Pundit

“ How often have the asperities incident to conversation been instantly softened down by the means of a well-timed pun? How many a rising storm of colloquial debate and controversial wrath has been dispelled by the same salutary agency, when wisdom would have failed to convince, or mediation to conciliate? The able punster has perhaps more frequent opportunities than any other character, of securing the blessing pronounced upon the peace-maker. ”

“ As we hope, gentle public, to pass many happy hours in your society, we think it right that you should know something of our character and intentions. Our title, at a first glance, may have misled you into a belief that we have no other intention than the amusement of a thoughtless crowd, and the collection of pence. We have a higher object. Few of the admirers of our prototype, merry Master PUNCH, have looked upon his vagaries but as the practical outpourings of a rude and boisterous mirth. ”

“ We may say with justice, "a pun spoken in good season, how good is it!" Time, and place, and persons too, must be regarded. The punster, while he enlivens conversation, is one of the greatest acquisitions to a company; when he only interrupts it, he is one of its greatest nuisances. ”

“ Hardly a man living whom I suspected of having worked for Punch, but I have communicated with him; scarce one but has afforded all the information within his knowledge in response to my application. Editor and members of the Punch Staff, past and present—"outsiders," equally with those belonging to "the Table"—the relations and friends of such as are dead, all have given their help, and have shown an interest in the work which I hope the result may be thought to justify. ”

“ The tenderness of the Staff for the honour, good name, and pre-eminence of Punch is delightful and touching to behold; the sentiment of a great past animates them all, and kindles in them the hope and ambition for as great and as proud a future. ”

“ We have already adverted to the general practice of this art among the members of our universities; we may likewise observe that the learned body of the law, a body distinguished perhaps beyond any other for their superior shrewdness, and extent of general information, are universally partial to it. The barrister who pleads, and the judge who directs, are alike ambitious to display their excellence in this highly [Pg 15] prized art; and justice herself, though for the sake of her character she must needs be blind, is rarely found deaf to the sallies of the punster. ”

“ But, my Lord, the task is a difficult one.
Mr. Justice Punch. If you find it beyond your powers, no doubt some of your colleagues will come willingly to your assistance.
Coun. for Def. No, my Lord, I do not mean what your Lordship means. I am quite capable of performing the duties it has been my pleasure and pride to accept.
Mr. Justice Punch (wearily) . Pray let us get on?
Coun. for Def. Do you not think it a grossly cruel and revolting thing that a man should give evidence against his near relative? ”

“ I trust you will not consider me indiscreet if I ask for—"
"My name and address," returned the fair maiden, smilingly, completing the sentence; "Learn, then, that I live at the bottom of a well, to which rather damp resting-place I am about to return; and that in England I am called Truth."
And as the lady disappeared, Mr. Punch fell from his chair, and awoke!
"Dear me, I have been dreaming!" exclaimed the Sage, as he left the meeting. "Well, as everyone knows, dreams are not in the least like reality! But the strangest thing of all was to find Truth in a Congress!" ”

“ Punch, ever ready to assist in a good cause, dispatched one of his City young men to make further inquiries, who reported that he had visited the Auction Mart on three successive days at lunch-time, and had asked one or two of the sharpest-looking of the crowd, as possible purchasers of the wondrous tea, to lunch with him, which they had willingly done; but, although he says he lunched them copiously, they one and all denied any knowledge of the tea sale in question.
“Shepherd v. Keevil.”—Mem; Christian maxim for a Pastor or Shepherd, “Do not think eevil of your neighbour.” ”

“ Punch, when the squire, the colonel, and the admiral are to be at once expressed, together with all that they legislate or fight for, in the symbolic figure of the nation, to present the incarnate Mr. Bull always as a farmer—never as a manufacturer or shopkeeper—and to conceive and exhibit him rather as paymaster for the faults of his neighbours than as watching for opportunity of gain out of their follies? ”

