"O why should our dull retrospective addresses,

Fall damp as wet blankets on Drury Lane fire?

Away with blue devils, away with distresses,

And give the gay spirit to sparkling desire.

"Let artists decide on the beauties of Drury,

The richest to me is when woman is there;

The question of houses I leave to the jury;

The fairest to me is the house of the fair."

The point in these will be recognised at once, as Wordsworth and Moore

are still well known.

CHAPTER XIV.

Theodore Hook--Improvisatore Talent--Poetry--Sydney Smith--The "Dun

Cow"--Thomas Hood--Gin--Tylney Hall--John Trot--Barbara's Legends.

Theodore Hook was at Harrow with Lord Byron, and characteristically

commenced his career there by breaking one of Mrs. Drury's windows at

the suggestion of that nobleman. His father was a popular composer of

music, and young Theodore's first employment was that of writing songs

for him. This, no doubt, gave the boy a facility, and led to the great

celebrity he acquired for his improvisatore talent. He was soon much

sought for in society, and a friend has told me that he has heard him,

on sitting down to the piano, extemporize two or three hundred lines,

containing humorous remarks upon all the company. On one occasion, Sir

Roderick Murchison was present, and some would have been a little

puzzled how to bring such a name into rhyme, but he did not hesitate a

moment running on:--

"And now I'll get the purchase on,

To sing of Roderick Murchison."

Cowden Clark relates that when at a party and playing his symphony,

Theodore asked his neighbour what was the name of the next guest, and

then sang:--

"Next comes Mr. Winter, collector of taxes,

And you must all pay him whatever he axes;

And down on the nail, without any flummery;

For though he's called Winter, his acts are all summary."

Horace Twiss tried to imitate him in this way, but failed. Hook's humour

was not of very high class. He was fond of practical jokes, such as that

of writing a hundred letters to tradesmen desiring them all to send

goods to a house on a given day. Sometimes he would surprise strangers

by addressing some strange question to them in the street. He started

the "John Bull" newspaper, in which he wrote many humorous papers, and

amused people by expressing his great surprise, on crossing the Channel,

to find that every little boy and girl could speak French.

He wrote cautionary verses against punning:--

"My little dears, who learn to read, pray early learn to shun

That very silly thing, indeed, which people call a pun;

Read Entick's rules, and 'twill be found how simple an offence

It is to make the self-same sound afford a double sense.

For instance, _ale_ may make you _ail_, your _aunt_ an _ant_ may kill,

You in a _vale_ may buy a _veil_, and _Bill_ may pay the _bill_;

Or if to France your bark you steer, at Dover it may be,

A _peer_ appears upon the _pier_, who blind still goes to _sea_."

But he was much given to the practice he condemns--here is an epigram--

"It seems as if Nature had cunningly planned

That men's names with their trades should agree,

There's Twining the tea-man, who lives in the Strand,

Would be _whining_ if robbed of his T."

Mistakes of words by the uneducated are a very ordinary resource of

humorists, but, of course, there is a great difference in the quality of

such jests. Mrs. Ramsbottom in Paris, eats a _voulez-vous_ of fowl, and

some pieces of _crape_, and goes to the _symetery_ of the _Chaise and

pair_. Afterwards she goes to the _Hotel de Veal_, and buys some _sieve_

jars to keep _popery_ in.

Hook was a strong Tory, and some of his best humour was political. One

of his squibs has been sometimes attributed to Lord Palmerston.

"Fair Reform, Celestial maid!

Hope of Britons! Hope of Britons!

Calls her followers to aid;

She has fit ones, she has fit ones!

They would brave in danger's day,

Death to win her! Death to win her;

If they met not by the way,

Michael's dinner! Michael's dinner!"

Alluding to a dinner-party which kept several Members from the House on

the occasion of an important division.

Among his political songs may be reckoned "The Invitation" (from one of

the Whig patronesses of the Lady's Fancy Dress Ball,)

"Come, ladies, come, 'tis now the time for capering,

Freedom's flag at Willis's is just unfurled,

We, with French dances, will overcome French vapouring,

And with ice and Roman punch amaze the world;

There's I myself, and Lady L----, you'll seldom meet a rummer set,

With Lady Grosvenor, Lady Foley, and her Grace of Somerset,

While Lady Jersey fags herself, regardless of the bustle, ma'am,

With Lady Cowper, Lady Anne, and Lady William Russell, ma'am.

Come, ladies, come, &c."

There is a sort of polite social satire running through Theodore Hook's

works, but it does not exhibit any great inventive powers. In

"Byroniana," he ridicules the gossiping books written after Byron's

death, pretending to give the minutest accounts of his habits and

occasional observations--and generally omitting the names of their

authority. Thus Hook tells us in a serio-comic tone:--

"He had a strong antipathy to pork when underdone or stale, and

nothing could induce him to partake of fish which had been caught

more than ten days--indeed, he had a singular dislike even to the

smell of it. He told me one night that ---- told ---- that if ----

would only ---- him ---- she would ---- without any compunction:

for her ----, who though an excellent man, was no ----, but that

she never ----, and this she told ---- and ---- as well as Lady

---- herself. Byron told me this in confidence, and I may be blamed

for repeating it; but ---- can corroborate it; if it happens not to

be gone to ----"

The following written against an old-fashioned gentleman, Mr. Brown, who

objects to the improvements of the age, is interesting. It is amusing

now to read an ironical defence of steam, intended to ridicule the

pretensions of its advocates.

"Mr. Brown sneers at steam and growls at gas. I contend that the

utility of constructing a coach which shall go by hot water, nearly

as fast as two horses can draw it at a trifling additional expense,

promises to be wonderfully useful. We go too fast, Sir, with

horses; besides, horses eat oats, and farmers live by selling oats;

if, therefore, by inconveniencing ourselves, and occasionally

risking our lives, we can, however imperfectly, accomplish by steam

what is now done by horses, we get rid of the whole race of

oat-sowers, oat-sellers, oat-eaters, and oat-stealers, vulgarly

called ostlers."

Sydney Smith especially aimed at pleasantry in his humour, there was no

animosity in it, and generally no instruction. Mirth, pure and simple,

was his object. Rogers observes "After Luttrell, you remembered what

good things he said--after Smith how much you laughed."

In Moore's Diary we read "at a breakfast at Roger's, Smith, full of

comicality and fancy, kept us all in roars of laughter." His wit was so

turned, that it never wounded. When he took leave of Lord Dudley, the

latter said, "You have been laughing at me constantly, Sydney, for the

last seven years, and yet in all that time, you never said a thing to me

that I wished unsaid."

It would be superfluous to give a collection of Smith's good sayings,

but the following is characteristic of his style. When he heard of a

small Scotchman going to marry a lady of large dimensions, he exclaimed,

"Going to marry her? you mean a part of her, he could not marry her

all. It would be not bigamy but trigamy. There is enough of her to

furnish wives for a whole parish. You might people a colony with

her, or give an assembly with her, or perhaps take your morning's

walk round her, always providing there were frequent resting-places

and you were in rude health. I was once rash enough to try walking

round her before breakfast, but only got halfway, and gave up

exhausted."

Smith's humour was nearly always of this continuous kind, "changing its

shape and colour to many forms and hues." He wished to continue the

merriment to the last, but such repetition weakened its force. His

humour is better when he has some definite aim in view, as in his

letters about America, where he lost his money. But we have not many

specimens of it in his writings, the following is from "The Dun Cow:"--

"The immense importance of a pint of ale to a common man should

never be overlooked, nor should a good-natured Justice forget that

he is acting for Lilliputians, whose pains and pleasures lie in

very narrow compass, and are but too apt to be treated with neglect

and contempt by their superiors. About ten or eleven o'clock in the

morning, perhaps, the first faint shadowy vision of a future pint

of beer dawns on the fancy of the ploughman. Far, very far is it

from being fully developed. Sometimes the idea is rejected;

sometimes it is fostered. At one time he is almost fixed on the

'Red Horse,' but the blazing fire and sedulous kindness of the

landlady of the 'Dun Cow' shake him, and his soul labours! Heavy is

the ploughed land, dark, dreary, and wet the day. His purpose is at

last fixed for beer! Threepence is put down for the vigour of the

ale, and one penny for the stupefaction of tobacco, and these are

the joys and holidays of millions, the greatest pleasure and

relaxation which it is in the power of fortune to bestow."

Such kindly feelings as animated Sydney Smith were found more fully

developed in Thomas Hood. He made his humour minister to philanthropy.

The man who wrote the "Song of the Shirt" felt keenly for all the

sufferings of the poor--he even favoured some of their unreasonable

complaints. Thus he writes the "Address of the Laundresses to the Steam

Washing Company," to show how much they are injured by such an

institution. In a "Drop of Gin," he inveighs against this destructive

stimulant.

"Gin! gin! a drop of gin!

What magnified monsters circle therein,

Bagged and stained with filth and mud,

Some plague-spotted, and some with blood."

He seems not to be well pleased with Mr. Bodkin, the Secretary for the

Society for the Suppression of Mendicity--

"Hail! king of shreds and patches, hail!

Dispenser of the poor!

Thou dog in office set to bark

All beggars from the door!

* * * * *

"Of course thou art what Hamlet meant

To wretches, the last friend;

What ills can mortals have that can't

With a bare _bodkin_ end."

Mr. M'Adam is apostrophized--

"Hail Roadian, hail Colossus, who dost stand,

Striding ten thousand turnpikes on the land?

Oh, universal Leveller! all hail!"

In a sporting dialogue in "Tylney Hall," we have--

"'A clever little nag, that,' said the Squire, after a long

one-eyed look at the brown mare, 'knows how to go, capital action.'

"'A picture, isn't she?' said the Baronet. 'I bought her last week

by way of a surprise to Ringwood. She was bred by old Toby Sparks

at Hollington, by Tiggumbob out of Tolderol, by Diddledumkins,

Cockalorum, and so forth.'

"'An odd fish, old Toby;' said the Squire, 'always give 'em queer

names: can jump a bit, no doubt?'

"'She jumps like a flea,' said Dick, 'and as for galloping, she can

go from anywhere to everywhere in forty minutes--and back again.'"

We may also mention his description of an old-fashioned doctor.

"At first sight we were in doubt whether to set him down as a

doctor or a pedagogue, for his dress presented one very

characteristic appendage of the latter, namely a square cut black

coat, which never was, never would be, and probably never had been,

in fashion. A profusion of cambric frills, huge silver

shoe-buckles, a snuff-box of the same metal, and a gold-headed cane

belonging rather to the costume of the physician of the period. He

wore a very precise wig of a very decided brown, regularly crisped

at the top like a bunch of endive, and in front, following the

exact curves of the arches of two bushy eyebrows. He had dark eyes,

a prominent nose, and a wide mouth--the corners of which in smiling

were drawn towards his double chin. A florid colour on his face

hinted a plethoric habit, while a portly body and a very short

thick neck bespoke an apoplectic tendency. Warned by these

indications, prudence had made him a strict water-drinker, and

abstemious in his diet--a mode of treatment which he applied to all

his patients short or tall, stout or thin, with whom whatever their

disease, he invariably began by reducing them, as an arithmetician

would say, to their lowest terms. This mode of treatment raised him

much in the estimation of the parish authorities."

