It would appear that the human memory is more retentive of the grotesque and ludicrous, whether moral or physical, than of the sublime and beautiful in nature, the graver incidents of life or the loftier mental experiences. We recall with realistic distinctness every object whose saliency has consisted in pleasing distortion, and every event that has in any way appealed to our sense of humour; while we may reproduce but faintly the impressions received from the contemplation of the highest works of art, the most perfect landscape, or the ordinary vicissitudes of the world. In every-day language, this is largely accounted for by the force with which the exception to any given rule, the aberration from ordinary courses of action, and the departure from universally accepted principles, arrest our attention in virtue of their rarity. This of course applies to many other classes of phenomena besides the odd, the distorted, the whimsical, or the ridiculous; but the human mind, strange though it seems, has undoubtedly a greater facility for the reception and reproduction of these than of any other.

If we deliberately cast back in our minds for the images of our early playmates and school-fellows, we observe that the first to present themselves, as a rule, are those possessing some marked peculiarities, and that those peculiarities are the centre-points of the pictures. Ordinary faces and physiques, even of those near and dear to us, shew but dimly on memory's canvas; but a squint, a lisp, a burr, freckles, ungainliness, or oddity of manner, has stamped there the images of comparative strangers with indelible clearness; and the blemishes which produce these results are themselves not only plainly delineated, but frequently exaggerated. Again, if we permit the mind to revert unrestrainedly to the events of childhood, the earliest to suggest themselves are, almost invariably, those which have exercised our risible faculties or sense of the absurd—the laughable scrapes, odd predicaments, amusing exploits of ourselves or others, are the things remembered of our youth. The recollections of any two men of middle age with regard to their common school-days teem with whimsical anecdotes, to the almost total extinguishing of other things. This experience may be termed universal, and suggests the curious question: To what extent should we be at all able, if devoid of the sense of humour, to recall the companions and incidents of our childhood and youth?

Let us look at our subject from another point of view. What do we find on attempting to recall our knowledge of 'the men of all times,' whose biographies we have read? We cast our net, as it were, into the pool of our recollections—say, for example, regarding a Napoleon, a Newton, or a Columbus. The result is significant. Beyond an imperfect conception of the scope and lesson of their lives, nine out of ten fairly intelligent people will succeed in landing only a few trifles in the shape of anecdotes, physical peculiarities, or amusing idiosyncrasies. The first was the ambitious disturber of Europe; the second, a philosopher; the last, discovered America. In addition—what? Why, Napoleon was fond of snuff, which he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket, and was called 'the Little Corporal.' The expounder of the law of gravitation on one occasion used his sweetheart's finger as a tobacco-stopper. And the private life of Columbus is epitomised in the apocryphal story of making an egg stand on end. Popularly, the portraits of heroes and notabilities are distinct in proportion to the number and saliency of their blemishes. (Who can forget the wen on Cromwell's nose?) On the other hand, their hopes, their loves, their sorrows, their great life-purposes, their very identities, are held together in the minds of the masses by the force of association with trivial and adventitious circumstances. It is an odd but not necessarily a humiliating reflection; for the mind that can find 'good in all things' will see in it a most wise and important provision in our mental economy.

The simplest and best known rule in the so-called art of Mnemonics is, naturally enough, based upon a recognition of the facility with which anything connected with the grotesque, absurd, or whimsical may be recalled. Dates, statistics, names, &c. are taken into the memory along with some catch-word or ludicrous expression, and are by that means reproducible almost at will. We are not prepared to say in how far such a rule is in the long-run beneficial or injurious to the natural memory, nor to decide to what extent thus deliberately burdening the mind with a host of distorted conceptions goes to counterbalance the immediate advantages sought. It is sufficient for our present purpose that its application is illustrative of what we have said.

