The late Lord S . . . . was sitting with him one morning listening to a very astute but rather dry explanation of some matter about which his Lordship had inquired. At last he threw himself back in his arm-chair and said, “My dear Nicolas, I am very stupid this morning: my brains are all {364} gone to the dogs.” On which Sir Harris pathetically exclaimed,—“Poor dogs!”
It is evident in this case, that the wit of the reply arose from sympathy expressed on the wrong side. The peer expected sympathy from the knight: but the knight gave it to the dogs.
Another remarkable feature of jokes formed upon this principle is, that they generally depend upon the intimate meaning of the words employed, and not either upon their sound or their arrangement; consequently, they possess the rare quality of being translatable into all languages.
One of the principles of discovery in many subjects is, to generalize from the individual case up to the species, and thence to descend to other individual instances.
〈A TRIPLE PUN.〉
Puns are detestable. The greater number of them depend on the double meaning of the same word, or on the similar pronunciation of words differently spelt. The following may serve as an example of a triple pun:—
A gentleman calling one morning at the house of a lady whose sister was remarkably beautiful, found her at the writing-table. Putting his hand upon the little bell used for calling the attendant, he inquired of the lady of the house what relationship existed between his walking-stick, her sister, and the instrument under his finger.
His walking-stick was {cane, Cain} the brother of {a bell, a belle, Abel}.
I mentioned, in an early chapter, my boyish admiration of an automaton in the shape of a silver lady, who attitudinized in the most graceful manner. Her fate was singular: at the death of her maker she was sold with the rest of his collection {365} of mechanical toys, and was purchased by Weekes, who had a mechanical exhibition in Cockspur Street. No attempt appears to have been made to finish the automaton; and it seems to have been placed out of the way in an attic uncovered and utterly neglected.
〈THE SILVER LADY.〉