“ Sufficient, we are persuaded, has been said to satisfy all persons of the value and excellence of punning, except indeed the obstinately incredulous; and such, as a just punishment, we would excommunicate for ever from the enjoyment of puns, and the society of punsters. ”

“ A fat gentleman who was at a loss for the name of the nobleman who was shut up in a tower and starved to death, applied to the punster—"You-go-lean-O!" was the reply. [Pg 126]
"A tailor is the ninth part of a man," observed a would-be-wit, in the presence of a knight of the sheers: "But," answered R.V. "a fool's no part at all."
"He that will pun will pick a pocket," observed an old cynic. ”

“ May the time soon arrive, when every prison shall be a palace of the mind—when we shall seek to instruct and cease to punish. PUNCH has already advocated education by example. Look at his dog Toby! The instinct of the brute has almost germinated into reason. Man has reason, why not give him intelligence? ”

“ There were some people who never grew old (A Voice—"Bully for you, Mr. Punch!") and amongst them he might include his faithful follower, whom they had just unanimously re-elected Member for Barks. He trusted that in the future, his young friend would pursue the course honourably followed by him in the past. ("Hear! Hear!") This was the fourth Parliament to which he had been elected, and he trusted it would not be the last. (Cheers.) He might perhaps allude to a rumour current in the ordinary channels of information, which seemed to point to their friend's transference to another place. ”

“ If a man puns upon a stable, you may pun upon a cornfield, a meadow, a horse-park, a smith's or sadler's shop; ex. gr. One says, His horses are gone to rack.' Then you answer, 'I would turn out the rascal that looks after them. Hay, sir, don't you think I am right? I would strike while the iron is hot; and pummel the dog to some purpose.' [Pg 53]
R. 15. The Rule of Alienation; which obliges you, when people are disputing hotly upon a subject, to pitch upon that word which gives the greatest disturbance, and make a pun upon it. ”

“ But as the best of things are the most liable to abuses, so has the cause of punning suffered much from the want of judgment evinced by many of its votaries. Anxious, as far as possible, to contribute to maintaining this noble art in the possession of its well-merited reputation, we venture a few words of caution to some of its professors on the errors too frequently committed by them. ”

“ In awkward gestures awkward mirth be shown,
Yet, spite of gesture, man still laughs alone."
Now to the exercise of this high and distinguished prerogative of our nature, what is a more certain stimulant than a pun? If it be good, you laugh at the pun; if bad, at the punster; and in either case, he is almost certain to laugh himself. More [Pg 12] over, the punster is one of all others, "quem jocus risusque circumvolat;" not only witty himself, but the cause of wit in others; for it is rarely, indeed, in the social circle, that one pun is not the signal for a series of others. ”

“ Withhold from the child the letter of the sick parent; deny the fagged artisan his breath of fresh air and half-holyday once a week, under a religious pretext, and Punch will protest you a Pharisee, and tell you that you might as well forbid him to extricate an ox, or a Mr. Dibdin, from a pit into which, he might happen to tumble on the Sabbath day. And if lies or delusions are propounded to his credence, tales, whether of table-talking or picture-working, Punch will not be hindered from laughing at them by the circumstance that they are preached beneath the cover of religion. ”

“ Punch, such an extension of the House of Peers merely for the satisfaction of the vanity of a number of vulgar and puffing men would be a scandal to our civilisation. No, my good Sir, our noble order is large enough. ”

“ Under brighter and more inspiriting auspices comes another group. May I present them to my honoured Master? Eighteen Eighty-Eight this is Mr. Punch of whom you may have heard. Mr. Punch, this is Eighteen Eigthy-Eight of whom I expect you will hear a good deal. And here, happier in his possessions than King Lear, are his four daughters—Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. They come to wish you a Happy New Year in which no one joins so heartily as your humble friend and servitor, Toby, M.P. ”

“ Punch, who has suffered so much from the inordinate long-windedness of our public orators in general, and of our senators in particular, that he can thoroughly appreciate the misery which it must have inflicted upon the nation, has, of his own free motion and consent, meditated and devised a scheme, by which the nation will be released from the pain of hearing, and our public men from the labour of uttering speeches ”

