New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-02-20
RECOLLECrIONS OF A READER.
BY CHARLES T. CONGDoN.
XIV.
VT AND HUMOR.


THOMAS MoRE-LoRD BAcoN-LA ROchEF"U-
c.rrn-ENGIIsH wGT-AMERicAN NEWSPAPER
JOKES. -,
washington Irving and his merry youthful
associates prefxed to their first literary venture
Salmapundi the following classical quotation
which thew professed to make from George Psalm
anaxar though I doubt whether anything like IL
Will be found in Georges books
In hoe est hoax, cum q gun, e. iS S1s%s
Fee, faw. fun.
i 20 extraordinary piece of poygot eccentricity
rrvino or some other Of the mad wags translated
into the vernacular as i0llows'
With baked aud boiled and steyed and toasted
And fried and brOed and smoked Ghu rOasVeu
We treat the town.
porbans IL would not be stTaining point to say
that there is here some indication OF tho wild and
extravagant humor to which the name OF American
has been given by foreign critics, with no particular
nronrietv When tho clown in the circus says
that his mother used to bake buckwheat cakes so
large that in cold weather they used them tor
bed-ouilts. tho Jest sounds like big bit out on
Rabelais, and might have come from the grotesquo
mouth of Panurge. When the Yankee enthusiast
in Dickens's novel says that his home is in the
setting sum-" he is really Miltonic without know
ing it and all the queer stories OF gigantic crops
of Titanic trees and of immeasurable pumpkins,
have their originals i'll such books az the travels o
Raron Munchausen. or in the various volumes OF
FacetiG from which many OF the Munchauseh
incidents are gathered All our notions Of the sea-
serncnt ore 70 be found in IA refined and submated
form in Paradise Lost Take the picture of Satan,
for instance, who,
With head upift above the wave, and eyes
That spnrklIng blazed, hts other parts beside
Prone on the floor, extended long aud large,
Lay floating many rOOu
The hnmorist tells us that colony sent out mis-
took the sea-serpcnt for an island, and having
landed on him, so to speak, built church ana
houses in a row. and SO lived happily until by n
single dive he made all end OF the settlement one
cannot read of this without being reminded of Mil
ton,s hinge Ieviathan which bewildered sailors
mistake for All island, and so make fast to him,
with fixed anchor in his scaly rind." The temp
tatop of the imagination is to enlarge rather than
IN diminish; and it is for this that heroes.
however short in tho flesh, are apt to grow gigantic
in history and tradition LOuis NV. was really
thought to have been a tall man until he was eX-
humed and measured. In the time Of Francis the
First. King of France, tnere was tradition that
Roland, nephew of CharcmaRne, was person OF
gigantic height. But Francis was sceptscal, and
ordered the sepulchrc of Roland to be opened. The
bones were gone, and so was the bow of the hero,
but the armOr being stil sound, the King ordered It
to he secured and then, trying it on he found that
il fitted him exactly though he not. rs Came
rarius says excessively tall or big" This reminds
us of the exceedingly tall clergyman of whom 1t
WAS said that he did not need to tray for bless
ings; he had only to reach up for them ana take
them al Hbitum And this again reminds us, as tins
instance of application. OF the Prayer III
Sheridans Critic:
Behold thy votaries submissive beg
That thou will dcgn To grant then "'l Ihey hHk
Assist them TO accomplish all tner rudt,
Aud sahctify whatever means they use
To gain them
By way of closing this episode of the large or lofty
or numerous let me tell story OF Ferdinand oil
Naples, that royal lover OF at least unlimited macea-
roni. Like many good housewives he thought that
libraries might lie too large After ho was well
seated on the throne from which Nurat had just
been expelled his Minister set down IN the budget
tho usual sum for libraries. whats thsp said
his Majesty; how many volumes have you al
ready 7" zone hundred and ffty thousand. SIRE
" Have thcy all been read through 1" No. sire"
"a Then buy no more until they have" Perhaps
housewives who have groaned over the perpetual
accnm ulation of books, for which home no longer
afforded ROOM will smypathizc with the NcapOtan
monarch.
The Greeks were excellent TESTERS quiet, piquant
and infallibly refined AtistOphancs IL coarse aud
sometimes rotously 60 but his coarseness is clean
like that of Rabclais, aud has none of the
smirch which befOuls English comedy. IL was not
considered decent for a woman, hardly for boy. to
be present at the presentation of the Athenan com
edies. In the Wasps" of ArstOphanei there is n
Dicast who seems to have been n sort Of Justice Of
the Peace, and in tue righteousness with
which he describes hls dinner he reminds
us of Shakespeare's justice. in air round
belly with good capon lined" He boast like Fall
staff Of mis- suppngand swilling ant riot ng, Of the
girl upon his knee, and of his appetites warmth and
Duration" Socrates has come down TO us nearly
like wisdom persOnifed that hardly anybody knows
anything about his w.t. his cOnvivial capabilities,
and those manners which made the charge of bufoOn
cry entered against him plausible one lie was,
perhaps. the ugest Of men, as testers have often
been for who can forget poor PiTon, the
French humorist. describing himself canddly as
shaped like the letter Il II tho truth is
told by tradition perhaps there never was an
uRer creature in human shape than this sage
of the ages with his BALD head, bullying eyes, sham
bling walk and nose lattencd to tue face--a sort Of
exaggerated Sienus. 1t is long skip from Socrates
to the Fdccti0 assigned to Hieroces. the Neo-Pla.
tOnst of the fifth century, but doubtless tho old
Greeks had their textbooks. as they certainly had
their iests. The funny stories of Ilieroclcs are
much the same which arc told of bu-naking Irish
men-his SchOlastikOs, who does and says all man-
of absurd thngs. has the true llbernian hcvOr.
lie was the original man who, when he had house
to sell, carried about brick as a specimen of 1t,
from which we keep the phrase specimen brick &"
to this day. He the first who. having heard that
crow would live thousand years. bought one to
try the experiment with Baconan precision. Cicero
we are tod compiled textbook. which is lost but
if there any good stories in it, probably they
were borrowed from the Greeks, for tho great grim
soldiers and conquerors OF the world did not have
much humor in their constitutions.
To come down nearer modern times, an ex client
story may be mentioned which the reader viii find
in the Coloquia" of Erasmus--a ghost seory. of
which the nxnhernnI finn mnkea tle l. nth, t.. M