A fico then for the Chesterfieldian canon, that laughter is an ungenteel emotion. Smiles are tolerated by the very pinks of politeness; and a laugh is but the full-blown flower of which a smile is the bud. It is a sort of vocal music--a glee in which everybody can take a part:--and “he who bath not laughter in his soul, let no such man be trusted.” Indeed, there are two classes of Querists particularly to be shunned; thus when you hear a Cui Bono? be sure to leave the room; but if it be Quid Rides? make a point to quit the house, and forget to take its number. None but your dull dogs would give tongue in such a style,--for, as Nimrod says in his “Hunt after Happiness,” “A single _burst_ with Mirth is worth a whole season of _full cries_ with Melancholy.”
Such, dear reader, is the cheerful Philosophy which I practise as well as preach. It teaches to “make a sunshine in a shady place,” to render the mind independent of external foul weather, by compelling it, as old Absolute says, to get a sun and moon of its own. As the system has worked so well in my own case, it is a duty to recommend it to others; and like certain practitioners, who not only prescribe but dispense their own medicines, I have prepared a regular course of light reading, whereof I now present the first packet, in the humble hope that your dull hours may be amused, and your cares diverted, by the laughing lucubrations which have enlivened Hood’s Own.
An Ancient Concert; by a Venerable Director 19
A Plan for Writing Blank Verse in Rhyme, in a Letter to the Editor 48
A Letter from a Market Gardener to the Secretary of the Horticultural Society 52
Domestic Asides; or Truth in Parenthesis 55
Composed on Reading a Diary lately published 64
Number One; versified from the prose of a Young Lady 104
An Assent to the Summut of Mount Blank 111
Sally Simpkin’s Lament; or John Jones’s Kit-Cat-Astrophe 115
A Valentine. The Weather--To P. Murphy, Esq., M.N.S. 137
A Letter from a Settler for Life in Van Diemen’s Land 160
Epicurean Reminiscences of a Sentimentalist 169
Saint Mark’s Eve--A tale of the olden time 172
A singular Exhibition at Somerset House 239
Ode--To the Advocates Removal of Smithfield Market 264
Ode to Madame Hengler, Firework-maker to Vauxhall 304