es there is only a time "to laugh." To
laugh and to create laughter is the main business of his tongue in all
company.

He has no sympathy with Tennyson in the following lines:--

"Prythee weep, May Lilian!
Gaiety without eclipse
Wearieth me, May Lilian."

Or with Barry Cornwall, in his lines:--

"Something thou dost want, O queen!
(As the gold doth ask alloy,)
Tears, amidst thy laughter seen,
Pity, mingling with the joy."

"That which is meant by stultiloquy," says Bishop Taylor, "or foolish
talking, is the '_lubricum verbi_', as St. Ambrose calls it, 'the
slipping with the tongue,' which prating people often suffer, whose
discourses betray the vanity of their spirit, and discover 'the hidden
man of the heart.' For no prudence is a sufficient guard, or can always
stand '_in excubiis_,' 'still watching,' when a man is in perpetual
floods of talk; for prudence attends after the manner of an angel's
ministry; it is despatched on messages from God, and drives away
enemies, and places guards, and calls upon the man to awake, and bids
him send out spies and observers, and then goes about his own ministries
above: but an angel does not sit by a man, as a nurse by the baby's
cradle, watching every motion, and the lighting of a fly upon the
child's lip: and so is prudence: it gives rules, and proportions out our
measures, and prescribes us cautions, and by general influences orders
our particulars; but he that is given to talk cannot be secured by all
this; the emissions of his tongue are beyond the general figures and
lines of rule; and he can no more be wise in every period of a long and
running talk than a lutanist can deliberate and make every motion of his
hand by the division of his notes, to be chosen and distinctly
voluntary. And hence it comes that at every corner of the mouth a folly
peeps out, or a mischief creeps in."

The stultiloquist's talk is like the jesting of mimics and players, who
in ancient times were so licentious that they would even make Socrates
or Aristides the subject of their jests, in order to find something to
provoke the laugh. It is immaterial to him who or what presents itself;
he will endeavour to extract therefrom something ludicrous or comical
for the amusement of the company. He may injure the feelings of some; he
may offend the modesty of others, and break all the rules of decorum;
but what does he care? Merriment is of more importance to him than the
most s