Who never wanted a good word,-
From those who spoke her praise.

"She strove the neighborhood to please
With manners wondrous winning;
She never followed wicked ways,-

Unless when she was sinning."

The Lap-dog.-Sydney Smith tells of a French lady, who, when her pet lapdog bit a piece out of her footman's leg, exclaimed, “Ah, poor little beast! I hope it won't make him sick."

Landscer. When Landseer, the great animal painter, asked Smith to sit for his picture, Smith replied, "Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?"

Mountain and Squirrel.- Emerson's poem, "The Mountain and the Squirrel," is remarkable for its wit.

The mountain and the squirrel

Had a quarrel.

And the former called the latter "Little Prig."

Bun replied

"You are doubtless very big;

But all sorts of wind and weather
Must be taken in together,

To make up a year,

And a sphere;

And I think it no disgrace

To occupy my place.

If I'm not so large as you,
You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry.

I'll not deny you make

A very pretty squirrel-track.

Talents differ: all is well and wisely put:

If I cannot carry forests on my back.
Neither can you crack a nut."

Henry Ward Beecher once, on the 1st of April, received a letter containing simply the words, "April Fool." He enclosed it to Bonner, with a note, saying, "I have often heard of people's writing letters and forgetting to sign their name, but I never before heard of a man's signing his name and forgetting to write the letter."

Pun.

When the unexpected relation is not between ideas, but between words, the witticism is called a pun.

Character of the Pun.

-This is an inferior species of wit, and one

which is often carried to a tiresome excess.

that puns are sometimes very effective.

Yet it cannot be denied

Example from Franklin.—When Hancock, after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, urged upon the signers the necessity of union, saying,

"We must all hang together," "Yes," said Franklin, “or we shall all hang separately!" This is undoubtedly a pun, the wit turning upon the new and unexpected meaning of the word "hang," as used in the reply. But the pun is of the same serious and elevated cast as that which closes his celebrated letter to Strahan, of about the same date:

Another Example.—“You are a member of Parliament, and one of the majority which has doomed my country to destruction. You have begun to burn our towns and murder our people. Look upon your hands! They are stained with the blood of your relations! You and I were long friends. You are now my enemy, and I am Yours, B. FRANKLIN."

Remark. - In regard to both of these examples, it may be remarked that they can more easily be received as specimens of wit now, at the distance of over a century from the time of their utterance, than they could then, when they were fitted to awaken feelings of anger and stern resolution, rather than laughter.

Curran's Pun.-Very different from these was the pun uttered on a certain occasion by Curran. A friend, hearing some one say "curosity" for "curiosity," exclaimed, "How that man murders the language!" "Not quite murders," said Curran; "he only knocks an i (eye) out."

And the Doctor told the Sexton,

And the Sexton tolled the bell. - Hood.

"Death stops my pen, but not my pension."-Hood's last pun, alluding to the pension bestowed upon his family.

Theodore Hook, when asked for lines on the death of the King and Queen of the Sandwich Islands, wrote:

"Waiter! two Sandwiches!" cried Death,

And their wild Majesties resigned their breath.

Horne Tooke said of the poor poets: "We may well be called a Republic of letters, for there is not a sovereign among us."

Here lies my wife,-a sad slattern and shrew;

If I said I regretted her, I should lie too. —Anon.

Shakespeare has written three sonnets, which are an extended pun on his own name. One of them is given below:

Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy will,
And Will to boot, and will in overplus;
More than enough am I, that vex thee still,
To thy sweet will making addition thus.
Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,
Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?
Shall will in others seem right gracious,

And in my will no fair acceptance shine?
The sea, all water, yet receives rain still,
And in abundance addeth to his store;
So thou, being rich in will, add to thy will
One will of mine, to make thy large will more.

Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill;

Think all but one, and me in that one Will.

Habit of Punning.—The habit of punning should be avoided, both in writing and in conversation. Facility in making puns is soon acquired, and when acquired, almost always leads to such an excess as to weary both readers and hearers. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule. But, in general, there are few greater bores than an inveterate punster.

Habit of being Witty.—In the cultivation and indulgence of wit of the higher kind, some care should be used. A professed wit incurs two dangers: First, that habit of mind which leads him to be ever on the lookout for something striking and unexpected, is not the one most conducive to truthfulness. He is under the temptation of saying what will amuse and startle, rather than what is strictly true. Secondly, witticisms usually are made at somebody's expense. If not barbed with malice, they yet leave a sting behind. No man usually has so many enemies as he who has a sharp wit. He may be feared, but he is also hated.

Dangers of Wit.-"Professed wits, though they are generally courted for the amusement they afford, are seldom respected for the qualities they possess. The habit of seeing things in a witty point of view increases, and makes incursions from its own proper regions upon principles and opinions which are ever held sacred by the wise and good. A witty man is a dramatic performer; in process of time, he can no more exist without applause, than he can exist without air; if his audience be small, or if they are inattentive, or if a new wit defrauds him of any portion of his admiration, it is all over with him,- he sickens, and is extinguished. The applauses of the theatre on which he performs are so essential to him, that he must obtain them at the expense of decency, friendship, and good feeling.

