Oriental nations.-A pun-gent chapter, with amusing and felicitous

illustrations in prose and verse; especially noticeable is the Plaint of

the Old Pauper, Book-Larceny, the Vegetable Girl, Epitaph on an Old

Horse, and a Grand Scheme of Emigration.-In Theodore Hook's

"Perilous Practice of Punning," the humorist is particularly happy in

the number and variety of the puns which he has congregated together.

Dean Swift's Latin puns, which consist of a jumble of Latin words

running into each other; pronounced as English, they make good

sense. Classical puns and mottoes-Punning mottoes of the English

peerage.―Jeux-de-mots, exhibiting ingenious iteratives, and other

playful liberties with words.

155

English Words and Forms of Expression.

D'

IFFERENCE between dictionary English and colloquial English;
the words used in common speaking less than five thousand in

number. The Latin and Anglo-Saxon elements of the language com-

pared. Sources of the language.-Curiosities of nouns of multitude.—

Disraeli's inexcusably rude handling of the mother tongue.-The words

ye for the; its; that, etc.-The multiform pronunciation of ough.-The

words excise; pontiff; rough.-Words mistakenly accounted as Ameri-

canisms. The misunderstood phrases, "no love lost between them,"

and "the forlorn hope."--The word "quiz."-Tennyson's English.—

Misapplication of the quotation, "That mine adversary had written a

book."-Odd changes of signification in various other words.-The in-

fluence of names upon human action or inaction.-The old use of com-

pound epithets, or words-in-one-breath-unutterable, as Ben Johnson

called them.

Tall Writing.

182

HE tencbrosity versus the illuminosity of pomposity in verbosity, as

T shown in the Domicile erected by John. In advertising and episto-

lary exuberance of language.-In the flashes of a mad poet.-In Foote's

funny farrago. In burlesque of the style of Samuel Johnson.-In eulogy

and correspondence.—In the brillant effusions of the Autocrat of the

Breakfast-Table.-In the form of a chemical and an anatomical valen-

tine. In a lawyer's ode to spring. And in some of our pristine

proverbs re-dressed.

Metric Prose.

212

H

OW prose writers sometimes involuntarily slide into rhythmic
measure. Cowper's jocular rhyming letter to his friend Newton.

-Poetic-prose passages from Irving and Disraeli.-Dickens' tendency to

lapse into blank verse of irregular metre, as shown in his descriptions of

Nelly's funeral, and Niagara.—Involuntary versification in our transla-

tion of the Bible.-Amusing instances of unintentional rhyming.. 223

The Humors of Versification.

THE story of the lovers in different moods and tenses.—The funny

turns that may be given to the defects of stammering, as illustrated

by Saxe.-A song dove-tailed by recitative.-Thoughts suggested by

cradle rocking.-Whately's elegy on the geologist Buckland.-A reminis

cence of Troy, touching upon vegetarianism.-The poet Bryant in the

character of a successful caricaturist.—Acknowledgment of the receipt

of a rare pipe.-A lesson in acoustics and the mechanism of the human

ear. Sir Tray; a very clever burlesque on Tennysonian idyllics—The

catalogue of ologies from A to Z.-Variations of musical composition

adapted by Punch to poetry.-Reiterations of vocal music, and their

unexpected effects upon listeners.-The curse of the harper O'Kelly. 230

A

Hiberniana.

string of Hibernicisms in a letter of an Irish M. P. to a friend.—
The Irish propensity to blunder matched elsewhere.-Not only

exhibited in ordinary conversation and writing, but in the works of the

best authors.-Irish bulls and bulls that are not Irish.

Blunders.

252

LIPS of the press; illustrations of typographic error.-Mistakes
of telegraphic communication.—How novelists sometimes forget-

fully make statements in one chapter irreconcilable with statements in

a succeeding chapter.—Mistakes of ignorance and illiteracy.—Blunders

made by translators.

Misquotations.

259

HE mistakes in quotation frequently made by writers-Volumi-

sauthors particularly noticeable for errors of this sort-Magler

on Cruikshank.-Byron misquoting Southey.

H

Fabrications.

266

UARTE'S description of the Saviour's person.-Clever hoax
on Walter Scott.-The famous Moon Hoax.-Fun at the ex-
pense of the American devotees of Carlyle.-Mrs. Heman's capital
'Forgeries."-Sheridan's improvised Greek.—Spurious ballads.—Frank-

66

lin's Parable pretendedly quoted from the Book of Genesis.-Ireland's

Shakspeare Forgeries.

Interrupted Sentences.

269

HE amusing effects sometimes resulting from momentarily inter

Trupted sentences in dialogue, or from concluding a upon

the following page of a letter.-The old illustration of the silly and

trivial causes which sometimes lead to long and exhausting wars.-The

favorite joke," to lie-under a mistake."-Amusing interruption in the

British House of Commons.

Echo Verse.

277

EMARKS upon this favorite old conceit.-Introduction into a

to Queen Elizabeth. London before

ration.-A song of Addison.-A Netherland pasquinade.-Echo show-

ing the true teachings of the "Gospel plan."-Echo answering the

lover.-Dean Swift's verses on woman.-Napoleon's interview with

echo, which cost a Nuremburg publisher his life.-Echo answerings.—

Mention of the localities of the most remarkable echoes known -Extra-

ordinary instances of prolonged transmission of sound.

TH

Puzzles.

