THE FIRST VOLUME.
Reading edition
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.
Subjective Character of the Ludicrous—The Subject little
Studied—Obstacles to the Investigation—Evanescence—Mental
Character of the Ludicrous—Distinction between
Humour and the Ludicrous1
INTRODUCTION.
PART I.
ORIGIN OF HUMOUR.
Pleasure in Humour—What is Laughter?—Sympathy—First
Phases—Gradual Development—Emotional Phase—Laughter of
Pleasure—Hostile Laughter—Is there any sense of the
Ludicrous in the Lower Animals?—Samson—David—Solomon
—Proverbs—Fables13
PART II.
GREEK HUMOUR.
Birth of Humour—Personalities—Story of Hippocleides—Origin
of Comedy—Archilochus—Hipponax—Democritus,
the Laughing Philosopher—Aristophanes—Humour
of the Senses—Indelicacy—Enfeeblement of the Drama—Humorous
Games—Parasites, their Position and Jests—Philoxenus—Diogenes—Court
of Humour—Riddles—Silli52
PART III.
ROMAN HUMOUR.
Roman Comedy—Plautus—Acerbity—Terence—Satire—Lucilius
—Horace—Humour of the Cæsar Family—Cicero—Augustus—Persius
—Petronius—Juvenal—Martial—Epigrammatist—Lucian—Apuleius
—Julian the Apostate—The Misopogon—Symposius' Enigmas
—Macrobius—Hierocles and Philagrius99
ENGLISH HUMOUR.
CHAPTER I.
MIDDLE AGES.
Relapse of Civilization in the Middle Ages—Stagnation of
Mind—Scarcity of Books—Character of reviving Literature—Religious
Writings—Fantastic Legends—Influence
of the Crusades—Romances—Sir Bevis of Hamptoun—Prominence
of the Lower Animals—Allegories161
CHAPTER II.
Anglo-Saxon Humour—Rhyme—Satires against the Church—The
Brunellus—Walter Mapes—Goliardi—Piers the
Ploughman—Letters of Obscure Men—Erasmus—The
Praise of Folly—Skelton—The Ship of Fools—Doctour
Doubble Ale—The Sak full of Nuez—Church Ornamentation—Representations
of the Devil179
CHAPTER III.
Origin of Modern Comedy—Ecclesiastical Buffoonery—Jougleurs
and Minstrels—Court Fools—Monks' Stories—The
"Tournament of Tottenham"—Chaucer—Heywood—Roister
Doister—Gammer Gurton211
CHAPTER IV.
Robert Greene—Friar Bacon's Demons—The "Looking
Glasse"—Nash and Harvey231
CHAPTER V.
Donne—Hall—Fuller243
CHAPTER VI.
Shakespeare—Ben Jonson—Beaumont and Fletcher—The
Wise Men of Gotham250
CHAPTER VII.
Jesters—Court of Queen Elizabeth—James I.—The
"Counterblasts to Tobacco"—Puritans—Charles II.
—Rochester—Buckingham—Dryden—Butler271
CHAPTER VIII.
Comic Drama of the Restoration—Etheridge—Wycherley303
CHAPTER IX.
Tom Brown—His Prose Works—Poetry—Sir Richard
Blackmore—D'Urfey—Female Humorists—Carey312
CHAPTER X.
Vanbrugh—Colley Cibber—Farquhar340
CHAPTER XI.
Congreve—Lord Dorset355