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HISTORY OF ENGLISH HUMOUR

WITH AN

INTRODUCTION UPON ANCIENT HUMOUR.

BY THE

REV. A. G. L'ESTRANGE,

AUTHOR OF

"THE LIFE OF THE REV. WILLIAM HARNESS,"
"FROM THE THAMES TO THE TAMAR,"
ETC.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.

LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1878.
All rights reserved.

CONTENTS

OF

THE FIRST VOLUME.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH HUMOUR.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.

Subjective Character of the Ludicrous—The Subject little Studied—Obstacles to the Investigation—Evanescence—Mental Character of the Ludicrous—Distinction between Humour and the Ludicrous.

The ludicrous is in its character so elusive and protean, and the field over which it extends is so vast, that few have ever undertaken the task of examining it systematically. Many philosophers and literary men have made passing observations upon it, but most writers are content to set it down as one of those things which cannot be understood, and care not to study and grapple with a subject which promises small results in return for considerable toil. Moreover, the inquiry does not seem sufficiently important to warrant the expenditure of much time upon it, and there has always been a great tendency among learned men to underrate the emotional feelings of our nature. Thus it comes to pass that a much larger amount of our labour has been expended upon inquiring into physical and intellectual constitution than upon the inner workings of our passions and sentiments, for our knowledge of which, though affecting our daily conduct, we are mostly indebted to the representations of poets and novelists. Beattie well observes that nothing is below the attention of a philosopher which the Author of Nature has been pleased to establish. Investigations of this kind would not be unrewarded, nor devoid of a certain amount of interest; and I think that in the present subject we can, by perseverance, penetrate a little distance into an almost untrodden and apparently barren region, and if we cannot reach the source from whence the bright waters spring, can at least obtain some more accurate information about the surrounding country.

Notwithstanding all the obstructions and discouragements in the way of this investigation a few great men have given it a certain amount of attention. Aristotle informs us in his "Rhetoric" that he has dealt fully with the subject in his Poetics, and although the treatise is unfortunately lost, some annotations remain which show that it was of a comprehensive character. Cicero and Quintilian in their instructions in Oratory, made the study of humour a necessary part of the course, and in modern days many ingenious definitions and descriptions of it are found among the pages of general literature. Most philosophers have touched the subject timidly and partially, unwilling to devote much time to it, and have rather stated what they thought ought to be in accordance with some pet theories of their own, than drawn deductions from careful analysis. They generally only looked at one phase of the ludicrous, at one kind of humour, and had not a sufficient number of examples before them—probably from the difficulty of recalling slight turns of thought in widely scattered subjects. Add to this, that many of them—constantly immersed in study—would have had some little difficulty in deciding what did and did not deserve the name of humour. Most of their definitions are far too wide, and often in supporting a theory they make remarks which tend to refute it. The imperfect treatment, which the subject had received, led Dugald Stewart to observe that it was far from being exhausted.

The two principal publications which have appeared on humour, are Flögel's "Geschichte der Komischen Litteratur" (1786), and Léon Dumont's "Les Causes du Rire." The former is voluminous, but scarcely touches on philosophy, without which such a work can have but little coherence. The latter shows considerable psychological knowledge, but is written to support a somewhat narrow and incomplete view. Mr. Wright's excellent book on "The Grotesque in Literature and Art," is, as the name suggests, principally concerned with broad humour, and does not so much trace its source as the effects it has produced upon mankind. Mr. Cowden Clark's contributions on the subject to the "Gentleman's Magazine," are mostly interesting from their biographical notices.

To analyse and classify all the vagaries of the human imagination which may be comprehended under the denomination of humour, is no easy task, and as it is multiform we may stray into devious paths in pursuing it. But vast and various as the subject seems to be, there cannot be much doubt that there are some laws which govern it, and that it can be brought approximately under certain heads. It seems to be as generally admitted that there are different kinds of humour as that some observations possess none at all. Moreover, when remarks of a certain kind are made, especially such as show confusion or exaggeration, we often seem to detect some conditions of humour, and by a little change are able to make something, which has more or less the character of a jest.

There is in this investigation a very formidable "Dweller on the Threshold." We contend with great disadvantages in any attempts to examine our mental constitution. When we turn the mind in upon itself, and make it our object, the very act of earnest reflection obscures the idea, or destroys the emotion we desire to contemplate. This is especially the case in the present instance. The ludicrous, when we attempt to grasp it, shows off its gay and motley garb, and appears in grave attire. It is only by abstracting our mind from the inquiry, and throwing it into lighter considerations, that we can at all retain the illusion. A clever sally appears brilliant when it breaks suddenly upon the mental vision, but when it is brought forward for close examination it loses half its lustre, and seems to melt into unsubstantial air. Humour may be compared to a delicate scent, which we only perceive at the first moment, or to evanescent beauty—

"For every touch that wooed its stay
Has brushed its brightest hues away."

This last simile is especially in point here, and the quotations in this book will scarcely be found humorous, so long as they are regarded as mere illustrations of the nature of humour.

We need not—taking these matters into consideration—feel much surprised that some people say the ludicrous cannot be defined; as for instance, Buckingham,

"True wit is everlasting like the sun,
Describing all men, but described by none;"

and Addison:—"It is much easier to decide what is not humorous than what is, and very difficult to define it otherwise than Cowley has done, by negatives"—the only meaning of which is that the subject is surrounded with rather more than the usual difficulties attending moral and psychological researches. Similar obstacles would be encountered in answering the question, "What is poetry?" or "What is love?" We can only say that even here there must be some surroundings by which we can increase our knowledge.

Humour is the offspring of man—it comes forth like Minerva fully armed from the brain. Our sense of the ludicrous is produced by our peculiar mental constitution, and not by external objects, in which there is nothing either absurd or serious. As when the action of our mind is imperceptible—for instance, in hearing and seeing with our "bodily" senses—we think what we notice is something in the external world, although it is only so far dependent upon it that it could not exist without some kind of outer influence, so the result of our not recognising the amusing action of the mind in the ludicrous is that we regard it as a quality resident in the persons and things we contemplate.[1] But it does not belong to these things, and is totally different from them in kind. Thus, the rose is formed of certain combinations of earth, air, and water; yet none of these dull elements possess the fragrance or beauty of the flower. These properties come from some attractive and constructive power. Not only are there no types or patterns in things of our emotions, but there are none even of our sensations; heat and cold, red or blue, are such only for our constitution. This truth is beautifully set forth by Addison in a passage in which, as Dugald Stewart justly remarks, "We are at a loss whether most to admire the author's depth and refinement of thought, or the singular felicity of fancy displayed in its illustration." "Things," he observes, "would make but a poor appearance to the eye, if we saw them only in their proper figures and motions. And what reason can we assign for their exciting in us many of those ideas which are different from anything that exists in the objects themselves (for such are light and colours) were it not to add supernumerary ornaments to the universe, and make it more agreeable to the imagination? We are everywhere entertained with pleasing shows and apparitions. We discover imaginary glories in the heavens and on the earth, and see some of this visionary beauty poured out over the whole creation. But what a rough, unsightly sketch of Nature should we be entertained with, did all her colouring disappear, and the several distinctions of light and shade vanish! In short, our souls are delightfully lost and bewildered in a pleasing delusion, and we walk about like the enchanted hero of a romance, who sees beautiful castles, woods, and meadows, and at the same time hears the warbling of birds and the purling of streams; but upon the finishing of some secret spell, the fantastic scene breaks up, and the disconsolate knight finds himself on a barren heath, or in a solitary desert."

I have introduced these considerations, because it is very difficult for us to realize that what we behold is merely phenomenal, that

"Things are not what they seem;"

but that we are looking into the mirror of Nature at our own likeness. When we speak of a ludicrous occurrence, we cannot avoid thinking that the external events themselves contain something of that character. Thus, the ludicrous has come in our ideas and language to be separated from the sense in which alone it exists, and it is desirable that we should clearly understand that the distinction is only logical and not real.

When the cause of our laughter—be it mind, matter, or imaginary circumstance—is merely regarded as something incongruous and amusing, we name it the ludicrous, and a man is called ludicrous as faulty or contemptible. But when the cause of it is viewed as something more than this, as coming from some conscious power or tendency within us—a valuable gift and an element in our mental constitution—we call it humour, a term applied only to human beings and their productions; and a man is called humorous as worthy of commendation. Both are in truth feelings—we might say one feeling—and although we can conceive humour to exist apart from the ludicrous, and to be a power within us creating it, there is a difficulty in following out the distinction. The difference between them is in our regard.

As soon as in course of time it became plainly evident that gay creations might emanate from man, and not only from the outer world, the fact was marked by the formation of a distinctive name, and by degrees several names—among which the most comprehensive in English is Humour. This kind of gift became gradually known as more or less possessed by all, and when the operations of the mind came to be recognised, we were more enlightened on the subject, and acknowledged it to be a mental and creative power. Such admissions would not be made by men in general without some very strong evidence, and therefore a humorous man was not merely one who had an internal sense of the ludicrous, but one who employed it for the delectation of others. Hence, also, though there is no consciousness of being amusing in the man who is ludicrous, there is in one that is humorous. A wit must always be pleasant intentionally. A man who in sober seriousness recounts something which makes us laugh is not humorous, although his want of discrimination may not be sufficient to make him ludicrous. Children are not regarded as humorous, for, although they enjoy such simple humour as toys afford, they very seldom notice what is merely ludicrous, and do not reproduce it in any way; and the same may be said of many grown persons, who require to be fed as it were, and although they can enjoy what is embellished by others, have no original observation. Thus, although Herbert Mayo is substantially correct in saying that "humour is the sentiment of the ludicrous," he might have added that there is a difference between the two in our knowledge of them. In the former, the creative mind is more marked, and, a man though he laughs much, if he be dull in words is only considered to have mirth, i.e., joyousness or a sense of the ludicrous, not humour. The gift can only be brought prominently forward in speech or writing, and thus humour comes to be often regarded as a kind of ingredient or seasoning in a speech or book, if not actually synonymous with certain sentences or expressions. Still we always confine the name to human productions, as, for instance, gestures, sayings, writings, pictures, and plays.

The recognition of the mental character of humour did not necessarily imply any knowledge as to the authority, instability, or constancy of the feeling—that could only be acquired by philosophical investigation. Nor have we yet so far ascertained its character as to be able to form humorous fancies upon any fixed principle. We are guided by some sense of the ludicrous which we cannot analyse; or we introduce into new and similar cases relationships in things which we have observed to be amusing. Some forms are so general that they will produce a vast number of jests, and we thus seem to have some insight into the influences that awaken humour, but we see only approximately and superficially, and can merely produce good results occasionally—rather by an accident than with any certainty.

INTRODUCTION.

PART I.

ORIGIN OF HUMOUR.

Pleasure in Humour—What is Laughter?—Sympathy—First Phases—Gradual Development—Emotional Phase—Laughter of Pleasure—Hostile Laughter—Is there any sense of the Ludicrous in the Lower Animals?—Samson—David—Solomon—Proverbs—Fables.

Few of the blessings we enjoy are of greater value than the gift of humour. The pleasure attendant upon it attracts us together, forms an incentive, and gives a charm to social intercourse, and, unlike the concentrating power of love, scatters bright rays in every direction. That humour is generally associated with enjoyment might be concluded from the fact that the genial and good-natured are generally the most mirthful, and we all have so much personal experience of the gratification it affords, that it seems superfluous to adduce any proofs upon the subject. "Glad" is from the Greek word for laughter, and the word "jocund" comes from a Latin term signifying "pleasant." But we can trace the results of this connection in our daily observation. How comes it to pass that many a man who is the life and soul of social gatherings, and keeps his friends in delighted applause, sits, when alone in his study, grave and sedate, and seldom, if ever, smiles in reading or meditation? Is it not because humour is a source of pleasure? We are not joyously disposed when alone, whereas in society we are ready to give and receive whatever is bright and cheering.

The first question which now presents itself is what is laughter? and our answer must be that it is a change of countenance accompanied by a spasmodic intermittent sound—a modification of the voice—but that we cannot trace its physical origin farther than to attribute it to some effect produced upon the sympathetic nerve, or rather the system of nerves termed respiratory. These communicate with every organ affected in mirth, but the ultimate connection between mind and body is hidden from our view.

In all laughter there is more or less pleasure, except in that of hysteria, when by a sudden shock the course of Nature is reversed, and excessive grief will produce the signs of joy, as extravagant delight will sometimes exhibit those of sorrow. We should also exclude the laughter caused by inhalation of gas, and that of maniacs, which arising from some strange and unaccountable feeling is abnormal and imperfect, and known by a hollow sound peculiar to itself. None of these kinds of laughter are primary, they are but imperfect reflections of our usual modes of expression, and, excepting such cases, we may agree that M. Paffe is correct in observing that "Joy is an indispensable condition of laughter." Dr. Darwin refers to the laughter of idiots to prove that it may be occasioned by pleasure alone. Strangely enough, he quotes as an instance in point the fact of an idiot boy having laughed at receiving a black eye.

Proceeding onwards, we next come to inquire why the sense of humour is expressed by voice and countenance, and does not merely afford a silent and secret delight? The answer may be given, that one object, at least, is to increase social communication and multiply pleasure. The well-being of the animal world largely depends upon the power of each member of it to communicate with others of the same species. They all do so by sound and gesture, probably to a larger extent than we generally imagine. A celebrated physician lately observed to me that "all animals have some language." How far mere signs deserve so high a name may be questioned. But man has great powers of intercourse, and it is much owing to his superior faculties in this respect that he holds his place so high above the rest of creation. Orators, who make it their study to be impressive, give full importance to every kind of expression, and say that a man should be able to make his meaning understood, even when his voice is inaudible. It has been lately discovered that the mere movement of the lips alone, without sound, is sufficient to convey information.[2] Facial expression has been given us as a means of assisting communication, and smiles and laughter have become the distinctive manifestations of humour. Thus the electric spark passes from one to another, and the flashing eye and wreathed lip lights up the world. Profit also accrues—fear of being laughed at leads us to avoid numerous small errors, and by laughing at others we are enabled to detect shortcomings in ourselves.

Sympathetic laughter does not arise from any contemplation of ludicrous circumstances, but is only a sort of reflection of the feelings of others. There seems to be little intelligence in it, but something almost physical, just as yawning is infectious, or as on seeing a person wounded in a limb we instinctively shrink ourselves in the same part of the body. Even a picture of a man laughing will have some effect upon us, and so have those songs in which exuberant mirth is imitated. Thus we often laugh without feeling just cause, as we often feel cause without laughing. All exhibitions of emotion are infectious. We feel sad at seeing a man in grief, although the source of his sorrow is unknown to us; and we are inclined to be joyous when surrounded by the votaries of mirth. Not unfrequently we find a number of persons laughing, when the greater part of them have no idea what is the cause of the merriment. Sometimes we cannot entirely resist the impulse, even when we ourselves are the object of it, so much are we inclined to enter into the feelings and views of those who surround us. In this, as well as in many other cases, the sight and proximity of others exercise over us a great influence, and sometimes almost a fascination.

To this sympathy we are largely indebted for the diffusion of high spirits. It is pleasant to laugh and see others laughing, and thus the one leads to the other. "Laugh and be fat," is a proverb, and it has been well observed that "we like those who make us laugh," because they give us pleasure. We may add that we like to see others joyous, because we feel that we are surrounded by kindly natures. A gallant writer tells us that he hopes to be rewarded for his labours in the field of literature by "the sweetest of all sounds in nature—the laughter of fair women." Macready, speaking of this influence, says:

"The words of Milman would have applied well to Mrs. Jordan, 'Oh, the words laughed on her lips!' Mrs. Nesbitt, the charming actress of a late day, had a fascinating power in the sweetly-ringing notes of her hearty mirth; but Mrs. Jordan's laugh was so rich, so apparently irrepressible, so deliciously self-enjoying, as to be at all times irresistible."

The agreeable influence of smiles is so well known that many are tempted to counterfeit them, and assume an expression in which the eye and lip are in unhappy conflict.[3] On the other hand, painful thoughts are inimical to mirth. No sally of humour will brighten the countenance of a man who has lately suffered a severe loss, and even mental reflection will extinguish every sparkle. But the bed of sickness can often be better cheered by some gay efflorescence, some happy turn of thought, than by expressions of condolence. Galen says that Æsculapius wrote comic songs to promote circulation in his patients; and Hippocrates tells us that "a physician should have a certain ready humour, for austerity is repulsive both to well and ill." The late Sir Charles Clark recognised this so far that one of his patients told me that his visits were like a bottle of Champagne; and Sir John Byles observes, "Cheerfulness eminently conduces to health both of body and mind; it is one of the great physicians of nature.

"Il y a trois médecins qui ne se trompent pas,
La gaité, le doux exercice, et le modeste repas.

Every hour redeemed from despondency and melancholy, and bathed in the sunshine of cheerfulness, is an hour of true life gained."

Our views with regard to the first appearance of laughter depend on whether we consider that man was gradually developed from the primeval oyster, or that he came into the world much in the same condition as that in which we find him now. If we adopt the former opinion, we must consider that no outward expressions of feeling originally existed; if the latter, that they were from the first almost as perfect as they are at present. But I think that we shall be on tolerably safe ground, and have the support of probability and history, if we say that, in his earliest condition, the mental endowments of man were of the very humblest description, but that he had always a tendency to progress and improve. This view obtains some little corroboration from the fact that the sounds animals utter in the early stages of their lives are not fully developed, and that the children of the poor are graver and more silent than those of the educated classes. But a certain predisposition to laughter there always was, for what animal has ever produced any but its own characteristic sound? Has not everyone its own natural mode of expression? Does not the dog show its pleasure by wagging its tail, and the cat by purring? We never find one animal adopting the vocal sounds of another—a bird never mews, and a cat never sings. Some men have been called cynics from their whelpish ill-temper, but none of them have ever adopted a real canine snarl, though it might express their feelings better than human language. Laughter, so far as we can judge, could not have been obtained by any mere mental exercise, nor would it have come from imitation, for it is only found in man, the yelping of a hyena being as different from it as the barking of a dog, or the cackling of a goose. We may, however, suppose that the first sounds uttered by man were demonstrative of pain or pleasure, marking a great primary distinction, which we make in common with all animals. But our next expression showed superior sensibility and organism: it denoted a very peculiar perception of the intermingling of pain and pleasure, a combination of opposite feelings not possessed by other animals, or not distinct enough in them to have a specific utterance. There might seem to be something almost physical in the sensation, as it can be excited by tickling, or the inhalation of gas. Similar results may be produced by other bodily causes. Homer speaks of the chiefs laughing after a sumptuous banquet, and of a man "laughing sweetly" when drunk. Bacon's term titillatio, would seem very appropriate in such cases. There was an idea, in olden times, that laughter emanated from a particular part of the body. Tasso, in "Jerusalem Delivered," describing the death of Ardonio, who was slain by a lance, says that it

"Pierced him through the vein
Where laughter has her fountain and her seat,
So that (a dreadful bane)
He laughed for pain, and laughed himself to death."

