of a superior. In all these instances there are the regular requisites for laughter :

1. Suddenness.

2. Feeling of superiority, by the depression of a superior.

Depression of Inferiors.

Laughter from depression of inferiors, is perhaps most obvious in cases of mock conceited importance. Where any person in an inferior situation assumes a superiority to which he is not entitled, there is a pleasure in lowering him to his proper level: in stripping him of his borrowed plumes, in pulling off the feathers in which he is strutting.

"Well, my little fellow," said a gentleman to a boy, who had been apprenticed to an apothecary for about a year, "by this time, I suppose you can cure a sick man." "No, sir," said the boy; "I think I could cure a child."

"You are of great use to your master," said a gentleman to a boy who had been articled to an attorney for a few months, "Yes, sir," answered the boy; "I already swear to form, and next year I am to swear to substance."

When the French ambassador attended at the dinner at the Mansion House, upon the celebrated peace with France, the Lord Mayor gave as one of the toasts, "The three Consuls," the officer, who

announced the toasts to the hall, exclaimed, "The three per cent. consols."

Such is the nature of laughter from depression of an inferior.

IGNORANCE AND INTELLIGENCE.

As the sudden feeling of superiority is a cause of laughter, it will follow, that this species of laughter may be occasioned either by ignorance, imagining itself to be superior, as a child laughs at an adult; or by intelligence, knowing its real superiority, as an adult laughs at a child.

LAUGHTER FROM IGNORANCE.

That much laughter may be traced to ignorance, is indisputable. This may be seen, as all truths may be seen: By Facts. By the Opinions of others, our consuls to advise. By Reason, the dictator to command.

Facts.

In a savage state, man, as the term imports, is thoughtless and cruel, and prone to laughter. Hearne, in his journey to discover the source of the Copper-mine river (in which there is a most fearful account of man in a savage state), says, "I never saw a set of people that possessed so little humanity, or that could view the dis

tresses of their fellow creatures with so little feeling and unconcern; for, though they seem to have a great affection for their wives and children, yet they will laugh at, and ridicule the distress of every other person, who is not immediately related to them.

When the King of Siam heard the Dutch ambassador speak of a republic, he burst into laughter at the idea of such an absurdity.

When Dr. Franklin came to England to implore the attention of our government to the representations made by America, he was ordered to attend at the privy council, where he was grossly insulted by Mr. Wedderburn. At the sallies of his wit all the members of the council, except Lord North, were in fits of laughter. Such was the laughter of the privy council of England in the year 1770. No person who had meditated upon this subject, would infer from this, that the privy council well understood the power of America. They certainly did not so well understand it as they did in the year 1780, when, after a contest of ten years, Dr. Franklin, in the very clothes which he wore when he was so insulted, signed the treaties of commerce and alliance with France, and the Independence of America!-The recording angel will, let us hope, blot out this not very philosophic mark of triumph.

In an action for the infringement of a patent,

tried in March 1821, in the Court of Common Pleas, the question was, whether the plaintiff's mode of weaving canvass was or was not new. A witness stated, "that so far from there being anything new in the plaintiff's manner of doubling the thread, he could state with certainty that it had been known and practised upwards of two thousand years." The court appeared quite amused at his knowledge of the ancient mode of threadmaking; and the chief justice quoting the verse, "When Adam delved, and Eve span," appeared to expect that the witness could give some information of the method of spinning practised by our general mother. The counsel, by whom the witness was cross-examined, was extremely jocular, and professed himself desirous of learning the manner in which he had acquired his very particular knowledge of such high antiquity; the witness answered, "that he had examined the cerement of an Egyptian mummy, and found that the thread of which it was composed, (and of which he produced a specimen) had been spun and twisted exactly in the manner described in the plaintiff's patent."

Opinions.

Locke, says, "And hence perhaps may be given some reason of that common observation, that men who have a great deal of wit and prompt

memories have not always the clearest judgment or deepest reason."

So, too, Hartley observes, "Persons who give themselves much to mirth, wit, and humour, must thereby greatly disqualify their understanding for the search after truth; inasmuch, as by the perpetual hunting after apparent and partial agreements and disagreements, as in words, and indirect accidental circumstances, whilst the true natures of the things themselves afford real agreements and disagreements, that are very different or quite opposite, a man must by degrees pervert all his notions of things themselves, and become unable to see them as they really appear to considerate sober-minded enquirers. He must lose. all his associations of the visible ideas of things, their names, symbols, &c., with their useful practical relation and properties; and get in their stead, accidental, indirect, and unnatural conjunctions of circumstances, that are really foreign to each other, or oppositions of those that are united."

Lord Bacon says, "Merrily-conceited men seldom penetrate farther than the superficies of things, which is the point where the jest lies!"

Hobbes says, "Laughter is incident most to them that are conscious of the fewest abilities in themselves, who are forced to keep themselves in their own favour, by observing the imperfections of other men; and therefore much laughter at the de