“Adam having been the _fust_ man, it is only natural that Adamson should talk _fust_ian. We are in hopes, however, that _Adam_son will _Eve_ntually _Cain_ (explanatory note: _gain_) experience, and be _Abel_ to do better; for it is fit and proper that Adamson should be the first man in learning, re_garden_ him in connection with _Eden_burgh. Mr. Young is _youngry_ after knowledge, and we fear is in some danger, through studying Aristotle too much, of coming to be _’ung_ before he is much _older_. We were afraid that Mr. Reed would have been _red_uced for an argument; but we perceive he is _red_ivivus, and has _red_eemed his character from being _red_iculous. Verily, Mr. Fairly”—but enough; this would have been quite sufficient for the punning preceptor to frame and glaze and put in his window as a testimony to his skill in teaching the whole art of pun-making. It is on record, that King James prepared himself for his jokes by a course of study and stimulants, and did not venture to fire them off until after the sixth bottle. If such simple exercises required so much stimulation, what must be the process which the punsters of our day find it necessary to resort to? The Turkish bath is said to bring out a vast amount of latent and unsuspected filth from the skin. Is there any similar process for acting upon the brain? Satire is a weapon which has been used with good effect by skilful hands in books and in speeches, both in ancient and modern times; but we cannot discover that it has done any great or signal execution when wielded by the burlesque writer on the stage. Aristophanes certainly did not revive the palmy days of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. It is true it has been asserted that he did; but will any one please to mention the successors of these three great masters who are worthy to be named in the same category? It might be easier to specify the harm than to estimate the good which flowed from the comedies of Aristophanes. Not only the Greek drama, but Greece itself, dated its decline from those days. And, besides, it is not at all certain that when Aristophanes exhibited Socrates suspended in a basket, spouting incomprehensible doctrine—incomprehensible at that time—he did not sow the seeds of the hemlock to which the greatest of all the Greeks was condemned. It is true that Socrates was not sentenced until nearly twenty years afterwards; but Aristophanes was one of the first to throw mud at him, and it was only through the persistency with which his detractors followed the dramatist’s example that some of the mud eventually stuck. The Athenians knew and felt, when it was too late, that the most virtuous man of their age had been sacrificed to an idle and reckless clamour. Here then, to begin with, is a suspicion of murder attaching to burlesque. In the present day, the only murder of which it can be found guilty is the murder of the English language.