snuff during the pompous and protracted coronation ceremonial of her husband Friedrich I., of Prussia, is intensely ludicrous. The rules of decorum were treated with contempt, and the splendor of a pageant suddenly dashed by an act suggestive of ennui.

The Burlesque, the Mock-heroic, Parody, Travesty, Caricature, are modes of composition answering to the general character of the ludicrous. Either some elevated object is treated in a low and vulgar style, or a mean object in the style of things dignified; in both cases, there is an effect of degradation.

110. The circumstances of the laughable may vary between two extremes :

For the one extreme, we have the pure pleasure of power shading into malignity, as seen in the laugh of victory, derision, ridicule, scorn, contumely, contempt.

In composition, this is exemplified in the writings of Swift and Voltaire, in the letters of Junius, and in the comedies of Aristophanes. Unmeasured denunciation, abuse, sarcasm, give this pleasure, provided they do not rouse sympathy towards the victim.

111. At the other end of the scale, the exultation of power is disguised by various arts; and the laugh assumes a genial and kindly character. This is Humoe. We often hear of innocent raillery and harmless jests.

Since degradation must, as a rule, be unpleasant to the person degraded, while it cannot be acceptable to the honest sympathies of men generally, there must be something to redeem or neutralize the effect.

(1.) It is but raillery, when the degradation attaches to something that a man does not pride himself upon. We may, without offence, ridicule the bad handwriting of any one not pretending to write well.

(2.) A jest may be broken upon a point of character so unquestionable as to be beyond the reach of depreciation. A

handsome man will allow any slight irregularity or defect to be laughed at; not so, he that is really deformed.

(3.) The degradation may be made the occasion of a compliment. An example occurs in De Quincey's criticism on Kant's style : "Kant was a great man; but he was obtuse and deaf as an antediluvian boulder with regard to language and its capacities. He has sentences which have been measured by a carpenter, and some of them run two feet eight by six inches. Now, a sentence with that enormous span is fit only for the use of a megatherium or a pre-Adamite." It is possible to pass off, by the seasoning of a little jocularity, an amount of adulation that would be otherwise intolerable.

(4.) An infusion of kindly and tender feeling softens the harsh effect of ludicrous degradation. Carlyle, in speaking of John Paul Richter, says, "In Richter's smile itself a touching pathos lies hidden;" and he adds, "the essence of humor is sensibility; warm, tender fellow-feeling with all forms of existence." This is a widely prevalent, although not the only, mode of converting the ludicrous into humor. It is admirably exemplified in Don Quixote, whose childish folly is ludicrous, and his chivalrous devotion amiable. The like combination renders Sir Roger de Coverley a humorous personification. Burns and Sir Walter Scott exhibit the same kind of humor. We may contrast these instances with Swift and Voltaire, who struck severe blows, with no palliation of kindliness.

Thus the great masters of pathos are also the greatest humorists. It should also be noted that a slight touch of the jocular often enables one to display tender feeling without becoming maudlin.

(5.) Jesting at one's own expense is humorous. This is one mode of sacrificing self for the pleasure of others. Falstaff's humor iu part consists in surrendering himself as a butt to his companions. When Sir Hugh Evans, on the eve of hist duel, confesses that he has "a great disposition to cry," he is highly humorous.

To constitute a genial and good-humored company, it is essential that each, in his turn, should submit to be laughed at.

Sydney Smith's remark to the Chapter of St. Paul's, on the proposal to lay a wooden pavement round the building,—" if we lay our heads together, the thing is done," was witty and humorous. If any one outside had said, "if you lay your heads together," it would have wanted the humor.

(6.) Humor is reached by combining effects of wit and poetic beauty with the ludicrous. The pleasure thus arising is often capable of effectually soothing the wounded pride of the sufferer and his sympathizers. All the great productions of comic genius might be quoted as examples, and such of them as have seldom any of the other softening ingredients yield momentary flashes of geniality from this cause. It is only thus that either Swift or Voltaire can lay claim to humor; it is also the principal softening ingredient in Aristophanes.