The humour in the following is of a lighter and more tricksy kind--

WRITTEN IN A YOUNG LADY'S ALBUM.

"Upon your cheek I may not speak,

Nor on your lip be warm,

I must be wise about your eyes,

And formal with your form;

Of all that sort of thing, in short,

On T. H. Bayly's plan,

I must not twine a single line,

I'm not a single man."

On hearing that Grimaldi had left the stage, he enumerates his funny

performances--

"Oh, who like thee could ever drink,

Or eat--smile--swallow--bolt--and choke,

Nod, weep, and hiccup--sneeze and wink?

Thy very gown was quite a joke!

Though Joseph Junior acts not ill,

'There's no fool like the old fool still.'"

His felicity in playing with words is well exhibited in the stanzas on

"John Trot."

"John Trot he was as tall a lad

As York did ever rear,

As his dear granny used to say,

He'd make a Grenadier.

"A serjeant soon came down to York

With ribbons and a frill;

My lad, said he, let broadcast be,

And come away to drill.

"But when he wanted John to 'list,

In war he saw no fun,

Where what is call'd a raw recruit,

Gets often over-done.

"Let others carry guns, said he,

And go to war's alarms,

But I have got a shoulder-knot

Imposed upon my arms.

"For John he had a footman's place,

To wait on Lady Wye,

She was a dumpy woman, tho'

Her family was high.

"Now when two years had passed away

Her lord took very ill,

And left her to her widowhood,

Of course, more dumpy still.

"Said John, I am a proper man,

And very tall to see,

Who knows, but now her lord is low

She may look up to me?

"'A cunning woman told me once

Such fortune would turn up,

She was a kind of sorceress,

But studied in a cup.'

"So he walked up to Lady Wye,

And took her quite amazed,

She thought though John was tall enough

He wanted to be raised.

"But John--for why? she was a dame

Of such a dwarfish sort--

Had only come to bid her make

Her mourning very short.

"Said he, 'your lord is dead and cold,

You only cry in vain,

Not all the cries of London now,

Could call him back again.

"'You'll soon have many a noble beau,

To dry your noble tears,

But just consider this that I

Have followed you for years.

"'And tho' you are above me far,

What matters high degree,

When you are only four foot nine,

And I am six foot three?

"'For though you are of lofty race,

And I'm a low-born elf,

Yet none among your friends could say,

You matched beneath yourself.'

"Said she, 'such insolence as this

Can be no common case;

Though you are in my service, Sir,

Your love is out of place.'

"'O Lady Wye! O Lady Wye!

Consider what you do;

How can you be so short with me,

I am not so with you!'

"Then ringing for her serving-men,

They show'd him to the door;

Said they, 'you turn out better now,

Why didn't you before?'

"They stripp'd his coat, and gave him kicks

For all his wages due,

And off instead of green and gold

He went in black and blue.

"No family would take him in

Because of this discharge,

So he made up his mind to serve

The country all at large.

"'Huzza!' the serjeant cried, and put

The money in his hand,

And with a shilling cut him off

From his paternal land.

"For when his regiment went to fight

At Saragossa town,

A Frenchman thought he look'd too tall,

And so he cut him down."

Barham's humour, as seen in his "Ingoldsby Legends," is of a lower

character, but shows that the author possessed a great natural facility.

He had keen observation, but his taste did not prevent his employing it

on what was coarse and puerile. Common slang abounds, as in "The Vulgar

Little Boy;" he talks of "the devil's cow's tail," and is little afraid

of extravagances. His metre often assists him, and we have often comic

rhyming as where "Mephistopheles" answers to "Coffee lees," and he

says:--

"To gain your sweet smiles, were I Sardanapalus,

I'd descend from my throne, and be boots at an alehouse,"

But in raising a laugh and affording a pleasant distraction by fantastic

humour on common subjects, the "Ingoldsby Legends" have been highly

successful, and they are recommended by an occasional historical

allusion, especially at the expense of the old monks. Being written by a

man of knowledge and cultivation, they rise considerably above the

standard of the contributions to lower class comic papers, which in some

respects they resemble.

CHAPTER XVI.

Douglas Jerrold--Liberal Politics--Advantages of Ugliness--Button

Conspiracy--Advocacy of Dirt--The "Genteel Pigeons."

There is an earnestness and a political complexion in the humour of

Douglas Jerrold, such as might be expected from a man who had been

educated in the school of adversity. He was born in a garret at

Sheerness, where his father was manager of the theatre; and as he grew

up in the seaport among ships, sailors and naval preparations, his

ambition was fired, and he entered the service as a midshipman. On his

return, after a short period, he found his father immersed in

difficulties, due probably to the inactivity at the seaport in time of

peace. Many a man has owed his success in life partly to his following

his father's profession, and here fortune favoured Jerrold, as his

maritime experiences assisted him as a writer for the stage. We can

easily understand how "Black-eyed Susan" would move the hearts of

sailors returning after a long voyage. Meanwhile the inner power and

energy of the man developed itself in many directions; he perfected

himself in Latin, French and Italian literature, wrote "leaders" for the

"Morning Herald," and articles for Magazines. All his works were short,

and those which were most approved never assumed an important character.

The most successful enterprise in his career was his starting "Punch,"

in conjunction with Gilbert' A-Beckett and Mark Lemon.

Jerrold was a staunch and sturdy liberal, and his original idea was that

of a periodical to expose every kind of hypocrisy, and fraud, and

especially to attack the strongholds of Toryism. "Punch" owed much at

its commencement to the pen of Jerrold, and has well retained its

character for fun, although it scarcely now represents its projector's

political ardour.

His conversation overflowed with pleasantry, and in conversation he

sometimes hazarded a pun, as when he asked Talfourd whether he had any

more "Ions" in the fire. But the critic, who says that "every jest of

his was a gross incivility made palatable by a pun," is singularly

infelicitous, for as a humorous writer he is almost unique in his

freedom from verbal humour. His style is often adagial or exaggerated,

and we are constantly meeting such sentences as;

"Music was only invented to gammon human nature, and that is the

reason that women are so fond of it."

"A fellow from a horsepond will know anybody who's a supper and a

bed to give him."

"To whip a rascal for his rags is to pay flattering homage to cloth

of gold."

"A suspicious man would search a pincushion for treason, and see

daggers in a needle case."

"Wits, like drunken men with swords, are apt to draw their steel

upon their best acquaintance."

"What was talked of as the golden chain of love, was nothing but a

succession of laughs, a chromatic scale of merriment reaching from

earth to Olympus."

St. Giles' and St. James' is written to show that "St. James in his

brocade may probably learn of St. Giles in his tatters." It abounds in

quaint and humorous moralizing. Here is a specimen--

"We cannot say if there really be not a comfort in substantial

ugliness: ugliness that unchanged will last a man his life, a good

granite face in which there shall be no wear or tear. A man so

appointed is saved many alarms, many spasms of pride. Time cannot

wound his vanity through his features; he eats, drinks, and is

merry in spite of mirrors. No acquaintance starts at sudden

alteration, hinting in such surprise, decay and the final tomb. He

grows old with no former intimates--churchyard voices--crying 'How

you're altered.' How many a man might have been a truer husband, a

better father, firmer friend, more valuable citizen, had he, when

arrived at legal maturity, cut off, say--an inch of his nose. This

inch--only an inch!--would have destroyed the vanity of the very

handsomest face, and so driven the thought of a man from a vulgar

looking-glass, a piece of shop crystal--and more, from the fatal

mirrors carried in the heads of women, to reflect heaven knows how

many coxcombs who choose to stare into them--driven the man to the

glass of his own mind. With such small sacrifice he might have been

a philosopher. Thus considered, how many a coxcomb may be within an

inch of a sage!"

In another passage of the same book we read--

"Was there not Whitlow, beadle of the parish of St. Scraggs? What a

man-beast was Whitlow! how would he, like an avenging ogre, scatter

apple-women! how would he foot little boys guilty of peg-tops and

marbles! how would he puff at a beggar--puff like the picture of

the north wind in a spelling book! What a huge heavy purple face he

had, as though all the blood of his body were stagnant in his

cheeks! and then when he spoke, would he not growl and snuffle like

a dog? How the parish would have hated him, but that the parish

heard there was a Mrs. Whitlow; a small fragile woman, with a face

sharp as a penknife, and lips that cut her words like scissors! and

what a forlorn wretch was Whitlow with his head brought once a

night to the pillow! poor creature! helpless, confused; a huge

imbecility, a stranded whale! Mrs. Whitlow talked and talked; and

there was not an apple-woman that in Whitlow's sufferings was not

avenged: not a beggar that, thinking of the beadle at midnight,

might not in his compassion have forgiven the beadle of the day.

And in this punishment we acknowledge a grand, a beautiful

retribution. A Judge Jeffreys in his wig is an abominable tyrant;

yet may his victims sometimes smile to think what Judge Jeffreys

suffers in his night cap!"

It is almost unnecessary to observe that the writer of Mrs. Caudle's

Curtain Lectures was somewhat severe upon the fair sex. His idea of a

perfect woman is that of one who is beautiful, "and can do everything

but speak." In the "Chronicles of Clovernook"--_i.e._ of his little

retreat near Herne Bay--he gives an account of the Hermit of Bellyfulle,

who lives in "the cell of the corkscrew," and among many amusing

paradoxes, maintains the following,

"Ay, Sir, the old story--the old grievance, Sir, twixt man and

woman," said the hermit.

"And what is that, Sir?" we asked.

The hermit shaking his head, and groaning cried, "Buttons."

"Buttons!" said we.

Our hermit drew himself closer to the table, and spreading his arms

upon it, leaned forward with the serious air of a man prepared to

discuss a grave thing. "Buttons," he repeated. Then clearing his

throat he began, "In the course of your long and, I hope, well

spent life, has it never come with thunderbolt conviction on you

that all washerwomen, clear-starchers, getters up of fine linen, or

under whatever name Eve's daughters--for as Eve brought upon us the

stern necessity of a shirt, it is but just that her girls should

wash it--under whatever name they cleanse and beautify flax and

cotton, that they are all under some compact, implied or solemnly

entered upon amongst themselves and their non-washing,

non-starching, non-getting up sisterhood, that by means subtle and

more mortally certain, they shall worry, coax, and drive all

bachelors and widowers soever into the pound of irredeemable

wedlock? Has this tremendous truth, sir, never struck you?'

"'How?--by what means?' we asked.

"'Simply by buttons.' answered the hermit, bringing down his

clenched fist upon the table.

"We knew it--we looked incredulous.

"'See here, sir,' said the Hermit, leaning still farther across the

table, 'I will take a man, who on his outstart in life, set his hat

a-cock at matrimony--a man who defies Hymen and all his wicked

wiles. Nevertheless, sir, the man must have a shirt, the man must

have a washerwoman, Think you that that shirt returning from the

tub, never wants one, two--three buttons? Always, sir, always. Sir,

though I am now an anchorite I have lived in your bustling world,

and seen--ay, quite as much as anyone of its manifold wickedness.

