POINTS OF HUMOUR
Part I.
By Anonymous
Illustrated by the Designs of GEORGE CRUIKSHANK.
Ten Engravings On Copper and Twelve Wood Cuts
London: Published By C. Baldwyn, Newgate Street
1823.
"Let mee play the fool:With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come;And let my liver rather heat with wine,Than my heart cool with mortifying groans,Why should a man, whose blood is warm through,Sit like his grandsire, cut in alubaster?Sleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice by being peevish?"Shakspear
CONTENTS
POINT II. THE SHORT COURTSHIP.
POINT IV. EXCHANGE NO ROBBERY.
POINT V. THE JOLLY BEGGARS; OR LOVE AND LIBERTY,A CANTATA, BY ROBERT BURNS
POINT IX. THE DOWNFALL OF HOLY CHURCH.
POINT X. A VISIT WITHOUT FORM.
PREFACE.
It will be readily perceived that the literary part of this work is ofhumble pretensions. One object alone has been aimed at and it is hopedwith success—to select or to invent those incidents which' might beinteresting or amusing in themselves, while they afforded scope for thepeculiar talents of the artist who adorns them with his designs. Theselection was more difficult than may at first sight be supposed. It istrue, there is no paucity of subjects of wit and humour, but he who willtake the trouble to examine them, will find how few are adapted forpictorial representation. No artist can embody a point of wit, and thehumour of many of the most laughable stories would vanish at the touch ofthe pencil of the most ingenious designer in the world. Those ludicroussubjects only which are rich in the humour of situation arecalculated for graphic illustration. To prove the following anecdotes arenot deficient in this respect, no other appeal is necessary than to theplates themselves! Look at the breadth of the humour, the point of thesituation, the selection of the figures, the action, and itsaccompaniments, and deny (without a laugh on the face) that this portionof the work answers the end in view. In all this the writer or compiler,or whatever he may be called, claims little merit. That the whole effectis comic, that the persons are ludicrous, and engaged in laughable groupsand surrounded with objects which tend to broaden the grin, all this, anda thousand times more, belongs to Mr. Cruikshank;—the writer onlyclaims the merit of having suggested to him the materials.
Some of the ten p