a little there. Point, before precision, is, it may be feared, sometimes even the historian's motto. There are veracious narratives we feel bound to accept on the word of our friends. We should not have believed the stories had any one else told them; as it is, we store them in our memories as splendid illustrations of the often-quoted saying of the poet, that truth is stranger than fiction.

Mr. Chadband, in his celebrated oration upon truth, gives us a suggestion as to the commonest danger to which that beautiful virtue is exposed. "If the master of this house was to go forth into the city and there see an eel, and was to come back, and was to call untoe him the mistress of this house, and was to say, 'Sarah, rejoice with me, for I have seen an elephant!' would that be Terewth?" Exaggeration is the most frequent fault in human speech. Often there is a kind feeling at the bottom of it. We want our Sarah to rejoice, and so the eel, in our description of it, enlarges itself into an elephant. But there is an opposite error, and of that Mr. Chadband proceeds to treat. "Or put it, my juvenile friends, that he saw an elephant, and returning said, 'Lo, the city is barren, I have seen but an eel,' would that be Terewth?" Why, of course not. There are people who fancy that while over-estimates are to be sternly condemned, under-estimates are innocent. Mr. Chadband's view is the right one; to tone the elephant down into the eel is as much an error as to magnify the eel into the elephant. We should "nothing extenuate," but we should be quite as careful not to "set down aught in malice." Archbishop Whately, in deal. ing with the folly of those who thought it was safer to believe too much than too little, remarked that the traveller who went a mile past a city was as far from it as the man who stayed a mile short of it.

People are bad hands at expressing an opinion, unless it is a very strong one, one way or the other; that is, those who are unpractised and who do not make a conscience of correct speech. But on the other hand it must be admitted that the careful truth-teller is sure to be misunderstood. He believes with certain modifications and qualifications; that is to say, answers his interrogator, he does not believe at all. Those who practise the art of telling the truth must not expect to have their sincerity appreciated by the common run of men. Indeed, one who

always told the unvarnished truth would deceive anybody. Some have the idea that you are equivocating if you will not answer them with a simple yes or no. "Do you love me?" says the enamoured young man to his pretty cousin. She has known him from a child, and does love him; but only with a cousinly affection. She cannot say "No," to his question; and, if she says "Yes," she will awaken in his tender breast hopes that can never be realised.

Doctors find out by a little practice that they have to make allowances as to the descriptions patients give of their symptoms. Excruciating pain means one thing with one patient and another with another. The poor creature who has not slept for a week does not get so much pity from the doctor as the more stoical sufferer who has simply had one or two bad nights. Appetite, too, is a comparative thing. A frightful loss of it does not invariably mean risk of starvation. The lady or gentleman without appetite can still pick a bit. Mental feelings are also presented in strangely erroneous forms. Hearts are broken and mended many times in a life. The widow, so strict in her mourning as only to play on the black keys of her piano, was comforted at last. How many of us would be able to answer promptly to the question: "Are you happy?" A good deal of mental analysis would be called for. We are sometimes happier than we think, sometimes not so happy.

A court of law is a fine school for the cultivation of exactness in speech, though, at the same time, it is the place where falsehood is rife. You cannot be prevented from perjuring yourself; but an attempt will be made to cure you of making loose statements. Cross-examination is not pleasant to those who are exercised thereby; but it is very profitable. How? when? where why? From the time of that clever old cross-questioner, Danielsee the Apocrypha-to that of the great legal lights who shine in our courts to-day, men have had reason to remember afterwards the hours they spent in the witnessbox. Stories of the supernatural are never to be trusted till they have passed through the ordeal of cross-examination. Just the prick of a pin from the learned counsel and the marvellous wind-bag collapses. A little forgotten fact is unearthed by a clever question, and the mysterious element in the case disappears, only a not very remarkable coincidence remaining.

Telling the truth is an art; but not nearly so difficult an art as telling lies. It is within reach of any man's powers, if he will take time and pains, to relate the thing that is; it takes a man of imagination and strong memory to bring forth the thing that is not. Besides, the liar cannot carry his lie all over the world and back to the creation; at some point or other he must piece it on to the universal truth, and, to do that neatly, he must be a good workman. But this is only part of the greater question as to vice and virtue generally. Virtue is for all who love it; in order to become an accomplished villain a man must have natural aptitude, careful training, and immense powers of application. And at any time the villain may be ruined, as a villain, by the unexpected coming to life of conscience.

FRENCH WIT AND HUMOUR.