Well, the man--the buttonless man--at first calmly remonstrates

with his laundress. He pathetically wrings his wrists at her, and

shows his condition. The woman turns upon him her wainscot face and

promises amendment. The thing shall never happen again. Think you

the next shirt has its just and lawful number of buttons? Devil a

bit!'"

In "The Bright Poker," he seems to pay a compliment under a guise of

sarcasm:--

"And here my dear child, let me advise you to avoid by all means

what is called a clean wife. You will be made to endure the extreme

of misery under the base, the inviduous pretext of being rendered

comfortable. Your house will be an ark tossed by continual floods.

You will never know what it is to properly accommodate your

shoulders to a shirt, so brief will be its visit to your back ere

it again go to the washtub. And then for spiders, fleas, and other

household insects, sent especially into our homesteads to awaken

the enquiring spirit of man, to at once humble his individual pride

by the contemplation of their sagacity, and to elevate him by the

frequent evidence of the marvels of animal life--all these calls

upon our higher faculties will be wanting, and lacking them your

immortal part will be dizzied, stunned by the monotony of the

scrubbing-brush, and poisoned past the remedy of perfume by yellow

soap. Your wife and children, too, will have their faces

continually shining like the holiday saucers on the mantel-piece.

Now consider the conceit, the worse than arrogance of this; the

studied callous forgetfulness of the beginning of man. Did he not

spring from the earth?--from clay--dirt--mould--mud--garden soil,

or composition of some sort, for theological geology (you must look

in the dictionary for these words) has not precisely defined what;

and is it not the basest impudence of pride to seek to wash and

scrub and rub away the original spot? Is he not the most natural

man who in vulgar meaning is the dirtiest? Depend upon it, there is

a fine natural religion in dirt; and yet we see men and women

strive to appear as if they were compounded of the roses and lilies

in Paradise instead of the fine rich loam, that feeds their roots.

Be assured of it, there is great piety in what the ignorant

foolishly call filth. Take some of the Saints for an example--off

with their coats, and away with their hair shirts; and even then,

my son, so intently have they considered and been influenced by the

lowly origin of man, that with the most curious eye, and most

delicate finger, you shall not be able to tell where either saint

or dirt begins or ends."

In a "Man made of Money," we have something original--a dialogue between

two fleas, as they stand on the brow of Mr. Jericho--

"'My son,' says the elder, 'true it is, man feeds for us. Man is

the labouring chemist for the fleas; for them he turns the richest

meats and spiciest drinks to flea wine. Nevertheless, and I say it

with much pain, man is not what he was. He adulterates our tipple

most wickedly.'

"'I felt it with the last lodgers,' says the younger flea. 'They

drank vile spirits, their blood was turpentine with, I fear, a dash

of vitriol. How they lived at all, I know not. I always had the

headache in the morning. Here however,' and the juvenile looked

steadfastly down upon the plain of flesh, the wide champaign

beneath him--'here we have promise of better fare.'"

But Douglas Jerrold's best humour is usually rather in the narrative

and general issue than in any sudden hits or surprises. His "Sketches of

The English" are humorous and admirably drawn, but it would be difficult

to produce a single striking passage out of them. One of the most

amusing stories in his collection of "Cakes and Ale" is called "The

Genteel Pigeons."--A newly married couple return home before the end of

the honeymoon, but wish to keep their arrival secret. George Tomata, a

connection of the family, but unknown to Pigeon, calls at the house, and

is denied admittance by the servant, but Pigeon, happening to come down

asks if he has any message of importance to transact--

"'Not in the least, no--not at all,' answered Tomata leisurely

ascending the stairs, and with Mr Pigeon entering the drawing-room,

'So, the Pigeons are not at home yet eh?'

"'Mr. and Mrs. Pigeon the day of their marriage,' answered Pigeon

softly, 'went to Brighton.'

"'Ha! well, that's not three weeks yet. Of course, Sir, you are

intimate with Mr. Pigeon?'

"'I have the pleasure, sir,' said Samuel.

"'You lodge here, no doubt? Excuse me, although I have not with you

the pleasure--and doubtless it is a very great one--of knowing

Pigeon, still I am very intimate with his little wife.'

"'Indeed, Sir. I never heard her name--'

"'I dare say not, Sir; I dare say not. Oh very intimate; we wore

petticoats together. Baby companions, sir--baby companions--used to

bite the same pear.'

"'Really sir,'--and Pigeon shifted in his seat--'I was not aware of

so early and delicate a connection between yourself and Mrs.

Pigeon.'

"'We were to have been married, yes, I may say, the wedding-ring

was over the first joint of her finger.'

"'And pray, sir,' asked Pigeon, with a face of crimson, 'pray,

sir, what accident may have drawn the ring off again?'

"'You see, sir,' said George Tomata, arranging his hair by an

opposite mirror, 'my prospects lay in India--in India, sir. Now

Lotty--'

"'Who, sir?' exclaimed Pigeon, wrathfully.

"'Charlotte,' answered Tomata. 'I used to call her Lotty, and

she--he! he!--she used to call me 'Love-apple.' You may judge how

far we were both gone. For when a woman begins to play tricks with

a man's name you may be sure she begins to look upon it as her

future property.'

"'You are always right, sir, no doubt,' observed Pigeon, 'but you

were about to state the particular hindrance to your marriage

with'----

"'To be sure, Lotty--as I was going to observe, was a nice little

sugar-plum, a very nice little sugar-plum--as you will doubtless

allow.'

"It was with much difficulty that Pigeon possessed himself of

sufficient coolness to admit the familiar truth of the simile; he

however admitted the wife of his bosom to be a nice little

sugar-plum.

"'Very nice indeed, but I saw it--I felt convinced of it, and the

truth went like twenty daggers to my soul--but I discovered--'

"'Good heavens,' exclaimed Pigeon, 'discovered what?'

"'That her complexion,' replied Tomata, 'beautiful as it was would

not stand Trincomalee.'

"'And was that your sole objection to the match?' inquired Pigeon

solemnly.

"'I give you my honour as a gentleman that I had no other motive

for breaking off the marriage. Sir, I should have despised myself,

if I had; for, as I observed, we were both gone--very far gone

indeed.'

"'No doubt, sir,' answered Pigeon, burning to avow himself. 'But as

a friend of Mr. Pigeon, allow me to assure you that the lady was

not found too far gone to admit of a perfect recovery.'

"'I'm glad of it; hope it is so. By the way what sort of a fellow

is Pigeon? Had I been in London--I only came up yesterday--I should

have looked into the match before it took place. Lotty could expect

no less of me. What kind of an animal is this Pigeon?'

"'Kind of an animal, sir?' stammered Pigeon. 'Why, sir, he----'

"'Ha! that will do,' said the abrupt Tomata, 'as you're his friend

I'll not press you on that point. Poor Lotty--sacrificed I see!'"

After more amusing dialogue he throws his card on the table and says he

shall call, adding,

"'If Pigeon makes my Lotty a good husband, I'll take him by the

hand; if, however, I find him no gentleman--find that he shall use

the girl of my heart with harshness, or even with the least

unkindness--'

"'Well, sir!'--Pigeon thrusting his hands into his pockets

swaggered to Tomata--'what will you do then, sir?'

"'Then, sir. I shall again think the happiness of the lady placed

in my hands and thrash him--thrash him severely.'"

CHAPTER XVII.

Thackeray--His Acerbity--The Baronet--The Parson--Medical

Ladies--Glorvina--"A Serious Paradise."

Thackeray resembled Lamb in the all-pervading character of his humour.

He adorned with it almost everything he touched, but did not enter into

it heart and soul, like a man of really joyous mirth-loving disposition.

His pages teem with sly hits and insinuations, but he never developes a

comic scene, and we can scarcely find a single really laughable episode

in the whole course of his works. So little did he grasp or finish such

pictures that we rarely select a passage from Thackeray for recitation.

He thought more of plot and stratagem than of humour, and used the

latter, not for its own sake, but mostly to give brilliance to his

narrative, to make his figures prominent, and his remarks salient. He

thus silvers unpalatable truths, and although he disowns being a

moralist, we generally see some substratum of earnestness peeping

through the eddies of his fancy. With him, humour is subservient. And

he speaks from his inner self, when he exclaims, "Oh, brother wearers of

motley! Are there not moments when one grows sick of grinning and

tumbling, and the jingling of the cap and bells."

We may say that much of Thackeray's humour is more inclined to produce a

grin than a smile--merely to cause a grimace, owing to the bitterness

from which it springs. It must be remembered, however, that the greater

part of modern wit consists of sarcastic criticism, though it is not

generally severe.

In Thackeray we do not find any of that consciousness of the imbecility

of man, which made some French writers call the humour of Democritus

"melancholy." The "Vanity" of which he speaks is not that universal

emptiness alluded to by the surfeited author of Ecclesiastes, nor has it

even the ordinary signification of personal conceit. No; he implies

something more culpable, such immorality as covetousness, deception,

vindictiveness, and hypocrisy. He approaches the Roman Satirists in the

relentless hand with which he exposes vice. Some of his characters are

monstrous, and almost grotesque in selfishness, as that of Becky Sharp,

to whom he does not allow one good quality. Cunning and unworthy

motives add considerably to the zest of his humour. He says--

"This history has Vanity Fair for a title, and Vanity Fair is a

very vain foolish place, full of all sorts of humbugs and falseness

and pretentions. One is bound to speak the truth, as one knows it,

whether one mounts a cap and bells, or a shovel hat; and a deal of

disagreeable matter must come out in the course of such an

undertaking."

Here is his description of a baronet, Sir Pitt Crawley;--

"The door was opened by a man in dark breeches and gaiters with a

dirty coat, a foul old neck cloth lashed round his bristly neck, a

shining bald head, a leering red face, a pair of twinkling grey

eyes, and a mouth perpetually on the grin.

"'This Sir John Pitt Crawley's?' says John, from the box.

"'Ees,' says the man at the door, with a nod.

"'Hand down these ere trunks then,' said John.

"'Hand 'n down yourself,' said the porter.

"'Don't you see I can't leave my horses? Come bear a hand, my fine

feller, and Miss will give you some beer,' said John, with a hoarse

laugh.

"The bald-headed man, taking his hands out of his breeches pockets,

advanced on this summons, and throwing Miss Sharp's trunk over his

shoulder, carried it into the house.

"On entering the dining room by the orders of the individual in

gaiters, Rebecca found that apartment not more cheerful than such

rooms usually are when genteel families are out of town.... Two

kitchen chairs and a round table and an attenuated old poker and

tongs were however gathered round the fire place, as was a saucepan

over a feeble sputtering fire. There was a bit of cheese and bread,

and a tin candlestick on the table, and a little black porter in a

pint pot.

"'Had your dinner, I suppose? It is too warm for you? Like a drop

of beer?'

"'Where is Sir Pitt Crawley?' said Miss Sharp majestically.

