r best steel; although it
sometimes happened, that both refused to fight. We need scarcely say
that the humour which was produced in such quantities to supply
immediate demand was not of the best kind, and that a large part of it
would not have been relished by the fastidious critics of our own day.
But some of these "wits" were highly gifted, they were generally
literary men, and many of their good sayings have survived. The two who
obtained the greatest celebrity in this field, seem to have been
Theodore Hook and Sydney Smith. Selwyn, a precursor of these men, was
so full of banter and impudence that George II. called him "that
rascal George." "What does that mean," said the wit one day,
musingly--"'rascal'? Oh, I forgot, it was an hereditary title of all the
Georges." Perhaps Selwyn might have been called a "wag"--a name given to
men who were more enterprising than successful in their humour, and
which referred originally to mere ludicrous motion.

CHAPTER XI.

Southey--Drolls of Bartholomew Fair--The "Doves"--Typographical
Devices--Puns--Poems of Abel Shufflebottom.

We have already mentioned the name of Southey. By far the greater part
of his works are poetical and sentimental, and hence some doubt has been
thrown upon the authorship of his work called "The Doctor." But in his
minor poems we find him verging into humour, as where he pleads the
cause of the pig and dancing bear, and even of the maggot. The last
named is under the head of "The Filbert," and commences--

"Nay gather not that filbert, Nicholas,
There is a maggot there; it is his house--
His castle--oh! commit not burglary!
Strip him not naked; 'tis his clothes, his shell;
His bones, the case and armour of his life,
And thou shalt do no murder, Nicholas.
It were an easy thing to crack that nut,
Or with thy crackers or thy double teeth;
So easily may all things be destroyed!
But 'tis not in the power of mortal man
To mend the fracture of a filbert shell.
There were two great men once amused themselves
Watching two maggots run their wriggling race,
And wagering on their speed; but, Nick, to us
It were no sport to see the pampered worm
Roll out and then draw in his folds of fat
Like to some barber's leathern powder bag
Wherewith he feathers, frosts or cauliflowers,
Spruce beau, or lady fair, or doctor grave."

Also his Commonplace Book proves that, like many other hardworking men,
he amused his le