The American Joe Miller: A Collection of Yankee Wit and Humor

So far as the Compiler is aware, no good collection of American wit and humour exists on this side of the Atlantic; certainly, no collection worthy to be considered as the American Joe Miller. In the well-known "Percy Anecdotes," in the numerous English Joe Millers, and other jest-books, a few of brother Jonathan's good things are to be found, in company with the rich and genial wit of John Bull, the pawky humour of the Scotch, and the exuberant mirth of Paddy; but it is believed that the present is the first attempt to present anything like a complete collection of American witticisms to English readers. While every justice has been done in this matter to Scotland by Dean Ramsay's inimitable "Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character;" and while a kindred service has been performed for England by Mr. John Timbs, and still more recently by Mr. Mark Lemon, not to mention others, no one, seemingly, has bethought him of gathering together the happy scintillations of brother Jonathan's intellect. The Compiler trusts that he may have undertaken this task with at least some success. No one at all familiar with the periodical literature of America will deny that the Americans are a witty people. Whether their native wit be so intellectual and refined as the English, so quaint and subtle as the Scotch humour, or so strong and hearty as the Irish, or, again, whether it be so keen and compact as the French esprit, may be reasonably questioned; but that it is a straw thatcan tickle, and therefore, according to Dryden, an instrument of happiness, all must admit. In considering the nature of American humour, it is obvious that broad exaggeration is its great characteristic. It is essentially outré. No people seek to raise the laugh by such extravagant means as the Yankees. Their ordinary speech is hyperbole, or tall talk. They never go out shooting unless with the long bow. Again, their humour comes from without, rather than from within, and is less a matter of thought than of verbal expression. It deals with the association of ideas rather than with ideas themselves.