Category: Humour

The Punster's Pocket-book or, the Art of Punning Enlarged by Bernard Blackmantle, illustrated with numerous original designs by Robert Cruikshank

Wit led the way--with sportive jest, Next, Humour, most fantastic drest; The Graces, eldest of the Nine, Followed--collecting from each shrine, Where Genius shed a ray of light, Which might improve, instruct, delight.

Chapters

2. Part 2

Lastly, let every punster bear in mind, that punning is only the sauce of conversation, and that he who thinks to entertain by introducing it continually into his discourse, res...

3. Part 3

Rule 1. The capital Rule. He that puns, must have a head for it; that is, he must be a man of letters, of a sprightly and fine imagination, whatever men may think of his judgmen...

6. Part 6

On a motion to dissolve the injunction obtained against that useful work the Lancet, the Lord Chancellor sent it to the Vice, and "hoped there would be no more _bleeding_," to w...

5. Part 5

The English are noted for punning on people's names, in allusion to their talent or profession.--Grimaldi was called, from his "grim faces," _Grim-all-day_; Macready, from his q...

4. Part 4

Give me leave, courteous reader, to recommend to your perusal and practice this most excellent rule, which is of such universal use and advantage to the learned world, that the...

8. Part 8

Piozzi, when eighty, at a dance led the first, But she was mirth's votary through life's pleasant trance, And though fame knows not age, yet our wonder is just, Where _Melpomene...

9. Part 9

"To get into the gallery of the House of Commons," said a punster, "a man must have the ribs of a _rhinoceros_; to obtain a _good place_ in the body of the house, the qualities...

1. Part 1

Wit led the way--with sportive jest, Next, Humour, most fantastic drest; The Graces, eldest of the Nine, Followed--collecting from each shrine, Where Genius shed a ray of light,...

7. Part 7

Sir Abraham Bradley King, Lord Mayor of Dublin, declined, through prudential motives, from giving, during his mayoralty, the Orange toast, so offensive to the King James's party...

10. Part 10

Viz. Pinch a piece out of a man's arm, to say you did not know there was any _harm_. Break his shin--that's _leg_-al. Pull away his chair[33] when he is sitting down--you've _go...