"Ex ambigua dicta vel argutissima putantur; sed non semper in joco, saepe etiam in gravitate versantur. Ingeniosi enim videtur, vim verbi in aliud atque caeteri accipiant, posse ducere."

_Cicero, de Oratore, Lib. ii. -- 61, 2._

TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

SIR JOHN SCRUB, BART.

AND WINE-MERCHANT,

THIS DEDICATION IS HUMBLY PRESENTED BY THE AUTHOR.

Your honour's character is too well known in the world to stand in need of a dedication; but I can tell you, that my fortune is not so well settled but I stand in need of a patron. And therefore, since I am to write a dedication, I must, for decency, proceed in the usual method.

First, I then proclaim to the world your high and ill.u.s.trious birth: that you are, by the father's side, descended from the most ancient and celebrated family of Rome, the Cascas; by the mother's, from Earl Percy.

Some indeed have been so malicious as to say, your grandmother _kill'd-her-kin_: but, I think if the authors of the report were found out, they ought to be _hampered_. I will allow that the world exclaims deservedly against your _mother_, because she is _no friend to the bottle_; otherwise they would deserve a _firkin_, as having no _grounds_ for what they say. However, I do not think it can sully your _fine_ and _bright_ reputation; for the _credit_ you gained at the battle of _Hogshed_, against the Duke of _Burgundy_, who felt no _sham-pain_, when you _forced_ him to sink beneath your power, and gave his whole army a _brush_, may in time turn to your account; for, to my knowledge, it put his highness upon the _fret_. This indeed was no less _racking_ to the king his master, who found himself _gross-lee_ mistaken in catching a _tartar_. For the whole world allowed, that you brought him a _peg_ lower, by giving him the _parting-blow_, and making all his _rogues in buckram_ to _run_. Not to mention your great _a-gillity_, though you are past your _prim-age_; and may you never _lack-age_, with a _sparkling_ wit, and _brisk_ imagination! May your honour also _wear_ long, beyond the common _scantling_ of human life, and constantly proceed in your musical diversions of _pipe_ and _sack-but_, hunting with _tarriers_, &c. and may your good humour in saying, "_I am-phor-a-bottle_," never be lost to the joy of all them that drink your _wine_ for nothing, and especially of,

Your humble servant,

TOM PUN-SIBI.

A SPECIMEN;

_A SPICE I MEAN_.

PREFACE.

_Haee nos, ab imis Pun-icorum annalibus Prolata, longo tempore edidimus tibi._ Fest.

I've raked the ashes of the dead, to show Puns were in vogue five thousand years ago.

The great and singular advantages of Punning, and the l.u.s.tre it gives to conversation, are commonly so little known in the world, that scarce one man of learning in fifty, to their shame be it spoken, appears to have the least tincture of it in his discourse. This I can impute to nothing but that it hath not been reduced to a _science_; and indeed Cicero seemed long ago to wish for it, as we may gather from his second book de Oratore[1], where he has this remarkable pa.s.sage: "Suavis autem est et vehementer saepe utilis jocus et facetiae c.u.m ambiguitate--in quibus tu longe aliis mea sententia, Caesar, excellis: quo mags mihi etiam testis esse potes, aut nullam esse artem salis, aut, si qua est, eam nos tu potissimum docebis." "Punning is extremely delightful, and oftentimes very profitable; in which, as far as I can judge, Caesar, you excel all mankind; for which reason you may inform me, whether there be any art of Punning; or, if there be, I beseech you, above all things, to instruct me in it." So much was this great man affected with the art, and such a n.o.ble idea did he conceive of it, that he gave Caesar the preference to all mankind, only on account of that accomplishment!

[1] Lib. ii. -- liv.

Let critics say what they will, I will venture to affirm, that Punning, of all arts and sciences, is the most extraordinary: for all others are circ.u.mscribed by certain bounds; but this alone is found to have no limits, because to excel therein requires a more extensive knowledge of all things. A Punner must be a man of the greatest natural abilities, and of the best accomplishments: his wit must be poignant and fruitful, his understanding clear and distinct, his imagination delicate and cheerful; he must have an extraordinary elevation of soul, far above all mean and low conceptions; and these must be sustained with a vivacity fit to express his ideas, with that grace and beauty, that strength and sweetness, which become sentiments so truly n.o.ble and sublime.

And now, lest I should be suspected of imposing upon my reader, I must entreat him to consider how high Plato has carried his sentiments of this art (and Plato is allowed by all men to have seen farther into Heaven than any Heathen either before or since). Does not he say positively, in his Cratylus, "Jocos et Dii amant," the G.o.ds themselves love Punning? which I am apt to believe from Homer's ?sest?? ?????, unextinguished laughter; because there is no other motive could cause such continued merriment among the G.o.ds.

As to the antiquity of this art, Buxtorf proves it to be very early among the Chaldeans; which any one may see at large, who will read what he says upon the word ???? Pun, Vocula est Chaldaeis familiarissima, &c. "It is a word that is most frequently in use among the Chaldeans," who were first instructed in the methods of punning by their magi, and gained such reputation, that Ptolemaeus Philo-punnaeus sent for six of those learned priests, to propagate their doctrine of puns in six of his princ.i.p.al cities; which they did with such success, that his majesty ordered, by public edict, to have a full collection of all the puns made within his dominions for three years past; and this collection filled one large apartment of his library, having this following remarkable inscription over the door:

??t?e??? ?????,

"The shop of the soul's physic[2]."

