’ve disobey’d the will of God and of St, Paul, Which ne’er was found within your heart, nor passed your teeth at all; The fire is lit, the pitch is hot, and ready is the stake, That through these tortures, for your sins, your passage you may take.” Let no one suppose in these lines a satire: they were written in all seriousness, and the pleasant and comforting doctrines and references they con- tain, were commended to the attention of the here- tics of that day; so insane then, so insane still is, the conviction, that the wave of the bamboo, the terrors of the sting, and the stroke of force, could compel the conscience, the intellect, or the affec- tions. & A large proportion of what passes for philosophy, for religion, for necessary refinement and propriety, now-a-days, deserves no better name than bam- boozle; the wranglings of the schoolmen, the squabblings of the sectaries, the delicate divergen- cies of fashion and of etiquette, all the robery and the raggery of sham ; the bedizenment of false ornament and pretence, the profession of exuberant philanthropy, the parade of liberty,—it is a sad thing to say it, and to think it, but this is the ae ee a BAMBOO AND BAMBOOZLE. 169 meaning of many of the world’s prettiest phrases and politest speeches; mournful, mournful !—but not infrequently the involutions of legal learning— the outbursts of oratorical passion—the phrensy of the pulpit, the senate, the platform, and the bar, come to this. When I peruse the varied writings and problems of the clever casuists of ‘all ages, I am compelled to wonder, how much they believed of all that they distilled into such complex lan- guage ; for reading, I am lost in the befogment and subtiity, alike of their thought and their style ;— bewildered, evidently, themselves, it is not strange that others were bewildered in reading them ; what they wanted, however, in perspicuity they made up in pertinacity. I have generally found, that those who were, most unquestionably, in a mental fog, demanded of you most boldly that you should declare your belief that they were surrounded with peculiar evidences of extraordinary light; but when a man demands of you to subscribe to the clearness of the medium in which he lives, when it is obvious he is in the dark, we do not need the world to attest what the world very well knows. I am never so suspicious and doubtful as to whether my neighbour has eyes, as when I find him travelling about, over our whole village, to persuade every body that whoever is blind,—the fact about which there can be no doubt,—he, clearly enough, sees.— ® 170 SKETCHES. Poor man! or men indeed, for we have many of them in our village. Literary men, and their writings too, are diver- sible into the Bamboo and Bamboozle schools. There was dear, dogmatic, grim, growling, Samuel Johnson: strangely enough, he seems to have in- - cluded the two characters in one. Bamboozle was the characteristic of his pen; bamboo the un- doubted attribute of his tongue. His pen, that tortuous, tricksy thing, that only inculcated moral duties and principles, as if they were the tergi- versations of folly and of falsehood—good morals, perhaps, if translated into English, and spoken plainly. With asincere respect for the old literary boor, arising from admiration of his private cha-— racter and his individual honesty, I always read his writings with the impression that I am taking — counsel from a man who would systematically” overreach me. Most of the essays and writings of : Johnson are timid, bookish, perverse, and never ; rise to the transparency of the glorious English he ~ so much despised. But Johnson in the parlour — was tyrannic, rude, daring. His famous speech : upon the Americans, when the United States were — struggling for their independence, is a specimen of his general coarseness. “Sir, they are a race of © convicts, and ought to be thankful that we allow 4 them anything short of hanging.” Genuine Bam-— boo, that; you con hardly tell, in reading BAMBOO AND BAMBOOZLE. 171 Boswell’s life of him, whether he had a more supreme regard for justice than injustice. Like all of the race of Bamboo, he was thick-skinned to all the abstract questions of humanity and of man. The finest specimen that modern times have given to us of Bamboo penmanship is in our gifted — Thomas Carlyle, who would rule us all indeed with a rod of iron, or—bamboo ; and fancies that the world is not punished enough; who thinks the lot of South American negroes a singularly blessed one; who would shoot dead and rid the earth of the men refusing to work, and cut out the tongues of poor fellows prone to over much talk. Beyond question, the idea that our eloquent friend has formed of the world is, that it is simply a place to be punished in, and he pours out the full torrent of passionate invective on the poor unfortunate dreamers, who really did not apprehend that a day or two of enjoyment and happiness might be found in some green nook beneath the stars. Stern teacher, indeed, yet evidently unveiling to us ‘much of the meaning and the mystery of life. The lessons of Nature and