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Read Ebook: The Comic English Grammar: A New and Facetious Introduction to the English Tongue by Leigh Percival Leech John Illustrator
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Ebook has 731 lines and 44689 words, and 15 pages
THE FLIRT 122
THE CAPTAIN 128
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON 131
"OH! YOU GOOD-FOR-NOTHING MAN!" 137
THE YOUNG GENTLEMAN 139
"VIRTUE'S REWARD" 142
"NOT TO MINCE MATTERS, MISS, I LOVE YOU" 145
THE FRENCH MARQUIS 149
"THE ENGAGED ONES" 153
"THE LADIES!" 156
"HIT ONE OF YOUR OWN SIZE!" 158
ALL FOR LOVE 169
"TALE OF A TUB" 170
"A RESPECTABLE MAN" 177
DOING WHAT YOU LIKE WITH YOUR OWN 180
"WHAT A LITTLE DEAR!" 183
BRUTUS 187
THE TWO DOVES 190
"THE NASTY LITTLE SQUALLING BRAT" 205
"OH, JEMIMA!" 214
LOVE AND MURDER 216
STANDING ON POINTS 218
"WHERE GOT'ST THOU THAT GOOSE?" 219
PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.
That the epithet in question has been correctly applied, it will therefore be our business to show.
If we can only prove that things which foreigners regard in the most serious point of view, and which, perhaps, ought in reality to be so considered, afford the modern Minotaur John Bull, merely matter of amusement, we shall go far towards the establishment of our position. We hope to do this and more also.
Births, marriages, and deaths, especially the latter, must be allowed to be matters of some consequence. Every one knows what jokes are made upon the two first subjects. Those which the remaining one affords, we shall proceed to consider.
Suicide, for instance, is looked upon by Mr. Bull with a very different eye from that with which his neighbours regard it. As to an abortive attempt thereat, it excites in his mind unmitigated ridicule, instead of interest and sympathy. In Paris a foolish fellow, discontented with the world, or, more probably, failing in some attempt to make himself conspicuous, ties a brickbat to his neck, and jumps, at twelve o'clock of the day, into the Seine. He thereby excites great admiration in the minds of the bystanders; but were he to play the same trick on London Bridge, as soon as he had been pulled out of the water he would only be laughed at for his pains.
There was a certain gentleman, an officer in the navy, one Lieutenant Luff; at least we have never heard the fact of his existence disputed; who used to spend all his time in drinking grog; and at last, when he could get no more, thought proper to shoot himself through the chest. In France he would have been buried in P?re La Chaise, or some such place, and would have had an ode written to his memory. As his native country, however, was the scene of his exploit, he was interred, for the affair happened some years ago, in a cross-road; and his fate has been made the subject of a comic song.
That our countrymen regard Death as a jest, no one who considers their bravery in war or their appetite in peace, can possibly doubt. And the expressions, "to hop the twig," "to kick the bucket," "to go off the hooks," "to turn up the toes," and so on, vernacularly used as synonymous with "to expire," sufficiently show the jocular light in which the last act of the farce of Life is viewed in Her Majesty's dominions.
An execution is looked upon abroad as a serious affair; but with us it is quite another matter. Capital punishments, whatever they may be to the sufferers, are to the spectators, if we may judge from their behaviour, little else than capital jokes. The terms which, in common discourse, are used by the humble classes to denote the pensile state, namely, "dancing on nothing," "having a drop too much," or "being troubled with a line," are quite playful, and the "Last Dying Speech" of the criminal is usually a species of composition which might well be called "An Entertaining Narrative illustrated with Humourous Designs."
The play of George Barnwell, in which a deluded linendraper's apprentice commits a horrid murder on the body of a pious uncle, excites, whenever it is represented, as much amusement as if it were a comedy; and there is also a ballad detailing the same circumstances, which, when sung at convivial meetings, is productive of much merriment. Billy Taylor, too, another ballad of the same sort, celebrates, in jocund strains, an act of unjustifiable homicide.
In the popular drama of Punch, we observe a perfect climax of atrocities and horrors. Victim after victim falls prostrate beneath the cudgel of the deformed and barbarous monster; the very first who feels his tyranny being the wife of his bosom. He, meanwhile, behaves in the most heartless manner, actually singing and capering among the mangled carcases. Benevolence is shocked, Justice is derided, Law is set at nought, and Constables are slain. The fate to which he had been consigned by a Jury of his Country is eluded; and the Avenger of Crime is circumvented by the wily assassin. Lastly, to crown the whole, Retribution herself is mocked; and the very Arch Fiend is dismissed to his own dominions with a fractured skull. And at every stage of these frightful proceedings shouts of uproarious laughter attest the delight of the beholders, increasing in violence with every additional terror, and swelling at the concluding one to an almost inextinguishable peal.
