THE LAUGHING philosopher.

ON A DEACON'S WRITING EPIGRAMS.

"A deacon write epigrams?" Why should he not?
A great name in the church by so doing is got;
With innocent wit let his verses be fraught,
And a deacon shall then an arch-deacon be thought.

AT ALNWICK, IN NORTHUMBERLAND.

Here lieth Martin Elphinston,
Who with his sword did cut in sun-
der the daughter of Sir Harry
Crispe, who did his daughter marry :
She was fat and fulsome;
But men will some-

times eat bacon with their bean,

And love the fat as well as lean.

POLITE INVITATION.

upon it; and cutting jokes, howeyer common-place, is assuredly as sprightly as cutting cards, and as humorous as cutting capers. Whoever first established these chartered merry-andrews, we ought to wear his name in our heart's core. Strange that these omniloquent professors of facetiæ should have left so few names upon the rolls of fame. Brutus was only an amateur fool, who assumed the character for a political object. We should have known nothing of Yorick, the Danish king's jester, had not the gravedigger in Hamlet knocked him about the mazzard with a spade. Killigrew was a sort of court jester to Charles the Second; but, not content with saying good things, he ventured upon publishing them; and as his pen was very inferior to his tongue, in which he afforded a contrast to Cowley, Sir John Denham took occasion to exclaim

66

Had Cowley ne'er spoke-Killig rewne'er writ― Combined in one they'd made a matchless wit."

A convict who was executed at Leicester, and adopted the singular mode of travelling in a postchaise to the place of execution, was no less remark-Considering how few offices and sinecures are aboable for his crimes, than a copious fund of low hu- lished now-a-days, we cannot help regretting that He got the following notice put up in the this should have been selected for extinction, and we "Wanted, an are tempted to inquire most frequented houses in the town: agreeable companion in a post-chaise, to go a journey of considerable length, and upon equal terms.'

mour.

COURT FOOLS.

Unquestionably the most sprightly of all inventions which we owe to the dulness of courts is that of the professional jester or fool, than which nothing could have been more expressly and admirably adapted to its end. If not witty himself, he was at least the cause of wit in others-the butt at which the shafts of their ridicule were shot, and through whom they sometimes launched them at their neighbours. The jokes might be poor, quibbling, bald, bad; but the contest was at all events mental; not so sparkling, perhaps, as the fight between Congreve's intellectual gladiators, but still preferable to what it displaced, for a play upon words is more comical than a play upon the ribs; it is better to elicit bad puns from one another's sculls, than to be drinking wine out of them; it is quite as facetious to smoke a quiz as a segar; a quibble in the head is as comical as a bump

Why, pray, of late do Europe's kings
No jester in their courts admit?
They're grown such stately solemn things
To bear a joke they think not fit.—
But though each court a jester lacks

To laugh at monarchs to their face,
All mankind do behind their backs
Supply the honest jester's place."

AMUSEMENTS AT CHELTENHAM.

|culated to relieve tedium and increase the charm of

The first consideration on rising in the morning at society. Such would actually be the case in any a place of fashionable resort is, how shall the day be other country than this, where the reverse is really spent. The journey thither has been performed for the fact. A starving theatrical company may (if a relaxation; and the idea of reading, writing, or think-theatre exists in the place at all) be seen playing being within doors, is out of the question, or why have fore empty boxes, or a few strangers, unknowing and we left London ? The visitant, therefore, usually de- unknown. A ball now and then, where exclusion termines on a promenade, for the purpose of seeing and stiffness govern every thing, and pleasure is little and being seen. The springs are sadly deficient in more than a name, and a promenade on the same the quantity of water; and by no means, in this re-given spot, constitute all the amusements to be found spect, to be compared to the sweet, retired, and snug in them. A relentless antisocial spirit rules every Leamington, where there is enough and to spare for thing. All look at each other with suspicion. The bathers and drinkers at all seasons, however numerous aristocracy, real or feigned, legitimate or illegitimate, they may become. The walks in the shade of the trees dread coming in contact with the tradesman; and the at Cheltenham are delightful. The constant resi- tradesman often labours to pass for one of the aristodents at these watering-places are made up of a large cracy, and he often labours so well that he can proportion of card-playing old maids, retiring widows, scarcely be distinguished, except by sometimes overhalf-pay officers with a small fortune, and hypochon-acting his part. Coteries are formed, the members driacs. These are to be found at all times and sea of which imagine themselves the most select and highsons, and afford an example how vapidly some of our bred circle in the realm. The horror of an amalgafellow-mortals pass their hours. Small-talk, cards, mation by some of the visitants, even in the streets, compliments, remarks upon the weather, with a with those whom they pretend to despise, is only sprinkling of scandal that serves to keep the appetite equalled by the patient's dread of water in hydropho alive for more, perform the same round incessantly, bia. The pretty faces of the girls are taught by their till life's "fitful fever," is over, and one is at a loss mammas to assume a look of unwonted scorn at the to find any reasonable excuse for the purpose of such strangers whom mixed company may throw in their mere mechanical existence. There is no better sample way. The silly pretensions of the vain are never so of what may be called stagnant life, than this species strongly marked as in a fashionable spa; and all the of inhabitant of our spas and watering places ex-brood of folly may be seen tinkling its showy bells hibits. Existence seems in a state of negation-they and strutting in inflated inanity of mind in a manner look too vacant for any residence but the shores of very different from its appearance in the general run Lethe "thought would destroy their paradise" of our cities and towns. Indeed, the best entertainthey seem a forlorn corps, exiled from the mass of the ment for the idler is to watch their workings, from people, high or low; a condemned regiment, kept the brainless coachman-aping peer, to the soapapart from the army to live and die in inglorious ob-maker's lady of Wapping. Like fantoccini moving scurity. The other classes consist of sick visitants, whom the healthy seem inclined to expel from their rightful abodes; and the busy and active inhabitants, who draw the means of subsistence equally from all