"It must always be probable, too, that a mere wit is a person of light and frivolous understanding. His business is not to discover relations of ideas that are useful, and have a real influence upon life, but to discover the more trifling relations which are only amusing; he never looks at things with the naked eye of common sense, but is always gazing at the world through a Claude Lorraine • glass, discovering a thousand appearances which are created only by the instrument of inspection, and covering every object with factitious and unnatural colors. In short, the character of a mere wit it is impossible to consider as very amiable, very respectable, or very safe."-Sydney Smith.

Advantages of Wit. —“I have talked of the danger of wit: I do not mean by that to enter into commonplace declamation against faculties because they are dangerous; wit is dangerous, eloquence is dangerous, a talent for observation is dangerous, every thing is dangerous that has efficacy and vigor for its characteristics; nothing is safe but mediocrity. The business is, in conducting the understanding well, to risk something; to aim at uniting things that are

commonly incompatible. The meaning of an extraordinary man is, that he is eight men, not one man; that he has as much wit as if he had no sense, and as much sense as if he had no wit; that his conduct is as judicious as if he were the dullest of human beings, and his imagination as brilliant as if he were irretrievably ruined. But when wit is combined with sense and information; when it is softened by benevolence, and restrained by strong principle; when it is in the hands of a man who can use it and despise it, who can be witty and something much better than witty, who loves honor, justice, decency, good nature, morality, and religion ten thousand times better than wit; wit is then a beautiful and delightful part of our nature.

"There is no more interesting spectacle than to see the effects of wit upon the different characters of men; than to observe it expanding caution, relaxing dignity, unfreezing coldness, teaching age, and care, and pain to smile, extorting reluctant gleams of pleasure from melancholy, and charming even the pangs of grief. It is pleasant to observe how it penetrates through the coldness and awkwardness of society, gradually bringing men nearer together, and like the combined force of wine and oil, giving every man a glad heart and a shining countenance. Genuine and innocent wit like this is surely the flavor of the mind! Man could direct his ways by plain reason, and support his life by tasteless food; but God has given us wit, and flavor, and brightness, and laughter, and perfumes, to enliven the days of man's pilgrimage, and to charm his pained steps over the burning marle.'"-Sydney Smith.

IV. HUMOR.

Humor is, in many respects, like wit. Its object is to excite laughter, and it appeals accordingly to our sense of the ridiculous.

Incongruity. The laughter produced by humor comes from seeing things which are incongruous. If we see a man pretentiously dressed, but using awkward and clownish gestures, or employing big words while violating the most common rules of grammar, the things seem incongruous, and we have an immediate propensity to laugh.

Surprise. To say that a thing is incongruous is only another way of saying that it is unexpected. Surprise, therefore, is an ingredient in humor as it is in wit.

Contempt.- Surprise and incongruity alone, however, are not sufficient to constitute humor. To see a refined and delicate lady accidentally fallen into the mud, would excite our pity; to see a perfumed fop in the same condition would make us laugh. There would be incongruity and surprise in both instances; but in the one, there are circumstances which awaken a feeling of tenderness and respect, and this feeling holds in abeyance our sense of the ludi

crous. This suggests another condition as necessary to humor. The incongruity which is to make us laugh must not be in connection with circumstances which awaken any higher feeling, such as pity, fear, reverence, and so forth. We must have, in other words, a certain feeling of contempt for the person laughed at. We would not laugh at a man who was in the agonies of dying no matter how incongruous and absurd might be the contortions of his face. The solemnity of the occasion holds all lighter emotions in check.

"It is a beautiful thing to observe the boundaries which nature has affixed to the ridiculous, and to notice how soon it is swallowed up by the more illustrious feelings of our minds. Where is the heart so hard that could bear to see the awkward resources and contrivances of the poor turned into ridicule? Who could laugh at the fractured, ruined body of a soldier? Who is so wicked as to amuse himself with the infirmities of extreme old age? or to find subject for humor in the weakness of a perishing, dissolving body? Who is there that does not feel himself disposed to overlook the little peculiarities of the truly great and wise, and to throw a veil over that ridicule which they have redeemed by the magnitude of their talents and the splendor of their virtues? Who ever thinks of turning into ridicule our great and ardent hopes of a world to come? Whenever the man of humor meddles with these things, he is astonished to find that in all the great feelings of their nature the mass of mankind always think and act aright, that they are ready enough to laugh, but that they are quite as ready to drive away with indignation and contempt the light fool who comes, with the feather of wit, to crumble the bulwarks of truth, and to beat down the Temples of God!"-Sydney Smith.

Characteristic. Another important thing to be observed is, that, in humor, the incongruity which excites our mirth is something characteristic of the person in whom such incongruity exists. It is something which would be absurd for us to do, and therefore we laugh at it, but it is in perfect keeping for him. Unless it is thus in keeping with his character, it cannot be humorous, although it may be ridiculous. A humorous story told of a Yankee, and in keeping with the Yankee character, would cease to be humorous if told of an Irishman or a Dutchman. The smart sayings of Sam Weller would be laughable anywhere; but they are humorous only as coming from Mr. Weller himself. Humor, to be successful, demands a fitness of things approaching, in sharp exactness, the demands of the sublime. The things described must be congruous in the very midst of their incongruity. They must exactly fit the character of the person to whom they are attributed, while equally not fitting for us, and therefore laughed at by us.