Literature.

Otago Witness, Issue 1419, 1 February 1879, Page 18

Literature.

WIT AND HUMOUR. Fun, Ancient and Modern : By Dr Maurice Davies. Tinßley Brothers, London, 1878. The author of thesß two lively volumes— Dr Maurice Davies— is already known by his books— "Orthodox London," and "Hetero^ dox London." Lovers of the humourous will be grateful to him for collecting in «o short a compass the gems of wit from every country and from every age. Under the generic term of Fun he takes in the laughable from Simonides to Mark Twain. His object is to give a catena of comio writers, with illustrative extracts from their works. The author traverses new ground. A gap in literature has been filled up, and at the same time a book is produced which is very readable and highly amusing. The best definition of man is obtained by combining the laughing and reasoning faculties which distinguish him. In the lower orders of creation we see nothing but stolid, imperturbable gravity. The dog is sagacious and faithful, but in his face you see no symptom of mirbh. So Wendell Holmes speaks of the large brown eyes of oxen "as those huge but imperfect organisms." Man only is at once the reasoning and the laughing animal, and the man who cannot enjoy a joke in scarcely to be regarded as a perfect specimen of humanity. As Mark Lemon puts it— They cannot be complete in aught w ho aro not humorously prone ; A man without a merry thought Could haidly hare a funny lone. The attempt to discriminate wit and humour has been made before. In vol. 122, the Quarterly thus distinguishes them :—": — " The strokes of wit," it says, "that are the most delightfully surprising are often the most evanescent. A flash, and all is over. You must be very much on the gui vive to see by its lightoing, or you will be like the poor fly, who turned about after its head waß cut off to find it out. Nog bo with humour : it is for ' keeping it up,' and does not cat you short. Wit gives you a nod in passing, but with humour you are at home. Wit is the later societary birth. Humour was from tbe beginning." Dr Davies, we think, comes a little nearer the mark when he thus shades off the three terms— fun, humour, and wit: "Fun may be described as a lower kind of humour, just as humour is an inferior species of wit. The essence of humour is incongruity. Humour depends on violent contrasts, as wit on abstruse resemblances. Humour deals in strong antitheses, where wit delights in clever combination." In another part of the work, the author makes another good distinction when he says that whilst wit is an individual gift, humour is frequently national. Nations may be known by the character of their humour as by the colour of their faces. Take the following well known instances as examples : — "Honesty's the best policy, my friend. I ken weel, for I've tried baith," "Are you guilty or not guilty, prisoner?" asked the Clerk of Arraigns. — " Faith, an' what are you put there for, but to find out that?" " Thunderin' words ain't wisdom, and stoppin' a, critter's mouth is more apt to improve his wind than his understanding" " Have you counted all those pigs, Sambo ?" — " All except one, mass*, an' him run about so much, I couldn't count him." To these distinctions should be added the fact that there are persons who have a sense of humour to whom the pranks and sallies of wit are an impertinence. It is time now to exemplify theße distinctions—especially the distinctions between humour and wit. The following may be taken as a fair specimen of rollicking Irish style :— O, St. Patrick was a gentleman, Who came of decent people, Be built a church in Dublin town, Aod on U put a steeple. Bis father was a Gallagher, His mother was a Brady ; His aunt was an O'dhaugnesfy, His uncle an O'Qrady. Bo Buccess attend St. Patrick's fist, For he's a saint so clever ; O, he ifave the snakts and toads a twist, And b mislied them for ever. * Th 9 Wicklow Hi la are very high, And bo.i the Hill of Howtti, bir ; But there's a hill much bijrgsr sti 1, Much higher nor them both. sir. Twas on the top of thi, hh;h lull St. Patrick pteached hie 'summit, That drovo th» frogs into the bogs, Ar.d banished all the va< mini. There's not a mile in Ireland's isle Where dirty vermin mu3ters, But there he put his dear fore foot, /vnd mil dered 'em in clusters. The toads weut pop, the f regs wtnt hop, Slapdash into ihe water ; And the snakt s committed suicide To save themto'vea from slaughter. Sydney Smith, it is well known, disliked the modern Athens, and this was probably the reason why ho was as severe on Scotch humour as on the Scotch climate. But surely it is a libel to deny the faculty of humour to the land of Burns and Christopher North. It has a distinct character of its own, but it iti surely there. Dr Davies gives the following sample :—: — An old shoemaker in Glasgow was seated by the side of his dying wife. "Weel, John," " we're gaun' to part. I have been a gude wife to you, John."—'' Oh, just middling, Jenny," Baid John, not disposed to commit himself. " John," Bays she, "ye maun promise to bury me in the auld kirkyard at Str'avon, beside my mitber. I! couldna rest among unco' folk in the dirt an' smoke o' GJascow." — " Weel, weel Jenny, my woman," said John, soothingly; ♦'we'll just try ye in Glascow first, an' gin ye ilinna lie quiet, we'll try ye in Str'avon." The peculiar quality of American humour is its smartness. Wreck a Yankee, says someone, on an unknown island, he would next morning be found selling maps to the inhabitants. In trading he is the very incarnation of shrewdness. Sam Jones called at the store of a Mr Brown with an egg in his hand, which he wished to dicker for a darning-needle. This done, he asks Mr Brown if he isn't going to treat "What, on that trade ?"—" Certainl y; trade is trade, big or little."—" Well, what will you have?"— "A glass of wine," said Jones. The wine was poured out, when Jones remarked that he preferred his wine with an egg in it. The identical egg was thereupon broken, when Jones discovered that the egg had two yolks, Says Jie, "Look here, you must give me another darning-needle." For "smartness," that is not bad; but jibe following is better :— ''JReckon could not driye » trad? Wit" you,