IT is to be supposed that the wit and humour of every nation reflect to a great extent the national characteristics; and that, therefore, the distinctions between the wit and humour of England, and the wit and humour of France, are as marked as their intellectual, ethical, and social distinctions. Yet I am not sure that this law applies to the quality which we call humour, a quality which is less purely intellectual than wit, and less likely therefore to be affected by intellectual differences. Humour concerns itself with the superficial, the obvious, the commonplace; with strong contrasts, with bold comparisons; with things that are transparently grotesque or amusing; with incoherences that everybody recognises. Therefore, the humour of one nation is much more easily appreciated by another nation than its wit. The humour of Rabelais will be understood by hundreds of Englishmen when less than a score will appreciate the wit of Voltaire. For that matter, in France itself, the humorous is much more widely taken up by the common people than the witty; and here in England the crowd roar with delight at Dogberry, while they make scant response to the brilliant word-play of Benedict and Beatrice. The truth would seem to be that wit, as a high product of the intellect, can be relished only by cultivated minds. The nuances that differentiate the French from the English intellect are therefore the nuances that differentiate French wit

from English wit. That is to say, a greater incisiveness, a greater terseness, a lighter and a keener touch, and, I may add, a greater malignancy. Yet here again, when we come to look at the subject free from the influence of traditional criticism, we shall see that there is a closer similarity-at all events among the great masters-than is sometimes conceded. There are passages in Swift which Voltaire might have written, and in Voltaire which might have flowed from the pen of Swift. There are scenes in Shakespeare, which, allowing for dif ferences of manners and social customs, might have been composed by Molière, and vice vereâ. What one finds in French wit which one does not find in English wit is a certain academical polish of style; and what one finds in English humour which one does not find in French humour is a certain fulness of laughter and depth of enjoyment as of a man holding both his sides. There is more geniality of temper in our English humour, and even our English wit is better, natural, and more kindly. French wit almost always draws blood. Take that passage in "Alfred de Musset." Ulric says to Rosemberg: "You insult a woman whom you do not know." Rosemberg: "That, perhaps, is because I know so many others." Here, you see, the whole sex is made to suffer. The touch of the flail is so light, and yet how it cuts! You can hardly imagine an English writer putting so merciless a severity in the mouth of any of his characters.

This cruelty-this feline cruelty-this love of blood and wounds in the sayings of most of the professed French wits is to be detested. Take Rivarol, for instance. One day at table he made a bêtise in the hurry of conversation, and all his companions immediately exclaimed against him. "Strange," said he, "Strange," said he, "that I can never say a stupid thing without somebody crying out, 'Stop thief!"" There was at Brussels a certain abbé, known as the Abbé Roulé, because he had made a vow to wear his hair roulé, or rolled up, until the Revolution came to an end. In his hearing Rivarol was censuring the conduct of a certain party: "If they had had but a little more sense," said he, "they would have avoided this fault." "Sense! sense (esprit)!" cried the abbé, "it is that which has destroyed us!" "Then, sir," said Rivarol, "why have you not saved us?" Joseph Chénier was accused-unjustly, by the way of having left his

brother, the poet André Chénier, to perish on the scaffold without making any effort to save him. Thenceforward Rivarol spoke of him as the "brother of Abel Chénier."

Of the universality of humour which I have claimed as being much alike in character in all nations, an example occurs to me.

A Gascon, relating an adventure in which he and his sword had been engaged, confessed to having received a box on the ear. "Ah, ah! and what then? what then?" cried his hearers. "What then Oh, the man was buried next day !"

The pleasant exaggeration of this is quite American. Instead of " a Gascon read "a man down West," and the reader will perceive nothing inappropriate in the anecdote. The next is "quite English, you know."

The Duc de Roquelaure was far, very far, from being handsome. One day he met in the street an ugly Auvergnat who had some petition or memorial to present at Versailles. He immediately introduced him to Louis the Fourteenth, remarking that he was under a special obligation to the gentleman. The King granted the favour asked, and then enquired of the Duke what was this pressing obligation. "But for him, your Majesty, I should be the ugliest man in your dominions."

This reminds one of the story told of John James Heidegger, manager of the Opera House in the Haymarket in the times when George was King. He, one day, laid a wager with the Earl of Chesterfield that he would not find in all London an uglier face than his. After a long search the Earl produced a woman of St. Giles's, who at first seemed to outvie the manager; but when the latter put on the woman's cap, he was allowed to retain the palm of-ugliness.