along in the same dance, full of self-pretension-ignorant, but fashionable-coarse in manners, but wealthy-how amusing it is to contemplate such a scene: to view it with all "its gaily-gilded trim quick glancing to the sun," and to read in it one of It might naturally be supposed that towns which the bitterest lessons of reason's humiliation, of worthhave grown up under the pretence of pleasure and lessness of purpose, that the picture of man's life relaxation, would abound with entertainments, cal-affords!

the other classes.

be very happy; but in my present exhausted state, I fear the exertion would be too much for me. I do not know when I have been equal to such an effort. (He rang for his valet, Fatout entered.) - Fatout, when did I play at billiards last ?

fated but obsequious polysyllable. The eldest Miss Twist has likewise an unfortunate predilection for the French word naïveté, though two hundred per annum spent during six years at a French boarding-school failed in purchasing its right pronunciation. Sometimes she admires navette in the abstract; sometimes Fatout. De fourteenth December, de last year, she praises her sisters for their great navieté; but Monsieur.- (Fatout bowed and retired.} most frequently she gives herself credit for an extra- The Hon. Mr. Listless.So it was seven months ordinary share of navitie;--so ingeniously does she ago. You see Mr. Larynx, you see, sir. My nerves, go wide of her mark! This little bit of slip-slop is Miss O'Carroll, my nerves are shattered. I have the source of inextinguishable mirth to the Black-been advised to try Bath. Some of the faculty reacres; the girls take off "the Twists" in every pos- commend Cheltenham. I think of trying both, as the sible mode of malaprop accentuation; and the father seasons don't clash. The season you know Mr. Lainvariably brings up the rear with a customary doubt rynx-the season, Miss O'Carroll-the season is every of the genuineness of the article; affirming that the thing. lady is as cunning as a fox, and that her navictie is, Marionetta. And health is something, n'est ce in plain English, nothing more than mere knavery. pas, Larynx? In this manner has the spectacle of the inferiority of the Twists roused the Blackacres to a sense of their own wit and spirit. The lapsus lingua of the manufacturers keep the tongues of the agriculturalists in in cessant activity. The incongruities in their dress and furniture preserve their gentle-blooded neighbours in perpetual good-humour with themselves; and old Twist's mismanagement of his land, which he will farm himself at a loss of thirty per cent. has almost reconciled Blackacre to the idea that the ground is no longer his own.

SHERIDAN'S ANCESTORS.

The Rev. Mr. Larynx.-Most assuredly Miss O'Carroll-for however reasoners may dispute about the summum bonum, none of them will deny that a very good dinner is a very good thing, and what is a good dinner without a good appetite? and whence is a good appetite but from good health? Now Cheltenham, Mr. Listless, is famous for good appetites.

The Hon. Mr. Listless.-The best piece of logic I ever heard. Mr. Larynx, the very best I assure you. I have thought very seriously and profoundly, I have thought of it-let me see when did I think of it? (he rang again, and Fatout re-appeared.) Fatout! when did I think of going to Cheltenham, and did not go?

Fatout. De Juillet twenty-one de last summer, Monsieur. (Fatout retired.)

Sheridan's father one day descanting on the pedigree of his family, was regretting that they were no longer styled O'Sheridan, as they had been formerly; The Hon. Mr. Listless.--So it was. An invaluable "Indeed, father," replied the late celebrated charac-fellow that, Mr. Larynx-invaluable, Miss O'Carroll. ter, then a boy, "we have more right to the O than any one else for we owe every body.'

BILLIARDS.

A Scene from Nightmare Abbey. The Rev. Mr. Larynx approached the sofa, and proposed a game at billiards."

The Hon, Mr. Listless.-Billiards! really I should

Marionetta. So I should judge, indeed. He seems to serve you as a walking memory, and to be a living chronicle not of your actions only, but of your thoughts.

The Hon. Mr. Listless.-An excellent definition of

the fellow Miss O'Carroll-excellent, upon my ho nour-Ha ha! ha! Heigh ho! laughter is a pleasure, but the exertion of it is too much for me.

Thy twittering, cackling, bubbling, squeaking As for our common

Old Nick, we all rejoice to see

The coup de grace that silences his wrangle;

That drops from witling mouths, though utter'd But, lo, Jack Ketch !-ah, welladay !