[2] Vide Joseph. Bengor. Chronic. in Edit. Georg. Homedidae. Scriem G.o.doliae Tradit. Hebraic. Corpus Paradoseon t.i.tulo Megill. c. i. -- 8.

Chronic. Samarit. Abulphetachi. Megillat. Taanit.

Some authors, but upon what ground it is uncertain, will have Pan, who in the aeolic dialect is called Pun, to be the author of Puns, because, they say, Pan being the G.o.d of universal nature, and Punning free of all languages, it is highly probable that it owes its first origin, as well as name, to this G.o.d: others again attribute it to Ja.n.u.s, and for this reason--Ja.n.u.s had two faces; and of consequence they conjectured every word he spoke had a double meaning. But, however, I give little credit to these opinions, which I am apt to believe were broached in the dark and fabulous ages of the world; for I doubt, before the first Olympiad, there can be no great dependence upon profane history.

I am much more inclined to give credit to Buxtorf; nor is it improbable that Pythagoras, who spent twenty-eight years at Egypt in his studies, brought this art, together with some arcana of philosophy, into Greece; the reason for which might be, that philosophy and punning were a mutual a.s.sistance to each other: "For," says he, "puns are like so many torch-lights in the head, that give the soul a very distinct view of those images, which she before seemed to grope after as if she had been imprisoned in a dungeon." From whence he looked upon puns to be so sacred, and had such a regard to them, that he left a precept to his disciples, forbidding them to eat beans, because they were called in Greek p?????. "Let not," says he, "one grain of the seeds be lost; but preserve and scatter them over all Greece, that both our gardens and our fields may flourish with a vegetable, which, on account of its name, not only brings an honour to our country, but, as it disperses its effluvia in the air, may also, by a secret impulse, prepare the soul for punning, which I esteem the first and great felicity of life."

This art being so very well recommended by so great a man, it was not long before it spread through all Greece, and at last was looked upon to be such a necessary accomplishment, that no person was admitted to a feast who was not first examined, and if he were found ignorant of punning, he was dismissed with ???? ??e, ??????, "Hence, ye profane!"

If any one doubts the truth of what I say, let him consult the apophthegms of Plutarch, who, after he had pa.s.sed several encomiums upon this art, gives some account of persons eminent in it; among which (to shorten my preface) I choose one of the most ill.u.s.trious examples, and will entertain the courteous reader with the following story: "King Philip had his collar-bone broken in a battle; and his physician expecting money of him every visit, the king reproved him with a pun, saying he had the key in his own hands." For the word ??e??, in the original, signifies both a key and a collar-bone[3].

[3] Vide Plut. Apophth. p. 177.

We have also several puns recorded in Diogenes Laertius's "Lives of the Philosophers;" and those made by the wisest and gravest men among them, even by Diogenes the cynick, who, although pretending to withstand the irresistible charms of punning, was cursed with the name of an abhorrer Yet, in spite of all his ill-nature and affectation (for he was a tub-preacher), he made so excellent a pun, that Scaliger said, "He would rather have been author of it, than king of Navarre." The story is as follows: Didymus (not Didymus the commentator upon Homer, but a famous rake among the ladies at Athens) having taken in hand to cure a virgin's eye that was sore, had this caution given him by Diogenes, "Take care you do not corrupt your pupil." The word ???a signifies both the pupil of the eye and a virgin[4].

[4] See Laertius.

It would be endless to produce all the authorities that might be gathered, from Diodorus Siculus, Herodotus, Proconosius, Bergaeus, Dionysius Halicarna.s.sensis, Lycophron, Pindar, Apollonius, Menander, Aristophanes, Corinthus Cous, Nonnus, Demosthenes, Euripides, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, &c.; from every one of which I should have produced some quotations, were it not that we are so unfortunate in this kingdom not to have Greek types sufficient for such an undertaking[5]: for want of which, I have been put to the necessity, in the word ???a, of writing an _alpha_ for an _eta_.

[5] Though it is no uncommon thing for a country printer to be without Greek types, this could scarcely be a serious complaint at Dublin in 1719.

However, I believe it will not be amiss to bring some few testimonies, to show in what great esteem the art of punning was among the most refined wits at Rome, and that in the most polite ages, as will appear from the following quotations.

Quinctilian says[6], "Urbanitas est virtus quaedam, in breve dictum, verum sensu duplici, coacta, et apta ad delectandos homines," &c. Thus translated, "Punning is a virtue, comprised in a short expression, with a double meaning, and fitted to delight the ladies."

[6] Inst.i.tut. Orator. lib. vi. p. 265.

Lucretius also,

Qu mags aeternum da dictis, Diva, leporem.

"G.o.ddess, eternal puns on me bestow."

And elsewhere,

Omnia enim lepidi mags admirantur, amantque Germanis quae sub verbis lat.i.tantia cernunt: Verbaque const.i.tuunt simili fucata sonore, Nec simili sensu, sed quae ment.i.ta placerent.

"All men of mirth and sense admire and love Those words which like twin-brothers doubtful prove; When the same sounds a different sense disguise, In being deceived the greatest pleasure lies."

Thus Claudian: