Points of Humour (illustrated) (Part 1 & 2 of 2)

Points of Humour (Part 1 & 2 of 2) by Anonymous



It will be readily perceived that the literary part of this work is of humble pretensions. One object alone has been aimed at and it is hoped with success—to select or to invent those incidents which might be interesting or amusing in themselves, while they afforded scope for the peculiar talents of the artist who adorns them with his designs. The selection was more difficult than may at first sight be supposed. It is true, there is no paucity of subjects of wit and humour, but he who will take the trouble to examine them, will find how few are adapted for pictorial representation. No artist can embody a point of wit, and the humour of many of the most laughable stories would vanish at the touch of the pencil of the most ingenious designer in the world. Those ludicrous subjects only which are rich in the humour of situation are calculated for graphic illustration. To prove the following anecdotes are not deficient in this respect, no other appeal is necessary than to the plates themselves. Look at the breadth of the humour, the point of the situation, the selection of the figures, the action, and its accompaniments, and deny (without a laugh on the face) that this portion of the work answers the end in view. In all this the writer or compiler, or whatever he may be called, claims little merit. That the whole effect is comic, that the persons are ludicrous, and engaged in laughable groups and surrounded with objects which tend to broaden the grin, all this, and a thousand times more, belongs to Mr. Cruikshank;—the writer only claims the merit of having suggested to him the materials.

Some of the ten points, now submitted to the public, arise out of a reprint of that admirable piece of humour, the Jolly Beggars of Burns;—A part of his works almost unknown to the public, in consequence of the scrupulousness of the poet's biographer and editor, who withheld them from the world. Lest we however should incur the charge, which Dr. Currie apprehended, we beg leave to prefix the observations on this subject by the first literary character in the kingdom, Sir Walter Scott, as they appeared in theQuarterly Review.

"Yet applauding, as we do most highly applaud, the leading principles of Dr. Currie's selection, we are aware that they sometimes led him into fastidious and over-delicate rejection of the bard's most spirited and happy effusions. A thin octavo, published at Glasgow in 1801, under the title of 'Poems ascribed to Robert Burns, the Ayrshire bard,' furnishes valuable proofs of this assertion; it contains, among a good deal of rubbish, some of his most brilliant poetry. A cantata, in particular, called The Jolly Beggars, for humorous description and nice discrimination of character, is inferior to no poem of the same length in the whole range of English poetry. The scene, indeed, is laid in the very lowest department of low life, the actors being a set of strolling vagrants, met to carouse, and barter their rags and plunder for liquor in a hedge ale-house. Yet even in describing the movements of such a group, the native taste of the poet has never suffered his pen to slide into any thing coarse or disgusting. The extravagant glee and outrageous frolic of the beggars are ridiculously contrasted with their maimed limbs, rags, and crutches—the sordid and squalid circumstances of their appearance are judiciously thrown into the shade. Nor is the art of the poet less conspicuous in the individual figures, than in the general mass. The festive vagrants are distinguished from each other by personal appearance and character, as much as any fortuitous assembly in the higher orders of life. The group, it must be observed, is of Scottish character, and doubtless our northern brethren are more familiar with its varieties than we are; yet the distinctions are too well marked to escape even the southern. The most prominent persons are a maimed soldier and his female companion, a hackne