ny his victim "to hear the nightingale." In "Diogenes" (December,
1854) the pristine simplicity is restored by the _naif_ request that he
"may go a little way" with the young gentleman; and finally, in 1857,
Leech once more resurrects and renovates it with his astonishing talent
and freshness for use in the Almanac.

"Are you comin' home?" asks an indignant wife of her tipsy spouse, in
Mr. Phil May's admirable drawing of February 16th, 1895. "I'll do
ellythik you like in reasol, M'ria (_hic_). But I won't come 'ome." In
the previous year, however, the following had appeared in "Fun":--"_Guid
Wife._-'Come hame, Jock; ye'll be doing nae guid here.'
_Jock._--'Onything in reason, Jenny, ma woman, but hame I wall nae
gang!'" On the other hand, in the "Echo," in March, 1895, appeared the
following item of news:--"There is a curious report of a dialogue in a
Chinese medical paper:--Doctor: 'H'm. You are run down, sir. You need an
ocean voyage. What is your business?' Patient: 'Second mate of the _Anna
Maria_, just in from Hong Kong.'" But more than a quarter of a century
before, _Punch_ had treated his readers to the same.--"Doctor Cockshure
(_advising a nervous patient_): 'My good sir, what _you_ want is a
thorough alteration of climate; the only thing to cure you is a long
sea-voyage.' Patient: 'That's rather inconvenient. You see, I'm only
just home from a sea-voyage round the world!'"

It is amusing for one endowed with a taste for the history of humour,
and gifted with the requisite memory, to follow some of these
interesting revivals or re-births of comic ideas. Sir John Tenniel's
vision of "The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street," in the "Pocket Book" of
1880, was a familiar conception to those who remembered "Cruikshank's
Omnibus" of 1841; while Leech's sea-sick Frenchman, in p. 76 of the
second volume for 1851, was almost the counterpart of "Glorious
George's" important etching "A very good man, no doubt, but a Bad
Sailor." Again, one of the most brilliant things that ever appeared in a
comic journal was the short dialogue supposed to pass between an
inquiring child and his philosophical though impatient parent:--

"What is mind?" "No matter."

"What is matter?" "Never mind."

"This well-known definition," says Dr. Furnivall, "according to the
'Academy,' was by Professor T. Hewitt Key; he sent it to _Punch_, and of
course it was printed forthwith--I suppose, somewhere about the
'Sixties." But as a matter of fact thi