I have attempted in the foregoing remarks to set forth, or rather illustrate, the manner in which modern jests have flown directly or indirectly, from those of earlier generations; and have, in so doing, called attention to a rare and curious class of humorous books, which have been but little cited for more than two centuries. The principal point which I would most gladly make clear, is the fact that in literature and the history of culture, there are two classes of critics: the ultra-modern and the ultra-conservative, both of whom are in the wrong. The one cries that every flash of genius is new, and that an old jest is an old abomination—the other vows that there is nothing new under the sun, and that every good story is hidden away, in all its excellence, somewhere in the storehouse of the past. Examination is, however, like Pietro D'Abano, always a Conciliator. We find the original thema in the past, often reduced to the careless illustration of some principle or characteristic common to all humanity; but when we follow it down to the present, it becomes varied, improved, and enlarged into whole groups and families of new anecdotes, poems, jests, or proverbs; any single member of which is, perhaps, better than the original.
The history of jests can, in turn, be made to furnish an extremely vivid and curious history of the social conditions of men, and their changes from the earliest ages—not to be surpassed in value by that of any other peculiarities. In nothing is a man so much himself as in his humor.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Erneuerte und vermehrte Lustige Gesellschaft (Comes facundus in via pro vehiculo), von Johann Petro de Memel, Zippelzerbst im Drömbling. Im Jahr, 1657.
[5] Facetiarum Henrici Bebelii, Poetæ. Tübingen, A.D., 1542. Date of Preface, 1506.
[6] Peter Cunningham's last Book, p. 45.
[7] Hortuli amœni, viridis et elegantis floribus Historicis et Poeticis, &c. Balthasari Schnurii. Rotenburg. 1637.
[8] Democritus Ridens: sive Narrationum Ridicularum Centuria. Selecta Johanni Petro Langio. Ulmæ, anno 1667.