Franklin and John Randolph made notable puns, those of the latter often showing the rapier point and thrust of satire. In Congress, upon one occasion, Mr. Archer of Maryland, whose name was on roll-call after that of Oakes Ames, voted by mistake and voted again at the calling of his own name, whereupon someone exclaimed: "Insatiate Archer would not one suffice?" and Archer instantly replied: "A better archer would have had better aims!" So Americans are not likely to lose the spirit of their ancestors in punmaking.

The parody has not the excuse of the pun, as it is the palpable evidence of malice propense, and amusing as it may be, is not so useful or admirable. It neither reproves nor corrects, except where it takes the form of burlesque which is broader and farther reaching in effect. Hipponax, a Greek comic poet of the sixteenth Olympiad, is said to have invented it and whatever may be said in its favor, it does not hit at one blow, and not unfrequently proves that the hand which cannot erect a hovel, may destroy a palace. Our papers and books abound with spurious humour, and, paradoxical as it may appear, this charge cannot be laid to the nonsense books which constitute a real contribution to the pleasure of nations. Ruskin pronounced Edward Lear's Book of Nonsense as most beneficent and innocent, and I confess I do not admire the taste of the man who does not find the lyric, entitled "The Owl and The Pussy-Cat," delicious. The wisest men ought to relish such nonsense and I think they do, and Lord Chatham uttered the words of wisdom when he said: "Don't talk to me about sense. I want to know if a man can talk nonsense!"—and to be able to write delightful non

sense is a gift not to be despised by any who know Lear, Gilbert and Burnand, or have ever read "Nonsense Botany," which humourous. production ought to cure the severest attack of the dismals.

American humour lies chiefly in exaggeration, although Mrs. Partington's account of the "two buckles on her lungs," and her views of an "unscrupulous Providence," and willingness to attend divine service "anywhere the Gospel was dispensed with," possess a charm quite independent of this national characteristic, as does the narration given. by Sam Patch of the "aqueous Empedocles who dived for sublimity." Some of the newspaper stories are not without a kind of humour, as for instance, the announcement that a woman attempted to kindle a fire by means of kerosene oil, and the editor simply added, without comment, that the attendance upon the funeral would have been larger but for a wet day! Imagination, of course, supplied all the details, but much that is put forth as humour and wit in our current publications is a spurious article, and as Addison says, only resembles true humour as a monkey resembles a man.

It has been said that French humour is of the passions, German is abstract, Italian esthetic, and Spanish romantic, while English humour is of interest and social relations, which general classification is doubtless correct, like rules in grammar, with the usual number of exceptions. The humour of the Briton is of such stout fibre that he is prone to think that other nations scarcely know how to be funny, and the Frenchman returns the compliment in coin of like value. I distinctly remember an accomplished French gentleman at Biarritz who laughed. immoderately at what he called the

stupidity of English jokes, and when I asked him if he did not think the English had a fine sense of humour, he answered with an eloquent shrug of the shoulders, which put an end to further interrogation. Not three weeks afterward, in a pension in Lucerne, an Englishman mentioned an incident and conversation in which a German and Frenchman took part, and added his comment: "That is their absurd idea of humour!" The American hesitates not to speak of the Englishman's density in apprehending a jest, and the Englishman declares that a Scotchman's skull requires trepanning to let in a joke, while the Irishman accepts nothing as real humour which has not the breadth and quality of his own. It happened during a sojourn in the moutains, that our landlord remarked to us at breakfast, that he had been "much inconvenienced lately as to milk." I could but recall the rule and example in Latin grammar concerning use of dative, and in our walk to the spring I laughed about the landlord's way of putting his embarrassment. A very sensible man in the party, having occasion to speak of me, subsequently remarked with utmost seriousness, "She seems an innocent kind of person, how she laughed because the landlord couldn't get milk, there is nothing funny in that!" So true it is that a jest's prosperity lies in the ear of him who hears it! But the most obdurate national prejudice will not deny the possession of both wit and humour of highest degree to the English, nor the wisdom and exquisite grace which constitute the charm of the best French wit. As a French philosopher says, "La pointe Francaise pique comme l'aiguille pour faire

passer le fil,"-and in gracious combination of sentiment and humour, French literature abounds, as when Sophie Arnauld says, in her sigh for lost youth: "Les heureux jours ou j'etais si malheureuse!" What a history in that one sentence !

