Antithetic Wit. 
51 
Ethan Allen was at dinner where toasts were drank to his 
majesty the king of England, and his majesty the king of Spain. 
When called on for another he gave, “To his majesty the king 
of hell!” 
Time to a common man would seem a poor subject for witti¬ 
cism. But one wit said to his sweetheart, “O, the difference 
between you and a clock! Clocks teach me to observe the hours, 
you make me to forget them.” Another said: 
“Swans sing before they die; ’twere no bad thing, 
Would certain persons die before they sing.” 
A wicked doctor who was also a poet had been condemned to 
take his own pills and to read his own poetry. “ Give him his 
pills after the reading, ” said a wit, “or he will never live to 
read at all. ” 
Antithetic wit often lies in contrasting the literal and figu¬ 
rative meanings of words. 
When punning was decried as a low species of wit, it was 
answered, “It is indeed its foundation, which cannot be laid too 
low. ” 
A wit fond of late hours said that he knew no better way to 
lengthen his days than by stealing a few hours from the nights. 
At a governor’s funeral wTiere his horse was clad in sable, a 
wit said that he saw many long faces but none so long as that 
of the governor’s horse. 
Scott’s poem on Napoleon’s last battle was made to order, and 
provokes the epigram: 
“On Waterloo’s ensanguined plain 
Lie many thousands of the slain, 
But none by saber or by shot. 
Fell half so flat as Walter Scott.” 
Addressing Napoleon’s St. Helena jailer a wit said: 
Sir Hudson Lowe! Sir Hudson Lowel 
By name—and ah! by nature too. 
Antithesis is at its best in retorts. Many good retorts have 
been suggested by parts of the body. 
A Roman who tried to brow-beat a Briton, was answered, 
“Many Romans have as crooked noses as Csesar, not many have 
such straight arms. ” 
