New-York tribune., 1868-07-31

dulging in an extraordinary diet, and repelling,
by their peculiar appetite, the advances OF the
most enterprising traveller. Here was pun
with a meaning: but the wiJticisms of which
we have given a specimen are like the cha
rades of Sir Benjamin Backbite, whose " first
" was the name of fish," and whose "secOnd
"was the name of great naval commander"
" I wonder, Sir Benjamin, that you never pub
"lsh ANYTHING" said Lady Sneerwell. "To
"say the truth, Madam answered the knight,
"'tis very vulgar to prnt"-and so sometimes
it is.
Another popularity of the publications under
consideration is that they are filed with slang
expressions and are written in a language to
comprehend which the next generation will
require glossary. The comic writer OF the
period is the mortal foe of English undefled,
and quite ready to adopt all the barbarous and
bastard phrases of the street, the cider-celiars
the dissecting rooms, and the stews The Lon
don Saturday Reriew, a newspaper which has
taken under its especial charge the tastes and
the morals of mankind, complains that English
women of birth, of fortune, iand OF presump-
tive good breeding, employ these verbal yul-
garites in conversation and yet so infectious
is bad example that we find this critical purist
using such phrases as "mOral mu6iShneSS," and
" SIo,O old mOrtals,n and cOndemning the sub
iccts of his rebuke as too fast and flourish
"ing.n The Pail Mall Gazette, in criticisng
the comic singing at present in vogue in Lon
don, says: at would not surprise us to learn,
" from the way we are tending in this direc-
" ton, that Belgravian sons and daughters
"sang 'The Eel-Pie Shop in the course of the
season, WITH to quote the neat and express
give language of On advertisement, n har-
monOus bOw-wOw chorus of all the jolly
dOgs.p
If the London comic journals are not, as we
suppose they are, in some degree responsible
for this access of ribald vulgarity, they are at
least doing nothing to diminish it. They are
the constant promoters of garrulous frivolity;
the gospel which they teach is that in life there is
nothing real and earnest, and that upon every
side society is simply ludicrous, while all
enthusiasm is absurd and all profession of sin
ccrity farccal. The human race is made up OF
hypocrites and fools; no statesman is to be
praised until he is dead or out of place; great
events, affecting the happiness of mankind, are
considered as only suggesting weekly witticisms;
starving Ireland inspires only a freshet of
puns, and bleeding Crete a supply of execra-
bic conundrums. To condemn this chronic
mania of looking for something to laugh at, is
by no means to recommend that wit, humOr,
irony, and repartccyshould be discarded in the
discussion of public or social affairs. 1t is
great mistake to suppose that there can be
no gravity in laughter, that it always
speaks tho vacant mind, and that
ho who uses the weapons of ridicule
can have no serious purpose There may be
tears of pity or of Indignation flowing freely
behind the mask of the broadest jester. Who
is graver than RabelaisP Who is more thor
oughy in earnest than DR.. South or Dr. Swift
Who can forget the tender humanity which re-
fined the widest sallics of Elia'
The master hand which drew the grotesque
outlines of Falstaff, painted in all the beauty
of manly melancholy the weary face of the
Lord Hamlet. The faculty of laughter was
given us, not merely for our immediate indi-
vidual enjoyment, but for its use in fitly ex-
pressing our sense Of absurd falsehood and
contemptilfs pretension yet it could hardly
have been intended that our existence
should be spent in continually " eiggling and
making giggle." 1t is not strange, when tii.
il supposed to be the sole end of humorous
writing that in this department there are so
many tokens OF Il visible decay. Mr.. Tnack
cray has followed Douglas Jerrold and Mr..
Hood and Mr.. Dickens alone remains to de-
! light the judicious, while aswarm of Theodore
Hooks, with all the heartessness and without
any of the talent of their prototype, keep up
constant supply of dreary drollery, and prove
to be rivals whom the clowns of the circus
have no reason to fear. We sometimes hear
the expression of regret that no comic journal
has yet succeeded in establishing itself in
America. Looking over these files of folly
which reach us from London, we can under
stand that want is sometimes an unspeaka-
bic blessing.