of Wisdom are stern, but withal conveyed in no coarse, harsh spirit or lan- guage; there is ever a pitying tenderness in all her instructions; sorrowing love and pity brighten through the tearful eyes of the monitress; the vocation, of instruction has-been made to assume an unseemly appearance of repelling sternness. * 172 SKETCHES. How is this, when love attends us in every step of the way, and the charm and the delight of truth freshen on every page we read, and give new delight, as from the little spot of vantage ground - gained we look on difficulties conquered in the valleys below ? The two characteristics we have noticed, are opposite manifestations of the same spirit : if some- times mailed and helmed,—with lance in rest, or sword unsheathed,—it plays the tyrant in one day ; in another,-—sly, subtle, cunning,—it coerces by the infliction of cruel and inequitable laws; and, under pretence of guarding the liberties, which in the old day it violated, taxes beyond all sufferance the poor victim-subject. The old method was the sword, the modern is sheepskin ;—but the last is as cruel as the first. Somebody has said, that a slave is only a tyrant turned inside out; and the man who descends to bamboozle, seeks the same end as" he who applies to the energetic and vigorous bam-~- boo. To be sure it is almost useless now to apply to the latter potentate, for he is out-voted almost the whole world over—there is a growing distaste for all the associations and the implements of the - school of force; but Force is a clever fellow, and will so cover his character—with the dexterous subterfuge and the ingenious equivocation—that his - designs may be as well served with the smooth visage and the glozing tongue, as with the bois- BAMBOO AND BAMBOOZLE. 273 terous voice and the hectoring demeanour ; for - Bamboozle has many a slow, sure, wasting power. We think of the power of tyranny only in the gruff demeanour of Oriental kings,—in the grim towers of feudal oppression,—in the merciless press-gang, —in the bloody horrors of the battle-field; but, while prisoners waste an existence in dungeons for debt,—while bills and acceptances, like man--traps, lurk temptingly in every counting- house,—while railway panics spread consternation and affright through the whole kingdom,—while weakness sub- dues strength into quietude and stillness, and the millions of the cities sit, in the mournfulness of despair, beneath the noddings and the willings of the haughty one, who shall say that, in our times, Bamboozle is not as powerful and cruel as the ancient Bamboo ? 174 THE MORAL PHILOSOPHY OF CRUTCHES. Cautine the other day upon an old friend, who had some time before met with an accident which — had disabled him, and compelled him to betake — himself to crutches for support, I was surprised — to find that his sticks had never been thrown aside; the poor fellow was afraid to take a single step © without his crutches. He could not go across the — room without them; he did not dare to step into — the street without them; the old fellow did not know how healthy he was ; but there, obstinately, — pertinaciously, he must shamble along on his — erutches ; a stick, in the street, would have served — every purpose, and, in the house, even that faint — support was not in the slighest degree needed.— But so he moved through life ; and as he went, he — grumbled out, “I’m weak, sir, very weak, you see—I can’t do without this.”...‘‘ Ah! sir, *twould : be a great blessing if I had the use of my limbs, — THE MORAL PHILOSOPHY OF CRUTCHES. 175 as you have.’—“Oh, ma’am,”—a long gasp— “well, well, God’s will be done.” And so, from that day, the poor creature used his crutches, and talked of his crutches, till the idea had made him ahypochondriac, and martyred him to its power. To hobble had become an essential part of his life ; he would have felt dissatisfied with himself, could he have gone alone; to talk against his crutches was to enter into a conspiracy against him. I ventured to throw out an expostulatory hint :-— ** Now, don't you think that those things could be given up? Why, you're only weak because you don't struggle to be strong; now, take my arm—there, there. Now you see you can go with- out crutches.” 2 Well, I got him to budge a’step or two; but I believe ever since he has had a suspicion of me: he looks at me, and shakes his head; he always seems demure when I approach “him. If he tries to rise before me, he firmly compresses his lips and teeth together, saying, as plainly as silence can say, ** You see what a state I’m in, and yet, you wicked dog, you want me to give up my crutches.” An able-bodied man stumbling through the world on crutches! Once for all, let us admit that it is the most solemn sight the eye can rest on; yet it is not an unfrequent and uncustomary one. Get a man into the habit of hobbling on crutches at all, and the habit will gradually become necess- © 176 SKETCHES. sary to him, and he be loth to give themup. And how can strength grow, and how can the body become pliant, and muscular, and powerful, on crutches? Thus the weak become