42 
Butler—Phases of Witticism. 
of witticisms known and read of all men; not in all their diver¬ 
sities, but in those few types which are all the proprieties of 
this occasion will allow. My subject then is wit in some of its 
Protean shapes. 
A minister in the pulpit once burst out in a laugh just after 
he had risen for prayer. When summoned before a council he 
was acquitted. The case was this. Two of his wig-wearing 
parishioners, sitting in church side by side had their pig-tails 
tied together by a boy in the pew behind them. When they 
rose at prayer each of them was scalped by the other. The scene 
caught the minister’s eye and he could not control his risibles, 
especially as he had read in John Locke, that wit consists in 
joining together things which have some sort of resemblance so 
as to produce surprise joined with pleasure. 
The practical joke perpetrated by the boy’s fingers, as it lay 
in his mind, was a witty invention, and it was a representative 
specimen of multitudinous witticisms. I mean those based on 
resemblances, particularly such as have been before undetected, 
and which therefore, when pointed out, move wonder. 
Sundry witticisms owe something to similarities in the sound 
of words. St. Peter’s statue at Rome whose toe is so much 
kissed is reported to have been originally a pagan god. Hence 
a punster said it was Jupiter, but has now become Jew Peter. 
Some men of honor, the more’s the pity, have no honors. “Other 
folks,” said a grumbler, “bow to the inevitable, I must bow-wow.” 
When we think w^e have learned the French of a Parisian we 
have usually gone no farther than that of a parishioner. The 
first Herman queen of England when insulted on her drives, cried 
out: “ Englishmans! I come here for your good, for all your 
goods!” “Yes,” said the mob, “for all our goods and chattels 
too!” 
A wit said that in Latin words the sound echoes the sense. 
A farmer is called a “rusty cuss” (rusticus) and a sailor “ naughty 
cuss” (nauticus). Another wit claimed to be a classic because 
he had soaked with Socrates, ripped with Euripides and roamed 
with Romulus. 
A man refusing to join a crowd who were gathering to see a 
man fly, said, “I have seen a horsej% and a rop ewalic. ” Bis- 