This idea probably arose from observing the spasmodic power of laughter, which was greater formerly than now, and to the same origin we may attribute the stories of the fatal consequences it has, at times, produced; of Zeuxis, the painter, having expired in a fit brought on by contemplating a caricature he had made of an old woman, and of Franciscus Cosalinus, a learned logician, having thus broken a blood-vessel, which led to his dying of consumption. Wolfius relates "that a country bumpkin, called Brunsellius, by chance seeing a woman asleep at a sermon fall off her seat, was so taken that he laughed for three days, which weakened him so that he continued for a long time afterwards in an infirm state."

We must suppose that laughter has always existed in man, at least as long as he has been physically constituted as he is now, for it might always have been produced by tickling the papillæ of the nerves, which are said to be more exposed in man than in other animals. When we have stated the possibility of this pleasurable sensation being awakened under such circumstances, we have, in fact, asserted that it was in course of time thus called into existence. But the enjoyment might have been limited to this low phase, for the mind might have been so vacant, so deficient in emotion and intelligence that the moral and intellectual conditions necessary for a higher kind of laughter might have been wanting. This seems to be the case among some savages at the present day, such as the New Zealanders and North American Indians. The earliest laughter did not arise from what we call the ludicrous, but from something apparently physical—such as touch—though it does not follow that it would never otherwise have existed at all, for, as the mind more fully developed itself, facial expressions would flow from superior and more numerous causes. Nor can we consider that what is properly called mirth was shown in this primitive physical laughter, which was such as may be supposed to have existed when darkness was on the face of the intellectual world. How great, and of what continuance, was this primeval stagnation must be for ever unknown to us, but it was not destined to prevail. Light gradually dawned upon the mental wastes, and they became productive of beauty and order. As greater sensibility developed itself, emotion began to be expressed; first, probably at an adult period of life, by the sounds belonging to the corresponding feelings in the bodily constitution. Tears and cries betoken mental as well as physical anguish, and laughter denoted a mixed pleasurable feeling either in mind or body. There is a remarkable instance of this transference from the senses to the emotional feelings in the case of what is called sardonic laughter, in which a similar contortion of countenance to that caused by the pungency of a Sardinian herb is considered to denote a certain moral acerbity. Here there is an analogy established between the senses and emotions in their outward manifestation, just as there is in language in the double meaning of such terms as bitter and sweet.

When we consider the fact that matter is that which gives, and mind that which receives impressions, or that our perceptions do not teach the nature of external things, but that of our own constitution, we shall admit that there is not such a fundamental difference between feelings derived from the sense of touch, and those coming through our other senses. But we must observe that there is a great practical difference between them, inasmuch as the one sense remains in its original primitive state, and is not cultivated as are the others. Physical laughter requires no previous experience, no exercise of judgment, and therefore has no connection with the intellectual powers of the mind. The lowest boor may laugh on being tickled, but a man must have intelligence to be amused by wit. The senses which are the least discriminating are the least productive of humour, little is derived from that of smell or of taste, though we may talk sometimes of an educated palate and an acquired taste. The finer organs of sight and hearing are the chief mediums of humour, but the sense of touch might by education be rendered exquisitely sensitive, and Dickens mentions the case of a girl he met in Switzerland who was blind, deaf, and dumb, but who was constantly laughing. Among infants, also, where very slight complication is required, the sense of humour can be excited by touch. Thus nurses will sing, "Brow brinky, eye winkey, nose noppy, cheek cherry, mouth merry," and greatly increase the little one's appreciation by, at the same time, touching the features named. Contact with other bodies occasions a sensation, and might, by degrees, awaken an emotion; and we might thus have such a sense of the ludicrous as that obtained through eye and ear, which is sometimes almost intuitive, and but slightly derived from reflection or experience. Of this kind is that aroused by the rapid changes of form and colour of the kaleidoscope, and those pantomimic representations which amuse the young and uneducated, and others who live mostly in the senses.

We have now arrived at the emotional phase of laughter, that in which emotion far exceeds intellectual action. At this stage, we have a kind of laughter which we may call that of pleasure, inasmuch as it is the first that deserves a distinct name. This laughter of pleasure required very little complication of thought, contained no unamiable feeling, and expressed the mildest sense of the ludicrous. At the same time, it did not flow from any mere constitutional joyousness, but only arose upon certain occasions, in consequence of some remarkable and unusual occurrence—such as the reception of glad tidings, or the sudden acquisition of some good fortune. This ancient laughter, now no longer existing, is alluded to in early writings.

Thus we read in Gen. xxi. 6, that Sarah, on the birth of Isaac, said "God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me," and in Ps. cxxvi., "When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing." And in Proverbs we find, "There is a time to weep, and a time to laugh," contrasting the expression of sorrow with that of pleasure. Passing into Greek literature, we find laughter constantly termed "sweet." In Iliad xxi, "Saturn smiled sweetly at seeing his daughter;" in xxiii. "The chiefs arose to throw the shield, and the Greeks laughed, i.e., with joy." In Odyssey, xx. 390, they prepare the banquet with laughter. Od. xxii., 542, Penelope laughs at Telemachus sneezing, when she is talking of Ulysses' return; she takes it for a good omen. And in the Homeric Hymns, which, although inferior in date to the old Bard, are still among the earliest specimens of literature, we find, in that to Mercury, that the god laughs on beholding a tortoise, "thinking that he will make a beautiful lyre out of its shell;" and a little further on, Apollo laughs at hearing the sound of the lyre. In the hymn to Aphrodite, the laughter-loving Venus laughed sweetly when she thought of men and mortals being intermarried. The fact that this and the preceding kinds of laughter were not necessarily regarded as intellectual, is evident from the ancient poets attributing them to vegetable and inorganic life. Considerable licence in personification must no doubt be conceded to those who went so far as to deify the elements, and to imagine a sort of soul in the universe, and no doubt language as well as feeling was not at the time strictly limited. But it must be remarked that, while they rarely attribute laughter to the lower animals, they also never ascribe any other sign of emotion, nor even that in its higher kinds, to insensate matter. In all these passages it is of a physical, or merely pleasurable description. In Iliad xiv. 362, speaking of the Grecian host, Homer says that "the gleam of their armour was reflected to heaven, and all the earth around laughed at the brazen refulgence."

In Hesiod's Theogony, v. 40, we read that when the Muses are singing "the palace of loud-thundering Jove laughs (with delight) at their lily voice;" and in the Hymn to Ceres we find Proserpine beholding a Narcissus, from the root of which a hundred heads sprang forth "and the whole heavens were scented with its fragrance, and the whole earth laughed and the briny wave of the sea." Theognis writes that Delos, when Apollo was born, "was filled with the ambrosial odour, and the huge earth laughed." The poets seemed scarcely to have advanced beyond such a bold similitude, and we may conclude that while they saw in laughter something above the powers of the brute creation, they did not consider that it necessarily expressed the smallest exercise of intellect.

This laughter of pleasure, which cheered the early centuries of the world, now no longer exists except perhaps in childhood. It belongs to simpler if not happier natures than our own. If a man were now to say that his friends laughed on hearing of some good fortune having come to him, we should suppose that they disbelieved it, or thought there was something ridiculous in the occurrence. In these less emotional ages, in which the manifestations of joy and sorrow are more subdued, it is mute, and has subsided into a smile. It is difficult to say when the change took place, but our finding smiles mentioned in Homer, though not in Scripture, might suggest their Greek origin, if they were at first merely a modification of the early laughter of pleasure, betokening little more than kindly or joyous emotions. Although not always now genial, the smile continues to be used for the symbol of pleasure, even in reference to inanimate Nature, as where Milton writes "Old Ocean smiled." The smile may have preceded laughter, as the bud comes before the blossom, but it may, on the other hand, have been a reduction of something more demonstrative.

We have still a kind of laughter approaching very nearly to that of pleasure, which contains little reflection, but cannot be regarded as simply physical. This description seems to be that alluded to in the Book of Ecclesiastes, "I said of laughter, it is mad, and of mirth, what good doeth it?" Of the same nature is that to which some excitable and joyous persons are constitutionally inclined. Their perpetual merriment seems to us childish and silly. Thus Steele observes to an hilarious friend, "Sir, you never laughed in your life," and farther on he remarks, "Some men laugh from mere benevolence."

The pleasure accompanying the perception of the ludicrous has been by some attributed to the exercise of certain muscles in the face, and by others to the acquisition of new ideas. But we may safely discard both theories, for the former derives the enjoyment from physical instead of mental sources, and the latter gives us credit for too great a delight in knowledge, even were it thus generally obtained. The enjoyment seems partly to arise from stimulation and activity of mind, excitement being generally agreeable, whereas inaction is monotonous and wearisome. But it seems also partly to be derived from sources which are, or appear to be, collateral. Thus, in the early laughter of pleasure, some solid advantage or gratification, present or future, was always in view, and from men being delighted at their own success, which must often have been obtained at the expense of others, it was an easy transition to rejoice at the failure of rivals. In those primitive times, when people felt themselves insecure, and one tribe was constantly at war with another, there was nothing that gave them so much joy as the misfortunes of their enemies. They exhibited their exultation by indulging in extravagant transports, in shouting, in singing and dancing, and when there appeared some strangeness or peculiarity, something sudden or unaccountable in such disasters, laughter broke forth of that rude and hostile character which we may occasionally still hear among the uneducated classes. It accorded with the age in which it prevailed—a period when men were highly emotional and passionate, while their intellectual powers were feeble and inactive.

The two early phases of the ludicrous—those of pleasure and of hostility—containing small complexity, and a large proportion of emotion, are to a certain extent felt by the lower animals. Dr. Darwin has observed an approximation to the laughter of pleasure in monkeys, but he does not connect it with intelligence, and would not, I believe, claim for them any sense of the ludicrous. I have, however, seen a dog, on suddenly meeting a friend, not only wag his tail, but curl up the corners of his lips, and show his teeth, as if delighted and amused. We may also have observed a very roguish expression sometimes in the face of a small dog when he is barking at a large one, just as a cat evidently finds some fun in tormenting and playing with a captured mouse. I have even heard of a monkey who, for his amusement, put a live cat into a pot of boiling water on the fire. These animals are those most nearly allied to man, but the perception of the ludicrous is not strong enough in them to occasion laughter. The opinion of Vives that animals do not laugh because the muscles of their countenances do not allow them, can scarcely be regarded as philosophical. Milton tells us that,

"Smiles from reason flow,
To brutes denied;"

a statement which may be taken as generally correct, although we admit that there may be some approximation to smiling among the lower animals, and that it does not always necessarily proceed from reason.

The pleasure found in hostile laughter soon led to practical jokes. Although now discountenanced, they were anciently very common, and formed the first link between humour and the ludicrous. They were not imitative, and did not show any actual power to invent what was humorous, but a desire to amuse by doing something which might cause some ludicrous action or scene, just as people unable to speak would point to things they wish to designate. These early jokes had severer objects coupled with amusement, and were what we should call no joke at all. The first character in the records of antiquity that seems to have had anything quaint or droll about it is that of Samson. Standing out amid the confusion of legendary times, he gives us good specimens of the fierce and wild kind of merriment relished in ancient days; and was fond of making very sanguinary "sport for the Philistines." He was an exaggeration of a not very uncommon type of man, in which brute strength is joined to loose morals and whimsical fancy. People were more inclined to laugh at sufferings formerly, because they were not keenly sensitive to pain, and also had less feeling and consideration for others. That Samson found some malicious kind of pleasure and diversion in his reprisals on his enemies, and made their misfortunes minister to his amusement, is evident from the strange character of his exploits. "He caught three hundred foxes, and took fire-brands, and turned tail to tail, and put a fire-brand in the midst between two tails, and when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks and also the standing corn of the Philistines, with the vineyards and olives." On another occasion he allowed himself to be bound with cords, and thus apparently delivered powerless into the hands of his enemies; he then broke his bonds "like flax that was burnt with fire," and taking the jaw-bone of an ass, which he found, slew a thousand men with it. His account of this massacre shows that he regarded it in a humorous light: "With the jaw-bone of an ass heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass I have slain a thousand men." We might also refer to his carrying away the gates of Gaza to the top of a hill that is before Hebron, and to his duping Delilah about the seven green withes.

In the above instances it will be observed that destruction or disappointment of enemies was the primary, and amusement the secondary object. It must be admitted that all such jokes are of a very poor and severe description. They have not the undesigned coincidence of the ludicrous nor the fanciful invention of true humour. Samson was evidently regarded as a droll fellow in his day, but beyond his jokes the only venture of his on record is a riddle, which showed very little ingenuity, and can not be regarded as humorous now, even if it were so then.

It would, perhaps, be going too far to assert that no laughter of a better kind existed before the age at which we are now arrived; some minds are always in advance of their time, as others are behind it, but they are few. The only place in which there is any approach in early times to what may be called critical laughter is recorded where Abraham and Sarah were informed of the approaching birth of Isaac. Perhaps this laughter was mostly that of pleasure. Sarah denied that she laughed, and Abraham was not rebuked when guilty of the same levity.[4]

With the exception of the above-mentioned riddle, and rough pranks of Samson, we have no trace of humour until after the commencement of the Monarchy. The reigns of David and Solomon seemed to have formed the brightest period in the literary history of the Jews. The sweet Psalmist of Israel was partly the pioneer to deeper thought, partly the representative of the age in which he lived. It is the charm of his poetry that it is very rich and recondite—a mine of gold, which the farther it is worked, the more precious its yield becomes. But it everywhere bears the stamp of passion and religious ardour, and does not bespeak the critical incisiveness of a highly civilised age. Argumentative acumen would have been as much below the poetic mind of David in one respect as it was above it in another, and while his rapturous language of admiration and faith seems above the range of human genius; his bitter denunciations of his enemies remind us of his date, and the circumstances by which he was surrounded. Such immaturity would be sufficient to account for the non-existence of humour. It may be urged that David had no tendency in that direction. His thoughts were turned towards the sublime, and his religious character, his royal estate, and the vicissitudes of his early life, all inclined him to serious reflection. But we do not find that David was invariably grave and solemn. He indulged in laughter at the misfortunes of his adversaries, as we may conclude from a passage in Psalm lii, 6. "God shall likewise destroy thee for ever; he shall take thee away and pluck thee out of thy dwelling-place, and root thee out of the land of the living. Selah. The righteous also shall see and fear, and shall laugh at him."

He also considered that, in turn, his enemies would deride him, if he were unsuccessful. Psalm xxii, 7—"All they that see me laugh me to scorn; they shoot out the lip and shake the head, saying, 'He trusted in the Lord.'"

He evidently thought there was nothing wrong in such laughter, for he even considers it compatible with Divine attributes,[5] Psalm ii, 4, "He that sitteth in Heaven shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision;" and Psalm xxxvii, 13, "The Lord shall laugh at him, for he seeth that his day is coming."

Nothing can make it more certain than such expressions that the prophets interpreted the intimations they received from above by clothing them with their own mundane similitudes.

On the other hand, although David laughed at his enemies, he never seems to have done so at anything else. He frequently mentions fools, but always with detestation. To him the term did not convey any idea of frivolity or eccentricity, but of crime and wickedness. All these considerations tend to convince us that we can see in the writings of David a fairly good reflection of the mirth common in his day. Add to this that there is no trace in any contemporary work of an attempt beyond the emotional phases of the ludicrous, and we do not at this time read of any performance of Jewish plays, or of any kind of amusing representations.

A more advanced, but less faithful age is represented by another man. The soldier-king passed away to make room for one educated under milder influences. He inherited not the piety or warlike virtues of his father, but turned the same greatness of mind into a more luxurious and learned channel. In his writings we find little that approaches the sublime, but much that implies analytical depth and complexity of thought. His tone bespeaks a settled and civilized period favourable to art and philosophy, in which subtlety was appreciated, while the old feelings of acerbity had become greatly softened.

In the intellectual and moral state at this date, there were many conditions favourable to the development of humour. But we do not find it yet actually existing, although we must suppose that a mind capable of forming proverbs could not have been entirely insensible to it. We may define a proverb to be a moral statement, instructive in object, and epigrammatically expressed. It is always somewhat controversial, and when it approaches a truism scarcely deserves the name.

A great many of Solomon's proverbs may be regarded in two lights, and I think a comparison between some of them will show that he was aware of the fact, and if so he could scarcely have avoided feeling some sense of the ludicrous, and even of having a slight idea of humour in its higher phases. I shall allude in illustration of this to a proverb often quoted ironically at the present day. "In the multitude of counsellors there is wisdom," and which we have combated and answered by a common domestic adage.

Again Solomon is rather hard upon the failings of the ladies, "The contentions of a wife," he says, "are a continual dropping." "It is better to dwell in the corner of a housetop than with a brawling woman in a wide house." "It is better to dwell in the wilderness than with a contentious and angry woman." The meaning of all these sayings must be that women are of a very irritable and vexatious character. But did Solomon really believe in the strong terms he used towards them. We should say not to judge by his life, for he had "seven hundred wives, and three hundred concubines;" and although he says that, "as a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman that is without discretion"—a very strong comparison—we may be sure that he had a great many of these despicable creatures domiciled in his own palace.

Solomon's strictures with regard to money may also be regarded as of somewhat uncertain value:—"How much better is it to get wisdom than gold," sounds very well, although Solomon must have known that many men would prefer the latter, and history seems to say that he was not averse from it himself. "He that is despised and hath a servant is better than he that honoureth himself, and lacketh bread," shows at least some appreciation of the usefulness of wealth. Ecclesiastes makes a more decided statement. "Money answereth all things." I should imagine Solomon was as much alive to the two sides of the question, as was the Greek who on being asked scoffingly "why philosophers followed rich men, but rich men never followed philosophers," replied, "Because philosophers know what they want, but rich men do not."

In one place Solomon shows his consciousness that his proverbs may be viewed as true or false. He gives two opposite propositions—"Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him," and, "Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit." Shortly afterwards, he observes, as if the idea of perverting and turning proverbs was in his mind, "The legs of a lame man are not equal, so is a parable in the mouth of fools."