Chaucer was a great humorist, on several of the grounds now stated. He did not often derogate from the dignity of his subjects in a violent or extreme form; he imparted flattering and loving touches to his ludicrous depreciation; and he could clothe his shafts with delicate wit and poetic imagery to a degree unsurpassed. His Canterbury Tales abound in humor. His " Disappearance of the Fairies" is an example of sarcasm and innuendo invested with the highest beauties of poetry.

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Addison's humor is represented by Thackeray (Lectures on English Humorists) as depending chiefly on the trivial nature of the follies ridiculed, and on the lightness of the scourging hand. It was easy to redeem so gentle an application of the rod.

112. Wit may be defined as a combination of ideas, in the first place, unexpected; secondly, ingenious; and thirdly, consisting in a play upon words.

(1.) As regards being unexpected. This is implied in the terms used in speaking of wit; as, strokes, sallies, flashes. A sharp, biting, pungent, racy effect, like that of wit, must be produced by something sudden and new. Originality or novelty is indispensable to the highest literary effects.

(2.) The unexpected combination must display ingenuity or skill, such as gives something to admire. Herein consists what may be called the interesting and genial element of wit,—the pleasure of admiration.

(3.) It is a mode of ingenuity consisting in a play upon words.

The epigram is the purest representative of wit. Next are innuendo and irony. All the varieties of effect produced by double meanings, including puns and conundrums, if they possess the conditions of unexpectedness and ingenuity, are designated wit.

A striking metaphor is sometimes called witty, because of its possessing the first two requisites:—

'Bright like the sun her eyes the gazers strike,
And like the sun they shine on all alike."

So, any great ingenuity in turning a figure is admired under the name of wit. It is remarked by Dryden that, when a poet describes his mistress's bosom as white as snow, he is at the utmost poetical; but, when he proceeds to add "and as cold too," he becomes witty! Likewise a double analogy, as in the retort of Coleridge, during his democratic lectures at Bristol, to some marks of disapprobation: "I am not at all surprised that, when the red-hot prejudices of aristocrats are suddenly plunged into the cool element of reason, they should go off with a hiss."

Thus it is, that any fine effect, bound up more with the language than with the matter, may receive the praise of wit. We may apply the name to a stroke of felicitous brevity. A fop, who possessed fine teeth, and was always grinning in order to show them, was designated by Horace Walpole as "the gentleman with the foolish teeth."

113. Wit, although distinct from the ludicrous, is frequently found in combination with it.

We have seen that wit can convert the ludicrous into humor. It being not always permissible to degrade a person or thing by open vituperation or depreciatory adjuncts, some dis

guise or redeeming ingenuity is sought out, and the forms of wit are well adapted for the purpose. An anecdote related by Lord Bacon is an apt illustration. "Mr. Popham, afterwards Lord Chief Justice Popham, when he was Speaker, and the House of Commons had sat long, and done in effect nothing, coming one day to Queen Elizabeth, she said to him, 'Now, Mr. Speaker, what hath passed in the Commons' House?' He answered, 'If it please your majesty, seven weeks.'" Without this play upon words, the Speaker could not have dared to reproach the House for their proceedings.

The witticisms that convey depreciation are probably more numerous than all others put together. Jerrold's ingenuity took this form in almost every instance. Thus, when some one said that a certain musical air "had quite carried him away," Jerrold looked round the company and asked, "Is there no one here that can whistle it?"

MELODY.

114. The Melody, Harmony, or Music, of language involves both the action of the voice, and the sense of hearing.

What is hard to pronounce is not only disagreeable in the act of pronouncing, but also disagreeable to hear; for in listening to speech, we cannot help having present to our mind the way that the words would affect our organs if we had to utter them ourselves. Even in reading without utterance aloud, we have a sense of the articulate flow to the voice and to the ear.

115. If we regard the sounds of the letters individually, we shall find, as a rule, that the abrupt consonants are the hardest to pronounce, and the vowels the easiest.

The letters, p, t, k, are the most abrupt of all; next are their aspirated forms /, th (as in thin), h; these are called sharp mutes. The corresponding flat mutes are 6, v—d, th (as in thine)—g. These last allow a certain continuance of the voice,