"'He, he! I'm Sir Pitt Crawley. Reclect you owe me a pint for

bringing down your luggage. He, he! Ask Tinker if I ayn't. Mrs.

Tinker, Miss Sharp, Miss Governess, Mrs. Charwoman, ho ho!'

"The lady addressed as Mrs. Tinker, at this moment made her

appearance with a pipe and paper of tobacco, for which she had been

dispatched a minute before Miss Sharp's arrival; and she handed the

articles over to Sir Pitt, who had taken his seat by the fire.

"'Where's the farden?' says he, 'I gave you three halfpence.

Where's the change, old Tinker?'

"'There,' replied Mrs. Tinker, flinging down the coin, 'it's only

baronets as cares about farthings.'

"'A farthing a day is seven shillings a year,' answered the M.P.,

'seven shillings a year is the interest of seven guineas. Take care

of your farthings, old Tinker, and your guineas will come quite

nat'ral.' ...

"And so with injunctions to Miss Sharp to be ready at five in the

morning, he bade her good night, 'You'll sleep with Tinker

to-night,' he said, 'it's a big bed, and there's room for two. Lady

Crawley died in it. Good night.'"

He sums up Sir Pitt's character by saying. "He never had a taste,

emotion or enjoyment, but what was sordid and foul."

Sir Pitt's brother, the Rector of the parish, is represented as being

almost as abominable as himself, though in a different way--

"The Reverend Bute Crawley was a tall, stately, shovel-hatted man,

far more popular in the county than the Baronet. At College he

pulled stroke oar in the Christchurch boat, and had thrashed all

the best bruisers of the 'town.' He carried his taste for boxing

and athletic exercises into private life, there was not a fight

within twenty miles at which he was not present, nor a race, nor a

coursing match, nor a regatta, nor a ball, nor an election, nor a

visitation dinner, nor indeed a good dinner in the whole county,

but he found means to attend it. He had a fine voice, sung 'A

Southerly Wind and a Cloudy Sky,' and gave the 'whoop' in chorus

with general applause. He rode to hounds in a pepper and salt

frock, and was one of the best fishermen in the county."

The following is a sample of the conversation he holds with his wife,

who, we are told "wrote this worthy Divine's sermons"--

"'Pitt can't be such an infernal villain as to sell the reversion

of the living, and that Methodist milksop of an eldest son looks to

Parliament,' continued Mr. Crawley, after a pause.

"'Sir Pitt will do anything,' said the Rector's wife, 'we must get

Miss Crawley to make him promise it, James.'

"'Pitt will promise anything,' replied the brother, 'he promised

he'd pay my college bills, when my father died; he promised he'd

build the new wing to the Rectory. And it is to this man's

son--this scoundrel, gambler, swindler, murderer, of a Rawdon

Crawley, that Matilda leaves the bulk of her money. I say it's

unchristian. By Jove it is. The infamous dog has got every vice

except hypocrisy, and that belongs to his brother."

"'Hush, my dearest love! we're in Sir Pitt's grounds,' interposed

his wife.

"'I say he has got every vice, Mrs. Crawley. Don't bully me. Didn't

he shoot Captain Marker? Didn't he rob young Lord Dovedale at the

Cocoa Tree? Didn't he cross the fight between Bill Soames and the

Cheshire Trump by which I lost forty pound? You know he did; and as

for women, why you heard that before me, in my own magistrates

room--'

"'For heaven's sake, Mr. Crawley,' said the lady, 'spare me the

details.'"

It was in a great measure to this severe sarcasm that Thackeray owed his

popularity. He justly observes:--

"My rascals are no milk-and-water rascals, I promise you ... such

people there are living in the world, faithless, hopeless,

charityless; let us have at them, dear friends, with might and

main. Some there are, and very successful too, mere quacks and

fools; and it was to combat and expose such as those no doubt, that

laughter was made."

But he does not always seem to attribute merriment to this humble and

unpleasant origin; he produces some passages really meant for enjoyment,

and doing justice to his gift, attacks frivolities and failings, which

are not of an important kind. Thus, he speaks in a jocund strain of the

vanity of "fashionable fiddle-daddle and feeble court slip-slop," and

exclaims, "Ah, ladies! Ask the Reverend Mr. Thurifer if Belgravia is not

a sounding brass, and Tyburnia a tinkling cymbal!"

He tells us that "The affection of young ladies is of as rapid a growth

as Jack's beanstalk, and reaches up to the sky in a night," and in the

following passage he exhibits the conduct of an amiable and estimable

girl, when under this fascinating spell--

"Were Miss Sedley's letters to Mr. Osborn to be published, we

should have to extend this novel to such a multiplicity of volumes,

as not the most sentimental reader could support; she not only

filled large sheets of paper, but crossed them with the most

astonishing perverseness, she wrote whole pages out of poetry books

without the least pity, the underlined words and passages with

quite a frantic emphasis; and in fine gave the usual tokens of her

condition. Her letters were full of repetition, she wrote rather

doubtful grammar sometimes, and in her verses took all sorts of

liberties with the metre."

Speaking of a very religious and medical lady--

"Pitt had been made to accept Saunders McNitre, Luke Waters, Giles

Jowles, Podger's Pills, Rodger's Pills, Pokey's Elixir--every one

of her ladyship's remedies, spiritual and temporal. He never left

her house without carrying respectfully away with him piles of her

quack theology and medicine. O, my dear brethren and

fellow-sojourners in Vanity Fair, which among you does not know and

suffer under such benevolent despots? It is in vain you say to

them, 'Dear madam, I took Podger's specific at your orders last

year, and believe in it. Why am I to recant, and accept the

Rodger's articles now?' There is no help for it; the faithful

proselytizer, if she cannot convince by argument, bursts into

tears, and the recusant finds himself taking down the bolus, and

saying 'Well, well, Rodger's be it.'"

A still more alarming attack is thus represented:--

"Glorvina had flirted with all the marriageable officers, whom the

depôts of her country afforded, and all the bachelor squires who

seemed eligible. She had been engaged to be married a half-score of

times in Ireland, besides the clergyman at Bath, who had used her

so ill. She had flirted all the way to Madras with the captain and

chief-mate of the Ramchunder East Indiaman, and had a season at the

Presidency. Everybody admired her; everybody danced with her; but

no one proposed that was worth marrying.... Undismayed by forty or

fifty previous defeats, Glorvina laid siege to Major Dobbin. She

sang Irish melodies at him unceasingly. She asked him so frequently

and so pathetically 'Will you come to the bower,' that it is a

wonder how any man of feeling could have resisted the invitation.

She was never tired of inquiring if 'Sorrow had his young days

faded,' and was ready to listen and weep like Desdemona at the

stories of his dangers and campaigns. She was constantly writing

notes over to him at his house, borrowing his books, and scoring

with her great pencil marks such passages of sentiment or humour,

as awakened her sympathy. No wonder that public rumour assigned her

to him."

In the following, Thackeray is more severe--

"His wife never cared about being called Lady Newcome. To manage

the great house of Hobson brothers and Newcome, to attend to the

interests of the enslaved negro: to awaken the benighted Hottentot

to a sense of the truth; to convert Jews, Turks, Infidels, and

Papists; to arouse the indifferent and often blasphemous mariner;

to guide the washerwoman in the right way; to head all the public

charities of her sect, and do a thousand secret kindnesses that

none knew of; to answer myriads of letters, pension, endless

ministers, and supply their teeming wives with continuous

baby-linen, to hear preachers daily bawling for hours, and listen

untired on her knees, after a long day's labour, while florid

rhapsodists belaboured cushions above her with wearisome

benedictions; all these things had this woman to do, and for nearly

fourscore years she fought her fight womanfully."

This pious lady's residence was a "serious Paradise;"

"As you entered at the gate gravity fell on you; and decorum

wrapped you in a garment of starch. The butcher boy who galloped

his horse and cart madly about the adjoining lanes and commons,

whistled wild melodies (caught up in abominable play-house

galleries) and joked with a hundred cook-maids,--on passing that

lodge fell into an undertaker's pace, and delivered his joints and

sweetbreads silently at the servant's entrance. The rooks in the

elms cawed sermons at morning and evening: the peacocks walked

demurely on the terraces; and the guinea-fowls looked more

quaker-like than those savoury birds usually do. The lodge-keeper

was serious, and a clerk at a neighbouring chapel. The pastors who

entered at that gate, and greeted his comely wife and children, fed

the little lambkins with tracts. The head-gardener was a Scotch

Calvinist, after the strictest order, only occupying himself with

the melons and pines provisionally, and until the end of the world,

which event, he could prove by infallible calculations was to come

off in two or three years at farthest."

In one place, a collision is represented between the old and young

schools of criticism:

"The Colonel heard opinions that amazed and bewildered him; he

heard that Byron was no great poet, though a very clever man; he

heard that there had been a wicked persecution against Mr. Pope's

memory and fame, and that it was time to reinstate him; that his

favourite, Dr. Johnson, talked admirably, but did not write

English; that young Keats was a genius to be estimated in future

days with young Raphael; and that a young gentleman of Cambridge,

who had lately published two volumes of verses, might take rank

with the greatest poets of all. Dr. Johnson not write English! Lord

Byron not one of the greatest poets of the world! Sir Walter a poet

of the second order! Mr. Pope attacked for inferiority and want of

imagination; Mr. Keats, and this young Mr. Tennyson of Cambridge,

the chiefs of modern poetic literature? What were these new dicta

which Mr. Warrington delivered with a puff of tobacco smoke, to

which Mr. Honeyman blandly assented, and Clive listened with

pleasure?... With Newcome, the admiration for the literature of the

last century was an article of belief, and the incredulity of the

young men seemed rank blasphemy. 'You will be sneering at

Shakespeare next,' he said, and was silenced, though not better

pleased, when his youthful guests told him that Dr. Goldsmith

sneered at him too; that Dr. Johnson did not understand him, and

that Congreve in his own day, and afterwards, was considered to be,

in some points, Shakespeare's superior."

In the next he relapses into his stronger sarcasm--

"There are no better satires than letters. Take a bundle of your

dear friends' letters of ten years back--your dear friend, whom you

hate now. Look at a file of your sister's! how you clung to each

other until you quarrelled about the twenty pound legacy.... Vows,

love promises, confidence, gratitude! how queerly they read after a

while.... The best ink for Vanity Fair use would be one that faded

utterly in a couple of days, and left the paper clean and blank, so

that you might write on it to somebody else."

Again:--

"Many persons who let lodgings in Brighton have been servants

themselves, are retired housekeepers, tradesfolk, and the like.

With these surrounding individuals Hannah, treated on a footing of

equality, bringing to her mistress accounts of their various goings

on; 'how No. 6 was let; how No. 9 had not paid his rent again; how

the first floor at 27 had game almost every day, and made-dishes

from Mutton's; how the family who had taken Mrs. Bugsby's had left,

as usual, after the very first night, the poor little infant

blistered all over with bites on its dear little face; how the Miss

Leary's were going on shameful with the two young men, actually in

their sitting-room, mum, where one of them offered Miss Laura Leary

a cigar; how Mrs. Cribb _still_ went cuttin' pounds and pounds of

meat off the lodgers' jints, emptying their tea-caddies, actually

reading their letters. Sally had been told so by Polly, the Cribb's

maid, who was kep', how that poor child was kep,' hearing language

perfectly hawful!'"

