peculiar new mode of drilling the soldiers in St. James's Park, ought, from the variety of their evolutions, to be termed quadrilling .
If she should grow furious , take yourself into the cool air , without trying to pacify her. A man who exposes himself to a storm is sure to get pelted . Never offend the ears of a modest woman by a coarse or indelicate expression: the fairest mirror is stained by a passing breath . Never marry a woman for money , lest, obtaining the honey , you are stung by the queen bee . Never lose an opportunity for making a good pun , when you can do it consistent with good nature , and without endangering the esteem of good friends . A pun , to pass current , should bear the stamp of wit , and be struck off in the mint of originality . A genuine bad pun is not always a bad joke . Late hours make lazy servants, a loquacious wife, and end in making a long purse light , a long illness heavy , and long life very uncertain.
Bernard Blackmantle.
A PUNNING ESSAY ON THE ANTIQUITY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE,
In the same poem, also, we find a warrior-mouse called Lichenor , which some, who, like certain commentators on Shakspeare, will always be running to the Greek for interpretations, consider as signifying one addicted to licking , but here we see the imbecility of foreign resources, and the great strength of our own. Their explanation is certainly something near the mark, but for a mouse, how much more germain to the matter is ours Lick and gnaw ? It is true, that I may have mistaken the sense of my opponents' language, but even granting them the full latitude of understanding by their words, as applied to our military mouse, that he was one addicted to licking or conquering , yet is it by no means so full and expressive as it appears in our exposition. Besides, it must be remembered that Lichenor was not so much "addicted to licking" as to being licked, witness the frog Hypsiboas's running him through the body with a rush. See I. 202.
At v. 244, we have the mouse Sitophagus , who like many a soldier of modern times had recourse to his heels and betook himself to a snug dry ditch [Greek: êlato d'es taphon]. I had always some suspicion that this name was particularly corrupted in the last syllable, and the foregoing circumstance has, fortunately for the literary world, furnished me with a conjecture that seems to place the etymology of this coward's title beyond all doubt: Set off again his invariable custom on these occasions, which was perhaps owing to his having studied the art militaire in Hudibras, where he learnt that
"New words are allowable, if they descend," says Horace, "from the English spring, with a sparing distortion."
I have neither leisure nor inclination to go through the whole of the names of the heroes in Homer's battle of the frogs and mice; nor is it necessary, for it must be apparent to every ingenuous critic that they are all derived from one source . Such, however, as occur to me elsewhere, and are thought by many to have very different roots, I shall notice for the purpose of dispelling the clouds of error, and restoring the light of truth.