Translated, with an Introduction and Notes,
III. Dogberry, Malvolio, Troilus and Cressida (Ajax), Bottom, Touchstone 73
IV. Falstaff: his Companions; Americanisms 119
VI. The Porter in "Macbeth," the Clown in "Twelfth Night," the Fool in "Lear" 185
VII. Women and Men: Maria, Helena, Imogen, Constance 211
VIII. Lord Bacon and the Plays, Shakspeare's Women, Love in Shakspeare 245
This Subject is best reached from the point of reflecting that, of all the animals, man alone appears to be capable of laughter. If, as so many naturalists now claim, man has ascended by successive evolutions of varieties from a lower animal type, we ought to be able to find some germs of the laughing propensity among our ancestors. The first witness we summon on this question is the anatomist, because the physical expression that accompanies an act of laughter depends upon the connection of the respiratory nerves with the diaphragm below and the orbicular and straight muscles of the mouth above. But these muscles are not perfectly developed in the animals. When dogs are fondly gambolling about you, there is "a slight eversion of the lips," which is a rudimentary hint of man's facial expression in an act of mirth. The dog has been the associate of human moods in all countries, and for thousands of years; yet, although we are told that "the little dog laughed to see the sport," he has not yet made up his mouth for any thing more emphatic than a simper.
Some kinds of monkeys have established a facial expression, accompanied with a laughing noise, which is so like the human that we might charge them with being entertained at the practical jokes which they pass upon each other, or over some obscurer sense of sylvan incongruity. We can see, at least, that Nature was preparing in them the nervous connections which men employ to transmit their pleasurable emotions; as the flexible plants which dangle by the streams and chasms of the Andes are woven by his after-thought to span the intervals, and the good cheer of humanity passes to and fro.
The respiratory nerves radiate from their centre in the medulla oblongata, the place to which the brain must transmit the first shock of the surprise which ends in smiling and laughing. Thence it is transmitted to the heart and diaphragm, quickening the action of the one, and setting the other in motion, at the same instant climbing to engage the facial nerves in sympathy; then the orbicular muscles retract, forcing the cheek up towards the eye, and tightening the muscles which surround the eyelid.