Thus in all Thackeray's descriptions there is more or less satire. He

was always making pincushions, into which he was plunging his little

points of sarcasm, and owing to his confining himself to this kind of

humour he avoids the common danger of missing his mark. He is

occasionally liberal of oaths and imprecations, and when any one of his

characters is offended, he generally relieves his feelings by uttering

"horrid curses." Barnes Newcome sends up "a perfect _feu d'artifice_ of

oaths." But he is entirely free from indelicacy, and merely elegantly

shadows forth the Eton form of punishment, as that "which none but a

cherub can escape." In this respect he seems to have set before him the

example of Mr. Honeyman, of whom he says he had "a thousand anecdotes,

laughable riddles and droll stories (of the utmost correctness, you

understand.)"

Perhaps one of his least successful attempts at humour is a collection

of fables at the commencement of the Newcomes in which we have

conversations between a fox, an owl, a wolf in sheep's clothing, and a

donkey in a lion's skin, and such incongruities as would have shocked

Aristophanes. His Christmas books depend mostly on the broad caricatures

with which they are embellished, and upon a large supply of rough

joking.

Thackeray wrote a work named the "English Humorists," but he omits in it

all mention of the humour by which his authors were immortalized.

Certainly the ordinary habits and little foibles of great men are more

entertaining to the general public than inquiries into the nature of

their talent, which would only interest those fond of study and

investigation.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Dickens--Sympathy with the Poor--Vulgarity--Geniality--Mrs.

Gamp--Mixture of Pathos and Humour--Lever and Dickens

compared--Dickens' power of Description--General Remarks.

We shall be paying Hood no undue compliment if we couple his name with

that of Dickens as betokening the approach of milder and gentler

sentiments. They were themselves the chief pioneers of the better way.

Hitherto the poor and uneducated had been regarded with a certain amount

of contempt; their language and stupidity had formed fertile subjects

for the coarse ridicule of the humorist. But now a change was in

progress; broader views were gaining ground, and a time was coming when

men, notwithstanding the accidents of birth and fortune, should feel

mutual sympathy, and

"brothers be for a' that."

With Dickens the poor man was not a mere clown or blockhead; but beneath

his "hodden gray" often carried good feeling, intelligence, and wit. He

was rather humorous than ludicrous, and had some dignity of character.

Since his time, consideration for the poor has greatly increased; we see

it in the large charitable gifts, which are always increasing--in the

interest taken in schools and hospitals. Probably the respectable and

quiet character of the labouring classes has contributed to raise them

in the estimation of the richer part of the community.

A large portion of English humour is now employed upon so-called

vulgarity. The modification of feeling with regard to the humbler

classes has caused changes in the signification of this word. Originally

derived from "vulgus," the crowd, it meant that roughness of language

and manner which is found among the less educated. It did not properly

imply anything culpable, but had a bad sense given it by those who

considered "gentlemanly" to imply some moral superiority. The worship of

wealth so caused the signification of this latter word to exceed its

original reference to high birth, that we now hear people say that there

are real gentlemen among the poorer classes; and, conversely, we at

times speak of the vulgarity of the rich, as of their pride,

impertinence, or affectation--just as Fielding used the word "mob" to

signify contemptible people of any class. It is evident that some moral

superiority or deficiency is thus implied. There may be, on the whole,

some foundation for such distinctions, but they are not so much

recognised as they were, scarcely at all in the cases of individuals,

and the provincial accents and false grammar of the poor are more

amusing than formerly, because we take a kindlier interest in that

class.

M. Taine does not seem to have exercised his usual penetration when he

says that English humour "far from agreeable, and bitter in taste, like

their own beverages, abounds in Dickens. French sprightliness, joy, and

gaiety is a kind of good wine only grown in the lands of the sun. In its

insular state it leaves an aftertaste of vinegar. The man who jests here

is seldom kindly and never happy; he feels and censures the inequalities

of life." On the contrary, we are inclined to think that French humour

is fully as severe as English--they have such sayings as that "a man

without money is a body without blood," and their great wits were not

generally free from bitterness.

There is little that is personal or offensive in Dickens. It is said

that he was threatened with a prosecution for producing the character of

Squeers, but in general his puppets are too artificial to excite any

personal resentment. There are evidently set up merely to be knocked

down. Few would identify themselves with Heap or Scrooge, and although

the moral taught is appreciated by all, no class is hit, but only men

who seem to be preeminent in churlishness or villainy. Dickens is

remarkable for his gentleness whenever his humour touches the poor, and

while he makes amusement out of their simplicity and ignorance, he

throws in some sterling qualities. They often form the principal

characters in his books, and there is nearly always in them something

good-natured and sympathetic. Sam Weller is a pleasant fellow, so is

Boots at the Holly Tree Inn. Mrs. Jarley, who travels about to fairs

with wax-works, is a kindly and hospitable old party. She asks Nell and

her grandfather to take some refreshment--

"The grandfather humbly pulled off his hat and thanked her. The

lady of the caravan then bade him come up the stairs, but the drum

proving an inconvenient table for two, they descended again and sat

upon the grass, where she handed down to them the tea-tray, the

bread and butter, the knuckle of ham, and in short everything of

which she had partaken herself, except the bottle which she had

already embraced an opportunity of slipping into her pocket.

"'Set 'em out near the hind wheels, child, that's the best place,'

said their friend superintending the arrangements from above. 'Now

hand up the tea-pot for a little more hot water, and a pinch of

fresh tea, and then both of you eat and drink as much as you can,

and don't spare anything; that's all I ask you.'

"While they were thus engaged the lady of the caravan alighted on

the earth, and with her hands clasped behind her, and her large

bonnet trembling excessively, walked up and down in a measured

tread and very stately manner surveying the caravan from time to

time with an air of calm delight and deriving particular

gratification from the red panels and brass knocker. When she had

taken this gentle exercise for some time, she sat down upon the

steps and called 'George,' whereupon a man in a carter's frock, who

had been so shrouded in a hedge up to this time as to see

everything that passed without being seen himself, parted the twigs

that concealed him and appeared in a sitting attitude supporting on

his legs a baking dish, and a half gallon stone bottle, and bearing

in his right hand a knife, and in his left a fork.

"'Yes, missus,' said George.

"'How did you find the cold pie, George?'

"'It worn't amiss, mum.'

"'And the beer?' said the lady of the caravan with an appearance of

being more interested in this question than the last, 'is it

passable, George?'

"'It's more flatterer than it might be,' George returned, 'but it

a'nt so bad for all that.'

"To set the mind of his mistress at rest, he took a sip (amounting

in quantity to a pint or thereabouts) from the stone bottle, and

then smacked his lips, winked his eye, and nodded his head. No

doubt with the same amiable desire he immediately resumed his knife

and fork as a practical assurance that the beer had wrought no bad

effect upon his appetite.

"The lady of the caravan looked on approvingly for some time and

then said,

"'Have you nearly finished?'

"Wery nigh, mum,' and indeed after scraping the dish all round with

his knife and carrying the choice brown morsels to his mouth, and

after taking such a scientific pull at the stone bottle that, by

degrees almost imperceptible to the sight, his head went farther

and farther back until he lay nearly at his full length upon the

ground, this gentleman declared himself quite disengaged, and came

forth from his retreat.

"'I hope I haven't hurried you, George,' said his mistress, who

appeared to have a great sympathy with his late pursuit.

"'If you have,' returned the fellow, wisely reserving himself for

any favourable contingency, 'we must make it up next time, that's

all.'"

Mrs. Gamp has a touch of sympathy in her exuberance. Contemplating going

down to the country with the Dickens' company of actors, she tells us--

"Which Mrs. Harris's own words to me was these, 'Sairey Gamp,' she

says, 'why not go to Margate? Srimps,' says that dear creetur, 'is

to your liking. Sairey, why not go to Margate for a week, bring

your constitution up with srimps, and come back to them loving arts

as knows and wallies you, blooming? Sairey,' Mrs. Harris says,

'you are but poorly. Don't denige it, Mrs. Gamp, for books is in

your looks. You must have rest. Your mind,' she says, 'is too

strong for you; it gets you down and treads upon you, Sairey. It is

useless to disguige the fact--the blade is a wearing out the

sheets.' 'Mrs. Harris,' I says to her, 'I could not undertake to

say, and I will not deceive you ma'am, that I am not the woman I

could wish to be. The time of worrit as I had with Mrs. Colliber,

the baker's lady, which was so bad in her mind with her first, that

she would not so much as look at bottled stout, and kept to gruel

through the month, has agued me, Mrs. Harris. But, ma'am,' I says

to her, 'talk not of Margate, for if I do go anywhere it is

elsewheres, and not there.' 'Sairey,' says Mrs. Harris solemn,

'whence this mystery? If I have ever deceived the hardest-working,

soberest, and best of women, mention it.' ... 'Mrs. Harris, then,'

I says, 'I have heard as there is an expedition going down to

Manjester and Liverpool a playacting, If I goes anywhere for change

it is along with that.' Mrs. Harris clasps her hands, and drops

into a chair, 'And have I lived to hear,' she says, 'of Sairey

Gamp, as always kept herself respectable, in company with

play-actors.' 'Mrs. Harris,' I says to her, 'be not alarmed, not

reg'lar play-actors--hammertoors.' 'Thank Evans!' says Mrs. Harris,

and bustizes into a flood of tears,"

Dickens saw with Hood the power to be obtained by uniting pathos with

humour. Such an intermixture at first appears inharmonious, but in

reality produces sweet music. There is something corresponding to the

course of external nature with its light and shade its sunshine and

showers, in this melancholy chased away by mirth, and joy merging into

sadness. Here, Dickens has held up the mirror, and shown a bright

reflection of the outer world. Out of many choice specimens, we may

select the following from the speech of the Cheap Jack--

"'Now, you country boobies,' says I, feeling as if my heart was a

heavy weight at the end of a broken sash-line, 'I give you notice

that I am going to charm the money out of your pockets, and to give

you so much more than your money's worth that you'll only persuade

yourselves to draw your Saturday-night's wages ever again

afterwards, by the hopes of meeting me to lay 'em out with, which

you never will; and why not? Because I've made my fortune by

selling my goods on a large scale for seventy-five per cent less

than I give for them, and I am consequently to be elevated to the

House of Peers next week by the title of the Duke of Cheap, and

Markis Jack-a-looral."

He puts up a lot and after recommending it with all his eloquence

pretends to knock it down--

"As there had been no bid at all, everybody looked about and

grinned at everybody, while I touched little Sophy's face (he was

holding her in his arms) and asked her if she felt faint or giddy.