There was another form besides that of Proverbs, in which during earlier ages moral and political teachings were expressed. One of the first comparisons man learned to draw was that between himself and the lower animals; and the separation between reason and instinct would not appear to be at first so clearly defined as it is at present. Before the growth of cities, and the increased intercourse and accumulated experience resulting from their formation, the mental development of man was so small as not to offer any very strong contrast to the sagacity of other animals. The greatest men of ancient times were merely nomad chiefs living on the wild pasture plains, often tending their own flocks, and, no doubt, like the Arabs of the present day, making companions of their camels and horses. By the rivers and in the jungles, they often encountered beasts of prey, became familiar with their habits, and formed a higher opinion of their intelligence than we generally hold. At that time, when strength was more esteemed than intellectual gifts, there was sometimes a tendency to consider them as rather above than below the human race. The lion, the eagle, and the stag possessed qualities to which it was man's highest ambition to aspire, and, in some cases, he even went so far as to worship them. In the ancient civilisation of Egypt we find the most numerous traces of this culture and feeling—gods, kings, rulers, and disembodied spirits being represented entirely or partially under the forms of what we call the lower animals. The strange allegorical figures found at Nineveh may also be considered illustrations in point. There was evidently no caricature intended in these representations, and it is worthy of notice that such as are grotesque are not earlier than Roman times.

It is unnecessary to recapitulate the beautiful comparisons of this character which are profusely scattered through Holy Writ, but we should especially notice the blessing given by Jacob to his sons on his death-bed; in which we seem almost to discover the first origin of heraldry. Another remarkable comparison is that of Nathan, aptly made, and likely to sink with weight into the heart of the Shepherd-King. The same respect for animals survived in the time of the earliest Greek writers.

Homer in his solemn epic has numerous instances of it:—Hector in "Iliad" xi, 297, is setting the Trojans on "like dogs at a wild boar or lion." In xi, 557, Ajax retreating slowly from the Trojans is compared to an ass who has gone to feed in a field, and whom the boys find great difficulty in driving out, "though they belabour him well with cudgels." Agamemnon is compared to a bull, Sarpedon and Patroclus in deadly combat to two vultures, and Diomed and Ulysses pursue Dolon as two fleet hounds chase a hare. All these were evidently intended to be most poetical, if not elevating similes; their dignity would have been lost could they possibly have been regarded as humorous.

Simonides of Amorgos in the seventh century B.C., is remarkable for this kind of illustration. After some lamentations about human life, he observes that nothing is better than a good wife, or worse than a bad one, and he proceeds to compare women to various animals. He is also evidently very serious over the subject, and regards it as no joke at all. Perhaps there was also something to be said on the other side, for he remarks that a gadding wife cannot be cured, even if you "knock out her teeth with a stone." He likens them to pigs and polecats, horses and apes; and only praises the descendant of the bee. In a passage undoubtedly of early date, and attributed to Xenophanes, the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy, (540-500) the writer enumerates the various ways, in which other animals are superior to man. "If by the will of God there were an equality and community in life, so that the herald of the Olympian games should not only call men to the contest, but also bid all animals to come, no man would carry off a prize; for in the long race the horse would be the best; the hare would win the short race; the deer would be best in the double race. No man's fleetness would count for anything, and no one since Hercules would seem to have been stronger than the elephant or lion; the bull would carry off the crown in striking, and the ass in kicking, and history would record that an ass conquered men in wrestling and boxing."

But the light in which the lower animals were regarded, produced other fanciful combinations. Not only were men given the attributes of animals, but animals were endowed with the gifts peculiar to man. All things were then possible. Standing as he seemed in the centre of a plain of indefinite or interminable extent, how could any man limit the productions or vagaries of Nature, even if he possessed far more than the narrow experience of those days? Moreover, the boundary lines were vague between the natural and supernatural, and the latter was supposed to be constantly interposing in the ordinary affairs of life. Among other beliefs then prevalent, was one in the existence of a kind of half nature, such as that in Centaurs, dragons, and griffins. In the Assyrian cuneiform inscriptions lately deciphered, we read, of one Heabani, a semi-bovine hermit, supposed to have lived 2,200 B.C. Thus the accounts in Scripture of the serpent accosting Eve, and of Balaam arguing with his ass, would not have seemed so remarkable then as they do to us. In an Egyptian novel—the oldest extant, cir. 1,400 B.C.—a cow tells Bata that his elder brother is standing before him with his dagger ready to kill him. He understood, we are told, the language of animals, and was afterwards transformed into a bull. Greek tradition as recorded by Plato, Xenophon, Babrius, and others, speaks of an early golden age in which men and animals held colloquies together "as in our fables;" whence we should conclude this much—that there was a time when poets very commonly introduced them as holding conversations, and when philosophers illustrated their doctrines from the animal world.

The fable, we are told, was "an invention of ancient Assyrian men in the days of Ninus and Belus," and in confirmation of its Eastern origin, we may observe that the apologues of Lokman are of Indian derivation. He is supposed, by Arabian writers, to have been either a nephew of Abraham or Job, or a counsellor of David or Solomon.

The first specimen we have of an ordinary fable, i.e., of one in which the interlocutors are lower animals, is found in Hesiod, who is placed about a century after Homer. It runs thus:—

"Now I will tell the kings a fable, which they will understand of themselves. Thus spake the hawk to the nightingale, whom he was carrying in his talons high in air, 'Foolish creature! why dost thou cry out? One much stronger than thou hath seized thee, though thou art a songster. I can tear thee to pieces, or let thee go at my pleasure.'"

But fables do not come fully under our view until they are connected with the name of Æsop, who is said to have introduced them into Greece. In general his fables pretend to nothing more than an illustration of proverbial wisdom, but in some cases they proceed a step farther, and show the losses and disappointments which result from a neglect of prudent considerations. It cannot be denied that there is something fanciful and amusing in these fables, still there is not much in them to excite laughter—they are not sufficiently direct or pungent for that. The losses or disappointments mentioned, or implied, give a certain exercise to the feelings of opposition in the human breast, and if they are supposed to be such as could not easily have been foreseen, we should regard the narratives as humorous. But this is scarcely the case; the mishaps arise simply and directly from the situations, and are related with a view to the inculcation of truth, rather than the exhibition of error. Hence the basis is different from that in genuine humour, and the complication is small. Still the object evidently was to allure men into the paths of wisdom through the pleasure grounds of imagination.

Addison has justly observed that fables were the first kind of humour. As the days of Athenian civilization advanced, their light chaff was thought more of than their solid matter. Two hundred years of progress in man caused the animals to be truly considered "lower," natural distinctions were better appreciated, and there seemed to be something absurd in the idea of their thinking or talking. Hence Æsop's fables are spoken of by Aristophanes as something laughable, and the fabulist came to be regarded as a humorist. This feeling gained ground so much afterwards that Lucian makes Æsop act the part of a buffoon in "The Isles of the Blessed." Such views no doubt influenced the traditions with regard to the condition and characteristics of their composer. There was the more field for this, inasmuch as even the fables were only handed down orally. Some biographer, formerly supposed to have been Planudes the monk, seems to have fertilized with his own inventive genius many tales which had themselves no better foundation than the conjectures derived from the tone and nature of the fables. Æsop was represented as droll, as a sort of wit, and by a development of the connection in the mind between humour and the ludicrous, they gave him an infirm body, hesitating speech, and servile condition. Improving the story, they said his figure frightened the servants of the merchant who bought him. At the same time many clever tricks and speeches were attributed to him. What we really glean from such stories is, that animal fables soon came to be regarded as humorous. It is probable that some fabulist of the name of Æsop at one time existed, but we know nothing with certainty about his life, and many of the fables attributed to him were perhaps of older date.

The advance in the direction of humour, which was manifested in Æsop's fictions, was also found in the opulent Ionian Sybaris. This city, situated on the lovely Bay of Tarentum, was now at the height of its fame, the acknowledged centre of Greek luxury and civilization. A reflection of oriental splendour seems to have been cast upon it, and we read of all kinds of extravagant and curious arrangements for the indulgence of ease and indolence. Amid all this luxury and leisure, fancy was not unemployed. We find that, like the former leaders of fashion in this country, they kept a goodly train of monkeys,[6] and anticipated our circus performances by teaching their horses to dance on their hind legs, an advance above practical joking and below pictorial caricature. Moreover, intellectual entertainment was required at their sumptuous feasts, and genius was tasked to find something light and racy, maxims of deep significance interwoven with gay and fanciful creations. There was not sufficient subtlety about these inventions to entitle them to the name of humour in our modern sense of the word; much complication was not then required, nor much laughter expected. The "fables" of Sybaris seem to have been of a similarly philosophical cast to those of Æsop. The following specimen is given in the Vespæ, 1427.

"A man of Sybaris fell from a chariot, and, as it happened, had his head broken—for he was not well acquainted with driving—and a friend who stood by, said, 'Let every man practise the craft, which he understands.'"

We observe that these fables are not carried on through the assistance of our four-footed friends. At Sybaris, conversation between men and the lower animals had begun to appear not only absurd, but to be improved upon and made with the evident intention of being humorous. Hence, inanimate things were sometimes made to speak, and in succeeding fictions birds and beasts were given such special characteristics and requirements of men as could least have belonged to them. As an example of this, we may refer to the Batrachomyomachia—a production called Homeric but proved by the very length of its name to belong to a later date. It is ascribed by Plutarch to Pigres, the brother of the Halicarnassian Queen, Artemisia, contemporary with the Persian War. This poem, which is a parody on Homer, reminds us, in its microscopic representation of human affairs, of the travels of Gulliver in Lilliput. A frog offers to give a mouse a ride across the water on his back. Unfortunately, a water-snake lifts up its head when they are in the middle passage, and the frog diving to avoid the danger, the mouse is drowned. From this trifling cause there arises a mighty war between the frogs and the mice. The contest is carried on in true Homeric style; the mice-warriors are armed with bean-pods for greaves, lamp-bosses for shields, nutshells for helmets, and long needles for spears. The frogs have leaves of willow on their legs, cabbage leaves for shields, cockle-shells for helmets, and bulrushes for spears. Their names are suggestive, as in a modern pantomime. Among the mice we have Crumb-stealer, Cheese-scooper, and Lick-dish; among the frogs, Puff-cheeks, Loud-croaker, Muddyman, Lovemarsh, &c.

PART II.

GREEK HUMOUR.

Birth of Humour—Personalities—Story of Hippocleides—Origin of Comedy—Archilochus—Hipponax—Democritus, the Laughing Philosopher—Aristophanes—Humour of the Senses—Indelicacy—Enfeeblement of the Drama—Humorous Games—Parasites, their Position and Jests—Philoxenus—Diogenes—Court of Humour—Riddles—Silli.

There is every reason to suppose that a very considerable period elapsed before any progress was made in advance of the ludicrous, but at length by those who appreciated it strongly, and saw it in things in which it did not appear to others, humorous devices were invented from a growing desire to multiply the occasions for enjoyment. Observation and our power of imitation provided the means, and men of humour employed themselves in reproducing some ludicrous situations; and thus, instead of things derided being as previously wholly separate from those who derided them, a man could laugh, and yet be the cause of laughter to others. This discovery was soon improved upon, and by aid of imagination and memory, as opportunities offered, certain connections and appearances were represented under a great variety of forms. As the mind enlarged, the exciting causes of laughter were not mainly physical or emotional, but assumed a higher and more rational character.

At the period at which we have now arrived, we find humour dawning through various channels. We have traced approximations towards it in proverbs and fables, and, in a coarse form, in practical jokes; and as from historical evidences we are ready to admit that civilization had an Eastern origin, so we shall feel little difficulty in assigning Greece as the birthplace of humour. A greater activity of mind now begins to prevail, reflection has gradually given distinctness to emotion, and the ludicrous is not only recognised as a source of pleasure, but intentionally represented in literature.

Before the time of Æsop, though not perhaps of his fables, Homer related a few laughable occurrences of so simple a character as to require little ingenuity. In this respect he is not much better than a man who recounts some absurd incident he has witnessed without adding sufficient to it to show that he has a humorous imagination. His mirth, except when merely that of pleasure, is of the old hostile character. In Iliad, xi, 378, Paris, having hit Diomed, from behind a pillar with an arrow in the foot, springs forth from his concealment and laughs at him, saying he wished he had killed him. In Iliad, xxi, 407, where the gods descend into the battle, Minerva laughs at Mars when she has struck him with a huge stone so that he fell, his hair was draggled in the dust, and his armour clanged around him. In the Odyssey, Ulysses speaks of his heart laughing within him after he had put out Polyphemus' eye with a burning stick without being discovered. And in Book xviii, Ulysses strikes Irus under the ear and breaks his head, so that blood pours from his mouth, and he falls gnashing and struggling on the ground, at which, we are told, the suitors "die with laughter."

From this hostile phase the transition was easy to ridiculing personal defects, and so Homer tells us that when the gods at their banquet saw Vulcan, who was acting as butler, "stumping about on his lame leg," they fell into "unextinguishable laughter."

Thersites is described as "squint-eyed, lame-legged, with bent shoulders pinched over his chest, a pointed head, and very little hair on it." Homer may merely have intended to represent the reviler of kings as odious and despicable, but there seems to be some humour intended. Ridicule of personal defects must always be of an inferior kind, being a matter of sight, and of small complexity. As the first advance of the ludicrous was from the hostile to the personal, so the beginning of humour seems to have been the representation of personal defects.[7]

In accordance with this, we find that the only mention of laughter made by Simonides of Amorgos is where he says that some women may be compared to apes, and then gives a very rude description of their persons. This subservience to the eye can also be observed in the appreciation of monkeys and dancing horses, already mentioned, the latter forming a humorous exhibition, as the animals were trained with a view to amuse. We have marks of the same optical tendencies in the appreciation of antics and contortions of the body, either as representing personal deformity, or as a kind of puzzling and disorderly action. A little contemporary story related by Herodotus shows that these pantomimic performances were now becoming fashionable in Athens. Cleisthenes, tyrant of Sicyon, was even at this date so much in favour of competitive examinations, that he determined to give his daughter to the most proficient and accomplished man. On the appointed day the suitors came to the examination from every quarter, for the fair Agariste was heiress to great possessions. Among them was one Hippocleides, an Athenian, who proved himself far superior to all the rest in music and dissertation. Afterwards, when the trial was over, desiring to indulge his feelings of triumph and show his skill, he called for a piper, and then for a table, upon which he danced, finishing up by standing on his head and kicking his legs about. Cleisthenes, who was apparently one of the "old school," and did not appreciate the manners and customs of young Athens, was much offended by this undignified performance of his would-be son-in-law, and when he at last saw him standing on his head, could no longer contain himself, but cried out, "Son of Tisander, thou hast danced away thy marriage." To which the other replied with characteristic unconcern: "It's all the same to Hippocleides,"—an expression which became proverbial. In this story we see the new conception of humour, though of a rude kind, coming into collision with the old philosophic contests of ingenuity, which it was destined to survive if not to supersede.

We have another curious instance about this date of an earnest-minded man being above the humour of the day, (which, no doubt, consisted principally of gesticulation), and he was probably voted an unsociable, old-fashioned fellow. Anacharsis, the great Scythian philosopher, when jesters were introduced into his company maintained his gravity, but when afterwards a monkey was brought in, he burst into a fit of laughter, and said, "Now this is laughable by Nature; the other by Art." That amusement should be thus excited by natural objects denotes a very eccentric or primitive perception of the ludicrous, seldom now found among mature persons, but it is such as Diodorus, quoting no doubt from earlier histories, attributed to Osiris—"to whom," he says, "when in Ethiopia, they brought Satyrs, (who have hair on their backs,) for he was fond of what was laughable."

But a further development of humour was in progress. As people were at that time easily induced to regard sufferings as ludicrous, the idea suggested itself of creating mirth by administering punishment, or by indulging in threats and gross aspersions. A very slight amount of invention or complexity was here necessary. The origin of the comic drama furnishes an illustration of this. It commenced in the harvest homes of Greece and Sicily—in the festivals of the grape-gatherers at the completion of the vintage. They paraded the villages, crowned with vine-leaves, carrying poles and branches, and smeared with the juice of grapes. Their aim was to provoke general merriment by dancing, singing, and grotesque attitudes, and by giving rein to their coarse and pugnacious propensities. Spectators and passers by were assailed with invectives, pelted with missiles, and treated to all that hostile humour which is associated with practical joking. So vile was their language and conduct that "comedy" came to signify abuse and vilification. As the taste for music and rhythm became general in that sunny clime, even these rioters adopted a kind of verse, by which rustic genius could give additional point to scurrility. Thus arose the Iambic measure used at the festivals of Ceres and Bacchus, and afterwards fabled to have been invented by Iambe, the daughter of the King of Eleusis. Hence, also, came the jesting used in celebrating the rites of Ceres in Sicily, and the custom for people to post themselves on the bridge leading to Eleusis in Attica, and to banter and abuse those going to the festivals. The story of Iambe only marks the rural origin of the metre, and its connection with Ceres, the Goddess of Harvest. Eleusis was her chosen abode, and next in her favour was Paros; and here we accordingly find the first improvement made upon these uncouth and virulent effusions. About the commencement of the 7th century, Archilochus, a native of this place, harnessed his ribaldries better, and put them into a "light horse gallop." He raised the Iambic style and metre so as to obtain the unenviable notoriety of having been the first to dip his pen in viper's gall. Good cause had he for his complaints, for a young lady's father, one Lycambes, refused to give him his daughter's hand. There was apparently some difficulty about the marriage gifts—the poet having nothing to give but himself. Rejected, he took to writing defamatory verses on Lycambes and his daughters, and composed them with so much skill and point that the whole family hanged themselves. Allusions, which led to such a catastrophe, could not now be regarded as pleasantries; but at that time he obtained a high reputation, and perhaps the suicide of the wretched Lycambes was considered the best joke of all.[8] The fragments which remain to us of Archilochus' productions seem melancholy enough, and the only place where he speaks of laughter is where he calls Charilaus "a thing to be laughed at,"—an expression which would seem to point to some personal deformity—we are told, however, by later writers, that he was a glutton. In another remaining passage Archilochus says that "he is not fond of a tall general walking with his legs apart, with his hair carefully arranged, and his chin well shaven;" where we still detect the same kind of caricature, and in default of any adequate specimen of his "gall," we may perhaps be excused for borrowing an illustration from Alcæus, who lived slightly later; and who, speaking of his political opponent Pittacus, calls him a "bloated paunch-belly," and a "filthy splay-footed, crack-footed, night fellow."