Now, I take this story from the "Encyclopédie"; but it has been associated with Lady Mary Wortley Montague, and also with Madame de Staël.

Perhaps the following is distinctly French, though it is but a bit of exaggeration :

The illustrious Crillon, when beginning to learn dancing, was ordered by his teacher: "Now bend-now retire!"

"I would have you to know, sir," replied Crillon, "that Crillon never bends and never retires!"

The following sarcasm against episcopal wrong-doing might have proceeded from an English wit:

La Mothe d'Orléans, Bishop of Amiens, was in attendance, with several other prelates, on Madame Louise de la Vallière, some time after that Princess had taken her vows. The prelate stood apart and, apparently, took no interest in the conversation. At length, Madame Louise asked him of what he was thinking.

"Madame," he replied, "I dreamed that I was in Paradise, and that some one having knocked at the gate, Saint Peter asked who it was. 'A Carmelite.' 'Let her enter.' A few moments, and there was another knock-the same enquiry, the same reply. Then came a third rapping: 'Who is that?' 'A Carmelite.' 'Ah, good Heavens, nobody comes here but Carmelites !' After a while there was a fourth summons at the gate. 'Is that another Carmelite?' 'No, your Saintship, 'tis a Bishop.' 'Ah, ah,' said Saint Peter, he is welcome, for 'tis centuries since a Bishop passed this way!'"

One can hardly imagine our English country clergyman making as witty a reply to a remonstrating parishioner as the village curé in the following story:

He had preached to his flock in the morning that reason was a bridle to our passions; but, alas, in the evening he was found so exceedingly tipsy that he had to be carried home. Next day, one of his parishioners asked him what he had done with his bridle on the previous evening.

"Faith," said he, "I had removed it, that I might drink."

Perhaps an English usurer would hardly care to imitate Samuel Bernard, who, when the Marquis de Favières-notorious for his impecuniosity-said to him one day :

"Monsieur, I am going to astonish you. I am the Marquis de Favières; I do not know you, and I come to borrow five hundred louis."

"Monsieur," replied Bernard, "I shall astonish you much more. I know you, and I am going to lend them."

The reader will remember the discovery of the stone with the supposed Roman inscription, which Monkbarns makes and Edie Ochiltree exposes, in "The Antiquary"; and the similar discovery in "Pickwick," where the alleged Latin characters turn out to be those of "BILL STUMPS HIS MARK." Well, this joke is neither Scotch nor English in its origin; but may be traced to the "Mémoires de Ribeaumont," ed. 1777-where we read that, during certain demolitions and excavations which took place at Belleville,

I

I

E M I

H

D E SANES.

To what language these letters belonged, or what they signified, no one could conjecture. The most competent authorities were consulted in vain. At length, the beadle of Montmartre, happening to hear of the stone and of the perplexity which it had caused, asked permission to see it, and immediately solved the problem. The letters, he said, framed a simple enough direction: "Ici le chemin des ânes" (this is the donkeys' path). Formerly some plaster quarries were worked at Belleville, and the stone had been put up to notify to the peasants the route by which they were to take their animals to the loading-place.

The humour here is of a cheap and obvious kind, and intelligible to almost everybody. It will tell in any language; and the idea lying at the bottom of it the want of common-sense on the part of the learned, and their tendency to give to trifles an undue importance has always been popular in humouristic literature.

Now let us pause to enquire-What is Wit? and what is Humour Barrow's famous definition of wit seems to us less a definition than a description; and he himself admits the difficulty of defining that imponderable quantity, when he describes it as "a thing so versatile and multiform, appearing in so many shapes, so many postures, so many garbs, so variously apprehended by several eyes and judgements, that it seemeth no less hard to settle a clear and certain notice thereof than to make a portrait of Proteus." He goes on "Sometimes it playeth in words and phrases, taking advantage from the ambiguity of their sense or the affinity of their sound; sometimes it is wrapped in a dress of luminous expression; sometimes it lurketh under an odd similitude. Sometimes it is lodged in a sly question; in a

to say:

riseth only from a lucky hitting upon what is strange; sometimes from a crafty twisting obvious matter to the purpose. Often it consisteth in one knows not what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how."

The last sentence goes to the root of the matter, for the foundation of Wit would seem to be surprise. The essence of a jest lies in its unexpectedness. This was pointed out by Addison. Locke describes Wit as "lying most in the assemblage of ideas, and putting those together with quickness and variety, wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy." Addison added to these properties the requirements of delight and surprise, and, moreover, dissimilitude. 'Every resemblance in the ideas," he observes, "is not that which we call Wit, unless it be such an one that gives Delight and Surprise to the reader-particularly the last." he adds: "It is necessary that the ideas should not lie too near one another in the nature of things; for, while the likeness is obvious, it gives no surprise."

And

Wit, then, is the sudden and abrupt combination of dissimilar ideas in such a manner as to delight by surprising us.

As for Humour, we may take Leigh Hunt's definition of it as "a tendency of the mind to run in particular directions of thought or feeling, more amusing than accountable." It deals in "incongruities of character and circumstance," as wit deals in incongruity of ideas.

These definitions apply to French wit and humour as exactly as to English wit and humour. The difference in method or expression is, as I have said, a national difference; that is, it results from a difference in the national characters.

The Marshal de Bassompierre was employed by Henry the Fourth on several embassies. He once told the King that, when he went as ambassador to Spain, he

"Hab, hah, what a comical sight!" laughed out the boisterous King; "an ass upon a mule !"

"Yes, sire," said Bassompierre, coolly; "I represented your Majesty."

Malherbe, the soldier-poet, had a pleasant way of correcting his valet. He allowed him ten sous per diem—which in those days was considered a liberal wageand when the man had offended him, he would say: My friend, in displeasing one's master one displeases Heaven; and when one displeases Heaven, one must, to obtain pardon, fast and give alms; therefore I shall retain five of the ten sous I pay you daily, and give them to the poor, in your name, as an expiation of your fault." As a necessary result, the valet was very frequently in debt.

To a young lawyer who submitted to him an exceedingly indifferent copy of verses, Malherbe said, brusquely: "Had you no alternative between scribbling this trash and hanging yourself?"

In a certain village a tailor was condemned to be hung. The inhabitants sent a deputation to the judge, and modestly pleaded that his death would be a public inconvenience, since they had but this one tailor. "Spare him to us, therefore; and if you want to hang somebody, we have two carpenters, and can easily spare one of them."

We all remember Puff's ingenuous excuse for plagiarism in "The Critic;" асcidental coincidence" it is now entitled. "Haven't I heard that line before?" enquires Sneer.

"Yes," says Dangle, "I think there is something like it in 'Othello.'"

"Gad," exclaims Puff, "now you put me in mind on't, I believe there is—but that's of no consequence; all that can be said is, that two people happened to hit upon the same thought and Shakespeare made use of it first, that's all."

Sheridan was anticipated by a French writer of the seventeenth century, the Chevalier d'Aielly, who, in an epigram, complains of having been anticipated in his good things:

Dis-je quelque chose assez belle?
L'antiquité tout en cervelle
Prétend l'avoir dite avant moi.
C'est une plaisante donzelle !
Que ne venait-elle après moi?
J'aurais dit la chose avant elle.

(Do I say anything tolerably good? Antiquity, in a freak of imagination, pretends to have said it before me. A jocose kind of damsel this! Why did she not come after me? Then I should have said it before her.)

I now turn to the French "Ana"-a formidable collection in very large volumes

And this:

A pastor was examining the children of his parish in their catechism. The first question was worded: "What is thy only satisfaction in life and death?" The young girl to whom it fell laughed, blushed, and held her peace. The priest insisted on an answer, but was startled when the maid replied: "Well, if I must tell, it's the young shoemaker in the Rue des Agneaux."

This mild joke occurs in the "Mémoires de la Princesse Palatine"; yet I recently saw it trotted out in an American paper as something new, and localised in the United States.

Then follows a specimen of provincial humour- unconscious, of course. Men laughed at it of old-who will laugh now?

A Languedoc magistrate, whose wife had died at Béziers, was anxious she

as understood by men of letters in the sixth century. Afterwards we will take two or three specimens from later writers.

Here are a few of the "Ana" which the learned Poggio thought worthy of preservation :

The city of Milan rejoiced, at one time, in a physician who effected rapid cures of imbecility. To restore his patients to their right minds, he fastened them up to the knees, or higher-according to the measure of their folly-to a post set in a particularly filthy pond in his courtyard, and there he left them without food until they showed some signs of reason. One day a lunatic was brought to him, whom he immersed in the water up to his thighs. When he had suffered this "cure" for a fortnight, he begged the physician to release him, which he did, on condition that he did not leave the courtyard. It chanced that a cavalier passed