ANECDOTES OF HUMOURISTS.*

HERE are two more volumes of compilation from Mr. Timbs's unwearied pen, or perhaps we ought to say scissors. They are books likely to amuse most readers, for scraps of literary gossip and witty sayings and anecdotes of well-known talkers and writers can scarcely fail to be amusing. Open these Anecdote-Lives where we may, there is something to arrest attention, and if a collection of this sort is more alluring than instructive, it may at least be said, to the credit of the purveyor, that there is nothing unwhole- some in the kind of food provided.

The men designated by Mr. Timbs as the Later Wits and Humourists are Canning, Captain Morris, Curran, Coleridge, Lamb, Charles Mathews, Talleyrand, Jerrold, Rogers, Albert Smith, Hood, Maginn, Thackeray, Dickens, Poole, Leigh Hunt, and Father Prout. In addition to this assemblage of famous names, some anecdotes are brought forward in an appendix which are out of place in such a work, but probably the compiler had accumulated more materials than he was able to dispose of to ad- vantage, and was glad to find a corner in which to stow them away. This kind of literary manufacture does not call for criticism. What if in some instances these cuttings from newspapers have lost their point, or are out of place where we find them? what if many of the anecdotes given have been read again and again in previous publications ? what if, of these six hundred pages, several are with- out value? still there is so much that is genial and pleasant in the volumes, so much that is easily read and worth reading, that we turn the pages over willingly, and put them down in good-humour.

George Canning, wit, statesman, and writer of humorous verses, takes the foremost place in the " Anecdote-Biography," and once more the reader may laugh over the " Friend of Humanity," and the familiar song in which the author has immortalised the Univer- sity of Gottingen. The famous parody of Southey was the joint production of Canning and of Ilookham Frere, a man whose genius ought, one would think, to have left a deeper impression op our literature. To him, as much as to his friend Canning, we owe the wit of the Anti-Jacobin. He was a critic, a man of learning and fine taste, and excelled as a translator ; but he was also an accomplished man of the world, and his love of company inter- fered with his literary labours. Even genius cannot achieve im- possibilities, and the man of genius, like the ordinary student, must make his choice between the delights of society and the quieter but more solid pleasures of the study. Frere, it is said, was constitutionally indolent, and no doubt many a writer of far inferior powers has left a stronger mark upon his age. Some of his witty sayings are well worthy of remembrance ; and probably, as Mr. Timbs observes, he might have excelled in almost any species of composition. With all their shortcomings—and they are not slight —Eton may be proud to rank Canning and Frere among her moat famous scholars.

A year or two ago appeared an amusing volume containing a history of the Beef-Steak Society. Captain Morris was the poet of the Club, and through a number of years contributed in no slight degree to the enjoyment of its members. The song-writer and wit lived to a great age, and appears to have exhibited almost to the end of life a kind of youthful buoyancy. Mor- ris's songs were published in 1840, and have been since re- printed. As convivial productions they have considerable merit, and when sung by the writer in the hour dedicated to port-wine, were, we can well believe, highly acceptable to the " brethren." It is curious to note that the dinner-hour of the Club was origi- • Anecdote-Lires of the Later Wits and Humourists. By John Timbs, F.S.A. 2 vole. London: Bentley and Sons. 1874.

nally two o'clock, and that it changed with the fashion till eight became the time of meeting. Mr. Timbs, by the way, reminds us that fashion presides also over pronunciation. "In Rogers's youth, everybody said Lonnon,' not London.' Fox said ' Lennon' to the last, and so did Crowe." Captain Morris's office at the Club was to make the punch and to sing his own songs. In his old age he lived at Brockham, and Mr. Timbs, who in his younger days

wrote a Guide to Dorking, remembers seeing him in that town, dressed in a blue coat and buff waistcoat. " Coming one day into the post-office at Dorking, there chanced to be deposited a piano-

forte, when the old bard, having looked round him to see there were no strangers present, played and sang with much spirit the air of The girl I left behind me ;' yet he was then past his eightieth year." It is curious to observe how closely the humour of Morris's " Town and Country " resembles that of Hood in his ode on Clapham Academy, and in his " Retrospective Review." The metre, also, is the same. Three or four stanzas from Morris's poem may be given here. The quotation will show that if, as seems likely, Hood imitated Morrie, he far surpasses his original:—

" 0 well may poets make a fuss In summer-time and sigh '0 rag!'

Of London pleasures sick ; My heart is all a-pant to rest In greenwood shades, my eyes detest This endless meal of brick.

"My sun his daily course renews Doe east, but with no eastern dews; The path is dry and hot!

His setting shows more tamely still, He sinks behind no purple hill, But down a chimney-pot!

"Oh, but to smell the woodbine sweet ! I think of cowslip-caps, but meet With every vile rebuff !

For meadow-beds I get a whiff Of Cheshire-cheese, or only sniff The turtle made at Cuff's.

"Where are ye birds that blithely wing From tree to tree, and gaily sing, Or mourn in thicket deep? My cuckoo has some ware to sell, The watchman is my Philomel, My blackbird is a sweep !"

