National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1874-02-18
@atiaual gspmblifam.
COMPARISONS OF UUNOR.

/ COMPARISONS OF HUNoR.
rro, .ISH, SCOTCH AND AMERICAN WIT
The , 7ev. g. B. Porteous, D. D., of London
whose .ao 'ress in Brooklyn, short time 400
on "Enrlan rs Vices and Virtues" attracted
considerable /. ttention from It's candor, deliy.
cred lecture t East Side hall, in YorkvHle
New York, Mond, evening, upon 'Engiish
Scotch and Amer, IAN W.T." The lecturer
compared tho humoro, Is traits Of these nations.
He began I'm this way: s--s.. i.
Dr. Chalmer said there vas connection be.
tween divinity and love. Tn. Vt there can be .
connection between divinity and htmor an
Engiishman cannot understand, / ut an Amer1-
can can. In America nearly all relfo tons peo,ta
can crack joke and understand Il, too. fdont
know how to crack . joke myself, but Gsu,t
require . surgical operation, like the Scotch.
man, to understand II. Therefore the better tn
entertain, nay, to instruct you, have chosen
to let my eyes take the place Of the humorous
faculty, and will resdto you what other writer's
may say in regard to Wit. Let me anticipate
lecture about wit, or for ATtemus Ward 70
lecture ct PiccadIlly, but for . clergyman to
speak about fun seems little anomalous, II
not fndiscreet. I could not help being g
clergyman, but clergymen know something
ABOUT good eating, good drinking and good iv-
ING, and such things spe very humorous IN their
way. ana why should . clergyman be debasrsd
eating the culture of wit and humor in othepsf
Is there any moral or spiritual objection to
mans being witty as well % wisea Life Ia n
comedy Is well as tragedy. There Is another
popular objection to man and woman, as such.
INDUCING in wit. Life, the tf1eologian says, IL
very seriom. Life is very real, alse. 1t is .
tremendously serious life, with tremendous is
Sues. 1t is . Life Of manhood ndvomanhood,
which can neither be laughed out Of recogni-
ton Aor scornedfcr its lttleness. Bot It is also
q very comical thing. The serious Involves the
humorous. We ase made to realize tathe ut
most Az that We cam a. being social ,intellec-
tual dmoral. Anancient has said that wit
and woman constitute the happiness q man.
Now believe that nearly all New Workers are
teetotalers; whether they indulge really IN the
multifariols cocktails described by the press In
England, hA0w not. BIT we believe theathat
vine, wit ans woman aJs really the conetitu--
ent elements Of q healthy life. / don't apply
me terms in s1y lewd sense, but mentally.
che wits Of England may be divided into
the joyful wits and thirdly, the sadly Joyful
wits. begin with the sad wits. There are
shades and degrees of these-the dull wit, the
bright wit, the brotsn wit, the green wit, tho
opal wit. All wits, Is a rule, are sad men,
and this reveals q faet, deeper than It appears,
that al men who produce the greatest hunor
also produce the greatest sadness. The sad
wits Of England wese Tom Hood, Charles
Lamb, De Quincy, perhaps also one might say
Shakespeare. Tom Hood was nan of most
intense mental sadness Every h,o he writes
b dashed, not with gold, but With sadness. In
Ids highest flights, In His best fancies, in his
most pugent humor, thS man is sd. When
l-I 4, IL
Of the Shirt We would taink he YVES a humor-
LIST; on thu contrary, you would say he was of
all men the least calculated to crack . Joke.
Charles Lamb vas . sour Wit. With Hood all
men were hsethren; he suffered with the suffer-
Ing; but, with Lamb there Was too much little
ness o( nature to make him Q dual wit Only
when he gess to great dinaer does he become
! genial w.t. Lander belonged to the same
'chooli nmsed In the lapo ease, hewas always
With . cross. 1t was q crsss arising partly
rom nature and partly from grace. His wit
IN the whole Is sound and easy.
Now those other wits, who. are sadly sad or
'adly joyful. Among these must be classed
He looked like a landscape In an up
oar. have thought all along that humor went
llong with certain impoverishment OF nature.
had all the sadly joyful in him; he
hated shams as no man ever did; no man could
lift his gleeful fist and smite down. hypocrisy
md wrong as he. That made him great wit.
1O uu1cISt0Xm dILcmuS Twain
md Bret Harte, the ear alone is not sufficient,
put In these men 1t Is different. The lecturer
hen read the Jackdaw of Rheims" in the
Ingcldsby's Legends, as exemplifying this
,adly joyful mood.
The Scotch, from their long habit of cherish
ng Calvanistic doctrines, were csricatured. A
,eactionary school, Burns school, was estab-
ished. His genius Is good stuff it is honest,
rot defiant of religion. 1t would strip the mask
rom the face Of religion. 1t would speak Of
Tam O'Shanter, which shows the subtlest wit
With the highest mental qualities. / read this
ooem as an example Of religions wit. 1t was
hen read.1 The wits of Scotland were nearly
Ill religious. The Scotch clergy had a kind Of
Try humor, but 1t is nearly always on religious
subjects. Ramsay immortalized many in
stances of this. A hundred years ago they
we're notorious for 1t. The Scotchman now
1oes not. allow himself to perpetrate q joke
unless It has some remote reference to re-
igion. In England we never allow joke in
he pulpit, and Spurgeon is the only one who
1oes 90.
American wit, as It strikes me, is true wit;
Il is q wit Of exaggeration, the humor of gro
tesqueness. You are very new as q nation, but
Jour wit and humor are not young. 1t has .
smack of age and maturity. The wit of Train
and Artemus Ward and Bret Harte Is, strangely
enough, better known In England than here.
It Is so intensely dry and full, 50 exaggerated,
that 1t is impossible not to be drawn toward It.
It comes to US as q surprise as we'll as pleas
IRE. Here Is one of the most intensely witty
things. The lecturer then read Artemus
Wards visit to Brigham Young.1 This wit IL
shown not only by your humorists, but in your
iaily papers. Your alterations, your head
ngs Of paragraphs, your notices of events.
They are 90 dry as to sstound people. You are
saturated with humor and cannot help your
'elves. Your wit Is nearly all social. Ihave
not seen any thorough specimen of religious
Wit. Your wits are not capable of seriousness.
Here and there in Bret Harte there is line of
but only here and there. In Arte-
mus Ward there is here and there q melan-
holy note. Longfellow could not be witty.
The lecturer closed by stating that the an
tents knew how to laugh and the benefits Of
aughing. The world had had so much divinity
n the last twenty years that 1t now wanted
more wit, more cheerfulness, to give . silver