more weak, and the incapable yet more incapable. It is a glorious moment when a man breaks a crutch, © even although it be on the head of the one who persuaded him to use it—when he determines to walk along the level road in his own strong pur- — pose and power—when he betakes himself to the work of mountain-climbing, and leaves his crutches — behind him at the inn where he slept the last night—when he determines to be imposed upon, — and to impose upon himself, by wooden helps, no — longer. Some men have been in health, all their days, and have never known that they are strong; _ but to the weak man, who has feared to take a step by himself, to the man whose religion it had been to believe that he could not walk alone, it is a moment of high exultation, when the winds of heaven pipe round him, and distant figures before him beckon him onwards, and each turn of the : road reveals something new, and each piece of scenery invites to rapidity and energy at such a _ moment. It is, indeed, a source of high exultation ' to the man who had deemed himself weak, to be able to say, “ But I am strong.” f You see the drift of it, my friends ; it is a prob- — lem rather difficult to be solved; but the proba- A) THE MORAL PHILOSOPHY OF CRUTCHES. 17% bility is, that every one of you, with this book in your hand, is also leaning upon crutches.— The lesson of self-reliance, of independence, is both holy and noble; and yet, alas! almost every soul you meet has its own appropriate erutches ; and, still further, it is not an unfrequent occurrence that the weak attempt to persuade, and sometimes do persuade, the strong, that they are too weak: and, for very company’s sake, try to con- vert them to crutches. So we have seen a lop- sidel man, as we should say—a man with a “moral squint,” and this man has really con- trived to get an idea, to fetch up from the un- fathomable depths of somewhere, a prejudice, a notion, a whim—let us suppose it a truth; very soon he has exaggerated it—distorted it till it grows into a huge, knotty, gnarled branch of an error ; then he cuts it into shape and primness, lends his whole weight to it, makes himself a crutch of it, sets up a crutch shop, and offers— good, benevolent citizen that he is—to make you crutches, too, for a price; but if you will not buy, . the mischief of the matter is, that he stands at his door, and lays about him, with strong, hearty blows, upon all who go to other shops. He must not only have a crutch himself, and have full liberty to lean upon it, but you, and everybody else, must lean upon that particular crutch too, or you shall have woeful blows. Go into my L 178 SKETCHES. library, and fetch me down that truly direful his- tory of the battles of the schoolmen, or the history of the middle ages, and read me the battles of the — Guelph and Ghibbeline ; or run your eyes over the — contending philosophical and religious sectarian squabbles of the day; then what does it all come to? Sum them up, and call them “the battles of © the crutches.”” It seems very probable that if each — of these disputants, instead of squabbling about a whim, had exercised freely his own intellectual and moral capacity, the histories of these chivalrous, intellectual, and other battles, had been for ever lost to mankind. The fact is, men are wisely economical in the use of their legs—hence the reason why they like and use crutches. Mental crutches are an apology for laziness. A great many books are bought and . read—resolve me the reason why. Would you not think that there was an intellectual voracity — among men—the spirit of intellectual research— _ an earnestness in the acquisition of knowledge ? j Nonsense! At least half the books bought, are — never either read or cut; and two-thirds of the | other half are crutches for lame souls. Men cannot q endure that their spirits should be alone; there ~ must be company, although it should be the most q frivolous chit-chat of a fashionable novel. Men ~ cannot endure the labour of digging out their own | opinions; they must obtain them ready-made, q THE MORAL PHILOSOPHY OF CRUTCHES. 179 from “ orthodox” crutch-makers; for it is very curious, perfectly wonderful, to know that there are, among other “ patents,” ‘‘ Patent Intellectual Crutch Manufacturers.” ! What—did you never hear that old story of the Battle of the Crutches: it is English, too, and at a famous watering-place—one of those comfort- able and solacing spots whither lackadaisical ladies and indolent gentlemen go to be per- suaded that they are al] invalids,—and that they may have the pleasure of leaning on crutches in company.” Now there were in the town two great crutch depots. The old established shop was Spivys—the more modern one, Spokey’s.— Now, when it is remembered'that some hundred or two hundred pairs of crutches were used by the patients of Shamwell Down, it is’ not wonderful that, often reclining on the couch, or in the bath- room, in all the elegance of indolence, when talk did not flow, and subjects seemed few, that at last . the patients came to talk about the fabrication and properties of their crutches. Nothing could seem more innocent, no topic less calculated to excite feelings of animosity, than the relative claims to popular estimation of Messrs. Spivy and Spokey. *¢ Alas! how light a cause may move Dissension between hearts that love !” 