Archilochus lived in the fable age, and the most perfect of the small fragments remaining of his works are of that allegorical description. But he may be regarded as a representative of the dull and bitter humour of his time—a large proportion of which, as in his writings, and those of Simonides and Hesiod, was ungallantly directed against the "girls of the period."[9]

But Archilochus' humour, though rude and simple, opened a new mine of wealth, and if it was not at first very rich, it was enough to indicate the golden treasure beneath. Sonorous narratives about heroes and demi-gods were to be gradually supplanted by the bright contrasts of real life. Archilochus' ingenuity had introduced light metres suited for flippant and pointed allusions. The conceit was generally approved, and though the new form could not exactly be called humorous, it occurred to Hipponax, in the next century, that he could make it so by a slight alteration. Perhaps this "Father of Parody" intended to mimic Archilochus; at any rate, by means of a change in termination, he manufactured "limping" Iambics. We must suppose that he produced something better than this, but look in vain into his lines for any instances of real pungency. He was a sort of Greek Samson, his best jokes seem to have been connected with great strength, and to judge from what remains of his works, we should conclude that he was more justly famous for "tossing an oil cruise" than for producing anything which we should call humour. But, were we asked whether in that age his sayings would have been amusing, we may reply in the affirmative; they certainly had severity, for his figure having been caricatured by the sculptors of Chios, Bupalus and Anthermus, he repaid them so well in their own coin, that they also duly hanged themselves. It must be admitted that the fact of the same kind of death having been chosen by them, and by the objects of Archilochus' derision, does not increase greatly the credibility of the stories.

We now come to consider what we may call a serious source of humour. Already we have noticed the tendency in ancient times to exercises of ingenuity in answering hard questions. These led to deeper thought, to the aphoristic wisdom of the seven wise men, and the speculations of those who were in due time to raise laughter at the follies of mankind.

This introduces the era of the philosophers—a remarkable class of men, who grew up in the mercurial atmosphere of Greece. One of the most distinguished of them was Democritus, born 460 B.C. He came of noble descent, and belonged to so wealthy a family of Abdera that his father was able to entertain Xerxes on his return to Asia. The King left some Chaldean Magi to instruct his son, who, early in life, evinced a great desire for the acquisition of knowledge, and after studying under Leucippus, travelled to Egypt, Persia, and Babylon. He almost seemed a compound of two different characters, uniting the intellectual energy of the sage with the social feelings of a man of the world. Living in ease and opulence, he was not inclined to be censorious or morose; having mingled much in society, he was not very emotional or sympathetic; not tempted to think life a melancholy scene of suffering, but callous enough to find amusement in the ills he could not prevent. He regarded man, generally, as a curious study, as remarkable for not exercising the intellect with which he was endowed—not so much from censurable causes as from some obliquity in mental vision. Not that he regarded him as unaccountable—a fool in the ordinary acceptation of the word, is always a responsible being, and not synonymous with an idiot.

The humour of this laughing sage, grounded upon deep philosophy, was so little understood in his day that none were able to join in his merriment, nor did he expect that they should be; if he was humorous to himself, he was not so, and did not aim at being so, to others. On the contrary, he was thought to be mad, and Hippocrates was directed to inquire into his disorder, but the learned physician returned answer that not he, but his opponents were deranged. Whether this story be a fabrication or not, we may regard it as a testimony that wise men saw much truth in his philosophy. Montaigne, in his Essay on Democritus and Heraclitus, gives his preference to the former, "Because," he observes, "men are more to be laughed at than hated," showing that he regarded him as imputing folly to men rather than vice.

Even Socrates, whom we are accustomed to regard as the most earnest of philosophers was by no means a melancholy man. Fully aware of the influence exercised by humour, he often put his teachings into an indirect form, and he seems to have first thus generally attracted attention. He introduced what is called irony[10]—the using expressions which literally mean exactly the opposite to what is intended. A man may be either praised or blamed in this way, but Socrates' intention was always sarcastic. He put questions to men, as if merely desiring some information they could easily give him, while he knew that his inquiries could not be answered, without overthrowing the theories of those he addressed. Thus, he gave instruction whilst he seemed to solicit it. In various other ways he enlivened and recommended his doctrines by humorous illustration. It is said that he even went to the theatre to see himself caricatured, laughed as heartily as any, and stood up to show the audience how correctly his ill-favoured countenance had been reproduced. This story may be questioned, and it has been observed that he was not insensible to ridicule, for he said shortly before his death that no one would deride him any longer. We are told that he spent some of his last days in versifying the fables of Æsop.

We now return from theoretical to practical life, from the philosophers to the public. Nothing exhibits more forcibly the variable character of humour than that, while philosophers in their "thinking shops" were laughing at the follies of the world, the populace in the theatre were shaking their sides at the absurdities of sages. Ordinary men did not appreciate abstract views, nor understand abstruse philosophic humour, indeed it died out almost as soon as it appeared, and was only contemporary with a certain epoch in the mental history of Greece. Every popular man is to a great extent a reflection of the age in which he lives, "a boat borne up by a billow;" and what, in this respect is true generally, is especially so with regard to the humorist, who seeks a present reward, and must be in unison with the characters of those he has to amuse. He depends much on hitting the current fancies of men by small and subtle allusions, and he must have a natural perception of fitness, of the direction in which he must go, and the limits he must not transgress. The literature of an epoch exhibits the taste of the readers, as well as that of the authors.

We shall thus be prepared to find that the mind of Aristophanes, although his views were aristocratic, harmonized in tone with that of the people, and that his humour bears the stamp of the ancient era in which he lived. The illustrations from the animal world in which he constantly indulges remind us of the conceits of old times, when marvellous stories were as much admired as the monstrous figures upon the Persian tapestry. Would any man at the present day produce comedies with such names as "The Wasps," "The Frogs," and "The Birds."[11] But we here meet with our feathered and four-footed companions at every corner. The building of the bird's city is a good illustration of this. Thirty thousand cranes brought stones for the foundations from Libya, and ten thousand storks made bricks, the ducks with aprons on carried the bricks, and the swallows flew with trowels behind them like little boys, and with mortar in their beaks.

We also notice in Aristophanes a simple and rude form of the ludicrous, scarcely to be called humour, much in favour with his immediate predecessors. I refer to throwing fruits and sweatmeats among the audience. Trygæus (Vintner), celebrating a joyous country festival in honour of the return of peace and plenty, takes occasion to throw barley among the spectators. In another place Dicæpolis, also upon pacific deeds intent, establishes a public treat, and calls out, "Let some one bring in figs for the little pigs. How they squeak! will they eat them? (throws some) Bless me! how they do munch them! from what place do they come? I should say from Eaton."

In this scrambling fun there would be good and bad fortune, and much laughter would be occasioned, but mostly of an emotional character. Some of the jokes of Hegemon, who first introduced dramatic parody, were of a similar description, but more unpleasant. On one occasion he came into the theatre with his robe full of stones, and began to throw them into the orchestra, saying, "These are stones, and let those who will throw them." Aristophanes makes great use of that humour which is dependent upon awakening hostile and combative feelings. Personal violence and threats are with him common stage devices. We have here as much "fist sauce," and shaking of sticks, and as many pommellings, boxings of ears, and threats of assault and battery as in any modern harlequinade.

Next in order, we come to consider some of the many instances in Aristophanes of what may be called optical humour—that in which the point principally depends upon the eye. Thus he makes Hercules say he cannot restrain his laughter on seeing Bacchus wearing a lion's skin over a saffron robe. A Megarian reduced to extremities, determines to sell his little daughters as pigs, and disguises them accordingly.[12] In the Thesmophoriazusæ, there is a shaving scene, in which the man performed upon has his face cut, and runs away, "looking ridiculous with only one side of his face shaven." In another play where the ladies have stolen the gentlemen's clothes, the latter come on the stage in the most ludicrous attire, wearing saffron-coloured robes, kerchiefs, and Persian slippers. In another, the chorus is composed of men representing wasps, with waists pinched in, bodies striped with black and yellow, and long stings behind. The piece ends with three boys disguised as crabs, dancing a furious breakdown, while the chorus encourages them with, "Come now, let us all make room for them, that they may twirl themselves about. Come, oh famous offsprings of your briny father!—skip along the sandy shore of the barren sea, ye brothers of shrimps. Twirl, whirl round your foot swiftly, and fling up your heels in the air like Phrynicus, until the spectators shout aloud! Spin like a top, pass along in circle, punch yourself in the stomach, and fling your leg to the sky, for the King himself, who rules the sea, approaches, delighted with his children!"

The greater the optical element in humour, the lower and more simple it becomes, the complexity being more that of the senses than of intellect. It may be said there is always some appeal to both, but not in any equal proportions, and there is manifestly a great difference between the humour of a plough-boy grinning through a horse-collar, and of a sage observing that "when the poor man makes the rich a present, he is unkind to him." Caricature drawings produce little effect upon educated people, unless assisted by a description on which the humour largely depends. We can see in a picture that a man has a grotesque figure, or is made to represent some other animal; by gesticulation we can understand when a person is angry or pleased, or hungry or thirsty; but what we gain merely through the senses is not so very far superior to that which is obtained by savages or even the lower animals, except where there has been special education.

Next to optical humour may be placed acoustic—that of sound—another inferior kind. The ear gives less information than the eye. In music there is not so much conveyed to the mind as in painting, and although it may be lively, it cannot in itself be humorous. We cannot judge of the range of hearing by the vast store of information brought by words written or spoken, because these are conventional signs, and have no optical or acoustic connection with the thing signified. We can understand this when we listen to a foreign language.

Hipponax seems to have been the first man who introduced acoustic humour by the abrupt variation in his metre. Exclamations and strange sounds were found very effective on the stage, and were now frequently introduced, especially emanating from slaves to amuse the audience. Aristophanes commences the knights with a howling duet between two slaves who have been flogged,

"Oh, oh—Oh, oh—Oh, oh—Oh, oh—"

In another play, there is a constant chorus of frogs croaking from the infernal marshes.

"Brekekekex, coax, coax, brekekekex, coax, coax."

In "The Birds," the songsters of the woods are frequently heard trilling their lays. As they were only befeathered men, this must have been a somewhat comic performance. The king of birds, transformed from Tereus, King of Thrace, twitters in the following style.

"Epopopopopopopopopopoi! io! io! come, come, come, come, come. Tio, tio, tio, tio, tio, tio, tio! trioto, trioto, totobrix! Torotorotorotorolix! Ciccabau, ciccabau! Torotorotorotorotililix."

Rapidity of utterance was also aimed at in some parts of the choruses, and sometimes very long words had to be pronounced without pause—such as green-grocery-market-woman, and garlic-bread-selling-hostesses. At the end of the Ecclesiazusæ, there is a word of twenty-seven syllables—a receipt for a mixture—as multifarious in its contents as a Yorkshire pie.

We may conclude that there was a humour in tone as well as of rhythm in fashion before the time of Aristophanes, and we read that there was a certain ventriloquist named Eurycles; but Aristophanes must be content to bear the reproach of having been the first to introduce punning. He probably had accomplices among his contemporaries, but they have been lost in obscurity. Playing with words seems to have commenced very early. The organs of speech are not able to produce any great number of entirely different sounds, as is proved by the paucity of the vowels and consonants we possess. To increase the vocabulary, syllables are grouped together by rapid utterance, and distinctions of time were made. Similarities in the length and flow of words began soon to be noticed, and hence arose the idea of parallelism, that is of poetry—a similarity of measure. A likeness in the tone of words, in the vowel and consonant sounds, was afterwards observed, and became the foundation of punning. The difference between rhythm and puns is partly that of degree—and the latter were originally regarded as poetical. Simonides of Ceos called Jupiter Aristarchus, i.e., the best of rulers; and Æschylus spoke of Helen as a "hell,"[13] but neither of them intended to be facetious. Aristotle ranked such conceits among the ornaments of style; and we do not until much later times find them regarded as ludicrous.

With Aristophanes they are humorous, and his ingenuity in representing things as the same because their names were so, would not have been unworthy of a modern burlesque writer. They, perhaps, were more appreciated at that time from their appearing less common and less easily made. But there is a worse direction than any above mentioned, in which Aristophanes truckled to the low taste of his day. The modern reader is shocked and astounded at the immense amount of indelicacy contained in his works. It ranges from the mild impropriety of saying that a girl dances as nimbly as a flea in a sheepskin, or of naming those other industrious little creatures he euphemistically calls "Corinthians," to a grand exhibition of the blessings of Peace under the form of a young lady, the liberal display of whose charms would have petrified a modern Chamberlain. In one place, Trygæus is riding to heaven on a dung-beetle, and of course a large fund of amusement is obtained from the literal and metaphorical manipulation of its food. Socrates' disciples are discovered in a kneeling posture, with their heads on the ground. "What are they doing?" inquires the visitor. "They are in search of things below the earth." "And why are their backs up in the air?" "With them they are studying astronomy."

These passages will give some faint idea, though not an adequate one, of the coarseness of Aristophanes' humour. The primitive character of it is marked by the fact that the greater portion has no reference to the sexes.

It is a crumb of comfort to know that women were not generally present at performances of comedies, and Aristotle says that young men should not be allowed to attend them until they are old enough to sit at table and get drunk. Moreover, to be humorous the comedian must necessarily have exceeded the bounds of ordinary usage. Aristophanes occasionally deplores the degeneracy of his times,—the youth of the period making "rude jests," but his own writings are the principal evidence of this depravity. His allusions are not excusable on the ground of ignorance; they are intentionally impure. There was once an age of innocence—still reflected in childhood, and among some unprogressive races—in which a sort of natural darkness hung over the thoughts and actions of men,—but it was in reality an age of ignorance. When light broke forth delicacy sprang up, and when by degrees one thing after another had been forbidden and veiled from sight by the common consent of society, there was a large borderland formed outside immorality upon which the trespasser could enter and sport; and much could be said which was objectionable without giving serious offence. Before the days of Aristophanes and the comic performances for which he wrote, very little genius or enterprise was directed into the paths of humour, but now every part of them was explored. Indelicacy would here afford great assistance, from the attraction it possesses for many people and the ease with which it is understood. Something perhaps is due to the fact that Greece had now reached the highest point of her prosperity, and that a certain amount of lawlessness prevailed as her brilliancy began to tremble and fade. From whatever cause it arose, Aristophanes stands before us as one of the first to introduce this base ornamentation. The most remarkable circumstance connected with it is that he assigns a large part of his coarse language to women. His object was to amuse a not very refined audience, and one that relished something preposterous.

Thus Aristophanes lowered his style to the level of his audience, but in his brighter moments, forgetting his failings and exigencies, he disowns expedients unworthy of the comic art. He says he has not like "Phrynicus, Lycis, and Amisias" introduced slaves groaning beneath their burdens, or yelping from their stripes; he comes away, "a year older from hearing such stage tricks." "It is not becoming," he observes in another place for a dramatic poet to throw figs and sweetmeats to the spectators to force a laugh, and "we have not two slaves throwing nuts from a basket." In his plays "the old man does not belabour the person next him with a stick." He claims that he has made his rivals give up scoffing at rags and lice, and that he does not indulge in what I have termed optical humour. He has not, like some of his contemporaries, "jeered at the bald head," and not danced the Cordax. He seems in the following passage even to despise animal illustrations—

Bdelycleon. Tell me no fables, but domestic stories about men.

Philocleon. Then I know that very domestic story, "Once on a time there was a mouse and a weazel."

Bdel. "Oh, thou lubberly and ignorant fellow," as Theogenes said when he was abusing the scavenger. Are you going to tell a story of mice and weazels among men?

Like most humorists he blames in one place what he adopts in another.

Plato had so high an opinion of Aristophanes that, in reply to Dionysius of Syracuse, he sent him a copy of his plays as affording the best picture of the commonwealth of Athens. This philosopher is also said to have introduced mimes—a sort of minor comedy—from Sicily, and to have esteemed their composer Sophron so highly that he kept a copy of his works under his pillow. Plato appreciated humour, was fond of writing little amatory couplets, and among the epigrams attributed to him is the following dedication of a mirror by a fading beauty, thus rendered by Prior:—

"Venus, take this votive glass,
Since I am not what I was!
What I shall hereafter be,
Venus, let me never see!"

Plato objected to violent laughter as indicative of an impulsive and ill-regulated temper, observing "that it is not suitable for men of worth, much less for the gods," the first part of which remark shows that he was not emotional, and the second that a great improvement in critical taste had taken place since the early centuries of Homer and David.

As youth is romantic, and old age humorous, so in history sentiment precedes criticism and poetry attained a high degree of excellence, while humour was in its infancy. Comedy is said to have been produced first in Sicily by Susarion in 564 B.C., but we have only two or three lines by which to judge of his work, and they are on the old favourite topic. "A wife is an evil, but you can't live in a house without one." As it is said his wife left him, it must be considered doubtful whether this was not meant seriously. He was succeeded by Epicharmus, whose humour seems to have been of a very poor description. His subjects were mostly mythological, and he was fond of representing the gluttony of Hercules, and Bacchus making Vulcan drunk. In the more intellectual direction his taste was entirely philosophical, so much so that Plato adopted many of his views. We may safely assert that no comic performance worthy of the name took place until towards the end of the fifth century,[14] though in the meantime the tragic drama had reached its highest point of excellence. One Satyric play, so called because the chorus was formed of Satyrs, was put on the stage with three tragedies by those competing for the dramatic prize. It seems to have been mythological and grotesque rather than comic, but in the Cyclops of Euripides, the only specimen extant, we have feasting and wine drinking, the chorus tells Polyphemus he may swallow any milk he pleases so that he does not swallow them—which the Cyclops says he would not do because they might be dancing in his stomach—and Silenus recommends the Cyclops to eat Ulysses' tongue, as it will make him a clever talker.

After the time of Aristophanes, the literary, and, we may say, the social humour of Greece altered. It grew less political as liberty became more restricted, and men's minds were gradually diverted by business and foreign trade from that philosophical and artistic industry, which had made Athens the centre of the world. The brighter part of the country's genius descended to effeminate pursuits, and employed itself in the development of amorous fancies. In the comedies which came into favour, the dramatis personæ represented a strange society of opulent old men, spendthrift sons, intriguing slaves, and courtezans. If we did not know what temptation there is to make literary capital out of the tender passion, we might suppose that the youth of that day were entirely occupied in clandestine amours, and in buying and selling women as if they were dogs and parrots. No wonder that "to live like the Greeks" became a by-word and reproach. Beyond this, the authors throw the whole force of their genius into the construction of the plot, upon the strength and intricacy of which their success depends; and the management of the various threads of the story so as to meet together in the conclusion, shows a great improvement in art since the days of Aristophanes. Advancing time seems also to have brought a greater refinement in language. The indelicacy we now meet with is almost entirely of an amatory character, and not quite of so low a description as that previously in use. But in quantity it was greater. Philemon, who is said to have died from a fit of laughter caused by seeing an ass eat figs, wrote much that was objectionable; and Diphilus was probably little better. Philemon found coarseness answer, and was more often crowned, and a greater favourite than Menander, who is reported to have said to him, "Do you not blush to conquer me?" but it may be doubted whether even the latter was as free from indelicacy as is generally supposed. Plautus and Terence both complain that they cannot find a really chaste Greek play.

