your remarks appear to me in general to be just, I shall merely avail myself of this opportunity to say something of a very generally used, and too much despised species of wit, the PUN, which appears to me to be not only a legitimate and excellent species of wit, but to be that species to which we now almost exclusively apply the term wit, that is, comic wit, or that which excites laughter.

A Pun, according to Dr. Johnson and the Writer upon that article in the Encyclopædia Britannica, is "An equivocation, a quibble, an expression where a word has at once different meanings", and the latter author adds, that "the practice of punning is the miserable refuge of those who wish to pass for wits, without having a grain of wit in their composition." That there are Puns very bad in their kind*, nay, that the greater portion are

* The following Extract from a Sermon, by Edward Sulton, printed at Aberdeen, 1629, and entitled "A Caution for the Credulous", will give an example of bad puns unseasonably introduced, and will shew the style and, taste of Sermons in James the first's time:

"Here I have undertaken one who hath overtaken many, a Machiavillian (or rather a matchless villain) one that professeth himself to be a Friend, when indeed he is a Fiend. His greatest amity is but dissembled enmity-his ave threatens

bad, I am very ready to acknowledge; but, like all other descriptions of things, there are many very good, and the censure should not be general, but confined to the bad. To prove this point I will now adduce some specimens: and I know not that any thing can be brought more to the purpose than the very excellent Epigram on Foote and Quin.

I.

1

As Quin and Foote

One day walk'd out

To view the country round,

In merry mood

They chatting stood

Hard by the village pound.

2

Foote from his poke

A shilling took

And said, "I'll bet a penny,

In a short space,

Within this place,

I'll make this piece a guinea."

a væ! and therefore listen not to his treacherous ave, but hearken to Solomon's cave; and, though be speaks favourably, believe him not. Though I call him but a plain flatterer (for I mean to deal very plainly with him) some compare him to a Devil. If he be one, these words of Solomon are a spell to expel this Devil. Wring not my words to wrong my meaning, I go not about to crucify the sons but the sins of men. Some flatter a man for their own private benefit: this man's heart thou hast in thy pocket; for if thou find in thy purse to give him presently, he will find in his heart to love thee everlastingly." See The Monthly Review for August 1777, p. 112.

3

Upon the ground,
Within the pound;

The shilling soon was thrown;
"Behold, (says Foote)

The thing's made out,

For there is one pound..one."

4

"I wonder not.

(Says Quin) that thought

Should in your head be found,

Since that's the way

Your debts you pay

One shilling in the pound.

Here, from the double meaning of the word pound, as signifying a small inclosure where stray cattle are confined, and also twenty shillings in money, and from the double meaning of one pound and one shilling being a guinea; and from debtors sometimes paying their creditors but one shilling for each pound which they owe, one of the happiest Epigrams is made, containing not only the two puns, but also a very severe Repartee as applied to Foote.

who

The following Epigram on a Freeman, had a bad voice, having a singing man's place in a Choir given to him, which has long been in circulation in this University, has not, that I am aware, appeared in print before.

II.

A Singing Man, and cannot Sing!
Come, justify your patron's bounty,
Give us a Song.-Excuse me, Sir,

My Voice is in another County.

Here, from the word voice signifying the human voice as used in speaking or singing, and likewise a voice or vote at an election, a severe and excellent pun and epigram is produced.

The following Epigram, by Dr. Gould, upon his marriage, is good.

III.

In days of frolic, mirth and fun,
(My name obnoxious to each pun)

How quick the years have roll'd:
Now, verging to the close of life,
I've taken to myself a wife,

Whose only love is-Gould.

The happy playful humour of this, with the mixture of affection and self-complacency and half satire in the latter part, with the half implied pun of gold, makes it at once tender and humourous.

The reply to it by the late Dr. Gooch is at once neat and severe :

IV.

Doctor, your Epigram is true,

'Tis Gould she loves-and leaves out u (you).

Next to these may be placed the Epigram by Isaac Hawkins Brown upon himself, and another by Garrick addressed to Dr. Hill, upon his petition of the Letter I. to Mr. Garrick.

V.

When I was young and debonair,
The brownest girl to me was fair,
But now in years I old am grown,
The fairest girl to me is Brown.

VI.

If 'tis true, as you say, that I've injur❜d a letter,
I'll change my note soon, and I hope for the better;
May the right use of letters as well as of men,
Hereafter be fix'd by the tongue and the pen ;
Sincerely I wish that they both have their due,
And that I may be never mistaken for u (you.)

VII.

BY DR. DONNE.

"I am unable", yonder Beggar cries

"To stand or go;" if he says true,—he lies.

Here the wit arises from the word lies signifying both lies down and tells an untruth.

VIII.

BY HACKETT.

When Jack was poor, the lad was frank and free;
Of late he's grown brim-full of pride and pelf;
You wonder that he don't remember me;

Why so? You see he has forgot himself.

Here, the word forgot signifying to have lost the remembrance of a thing in the literal sense, and in a figurative sense to have neglected to conduct himself properly, in the same manner as if he had really lost the memory of who he was, an excellent and severe piece of wit arises : It is improved by the antithesis between the words remember and forgot.

The last I shall produce is from the Collection in the Elegant Extracts, similar to one