To what a dreary, dismal complexion should we all come at last,
were all fun and cachinnation expunged from our solemn and
scientific planet! Care would soon overwhelm us; the heart would
corrode; the river of life would be like the lake of the dismal
swamp; we should begin our career with a sigh, and end it with
a groan; while cadaverous faces and words to the tune of “The
Dead March in Saul,” would make up the whole interlude of our
existence. Hume, the historian, in examining a French manuscript
containing accounts of some private disbursements of King Edward
II of England, found, among others, one item of a crown paid
to somebody for making the king laugh. Could one conceive of
a wiser investment? Perhaps by paying one crown Edward saved
another. “The most utterly lost of all days,” says Chamfort, “is
that on which you have not once laughed.” Even that grimmest
and most saturnine of men, who, tho he made others roar with
merriment, was never known to smile, and who died “in a rage,
like a poisoned rat in a hole”--Dean Swift--has called laughter
“the most innocent of all diuretics.” (Text.)--WILLIAM
MATTHEWS, _Home Magazine_.
(1761)