180 SKETCHES, The more frequently the topic was reverted to, the more bitter became the controversy. The crutches were every day brought to the test of © experience. There was that choleric old Colonel MGrumphy, who complained of a traditional — gout; he affirmed the ease and the comfort, the superior character of the wood, and therefore the — magnetic virtues of the article made by Spokey ;— — while a testy old gentleman, a retired lawyer, — named Crimp, passed his verdict for Spivy. Very svon the crutches absorbed every other topic: in the bath-room, the news-room, in the hotels, the re- lative merits of M’Grumphy and Crimp formed the staple of conversation. Every party had its — own little coterie; and it is wonderful what a display of argument and eloquence was expended upon the rival crutches. The rival manufactories, too, joined in the warfare ; they became the captains of thecombat. Papers flew about; M’Grumphy printed a pamphlet, which Crimp replied to, in a manner so grossly personal, that the colonel called — him out toa duel, and the lawyer sought shelter — from the civil authorities, and the colonel horse- © whipped him in the bath-room. The lawyer entered — an action against the colonel, while each of the ~ partisans felt his own honour or heroism (for the ladies of Shamwell Down were also in the strife) — implicated in this most important controversy. Long was it before the fever subsided, and, to the THE MORAL PHILOSOPHY OF CRUTCHES. 181 present day, whoever visits Shamwell Down will be regaled with the immortal history of the cele- brated combat of M’Grumphy and Crimp, touching the crutches of Messrs Spivy and Spokey. Perhaps if we were to stand behind a bookseller’s counter, and to interrogate the souls of the pur- chasers, the dialogue might run somewhat thus,— “* Madam, in what can I serve you?” “Sir, I feel rather weak in my religious legs ; in fact, faith will not walk at all. I sometimes have fancied if I were to go direct to heaven for strength and faith, and commune somewhat with myself, I might be strong ; but all my neighbours move on crutches, and I want you to furnish me with a neat, respectable-looking pair.” And ina day or two you see the lady hobbling along on her crutches, defending them, proud of them, as if she had used them all her life. “Sir, what can I do for you?” continues the bookseller to another customer. “ Well, sir, I want a good stout political crutch ; something that I can lean on pretty safely, and use occasionally on my neighbour's back, without any fear of its breaking.” “ Sir, allow me to show you several ; here is a fine assortment, sir; this is the Cobden crutch; this is Colonel Thompson’s making ; and this, sir, is Edward Miall’s; and give me leave to say, that if you purchase and use them fora little time, very L 2 182 SKETCHES. soon you will be able to give up the use of the crutch altogether, and walk quite naturally.” **Oh, pooh, pooh, nonsense; I don’t want to walk naturally ; none of my neighbours do,—why — should 1? I don’t want to appear singular. Sir, a nice, easy, fashionable crutch ; an old English erutch,-—you understand me, sir,—with a crimson cushion for the arm; something of the Gladstone and Sewell cut.” And away goes the gentleman, — on his political crutch. ‘ Now, sir,” says the bookseller, “let me attend to you. What kind of crutch can I accommodate | you with?” ‘“‘ Well, sir, the fact is I have nothing to do, and | iF I don’t know how to set about it ;” and, before our — friend has left the shop, he has filled his pockets — with books. They will serve a double purpose ; they will effectually weigh down all the powers of his brain, and he will go limping on them, in a kind of industrious idleness, all his days. Blessings on good books, and on the dear, departed spirits who gave them to us!—they are eur companions, counsellors, guides, friends ; but even on the best of them we will not lean to the surrendering up our of own proper mental and — moral dignity; we will walk arm in arm with books, and cbat with them friendly by the way ; but we will honour them too much to use them as erutches, | THE MORAL PHILOSOPHY OF CRUTCHES. 