2224 THEODORE HOOK (1788-1841) HEODORE EDWARD HOOK, one of the great "wits" of the times of the Georges, left little that belongs to permanent literature. His celebrity rests largely on his "improvisations," but in his essays, sketches, and novels there are frequent flashes of the brilliancy which made him such a favorite at court that he was appointed Governor of Mauritius, where he remained from 1812 to 1817. As a result of a defalcation for which he may not have been responsible, he was recalled to England and imprisoned. Some of his best work was done in jail; and he would have been fortunate had he remained there, as on his release he spent the rest of his life largely in the attempt to work all day and drink all night,- dying as a result of it, August 24th, 1841, "done up in purse, in mind, and in body too," as he said of himself just before his death. It is said that he is the original of Thackeray's "Mr. Wagg." THER ON CERTAIN ATROCITIES OF HUMOR HERE 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 hearts' 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 præterea 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 bête ! » There you have line, rod, float, VI-140 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 break 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 further, add, "that it is not a fit subject for a jest." A man falling into a tanpit 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 into 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 purposes 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 suicide 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 Nun; your grandmother and your greatgrandmother 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; punning's all fair, as the archbishop said in the dream. 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 |