The charm and vitality of Spanish humour will not be disputed by those who are familiar with the proverbs of the people. Don Quixote could hardly have been born of another nation, and Cervantes declares that his work would have been more humourous but for his fear of inquisitorial investigation. The most illustrious age of Italian literature is illustrious with humour, and the grave and reverend Florentine seigniors did not disdain the pastime of practical jokes, while the repartee of a Florentine was as celebrated as the song of a Neapolitan or the art of the Venetian. The German may reach his joke by a more circuitous route than the Frenchman, but he arrives, and the pedantry of the Hollander in his most scholarly periods did not blind him to the seductions of humour. Even the grimness of the Puritans sometimes relaxed, as in the pun, "Great praises to God and little Laud to the devil,"—and, to quote Macaulay, although they frowned. at stage-plays and amusements, they did smile at massacres! humour, like the sunlight, shines for all, and like the relief-corps in battle, offers comfort in disastrous emergency. It is said that when the English were repulsed by the Russians at Redan,-driven helter-skelter into the trenches and falling over the wounded and dead, they burst into roars of laughter at their own ridiculous plight.

So

There are persons born without humour, as there are persons with

out sight or hearing, but, like Falstaff, they are the cause of humour in others, as when the Scotchman and his wife discussed the doctrine of election: "And how many elect on earth now?" "I think, Janet, about a dizzen." "Hoot, mon, nae so many as that." "Why, Janet, do you think naebody to be saved but yoursel and the minister?" "Weel, I sometime hae my doots about the minister," or, when the four Scotchmen and an Englishmen, sitting together in an Edinburg hostelry, saw a son of Burns enter, and the Englishman remarked: "I would rather see the father enter this room,❞—and the Scotchman replied: "That is impossible, he is dead!" Certainly these examples might justify the keenest satire of the old lexicographer. To balance on the other side, Coleridge tells of a man from Yorkshire, at a dinnerparty, who sat dumb and unappreciative amid a flow of humourous conversation, until a dish of appledumplings was brought in, when he laughed ecstatically and exclaimed: "Oh, them's the jockeys for me!" Evidently the cat had found. the mouse under the chair!

Careful research on the part of antiquarians informs us that the printing of jest-books began a little over three hundred years ago, but the momentous undertaking of collecting jokes was first assumed in the early Christian years, by Hierocles, and he showed as the harvest of his arduous labors, only twentyone jokes! That is, a joke was made every two hundred and fifty years. A long interregnum, and recalls the famous telegram sent by the Governor of one of the United States to the Governor of another of the United States, that it was a long time between drinks! No doubt

some of these jokes are doing duty still, and are fathered by many a foster-parent of the present day. The clever speech about the wine being small of its age, has been traced, as far back as Haroun al Raschid-and we all know the gleam and subtlety of Arabian wit; again it glitters upon the tongue of a Greek philosopher-enlivens the feast of a Roman senator-is ascribed to a dozen English wits, and claimed by men in every part of America! Byron tells us of a man who had the same joint of meat every Sunday that he might produce the same joke, which he did with unwavering fidelity, and it is safe to infer that the. man of one joke is as much to be dreaded as the man of one book.

