The amusement ceasing not as Mr. Bain would have us infer, because there is present in the mind the conditions both of amusement and of other strong emotions, only the latter is the more powerful of the two, but because the conditions of amusement have disappeared, giving place to conditions of other strong emotions, as pity, or the degradation is now such as cannot give rise to a discordia concors, but must awaken other strong emotions.

Turning to Puns, Parodies and Witticisms in general, little difficulty is experienced in recognizing in them the presence of“ discordia concors," while, on the other hand, the degradation is not always so obvious as in the previous examples, Mr. Herbert Spencer going so far as to say that Puns might be produced in which no degradation can be found. For the present, however, let us note that between Don Quixote's challenge and a Pun there is a difference, which men have sought to indicate by calling one Humor (specific), and the other Wit. And while the attempts to define these terms have not met with any signal success,

yet is the difference, though somewhat vaguely recognized, a real and substantial one.

If, as Coleridge has suggested, there is in some way the same relation between these as between Imaginative and Fanciful Poetry, we may obtain some help in our present inquiry, from a previous article. For while in all Poetry, we have both the thought and the figure, in which the thought finds utterance, yet in Imaginative Poetry the thought, the utility, and in Fanciful Poetry the figure or combination, is the more important factor; or, here as elsewhere, "what nature creates for use, she afterward turns to beauty."

So too, it seems probable, that in all Humor (generic) we have both the degradation or utility, and the combination by which this is effected, yet in Humor (specific) as in Imaginative Poetry, the degradation or utility is of greater moment than in Wit; while in the latter, as in Fanciful Poetry, the combination has existence more because of its own delightfulness, than because it subserves the purpose of any degradation.

This, too, is coherent with the claim, that

the earliest manifestations of Humor (generic) are in the form of practical jokes, Samson loosing the foxes in the standing corn of the Philistines, or slaying their thousands with the jaw-bone of an ass, displaying a grim sort of Humor in the insignificance of the weapons employed. Or, in this actual injury of enemies, in such a manner as made them appear less than they were in reality, we have it may be, the utility from which has been evolved all forms of generic Humor. And as in all Poetry, even the most Fanciful, there is still some warp of thought; so it seems probable, that in all Humor (generic), in the quickest and most brilliant witticism, there is still some flavor of degradation.

But while it has appeared in what Poetry and Humor (generic) are alike, the combining or bringing together of conceptions at remove, etc., it has not as yet been shown in what they differ.

Notice, then, that examples may be produced, one poetic and the other humorous, in which the conceptions brought together are practically the same. For instance, we may

personify a bell, and speak of it as telling the sad news, while Hood writes:

“The parson told the sexton,

And the sexton tolled the bell."

That in both of these the conceptions brought together are a bell tolling and a person telling something is manifest; hence the difference cannot be in the character of the conceptions brought together, nor yet in the remove between them.

In our extremity we turn to the bond between these conceptions, to inquire if there be not some difference there. With what result? This, that while in the first example the conceptions are merely similar in one or more elements, in the second they are brought together because the words told and tolled are in sound the same.

So in Witticisms in general, as when Porson, hearing some one remark, of certain modern poets, that they would be remembered long after Homer and Virgil were forgotten, replied, "And not till then."

The point of this manifestly depends

upon the fact that he adopts entire the language of the first speaker, and so seeming at first to convey the same idea, he yet by a slight addition conveys the directly opposite idea. Or, conceptions at remove are brought together, because the language employed, is in a large measure the same.

In Parodies it is the same metrical structure, while in the divine's unseemly caper, Don Quixote's challenge, or Sir Andrew's aside, the same person is conceived as more or less wise and as foolish; or, if a like relation existed between all the elements of the conceptions brought together, we might say of them, not merely as in Poetry, that they are similar, but that they are identical or coincide throughout. Hence the definition-in Humor (generic) we have that degradation which results in a "discordia concors," in a combining or bringing together conceptions at remove by means of coincidence, thus creating a new conception, which, as we shall see hereafter, is of no long continuance.

Turning again to the divine's pursuit of not very noble game, we see that the more