from Barrow of wit, which, though a little dimmed by an obsoleteness of expression, is a wonderful proof of the fecundity of thought in many of our early divines: men who studied human nature as well as creeds, in order the better to operate upon it. We shall, however, give Mr. Hunt's definitions of wit and humour as more just to him so to do. He introduces them by saying

"It does not follow that everything witty or humorous excites laughter. It may be accompanied with a sense of too many other things to do so; with too much thought, with too great a perfection even, or with pathos or sorrow. All extremes meet; excess of laughter itself runs into tears, and mirth becomes heaviness. Mirth (QY. LAUGHTER) itself is too often but melancholy in disguise. The jests of the fool in Lear are the sighs of knowledge. But as far as wit and humour affect us on our own accounts, or unmodified by graver considerations, laughter is their usual result, and happy ratification."

The following is Mr. Hunt's definition of wit :

"The nature of wit, therefore, has been well ascertained. It takes many forms; and the word indeed means many things, some of them very grave and important; but in the popular and prevailing sense of the term (an ascendancy which it has usurped, by the help of fashion, over that of the intellectual faculty, or perception itself), wit may be defined to be the arbitrary juxtaposition of dissimilar ideas, for some lively purpose of assimilation or contrast, generally of both. It is fancy in its most wilful, and strictly speaking, its least poetical state; that is to say, wit does not contemplate its ideas for their own sakes in any light apart from their ordinary prosaical one, but solely for the purpose of producing an effect by their combination. Poetry may take up the combination and improve it, but it then divests it of its arbitrary character, and converts it into something better. Wit is the clash and reconcilement of incongruities; the meeting of extremes round a corner; the flashing of an artificial light from one object to another, disclosing some unexpected resemblance or connection. It is the detection of likeness in unlikeness, of sympathy in antipathy, or of the extreme points of antipathies themselves, made friends by the very merriment of their introduction. The mode, or form, is comparatively of no consequence, provided it give no trouble to the apprehension; and you may bring as many ideas together as can pleasantly assemble. But a single one is nothing. Two ideas are as necessary to wit, as couples are to marriages; and the union is happy in proportion to the agreeableness of the offspring."

The following of humour :

"The case, I think, is the same with humour. Humour, considered as the object treated of by the humorous writer, and not as the power of treating it, derives its name from the prevailing quality of moisture in the bodily temperament; and is a tendency of the mind to run in particular directions of thought or feeling more amusing than accountable; at least in the opinion of society. It is therefore, either in reality or appearance, a thing inconsist ent. It deals in incongruities of character and circumstance, as wit does in those of arbitrary ideas. The more the incongruities the better, provided they are all in nature; but two, at any rate, are as necessary to humour, as

the two ideas are to wit; and the more strikingly they differ, yet harmonise, the more amusing the result. Such is the melting together of the propensities to love and war in the person of exquisite Uncle Toby; of the gullible and the manly in Parson Adams; of the professional and the individual, or the accidental and the permanent, in the Canterbury Pilgrims; of the objectionable and the agreeable, the fat and the sharpwitted, in Falstaff; of honesty and knavery in Gil Blas; of pretension and non-performance in the Bullies of the dramatic poets; of folly and wisdom in Dox Quixote; of shrewdness and doltishness in Sancho Panza; and it may be added, in the discordant yet harmonious co-operation of Don Quixote and his attendant, considered as a pair; for those two characters, by presenting themselves to the mind in combination, insensibly conspire to give us one compound idea of the whole abstract human being; divided indeed by its extreme contradictions of body and soul, but at the same time made one and indivisible by community of error and the necessities of companionship. Sancho is the flesh, looking after its homely needs; his master, who is also his dupe, is the spirit, starving on sentiment. Sancho himself, being a compound of sense and absurdity, thus heaps duality on duality, contradiction on contradiction; and the inimitable associates contrast and reflect one another."

