And Martial,
Sit mihi, Cinna, comes, salibus dictisque facetus,
Qui sapit ambiguos fundere ab ore sonos.
Cinna, give me the man, when all is done,
That wisely knows to crack a jest and pun.
Petronius likewise will tell you,
Dicta, sales, risus, urbana crepundia vocum,
Ingenii facilis quæ documenta dabunt.
Jokes, repartees, and laugh, and pun polite,
Are the true test to prove a man is right.
And Lucan:
Ille est imperium risus, qui fraude leporis
Ambigua fallens, humeros quatit usque solutis
Nexibus, ac tremuli trepidant curvamina dorsi,
Et jecur, et cordis fibras, et pundit anhelas
Pulmonis latebras—
He's king of mirth, that slily cheats our sense
With pun ambiguous, pleasing in suspense;
The shoulders lax become, the bending back
Upheav'd with laughter, makes our ribs to crack:
Ev'n to the liver he can joys impart,
And play upon the fibres of the heart;
Open the chambers of the longues[1], and there
Give longer life in laughing, than in air.
But to come nearer home, and our own times; we know that France, in the late reign, was the seat of learning and policy; and what made it so, but the great encouragement the king gave punners above any other men: for it is too notorious, to quote any author for it, that Lewis le Grand gave a hundred pistoles for one single pun-motto, made
- ↑ Potius lungs, as a Dutch commentator would observe.
