WIT AND JOKES.


Selden says, "Nature must be the ground work of wit and art, otherwise
whatever is done will prove but Jack-pudding's work.

"Wit must grow like fingers; if it be taken from others, 'tis like
plums stuck upon black thorns; they are there for awhile, but they
come to nothing.

"Women ought not to know their own wit, because they will be showing
it, and so spoil it; like a child that will constantly be showing its
fine new coat, till at length it all bedaubs it with its pah hands.

"Fine wits destroy themselves with their own plots in meddling with
great affairs of state. They commonly do as the ape, that saw the
gunner put bullets in the cannon, and was pleased with it, and he
would be doing so too; at last he puts himself into the piece, and so
both ape and bullet were shot away together."

"The jokes, bon-mots, the little adventures, which may do very well
(says Chesterfield) in one company will seem flat and tedious when
related in another--they are often ill-timed, and prefaced thus: 'I
will tell you an excellent thing.' This raises expectations, which
when absolutely disappointed, make the relator of this excellent thing
look, very deservedly, like a fool."

P.T.W.

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