New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1866-05-18
e1iatls and ctfirtions.


be pretty evident to all who reflect upon the pom
uerosl'y Vi MS Feuecuons and the sesquipedalian-
ISM ol MS language These would no more admit
Oh successful Puhhng than molten gold conld sup
ply the pace OF hydrogen gas in elevating bal.
loon Ihey would not even admit of his apprecia.
ung pun as general rule; because this would
necessarily carry nm too far away from himself
from his mode of thinking and expression. But
every one VINO affects to despise pun is not a
johnson. Many one who does this is in fact
too obtuse to comprehend it when made by
another, and far too stolid to be capable of making
one himself. Many another is too vain to accord
the little superiority that good pun often secures
for the perpetrator in the course of light CONVEX
sation; and, unable to wrest the advantage to
himself by making better one, he assumes con.
tempt for it. In fact, good pun in season, is
good thing. AS of all good things there may be
too much of punning but that in no way affects
the moderate indulgence in it,
1t is true that Addison affected to despise pun.
ming as much as johnson did but in his efforts to
establish his theory he proves great deal too
much. He says, for instance: " AS true wit gen.
orally consists in this resemblance and congruity
of ideas, false wit chiefly consists in the resem.
blanCe and congruity sometimes Of single letters,
as in anagrams, chronograms, kilograms, and
acrostics sometimes of syllabes, as in echoes and
doggerel rhymes: sometimes of words, as in
puns and bubbles and sometimes of whole SEN
fences or poems, castinto the figures of eggs axes
or affairs" Now, in the first place, there can at
least be no poems sentences or words played
upon without ideas and, therefore, to that extent
his definition falls to the ground, When Sheridan
or friend III for instance, said
FL +. were punished
. w G2ala not o. i i, punish s9s s
Had he no ideas Not very exalted ones, truly :
butwt does not mean piety, or solemnity, or sane
timoniousness, or logic orpomposity, or mathemat
les. Wit means lightness anus ment, -frtvolity
if you will as compared with the grayer duties of
life. So much for his definition.
Then, again, the example Of names among the
greatest Of all ages shows his Judgment to be en-
trey opposed to theirs and little likely, therefore
to be correct. To quote from himself again, for
instance, he tells us: When Caesar was one of the
masters of the Roman mint he placed the figure
of an elephant upon the reverse of the public
money--the word Cesar signifying an elephant in
the Punic language. Cicero, who was so
called from the founder of his family, that was
marked on the nose with a little wen like a yetch
(Which is Cicer in LATIN, instead of Marcus Tu-
Illus Cicero ordered the words Marcus Tullus with
the figure Of vetch at the end of them, to be in
scribed on a public monument 4 In the
! same manner we read of famous building that
was marked in several parts of it with the figures
of frog and a lizard those words in Greek hay
ing been the names of the architects. Tt
is thought that the foreock of the horse in the an
tique equestrian statue of Marcus Aurellus repre-.
sents at distance the shape of an owl to intimate
the country of the statuary, who in all probability
was an Athenian Mr.. Newbery, to re-
present his name by picture, hung up at his door
the sign Of ger tree that had several berries
upon it, and in the midst of them great golden
n hung upon the bough of the tree. I
shall conclude this topic with rebus, which has
lately been hewn out in free-stone and erected
over two of the portals of Blenheim House, being
the figure of monstrous lion tearing to pieces a
little cock For the better understanding of which
device must aequaint my English readers that a
cock has the misfortune to be called in Latin by
the same word that signifies Frenchmau, as
lion is the emblem of the English nation"
Is it not ludicrous enough to find that in one of
the kinds of wit which he stigmatzes as false
because they do not consist in congruity of ideas
~ - ~ nav arc .Az
iue"s 'L' Wv conveys alo Ls II no1 oou 70 lhu
,til' u lla' loI WI gwen
I'm I.sa', u 0Isn' anu iloLi ClceIo 20
Na'5N Ne"De.yt anu 'A'nA'ns HilnSeH JuSIlleu ID
o0L'le ~
AS u ieU"Se9' ~ Vi an 'HV o'Ael SPeoies Oh
WI. ne conuellln'' 10 return 10 p'ls' tne hghesI
uu'n'rI'y ever On earu' WIN reverence be 1t
7I'', may We 'o0Hu ~, loI uieLi III Ine eIsuIeehth
verse Of 'ne s.Sleen'h cnaPleL Oh the Gospel ac-
corulhg 70 r. matthew altnougR euflousiy enough,
~ Gn8nsh y Is ehllfely oeSuoyeu ana the force
OIL the expression lost Even IN Greek 1t Is not SO
accurate as II was IN Fhe Syro-Chaldalc or Ara
,ua'e III "nlen tnls uospel Is generally oeneYed TO
nave peen originally written OF as IL Is IN French
toch ana refer nave no verbal eongrulty :;
2uU oepH"S was the name gwen 10 Bar
iona ana means rocE ana substituting
NePhas Lof refer ana iof rock we
nave 'Lie aGtual play upon 'ne "ofd ana tAe loea
II'el'ue0 W " conveyed ny H. as we nave III
rIeh'n u tne wolo FIeIfe' meaning precisely
%Has OTPI"7 "'"-rocA OF stone as wen as
'"g =, n"'ue e'gE.
IIs ,lu'n % 'le matter Is ILaV tnese opleoaohs
,il' III ms u wa arr ny sHe pufl'aL'7ills
u lltel"tuie AS 7'il5 Le'!slonst' oenouh0e' %
mortal SINS laugAI7f uahGing' taeatFlcals' Jew
al mr. Til " ~