The age of Greek fables, that is the period when they were in common use in writing and conversation, was now drawing to a close. A few remain in Callimachus, and Suidas quotes some of perhaps the same date. At this time Demetrius Phalareus made a prose collection of what were called Æsop's Fables—as we seek to perpetuate the memory of that which is passing away. Babrius, also, who performed the same charitable office in "halting iambics," like those of Hipponax, may be supposed to have flourished about this period, although it has been contended that he was a Roman and lived in the Augustan age. However this may be, fabular illustrations began to drop out of fashion soon after this time, and by degrees were so far disallowed, that the man, who would have related such stories, would have been regarded as ludicrous rather than humorous. Although Phædrus Romanized Æsop's Fables, and gave them a poetical meaning, he never gained any fame or popularity by them. Martial calls him "improbus," i.e., a rascal.

In these and earlier days, besides the humour exhibited in comedies, a considerable amount was displayed at public festivals and private entertainments. In the Homeric hymn to Mercury, we read that the god extemporized a song, "just as when young men at banquets slily twit each other." When the cups flowed, and the conversation sparkled, men indulged in repartee, or capped each other in verses. One man, for instance, would quote or compose a line beginning and ending with a certain letter, and another person was called upon for a similar one to complete the couplet. Sometimes the line commenced with the first syllable of a word, and ended with the last, and a corresponding conceit was to be formed to answer it. The successful competitors at these games were to be kissed and crowned with flowers; the unsuccessful to drink a bowl of brine. These verbal devices were too simple and far-fetched to be humorous, but were, to a certain extent, amusing, and no doubt the forfeits and rewards occasioned some merriment.

A coarser kind of humour originated in the market-place, where professed wags of a low class were wont to congregate, and amuse themselves by chaffing and insulting passers-by. Such men are mentioned centuries afterwards by St. Paul as "lewd fellows of the baser sort,"—an expression which would be more properly rendered "men of the market-place." Such centres of trade do not seem to have been improving to the manners, for we read of people "railing like bread-women," and of the "rude jests" of the young men of the market.[15] Lysistratus was one of these fellows in Aristophanes' days, and his condition seems to have been as miserable as his humour, for his garment had "shed its leaves,"[16] and he was shivering and starving "more than thirty days in the month."

By degrees, as wealth increased, there came a greater demand for amusement. Jesters obtained patrons, and a distinct class of men grew up, who, having more humour than means were glad to barter their pleasantries for something more substantial. Wit has as little tendency to enrich its possessor as genius—the mind being turned to gay and idle rather than remunerative pursuits, and into a destructive rather than a constructive channel. Talent does not imply industry, and where the stock in trade consists of luxuries of small money value, men make but a precarious livelihood. One of them says that he will give as a fortune to his daughter "six hundred bon mots—all pure Attic," which seems to suggest that they were to be puns. No doubt it was the demand that led to the supply, for jesters were in request at convivial meetings, and the jealousy of their equally poor, but less amusing neighbours, not improbably led to some of the ill-natured reflections upon them. Society was to blame for encouraging the parasite, who seems to have become an institution in Greece. He is not mentioned by Aristophanes, but figures constantly in the plays of later writers, where he is a smooth-tongued witty varlet, whose aim is to make himself agreeable, and who is ready to submit to any humiliation in order to live at other people's expense. Thus Gelasimus—so called, as he avers, because his mother was a droll—laments the changed times. He liked the old forms of expression, "Come to dinner—make no excuse;" but now it is always, "I'd invite you, only I'm engaged myself." In another place a parasite's stomach is called a "bottomless pit," and they are said to "live on their juices" while their patrons are away in the country. Their servility was, of course, exaggerated in comedy to make humorous capital, but as they were poor and of inferior social standing to those with whom they consorted, they were sure occasionally to suffer indignities varying in proportion to the bad taste and insolence of their patrons. Thus we read that they not only sat on benches at the lower end of the table, but sometimes had their faces daubed and their ears boxed. In the ambiguous position they occupied, they were no doubt exposed to temptations, but we are not to suppose that they were generally guilty of such short-sighted treachery as that attributed to them by the dramatists. Still, they certainly were in bad repute in their generation, and hence we are enabled to understand Aristotle's observation that he who is deficient in humour is a boor, but he who is in culpable excess is a bomolochos, or thorough scoundrel. He would connect the idea of great jocosity with unprincipled designs.

Philoxenus, had a more independent spirit than most parasites, and the history of his sojourn in Syracuse gives us an amusing insight into the state of Court life in Sicily 400 years B.C. He was an Athenian dithyrambic poet and musician; and as Dionysius affected literature, he was welcomed at his palace, where he wrote a poem entitled "The Banquet," containing an account of the luxurious style of living there adopted. Philoxenus was probably the least esteemed guest at these feasts, of which, but for him no record would survive. He was a man of humour, and some instances of his quaintness remain. On one occasion, when supping with the tyrant, a small mullet was placed before him, and a large one before Dionysius. He thereupon took up his fish and placed it to his ear. Dionysius asked him why he did so, to which he replied that he was writing a poem, called "Galatæa," and wanted to hear some news from the kingdom of Nereus. "The fish given to him," he added, "knew nothing about it, because it had been caught so young; but no doubt that set before Dionysius would know everything." The tyrant, we are told, laughed and sent him his mullet. As might have been anticipated, he soon greatly offended Dionysius, who actually sent him to work in the stone-quarries; but the cause of his misfortune is uncertain. Athenæus attributes it to his falling in love with a favourite "flute-girl" of Dionysius, and says that in his "Galatæa," he caricatured his rival as the Cyclops. According to another account, his disgrace was owing to his having, when asked to revise one of Dionysius' poetical compositions, crossed out the whole of it from beginning to end. He was, however, restored to favour, and seated once more at the royal table; but, unfortunately, the tyrant had again been perpetrating poetry, and recited some of his verses, which were loudly applauded by all the courtiers. Philoxenus was called upon to join in the commendation, but instead of complying, he cried out to the guards, "Take me back to the quarries." Dionysius, took the joke and pardoned him. He afterwards left the Syracusan Court, and went to his native place, Cythera; and it was characteristic of his bluntness and wit, that, on being invited by the tyrant to return, he replied by only one letter of the alphabet signifying "NO."

And now a most grotesque figure stands before us—it is that of Diogenes, who was a youth at the time of Aristophanes' successes, and was, no doubt by many, classed with those rude idlers of the market-place of whom we have already spoken. Some people have questioned his claim to be regarded as a philosopher. He does not appear to have been learned, or deeply read; but he was meditative and observant, and that which in an anchorite, or hermit, would have been a mere sentiment, and in an ordinary man a vague and occasional reflection, expanded in his mind into a general and practical view of life. Observing that the things we covet are not only difficult of attainment, but unsatisfactory in possession, he thought to solve the problem of life by substituting contempt for admiration. He was, probably, somewhat influenced by his own condition in this vain attempt to draw sweetness from sour grapes. He was poor, and we find that this despiser of the goods of this world, who considered money to be the "metropolis of all evils"—in his youth coined false money, and was banished to Sinope in consequence. Among his recorded sayings, he expresses his surprise that the slaves attending at banquets could keep their hands off their master's dainties.

But we should be doing Diogenes an injustice, if we set him down as a mere discontented misanthrope. In giving due weight to unworthy motives, we have looked only at one side—and that the worst—of his character. His mind was of an inquiring speculative cast, and in youth he aspired to join the disciples of Zeno. So persistent indeed was he that the stoic, unwilling to have such a questionable pupil, one day forgot his serene philosophy, and set upon him with a cudgel. Such arguments did not tend to soften Diogenes' disposition, and although he accused man of folly rather than malignity, he went so far to say that a man should have "reason or a rope." He probably thought it easier than Democritus to follow wisdom, because he did not see quite so far. Still he showed that he took an interest in social life, and had he been less of a moralist, he would have had better claims to be regarded as a "wit" than any other character in Grecian history. Many examples could be adduced in which his principal object was evidently to be amusing:—

Entering a school in which he saw many statues of the Muses, but few pupils, "You have many scholars among the gods," he said to the master. On being asked at what time it was proper to dine, "If you are rich, when you will; if poor, when you can," he replied, perhaps a little sadly; and to "What wine do you like to drink?" he quickly responded "Another man's." Meeting one, Anaximenes, a very fat man, he called out, "Give us poor fellows some of your stomach; it will be a great relief to you, and an advantage to us."

That Diogenes recognised humour as a means of drawing attention and impressing the memory, is shown by the story that on one occasion, when he was speaking seriously and found no one attending, he began to imitate the singing of birds, and when he had thus collected a crowd, told them they were ready to hear folly but not wisdom. There was also, probably, in adopting this form a desire to preclude the possibility of his being contradicted. He was thus proof against criticism—if his statements were said to be false—well, they were intended to be so; while, if they raised a laugh, there was an admission that they contained some seeds of truth. The following are examples of his disguised wisdom:—

On being asked when a man should marry, "A young man not yet; an old man not at all," he replied. "Why men gave money to beggars and not to philosophers?" "Because they think they may themselves become blind and lame, but never philosophers." When Perdiccas threatened that unless he came to him he would kill him, "You would do no great thing," he replied, "even a beetle or a spider could do that."

We can scarcely suppose that all the sayings attributed to Diogenes are genuine. There has always been a tendency to attribute to great men observations made in accordance with their manner.

Philosophers have generally been to a certain extent destructive, and seldom spared the religion of their times. Diogenes, who was called "Socrates gone mad," was no exception to this rule. Humour, which is seasoned with profanity, is most telling when there is not too large an amount either of faith or scepticism; very few could find any amusement in the sneers of an utter infidel. Diogenes was almost as deficient in ordinary religious belief as in most other kinds of veneration. Sometimes he may have had the good effect of checking the abuse of sacerdotal power, as when he observed to some who were admiring the thank offerings at Samothracia, "There would have been many more, had those made them, who had not been cured." He also said that the Dionysian festival was a great sight for fools, and that when he heard prophets and interpreters of dreams, he thought nothing was so silly as man. His blaming men for making prayers, because they asked not that which was good, but only what seemed desirable to them, may be taken in a favourable sense.

Before the end of Diogenes' life fanciful conceits became so much appreciated in Greece, that a regular "Court of Humour" was held at Heracleum, a village near Athens, and it is to be feared that many of the racy sayings attributed to eminent men, originated in the sessions of this jocund assembly. It was composed of sixty members, and their sayings came forth with the stamp of "The Sixty" upon them. Their reputation became so great, that Philip of Macedon gave them a talent to write out their jokes, and send them to him. He was himself fond of gaiety, invented some musical instruments, and kept professed jesters.

Soon after this time, we read of amateur jesters or rather practical jesters called planoi. Chrysippus, who was not only a philosopher, but a man of humour—a union we are not surprised to find common at that date—and who is said, perhaps with equal truth, to have died like Philemon in a fit of laughter, on seeing an ass eat figs off a silver plate—mentions a genius of this kind, one Pantaleon, who, when at the point of death told each of his sons separately that he confided to him alone the place where he had buried his gold. When he was dead, they all betook themselves to the same spot, where they laboured for some time, before discovering that they had all been deceived.

From this period we are mostly indebted to epigrams for any knowledge of Greek humour. They originated in inscriptions or offerings in temples; afterwards came to be principally epitaphial or sarcastic; and grew into a branch of literature.

We can scarcely understand some of the fancies indulged in at the time, which contain no salt at all—"Sports," Hephæstio calls them. Of these devices may be mentioned the "Wings of Love" by Simmias, a Rhodian, who lived before 300 B.C. The verses are graduated so as to form a pair of wings. "The first altar," written by Dosiadas of Rhodes, is the earliest instance of a Greek acrostic, or of any one which formed words. An acrostic is a play upon spelling, as a pun is upon sound; and in both cases the complication is too slight for real humour. They are rather to be considered as ingenious works of fancy. The first specimens are those in the Psalms—twelve of which have twenty-two verses beginning with the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The 119th Psalm is a curious specimen of this conceit; it is divided into twenty-two stanzas, and a letter of the alphabet in regular order begins each of them. The initial letters of "The First Altar" of Dosiadas of Rhodes, form four words, and seem to be addressed to some "Olympian," who, the dedicator hopes "may live to offer sacrifice for many years." The altar states that it is not stained with the blood of victims, nor perfumed with frankincense, that it is not made of gold and silver; but formed by the hand of the Graces and the Muses. In the "Second Altar," also usually attributed to Dosiadas of Rhodes, we find not only a fanciful outline formed by long and short verses, but also a studious avoidance of proper names. Not one is mentioned, although thirteen persons are designated. It is evident that this "Altar" was a work of ingenuity, and intended to be enigmatical. Probably the substitutions were also considered to be somewhat playful and amusing, as in Antiphanes—a comic poet, said to have died from an apple falling on his head—we read,

A. Shall I speak of rosy sweat
From Bacchic spring?
B. I'd rather you'd say wine.
A. Or shall I speak of dusky dewy drops?
B. No such long periphrasis—say plainly water.
A. Or shall I praise the cassia breathing fragrance
That scents the air.
B. No, call it myrrh.

Another conceit in the form of a Sphinx or Pandean pipe has been attributed to Theocritus—perhaps without good foundation.

In the "Egg" there is not only the form of the lines, which gradually expand and then taper downwards, but there is also a great amount of similitude—the literary egg being compared to a real egg, and the poet to the nightingale that laid it. There is also a remarkable involution in form—the last line succeeding the first, and so on; and this alternation of the verses is compared to the leaping of fawns. The Axe or Hatchet is apparently a sort of double axe, being nearly in the form of wings; and is supposed to be a dedicatory inscription written to Minerva on the axe of Epeus, who made the wooden horse by which Troy was taken.

The ancient riddles seem to have been generally of a descriptive character, and not to have turned upon quibbles of words, like those of the present day. They more corresponded to our enigmas—being emblematic—and in general were small tests of ingenuity, some being very simple, others obscure from requiring special knowledge or from being a mere vague description of things. Of the learned kind were doubtless those hard questions with which the Queen of Sheba proved Solomon, and those with which, on the authority of Dius and Menander, Josephus states Solomon to have contended with Hiram. The riddle of Samson also required special information; and the same characteristics which marked the early riddles of Asia, where the conceit seems to have originated, is also found in those of Greece. Who could have guessed the following "Griphus" from Simonides of Ceos, without local knowledge, or with it, could have failed,

"I say that he who does not like to win
The grasshopper's prize, will give a mighty feast,
To the Panopeiadean Epeus."

This means, we are told, that when Simonides was at Carthea he used to train choruses, and there was an ass to fetch water for them. He called the ass "Epeus," after the water-carrier of the Atridae; and if any member of the chorus was not present to sing, i.e., to win the grasshopper's prize, he was to give a chœnix of barley to the ass. Well might Clearchus say "the investigation of riddles is not unconnected with philosophy, for the ancients used to display their erudition in such things."

Somewhat of the same character is found in the following from Aristophanes.

People. How is a trireme a "dog fox?"

Sausage Seller. Because the trireme and the dog are swift.

People. But why fox?

Sausage Seller. The soldiers are little foxes, for they eat up the grapes in the farms.

The simplicity of some of the ancient riddles may be conjectured from the fact that the same word "griphus" included such conceits as verses beginning and ending with a certain letter or syllable.

An instance of the emblematic character of early riddles is seen in that proposed by the Sphinx to Œdipus. "What is that which goes on four legs in the morning, on two in the middle of the day, and on three in the evening?" And in the riddle of Cleobulus, one of the seven wise men:

"There was a father, and he had twelve daughters; each of his daughters had thirty children; some were white and others black, and though immortal they all taste of death."

Also in the following griphi, which are capable of receiving more than one answer.

The first two are respectively by Eubulus and Alexis—writers of the "New Comedy"—who flourished in the first half of the 4th century, B.C.

"I know a thing, which while it's young is heavy,
But when it's old, though void of wings, can fly,
With lightest motion out of sight of earth.
"It is not mortal or immortal either
But as it were compounded of the two,
So that it neither lives the life of man
Nor yet of god, but is incessantly
New born again, and then again
Of this its present life invisible,
Yet it is known and recognised by all."

From Hermippus:—

"There are two sisters, one of whom brings forth,
The other and in turn becomes her daughter."

Diphilus, in his Theseus, says, there were once three Samian damsels, who on the day of the festival of Adonis delighted themselves with riddles. One of them proposed, "What is the strongest of all things?" Another answered, "Iron, because it is that with which men dig and cut." The third said, "The blacksmith, for he bends and fashions the iron." But the first replied, "Love, for it can subdue the blacksmith himself."

The following is from Theadectes, a pupil of Isocrates, who lived about 300 B.C., and wrote fifty tragedies—none of which survive.

"Nothing which earth or sea produces,
Nought among mortals hath so great increase.
In its first birth the largest it appears,
Small in its prime, and in old age again,
In form and size it far surpasses all."[17]

To make a riddle, that is a real test of ingenuity for all, and which but one answer satisfies, shows an advanced stage of the art. The ancient riddles were almost invariably symbolical, and either too vague or too learned. They seem to us not to have sufficient point to be humorous, but no doubt they were thought so in their day.

It may not be out of place here to advert to those light compositions called Silli, about which we have no clear information, even with regard to the meaning of the name. From the fragments of them extant, we find that they were written in verse, and contained a considerable amount of poetical sentiment; indeed, all that has come down to us of Xenophanes, the first sillographer, is of this character. We are told that he used parody, but his pleasantry, probably, consisted much of after-dinner jests and stories, for we find that although he praises wisdom, and despises the fashionable athletic games, he rejoiced in sumptuous banquets, and said that the water should first be poured into the cup, then the wine. But the most celebrated sillographer was Timon the Phliasian—intimate with Antigonus and Ptolemy Philadelphus—who wrote three books of Silli, two in dialogues, and one in continuous narrative. He was a philosopher, and the principal object of his work was to bring other sects into ridicule and discredit. A few reflections of general application are scattered through it, but they are in general quite subsidiary and suggested by the subject matter.

PART III.

ROMAN HUMOUR.