Every man almost will have something to add or abstract from a definition, and we are no exception to this rule-but let us pass on. Mr. Hunt next, and somewhat formally for him, treats of the chief peculiarities of Wit and Humour, under the heads of Simile-Metaphor the Poetical Process-Irony-Burlesque-Parody-ExaggerationUltra Continuity, and Extravagance in general-Puns-Macaronic Poetry-Half Jargon and Nonsense Verses-Conscious Humours indulged-Humours of Nations and Classes-Humours of mere temperament-Moral or Intellectual Incongruities-" and last and above all," Genial Contradictions of the Conventional. This division and subdivision may seem dull and formal in our bald narration, but, embalmed in the delicious and mellifluous style of the essayist, and strewed with extracts of great power and pungency, it is very pleasant and highly instructive reading. It need scarcely be said that it shows discursive, yet discriminating, reading so various, that it alone is sufficient to prove the catholicity of Mr. Hunt's sympathies; and the great merit of the whole is, that it is a grand defence of mirth and wholesome pure cheerfulness. The utmost delicacy of feeling is allied to the most joyous animal spirits. The reader will here find some modes of fun and wit made apparent and justified to him; and quips, and cranks, and sallies, that seemed utter folly and nonsense, are awarded a becoming position in this receptacle for the gaieties of the soul. The stern, and perhaps stolid, reasoner will grimly smile at the biting irony and acute wit of Swift and Butler; but he is here shown how he may enjoy the macaronic nonsense of Drummond, or the fooleries of O'Keefe. We shall give a quotation of this portion, because it is this capacity to extract "mirth out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs," that is so highly and admirably characteristic of Mr. Hunt's genius. We are quite certain that the author of any original absurdity

himself sees some fun, or wit, or humour in what he does, and has correlative minds, however few, who can appreciate; and if he had possessed a better mode of exposition, would have gained a larger popularity. This power of giving the exposition makes Mr. Hunt so admirable a critic.

"Burdens of songs have been rendered jovial and amusing not only by mere analogies of sound, like those of Darwin, such as the glou glou of the French bacchanalian poets (imitating the decantering of wine), and Chaulieu's parrots in a masquerade calling to the waiters,

(Tôt, tôt,-tôt, tôt,-tôt, tôt,

Du rôt, du rôt, du rôt,
Holà, holà, laquais,

Du vin aux perroquets)

but a man of genius, the best farcical writer in our language, O'Keefe, has made them epitomes of character and circumstance, and filled them with a gaiety and a music the most fantastical and pleasant. It is hardly fair to quote them apart from the whole context of the scene; and readers are warned off, if their own animal spirits cannot enter heartily into an extravagance. But such as are not afraid to be amused, will be. The

"I shall give, however, but one taste of such excessive pickle. following is part of a song sung by a schoolmaster, whose animal spirits triumph over his wig and habiliments :

Amo, amas,

I love a lass

As cedar tall and slender;
Sweet Cowslip's grace

Is her nominative case,

And she's of the feminine gender.

(Pleasant bit of superfluous information !)

"A collection of songs, particularly street songs, good and bad (that is to say, very bad, or unintentionally absurd), remains to be made by some 'competent hand,' and would be a rich exhibition of popular feeling. A distinguished living writer and statesman, who is great enough to be a thorough humanist, and to think nothing beneath him which interests his fellow-creatures, is in possession of some such collection, and might perhaps allow it to be used. Materials for such things have influenced the fate of kingdoms; and what is more, or at least no anti-climax, Uncle Toby patronized them. Everybody knows how fond he was of the tune of Lillibullero; his comfort under all afflictions,-controversy, surgery, and Dr. Slop.

"The late Mr. Mathews, a man of genius in his way, an imitator of mind

as well as manner, and a worthy contributor to the wit which he collected from friends and kindred, was a disburser of much admirable acute nonsense,' which it is a pity not to preserve. What could be better than his Scotchwoman? or his foreigners or the gentleman who with infinite promptitude of mind, cut off the lion's head?' or the Englishman, who after contemplating Mount Vesuvius, and comparing it with its fame (and himself), exclaimed, snapping his fingers at it, 'You're a humbug !'

