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His punning device was "Vita mortalium vigilia," and he acted accordingly, but with a narrow interpretation. His life had indeed been a vigil, but it must be confessed that the vigils had been for Viglius. Meteren, vi. 120. Another motto of his was, "En groot Jurist een booser Christ;" that is to say, A good lawyer is a bad Christian.
"Agreed; even by your own making out, it will be no great sin. He is half dead already I only do half the work of tossing him over, so it will be only quarter murder on my part, and he would have shown no quarter on his." Here Jack left off arguing and punning, and went forward and lowered down the sail.
It is indeed impossible to kill a weed which the soil has a natural disposition to produce. The seeds of punning are in the minds of all men, and though they may be subdued by reason, reflection, and good sense, they will be very apt to shoot up in the greatest genius that is not broken and cultivated by the rules of art.
There was some similar allusion, we have no doubt, concealed in the device of John Maria Pomedello, an Italian engraver of the time of Leo X. and Clement VII.; it has occasioned much speculation to the learned in these matters, but we must confess our inability to decipher all its significance. Nor was the use of these punning emblems confined to masters of the fine arts.
Rampant witticisms which require one to laugh, are apt to grow fatiguing: it is better to have a sprightly and amusing vein running through your conversation, which, betraying no effort, allows one to be grave without offence, or to smile without pain. Punning is now decidedly out of date. It is a silly and displeasing thing, when it becomes a habit. Some one has called it the wit of fools.
But much remains to be told and that is the game. Are you dark?" "Are you punning?" "This is no punning matter," he said; and began his third exploration of himself for a match. And above them the water continued to thud upon the roof like a torrent broken out of a dam. "This is too bad!" breathed the lady impatiently, and plainly she was not speaking to Varney.
The night we went to Novello's there was a complete set-to of Mozart and punning. I was so completely tired of it that, if I were to follow my own inclinations, I should never meet any one of that set again; not even Hunt, who is certainly a pleasant fellow in the main, when you are with him but in reality he is vain, egotistical, and disgusting in matters of taste, and in morals.
So he partook of their slender meal, and joined in the general laughter when the leader, "Fattie Foy," made some crude attempt at punning. The meal was one to be remembered. The coffee had been heated in an empty tomato can over the fire, and from its taste was evidently a combination of various collections made from the farmhouses round about.
"The queen's hair was black as night; and the king's had been, and his daughter's was, golden as morning. But it was not this reflection on his hair that troubled him; it was the double use of the word light. For the king hated all witticisms, and punning especially.
In his later comedies the names are admirably chosen: they are characteristic without eccentricity or punning. One feels that Eccles in Caste could not possibly have borne any other name. How much less living would he be had he been called Mr. Soaker or Mr. Tosspot! Characteristic without eccentricity that is what a name ought to be.
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