Roman Comedy—Plautus—Acerbity—Terence—Satire—Lucilius—Horace—Humour of the Cæsar Family—Cicero—Augustus—Persius—Petronius—Juvenal —Martial—Epigrammatist—Lucian—Apuleius—Julian the Apostate—The Misopogon—Symposius' Enigmas—Macrobius—Hierocles and Philagrius.

The light of genius which shone in Greece was to some extent reflected upon Rome, where there was never an equal brilliancy. As for humour, such as was indigenous in the country, it was only represented by a few Saturnian snatches, some Fescennine banterings at weddings and harvest-homes, and rude pantomimic performances also originating in Etruria. Intellectual pleasantry was unknown, except as an exotic, and flourished almost exclusively among those who were imbued with the literature of Greece.

About the date at which we arrived at the end of the last chapter—the middle of the third century, B.C.—the first regular play was introduced at Rome by Livius Andronicus. He was a Greek slave, having been taken prisoner at the capture of Tarentum. Scarcely anything remains by which to judge of his writings, but we know that he copied from Greek originals. His plays were, no doubt, mostly appreciated by the better educated classes of the audience. He had a rival in Nœvius, a Campanian by birth, who also copied from the Greek, but retained something of the Fescennine licence, or rather, we should say, had much of the hostile humour common to the earlier periods of Greece and Rome. So violent were his attacks upon the leading men of the day, that he was imprisoned, and finally died in exile at Utica. This early connection of comedy with abuse and buffoonery was probably one cause of professional actors being held in contempt in Rome. We read that they were frequently slaves, who were whipped if they came late. At the same time native scurrility was allowed. Freeborn Romans might act for amusement in the Atellane plays, which were considered to be Italian, and were accompanied by broad "Exodia" or pantomimic interludes containing regular characters such as Maccus the clown, Buccones the chatterers, Pappus the pantaloon, and Simus, the ape. But these productions came from Campania, and it is probable that the better parts of them were Greek in spirit, though not in form.

Some fifty years later brings us to Plautus—the most remarkable of the Roman comic writers. Little is known of his origin, except that he was born in Umbria. There is a story that at one time he was in so humble a position that he was employed in grinding corn for a baker; but, if so, he must have possessed extraordinary ability and perseverance to acquire such a thorough knowledge of Greek and Latin. The fact of his adopting the stage as a profession, and acting in his own dramas, proves that he was not encumbered with rank or wealth. His plays were numbered among the classics, and were produced upon the stage till the time of Diocletian, five hundred years after his death; he generally copied from the Greek, often naming the author to whom he was indebted.

Plautus is interesting, not only as giving us an insight into the Greek mode of life before his time, and preserving many of the works of Philemon, Diphilus, and others, but as being the only Latin writer of his date whose productions have survived. He wrote one hundred and thirty plays, of which thirty are extant, and show an orthography very different from that of the Augustan age. His style was forcible, and like that of all the Latin comic writers, highly complex. He sometimes coins words, (such as Trifurcifur, gugga,[18] parenticida,) and he is constantly giving new metaphorical senses to those already in use—as when he speaks of a man being a "hell of elms," i.e., severely flogged with elm-rods—calls cooks "briars," because they take fast hold of everything they touch, and threatens a slave with "memorials of oxen," i.e., a thrashing that will make him remember the thong.

We may possibly trace the Greek original in a few references to conversations of animals—although no plays are now called after them—and the names, places, and money he introduces are generally Greek. Still, we cannot regard him as a mere servile imitator—much of his own genius is doubtless preserved in the plays. In some, we can clearly recognise his hand, as where he alludes to Roman customs, or indulges in puns. For instance, where a man speaks of the blessing of having children, (liberi,) another observes he would rather be free (liber). In "The Churl," we read that it is better to fight with minæ than with menaces, and a lover says that Phronesium has expelled her own name (wisdom) from his breast.

An old man says he has begun to go to school again, and learn his letters. "I know three already," he continues, "What three?" is asked, "A M O."

While we are glad to mark an advancement in less pleasures being derived from personal threats and conflicts on the stage, we are pained to find such an entire want of sympathy with the sufferings of those in a servile condition. The severity with which slaves were treated in previous times was not mitigated under the Roman rule, and at the present day it is difficult to realise the moral state of those who could derive amusement from hearing men threatened with bull-hidings, and flogged on the stage. Such terms as "whip-knave" became stale from repetition, and so many jokes were made even about crucifixion, that we might suppose it to be a very trifling punishment. Chrysalus, a slave, facetiously observes, that when his master discovers he has spent his gold, he will make him "cruscisalus" i.e. "cross jumper." In "The Haunted House," Tranio, who, certainly seems to have been a great scamp, soliloquises as follows on hearing of his master's return:—

"Is there any one, who would like to gain a little money, who could endure this day to take my place in being tortured? Who are those fellows hardened to a flogging, who wear out iron chains, or those who for three didrachmas[19] would get beneath besieging towers, where they might have their bodies pierced with fifteen spears? I'll give a talent to that man who shall be the first to run to the cross for me, but on condition that his feet and arms are doubly fastened there. When that is done, then ask the money of me."

Acoustic humour appears not only in puns, but under the form of long names of which Plautus was especially fond, Periplecomenus, Polymacharoplagides, and Thesaurochrysonicocræ are specimens of his inventive genius in this direction.

In the "Three Coins," Charmides asks the sharper's name.

Sh. You demand an arduous task.

Charmides. How so?

Sh. Because if you were to begin before daylight at the first part of my name 'twould be dead of night before you could reach the end of it. I have another somewhat less, about the size of a wine cask.

In the "Persian," Toxilus gives his name as follows,

"Vaniloquidorus Virginisvendonides
Nugipolyloquides Argentiexterebronides
Tedigniloquides Nummorumexpalponides
Quodsemelarripides
Nunquamposteareddides."

There are a few other cases in which there is a playing upon sound, as where Demipho remarks that if he had such a good-looking girl as Pasicompsa for a servant, all the people would be "staring, gazing, nodding, winking, hissing, twitching, crying, annoying, and serenading."

The failings of the fair seems always to have been a favourite subject for men's attack, but reflections of this kind have decreased in number and acerbity since the days of Aristophanes. We find, however, some in Plautus, such as the following:—

"Love is a fawning flatterer. For he that is in love, soon as ever he has been smitten with the kisses of the object he loves, forthwith his substance vanishes out of doors, and melts away. 'Give me this, my honey, if you love me.' And then Gudgeon says, 'Oh apple of my eye, both that and still more, if you wish.' He who plunges into love perishes more dreadfully than if he leapt from a rock. Away with you, Love, if you please."

He is fully alive to the power of this destructive passion. In one place Philolaches half mad with love and jealousy sees his mistress looking into a mirror. "Ah, wretched me," he exclaims passionately, "she gave the mirror a kiss. I wish I had a stone to break the head of that mirror."[20]

The love of money has always been a stock subject with humorists. This common weakness of human nature can be played upon even by those who can produce no other wit, and many worse jokes have been made on it than the following,—

Calidorus asks his servant, Pseudolus, to lend him a drachma.

P. What for?

C. To buy a rope to hang myself.

P. Who then will pay me back? Do you wish to hang yourself to cheat me out of my drachma?

The "Concealed Treasure" turns on an old man having found a pot of gold. He conceals it, and his nervousness lest some one should discover it is brought out with excellent humour. He drives the cooks out of the place with his stick. He has a battle-royal with a dunghill cock, who, he imagines is trying to scratch for it, then thinks Strobilus has stolen it, and calls on him to show one hand, and the other, and then the third.

We are the more inclined to lament the utter destruction of ancient African literature on finding that the most refined Roman dramas were placed upon the stage by a Carthaginian, when Plautus, whose enterprize and perseverance had given the great impetus to Latin comedy, was approaching the end of his long life. Terence was born the last, and as some think the greatest master in this branch of Art. He was at one time a slave, but his literary talent was so remarkable that his master set him free, and he became the friend of distinguished men, especially of Scipio the younger. It must seem strange that this brilliancy should have flashed up for a moment, and then been for ever quenched, but it was derived from Greece and not in its nature enduring. The genius of Menander fed the flame of Terence, as that of Diphilus and others gave power to Plautus, and it may well be supposed that men of their talent appropriated all that was most excellent, and left their successors to draw from inferior sources. It may, moreover, be doubted, whether the regular drama was ever popular among the lower classes in Rome, who preferred the more exciting scenes of the circus. Such plays as were intended for them were coarser and more sensational.

Terence has not the rough power and drollery of Plautus; his whole attraction lies in the subtlety of his amorous intrigues. Steele, speaking of one of the plays, "The Self-Tormentor," observes, "It is from the beginning to the end a perfect picture of human life, but I did not observe in the whole one passage that could possibly raise a laugh." It was for this reason, no doubt, that Cæsar spoke of him as only "half a Menander," and as deficient in comic force. Ingenious complexity is so exclusively his aim, that we have neither the coarseness nor the sparkle of earlier writers. He was the first to introduce Comedies, which were not comic, and whatever humour he introduces is that of situation.

We now come to consider a kind of humour of which the Romans claim to have been the originators, and which they certainly developed into a branch of literature. Satire first signified a basket of first fruits offered to Ceres; then a hotchpot or olla podrida, then a medley; and so the name was given to poems written without any definite design. We might therefore conclude that they possessed no uniform character, but merely contained a mixture of miscellaneous matter. But we find in them no allusions to politics or war, and but few to the literature and philosophy of the day—their variety being due to their social complexion. One feeling and character pervades them all—they were called forth by a scornful indignation at the degeneracy of the age as represented by the rich and powerful, or even by certain leading individuals. The appearance of such a kind of literature denoted greater activity in society, an increase of profligacy among some, and of moral sensibility among others. Satire was a social scourge. It was not a philosophical investigation into the nature and origin of vice, but a denunciation of it as inimical to the interests of society. It was practical not theoretical—and sought to bring vice into contempt, by making it both odious and ridiculous. In the latter attempt, the satirists may have had more success than we credit them with, for in our day such virulent attacks would be distasteful, immorality being regarded as essentially a matter for grave and serious condemnation. Satire differs from abuse, not only in being declamatory, but in being deserved. The amusement in it mostly depends upon the deformity of the sensual, the failures of the wicked, and the exposure of guilt in a kind of moral pillory. It did not aim at mere accidental losses or imperfections, and made no fanciful accusations merely to amuse, but it was often lightened by metaphor, by coined words, and especially by exaggeration.

The satire of Rome, though in a certain sense new, seems to have been somewhat derived from Greece. Ennius, who commenced it, a man younger than Plautus and older than Terence, was himself half a Greek. He wrote epic poems and comedies, and also introduced this comic literature for private reading. Lucilius, who was the first eminent Roman satirist, is said to have imitated the old Greek comedies. His attacks are very severe and personal, reminding us a little of Archilochus, though apparently not written to gratify any private spleen. The tendency to personalities marked a time when the range of society and the tone of thought were equally narrow. Moral depravity was considered to be centred in a few individuals, and in the broken fragments of Lucilius' rage, which have descended to us, we find a man stigmatised as an "ulcer," "gangrene," a "poison," "jibber," "shuffler," "a hard-mouthed obstinate brute." Sometimes he ridicules the bodily infirmities of the depraved; but Lucilius' attacks seem less ill-natured and more justly humorous from being always directed against the vicious and demoralised. Occasionally he indulges in such uncomplimentary expressions as "There is no flummery-maker equal to you," while some are hailed with "Long life to you, glutton, gormandizer, and belly-god." He might truly say in his metaphorical language, "I seize his beak and smash his lips, Zopyrus' fashion, and knock out all his front teeth."

The satire of Horace was exceptionally mild; with him its social character was much more marked than its acerbity. In many places he shows Greek reflections, for he had received a liberal education, duly completed at Athens. But his philosophy did not consist of dreamy theories and arbitrary rules—it was directed to practical ends, to the harmonizing of the feelings, and the elevation of society. As a man of the world, he was not carried away by fancies, nor given to exaggerated views; and as a companion of the great, he was not inclined to inveigh bitterly against the degeneracy of the times. On the contrary, so kindly were his feelings, that he tells us that we should overlook the vices of our friends. His teaching, both in spirit and range, was broader than that of his predecessors; his shafts were directed against classes rather than individuals, and wherever he is more pointed, his object is not to gratify personal spite, but to make his warning more forcible by illustration. Moreover, his names are generally unreal. In this way he attacks Nasidienus on the excessive luxury of the table, and his advice was applicable not only to the rich and great, but to more ordinary men. Thus, he shows the bad tendencies of avarice and love-intrigues, and the meanness of sycophantism and legacy-hunting. Many of the faults he condemns are rather errors in taste than serious moral delinquencies. Sometimes he criticises merely trivial matters, such as a costume or a scent. "Rufillus smells all perfumes, Gorgonius like a goat," and the most humorous of his pieces is that in which he ridicules the ignorance and impudence of a manœuvring chatterer. But in this line he is not very successful, and his contests of rival jesters are as much beneath the notice of any good writer of the present day, as his account is of Porcius, the jack-pudding "swallowing cakes whole."

Horace says that men are more impervious to slashing reproach than to fine ridicule, and he was unusually adroit in hitting foibles without inflicting pain. He was not a man who held strong opinions on subjects. This is especially evident where he speaks of his own fickleness; and while he reiterates his dislike of Rome, with its noise and bustle, he makes his slave say that this is but affectation, and when an invitation comes from Mecænas, "Mulvius and the 'scurræ' are turned out," from which we learn that parasites had their parasites, and that Horace in the country played the patron to the rustic wits.

Although the Romans generally have no claim to be called a humorous people, many of them became celebrated for their talent in repartee. Scipio Africanus Æmilianus above mentioned, was remarkable in this way, as was Crassus, Granius, Vargula, and others. There was a good old joke that Nasica having called at the house of the poet Ennius, and the maid-servant having told him that Ennius was not at home, he perceived she had said so by her master's order; and when, a few days afterwards, Ennius called at Nasica's house, and inquired for him, Nasica cried out that he was "not at home." "What!" says Ennius, "do I not know your voice?" "You are an impudent fellow," replied Nasica, "I believed your servant when she said you were not at home, and you will not believe me."

A vein of humour seems to have run through the Cæsar family. Caius Julius Cæsar Strabo Vopiscus was so noted for the gift that Cicero in his work on Oratory makes him deliver his observations on the subject. Julius Cæsar himself was as remarkable for pleasantry as for clemency. His "Veni, vidi, vici," in which his enemies saw so much arrogance, was no doubt intended and understood by his friends to be humorous. In his youth he was accused of effeminate habits, and when on his obtaining the entire command of Gaul, he said that he would now make his enemies his suppliants, and a senator replied sarcastically, "That will not be an easy task for a woman." He rejoined with gaiety, "Semiramis reigned in Assyria, and the Amazons possessed a great part of Asia." We have already seen him lamenting over the loss of comic force in Terence as compared with Menander, and in the triumphal games given in his honour in the year 45, he commanded Decimus Laberius, though a man of sixty, to appear on the stage in the contest of wit. This knight was a composer of mimes—a light kind of comedy, somewhat to be compared to the "entertainments" given by humorists at the present day. Julius Cæsar obliged him to perform in person—an act of degradation—but afterwards gave him 500,000 sesterces, and restored him to his rank. This act of Cæsar's has been regarded as having a political significance, but it may merely have shown his love of humour. He may have wished to bring out the talent of the new mime, Publius, a young Syrian, who had acquired great celebrity both for beauty and wit. It is said that when his master first took Publius to see his patron, the latter observed one of his slaves, who was dropsical, lying in the sunshine, and asking him angrily what he was doing there, Publius answered for him "Warming water." On the same visit, in jesting after supper, the question was asked, "What is a disagreeable repose?" When many had attempted answers, Publius replied, "That of gouty feet."

Some of the sayings of Publius, have been preserved.

"He receives a benefit who gives to a worthy person."

"He to whom more than is just is allowed, wishes for more than he gets."

"A man who talks well on the road is as good as a carriage."

"He unjustly accuses Neptune who is shipwrecked twice."

"By overlooking an old injury you invite a new one."

These sayings are of a worldly-wise and proverbial character, and, therefore, as has been already observed, although not actually humorous, are easily capable of being so regarded.

Cæsar awarded the prize to Publius instead of Laberius, because, as it is supposed, of some reflections the latter made upon him. But it may have been that Cæsar was right, and Publius' wit was the most salient.

Scarcely any specimens remain of Laberius' talent. Aulus Gellius says that he coined many strange words, and he seems to have made considerable use of alliteration.

We may suppose that the humour of Cicero was somewhat hereditary, for he records a saying of his grandfather that "the men of our time are like Syrian slaves; the more Greek they know, the greater knaves they are!" It is fortunate the grandson inherited the old man's wit without his plebeian prejudices, and became as celebrated for his culture as for his readiness. In his work entitled "The Orator," he commends humour as a means of gaining influence, and a vehicle for moral instruction. "Orators," he says, "joke with an object, not to appear jesters, but to obtain some advantage." But we may feel sure he did not keep this dry and profitable end always in view, for he wrote a jest-book, and was nick-named by his enemies "Scurra Consularis,"[21] the consular buffoon.

A man can scarcely have a talent for humour without being conscious of its fascination, and being sometimes led away by it—as Cicero says, "it pleases the listeners"—but he need not therefore descend to buffoonery. We should not be inclined to accuse a man of that, who tells us that "a regard to proper times, moderation and forbearance in jesting, and a limitation in the number of jokes, will distinguish the orator from the buffoon;" who says that "indelicacy is a disgrace, not only to the forum, but to any company of well-bred people," and that neither great vice nor great misery is a subject for ridicule. From all this we may gather that Cicero was full of graceful and clever jocosity, but did not indulge in what was vapid and objectionable. Both by precept and practice he approved good verbal humour. The better class of puns was used in the literature of the time, as we find by St. Paul and others, not in levity, but merely as embellishments.[22]

Cicero replied to Vibius Curius, who was telling a falsehood about his age: "Then when we declaimed at the schools together, you were not born;" and to Fabia, Dolabella's wife, who said she was thirty, "No doubt, for I have heard you say so twenty years." When he saw Lentulus, his cousin—a little man girt with a big sword: "Who," he asked, "has fastened my cousin to that sword?" and on being shown a colossal bust of his brother, who was also small, he exclaimed, "The half of my brother is greater than the whole." One day Cicero had supped with Damasippus, and his host had said—putting some inferior wine before him—"Drink this Falernian, it is forty years old!" "It bears its age well," replied Cicero.