"Endless are the quips and cranks' of Wit and Humour. PUNS (Pointes ?) are banished from good company at present, though kings once encouraged and Cæsar and Bacon recorded them, and Cicero and Shakspeare seem to have thought them part of the common property of good spirits. They are tiresome when engrossing, and execrable, if bad; at least, if not very and elaborately bad, and of malice prepense. But a pun may contain wit of the first water. Those of Hood are astonishing for their cleverness, abundance, and extravagance."

Of pure nonsense in parody we do not find an example, though Pope's "Ode, by a Man of Quality," and the "Rejected Addresses" imitation of Laura Matilda

"Where is Cupid's crimson motion
Billowy ecstacy of woe!"

must have been familiar to Mr. Hunt. The following also is so capital a sample of the kind, from a publication in which so many good things are gorgeously entombed, (for the current readers will not read continuously the back numbers even of "Punch,") that several of our readers may not know it.

A BALLAD OF BEDLAM.

"Oh! Lady, wake!-the azure morn
Is rippling on the verdant skies.
The owl is warbling his soft tune,
Awaiting but thy snowy eyes.
The joys of future years are past,
To-morrow's hopes have fled away;
Still let us love, and e'en at last
We shall be happy yesterday.

"The early beam of rosy night

Drives off the ebon morn afar,

Whilst, through the murmur of the light,
The Huntsman winds his mad guitar.

Then, Lady, wake! my brigantine

Pants, neighs, and prances to be free;

Until creation I am thine,

To some rich desert fly with me."

Nor is there any allusion to mere absurdity, nor any definition or analysation of the purport of satire: a point necessary to be determined, as many have thought it consisted in mere vehement denunciation.

But we are forgetting our own admonition, and from the fact of Mr. Hunt's having done so much, are desirous for more. We must remember that it is but "Wit and Humour selected from the English Poets, with an illustrative Essay," whereas we are eager to have from him a full and complete Dissertation on Wit and Humour-and a Collection of all the Poems, or Portions of Poems, containing anything worth preserving in the language.

The notices of the various poets are brief, but abounding in the genius of the author, pungently portraying the characteristics of each. We are not, and perhaps no one is, prepared to agree with all the opinions, but still no one can rise from their perusal without having acquired fresh glimpses of the excellence of the authors. Animal spirits go for a great deal with Mr. Hunt, and doubtless they are delightful things, both to possess and to witness, but there may be a great deal of them, which, at the best, only create rollicking and fun, that have nothing to do with Wit and Humour.

We may conclude our somewhat lengthened notice, with a hearty recommendation to the reader to obtain and study for himself this delightful work, which seems intended, by the elegance of its printing and binding, for a present book, and one more suited to either sex we cannot imagine. To present it would be a compliment to the receiver, as well as a sign of good taste in the donor.

FIRESIDE LIBRARY. 21 Volumes. 12mo. Gilt cloth. London:
JAMES BURNS.

THIS series of very cheap publications, elevating the standard of literature for young persons, while adapted to the entertainment of all, has reached its twenty-first volume. Whether we regard the neatness of the typography, the classical character of the embellishments, or the richness of the binding, we are equally struck with the spirit which has undertaken so beautiful, and extensive a publication. The contents of the series generally are selected with judgment; many of them are translated from the choicest morsels of distinguished foreign writers. To begin with the German series, we have the "Undine" of La Motte Fouqué, a favourite in this country, and the "Shadowless man," better known as "Peter Schlemihl," by Chamisso, "Liesli," and "Heinrich and Blanca," all for the sum of three shillings. Of course the printing is close, but of singular elegance. This work is another remarkable feature of the present time in that we get not only the cheapest, but the best of its kind, at so low a rate, that they may be in every one's hand. We find in this series the "Magic Ring" of Fouqué, in one volume. Here is Schiller in the "Maid of Orleans," and "William Tell." The favourite tale of "Muscus," Woltmann's romance of the "White Lady," Quentyn Matsys," and other tales of Pichler; "Fables and Parables" from Lessing, Herder, Gellert, Meisonee, and others; the