Having now, from the best authorities, plainly proved the antiquity and excellence of the art of punning, nothing remains but to give some general directions as to the manner how this science is to be taught.
1. Let the husband teach his wife to read it.
2. Let her be appointed to teach her children.
3. Let the head servant of the family instruct all the rest, and that every morning before the master and mistress are up.
4. The masters and misses are to repeat a rule every day, with the examples; and every visiting-day be brought up, to show the company what fine memories they have.
5. They must go ten times through the book, before they be allowed to aim at a pun.
6. They must every day of their lives repeat six synonymous words, or words like in sound, before they be allowed to sit down to dinner,— such as
Assent, Ascent.
A Lass, Alas.
Bark, Barque.
Alter, Altar.
A Peer, Appear.
Barbery, Barberrie.They are all to be found in metre, most laboriously compiled by the learned author of "The English School-master," printed anno 1641, London edit. p. 52.
7. If any eldest son has not a capacity to attain to this science, let him be disinherited as non-compos, and the estate given to the next hopeful child.
——Si quid novisti rectius istis,
Candidus imperti: si non, his utere mecum[8].
"If any man can better rules impart,
I'll give him leave to do't with all my heart!"
[8] Hor. Ep. I. i. 67.
A
PARAGRAPH OF THE FIRST PREFACE
THAT WAS OMITTED,
WHICH THE READER (ACCORDING TO HIS JUDGMENT OR
DISCRETION) MAY INSERT WHERE HE PLEASES.
There is a remarkable passage in Petronius Arbiter, which plainly proves, by a royal example, that punning was a necessary ingredient to make an entertainment agreeable. The words are these: "Ingerebat nihilominus Trimalchio lentissima voce, Carpe. Ego, suspicatus ad aliquam urbanitatem toties iteratam vocem pertinere, non erubui eum qui supra me accumbebat hoc ipsum interrogare. At ille qui sæpius ejusmodi ludos spectaverat, Vides, inquit, illum qui obsonium carpit, Carpus vocatur. Itaque quotiescunque dicit Carpe, eodem verbo et vocat et imperat." And it is further remarkable, that every day of his life he made the same pun at dinner and supper.
