John Leech and other papers

JOHN LEECH.
IF man is made to mourn, he also, poor fellow !
and without doubt therefore, is made to laugh.
He needs it all, and he gets it. For human nature
may say of herself in the words of the ballad,
' Werena my heart licht, I wad dee.'
Man is the only animal that laughs ; it is as pecu-
liar to him as his chin and his hippocampus minor. 1
The perception of a joke, the smile, the sense of the
ludicrous, the quiet laugh, the roar of laughter, are
all our own ; and we may be laughed as well as
tickled to death, as in the story of the French nun of
mature years, who, during a vehement fit of laughter,
was observed by her sisters to sit suddenly still and
look very ' gash ' (like the Laird of Garscadden 2 ),
this being considered a further part of the joke, when
they found she was elsewhere.
In books, old and new, there is no end of philo-
sophising upon the ludicrous and its cause ; from
1 Professor Turner informs me that this comfort is taken
from us, — the superior apes have the lesser sea-horse.
3 Vide. Dean Ramsay's Reminiscences.