ABSTRACT
… Our readers cannot fail to have observed the sudden turn for the comic, which has recently discovered itself in the literary public. Formerly, the maxim was—‘You are nothing if not critical;’ now it is ‘You are nothing if not comical.’ The appetite for the jocose, the farcical, the extravagant, is immoderate. It is no longer ‘Laughter holding both its sides,’ but ‘Laughter literally unable to hold its sides.’ Accordingly, the magazines have become as funny as it was in their power to become; and, although it is very hard to be funny to order, and fun of that sort is generally very hard, there never was such a quality of obstreperous mirth brought into the market before….