281

HE utility as well as the entertainment of puzzles; their solution
exercise for the mind as gymnastics are for the body.-Fondness

of the French for this species of amusement.-Key to the cipher used

by Bonaparte in confidential correspondence.—A case for the lawyers.

-Riddles of Newton, Cowper and Canning.-The prize enigma.-

Quincy's comparison.-Singular results of intermarriage.-Mysterious

number of the apocalyptic beast in Rev. ch. xiii.-Galileo's logograph

on the rings of Saturn.-Persian riddles-Punch's Chinese.-Ben

Johnson's ridicule of the rebus in The Alchemist.-The "Book of Merry

Riddles" referred to by Shakspeare.-Wilberforce's puzzle.-Curiosities

of Cipher writing, with illustrations.

WHY

The Reason Why.

290

HY the Germans eat Sauer-Kraut-Why Pennsylvania settled.
-Why Huguenots so called.-Why Boston so named.-Sym-

bolism of weathercocks.-Reason for disinheritance with a shilling.-

The red hat.-How Queen Bess "banged" the Armada.-Why the

quack succeeds.-Genealogical distinctions -Solution of a juggler's

mystery.

310

Weather-Wisdom.

HE rhyming calendar.-The Salmonia of Sir Humphrey Davy.—

signs from Jenner, the Shepherd's Calendar of 1983,

other sources.-The "evil days in each month," from the Sarum

Missal.

THE

O. S. and N. S.

. 317

HE Gregorian calendar, a correction of the Julian Calendar.-Not
adopted in England until 1752.-Humerous address to the

patrons of
"Poor Job's Almanac" on the result of the change in the

style.

Memoria Technica.

325

HE names and order of the books of the Old and New Testaments

Trhymed to facilitate recollection. Also the plays of Shakspeare,

the Sovereigns of England, the Presidents of the United States, the

Decalogue, the grammatical parts of speech, and the number of days

in each month.

T

Origin of Things Familiar.

.. 327

THE reputed origin of the following phrases, customs, uses and
usages, ways and means:-Mind your P's and Q's; All Fools'

Day; cards; sub rosa; over the left; kicking the bucket; bumper;

dun; humbug; pasquinades; bottled ale; the potato; tarring and

feathering; stockings; the garter; drinking healths; feather in one's

cap; the word book; nine tailors make a man; viz.; signature of the

Cross; the Turkish crescent; postpaid envelopes; Old Hundred; La

Marseillaise; Yankee Doodle; the American Flag; Brother Jonathan;

Uncle Sam; the dollar mark; origin of various inventions and cus-

toms; cock-fighting; turncoat; India-rubber; friction matches; the

flag of England; blue-stocking; skedaddle; foolscap paper.-First

things, including notices of the first of the following:-forged bank-

notes; piano-fortes; doctors; thanksgiving proclamations; prayers in

Congress; reporters; epigrams; newspapers; steam printing; tele-

graphic messages.
331

S

Nothing New Under the Sun.

TRADA'S description of the loadstone and its power of communi-
cating intelligence; the latter based upon the erroneous idea of
the communication to magnetized needles of a homogeneous impulse

1

leading to sympathetic correspondence of motion.-Losmond's alphabet

of motions.-Blasco de Guerere's steamboat in 1543.-Solomon de Coste's

experiments with steam-power in 1637.-James Watt's patent in 1769.—

John Gregorie's demonstration of the navigability of the air.—Lana's

scheme of an air-ship.-The circulation of the blood pointed out by

Longinus long before the Christian era.-The employment of anæsthe-

tic agents referred to by Herodotus, and numbers of subsequent writers.

-The boomerang noticed by Pliny.-Early observations of the attrac

tion of gravitation.-Early invention of rifling.-Table-moving and

alphabet-rapping in the fourth century.-Robert Hook's intimations of

the value of auscultation.-The stereoscope anticipated.-Predictions of

the discovery of America.

... 375

L

Triumphs of Engenuity.

EVERRIER'S discovery of the planet Neptune.—Lescarbeault's
discovery of the intra-Mercurial planet Vulcan.-Columbus' lucky

use of his calculation of an eclipse of the moon.-Great results from

Small beginnings.-Choice of a ruler.-Ballad of King John and the

Abbot, showing how the latter was extricated from a serious diffi-

culty.

The Fancies of Fact.

395

HE anatomical position of Cæsar's wounds.-The curiosities of

Tpainters and Carpenters' church bills.-Law logic.-Reciprocal

conversion of Protestant and Romanist.-Astley's prayer on the eve
of battle.-Sunlight view of Melrose Abbey.-Legal dexterity.-Audi-
toriums of the last century.-True form of the Cross.-Cases of singu
lar coincidence.-Formative process of the chick in the egg.-An
observant Indian snake-tamer.-Alligators increasing their weight by
swallowing stones.—Imitative habits of sheep.-Remarkable equestrian
performances.-Banks's horse Morocco, referred to in Shakspeare's
Love's Labor Lost, I. 2.-Combination lock.-Wonderful rapidity in
the manufacture of cloth.-Difference between the value of crude mate-
rial and that of wrought material.-Relation of value to quantity.—
Amount of gold in the world.-Evidences of the immense wealth of the
Romans.-Wine at two millions a bottle.-The tuns of Heidelberg and
Köningstein.-Unnatural development of the faculties short lived.-
Black Hole of Calcutta, in which a captured English garrison was
asphyxiated.-Finland barometer.-Bitterness of strychnia. Blunders
and anachronisms of painters.-Achievements in minute mechanism.-