The deliberate action of the mind, dictated by this rule, in seeking the aid of whimsicalities as the milestones and finger-posts of memory, is not only sanctioned (as we have said) by the recognition of one of its inherent properties, but by the most unmistakable precedents in its own natural operation. Surnames which do not owe their origin to the professions of those who first assumed them, or to modifications of Christian names, partake largely of the humorous in their conception, as we have shewn in former articles on Names in this Journal. They are, in fact, epigrammatic. Doubtless, among races in which the susceptibility to humour is very subordinate to other sensibilities, these epigram-names will embody less of that element; but even amongst the gravest tribes of North American Indians, and the melancholy races of Eastern Asia, secondary titles are in common use for ordinary and familiar occasions, answering exactly to our own idea of nicknames. Amongst ourselves the coinage of surnames has long ago been completed and in full circulation, their original meanings having now no force or application to the persons bearing them. Even nicknames have almost disappeared from polite literature and society with the increasing sensitiveness of the age. The art of 'smashing' in the matter of names, however, still lingers in the nursery and the playground, as well as in the inner circles of family life generally; and if we cast an observing glance down the social scale, we shall find the practice more and more widely obtaining, until, amongst the rural population and the operatives of Lancashire and the Black Country, we find it absolutely universal. In the latter locality, indeed, the inapplicability of authorised surnames has led to their total disuse. We read some years ago a Report from an official source, in which it was circumstantially stated that many of the puddlers, nailers, and others had utterly forgotten their original or baptismal name, being invariably addressed and known by a sobriquet, which hit off some whimsical peculiarity of person or character. We ourselves have a lively recollection of a woman in the neighbourhood of Bilston to whom her own husband's real name was so unfamiliar that she entirely failed to recognise it when we questioned her regarding him.
Scottish literature, and that of England which in point of national progress corresponds to it, owe much of their vigour and enjoyableness to the quaintness of the counterfeit nomenclature with which they abound; and at the same time indicate the prevalence of epigrammatic humorous names in the age which produced them. One of our finest ballads indeed—The Blithesome Bridal—is little other than a catalogue of trenchant nicknames: 'Will wi' the meikle mou,' 'Bow-legged Robbie,' 'Thumbless Katie,' 'Plouckie-faced Wat i' the mill;' and so on.
If then the human mind has not only an exceptional facility for the reproduction of whimsicalities, but a significant tendency to seek for and employ these as aids to the memory of more serious but less salient things, how shall we estimate the mnemonic value of the sense of the ludicrous? We have no desire, even if space would permit, to treat the inquiry exhaustively; but may point out one or two of the leading facts on which so curious an investigation might be based, and one or two reflections which the subject immediately suggests.
First, then, it is a well-established truth that the barbarous races which have proved totally unsusceptible of civilisation are those which are utterly or almost utterly devoid of the sense of humour: exemplified in the aborigines of Australia and the Indians of the West; while on the other hand the Negro, endowed with the most whimsical of fancies, has, though steeped in barbarism, the latent germ of intellectual and moral progress. Secondly, among the so-called civilised branches of the human family, the Caucasian, with its rich vein of humour, its hearty power of laughter, and its deftness in extracting from every condition of things the elixir of fun, stands in unapproachable superiority. Lastly, to those whose observation of national character has been sufficiently minute and varied, it will be equally clear that those European peoples which have the finest and deepest appreciation of the quaint and ludicrous (entirely distinct from wit), have also the greatest staying power intellectually and morally, and the largest possibility of development.
It would seem a fair inference from these facts alone, had we not already indicated it, that it is man's moral nature which benefits most largely by the presence in the mental economy of a sense of the ludicrous. The saying, 'Beware of him who cannot laugh,' is a pithy but conclusive commentary. All that is fairest in human life; all that is best and brightest in our earthly lot; the tender memories of childhood; the generous ties of friendship; the various sympathies which constitute the history of our inner selves, are rendered vivid and operative for our highest culture by the action of the simple yet unique mnemonic law which we have thus imperfectly examined.
[SISTERS.]
The day had gone as fades a dream;
The night had come and rain fell fast;
While o'er the black and sluggish stream
Cold blew the wailing blast.
In pensive mood I idly raised
The curtain from the rain-splashed glass,
And as into the street I gazed,
I saw two women pass.
One shivering with the bitter cold,
Her garments heavy with the rain,
Limped by with features wan and old,
Deep farrowed by sharp pain.