Studies in jocular literature

by William Carew Hazlitt

A curious glimpse of what may be described as preliminary rumination and subsequent cookery is afforded by Malone in what he says about the celebrated Lord Chesterfield:—

“The late Lord Chesterfield’s bons-mots were all studied. Dr. Warren, who attended him for some months before his death, told me that he had always one ready for him each visit, but never gave him a second on the same day.”

Chesterfield’s utterances, in other words, were second-hand impromptus—clever things which occur to one after the event, to be brought adroitly in next time. They resemble the speech which the man makes to himself on his way home, but which he should have delivered at the meeting or the banquet.

There are producible specimens, not only of the radix, which an artificer elaborates to suit his purposes, but of the converse—where the length of the original saying has been regarded as prolix, and has been shorn of its ample proportions, till it becomes a mot or an epigram. Every one has heard, for instance, of the capital observation of Horne Tooke, in reply to somebody who had stated in his hearing that the law was open to all men: “And so is the London Tavern!” But the more correct version of this matter appears to be one which is given in Joe Miller, 1832, No. 947:—

“John Horne Tooke’s opinion upon the subject of law was admirable. ‘Law,’ he said, ‘ought to be, not a luxury for the rich, but a remedy to be easily, cheaply, and speedily obtained by the poor.’ A person observed to him, ‘How excellent are the English laws, because they are impartial, and our courts of justice are open to all persons without distinction!’ ‘And so,’ said Tooke, ‘is the London Tavern to such as can afford to pay for their entertainment.’”

Here we have an illustration of the imperfect manner in which a presentment in miniature conveys the sense of the speaker. It is by no means multum in parvo. Tooke laid down the principle which Brougham subsequently carried into effect, but which proved a virtual dead letter—the County Court machinery, which was to have brought home justice at a low rate to every man’s door, but which, in point of fact, has been, from beginning to end, nothing but a sham and a juggle.

There is no story within my knowledge which indicates so clearly and amusingly one of the sources of corruption in the present branch of literature as the following:—

“A gentleman had purchased a jest-book, from which having selected a few tolerable stories, he related one of them, stating every circumstance as having actually happened to himself. His youngest son, a boy about nine years of age, who had occasionally got hold of the volume, sat with evident marks of impatience until his father had concluded, when he jumped up and bawled, ‘That’s in the book! that’s in the book!’”

Now, of course it does not require much calculation to arrive at an idea of the peculiar susceptibility of jocular and anecdotal matter to arbitrary treatment at the hands of every comer. It is truly the poet’s mutato nomine de te.

There are instances, again, where the text of a jest has a certain aspect of verisimilitude, yet where the peruser is apt on reflection, I think, to conclude that the cook has done his part. Let me illustrate this by a citation:—