The Punster's Pocket-book

    New Monthly Magazine.

AN EPITAPH, OR PUNNING RUN MAD

Here lies old John Magee, late the landlord at the Sun,
He never had an ail, unless when all his ale was done:
The Sun was on the sign, tho' what sign his sun was on,
No studier of the Zodiac could ever hit upon.
Some said it was Aquarius, so queerious he'd get;
But he declared no soda-hack should ever share his whet.
His burnish'd sun was sol-o, soul-heart'ning was his cheer,
And quaffing of good porter long kept him from his bier.
As draughtsman he'd no equal, his drawings were so good,
And many a noble draught has he taken from the wood, —
Rare spirited productions, with tasty views near Cork;
And then he had a score or two rum characters in chalk.
Above the mantel-taillee his tally it was nail'd,
And though he had lost one eyesight, his hop-ticks never fail'd.
Good ale and cider sold here, oft made the soldier halt,
And sailor Jack, his sail aback, would hoist aboard his malt;
Most cordially he'd pour out a cordial for the fair,
Whose peeper meant to ogle the peppermint so rare;
While buxom Jean would toss off the juniper so gay,
And swear it was both sweet and nice as any shrub in May.
At last John took to drinking, and drank till drunk with drink;
His stuffing he would stuff in till stuff began to shrink;
Tho' mistress shook her hand high, he suck'd the sugar-candy,
And often closed his brand eye by tippling of the brandy.
His servants always firking, his firkins ran so fast,
And staggering round his bar-rails, his barrels breathed their last;
And when he treated all hands his Hollands ran away,
Nor reap'd he fruit from any seed for aniseed to pay.
And though he drank the bitters, his bitters still increas'd,
He puff'd the more parfait au cœur till all his efforts ceas'd.
The storm, alas! was brewing, the brewer drew his till,
And Mrs. Figg, for 'bacca, to back her brought her bill.
Distillers still'd his spirits, but couldn't still his mind;
He told the bailiff he would try a bail if he could find;
But fumbling round the tap-room, Death tapp'd him on the head,
So here he lies quite flat and stale, because, d'ye see, he's dead.

    Literary Gazette.

BENJAMIN BASHFUL ON THE VICE OF PUNNING

THE PUNSTER'S FOE

Who's he, that from our board is running?
He, Sir's an enemy to punning,
A bashful foe, who loves not wit —
Ergo, because he's none of it
Within his cranium; and at table
Sits like the fox in Æsop's fable,
Watching the grapes he'd fain devour,
And disappointed, calls them sour.
A laugh would decompose his metal,
And like a dog, with a tin kettle
Dangling at his tail, he runs
From witty wags who deal in puns.

TO BERNARD BLACKMANTLE, ESQ.

Sir,

It has just been communicated to me, that you are about to collect and publish a Punster's Pocket-Book, for the express purpose of promoting that pernicious vice, which is already much too prevalent. As an antidote to the evil, I hope you will not fail to insert this my special protest.

    B. BASHFUL.

I am a bashful young man of good fortune, who, to use the phrase of the mode, have just come out, and made my entré into the world with the reputation of being a gentleman and a scholar. I could wish you to notice a minor evil in society which tends to poison the springs of taste and knowledge, by bringing forward the flippant, and throwing back the reflective, speaker. I allude to the vice of punning, which tends to destroy all the profit and pleasure of conversation, and embarrass, in the greatest degree, the young and inexperienced.

It is my fate to mix with a circle of fashionable dilettanti, each of them capable of sustaining a part in rational discourse, and of conducting the intellectual conflict with some share of vigour and learning; who, nevertheless, meet together to fritter away time, patience, and attention, with a series of unconnected quibbles and conundrums. Instead of the rich web of fancy, glowing with the vivid creations of lively, intelligent minds, the conversation presents a motley intermixture of shreds of wit and patches of conceit, a chequer-work of incongruities, the very orts and scraps of the "Feast of Reason," the dozings of science, and dregs of literature. If I relate to this group of punsters the most affecting circumstance, I am heard with impatience and inattention, till I chance unwittingly to utter a word susceptible of a double or triple interpretation. The mischievous spark of folly immediately ignites, the moral interest of my tale is undermined, and a loud report of laughter announces the explosion. The genius of orthography frowns in vain: puns are, by the law of custom, entitled to claim entrance into the sensorium either by the eye or the ear: but when a pseudo pun ("for indeed there are counterfeits abroad") is perceptible to neither sense – when read, its wit is not discoverable; and when heard, it cannot be understood: to avoid the horror of an explanation, I find myself obliged to perjure my senses by laughing in ignorance and very sadness, and thus contribute a sanction to the practice I would fain abolish. The evil is subversive of the first principle of society. Is it little to hunger for the bread of wisdom, and to be fed with the husks of folly? Is it little to thirst for the Castalian fount, and see its waters idly wasted in sport or malice? Is it little to seek for the interchange of souls, and find only the reciprocity of nonsense?

P.S. By BERNARD BLACKMANTLE.

To which complaint, I add this note
And sketch, by way of antidote,
The glorious art can life enhance,
A Pun will cause a Bear to dance,
And as we here have proof, – provoke
A bashful man to stand a joke.

EXAMPLES IN PUNNING,

BY

ROYAL, NOBLE, AND EMINENT PERSONS

THE PUNSTER'S BOWL

The sovereign medicine of life,
The antidote to care and strife —
Is friendship, and the cheerful bowl,
When humour meets a kindred soul:
Then flows the epigram, and pun,
From starry eve, to morning's sun;
And Laughter, "holding both his sides,"
The rubs and jeers of life derides.
Then honest hearts, elate with glee,
Forget the world, and black ennui;