t is doubtful whether any line from any author is so often quoted as
"_Punch's_ advice." It crops up continually, almost continuously, though
not exactly when least to be expected, as experience teaches us to
expect it always; and I may assert from my own observation that it
appears in one or other of the papers of the kingdom on an average twice
or thrice a week. Perhaps what has lent additional piquancy to _Punch's_
piece of quaint philosophy is the mystery hitherto surrounding its
authorship. An inquirer who endeavoured a few years ago to solve the
problem set on record the result of his researches, by which, according
to a Scotch authority, he is said to have found the author in (1) a
policeman of Glasgow, (2) a bricklayer of Edinburgh, (3) a railway
official at Perth, (4) a compositor in Dundee, (5) an hotel-keeper in
Inverness, and (6) a "Free Press" reporter in Aberdeen. English and
Irish evidently had no chance. A letter, professing to explain the whole
mystery, which lies before me from a medical correspondent, under date
April 7th, 1895, runs as follows: "When in practice as a medical man at
Neath, in S. Wales, it was well known to have been written by Mr.
Charles Waring, a Quaker living at 'The Darran,' near Neath Abbey. Mr.
Waring removed from there to the neighbourhood of Bristol about
twenty-two years ago. The proprietors of _Punch_ were so pleased, they
sent him a _douceur_ of L10 for the contribution!" Further inquiry shows
that the late Mr. Waring was merely in the habit of quoting, not of
claiming, the joke.

Hearing Charles Keene's emphatic opinion that the author was a Miss
Frances D----, who many years ago was living in a remote village in the
North of England, and who had been paid L5 for the line, I appealed to
the Post Office for help to trace the lady out; and through the kindly
assistance of the officials at St. Martin's-le-Grand and elsewhere,
although nearly half a century had elapsed, I discovered her in another
village equally remote, the Post Office having courteously obtained her
permission to place me in communication with her. But the information
was of a negative kind. She was, she protested, quite innocent of the
credit of _Punch's_ Monumental Cynicism, and consequently had never been
the recipient of the fantastic payment of L5 per line. But since that
time chance has placed in my possession the authoritative information;
and so far from any outsider, anonymous or declared, paid or un