Savages are greatly devoid of humour, possessing little, if any sense of the incongruity or propriety of things. The stern necessities and rigorous demands of uncivilized life leave no room for humour, which is a fair flower of culture and civilization. The Veddahs of Ceylon are said by those who best know them, to be utterly incapable of appreciating humour, and the cannibals of Africa smile only at the torture inflicted upon their enemies. The Turk' rarely laughs, and when he does, it is rather a sense of triumph over another, than of humour. Yet many of the Turkish proverbs are not wanting in wit, but the kindliness and sympathy of spontaneous laughter, as well as the depths of tenderness, are not the inheritance of Ottoman hearts. Joy and sorrow are strangely knit together and there is a mystical union between smiles and tears, and the wisdom of Solomon is verified by common experience: "Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful."

Yet without that laughter, what a Sahara of barrenness would life be! Upon its journey, refreshing wells of humour gladden and renew the soul, and history and biography agree in the verdict that the capacity for gladness is but the other side of the capacity for pain, and they who sorrow most are they who laugh most heartily. A Scotch essayist, with discriminating judgment, says of the author of the Moslem religion, "Mahomet had

that indispensable requisite of a great man, he could laugh." The laugh of the author of In Memoriam, was thrilling and triumphant, and he who sees no good in humour is least likely to perceive the true and the beautiful; nevertheless, while humour is unfettered by written canons, let us remember that it is for the outer courts of God's temples, nor should dare enter the Holy of Holies.

IN

N the picturesque valley of the Androscoggin River, in the town of Shelburne, New Hampshire, nestled at the foot of a heavilywooded ridge with a broad outlook over the wide-spreading intervale backed by the masses of Mount Moriah, stands the spacious house of the Philbrook Farm. Here we agreed to settle for rest and pleasure during the month of June when the early spring plants are still lingering and the resident birds are in full song.

All our anticipations were fully realized. We were on old and familiar ground, but we had never been there earlier than the month of July. The beautiful Linnaea borealis carpeted the woods, the noble Pileated Woodpecker, the wildest and grandest among its northern New England relatives, screamed as it flew over the high trees, the Banded Purple (Basilarchia arthemis) that exquisitely tinted White Mountain butterfly, flew past,

displaying its snow-white bow as it sailed along, while in the meadow on a sunny day every stalk of the Golden Ragwort (Senecio Robbinsii) seemed to have, poised daintily on the rich yellow flowers, the Mountain Silver-Spot (Argynnis atlantis). Bad weather, however prolonged, cannot entirely break up the attractions offered by these gifts of Nature, but on this particular month of June the fates seemed to vie with each other to render each day worse than the preceding. Dense smoke, the result of forest fires, followed by continual rains, gave us very few chances of seeing the genial sun, but there is a compensation in all things, and what we lost in one way, we gained in another, for we were treated to a wonderful spectacle which fair and sunny days would have denied us.

The Androscoggin River is the highway along which float the logs. that form the immense drives that

every spring are sent down from the wooded regions along its upper sources. The second great drive was in progress when we reached Shelburne during the last week in May, and we loved to sit on the river bank or lean against the railing of the bridge and watch the logs as they glided silently by either singly or in groups. It was with a feeling of sadness that my mind re

Rumford Falls on the same river in Maine, there to be ground to pulp for the manufacture of paper or cut into boards, in the immense mills of the International Paper Company, the Rumford Falls Paper Company, and the Dunton Lumber Company. Each log bears the private mark of the owner cut upon it, generally at each end, with an axe, so that they are readily separated into their re

spective booms when they reach their final destination. During early June everything proceeded quietly, most of the logs keeping on an even course down the stream. As always happens, many were stranded along the banks, owing either to some sharp turn in the river or to the fall

verted to the barren stretches in the valleys and on the mountain slopes, left by the woodsman's axe. It is more profitable, as far as immediate gain is concerned, to strip the forest of every tree rather than to leave the small ones. This I was told by one long used to lumbering in New Hampshire. As we gazed at these messengers from the northern woods, we were occasionally attracted by a fine large relic of primeval days, but as a rule the logs were not more than six inches to a foot and a quarter in diameter. They were cut in the neighborhood of Lake Umbagog, the source of the Androscoggin River, and were on their way to