“ You fill the earth with joy instead of strife,
You'll be the first of all your race—for all the smiles they wore—
That gave the country what she asked—from 0 to '94!
PROTEST FROM THE PLAYGROUND.
Dear Mr. Punch,—I know you sympathise with boys, and isn't it a jolly shame the masters set us such awfully hard questions in exams.? My Report has just come home, and my Pater has given me a fearful rowing, and all because it says "Wilkins Terts. (that's me) has done badly in Examinations, and does not take the trouble to use what intelligence he possesses." ”

“ When I reflected that Punch was a journal of public opinion, enjoying an immemorial repute and prestige as a faithful mirror of contemporary manners, I could not wonder that uncle and aunt Goodeve and my cousins were so astonished to see me behaving myself like a civilised being. ”

“ We find him hammering away continually for many years at the Law’s delays, its costliness, its inconsistencies, and the evils he has satirised, the inconveniences he has laughed at have largely been remedied. He makes fun of the jesting judge and the bullying barrister, while he is genially amusing at the expense of the timid and blundering witness, and the youthful vanity or elderly pomposity of members of the bench and bar. ”

“ The Punch man, passing on to the office of The Times, craved permission to see the Editor, through smoked glass if necessary. Having complied with a thousand formalities he was at last ushered into the presence. The great man was engaged in selecting the various types in which to-morrow's letters were to be set up—big for the whales and minion for the minnows. "I can give you just two minutes," he said, without looking up. "These are strenuous ti——, I should say days. Self-advertisement we leave to the lower branches of the family." ”

“ The highest honour ever done to his friend, was the selection of him by the men of Barks to represent them in the Commons House of Parliament. (Renewed cheering.) His fullest pleasure was to retain their confidence and to serve them and posterity to the utmost extent of his power and opportunity. (Disturbance at the rear of the hall; cries of "Put him out!" "Sit on 'is 'ead!") Mr. Punch begged they would do no such thing. It would be sure to give way under pressure. (Laughter.) In conclusion, he begged to thank them for the honour they had done his friend, and he might add, themselves. ”

“ MANAGER.—Hollo, Mr. Punch! your voice is rather husky to-day.
PUNCH.—Yes, yes; I’ve been making myself as hoarse as a hog, bawling to the free and independent electors of Grogswill all the morning. They have done me the honour to elect me as their representative in Parliament. I’m an M.P. now.
MANAGER.—An M.P.! Gammon, Mr. Punch. ”

“ Punch,—Although, being no longer a soldier in anything but name (and pay) , I pursue in India the inglorious vocation of a clerk, I am nevertheless still in a position to perceive the splendid qualities of the British Officer. Always a humble admirer of his skill and bravery in the field, I have now in addition a keen appreciation of his imperturbable sangfroid when confronted with conditions of great difficulty in the office.
Patriotic Old Person (to individual bespattered by passing motor-bus) . "There, young feller! ”

“ If any thing like serious or sensible conversation should be introduced, and there's no knowing what some dull fellow may not do, put an end to it at once [Pg 197] with a pun. If he talk of war, suppose he means the Pun-ic war, and say that in your battles you are with Livy—"Punctim magìs quam cœsim peto hostem." If he speak of the army, look archly at your wife, and say you expect soon to have a son in arms, &c. Should he mention the Prince of Wales, inquire, which is greater, the Dolphin of France or the Prince of Wales? ”

“ A youth was incurably addicted to the vile sin of punning. His father, who detested a pun not less than old Mr. Shandy himself, imposed a fine of half a crown for each commission of this offence. One day the father and son passing along, saw a man in the pillory. The punster could scarcely refrain from a pun with which he was big. The presence of dad, however, restraining his tongue, he indulged his wit by whistling, "Through the wood, laddie."
[Pg 172]
A MANAGER'S PUN.
A new comedy, on its third representation, being thinly attended, the author observed that it was all owing to the war. ”