The deliberate action of the mind, dictated by this rule, in seeking the aid of whimsicalities as the milestones and finger-posts of memory, is not only sanctioned (as we have said) by the recognition of one of its inherent properties, but by the most unmistakable precedents in its own natural operation. Surnames which do not owe their origin to the professions of those who first assumed them, or to modifications of Christian names, partake largely of the humorous in their conception, as we have shewn in former articles on Names in this Journal. They are, in fact, epigrammatic. Doubtless, among races in which the susceptibility to humour is very subordinate to other sensibilities, these epigram-names will embody less of that element; but even amongst the gravest tribes of North American Indians, and the melancholy races of Eastern Asia, secondary titles are in common use for ordinary and familiar occasions, answering exactly to our own idea of nicknames. Amongst ourselves the coinage of surnames has long ago been completed and in full circulation, their original meanings having now no force or application to the persons bearing them. Even nicknames have almost disappeared from polite literature and society with the increasing sensitiveness of the age. The art of 'smashing' in the matter of names, however, still lingers in the nursery and the playground, as well as in the inner circles of family life generally; and if we cast an observing glance down the social scale, we shall find the practice more and more widely obtaining, until, amongst the rural population and the operatives of Lancashire and the Black Country, we find it absolutely universal. In the latter locality, indeed, the inapplicability of authorised surnames has led to their total disuse. We read some years ago a Report from an official source, in which it was circumstantially stated that many of the puddlers, nailers, and others had utterly forgotten their original or baptismal name, being invariably addressed and known by a sobriquet, which hit off some whimsical peculiarity of person or character. We ourselves have a lively recollection of a woman in the neighbourhood of Bilston to whom her own husband's real name was so unfamiliar that she entirely failed to recognise it when we questioned her regarding him.

Scottish literature, and that of England which in point of national progress corresponds to it, owe much of their vigour and enjoyableness to the quaintness of the counterfeit nomenclature with which they abound; and at the same time indicate the prevalence of epigrammatic humorous names in the age which produced them. One of our finest ballads indeed—The Blithesome Bridal—is little other than a catalogue of trenchant nicknames: 'Will wi' the meikle mou,' 'Bow-legged Robbie,' 'Thumbless Katie,' 'Plouckie-faced Wat i' the mill;' and so on.

If then the human mind has not only an exceptional facility for the reproduction of whimsicalities, but a significant tendency to seek for and employ these as aids to the memory of more serious but less salient things, how shall we estimate the mnemonic value of the sense of the ludicrous? We have no desire, even if space would permit, to treat the inquiry exhaustively; but may point out one or two of the leading facts on which so curious an investigation might be based, and one or two reflections which the subject immediately suggests.

First, then, it is a well-established truth that the barbarous races which have proved totally unsusceptible of civilisation are those which are utterly or almost utterly devoid of the sense of humour: exemplified in the aborigines of Australia and the Indians of the West; while on the other hand the Negro, endowed with the most whimsical of fancies, has, though steeped in barbarism, the latent germ of intellectual and moral progress. Secondly, among the so-called civilised branches of the human family, the Caucasian, with its rich vein of humour, its hearty power of laughter, and its deftness in extracting from every condition of things the elixir of fun, stands in unapproachable superiority. Lastly, to those whose observation of national character has been sufficiently minute and varied, it will be equally clear that those European peoples which have the finest and deepest appreciation of the quaint and ludicrous (entirely distinct from wit), have also the greatest staying power intellectually and morally, and the largest possibility of development.

It would seem a fair inference from these facts alone, had we not already indicated it, that it is man's moral nature which benefits most largely by the presence in the mental economy of a sense of the ludicrous. The saying, 'Beware of him who cannot laugh,' is a pithy but conclusive commentary. All that is fairest in human life; all that is best and brightest in our earthly lot; the tender memories of childhood; the generous ties of friendship; the various sympathies which constitute the history of our inner selves, are rendered vivid and operative for our highest culture by the action of the simple yet unique mnemonic law which we have thus imperfectly examined.