We have a most interesting collection of good sayings in "The Orator," which although not spoken by Cicero himself, were those which he had from time to time noticed, and probably jotted down. Here is one of Cæsar's (Strabo). A Sicilian, when a friend made lamentation to him that his wife had hanged herself upon a fig tree: "I beseech you," he said, "give me some shoots of that tree that I may plant them." Some one asked Crassus whether he should be troublesome if he came to him before it was light. Crassus said, "You will not." The other rejoined, "You will order yourself to be awakened then." To which Crassus replied, "Surely, I said that you would not be troublesome."

To return to the Cæsars. The humorous vein which we have traced in the family descended to Augustus—the great nephew of Julius. Some of his sayings, which have survived, show him to have been as pleasant in his wit as he was proverbially happy in his fortunes.

When the inhabitants of Tarraco made him a fulsome speech, telling him that they had raised an altar to him as their presiding deity, and that, marvellous to relate, a splendid palm tree had grown up on it: "That shows," replied the Emperor, "how often you kindle a fire there." To Galba, a hunchback orator, who was pleading before him, and frequently saying, "Set me right, if I am wrong," he replied, "I can easily correct you, but I cannot set you right."

The following will give a slight idea of the variety of his humour.

When he heard that, among the children under two years old whom Herod had ordered to be slain, his own son had been killed, he said, "It is better to be Herod's pig than his son." Being entertained on one occasion with a very poor dinner, and without any ceremony, as he was passing out he whispered in the ear of his host, "I did not know that I was such a friend of yours." A Roman knight having died enormously in debt, Augustus ordered them to buy him his bed-pillow at the auction, observing: "The pillow of a man who could sleep when he owed so much must be truly soporific." A man who had been removed from a cavalry command and asked for an allowance, "not from any mercenary motive, but that I may seem to have resigned upon obtaining the grant from you," he dismissed with the words: "Tell everybody you have received it. I will not deny it."

Augustus kept a jester, Gabba, and patronised mimes, and among other diversions with which he amused himself and his friends, was that of giving presents by lottery; each drew a ticket upon which something was named, but on applying for the article a totally different thing was received, answering to a second meaning of the name. This occasioned great merriment, a man who thought he was to get a grand present was given a little sponge, or rake, or a pair of pincers; another who seemed to have no claim whatever, obtained something very valuable. The humour was not great, but a little refreshing distraction was thus obtained from the cares of state. There is no loss in light literature so much to be deplored as that of the correspondence between Augustus and Mecænas. The latter prided himself upon his skill in poetry and humour, and we may be sure that he sent some of his choicest productions to Augustus, who in turn exerted himself to send something worthy of the eye of so celebrated a critic. It is not impossible that the Emperor showed himself equal, if not superior to the friend of Horace.

Those who succeeded to the imperial purple proved very different from their illustrious predecessor, and in Persius the severity of Roman satire re-appears. We could scarcely expect a man who lived under Nero, and after the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius to write with the mild placidity of the Augustan poet. Moreover, the satires of Persius were written at an early age—twenty-eight, and youth always feels acutely, and expresses strongly. Some of his attacks are evidently aimed at Nero, but his principal object is to denounce the vices of the times. Hence, indolence and prurient literature are stigmatised. He ridicules the extremes of extravagance, and of that parsimony by which it is usually accompanied. "Am I on a festive day to have a nettle dressed for me, and a smoked pig's cheek with a hole in its ear, in order that that grandson of yours may be surfeited with goose liver, and indulge in patrician amours. Am I to be a living anatomy that his pope's stomach may shake with fat."[23] Alluding to the absurdity of the prayers generally offered up, he uses language worthy of a Christian. "You ask for vigour, but rich dishes and fat sausages prevent the gods from granting your behest. You ask what your fleshly mind suggests. What avails gold in sacrifice? Offer justice to God and man—generous honour, and a soul free from pollution."

In Persius we miss the light geniality of Horace and the pure language of the Augustan age, but we mark the complexity and finesse of a later date, a form of thought bespeaking a comprehensive grasp, and suitable to subtle minds. But as regards his humour it depends much on exaggeration, and is proportionably weak, and beyond this we have little but the coining of some words,[24] the using others in unaccustomed senses, and a large seasoning of severity. He evidently aimed rather at being corrective than amusing, and his covert attacks upon Nero were, no doubt, well understood. Humour of a poor kind was evidently fashionable at the day—the Emperor himself wrote Satires and was so fond of comic performances that he first encouraged and rewarded a celebrated pantomimic actor named Paris, and then put him to death for being his rival in the mimetic art. Even Seneca could not resist the example of his contemporaries, and we find the sedate philosopher attacking his enemy with severe ridicule. Claudius had him sent into exile for eight years to the picturesque but lonely Island of Corsica; and Seneca who liked something more social and luxurious, held him up in a satire bordering upon lampoon. The fanciful production was called the Apolokokyntosis of Claudius; that is his apotheosis, except that, instead of the Emperor being deified, he is supposed to be "gourdified," changed not into a god, but into a pumpkin. Seneca, after deriding Claudius' bodily defects, accuses him of committing many atrocities, and finally sends him down from heaven to the nether world, where a new punishment is invented for him—he is to be always trying to throw dice out of an empty box.

One of the most remarkable characters in the reign of Nero was Titus Petronius Arbiter. He was a great favourite with the Emperor, and held some official appointment—the duties of which he is said to have discharged with ability. In his writings he is supposed to condemn immorality, but he enlarges so much upon what he disapproves that we doubt whether he does not promote the vice he pretends to condemn.[25] His "Satyricon" is not intended to be a satire, but an imitation of one of those old Greek comedies which treated of the doings of Satyrs and grotesque country deities. It is the first comic prose work, for in early times verse was thought as necessary to humour as to poetry. The whole work is enveloped in a voluptuous atmosphere; it is written in a gay roystering style, but although the indelicacy is great the humour is small. Occasionally it is interesting, as giving an insight into private life in the days of Nero. Here we find Trimalchio, a rich man, providing for the amusement of his guests, as well as for their sumptuous entertainment. One dish was a wild boar, which was placed on the table with a cap of liberty on its head. Petronius asked the meaning of this. "Why," said he, "your servant could explain that, it is no riddle. This boar escaped from yesterday's dinner where it was dismissed by the guests, and he now returns to table as a freedman." Afterwards a much larger hog was brought in. "What!" cried Trimalchio, looking closely at it, "is not his inside taken out? No! it is not; call the cook, call the cook." The cook being brought in, excused himself saying that he forgot. "Forgot!" cried Trimalchio, "why, he talks as if it were only a pinch of pepper omitted. Strip him." In a moment the cook was stripped to be flogged. All interceded for him, but Petronius felt somewhat indignant at such an oversight, and said he must be a careless rascal to forget to disembowel a hog. Trimalchio with a pleasant look said, "Come, you with the short memory, see if you can bowel him before us." The cook slashed with his knife, and out tumbled a load of puddings and sausages. All the servants raised a shout, and the cook was presented with a cup of wine, and a silver crown.

Petronius shared the fate of Seneca. He was suspected of conspiring against the Emperor, and his life being demanded, he preferred to suffer by his own hand rather than by that of the executioner. He caused his veins to be opened, but strangely whimsical to the last, and wishing to die slowly, he had them closed at intervals. In his dying state he was daily carried about the streets of Cumæ, and received his friends, made love verses and humorous epigrams, and endeavoured to withdraw his thoughts from the sad reality by indulging in all kinds of amusing caprices. At length he expired—another distinguished victim of Nero's cruelty.

Juvenal, who wrote under Domitian, a little later than Persius, equalled him in severity—due either to his natural disposition or to the spectacle presented by the ever increasing demoralization of Rome. Like Persius, he makes use of much metaphor and involution in his works—showing the literary taste and intellectual acumen of a settled state of society, but an early age is impressed upon his pages in the indelicacy with which he is frequently chargeable. His depiction of guilt was appreciated at that day, but under the Christian dispensation vice is thought too sinful, and in a highly civilised state too injurious to be laughable. The views then held were different, and Tacitus considered it a mark of great superiority in the Germans that they did not laugh at crimes. Juvenal tells us that the Romans jeered at poverty. There was much in the character of this satirist to raise him in the estimation of right-minded men. His tastes were simple, he loved the country and its homely fare, and although devoid of ambition, was highly cultivated. No doubt he was rather austere than genial: his aim was to instruct and warn rather than amuse; and where he approaches humour it is merely from complexity of style, in coining words and barbarisms, or in comparisons mostly dependent upon exaggeration. The following is one of his best specimens, though over-weighted with severity. It gives an idea of the state of Rome at the time. A drunken magnate and his retinue stop a citizen in the street, and insolently demand—

"With whose vinegar and beans are you blown out? What cobbler has been eating leeks and sheepshead with you? Answer, or be kicked." "This," says Juvenal "is a poor man's liberty. When pummelled, he begs that he may be allowed to escape with a few of his teeth remaining."

Juvenal longs for the sword of Lucilius, and the lamp of Horace, that he may attack the vices of Rome, but he himself is more severe than either. Forgers, gamblers and profligates are assailed, and names are frequently given, though we often cannot now decide whether they belonged to real persons. Laughing at those who desire length of years without remembering the concomitant infirmities of age, he says:

"All kinds of disease dance around the aged in a troop, of which if you were to ask the names I could sooner tell you how many lovers Hippia had, how many patients Themison killed in one autumn, or how many allies Basilus and Hirrus defrauded." He condemns the increased desire for luxury. "Do not," he warns, "long for a mullet, when you have only a gudgeon in your purse." The rule of the day was to purchase sensual indulgence at any cost, "Greediness is so great that they will not even invite a parasite." Excessive selfishness leads to every kind of dishonesty. "A man of probity is as rare as a mule's foal, or as a shower of stones from a cloud." "What day is so sacred that it fails to produce thieving, perfidy, fraud, gain sought through every crime, and money acquired by bowl and dagger. The good are so scarce that their number is barely as great as that of the gates of Thebes, or the mouths of the fertilizing Nile."

He attacks every kind of social abuse, and does not even spare the ladies—some are too fast, some are learned and pedantic, some cruel to their slaves—even scourging them with cowhides. "What fault," he asks, "has the girl committed, if your own nose has displeased you?" As to religion, that has disappeared altogether. "What a laugh your simplicity would raise in public, if you were to require of anyone that he should not perjure himself, but believe that there was some deity in the temple, or at the ensanguined altar! That the souls of the departed are anything, and the realms below, and the punt-pole and frogs of the Stygian pool, and that so many thousands pass over in one boat, not even the boys believe, except those who are too young to pay for their bath."

The language used in the last passage is no doubt an example of the profane manner in which some men spoke at that day, but in general, we must remember that these pictures are humorous and overdrawn. Still, some of the offences spoken of with horror by Juvenal were treated almost as lightly by contemporary poets as they had been by Aristophanes.

There is a slightly foreign complexion about the productions of Martial, which reminds us that he was a Spaniard. Even at this time there seems to have been a sparkle and richness in the thoughts that budded in that sunny clime. Martial was a contemporary of Juvenal, and addressed two or three of his epigrams to him. His works consisted of fourteen books, containing altogether more than fifteen hundred of these short poems.

The appearance of such works may be taken as indicative of the condition of Rome at the time. The calls of business had become more urgent from the increase of the population and development of commerce, while the unsatisfactory state of the Government and of foreign affairs kept men's minds in agitation and suspense. Martial himself observes that those were no times for poems of any length, and that some of his friends would not even read his longer pieces, though they never exceeded thirty lines. The period demanded something light and short—a book which could be taken up and laid down without any interruption of the narrative. But the swifter current of affairs had also produced a keener or more active turn of mind, so that it was necessary not only to be short, but also pithy. It was not necessary to be humorous, but it was essential to be concise and interesting, and thus Martial gave to the epigram that character for point which it has since maintained.

Nothing could be more attractive than allusions to contemporary men, passing scenes, or novelties of the day, and when we read his works we seem to be transported by magic into the streets and houses of ancient Rome. On one page we have the sanguinary scenes of the circus; in another we see the ladies waving their purple fans, and hear them toasted in as many glasses as they have letters to their names.

From this kind of gaiety Martial graduates into another—that of pleasantry. In an epitaph on his barber, he bids the earth lie light upon him, adding, "It could not be lighter than his artistic hand." From his censure of bad wit, it is evident that he drew great distinctions between broad and subtle humour. "Every man," he says, "has not a nose," i.e., a keen perception—cannot smell a fault. He is very seldom guilty of a pun, and says in one place that he has not adopted verbal tricks, imitating echoes, or making lines which can be read backwards or forwards.[26] Nor has he any intention to indulge in bitter reflections; he says,—

"My page injures not those it hates, and no reputation obtained at the expense of another is pleasing to me. Some versifiers wish publications which are but darts dipped in the blood of Lycambus to be mine, and vomit forth the poison of vipers under my name. My sport is harmless."

But he well saw that some little severity was necessary for humour, for he chides a dull poet:

"Although the epigrams which you write are always sweetness itself, and more spotless than a white-leaded skin, and although there is in them neither an atom of salt, nor a drop of bitter gall, yet you expect, foolish man, that they will be read. Why, not even food is pleasant if wholly destitute of acid seasoning, nor is a face pleasing which shows no dimples. Give children your honey, apples, and luscious figs—the Chian fig, which has sharpness, pleases my taste."

Following this view we find him often sarcastic, but not personal, the names being fictitious, or if not, those of well known public men. In a few instances he is a little ill-natured, and writes, "Laugh, if thou art wise, girl, laugh, said Ovid, but he did not say this to all girls, not, for instance, to Maximina, who has only three teeth, and those the colour of pitch and boxwood. Avoid the pantomimes of Philistion and gay feasts. It befits you to sit beside an afflicted mother, and a wife lamenting her husband. Weep, if thou art wise, girl, weep."

Martial often uses the figure called by the Greek grammarians "contrary to expectation." The point of the whole epigram lies in the last word or line, which changes the drift of the whole.

"His funeral pile was strewn with reed,
His tearful wife brought fragrant myrrh,
The bier, the grave, the ointment were prepared,
He named me as his heir, and he—got well."
"Sorry is Athenagoras not to send the gifts,
Which in mid-winter he is wont to send;
Whether he be sorry I shall shortly see,
But sorry he has certainly made me."
"You feast so often without me, Lupercus,
I've found a way by which to pay you out,
I am incensed, and if you should invite me,
What would I do, you ask me? Why—I'd come."

The growing appreciation of this kind of writing had already led Meleager, a cynic philosopher of Gadara, to form the first collection of Greek epigrams, which he prettily termed the anthology or bouquet. Martial has been commended at the expense of the Greeks, but he borrowed considerably from them in form and matter. His epigrams were more uniformly suggestive and concentrated than those of any previous writer, and he largely contributed to raise such compositions from being merely inscriptive into a branch of literature. He opened a new field, and the larger portion of these productions in Greek were written about this time. They are not generally humorous, with the exception of a few from Philo and Leonidas of Alexandria who lived about 60 B.C., from Ammianus in 120 B.C., and from Lucilius, a great composer of this kind, of whose history nothing is known but that he lived in the reign of Nero. The following are from the last-mentioned.

"Some say, Nicylla, that thou dyest thy hair, which thou boughtest most black at the market."

"All the astrologers prophesied that my uncle would be long-lived except Hermocleides, who said he would not be so. This, however, was not until we were lamenting his death."

The following are free translations from the same writer.

"Poor Cleon out of envy died,
His brother thief to see
Nailed near him to be crucified
Upon a higher tree."

On a bad painter.

"You paint Deucalion and Phaeton,
And ask what price for each you should require;
I'll tell you what they're worth before you've done,
One deserves water, and the other fire."

The works of Lucian are generally regarded as forming a part of Roman literature, although they were written in Greek by a native of Samosata in Syria. In them we have an intermingling of the warm imagination of the East with the cold sceptical philosophy of the West. Lucian was originally brought up to be a stone-cutter, but he had an insatiable desire for learning, and in his "Dream" he tells us how he seemed to be carried aloft on the wings of Pegasus. He became a pleader at the bar, but soon found that "deceit, lies, impudence, and chicanery" were inseparable from that profession. In disgust he betook himself to philosophy, but could not restrain his indignation when he found so many base men throwing the blame of their conduct on Plato, Chrysippus, Pythagoras, and other great men. "A fellow who tells you that the wise man alone is rich, comes the next moment and asks you for money—just as if a person in regal array should go about begging." He says they pay no more attention to the doctrines they teach than if their words were tennis balls to play with in schools. "There is," he continues, "a story told of a certain king of Egypt, who took a fancy to have apes taught to dance. The apes, as they are apt to mimic human actions, came on in their lessons and improved very fast, and were soon fit to appear on the public stage, and display their skill, dressed in purple robes, with masks on their faces. The spectators were much pleased with them for a considerable time, when a wag who was present, having brought with him a quantity of nuts, threw a handful amongst them. The dance was immediately forgotten, and the performers from pyrrhic dancers, relapsed into apes, who went chattering and snapping at one another, and fighting for nuts; so that in a few moments the masks were crumpled, the clothes torn to rags, and the ape dance, which had been so much extolled, terminated amidst peals of laughter. Such is the history of mock philosophers."

The above story may serve to exhibit Lucian's views, and his love of humorous illustration. He indulges in many fancies, such as the complaint of the letter S against T, which had in Attic been substituted for it.

Another kind of pleasantry which he brings forward is interesting, inasmuch as after having been in fashion among the grammarians, and reviving among the monks in the middle ages it has now fallen entirely out of use. It may be regarded as being a kind of continuation of the philosophical "hard questions" of ancient times, originated with the Sophists, and was entirely confined to logical subtleties affording diversion, but not awakening any emotion sufficient to cause laughter. Lucian makes a parasite ask his host after dinner to solve such riddles as "The Sorites and the Reaper," and the "Horned Syllogism." The latter proposition was, "What you have not lost that you still have. You have not lost horns, therefore you have horns." In "The Sale of the Philosophers," in which Jupiter puts them all up to auction to see what will be bid for them, Chrysippus gives some similar examples. "A stone is a substance, is it not?" "Certainly." "A living being is also a substance." "Yes." "And you are a living being—therefore you are a stone." Chrysippus then offers to turn him back into a man. "Is every substance a living being?" "No." "Is a stone a living being?" "No." "But you are a substance?" "Yes." "And a living being; then, although you are a substance you are not a stone, because you are a living being."

Lucian's crusade against vice is of so general a kind as to remind us more of some of the old philosophers than of the Roman satirists. At the same time he says he has only spoken against impostors, and is only the enemy of false pretence, quackery, lies, and puffing. But we may suppose that he would not be sparing of his lash in any direction, for in the "Resuscitated Philosophers," he observes, "Philosophy says that ridicule can never make anything worse than it is in itself, and whatever is beautiful and good comes out with more lustre from it, and, like gold, is rendered splendid by the strokes of the hammer."

