c _grottoes_, or in the quaint figures of sylvan
deities which the Ancients placed in them, and the _absurd_, properly
referring to acts of people who are defective in faculties.

The ludicrous is often used in philosophical works to signify a
feeling, and our second class will contain words which may refer either
to something external or to the mind, such as _droll_, (from the German)
_comical_, _amusing_, and _funny_. To say "I do not see any fun in it,"
is different from saying "I do not see any fun in him," and a man may be
called funny, either in laudation or disparagement.

In the third class we place such words as refer to the mind alone as the
source of amusement, and under this head we may place Humour as a
general and generic term. Raillery and sarcasm (from a Greek word "to
tear flesh") refer especially to the expression of the feeling in
language, and irony from its covert nature generally requires assistance
from the voice and manner. Some words refer especially to literature,
and never to any attacks made on present company. Of these, satire aims
at making a man odious or ridiculous; lampoon, contemptible. Satire is
the rapier; lampoon the broadsword, or even the cudgel--the former
points to the heart and wounds sharply, the latter deals a dull and
blundering blow, often falling wide of the mark. In general a different
man selects a different weapon; the educated and refined preferring
satire; the rude and more vulgar, lampoon--one adopting what is keen and
precise, the other seeking rough and irrelevant accessories. But clever
men, to gain others over to them by amusement, have sometimes taken the
clumsier means, and while placing their victim nearer the level of the
brutes than of humanity, have not struck so straight; for the
improbability they have introduced has in it so much that is fantastic
that their attack seems mostly playful, if not bordering on the
ludicrous.

Lampoon was the earliest kind of humorous invective; we have an instance
of it in Homer's Thersites. Buffoonery differs from lampoon in being
carried on in acting, instead of words. The latter is rather based upon
some moral delinquency or imperfection; the former aims merely at
amusement, and resembles burlesque in being generally optical, and
containing little malice. Both come under the category of broad humour,
which is excessive in accessory emotion, and in most cases deficient in
complication. Caricature resembles them both in be