Theodore Hook (1788-1841) belonged to that singularly
fortunate class of writers whose fame was greater while they
lived than after death closed the book of life. To
present-day readers Hook is known only as the subject of
many a merry anecdote, the coiner of epigrams, and one of
the most celebrated practical jokers of his time.
But among his contemporaries Theodore Hook was something
more. Before he was twenty years old farces and comic operas
from his pen had been successfully produced on the London
stage, and he was a pet of London society. When he was
thirty he was the editor of the Tory paper _John Bull_, and
the novels that he published at this period attained a high
degree of popularity.
As a punster Hook had few equals, and "A Chapter on Puns,"
which is herewith reprinted for the readers of THE SCRAP
BOOK, constitutes an excellent specimen of the sort of humor
for which its author was famous.
There is one class of people who, with a depravity of appetite not
excelled by that of the celebrated Anna Maria Schurman, who rejoiced in
eating spiders, thirst after puns. If you fall in with these, you have no
resource but to indulge them to their heart's content; but in order to
rescue yourself from the imputation of believing punning to be wit, quote
the definition of Swift, and be, like him, as inveterate a punster as you
possibly can, immediately after resting everything, and hazarding all,
upon the principle that the worse the pun the better.
In order to be prepared for this sort of _punic_ war (for the disorder is
provocative and epidemic), the moment any one gentleman or lady has, as
they say in Scotland, "let a pun," everybody else in the room who can or
cannot do the same sets to work to endeavor to emulate the example. From
that period all rational conversation is at an end, and a jargon of
nonsense succeeds which lasts till the announcement of coffee, or supper,
or the carriages puts a happy termination to the riot.
Addison says, "One may say of a pun, as the countryman described his
nightingale, that it is _vox et praeterea nihil_, a sound, and nothing but
a sound;" and in another place he tells us that "the greatest authors in
their most serious works make frequent use of puns; the sermons of Bishop
Andrews and the tragedies of Shakespeare are full of them; if a sinner was
punned into repentance as in the latter, nothing is more usual than to see
a hero weeping and grumbling for a dozen lines together;" but he also
says, "It is indeed impossible to kill a weed which the soil has a natural
disposition to produce. The seeds of punning are in the minds of all men,
and though they may be subdued by reason, reflection, and good sense, they
will be very apt to shoot up in the greatest genius that is not broken and
cultivated by the rules of art."
Here is something like a justification of the enormity; and, as the pupil
is to mix in all societies, he may as well be prepared.
Puns may be divided into different classes; they may be made in different
ways, introduced by passing circumstances, or by references to bygone
events; they may be thrown in _anecdotically_, or conundrumwise.
It is to be observed that feeling, or pity, or commiseration, or grief
are not to stand in the way of a pun--that personal defects are to be made
available, and that sense, so as the sound answers, has nothing to do with
the business.
If a man is pathetically describing the funeral of his mother or sister or
wife, it is quite allowable to call it a "black-_burying_ party," or to
talk of a "fit of _coffin_"; a weeping relative struggling to conceal his
grief may be likened to a commander of "_private tears_"; throw in a joke
about the phrase of "funerals _performed_" and a re-_hearsal_; and wind up
with the anagram _real-fun_, funeral.
I give this instance first, in order to explain that nothing, however
solemn the subject, is to stand in the way of a pun.
It is allowable, when you have run a subject dry in English, to hitch in a
bit of any other language which may sound to your liking. For instance, on
a fishing party. You say fishing is out of your _line_; yet, if you did
not keep _a float_, you would deserve a _rod_; and if anybody affects to
find fault with your joke, exclaim: "Oh, _vous bete_!"
There you have _line_, _rod_, _float_, and _bait_ ready to your hand.
Call two noodles from the city in a punt, endeavoring to catch small fry,
"_East Angles_"; or, if you please, observe that "the _punters_ are losing
the fish," "catching nothing but a cold," or that "the fish are too deep
for them." Call the Thames a "_tidy_" river; but say you prefer the _Isis_
in hot weather.
Personal deformities or constitutional calamities are always to be laid
hold of. If anybody tells you that a dear friend has lost his sight,
observe that it will make him more hospitable than ever, since now he
would be glad _to see anybody_.
