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A fashionable jeweller made a fortune by the sale of mourning snuff-boxes, whereon the portrait of the young Queen, in a black frame of shagreen, gave rise to the pun: "Consolation in chagrin." All the fashions, and every article of dress, received names expressing the spirit of the moment.
"You may remember," continued this Mass of Information, "that there is an allusion in it to Grand Pre. That is the place, sir!" "Oh, indeed, is that the place? Thank you." "And that mountain yonder is Cape Blomidon, blow me down, you know." And under cover of this pun, the amiable clergyman retired, unconscious, I presume, of his prosaic effect upon the atmosphere of the region.
In the play of words the sources of the pun are lost. It is like a local jest in a narrow coterie, barren to an outsider. Sydney Smith was the most celebrated wit of his day, but he is dull reading now. Blackwood's at its first issue was a witty daring sheet, but for us the pages are stagnant. I suppose that no one now laughs at the witticisms of Thomas Hood. Where are the wits of yesteryear?
Now during the calm, and for some days after, poor Jarl's accustomed quid was no longer agreeable company. To pun: he eschewed his chew. I asked him wherefore. He replied that it puckered up his mouth, above all provoked thirst, and had somehow grown every way distasteful.
A pun, which is a kind if wit, is a different and much shallower trick in mental optics throwing the SHADOWS of two objects so that one overlies the other. Poetry uses the rainbow tints for special effects, but always keeps its essential object in the purest white light of truth. Will you allow me to pursue this subject a little further?
Mixed wit, therefore, is a composition of pun and true wit, and is more or less perfect as the resemblance lies in the ideas or in the words. Its foundations are laid partly in falsehood and partly in truth; reason puts in her claim for one half of it, and extravagance for the other.
Well, I mounted her on the black horse, and rode her en croupe, egad ha, ha! to Birmingham; and there we billed and cooed together like a pair of turtle-doves: yes ha! that we did!" "And this, I suppose, is the end of some of the BILLINGS?" said the Abbe, pointing to Mr. Tom. "Billings! what do you mean? Yes oh ah a pun, a calembourg. Fi donc, M. l'Abbe."
"And it's a very appropriate way to celebrate, my dears," he said, beaming at them over his large spectacles; "for it will be for the coming of the King; King by name as well as nature," and he laughed enjoyably at his own pun. "And I'm sure nobody ever did rule his kingdom so well as our Grandpapa.
I don't know of any very bad men who make puns, but I have known of many good men who make bad puns. It is not an avaricious state of the mind, for who ever heard of "puns for sale or manufactured to order," or of a man getting rich in the wholesale or retail pun trade! In fact, a pun is like an egg the moment you crack it the meat is out.
Wherewith, affecting to expect a stroke from the King's whip, he doubled himself up, performed the contortion now called turning a coachwheel, then, recovering himself, put his hands on his hips and danced wildly on the steps; while Henry, shaking his whip at him, laughed at the only too obvious pun, for Anguish was the English version of Angus, the title of Queen Margaret's second husband, and it was her complaints that had brought him to his counsellor.
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