Does Coleridge deserve a place among the wits and humour- ists? Nothing that we know of in his writings entitles him to be classed among them, but amidst his copious talk he gave

vent occasionally to an incisive remark which has the charm of wit. A few of these sayings are transferred to Mr. Timbs's pages from the Table-Talk. Here are two or three of the best :-

"Some men are like musical glasses,—to produce their finest tones, you must keep them wet." " Truth is a good dog, but beware of

barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out." "A rogue is a roundabout fool, a fool in circum- bendibus." Coleridge's fame, according to Mr. Timbs, will prin- cipally rest upon his powers as a critic. We do not think so. He is a great critic, knit he is a greater poet, rich in imagination, and scarcely to be surpassed in the exquisite music of his verse. More- over, he is one of the most suggestive of thinkers, and some of the noblest writers of our day have acknowledged Coleridge as their intellectual father.

One of the pleasantest chapters in these volumes is that on Charles Lamb, although Mr. Timbs has nothing new to say of that inimitable humourist. Among Lamb's friends were many men who made a far higher mark in the world, but few of them have taken so secure a place in English literature. No new humourist, it may be safely said, will ever supersede Elia, whose style, like his thought, is wholly unborrowed. He lived, one would think, the saddest of lives, and the melancholy that hung over him gave a peculiar flavour to his wit. Barham has a place here, but several of the pages which are supposed to be devoted to this clever writer are given to other humourists. Sydney Smith and Hook, for instance, are brought up to repeat

twice-familiar jokes, and even Sheridan is made to give a contri- bution to the Barham chapter, which has, we need scarcely say,.

no connection with the subject. However, it is not necessary to quarrel with a story because it appears in strange company. So, at least, thinks Mr. Timbs, who pours out his good things very much at random, and actually includes Mrs. Piozzi among " later

wits and humourists," and inserts, neat to a paper on Hood, an article taken from the Times upon "Bad Spelling." If there be anyone who is not yet acquainted with Mr. Forster's "Life of Dickens," he may be pleased to read the epitome of it made by Mr. Timbs ; but we scarcely think it will give any reader pleasure to peruse the remarks of the Press on the death of the great

humourist, or even the more elaborate criticisms on his novels. The account of men who are less known, such as Dr. Maginn and Father Wont, will be read with greater interest. Those who care for Albert Smith will also find something to attract them in the compiler's elaborate account of that clever showman, for whom he evidently felt a personal regard.

As we turn over these pages, and are reminded of the brilliant sayings of well-known wits and humourists, the thought occurs that the man who exercises his wit freely does so very often, and can scarcely avoid doing so, at the expense of his politeness. Some of the cleverest and most brilliant of Dr. Johnson's bon-mots insult the persons to whom they were addressed. Robert Hall imitated Johnson in this respect, and almost equalled him in rudeness, and there can be little doubt that the most amusing scraps preserved in these volumes by Mr. Timbs break the law of charity. Take, for instance, an anecdote or two of Curran. " Whilst Lord Norbury was arguing a point with the counsel, and talking very loudly, an ass brayed from the street adjoining the court-house, to the constant interruption of the Chief Justice. What noise is that,' exclaimed his lordship. Oh, my lord !' retorted Curran, 'it is merely the echo of the Court.' " " Curran," said a Judge to him, whose wig being a little awry caused some laughter in Court, "do you see anything ridiculous in this wig ?" "Nothing but the head, my lord," was the reply. Curran was sometime* paid in his own coin, as on one occasion when he pressed Godwin for his opinion of a speech he had just delivered. "Since you trig have my opinion," said Godwin, folding his arms and leaning back in his chair with sang-froid, "I really never did hear anything so bad as your prose except your poetry, my dear Curran I" Douglas Jerrold's wit was often exerted in this kind of way, amusing enough to bystanders, but mightily unpleasant to the butt. Thus a member of his Club hearing an air mentioned, exclaimed, " That always carries me away when I hear it." " Can nobody whistle it ?" asked Jerrold. Again, after a supper of sheeps'-heads, an enthusiastic gentleman exclaims, " Well, sheeps'- heade for ever, say I." Jerrold : There's egotism !" Again, when a man told him he thought he should have died of laughter at some practical joke, Jerrold replied, " I wish to Heaven you had !" a remark suggested, perhaps, by Cowper's couplet :— "Ife thought he should have died, he was so bad ; His peevish hearers almost wished ho had."

Archbishop Whately never spared his joke for the sake of the sufferer on whom it was inflicted. "Pray, Sir," he said to a loquacious prebendary, who had made himself active in talking at the Archbishop's expense when his back was turned, " pray, Sir, why are you like the bell of our own church-steeple?"—" Because," replied the other, " I am always ready to sound the alarm when the Church is in danger." " By no means," replied the Archbishop ; " it is because you have an empty head and a long tongue !" And when a clergyman consulted Whately on the propriety of going to New Zealand on account of his health, " By all means go," was the answer ; "you are so lean, no Maori could eat you without loathing." Even Lamb made severe remarks when his- humour was aroused, and indeed, the wit or humourist who at

times respects the feelings of others exercises a restraint over himself as rare as it is admirable.