183 It will be a rare holiday for the world when all men determine to throw away their crutches ; when’ the dignity—and, as one has called it, the “ ele- gance”’ of self-help is really seen; take our word for it, we have been shambling and shuffling along now for a good many ages, making the most ungainly grimaces and limpings conceivable. And this has been to a great degree because we have not held our heads erect, and had faith in ourselves and our mental muscles; we will lay it down that, as a general principle, where there are many - servants, many helpers, there must be some quar- relling, and to one person, at least, much weakness. In the holding as a most sacred doctrine the indivi- duality of man, and in invoking the man to work out in true heroism of soul, his own opinions and faith, is our only hope from the intolerance of priestcraft, and the bigotry of personal whim. And let no one dread the moment when men shall dare to.exercise their mental natures thus; that moment will not only release the man himself, but reverence for his own freedom will teach him rightly to reverence the freedom of all. In a society com- posed entirely of men moving on crutches, want of self-respect would also lead to want of respect for all. Believe me, my friend, you may do much good to man; you may feed him, give him good laws, give him good bodks, train him to good man- ners,—but if you would give him that good which 184 SKETCHES. sums np all others, here it 1s,—publish a crusade ‘against voluntary lameness, and persuade all men to throw away ther crutches. Yes, I declare to you, I have very often thought that books have degenerated into crutches.. Men surrender themselves up altogether to the dominion of a book; they do not take the book, the book a ee takes them. What is the use of a book to you, ~ upon which you lean, to which you become a slave and a vassal? Neither healthy minds, nor healthy bodies need crutches. The diseased turn all things into mere crutches. Preachers, lecturers, books, ordinances, they are none of them aids to develope- ment—they are crutches to limp upon. And thus the whole moral part of manhood suffers. WON’T,:CAN’T, AND TRY. Iris strange to notice the difference there is in disposition, character, and success, between persons descended from the same family stock. Nobody could suppose that all the three fellows whose names stand up there at the head of this page could be descended from the same great-grandfather. Different as their surnames are, they all had the same family christian name “J.” Of the three, — Won’r was the eldest; a misanthropic, glumpy old man, too, he was, as rich as Pluto, as suspicious as sin could make him; he had large parks, and many a family mansion in which he and his an- cestors had entrenched themselves for centuries ; the whole world was in movemeni around him. Old Won't would never budge an inch. But Old Won't had no notion of the heavenly economy of getting rich by giving; many of his possessions were useless to him, and quite unproductive, that might well have turned in every year fifty per ¢ 186 SKETCHES. cent. He hugged everything tightly, and gratified and contented himself with the mere beggarly gra- — ee tification of having. Obstinacy, ignorance, and — selfishness,—these were the old man’s chief virtues — —for virtues hecalledthem. Scornfully he always — passed by the door of the poor sick widow ; sa- vagely he grinned and thundered * No!’ when a — piece of ground was requested of him for a school or a mechanics institute; in fact, the life of this surly old curmudgeon might. be numbered rather by ne- gatives than by years—it was one protracted fit of © opposition, one answer silenced all inquiries. | “Sir, I’m a blunt man; say a thing and do a — thing is my motto; my name is Won't, and I © won't.” And the consequence was, that there was — “nothing stirring but stagnation” in the neigh- — bourhood of the testy old gentleman. The cottages of his tenantry would have made respectable pig- stys in the time of Thomas a Becket; and the — intelligence and the temperance of the cottagers belonged to the same very bright and glorious age, To all schemes of improvement in which he was re- — quested to lead the way, the answer was, ‘‘ I won't.” — “« My dear sir, may I beg you to read these docu- — ments?” said a neighbour to him once. ‘I never | read, I don’t want to read, read I won’t.” There p was only one grim character to whom he said “I _ won't,” who snapped his withered fingers in the leathern face of the old human milestone, and said — ie a WONT, CANT, AND TRY. 187 “but I will.” It was old Deatu, who insisted upon it, that the old gentleman should step into. his boat, and visit the other country. How he fared there, after all his idleness here, who shall say ? A collateral branch of the family of Onp Won't was Youne Can't, and a weak, waxen-faced mortal he was, sure enough. When at school, while other boys were, with intrepidity enough, hard at work at slates, Euclids, globes, and grammars, this soulless little abortion looked piteously in the face of master, tutor, and fellow-pupil, and mur- mured, J can't. It was plain enough that for such a character as this, or rather for one so character- less, a there automaton existence must be selected, but that was difficult; for every profession, even that of poor Flunkey, the footman, required energy, action, soul of some kind or other ; and, in fact, many exertions were made to procure for poor Can't some decent situation where he could do without any labour. It was of no use ; he shifted to all points of the social compass, but there he stood on the old spot at last. The times the poor fellow failed in business it is just no use trying to mention ; he was like Won’r in one par- ticular—all the world seemed to leave him behind. “My dear: sir,” he would say, “you see this thing is altogether impossible, it is really no use trying: who can compete with these times?’ He 188 SKETCHES. could never do without his proper allowance of sleep. He feared both morning and evening air ; they were both consumptive. Then, again, what- ever he did he had the happy knack of doing at the wrong time, and putting in the wrong place; and then came the everlasting soliloquy, “* L can't.’ A nice way he had, too, of confusing everything he did. He never knew where he was, and yet in such circumstances he always appeared most at home. I have seen. him sitting with a pile of unrevised endeavourings before him, and as I went into the room, he cast upon me a doleful glance, heaved a deep-drawn sigh, and murmured—“ Ah ! you see I can’t!” ee He was a very sickly young man too; every- thing was too much for him: “I can’t bear any exertion ;” ‘I can’t attend to it now, I have such a sick head-ache;” ‘I can’t do it now, but as soon as I have had my afternoon’s nap, then”—There is no doubt about it,—I have had it from the best authority,—he might have married one of t he sweetest creatures in all the old country town; it was said she did cast some kindly looks at the stupid fellow; but, luckily for her, when he attempted to put the delicate question, he said— “‘T can't,” and gave it up, in a fit of despair. At last all persons despised the poor wretch, who never had courage for himself or for others; and he was lost sight of, until the other day, in walking through WON'T, CAN'T, AND TRY. “BS9 one of the wards of a workhouse, who should I see, stretched on a bed, but this very*pgor fellow. It was evident his last hour was approaching, idleness and poverty had done their work. The nurse stood by his side with a mixture from the doctor, invok- ing him to take it; he made many a wry contortion of face— I can’t, I can’t,” he said; his head fell back, and he died. Altogether of a different stamp, was another branch of the same family, the most modest, yet the most bold of all my acquaintance—“ Try.” It was remarkable that, without any of the prophecies of the boaster, ‘of what he meant to do, he always performed more than any one else. You calculated | upon his success as a matter of course: there was a rough dignity about his manner that bespoke self-respect, self-confidence, and courage. ‘* Never despair,” was his constant motto. Difficulties beset ~ him ; he laughed at them, strangled them, set his foot upon them. He had no possession left to him, like Old Won't, yet he has been getting, I should say, well to do in the world; and he both gives more occupation to others, than the old fellow, in the course of the year, and his servants love him more. He had nothing like the money expended on his education that was expended on Young Can't; but he both knows more, and makes what he knows _ yield him a better interest; for he thinks that know- : ledge, like money, should be put out to interest. 190 SKETCHES. I don’t know that we so often hear him say, ** [ll do it ;” but not a week passes, but he says, “ I'll try.” And he is such a cheerful soul:—TI have often noticed, that those people who have the most to do are the most cheerful. While the life of Old Won't was a real burden to him, and was passed in an everlasting grunt—while the life of Young Can't was like a lounge, with the hands in the pocket, face as long as a fiddle and as white as a candle, and the breath only a fluid to sigh with—Try is always merry and cheerful; his very laugh is like the exultancy of conquest. A school was wanted — in the town where he conducted his business, but all — the people said one could not be erected ; said he, — “I'll try,” and the school was built. Can’t was — his neighbour for some time; but while Can't was — tumbling over mole-hills, Try was climbing moun- | tains; it was observable that he got through ten ~ times the business of other men, and made far less — noise about it. There was no setting bounds to the : labours of Try ; I declare we have not got a good or excellent thing in our village which he did not 2 get for us: he built our school and our chapel— ~ they had never been erected but for his exertions ;— our news room and our Total Abstinence Society we owe them to him. Some stood by and sneered, — some dared him to success—he only said, “ Vl try.’ He has lived a good while here now, aad we all know him. The magistrate sits on the sr — WONT, CAN'T, AND TRY. 191 bench and administers the law; our parson, dressed up in black, makes fine sermons from the pulpit; but although good friend Try is neither parson nor lawyer, neither one nor the other of them win so much love and respect as they pass down the street ; people never look at him, but they see a walking, moving sermon; and I am sure our village will never be any better than it is, until all our young men follow more closely the footsteps of “Til Try.” FINTIS. , J, S, Pratt, Stokesley, Yorkshire. ‘il ae oes Sagi Ap er) : nD we ht Da SAD Says x oH SID ARR tay ine UNIVERSITY OF ILLI TT 056056762