If a clergyman breaks his leg, remark that he is no longer a clergyman,
but a _lame man_. If a poet is seized with apoplexy, affect to disbelieve
it, although you know it to be true, in order to say--
Poeta nascitur non _fit_;
and then, to carry the joke one step farther, add, "that it is not a _fit_
subject for a jest."
A man falling into a tan-pit, you may call "sinking in the _sublime_"; a
climbing boy suffocated in a chimney meets with a _sootable_ death; and a
pretty girl having caught the smallpox is to be much _pitted_.
On the subject of the ear and its defects, talk first of something in
which _a cow sticks_, and end by telling the story of the man who, having
taken great pains to explain something to his companion, at last got in a
rage at his apparent stupidity, and exclaimed, "Why, my dear sir, don't
you comprehend? The thing is as plain as A, B, C." "I dare say it is,"
said the other; "but I am D, E, F."
It may be as well to give the beginner something of a notion of the use he
may make of the most ordinary words, for the purpose of quibbleism. For
instance, in the way of observation: The loss of a hat is always _felt_;
if you don't like sugar, you may _lump_ it; a glazier is a _panes_-taking
man; candles are burnt because _wick-ed_ things always come to _light_; a
lady who takes you home from a party is kind in her _carriage_, and you
say "Nunc est _ridendum_" when you step into it; if it happen to be a
chariot, she is a _charitable_ person; birds'-nests and king-killing are
synonymous, because they are _high trees on_; a bill for building a bridge
should be sanctioned by the Court of _Arches_ as well as the House of
_Piers_; when a man is dull, he goes to the seaside to _Brighton_; a
Cockney lover, when sentimental, should live in _Heigh Hoburn_; the
greatest fibber is the man most to _re-lie_ upon; a dean expecting a
bishopric looks _for lawn_; a _sui_-cide kills pigs, and not himself; a
butcher is a gross man, but a fig-seller is a _grocer_; Joshua never had a
father or mother, because he was the son of a _Nun_; your grandmother and
great-grandmother were your _aunt's sisters_; a leg of mutton is better
than heaven, because nothing is better than heaven, and a leg of mutton is
better than nothing.
Races are matters of _course_; an ass never can be a horse, although he
may be a _mayor_; the Venerable Bede was the mother of Pearl; a baker
makes bread when he _kneads_ it; a doctor cannot be a doctor all at once,
because he comes to it by _degrees_; a man hanged at Newgate has taken a
_drop_ too much; the _bridle_ day is that on which a man leads a woman to
the _halter_. Never mind the aspirate; in punning all's fair.
Puns interrogatory are at times serviceable. You meet a man carrying a
hare: ask him if it is his own _hare_, or a wig?--there you stump him. Why
is Parliament Street like a compendium? Because it goes to a _bridge_. Why
is a man murdering his mother in a garret a worthy person? Because he is
above committing a crime. Instances of this kind are innumerable; and if
you want to render your question particularly pointed, you are, after
asking it once or twice, to say "D'ye give it up?"--then favor your
friends with the solution.
Puns scientific are effective whenever a scientific man or men are in
company, because, in the first place, they invariably hate puns,
especially those which are capable of being twisted into jokes which have
no possible relation to the science of which the words to be joked upon
are terms; and because, in the next place, dear, laughing girls, who are
wise enough not to be sages, will love you for disturbing the
self-satisfaction of the philosophers, and raising a laugh or titter at
their expense.
Where there are three or four geologists of the party, if they talk of
their scientific tours made to collect specimens, call the old ones
"ninny-hammers," and the young ones "chips of the old block"; and then
inform them that claret is the best specimen of _quartz_ in the world.
If you fall in with a botanist who is holding forth, talk of the quarrels
of flowers as a sequel to the loves of the plants, and say they decide
their differences with _pistols_.
In short, sacrifice everything to the pursuit of punning, and in the
course of time you will acquire such a reputation for waggery that the
whole company will burst into an immoderate fit of laughing if you only
ask the servants for bread, or say "No" to the offer of a cutlet.