The Humorous Speaker

But humor's good,
And fun is good,

If we but rightly use it would.

It trains the laughing power, at least,

Which measures, they say, 'twixt man and beast;

For, though sometimes

With brutes he chimes,
Nay, often shoots

Below the brutes,

For example, in much of the liquor he quaffs,* Yet is he the only creature that laughs.

Hyenas, true,

And monkeys too,

Are a sort of ghastly, grinning crew,

But the genuine laugh belongs to man,
And he ought to enjoy it as best he can.
"There is a time to laugh," the wise man said,
And a place, I ween, if this book be read;
Where even a dolt, as heavy as lead,
May something find to enliven his head,
And cheer up a spirit to dullness wed.
It yields a rich
Variety, which

May prove a kind of moral switch,
To lash the crimes that baffle the law-
Ingratitude, avarice, et cetera ;-for

"Tis known that men will alcohol drink,
Till they neither can walk, stand, nor think;
While hogs, which foul and filthy they call,
Will shun the poisonous stuff, as gall.

There 's many a crime, and heinous too,
That comes not in the law's purview,
Which, still, the satirist much may do

To punish and check, in the spirit true
Of him that hates,

And sharp berates,

The sin, but not the sinning pates,

That vice and folly have rendered crazy,
Foppish or rakish, profane or lazy,
Extravagant, flippant-I know not what—
From a sober fool to a silly sot.

Well, this is the aim the book would reach,
Endeavoring in humorous way to teach,
By a pertinent representative speech,
What should be avoided by all and each.
The work, in fine,

Has that design

Indicated in Horace's line,(See the title-page, and read the Latin, A flowing hexameter, smooth as satin,) Where a dactyl (ūtīlē) is made to meet With a spondee, (dūlcī,) th' appropriate feet— One meaning the useful, the other the sweet: Which things, says Horace, when duly they meet, Combine to produce an author complete,

Whom every reader can gladly greet.

The book's for youth,

For schools, in sooth;

Yet it contains much humorous truth,

Well suited to teach many older folks;
For many true words are spoken in jokes;
And many will take, in a jocose way,
What, soberly said, would drive them away;
And many will see, in a ludicrous scene,
Portraits so finished, (their own, I ween,)

As to cure them of follies, and make them shun
The features they laugh at, in others, as fun.
But why all this pleading? I'm no patron-seeker.
Let it speak for itself—THE HUMOROUS SPEAKER.

NEW YORK JULY, 1858

CONTENTS.