PREFATORY DIALOGUE.

THOMAS HASTY VERSUS OLIVER OLDHAM.

Another book?

HASTY.

A humorous book?

Dear me! Oliver, how will it look?

A man as staid and sober as you,
Forsaking the ways of wisdom true,
And seeking after inventions new!

Why, what in the world d'you mean to do?
Will you abolish customs and rules,

Time out of mind, in vogue in the schools?
Make humor stand in gravity's place?
Learning from laughter borrow her grace?
Nurse the delusion, rife at this day,
That toil is needless, study is play?

Desist, my Friend; such conduct you'll rue:
Burn up your book! Away with it! Do!

OLDHAM.

Why, what's to pay?

Is that the way

You exercise your critical sway?
Assail an author,-condemn his book,
And that, before you give it a look?
Is it not enough, to show your ire,
Without the blind, intol'rant desire
To hurl the work, unread, in the fire?
If you must Eurybiades play,
Threat'ning a stick in the Spartan way,
Allow me, with deference here to say,
Deference, however, that knows no fear,

With brave Themistocles: "STRIKE, BUT HEAR!"*

HASTY.

Well, have your say,

And do away,

If you can, the strong objection, pray,
Which must belong to a book of mirth.
But what possesses you? What on earth
Has given, in you, the idea birth,

That humor with broad and laughing face,
Should take the sober, dignified place
Of teacher of youth, when well you know,
Young people are constituted so,

* See the anecdote on page 129 following.

That, if among them you cast a joke,
And so the Momus-Spirit evoke,
All thought is made on trifles to run
And learning falls a victim to fun?

OLDHAM.

But you'll admit,
On pondering it,

That humor contains nothing unfit

For teachers, whate'er their grade may be,

If only from impurity free;

For Addison, in his pedigree

Of Humor, (a piece I wish you'd see,)
Makes Truth the parent of all Good Sense;
Good Sense the parent of Wit; and thence,
By joining Wit in marriage with Mirth,
Deduces Humor's legitimate birth.
And Thackeray, one who ought to know,
(His words I quote in a note below,)*
Says humor is wit and love combined;
While I, Mr. Oldham, am much inclined
To be of the said Mr. Thack'ray's mind;
Though, figures aside, it seems to me

Genuine humor's made of all three!

* "I have said," says he, "somewhere, I do know with what correctness, (for definitions are never complete,) that humor is wit and love; I am sure, at any rate, that the best humor is that which contains most humanity, that which is flavored throughout with tenderness and kindness."-Eng. Humorists of the Nineteenth Century, p. 275.