The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1873-12-11
Aneedote. Of Public lIor
Br Joux ". FoHsEr.

A professional joker or humOrist is some
times hopeless invalid, and often dread
fully low-spirited II am very unhappy,
doctor" said a bilious stranger TO cele-
brated physician "Can you give me a cure
for melanchOy!" eyes" was the reply
ego and see the inimitable clown, Gri-
maIdi." 'TAlas, doctor, was the rejoinder,
81 am Grimaldi."
Do you know that Joseph Jefferson suffers
unspeakably from dyspepsia, and that, pleas.
ant as he is on the stage, he is compelled to
observe the utmost care OF his health2 John
Brougham, wit himself, and the cause of
wit in others, suffers terribly from the govt.
| The grandfather of Joseph Jefferson, after
whom he was called, was very much afflicted
by rheumatism.
The bitter things Of Theodore Edward
Hook were often the result of his own irri-
liability and i'll health, one of which may be
directly traced TO this cause. ''Nobody
ever doubted my piety," was the remark TO
him of a talkatiye Pharisee. Il suppose
not, " was the retort, 'for nobody who ever
heard you would doubt your magpiety."
With his dazzling w.t. his audacious prac-
teal jokes, bis astounding appropriations,
his faculty of punning, and the facility with
which he turned out farces and vaudevilles,
he became the welcome guest in every cir
Gle. Appointed to Office at salary of $50,
600 a year. he was defaulter for 500, 600,
but escaped to resume his position as a di-
ner-Out, a comic writer and joker, and
finally died, broken in health and fortune,
aged fifty-three; to use his own words,
''done up in mind, purse, and body
His contemporary humOrist, Thomas
Hood, died at forty-seven, after a career of
varied success. Beset by pecuniary troubles,
though he wrote much that was sue
cessful, he composed some of his finest
pieces, among them the renowned 'Soug of
the Shirt, on a sick-bcd, from which he
never rose.
Dr. Samuel Johnson was another notable
instance. Afflicted from his birth with a
malignant scrOfula which permanently dis
figured his face, and injured both his sighs
and hearing, a prodigious worker and pro-
ducer of books and pamphlets, profound
and witty talker, wise, shrewd, satiric and
dogmatlc, many of his choicest triumphs
were the result of hand labor in the midst of
the most exquisite fortunes of body and
mind.
Perhaps no life and work better illustrate
my general idea than that of Robert Burton,
the learned British writer born 1876 and
driac, and his famous Anatomy of Melan-
oholy," from which many modern authors
have borrowed without giving any credit,
was treasure of profound learning, witty
illustrations, and quaint observations.
Charles Lamb was perhaps the best speci-
men of the class / am trying to describe
and died aged fifty-nine. He was, to use
his own picture of another, "a compound
of the Jew, the gentleman and the angel. "
He was the associate of Wordsworth, Hood,
De Quincy, Talfourd, Leigh Hunt, Southey,
ETC. He was amiable, fantastic, witty,
subtle in his style, and will live in literary
history as one of its most delightful charac-
tiers. There was insanity IN his family, and
at twenty he was himself six weeks in a
mad-house His sister Mary was frequently
insane, and killed her own mother in one
of her paroxysms. l always thought Joseph
/ G.. Neal, so well beloved in Philadelphia
/ for his quiet manner and easy humOr,
who preceded me in the PenRSytca-
MAN, and died July g. 1S4S, aged only
forty-one, greatly resembled Lamb in the
graceful beauty of his writings and the
/ feebleness of his frame. One of Lambs in
irmities was that he stammered. He was
sent by his physician to an English water
ing place to recover his strength, and wa:
put into the hands of two stout bathers. A:
they got him into the water, he said: my
doctor orders that l am to be dipped.
Eyes, your honor" was the reply, anC
down ne went As the little man rose il
terror he exclaimed: 81 mean that am t.
be dipped" ''Yes, your HONOR and il
they doused him again. As he came up III
recovered his speech and lost his temper
and shouted: damn it, my doctor said
was only to be dipped
Thomas De Quincy, the English ''opiun
eater" died in 1869, aged seventy-four, /,
great age for one whose life was wasted an6
great intellect destroyed by his slavlsh sur
render to an appetite he could not control
He was not so much humorist as dreamer
but some of his visions were gorgeous. an6
much that he wrote took high rank il
standard literature and secured him a large
circle of admirers.
might extend the list but think what
I have written will serve the purpose Tn,
comic men of our day soon wear out There
are few such perennial spirits Us Sidney
Smith and Francis Jeffreys, few such spark
ling and exhaustless fountains of fun an6
satire as Theodore Cook American humol
of this generation is typifed by the schoo
of Artemus Ward (another melancholy man.
who died very young in the zenith of hi.
fame), Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Petroleum
V. Nasty, and the Man of the Danbury
Noes. Unique as they are, they find it diff
cult to be always original. The demand
for their wares is greater than the supply
OF this fraternity Mark Twain and PetrO
leum Nasty are the steadieSt and most en-
during, but yet the latter (AIr. Locke
varies his lectures and letters with othel
work, and is far more journalist than
Joker He, at least, cannot be added to tn,
saturnine and dyspeptie catalogue. Life Il
/ him is n broad andStempting field; anC
/ though his letters from the Confederate
Roads may be out of fashion, he finds man,
other themes for his rare talent, and il
working the mine of fact he will, ! predict
be as successful as he has been in exploring