Following this view, he makes pretty sport of the parasites, whom he represents as forming a large and educated class. Patroclus he counts as Achilles' parasite, and includes several philosophers, who, he says, sponged upon Dionysius of Syracuse, "but Plato failed in the art." He commends them in merry irony, and describes the parasite as stout and robust—bold, with an eye full of fire and spirit. Who could venture a bet against a parasite, whether in jesting or feasting? Who could contribute more to the diversion of the company? A parasite is obliged to be strict in his conduct. He has an annual salary, but is always beaten down in it. He does not receive the same food as the chief people, and in travelling he is put with the servants. Jokes are made at his expense by the company, and when he receives a present of his patron's old clothes, he has to fee the servants for them. Of philosophers, some are poisoned, some are burned alive. None ever tell of a parasite who came to such an end—he dies gently and sweetly, amidst loaded dishes and flowing bowls, and should one of them come to a violent death, it is merely from indigestion. The parasite does honour to the rich man—not the rich man to the parasite.

Lucian's "True History" deserves especial notice as having been the first extravagant story written under the form of a circumstantial narration of travels. It was the precursor of "The Voyage to the Moon," Baron Münchausen, and various Utopias. We must therefore allow it the merit of originality, and it evinces talent, for mere exaggeration would not be entertaining. The intention was to ridicule the marvellous travellers' stories then current. Much of this history is merely florid, and we may compare it to a waving line, in which the fable is constantly undulating between humour and poetry.

Lucian says he is going to write about what never can be. He sets sail on a voyage of discovery for the Western Ocean, and reaches a beautiful island. There they find a river of wine, navigable in many places. He could not trace the source of it, but near the place where it seemed to rise, were several vines full of grapes, and at the root of every one wine flowed out. They found fish in the stream, and after eating some, felt intoxicated; when they cut them up, they found grape-stones in them. Passing the river, they found a most wonderful species of vine; the lower parts, which touched the ground, were green and thick, the upper formed the most beautiful women, from the top of whose fingers branches sprang forth full of grapes; and on their heads, instead of hair, they had leaves and tendrils. Two of his companions, going up to embrace them, became so entangled that they could not again disengage themselves. After this, they left the island, and were caught in such a violent storm that the vessel was lifted out of the water, so high that it could not come down again. Then they came to another island, round and shining. Here they found Hippogypi, men riding upon vultures—birds so large that each of their feathers was like the mast of a ship. The voyagers join the Hippogypi in a battle against the inhabitants of the sun, and have various allies—some mounted on fleas about the size of twelve elephants, and spiders, each as big as one of the Cyclades islands. The travellers were taken prisoners, and conveyed to the Sun, but he returned to the Moon, of which he gives a description. The inhabitants there make use of their stomachs—which are empty and lined with hair—as bags or pockets to put away things. They take their eyes in and out, and borrow them. "Whoever does not believe me, had better go and see." Returning from the air to the earth and sea, they saw several enormous whales, one of whom swam up to them with its mouth wide open. Coming near he swallowed them up—ship and all. It was dark inside, until he opened his mouth again. There was a large extent of land inside, and hills and woods, in which birds were building nests.

From this last fancy, we might conclude that Lucian had read the Book of Jonah, and a description he afterwards gives of the Isles of the Blessed, seems to be written in imitation of the Revelation.

The age in which Lucian lived was marked by theological contests between Pagans, Jews, and Christians, and such times have generally caused an increase of scepticism and profanity. Lucian was a follower of Democritus, and his Confabulations consist of a succession of squibs and satires on the mythological legends of the gods and goddesses. He laughs at curing diseases by charms and incantations. People pretended to fly, walk on water and through fire—they are called Babylonians and Hyperboreans. A Syrian from Palestine professes to drive devils out of people (perhaps alluding to the exorcists of the early church.) He makes Eucrates speak of one Pancrates, who would take a broom or the pestle of a wooden mortar, and upon saying a couple of magical words, it appeared to become a man, drew water, and ordered food. When Pancrates had no further need of him, he spoke a couple of words, and the man was a pestle again. Eucrates tried this himself, but having made the pestle a man, and told him to bring water, he forgot how to change him back again. So he kept on bringing water. Eucrates then split the pestle in two, and both halves still continued to bring water.

Demonax, the friend of Lucian, was as remarkable for his wit and repartee as for his kindly nature. A man who over-rated his austerity, expressed one day his surprise at seeing him eat sweet-cakes. "Do you think," he replied, "that the bees make their honey only for fools?" He seems to have had as little respect as Lucian for the idolatry of his day, for on one of his companions saying to him "Let us go to the Temple of Æsculapius to pray for my son," he answered, "Is the god then so deaf that he cannot hear us where we are?"

He lived and died a bachelor, and we are told that on being blamed by Epictetus, with whom he studied, for not marrying and having a family as a philosopher should, he replied "Very well, give me one of your daughters." Epictetus was an old bachelor.

He counselled a bad orator to practise and exercise himself in the art of speaking, and on his replying, "I am always doing so—to myself," he added, "It is therefore not surprising you speak as you do—having a fool for your audience."

When the sophist Sidonius, delivering a long panegyric on himself, said that he was acquainted with all the tenets of the philosophers: "If Aristotle calls me to the Lyceum, I obey; if Plato to the Academy, I come; Zeno to the Stoa, I take up my abode there; if Pythagoras calls, I am silent:" Demonax jumped up in the middle of the Assembly and cried out, "Pythagoras calls you."

His humour was purely genial and jocose, as when, on the point of setting sail in winter, he replied to a friend who asked him whether he was not afraid he should be ship-wrecked and go to feed the fishes, "Should I not be ungrateful were I unwilling to be devoured by fishes, when I have feasted on so many myself?"

But there is one speech of his which must ever make his memory dear to all good men. When the Athenians wished to emulate the Corinthians by exhibiting a gladiatorial combat, he said, "Do not vote this, Athenians, before ye have taken down the Altar of Mercy."

Demonax lived to a ripe old age, and we are told that he was so much beloved in Athens that, as he passed the bread-shops, the bakers would run out to beg his acceptance of a loaf, and thought it a good omen if he complied; and that the little children called him father, and would bring him presents of fruit.

Apuleius wrote in Latin in the second century. He was a native of Carthage—not the celebrated Carthage of Terence, but that of Cyprian—a new city. He travelled like many of the learned men of his time to Athens and Alexandria, and thus, most probably, became acquainted with his contemporary Lucian. At any rate, his "Golden Ass" seems taken from the work by that author. Bishop Warburton has seen in his production a subtle attack upon Christianity, but we may take it as intended to ridicule magical arts, and those who believed in them. He was likely to feel keenly on this subject, for having married a rich widow, Pudentilla, her relatives accused him of having obtained her by witchcraft, and even dragged him into a court of justice.

Lucian ridiculed the religion of his day, Apuleius its superstitions. Apuleius speaks of his "book of jests," but it is lost—the few lines he gives out of it are a somewhat matter-of-fact recommendation of tooth-powder. His enemies thought that tooth-powder was something magical and unholy—at any rate, they made his mention of it a charge against him. In reply, he says that perhaps a man who only opens his mouth to revile ought not to have tooth-powder.

In the "Golden Ass," Apuleius gravely supposes that transformations take place between men and the lower animals. He makes Aristomenes tell a story in which a witch appears, "able to drag down the firmament, to support the world on her shoulders, crumble mountains, raise the dead, dethrone gods, extinguish the stars, and illuminate hell." She changed one of her lovers, of whom she was jealous, into a beaver, and persecuted him with hunters. She punished the wife of another of them, who was about to increase her family, by condemning her to remain in that condition. "It is now eight years since she has been growing larger and larger, and seems as though about to produce an elephant."

Lucius goes to Thessaly, celebrated for its witches, and a good story is told how returning late from supper he finds three men battering against his door. Taking them for robbers he draws his dagger, and stabs them, and the ground is covered with blood. Next day he is tried for murder, and about to be crucified, when the corpses are brought into court, and are found to be three wine-skins. He is told that this was a trick played on him upon the day when they usually celebrated the festival of the god of laughter, but it seems to have been really owing to an incantation. He sees Pamphile, his hostess, change herself into an owl, thinks he also will transform himself into a bird, and anoints himself with some of the witch's preparations. By mistake, taking the wrong ointment, he transforms himself into a donkey. He then goes to look for his horse, who, thinking he is coming to eat his food, kicks him out, and soon afterwards he is well thrashed by his servant boy. He is told that eating fresh roses will restore him to his former self, but for various reasons he cannot get any. Being hungry he goes into a kitchen garden, and makes a good meal of the vegetables, for which transgression he is nearly killed by the gardener. To prevent this he kicks the man over, whereupon a general outcry was raised, and great dogs rush upon him. After this persecution he is in danger of dying of starvation—"spiders began to spin their webs on his lips," but becoming instrumental in saving a young girl, he receives better treatment. He is then bought by vagrants, who go about playing cymbals, and carrying an image of the Syrian goddess. He is accompanied by a troop of fanatical priests, who dance and scourge themselves. While the priests are being royally entertained by one of their votaries, a dog runs off with a haunch of venison, and the cook, not knowing what to do, conceives the project of killing the ass, and dressing one of his haunches instead. To avoid this the donkey breaks loose, and gallops into the supper room. After the band of priests is dispersed, owing to their thieving propensities, the donkey is sold to a baker, and by him to a gardener, and nearly dies of cold and exposure. Then he becomes the property of the servants of a very rich man, and is found eating up the remains of their supper. This greatly amuses them all, and their lord orders him to be brought to his table. A buffoon, or parasite, who sat among the guests, exclaims "Give him a cup of wine," and he was taught various tricks. His fame increases so that his master only admits people to see him on payment. Finally being taken to the circus, and afraid that some of the wild beasts might eat him by mistake, he slips away and gallops to Cenchrœa, where he prays to the goddess Iris, and is by her restored to his human form. The descriptions in this work are often very beautiful, and the humour in describing the misfortunes of the ass is excellent.

In contrast to the humour of Lucian and Apuleius, we may place that of the Emperor Julian, an ascetic and devotee, who was nephew of Constantine the Great, and brought up a Christian. Julian's early life was spent in terror, for Constantius, Constantine's son, imprisoned him at Milan, after having put his elder brother to death. Perhaps this treatment at the hands of a Christian may have prejudiced him against the new religion, or his mild disposition may have been scandalized at the fierceness of theological controversies, or at the lives of many of the converts. His early education and experiences of life were more inclined to imbue him with principles of toleration than to make him a zealous Christian, and, finally, when he arrived at the age of twenty, he determined to return back into Paganism. This retrograde movement, not altogether out of keeping with his quaint character and love of antiquity, has stamped him with the opprobrious title of the "Apostate," but in moral excellence he was superior to the age in which he lived. Many of his writings show a sense of humour, such as that he wrote in Lutetia (Paris) on "Barley wine" the drink of the Gauls.

"Who and whence art thou, Dionyse? for, by true Bacchus
I know thee not, but Jove's great son alone,
He smells of nectar, thou of goats, truly the Celts
For want of grapes made thee of ears of corn;
Wherefore thou shouldst be Cereal called, not Bacchus,
Pyrogenes and Bromos, not Bromion."[27]

Julian's principal work is on the Cæsars. He commences it by saying that he is not addicted to jesting, but he will relate a sort of fable in which all the gods and Cæsars are called to a great banquet. Accordingly, he introduces various characters. Julius Cæsar seems in his pride to wish to dispute the throne even with Jupiter. Augustus he compares to a chameleon, sometimes one colour, sometimes another; one moment a visage full of sorrow, another smiling.

Tiberius has a fierce countenance, and shows the marks of intemperance and debauchery. "Take care he does not pull your ear," says Bacchus, "for thus he treated a grammarian." "He had better," returned Silenus, "bemoan himself in his solitary island, and tear the face of some miserable fisherman."[28]

Constantine, not finding among the gods any type of his character, betook himself to the goddess of pleasure. She, receiving him softly and embracing him, trimmed him up and adorned him, dressed him in a shining and many-coloured woman's gown, and led him away to demoralization. With her he found one of his sons, who loudly proclaimed to all, "Whosoever is a seducer, a murderer, or shameless, let him advance boldly, for by washing him with water I will immediately make him pure; and if he should be again guilty of such things, I will grant him to be pure on striking his breast, or beating his head."[29] At the end of this "fable," the Emperors are called upon to speak in their defence. Constantine being asked what object he had in view, replied "to amass great riches and spend them on myself and friends." Silenus burst into a fit of laughter, and retorted "You now wish to pass for a banker, but how can you forget your living like a cook, or a hair-dresser?" alluding to his luxurious feastings, and his wearing gold-flowered stuffs, and a diadem of jewels.

Gibbon calls this work on the Cæsars one of the most agreeable and instructive productions of ancient wit.

Julian prided himself on his primitive and severe life, and made himself ridiculous by wearing a long unfashionable beard—either in imitation of the Gauls, or of the ancient philosophers. It is probable that he persisted in this habit to discountenance the effeminacy of the times. He says that soon after he entered Constantinople, he had occasion to send for a barber. An officer, magnificently dressed, presented himself. "It is a barber," said the prince, "that I want, and not a minister of finance." He questioned the man about his profits, and was informed that besides a large salary and some valuable perquisites, he enjoyed a daily allowance of twenty servants and as many horses! Not only was Julian strongly opposed to luxury, but he was, as far as his light went, a religious man, and was strict in observing the feasts and festivals of the heathen deities. All his antiquated peculiarities are brought strongly before us on the occasion of his visit to Antioch. Strabo tells us that this was one of the largest cities in the world—little inferior in extent to Alexandria and Seleucia. It was noted for its gaieties, and seems now to have been the centre of fashion. The new religion had been, at least nominally, adopted, and also the new costumes, as well as every kind of luxury and dissipation. Chrysostom bears witness to the same effect. The town was full of dancers, pipers, and players, camels "adorned like brides" stalked through the porticos, and fish and poultry had come to be considered as necessaries of life. There were here many people of leisure and cultivation, fond of light and fanciful pursuits, and among others of forming verbal conceits. Hence, we find that the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch, no doubt, derisively,[30] and in Julian's time they had a cant saying that they had suffered nothing from the X or the K (Christ or Constantius). A celebrated school of rhetoric was established here, and no doubt some of the effusions penned at this time, abounded with rich and epigrammatic humour.

It must have been a rare sight for these polished and satirical Christians of Antioch to behold Julian celebrating the festivals of the pagan gods. To view the procession of Venus—a long line of all the dissolute women in the town, singing loose songs—followed by the lean, uncouth Roman Emperor, with his shaggy beard, and terminated by a military train. No wonder they hooted him, and wrote lampoons upon him. But Julian thought he was performing a solemn duty; he by no means intended to countenance immorality. "Far from us," he says, "be all licentious jests and scurrilous discourse—let no priest read Archilochus or Hipponax." He gives an amusing account of his reception at the celebrated grove of Daphnæ, near Antioch, which he visited at the time of the annual festival. He expected to see a profusion of wealth and splendour. He pictured to himself the solemn pomp, the victims, the libations, the dancers, the incense, the children in white robes. When he entered the temple, full of such elevated thoughts, he found there neither incense, cake, nor victims. Much surprised, he could only suppose that the people were waiting at the gate, by way of respect, for a signal from the sovereign Pontiff. He therefore asked the priest what offering the city was about to make on this great anniversary; to which he replied, "The city has furnished nothing, but I have brought the god a goose from my own house."

Julian says the people of Antioch had transfixed him with sarcasms, as with arrows. In accordance, however, with his peaceful disposition, he only retaliated by writing the Misopogon or "Beard-hater." "No law," he says, "forbids me to satirise myself." He begins with his face and says,

"Although naturally good-looking, moroseness and bad manners have led me to wear a long beard for no apparent reason but that nature has not made it handsome. Therefore, I allow lice to run about in it like wild beasts in a wood, nor have I the power of eating or drinking much, for I must be cautious, lest I eat hairs along with bread. About being kissed, or kissing, I do not much care; still a beard has this inconvenience among others, that it does not allow us to join pure lips to those that are pure, and, therefore, the sweeter. You say that ropes should be twisted out of it, and I would willingly grant this, if only you were able to draw out the bristles, so that your soft and delicate hands should not suffer from their roughness."

He says that he never goes to the theatre, and hates horse-races. As to domestic matters, "I pass sleepless nights upon a bed of straw, and insufficient food makes my manners severe and offensive to a luxurious city. Do not think that I do this on your account—a great and senseless mistake has led me from my childhood to wage war with my stomach." He is not at all surprised that they should follow the dissolute habits of the founder of their city, Antiochus, and that they think of nothing but dressing, bathing, and love-making—charges which could not be brought against himself. He esteems dancers and players "no more than the frogs of the lakes," and tells a story, that when Cato came into the city of Antioch, seeing all the young men under arms, and the magistrates in their robes, he thought the parade was in his honour. He blamed his friends for having told them he was coming, and advanced with some hesitation, when the master of the ceremonies came up and asked, "Stranger, how far off is Demetrius?" a man who had been a slave of Pompey, but had become immensely rich. Cato made no reply, but exclaimed, "O, miserable city!" and departed.

The Misopogon is unique as a mock disparagement of self. Although written in condemnation of the Antiochians, a vein of pleasantry runs through it, which shows that Julian was not vindictive, and had a considerable gift of humour. Had he lived to mature age, he would probably have left some brilliant literary work. But shortly after his visit to Antioch, he led an expedition into Persia, and with his usual disregard of danger, entered the battle without his armour, and was mortally wounded.

We read that the Roman girls were very fond of amusing themselves in their leisure hours by making "scirpi" or riddles. They do not seem to have indulged much in puns, or to have attempted anything very intricate, but rather to have aimed at testing knowledge and memory. We have few specimens remaining of their art, but such as we have are of that early kind, which demand some special information for their solutions. Aulus Gellius has preserved one "old by Hercules," which turns on the legend that when Tarquinius Superbus was installing Jupiter at the Capitol, all the other gods were ready to leave except Terminus, who being by his character immovable, and having no legs, refused to depart.[31] Two other specimens are found in Virgil's bucolics:—

"Say in what lands grow flowers inscribed with names
Of kings—and Phyllis shall be yours alone,"

referring to the hyacinth, on whose petals the word Ajax was supposed to be found. The responding couplet runs:—

"Say, and my great Apollo thou shalt be,
Where heaven's span extends but three ells wide;"