Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/140

132 the perfection of good-natured humorous satire, as Jerrold's reply to the literary bore who claimed fellowship with him on the ground that they rowed in the same boat—"Yes, but not with the same sculls"—was of ill-natured humorous satire. Lamb's wit was always kindly; Jerrold's rarely less than cruel. It is well, however, to avoid a pun unless it is of this high quality, or it is very bad and the company is hilarious; for the pun-maker, of all wits, should remember the immortal truth that

Jack Pundit, in whose company the Nebulous Person has sometimes the honor of finding himself, rarely yields to the temptation to play upon words, except in a polyglot, or, rather, macaronic style. The season and the compliments pertaining to it remind us of his remark at a New Year's call. His hostess offering wine, which was accepted by him and his companion, told them that her husband had in an ascetic mood endeavored to persuade her to have only tea and coffee, but that she had persisted in the old custom of having wine. "Madame," said Jack, "vous avez bien fait; et par consequant," bowing over his glass, "à votre sans thè." This, however, was not polyglot, but merely a French pun. But being present at a squabble in the House of Representatives, he said, as he went out, that although it might be doubtful whether poeta nascitur, it was manifest that orator fit. Soon after the great sycamores that shaded Columbia College for generations were felled, he met President King, and expressed his sorrow and surprise at the sacrifice. "Yes," said Prex, "they are a great loss." "Great, indeed; I don't see how old Columbia can get on without them." "Ah, I don't see that." "Why, because 'trees faciunt collegium. Some friends were discussing Louis Napoleon, and wondering at his continued success. (It was before the Mexican affair.) 'Oh," said Jack, "it's plain enough. You see he is always Zouaviter in modo and foughtiter in re." On another occasion he expressed himself quite indifferent as to which side beat in the revolt in British India, because it was "Sikhs of one and half a dozen of the other." This jest, we remember, failed of prosperity in the ears of the hearers; less, however, because they knew that the Sikhs did not revolt, than because their ears alone could not detect the ambiguous word. They heard only six, and could not see what he saw in his mind's eye, Sikhs. Some puns can be quickly apprehended only through the eye. It is unsafe to commit them to unaided speech. But they should not therefore be utterly condemned. If this pun had been made on the spot, with the Sikhs in sight, it would not have flashed in the pan. The success of another of these polyglot performances was made signal by the presence of the very corpus, or, rather, corpores delicti. Walking with some friends, who, like himself, were fresher from the hands of Carolus Anthon than they are now, upon the Long Island shore of New York Bay before the Board of Health had purged it of its offal nuisance, he stopped before one of half a dozen canine carcasses which they had encountered, saying, "How classical these shores are becoming!" "Classical?" "Certainly; does not Virgil say (and he lingered upon dactyl and spondee):

But it may be questioned whether the crime of punning is not doubled when it accomplishes its atrocious purposes by this cold-blooded distortion of two languages.