The ancients manifested very great partiality for this species of wit, which the Greeks called παρανομασία and the Romans agnominatio. The writings of Plautus abound with puns above all others, and he is thought to have applied them with great ingenuity: the following may serve as a specimen.
Boius est, Boiam terit.
Advenisse familiares dicito.
Nescio quam tu familiaris es: nisi actutum hinc abis,
Familiaris, accipiere faxo haud familiariter
Optumo optumè optumam operam das.
Though the Greeks and Romans considered puns an ornament to writings and discourses of all kinds, modern critics have decided that they ought to be admitted only in writings of a light nature; and that they decrease the force and beauty of grave and serious compositions, which ought to wear an air of dignified sublimity, unmixed with any thing of a trivial nature.
The lines immediately preceding the before-mentioned passages are thus altered by a French editor. Vide [Note 72].
Ad hæc mala hoc etiam mihi accedit; hæc Andria,
Quam clam patre uxorem duxit Pamphilus, gravida ab eo est.