Had Galen's self, sirs, _ab origine_, or Æsculapius, or the modern school of Pharmacopoeians drugged their patients thus, they long ago, aye, long ago, had starved; your undertakers had been gone extinct, and churchyards turned to gambol-greens, forsooth. Mirth, like good wine, no help from physic needs:--blue devils and ennui! ha, ha, ha, ha! Didst ever taste champagne? Then laugh, sirs, laugh,--"laugh and grow fat," the maxim's old and good: the stars sang at their birth--"Ha, ha, ha, ha!" I cry you mercy, sirs, _the_ Book, _the_ Book, _Quips, Quirks, and Anecdotes_. OXONIANS hear! "Ha, ha, ha, ha!" Let GRANTA, too, respond. What would you more? _the_ Book, sirs, read, read, read. 'Tis true, my work's a diamond in the rough, and that there still are _sparkling bits_ abroad, by wits whose wages _may not be to die_, would make it, aye, the very _Book of Books!_ Let them, anon, to _Cornhill_ wend their way (P.P.) to cut a figure in ED. sec. 3d, or 4th, from Isis or from Cam. What if they say, as MAUDLIN Cole of Boyle, because some Christ-Church wits adorned his page with their chaste learning, "'_Tis a Chedder cheese made of the milk of all the parish_,"--Sirs, d'ye think I'd wince and call them knave or fool? Methink I'd joy to spur them to the task! Methink I see the mirth-inspired sons of Christ-Church and the rest, penning Rich Puns, Bon-mots, and Brave Conceits, for ages have, at OXON, "borne the bell," and oft the table set in _royal_ roar. Methink I see the wits of CAMUS, too, go laughing to the task,--and then, methink, O! what a glorious toil were mine, at last, to send them trumpet-tongued through all the world! [1] Sir Isaac Wake says in his _Rex Platonicus_, that when James the First attended the performance of a play in the Hall of Christ-Church, Oxford, the scholars applauded his Majesty by clapping their hands and _humming_. The latter somewhat surprised the royal auditor, but on its being explained to signify applause, he expressed himself satisfied. CONTENTS.