'Not very, father; it will soon be over.' Then turning from the

pretty patient eyes, which were opened now, and seeing nothing but

grins across my lighted greasepot. I went on again in my cheap Jack

style. 'Where's the butcher?' (my mournful eye had just caught

sight of a fat young butcher on the outside of the crowd) 'She says

the good luck is the butcher's, where is he?' Everybody handed over

the blushing butcher to the front, and there was a roar, and the

butcher felt himself obliged to put his hand in his pocket and take

the lot. The party so picked out in general does feel obliged to

take the lot--good four times out of six. Then we had another lot

the counterpart of that one and sold it sixpence cheaper, which is

always very much enjoyed. Then we had the spectacles. It ain't a

special profitable lot, but I put 'em on, and I see what the

Chancellor of the Exchequer is going to take off the taxes, and I

see what the sweetheart of the young woman in the shawl is doing at

home, and I see what the Bishops has got for dinner, and a deal

more that seldom fails to fetch up their spirits, and the better

their spirits the better they bids. Then we had the ladies'

lot--the tea-pots, tea-caddy, glass sugar-basin, half-a-dozen

spoons, and caudle cup--and all the time I was making similar

excuses to give a look or two, and say a word or two to my poor

child. It was while the second ladies' lot was holding 'em

enchained that I felt her lift herself a little on my shoulder to

look across the dark street. 'What troubles you darling?' 'Nothing

troubles me, father, I am not at all troubled. But don't I see a

pretty churchyard over there?' 'Yes, my dear.' 'Kiss me twice, dear

father, and lay me down to rest upon that churchyard grass, so soft

and green.' I staggered back into the cart with her head dropped on

my shoulder, and I says to her mother, 'Quick, shut the door! Don't

let those laughing people see.' 'What's the matter?' she cries, 'O

woman, woman,' I tells her, 'you'll never catch my little Sophy by

her hair again, for she has flown away from you.'"

Dickens' strongest characters, and those he loved most to paint, are

such as contain foibles and eccentricities, or much dulness and

ignorance in conjunction with the best feelings and intentions, so that

his teaching seems rather to be that we should look beyond mere external

trifles. Those he attacks are mostly middle-class people, or those

slightly below them--the dogs in office, and the dogs in the manger. The

artifice and cunning of the waiter of the Hotel at Yarmouth, where

little Copperfield awaits the coach, is excellently represented.

"The waiter brought me some chops and vegetables, and took the

covers off in such a bouncing manner, that I was afraid I must have

given him some offence. But he greatly relieved my mind by putting

a chair for me at the table, and saying very affably 'Now sixfoot

come on!'

"I thanked him and took my seat at the board; but found it

extremely difficult to handle my knife and fork with anything like

dexterity, or to avoid splashing myself with the gravy, while he

was standing opposite, staring so hard, and making me blush in the

most dreadful manner every time I caught his eye. After watching me

into the second chop, he said:

"There's half a pint of ale for you, will you have it now?'

"I thanked him and said 'Yes'--upon which he poured it out of a jug

into a large tumbler, and held it up against the light and made it

look beautiful.

"'My eye!' he said 'It seems a good deal, don't it.'

"'It does seem a good deal,' I answered with a smile, for it was

quite delightful to me to find him so pleasant. He was a

twinkling-eyed, purple-faced man, with his hair standing upright

all over his head; and as he stood with one arm akimbo, holding up

the glass to the light, with one hand he looked quite friendly.

"'There was a gentleman here yesterday,' he said, 'a stout

gentleman by the name of Topsawyer, perhaps you know him?'

"'No,' I said, I don't think--

"'In breeches and gaiters, broad-brimmed hat, grey coat, speckled

choker,' said the waiter.

"'No,' I said bashfully, 'I hav'n't the pleasure--'

"'He came here,' said the waiter, looking at the light through the

tumbler, 'ordered a glass of this ale, _would_ order it, I told him

not--drank it, and fell dead. It was too old for him. It oughtn't

to be drawn, that's the fact.'

"I was very much shocked to hear of this melancholy accident, and

said I thought I had better have some water. 'Why, you see,' said

the waiter, looking at the light through the tumbler with one of

his eyes shut, 'our people don't like things being ordered and

left. It offends them. But I'll drink it, if you like. I'm used to

it, and use is everything. I don't think it will hurt me if I throw

my head back and take it off quick; shall I?'

"I replied that he would much oblige me by drinking it, if he

thought he could do it safely, but by no means otherwise. When he

did throw his head back and take it off quick, I had a horrible

fear, I confess, of seeing him meet the fate of the lamented

Topsawyer, and fall lifeless on the carpet. But it did not hurt

him. On the contrary. I thought he seemed the fresher for it. 'What

have we got here?' he said, putting a fork into my dish. 'Not

chops?'

"'Chops.' I said.

"'Lord bless my soul,' he exclaimed, 'I didn't know they were

chops. Why, a chop's the very thing to take off the bad effect of

that beer. Ain't it lucky?'

"So he took a chop by the bone in one hand and a potato in the

other, and ate away with a very good appetite to my extreme

satisfaction. He afterwards took another chop and another potato,

and after that another chop and another potato. When we had done he

brought me a pudding, and having set it before me seemed to

ruminate, and to be absent in his mind for some moments.

"'How's the pie?' he said, rousing himself.

"'It's a pudding,' I made answer.

"'Pudding,' he exclaimed, 'why, bless me, so it is. What?' looking

nearer at it, 'you don't mean to say it's a batter pudding!'

"'Yes, it is indeed.'

"'Why, a batter pudding,' he said, taking up a tablespoon, 'is my

favourite pudding! Aint it lucky? Come on, pitch in, and let's see

who'll get most.'

"The waiter certainly got most. He entreated me more than once to

come in and win, but what with his tablespoon to my teaspoon, his

dispatch to my dispatch, and his appetite to my appetite I was left

far behind at the first mouthful, and had no chance with him."

We are all sufficiently familiar with the vast amount and variety of

humour with which Dickens enriched his writings. It is not aphoristic,

but flows along in a light sparkling stream. This is what we should

expect from a man who wrote so much and so rapidly. His thoughts did not

concentrate and crystallize into a few sharply cut expressions, and he

has left us scarcely any sayings which will live as "household words."

Moreover, in his bold style of writing he sought to produce effects by

broad strokes and dashes--not afraid of an excess of caricature, from

which he left his readers to deduct the discount. Taine says he was "too

mad." But he was daring, and cared little for the risk of being

ludicrous, providing he escaped the certainty of being dull. He was not

afraid of improbabilities, any more than his contemporary Lever was, and

owing to this they both now seem somewhat old-fashioned. Lever here

exceeded Dickens, and his course was different; his plan was to sow a

few seeds of extravagant falsehood, whence he would raise a wonderful

efflorescence of ludicrous circumstances. For instance, he makes a

General Count de Vanderdelft pay a visit to the Dodd family, and bring

them an invitation from the King of Belgium. Great preparations are of

course made by the ladies for so grand an occasion. The day arrives, and

they have to travel in their full dress in second and third class

carriages. They arrive a little late, but make their way to the Royal

Pavilion. Here, while in great suspense, they meet the General, who says

he was afraid he should have missed them.

"'We've not a minute to lose,' cried he, drawing Mary Ann's arm

within his own. 'If Leopold sits down to table, I can't present

you.'

"The General made his way through the crowd until he reached a

barrier, where two men were standing taking tickets. He demanded

admission, and on being refused, exclaimed, 'These scullions don't

know me--this canaille never heard my name.' With these words the

General kicked up the bar with his foot, and passed in with Mary

Ann, flourishing his drawn sword in the air, and crying out, 'Take

them in flank--sabre them--every man--no prisoners--no quarter.' At

this juncture two big men in grey coats burst through the crowd and

laid hands on the General, who, it seems, had escaped a week before

from a mad-house in Ghent."

The basis of all this is far too improbable, but there was a temptation

to construct a very good story upon it.

But Dickens builds upon much firmer ground, and is only fantastic in the

superstructure. This is certainly an improvement, and we admire his

genius most when he controls its flight, and when his caricatures are

less grotesque. I take the following from "Nicholas Niekleby," Chapter

II.

"Although a few members of the graver professions live about Golden

Square, it is not exactly in anybody's way to or from anywhere....

It is a great resort of foreigners. The dark complexioned men, who

wear large rings, and heavy watchguards, and bushy whiskers, and

who congregate under the opera colonnade, and about the box-office

in the season, between four and five in the afternoon, when they

give orders--all live in Golden Square, or within a street of it.

Two or three violins and a wind instrument from the opera band

reside within its precincts. Its boarding-houses are musical, and

the notes of pianos and harps float in the evening-time round the

head of the mournful statue, the guardian genius of a little

wilderness of shrubs, in the centre of the Square.... Street bands

are on their mettle in Golden Square; and itinerant glee-singers

quaver involuntarily as they raise their voices within its

boundaries....

"Some London houses have a melancholy little plot of ground behind

them, usually fenced in by four white-washed walls, and frowned

upon by stacks of chimneys, in which there withers on from year to

year a crippled tree, that makes a show of putting forth a few

leaves late in Autumn, when other trees shed theirs, and drooping

in the effort, lingers on all crackled and smoke-dried till the

following season, when it repeats the same process; and perhaps, if

the weather be particularly genial, even tempts some rheumatic

sparrow to chirp in its branches."

In the next chapter there is a description of the house of a humble

votary of the arts.

"A miniature painter lived there, for there was a large gilt frame

screwed upon the street-door, in which were displayed, upon a black

velvet ground, two portraits of naval dress, coats with faces

looking out of them, and telescopes attached; one of a young

gentleman in a very vermilion uniform flourishing a sabre; and one

of a literary character with a high forehead, a pen and ink, six

books, and a curtain. There was, moreover, a touching

representation of a young lady reading a manuscript in an

unfathomable forest, and a charming whole length of a large-headed

little boy, sitting on a stool with his legs foreshortened to the

size of salt-spoons. Besides these works of art, there were a great

many heads of old ladies and gentlemen smirking at each other out

of blue and brown skies, and an elegantly written card of terms

with an embossed border."

When Mr. Crummles, the stage-manager, urges his old pony along the road,

the following conversation takes place:--

"'He's a good pony at bottom,' said Mr. Crummles, turning to

Nicholas. He might have been at bottom, but he certainly was not at

top, seeing that his coat was of the roughest, and most

ill-favoured kind. So Nicholas merely observed that he shouldn't

wonder if he was. 'Many and many is the circuit this pony has

gone,' said Mr. Crummles, flicking him skilfully on the eyelid, for

old acquaintance sake. 'He is quite one of us. His mother was on

the stage.'

"'Was she?' rejoined Nicholas.

"'She ate apple-pie at circus for upwards of fourteen years,' said

the Manager, 'fired pistols, and went to bed in a night-cap; and in

short, took the low comedy entirely. His father was an actor.'

"'Was he at all distinguished?'

"'Not very,' said the Manager. 'He was rather a low sort of pony.

The fact is, he had been originally jobbed out by the day, and he

never quite got over his old habits. He was clever in melodrama,

too, but too broad, too broad. When the mother died he took the

port wine business.'

