It may be urged that David had no tendency in that direction.  His thoughts were turned towards the sublime, and his religious character, his royal estate, and the vicissitudes of his early life, all inclined him to serious reflection.  But we do not find that David was invariably grave and solemn.  He indulged in laughter at the misfortunes of his adversaries, as we may conclude from a passage in Psalm lii, 6.  “God shall likewise destroy thee for ever; he shall take thee away and pluck thee out of thy dwelling-place, and root thee out of the land of the living.  Selah.  The righteous also shall see and fear, and shall laugh at him.”

He also considered that, in turn, his enemies would deride him, if he were unsuccessful.  Psalm xxii, 7—­“All they that see me laugh me to scorn; they shoot out the lip and shake the head, saying, ’He trusted in the Lord.’”

He evidently thought there was nothing wrong in such laughter, for he even considers it compatible with Divine attributes,[5] Psalm ii, 4, “He that sitteth in Heaven shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision;” and Psalm xxxvii, 13, “The Lord shall laugh at him, for he seeth that his day is coming.”

Nothing can make it more certain than such expressions that the prophets interpreted the intimations they received from above by clothing them with their own mundane similitudes.

On the other hand, although David laughed at his enemies, he never seems to have done so at anything else.  He frequently mentions fools, but always with detestation.  To him the term did not convey any idea of frivolity or eccentricity, but of crime and wickedness.  All these considerations tend to convince us that we can see in the writings of David a fairly good reflection of the mirth common in his day.  Add to this that there is no trace in any contemporary work of an attempt beyond the emotional phases of the ludicrous, and we do not at this time read of any performance of Jewish plays, or of any kind of amusing representations.

A more advanced, but less faithful age is represented by another man.  The soldier-king passed away to make room for one educated under milder influences.  He inherited not the piety or warlike virtues of his father, but turned the same greatness of mind into a more luxurious and learned channel.  In his writings we find little that approaches the sublime, but much that implies analytical depth and complexity of thought.  His tone bespeaks a settled and civilized period favourable to art and philosophy, in which subtlety was appreciated, while the old feelings of acerbity had become greatly softened.

In the intellectual and moral state at this date, there were many conditions favourable to the development of humour.  But we do not find it yet actually existing, although we must suppose that a mind capable of forming proverbs could not have been entirely insensible to it.  We may define a proverb to be a moral statement, instructive in object, and epigrammatically expressed.  It is always somewhat controversial, and when it approaches a truism scarcely deserves the name.