square," said a genuine specimen of the Yankee pedlar, as he stood at the door of a merchant in St. Louis. " I reckon you calculate about right, for you can't, no-ways." " Well, I guess you need not get huffy about it. Now here's a dozen genooine razor-strops, worth two dollars and a-half. You may have 'em for two dollars." " I tell you I don't want any of your traps, and you may as well be going along." " Well, now look here, square, I'll bet you five dollars that if you make me an offer far them 'ere strops we'll have a trade yet." " Done !" Baid the merchant, and he staked the money. "I'll give you sixpence for the strops." " They're your'n," said the Yankee, quietly pocketing tbe stake. "But," continued he, after a little reflection, and with a burst of frankness, " I calculate a joke's a joke, and if you don't want them strops I'll trade back." The merchant looked brighter. "You're not such a bad chap,^ after all,' said he. " Here are your strops ; give me the money." "There it is," said the Yankee, as he took the strops and handed back the sixpence. " A trade is a trade and a bet is a bet. Next time you trade with that 'ere sixpence don't you buy razor-strops." Of wit in its various forms of pun, epigram, and repartee, there is abundant illustration. Tbe author is disposed to regard the bull also as a species of wit. To him it is the counterpart of a witticism; for, as wit discovers real relations that are not apparent, bulls admit relations that are not real. " The pleasure arising from bulls proceeds from our surprise at suddenly discovering two things to be dissimilar in which a resemblance might have beensuspected. We cull a few examples at random. An Irishman living in an attio was asked on what floor he dwelt. " Sure if the house were turned topsy turvy, I'd be living on the first flure." Another said that " th<? moon was twice as good as the sun, becauses it shines at night when you want it, whereas the sun shines by day when you don't want him." An Irish peasant was asked why the pig was allowed to be one of the family . Said he, "Why not ? Doesn't the place afford every convenience that a pig can require ?" It needs the born wit to shine at repartee. A beautiful young lady once said to Sydney Smith, " I fear I shall never bring this pea to perfection." — "Then permit me," said the gallant canoD, taking her by the hand, "to lead perfection to the pea." — "We row in the same boat," said a literary friend to Douglas Jerrold." — "True, my good fellow," said Jerrold, "but with very differanti skulls." Dr Davies shows that Coleridge was wrong in saying that the ancients display no sense of humour. Almost every comedy is perfect illustration. " The Birds" of Aristophanes is as good an instance as can be found. This comedy is simply a burlesque on the proneness of-the Athenians for building castles in the air. Instead of giving a translation of one scene in this comedy, however,_ we prefer concluding by giving the following adaptation of it by Mr W. J. Omrthope ; The origin of things — our own inlcuded — is thus wittily described : — In the outset of things— Which the clergy Creation miscallThere was nought to perplex, by shape, speoies, or sex ; Indeed, there was nothing at all But a motion most comic of dust-motes atomic, A chaos of decimal fractions, Of which each, under Fate, was impelled to his mato By Love or the law of attractions. * # * * * * Soon desiring to pair— Fire, Water, and Air, To monogamous custom unused, All Joined by collusion in fortunate fusion, And £O the sponge-puzzle produced. Now the sponge had of yore many attributes more Than the power to imbibe or expunge, And his leisure beguiled with the hope of a child. Chorus : O philoprogenitive sponge ! Mar.: Then let him us call the firßt paront of all, Though [he clergy desire to hoodwink ua ; For he gave to the earth the first animal birth, And conceived the Orni thorny nchus. Eggs were laid as before, but each time more and more ; Varieties straggled and bred, Till ono end of tho scale dropped its ancestor's tail, And the other got rid of his head. From the bill, in brief words, wo developed the birds, Unless our tame pigeons and ducks lio ; From the tail and hind-legs in the second-laid egga, The apes, and— Professor Huxley. We are sure that our readers will thank us for introducing to them this lively, laughter- provoking book.