"'The port wine business?' cried Nicholas.

"'Drinking port wine with the clown,' said the Manager; 'but he was

greedy and one night bit off the bowl of the glass and choked

himself, so his vulgarity was the death of him at last.'"

It is greatly to the credit of Dickens that although he wrote so much

and salted so freely, he never approached any kind of impropriety. The

only weak point in his humour is that he borrows too much from his

imagination, and too little from reality.

I trust that those who have accompanied me through the chapters of this

work, will have been able to trace a gradual amelioration in humour. We

have seen it from age to age running parallel with the history, and

varying with the mental development of the times, rising and falling in

fables, demonology, word-coining and coarseness, and I hope we may add

in practical joking and coxcombry.

The remaining chapters will draw conclusions from our general survey.

There can be little doubt that humour cannot be studied in any country

better than in our own. The commercial character of England, and its

connection with many nations whose feelings are intermingled in our

minds as their blood is in our veins, are favourable for the development

of fancy and of the finest kinds of wit, while the moderate Government

under which we live, tends in the same direction. Humour may have

germinated in the darkness of despotism, among the discontented subjects

of Dionysius or under "the tyranny tempered by epigrams," of Louis XIV.,

but it failed, under such conditions to obtain a full expression, and

although it has revelled and run riot under republican governments, it

has always tended in them to coarse and personal vituperation. The

fairest blossoms of pleasantry thrive best where the sun is not strong

enough to scorch, nor the soil rank enough to corrupt.

CHAPTER XIX.

Variation--Constancy--Influence of Temperament--Of

Observation--Bulls--Want of Knowledge--Effects of Emotion--Unity of

the Sense of the Ludicrous.

As every face in the world is different, so no two minds are exactly

similar, although there is great uniformity in the perceptions of the

senses and still more in our primary innate ideas. The variety lies in

the one case, in the finer lines and expressions of the countenance, and

in the other in those delicate shades and combinations of feeling which

are influenced more or less by memory, reflection, imagination, by

experience, education and temperament, by taste, morality, and religion.

It was no doubt the view of this great diversity of thought that led

Quintilian to say that "the topics from which jests may be elicited are

not less numerous than those from which thoughts may be derived!"

Herbert writes to the same purpose--

"All things are full of jest; nothing that's plain

But may be witty, if thou hast the vein."

But we are not in the vein except sometimes, and under peculiar

circumstances, so that, practically, few sayings are humorous.

It is more difficult to assert that there are any jests which would be

appreciated by all. The statement that "some phases of life must stir

humour in any man of sanity," is probably too wide. There is little of

this universality in the ludicrous, but we shall have some reason for

thinking that there is a certain constancy in the mental feeling which

awakens it. It is also fixed with regard to each individual. If we had

sufficient knowledge, we could predict exactly whether a man would be

amused at a certain story, and we sometimes say "Tell that to Mr. ----

it will amuse him." But if his nature were not so disposed, no exertions

on his part or ours could make him enjoy it. The ludicrous is dependent

upon feelings or circumstances, but not upon the will. It is peculiarly

involuntary as those know who have tried to smother a laugh. The utmost

advance we can make towards making ourselves mirthful is by changing our

circumstances. It is said that if a man were to look at people dancing

with his ears stopped, the figures moving without accompaniment would

seem ludicrous to him, but his merriment would not be great because he

would know the strangeness he observed was not real but caused by his

own intentional act. We may say that for a thing to appear ludicrous to

a man which does not seem so at present, he must change the character of

his mind.

There is another kind of constancy which should here be noticed. Some

humorous sayings survive for long periods, and occasionally are adopted

in foreign countries. In some cases they have immortalized a name, in

others we know not who originated them, or to whom they first referred.

They seem to be the production, as they are the heritage, not of man but

of humanity. It is essential to the permanence of humour that it should

refer to large classes, and awaken emotions common to many. If Socrates

and Xantippe, the philosopher and the shrew, had not represented

classes, and an ordinary connection in life, we should have been little

amused at their differences.[16]

Having mentioned these few first aspects in which humour is constant, we

now come to the wider field of its variation. It may be said to vary

with the age, with the century, with classes of society, with the time

of life, nay, it has been asserted, with the very hours of the day! The

simplest mode in which we can demonstrate this character of humour is to

consider some of those things which although amusing to others are not

so to us, and those which amuse us, but not others; we sometimes regard

as ludicrous what is intended to be humorous, sometimes on the other

hand we view as humorous what is seriously meant, and sometimes we take

gravely what is intended to be amusing.

A man may make what he thinks to be a jest, and be neither humorous nor

ludicrous, and a man may cause others to laugh without being one or the

other; for what he says may be amusing, although he does not intend it

to be so, or he may be merely relating some actual occurrence.

Occasionally, there is some doubt as to whether we regard things as

ludicrous or humorous. This is seen in some proverbs.

But the most common and strongly marked instances of variation are where

what is seriously taken by one person is regarded as ludicrous by

another. Thus the conception of the qualities desirable in public

speaking are very different on this side to the Atlantic from what they

are on the other, and what appears to us to partake of the ludicrous,

seems to them to be only grand, effective, and appropriate. "In

patriotic eloquence," says a U.S. journal, "our American stump-speakers

beat the world. They don't stand up and prose away so as to put an

audience to sleep, after the lazy genteel aristocratic style of British

Parliamentary speech-making." This boast is certainly just. There is a

vigour about the popular style of American oratory that we are sure has

never been equalled in the British Parliament. A paper of the interior

in paying a glowing tribute to the eloquence of the Fourth of July

orator who officiated in the town where the journal is published,

says--"Although he had a platform ten feet square to orate upon, he got

so fired up with patriotism that it wasn't half big enough to hold him:

his fist collided three times with the President of the day, besides

bunging the eye of the reader of the Declaration, and every person on

the stage left it limping." Such a style of oratory would leave durable

impressions, and be felt as well as heard.

It cannot be doubted that our mental state, whether temporary or

habitual, exercises a great influence over us in regard to humour.

Temperament must modify all our emotional feelings, some are naturally

gay and hilarious, some grave and austere, children laugh from little

more than exuberance of spirits, and joyousness causes us to seek

pleasure, to notice ludicrous combinations which would otherwise escape

us, and renders us sensitive of all humorous impressions. But the cares

of life have generally the effect of making men grave even where there

is no lack of imagination. Some have been so serious in mood that it has

been recorded that they were never known to laugh, as it is said of

Philip the Third of Spain that he only did so once--on reading Don

Quixote.

How little attempt at humour is there in most of our literary works!

True, humour is rather the language of conversation, and we may expect

it as little in writing, as we do sentiment in society. But even in its

own special province it is lacking, there is generally in our festive

gatherings more of what is dull than of what is playful and pleasant.

Perhaps our cloudy skies may have some influence--it is impossible to

doubt that climate affects the mental disposition of nations. The

natives of Tahiti in their soft southern isle are gay and

laughter-loving; the Arab of the desert is fierce and warlike, and

seldom condescends to smile. Sydney Smith said "it would require a

surgical operation to get a joke into the understanding of a Scotchman;"

but the Irishman in his mild variable climate is ready to be witty under

all circumstances. Flögel, writing in Germany, observes that "humour is

not a fruit to be gathered from every bough; you can find a hundred men

able to draw tears for every one that can raise a laugh."

There is also a great difference between individuals in this respect.

Some are naturally bright and jocund, and others are misanthropic and

manufacture out of very trite materials a sort of snap-dragon wit, which

flares up in an instant, is as soon out, and generally burns somebody's

fingers. It may be urged on the contrary that many celebrated wits as

Mathews, Leech, and others, have been melancholy men. But despondency is

often found in an excitable temperament which is not unfavourable to

humour, for the man who is unduly depressed at one moment is likely to

be immoderately elated at another. Old Hobbes was of opinion that

laughter arose from pride, upon which Addison remarked that according to

that theory, if we heard a man laugh, instead of saying that he was very

merry, we should say that he was very proud. We have already observed

that some men are disinclined to laugh because they are of an earnest

turn of mind, constantly pondering upon their affairs and the

possibility of transforming a shilling into a pound. Such are those to

whom Carlyle referred when he said that "the man who cannot laugh is

only fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils." But there are a few

persons who follow Lord Chesterfield in systematically suppressing this

kind of demonstration. They think it derogatory, and in them pride is

antagonistic to humour. A man who is free and easy and talkative, gains

in one direction what he loses in another. We love him as a frank,

genial fellow, but can never regard him with any great reverence.

Laughter seems to bespeak a simple docile nature, such as those who

assume to rule the world are not willing to have the credit of

possessing. It belongs more to the fool than to the rogue, to those who

follow than to those who lead. Eminent men do not intentionally avoid

laughter; they are not inclined to it; and there are some, who, from

being generally of a profound and calculating turn of mind are not given

to any exhibition of emotion. It has been said that Diogenes never

laughed, and the same has been asserted of Swift. And although we may

safely conclude that these statements were not literally true, there was

probably some foundation for them. No doubt they appreciated humour, but

their minds were earnest and ambitious. Moreover, great wits are

accustomed to the character of their own humour, and are often merely

repeating what they have heard or said frequently.

Nature has endowed few men with two gifts, and emotional joyousness and

high intellectual culture form a rare combination, such as was found in

Goldsmith with his hearty laughter, and in Macaulay, who tells us that

he laughed at Mathews' comic performance "until his sides were sore."

Bishop Warburton said that humorists were generally men of learning, but

although those who were so would have been most prominent, we scarcely

find the name of one of them in the course of these volumes; many of

those mentioned sprang from the humbler paths of life, but all were men

of study. Still those who are altogether unable to enjoy a joke are men

of imperfect sympathies.

Charles Lamb observes that in a certain way the character, even of a

ludicrous man, is attractive--"The more laughable blunders a man shall

commit in your company, the more tests he gives you that he will not

betray or over-reach you. And take my word for this, reader, and say a

fool told it you, if you please, that he who hath not a dram of folly in

his mixture, hath pounds of much worse matter in his composition. What

are commonly the world's received fools, but such whereof the world is

not worthy?"

We have intimated that our sense of the ludicrous varies in accordance

with memory, imagination, observation, and association. The minds of

some are so versatile, and so richly endowed with intellectual gifts,

that their ideas sparkle and coruscate, they splinter every ray of light

into a thousand colours, and produce all kinds of strange juxtapositions

and combinations. (This exuberance has probably led to the seemingly

contradictory saying that men of sentiment are generally men of humour.)

