The result of an anxious consideration of these various Opinions, was a conviction that to define Wit was like the attempt to define Beauty, "which," said the Philosopher, "was the question of a Blind man"; and despairing, therefore, of finding a Standard of value, the Compiler of the following pages has gathered from every available source the Odd sayings of all Times, carefully eschewing, however, the Coarse and the Irreverent, so that of the Seventeen Hundred Jests here collected, not one need be excluded from Family utterance. Of course, every one will miss some pet Jest from this Collection, and, as a consequence, declare it to be miserably incomplete. The Compiler mentions this probability to show that he has not been among the Critics for nothing.
"The gravest beast is an ass; the gravest bird is an owl;
The gravest fish is an oyster; and the gravest man is a fool!"
says honest Joe Miller; and with that Apophthegm the Compiler doffs his Cap and Bells, and leaves you, Gentle Reader, in the Merry Company he has brought together.
M.L.
THE JEST BOOK.
I.—THE RISING SON.
Pope dining once with Frederic, Prince of Wales, paid the prince many compliments. "I wonder, Pope," said the prince, "that you, who are so severe on kings, should be so complaisant to me."—"It is," said the wily bard, "because I like the lion before his claws are grown."