Indeed there is scarcely any shocking thing out of which we can extract no amusement, except the loss of money, wherein, at least when it is our own, we cannot see anything to laugh at.
Some will say that we make it a principle to convert whatever frightens other people into a jest, in order that we may imbibe a contempt for danger; and that our superiority over all nations in courage and prowess, is, in fact, owing to the way which we have acquired of laughing all terrors, natural and supernatural, utterly to scorn. With these, however, we do not agree. Our national laughter is, in our opinion, as little based on principle as our national actions have of late years been. We laugh from impulse, or, as we do everything else, because we choose. And we shall find, on examination, that we have contrived, amongst us, to render a great many things exceedingly droll and absurd, without having the slightest reason to assign for so doing.
For example, there is nothing in the office of a Parish Clerk that makes it desirable that he should be a ludicrous person. There is no reason why he should have a cracked voice; an inability to use, or a tendency to omit, the aspirate; a stupid countenance; or a pompous manner. Nor do we clearly see why he should be unable to pronounce proper names; should say Snatchacrab for Sennacherib, or Leftenant for Leviathan. Such, nevertheless, are the peculiarities by which he is commonly distinguished.
We are likewise at a loss to divine why so studiously ridiculous a costume has been made to enhance the natural absurdity of a Beadle; for we can hardly believe that his singular style of dress was really intended to inspire small children with veneration and awe.
It can scarcely be supposed that a Lord Mayor's Show was instituted only to be laughed at; yet who would contend that it is of any other use? Nor could the office of the Chief Magistrate of a Corporation, nor that of an Alderman, have been created for the amusement of the Public: there is, however, no purpose which both of them so frequently serve.
If the wig and robes of a Judge were meant to excite the respect of the community in general, and the fear of the unconscientious part of it, we cannot but think that the design has been unsuccessful. That the ministers of justice are not, in fact, so reverently held, by any means, as from the nature of their functions they might be expected to be, is certain. A magistrate, to go no further, is universally known, if not designated, by the jocose appellation of "Beak."
Butchers, bakers, cobblers, tinkers, costermongers, and tailors; to say nothing of footmen, waiters, dancing-masters, and barbers have become the subjects of ridicule to an extent not warranted by their avocations, simply considered.
And now that we are speaking of names, we may mention a few which are certainly of a curious nature, and which no foreigner could possibly have invented; unless, which would be likely enough, he meant to apply them seriously. The names we allude to are names of places--and pretty places they are too; as, "Mount Pleasant," "Paradise Row," "Golden Lane."
Then there are a great many whimsical things that we do:--
When a man cannot pay his debts, and has no prospect of being able to do so except by working, we shut him up in gaol, and humorously describe his condition as that of being in Quod.
We will not allow a man to give an old woman a dose of rhubarb if he have not acquired at least half a dozen sciences; but we permit a quack to sell as much poison as he pleases, with no other diploma than what he gets from the "College of Health."
We never take a glass of wine at dinner without getting somebody else to do the same, as if we wanted encouragement; and then, before we venture to drink, we bow to each other across the table, preserving all the while a most wonderful gravity. This, however, it may be said, is the natural result of endeavouring to keep one another in countenance.
The way in which we imitate foreign manners and customs is very amusing. Savages stick fish-bones through their noses; our fair countrywomen have hoops of metal poked through their ears. The Caribs flatten the forehead; the Chinese compress the foot; and we possess similar contrivances for reducing the figure of a young lady to a resemblance to an hour-glass or a devil-on-two-sticks.
There being no other assignable motive for these and the like proceedings, it is reasonable to suppose that they are adopted, as schoolboys say, "for fun."
We could go on, were it necessary, adducing facts to an almost unlimited extent; but we consider that enough has now been said in proof of the comic character of the national mind. And in conclusion, if any foreign author can be produced, equal in point of wit, humour, and drollery, to Swift, Sterne, or Butler, we hereby engage to eat him; albeit we have no pretensions to the character of a "helluo librorum."
THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR.
"English Grammar," according to Lindley Murray, "is the art of speaking and writing the English language with propriety."
The English language, written and spoken with propriety, is commonly called the King's English.
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