No doubt their sallies would be poor and appreciated by themselves alone

were they without a certain foundation, but a vast number of things are

capable of affording amusement. Pleasantries often turn upon something

much more difficult to define than to feel--upon some nicety of regard,

or neatness of proportion. No interchange of ideas can take place

without much beyond the letter being understood, and very much depends

upon variety of delicate significations. Words are as variable and

relative as thought, differing with time and place--a few constantly

dropping out of use, some understood in one age, but conveying no

distinct idea in another, and not calling up exactly the same

associations in different individuals. We cannot, therefore, agree with

Addison that translation may be considered a sure test for

distinguishing between genuine and spurious humour--although it would

detect mere puns. Voltaire says of Hudibras, "I have never met with so

much wit in one book as in this--who would believe that a work which

paints in such lively and natural colours the several foibles and

frolics of mankind, and where we meet with more sentiment than words,

should baffle the endeavours of the ablest translator?" But any

alteration of words would generally destroy humour. "To go to the

crows," was a good and witty expression in ancient Greece, but it does

not signify anything to us, except, perhaps, climbing trees. When we

wish a man to be devoured, we tell him to "go to the dogs." Even the

flow and sound of words sometimes has great influence in humour.

Association has also considerable effect. Owing to this little boys at

school are rarely able to laugh at a Greek joke. We consider that to

call a man an ass is a reproach, but in the East in bewailing a lost

friend they frequently exclaim, "Alas, my jackass!" for they do not

associate the animal with stupidity, but with patience and usefulness.

These differences show that the essence of some humour is so fugitive

that the smallest change will destroy it. We may well suppose,

therefore, that it escapes many who have not quick perceptions, while

we find that everyone more keenly appreciates that which relates to some

subject with which he is specially conversant--a lawyer enjoys a legal,

a broker a commercial joke. Hence women, taking more interest than men

in the general concerns of life and in a great variety of things, are

more given to mirth--their mind reflects the world, that of men only one

line in it. We see in society how much more quickly some persons

understand an obscure allusion than others--some from natural

penetration, some from familiarity with the subject. There are those who

cannot enjoy any joke which they do not make themselves. Some cannot

guess the simplest riddle, while others could soon detect the real

nature of a cherry coloured cat with rose-coloured feet.

Observation is necessary for all criticism, especially of that kind

often found in humour. As an instance of humour being unappreciated for

lack of it, I may mention that Beattie considers the well known passage

of Gray to be parodied poetically, but not humorously, in the following

lines upon a country curate--

"Bread was his only food; his drink the brook;

So small a salary did his rector send,

He left his laundress all he had--a book,

He found in death, 'twas all he wished--a friend."

Most people would think that this was intended to be humorous. It

struck me so--the "book" was evidently his washing book--and on turning

to the original poem I found that the other stanzas were not at all of a

serious complexion. The assistance given by imagination to humour is

clearly seen, when after some good saying laughter recurs several times,

as new aspects of the situation suggested present themselves.

Circumstances of time and country greatly modify our modes of thought,

and a vast amount of humour has thus become obscure, not only for want

of information, but because things are not viewed in the same light.

Beattie observes that Shakespeare's humour will never be adequately

relished in France nor Molière's in England.[17]

The inquiry in the present chapter is not as to what creates the

ludicrous, but as to what tends to vivify or obscure it. We shall not

here attempt any surmises as to its essential nature, although we trace

the conditions necessary to its due appreciation. A great number of

things pass unnoticed every day both in circumstances and conversation,

in which the ludicrous might be detected by a keen observer. The

following is not a bad instance of an absurd statement being

unconsciously made--

"One day when walking in the Black Country the Bishop of Lichfield

saw a number of miners seated on the ground, and went to speak to

them. On asking them what they were doing, he was told they had

been 'loyin.' The Bishop, much dismayed, asked for an explanation.

'Why, you see,' said one of the men, 'one of us fun' a kettle, and

we have been trying who can tell the biggest lie to ha' it.' His

lordship, being greatly shocked, began to lecture them and to tell

them that lying was a great offence, and that he had always felt

this so strongly that he had never told a lie in the whole course

of his life. He had scarcely finished, when one of the hearers

exclaimed, 'Gie the governor the kettle; gie the governor the

kettle!'"

Under the head of unconscious absurdities may be classed what are

commonly called "bulls," implying like the French "_bêtise_" so great a

deficiency of observation as to approach a kind of brutish stupidity

only worthy of the lower animals. A man could not be charged with such

obtuseness if he were only ignorant of some philosophical truth, or even

of a fact commonly known, or if his mistake were clearly from

inadvertence. I have heard the question asked "Which is it more correct

to say. Seven and five _is_ eleven, or seven and five _are_ eleven?" and

if a man reply hastily "_Are_ is the more correct," he could not be

charged with having made a "bull," any more than if a boy had made a

mistake in a sum of addition or subtraction. If a foreigner says "I have

got to-morrow's Times," we do not consider it a bull because he is

ignorant that he should have said "yesterday's," and a person who does

not understand Latin may be excused for saying "Under existing

circumstances," perhaps long usage justifies the expression. For this

reason, and also because no dulness is implied, we may safely say "the

sun sets," or "the sun has gone in." To constitute a bull, there must be

something glaringly self-contradictory in the statement. But every

observation containing a contradiction does not show dulness of

apprehension, but often talent and ingenuity. Poetry and humour are much

indebted to such expressions--thus the old Greek writers often call

offerings made to the dead "a kindness which is no kindness," and Horace

speaks of "discordant harmony" and "active idleness." Some other

contradictions are humorous, and most bulls would be so were they made

purposely.[18] A genuine bull is never intentional. But few people would

plead guilty to having shown bovine stupidity. They would shelter

themselves under some of the various exceptions--perhaps explain that

they attach a different meaning to the words, and that so the

expressions are not so very incorrect, and all that could generally be

proved against a man would be that he had used words in unaccustomed

senses. Thus what appears to one person to be a "bull" seems a correct

expression to another. I remember an Irishman telling me that in his

country they had the finest climate in the world, and on my replying

"Yes, I believe you have very little frost or snow," he rejoined "Oh,

plinty, sir, plinty of frost and snow--but frost and snow is not cold in

Ireland." He was quite serious--intended no joke. He evidently used the

term "cold," not only in reference to temperature, but also to the

amount of discomfort usually suffered from it. And that it may sometimes

be used in a metaphorical sense is evident from our expressions "a cold

heart," "a freezing manner."

Sometimes people would attribute their mistake to inadvertence, and so

escape from the charge of stupidity implied in a "bull." A friend who

told me that a Mr. Carter was "a seller of everything, and other things

besides," would probably have urged this excuse. The writer of the

following in the "agony" column of a daily paper, "Dear Tom. Come

immediately if you see this. If not come on Saturday," would contend

that there was only a slight omission, and that the meaning was

evidently "if you see this _to-day_." From inadvertence I have heard it

said in commendation of a celebrated artist, that "he painted dead

game--to the life." Sir Boyle Roche is said to have exclaimed in a fit

of enthusiasm "that Admiral Howe would sweep the French fleet off the

face of the earth."

But it may be urged that there are some observations which no man can

excuse or account for, and of such a nature that even the person who

makes them must admit that they are "bulls." Such, for instance, as that

of the Irishman, who being shown an alarum said, "Oh, sure, I see. I've

only to pull the string when I want to awake myself." But such sayings

are not "bulls," only humorous inventions. They represent a greater

amount of density than any one ever possessed. That the above saying is

invented, is proved by the simple fact that alarums have no strings to

pull. In the same way the lines quoted by Lever--

"Success to the moon, she's a dear noble creature

And gives us the daylight all night in the dark,"

did not emanate from a dull, but a clever man.

A "bull" is an imputation of stupidity made by the hearer through the

inadvertence of the speaker in whose mind there is no contradiction, but

a want of precision in thought or expression. It is a common error where

the imagination is stronger than the critical faculty.

The use of cant words renders jests imperfectly intelligible. Greek

humour was clearer in this respect than that of the present day,

especially since our vocabulary has been so much enriched from America.

Puns also restrict the pleasantries dependent on them to one country, no

great loss perhaps, though the greater part of German humour is thus

rendered obscure. "Remember," writes Lord Chesterfield, "that the wit,

humour, and jokes of most companies are local. They thrive in that

particular soil, but will not often bear transplanting. Every company is

differently circumstanced, has its peculiar cant and jargon, which may

give occasion to wit and mirth within the circle, but would seem flat

and insipid in any other, and therefore will not bear repeating. Nothing

makes a man look sillier than a pleasantry not relished, or not

understood, and if he meets with a profound silence when he expected a

general applause, or what is worse if he is desired to explain the _bon

mot_, his awkward and embarrassed situation is easier imagined than

described." But ignorance of the meaning of words, while it destroys one

kind of amusement sometimes creates another. The mistakes of the deaf

and of foreigners are often ludicrous. A French gentleman told me that

on the morning after his arrival in Italy he rang his bell and called

"_De l'eau chaude_." As he did not seem to be understood he made signs

to his face, and the waiter nodded and withdrew. It was a long time

before he reappeared, but when he entered the delay was accounted for,

as he had been out to purchase a pot of _rouge_!

But mistakes with regard to the meanings of words are not so common as

with regard to their references. We are often ignorant of the state of

society, or the manners and customs to which allusion is made. This is

the reason why so much of the humour of bygone ages escapes us. In

ancient Greece to call a man a frequenter of baths was an insult, not a

commendation as it would be at present. With them the class who are "so

very clean and so very silly" was large, and the golden youth of the

period, under the pretence of ablution, spent their time in idleness and

luxury in these "baths"--which corresponded in some respects to our

clubs. To give an example in modern literature--when Charles Lamb in his

Life of Liston records that his hero was descended from a Johan

d'Elistone, who came over with the Conqueror, and was rewarded for his

prowess with a grant of land at Lupton Magna, many people had so little

knowledge or insight as to take this humorous invention to be an

historical fact.

Laughter for want of knowledge is especially manifested among savages,

when they first come into contact with civilization. A missionary

relating his experiences among the South Sea islanders observes how much

he was astonished at their laughing at what seemed to him the most

ordinary occurrences. This was owing to their utter ignorance of matters

commonly known to us. He tells us one day when the sailors were boring a

hole to put a vent peg into a cask, the fermentation caused the porter

to spirt out upon them. One of them tried in vain to stop it with his

hand, but it flew through his fingers. Meanwhile a native who stood by

burst into a fit of immoderate laughter. The sailor, thinking it a

serious matter to lose so much good liquor, asked him rather angrily why

he was laughing at the porter running out. "Oh," replied the native,

"I'm not laughing at its coming out, but at thinking what trouble it

must have cost you to put it in."

But ignorance has often produced opposite results to these, and caused

very ludicrous statements to be made seriously. Thus a French Gazette

reports that "Lord Selkirk arrived in Paris this morning. He is a

descendant of the famous Selkirk whose adventures suggested to Defoe his

Robinson Crusoe." Among the various curious and useful items of

knowledge contained in the "Almanach de Gotha,"--the first number of

which was published 111 years ago--we find it gravely stated that the

Manghians of the island of Mindoro are furnished with tails exactly five

inches in length, and the women of Formosa with beards half a foot long.

I remember having, upon one occasion, visited the Mammertine prison at

Rome with a young friend preparing for the army, and his asking me "What

had St. Peter and St. Paul done to be confined here?" "They were here

for being Christians," I replied, "Oh, were St. Peter and St. Paul

Christians? I suppose they were put in prison by these horrid Roman

Catholics."