y sensitive
to pain, and also had less feeling and consideration for others. That
Samson found some malicious kind of pleasure and diversion in his
reprisals on his enemies, and made their misfortunes minister to his
amusement, is evident from the strange character of his exploits. "He
caught three hundred foxes, and took fire-brands, and turned tail to
tail, and put a fire-brand in the midst between two tails, and when he
had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the
Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks and also the standing corn of
the Philistines, with the vineyards and olives." On another occasion he
allowed himself to be bound with cords, and thus apparently delivered
powerless into the hands of his enemies; he then broke his bonds "like
flax that was burnt with fire," and taking the _jaw-bone of an ass_,
which he found, slew a thousand men with it. His account of this
massacre shows that he regarded it in a humorous light: "With the
jaw-bone of an ass heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass I have slain
a thousand men." We might also refer to his carrying away the gates of
Gaza to the top of a hill that is before Hebron, and to his duping
Delilah about the seven green withes.

In the above instances it will be observed that destruction or
disappointment of enemies was the primary, and amusement the secondary
object. It must be admitted that all such jokes are of a very poor and
severe description. They have not the undesigned coincidence of the
ludicrous nor the fanciful invention of true humour. Samson was
evidently regarded as a droll fellow in his day, but beyond his jokes
the only venture of his on record is a riddle, which showed very little
ingenuity, and can not be regarded as humorous now, even if it were so
then.

It would, perhaps, be going too far to assert that no laughter of a
better kind existed before the age at which we are now arrived; some
minds are always in advance of their time, as others are behind it, but
they are few. The only place in which there is any approach in early
times to what may be called critical laughter is recorded where Abraham
and Sarah were informed of the approaching birth of Isaac. Perhaps this
laughter was mostly that of pleasure. Sarah denied that she laughed, and
Abraham was not rebuked when guilty of the same levity.[4]

With the exception of the above-mentioned riddle, and rough pranks of
Samson, we have no trace of humour until af