play where the ladies have stolen the gentlemen’s clothes, the latter come on the stage in the most ludicrous attire, wearing saffron-coloured robes, kerchiefs, and Persian slippers.  In another, the chorus is composed of men representing wasps, with waists pinched in, bodies striped with black and yellow, and long stings behind.  The piece ends with three boys disguised as crabs, dancing a furious breakdown, while the chorus encourages them with, “Come now, let us all make room for them, that they may twirl themselves about.  Come, oh famous offsprings of your briny father!—­skip along the sandy shore of the barren sea, ye brothers of shrimps.  Twirl, whirl round your foot swiftly, and fling up your heels in the air like Phrynicus, until the spectators shout aloud!  Spin like a top, pass along in circle, punch yourself in the stomach, and fling your leg to the sky, for the King himself, who rules the sea, approaches, delighted with his children!”

The greater the optical element in humour, the lower and more simple it becomes, the complexity being more that of the senses than of intellect.  It may be said there is always some appeal to both, but not in any equal proportions, and there is manifestly a great difference between the humour of a plough-boy grinning through a horse-collar, and of a sage observing that “when the poor man makes the rich a present, he is unkind to him.”  Caricature drawings produce little effect upon educated people, unless assisted by a description on which the humour largely depends.  We can see in a picture that a man has a grotesque figure, or is made to represent some other animal; by gesticulation we can understand when a person is angry or pleased, or hungry or thirsty; but what we gain merely through the senses is not so very far superior to that which is obtained by savages or even the lower animals, except where there has been special education.

Next to optical humour may be placed acoustic—­that of sound—­another inferior kind.  The ear gives less information than the eye.  In music there is not so much conveyed to the mind as in painting, and although it may be lively, it cannot in itself be humorous.  We cannot judge of the range of hearing by the vast store of information brought by words written or spoken, because these are conventional signs, and have no optical or acoustic connection with the thing signified.  We can understand this when we listen to a foreign language.

Hipponax seems to have been the first man who introduced acoustic humour by the abrupt variation in his metre.  Exclamations and strange sounds were found very effective on the stage, and were now frequently introduced, especially emanating from slaves to amuse the audience.  Aristophanes commences the knights with a howling duet between two slaves who have been flogged,

“Oh, oh—­Oh, oh—­Oh, oh—­Oh, oh—­”

In another play, there is a constant chorus of frogs croaking from the infernal marshes.