IS IRONY A FORM OF THE LUDICROUS P I N the

interesting paper on "The Theory of the Ludicrous '' which Mr. Lilly contributes to the May number of the Fortnightly Review, he gives us twenty-one species of the genus " ludicrous," as well as Schopenhauer's acute explana-

tion of the essential character of the ludicrous, in which be concurs. According to Schopenhaner, if we understand him rightly,—like most German thinkers, he is a little too technical to be perfectly lucid,—there is always something para- doxical in the ludicrous, and what causes laughter is the realising of the paradox in the same instant in which you also realise how truly from one point of view, and one only, those objects are related to each other which from every other point of view are essentially incongruous. For instance, when Hood says in "Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg," that Miss Kilmansegg was killed-

" By a golden weapon not oaken, In the morning they found her all alone Dead and bloody and cold as stone, For the leg, the golden leg, was gone, And the golden bowl was broken,"— the essence of the ludicrous element in the passage is the contrast between the meaning of the word " golden " as applied to the golden bowl, and the same word as applied to a manufactured object like the golden leg, although both, in a different sense, were really precious. And again, when Hood says a little further on,— "Gold still gold, it haunted her yet, At the Golden Lion the inquest mot, Its foreman a Carver and Gilder. And the jury debated from ten to three, And they brought it in as fel° de re Because her own leg had killed her,"— Schopenhaner would regard the essence of the ludicrous in that verse as the paradox of treating the use of her gulden leg as the instrument of her murder, just as if she were quite as personally responsible for what that lump of gold had effected, as she would have been if it had been an organic part of her own body. Well, that no doubt is a perfectly true account of the essential element in everything ludicrous. To give another example of the same incongruous mixture of

likeness and unlikeness,—Dickens describes a London mother as seizing on her naughty child, and that seizure as being followed "by a rapid succession of sharp sounds resembling applause," resulting in the discovery of the child on the coolest paving-stone of the court, "weeping bitterly and loudly lamenting." Here the ludicrous element in tho passage is the really close connection and yet striking contrast between the sound of applause and the sound of a particular kind of humiliating punishment applied to a naughty child. Scbopen- hatter's analysis of the ludicrous is essentially sound, though he makes it needlessly pedantic by his use of such words as

" concept " and "subsumption" in relation to so very simple and elementary a matter. To take a third and still simpler instance of the ludicrous, a man who was watching the motions of a herd of cows saw one of them running very fast down hill suddenly turn a complete somersault, and the startling contrast between the lumbering figure and motion of the cow,

and the apparent agility of the feat, set him off into a fit of laughter from which he found it hard to recover; the clumsi- ness and the apparent agility were at once so inconsistent with each other and yet so closely united in the same physical act. In all these cases Schopenhauer's explanation of the essential character of the ludicrous applies strictly.

But is it not also essential to the ludicrousness of any paradox that the incongruity should be, or should at all events appear to be, real, and not merely apparent F We ask this question because Mr. Lilly includes " irony " among

the species of the ludicrous, whereas the higher irony,—irony such as we sometimes find in Carlyle and sometimes in Swift, irony such as we find in Sophocles, irony such as we find in Elijah and Isaiab,—seems to us not in any sense ludicrous, but in the highest sense sublime or even pathetic. Must it not 'be said that where the analogy which furnishes the principle of the likeness goes much deeper than the superficial paradox which furnishes the basis of the contrast,—and this is always the case in the higher irony,—the effect is not ludicrous at all, and may be even profoundly and overpoweringly solemn, like that stroke of the two-edged sword which divides asunder spirit -and flesh ? When Elijah taunted the priests of Baal with the suggestion that their god was probably on a journey, and that they would have to shriek much louder to gain his atten- tion to their prayers, if indeed they could gain it at all, surely the irony was not a species of the ludicrous, but a species of the most sublime invective, as it proved itself to be when it excited the priests of Baal to self-torture in order that they might arrest their god's attention. To ensure any paradox containing the essence of the ludicrous, the analogy must be more apparent than real, and the paradox essentially real and not merely apparent. In all ludicrous conceptions the incongruity is of the essence of the situation, and the congruity is purely superficial. It is the incongruity as brought out by the merely superficial congruity which excites the laughter. But in all the cases of piercing irony, the real resemblance is far deeper than the superficial contrast. Even when an idle boy translated " ignavia " "ignorance," an I the master interposed, " No, Sir, but the cause of ignorance," the irony was not a signal for laughter, but for serious reflection in those who could at all appreciate its force ; and that is but a very feeble illustration of the depth to which irony often goes in cutting to the heart of hearts. Bishop Thirlwall, in his striking essay on the irony of Sophocles, gives many illustrations of the depth and poignancy of that attitude of mind, and we should -say that in its higher phases it passes quite out of the category of the ludicrous into a region far beyond 'the play of the fancy or the imagination, and indeed may be said rather to draw blood than to excite laughter. May we not call it an instance of the very highest irony when our Lord replies to the sons' of Zebedee request that they might sit the one on his right hand and the other on his left in his kingdom, " Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup which I shall drink of, and 'to be baptised with the baptism that I am baptised with P" And when they assure him that they are, he goes on sadly, 4' Ye shall drink indeed of my cup and be baptised with the baptism that I am baptised with, but to sit on my right hand and my left is not mine to give except to those for whom it is prepared of my father." No irony can be deeper than that, and yet instead of exciting laughter it goes far deeper than the source of tears.

No doubt there is a kind of bitter irony, such irony as Heinrich Heine's, which is piercing irony and yet in some sense ludicrous because while the depth of the analogy between very closely related ideas is undeniable, Heine manages to make the superficial contrast so striking and emphatic that the incongruity predominates for the moment over the radical esemblance. Matthew Arnold said of him in some of his clumsiest, but also his most searching, verse :—

" The Spirit of the World

Beholding the absurdity of men Their vaunts, their feats,—let a sardonic smile For one short moment wander o'er his lips.

That wade was Heine! Fur its earthly hour

The strange guest sparkled; now 'tis pass'd away."

And that was true enough. Heine's irony was the keenest irony, and yet he rioted so in the mere sense of the absurd, that he mixed absurdities with his deepest and truest irony (as also did So/at). But none the less, if you examine Heine's best irony, you will find the absurdity adventitious and easily removable, while the depth of the analogy on which he strikes is real and serious enough. For example, take the following given by Matthew Arnold as an example of Heine's in- domitable ironic spirit :- " I have said he was not pre-eminently brave; but in the -astonishing force of spirit with which he retained his activity of -mind, even his gaiety, amid all his suffering, and went on com- posing with undiminished fire to the last, he was truly brave. Nothing could clog that aerial lightness. 'Pouvez-vous siffier? ' his doctor asked him ono day, when he was almost at his last gasp ;= siffler,' as every one knows, has the double meaning of to whistle and to hiss : Helas ! non. was his whispered answer ;

pas memo une comedic de M. Scribe!' M. Scribe is, or was, the favourite dramatist of the French Philistine."

The sarcasm at M. Scribe is very bitter and laughable, but Heine's attack upon himself as wishing to expend his very last breath in hissing a bad French play, was sadder and more trenchant irony than any sarcasm on M. Scribe. Irony, as a rule, is not ludicrous. It is ludicrous only when it touches very trivial subjects. Its deeper stroke is not only serious, it is often profoundly tragic. Hence, though irony may be, and often is, a form of the ludicrous, it is only the lighter specimens of it which can be so treated. The deepest irony is not a provocative to laughter, for it often goes too deep for tears.