ongruities in the relative
positions of certain objects, and in the actions and sayings of
individuals, which we term the "sense of the ludicrous." It is not to be
supposed that a dog or a cat--albeit intelligent creatures, in their own
ways--would see anything funny or laughable in a man whose sole attire
consisted in a general's hat and sash and a pair of spurs! Yet _that_
should be enough to "make even a cat laugh"! Certainly laughter is
peculiar to our species; and gravity is as certainly not always a token
of profound wisdom; for

The gravest beast's an ass;
The gravest bird's an owl;
The gravest fish's an oyster;
And the gravest man's a _fool_.

Many of the great sages of antiquity were also great humorists, and
laughed long and heartily at a good jest. And, indeed, as the Sage of
Chelsea affirms, "no man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be
altogether, irreclaimably bad. How much lies in laughter!--the cipher
key wherewith we decipher the whole man!... The man who cannot laugh is
not only fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils, but his whole life is
already a treason and a stratagem." Let us, then, laugh at what is
laughable while we are yet clothed in "this muddy vesture of decay,"
for, as delightful Elia asks, "Can a ghost laugh? Can he shake his gaunt
sides if we be merry with him?"

It is a remarkable fact that a considerable proportion of the familiar
jests of almost any country, which are by its natives fondly believed to
be "racy of the soil," are in reality common to other peoples widely
differing in language and customs. Not a few of these jests had their
origin ages upon ages since--in Greece, in Persia, in India. Yet they
must have set out upon their travels westward at a comparatively early
period, for they have been long domiciled in almost every country of
Europe. Nevertheless, as we ourselves possess a goodly number of droll
witticisms, repartees, and jests, which are most undoubtedly and beyond
cavil our own--such as many of those which are ascribed to Sam Foote,
Harry Erskine, Douglas Jerrold, and Sydney Smith; though they have been
credited with some that are as old as the jests of Hierokles--so there
exist in what may be termed the lower strata of Oriental fiction,
humorous and witty stories, characteristic of the different peoples
amongst whom they originated, which, for the most part, have not yet
been appropriated by the European compilers of books of facetiae, a