He started
the "John Bull" newspaper, in which he wrote many humorous papers, and
amused people by expressing his great surprise, on crossing the Channel,
to find that every little boy and girl could speak French.
He wrote cautionary verses against punning:--
"My little dears, who learn to read, pray early learn to shun
That very silly thing, indeed, which people call a pun;
Read Entick's rules, and 'twill be found how simple an offence
It is to make the self-same sound afford a double sense.
For instance, _ale_ may make you _ail_, your _aunt_ an _ant_ may kill,
You in a _vale_ may buy a _veil_, and _Bill_ may pay the _bill_;
Or if to France your bark you steer, at Dover it may be,
A _peer_ appears upon the _pier_, who blind still goes to _sea_."
But he was much given to the practice he condemns--here is an epigram--
"It seems as if Nature had cunningly planned
That men's names with their trades should agree,
There's Twining the tea-man, who lives in the Strand,
Would be _whining_ if robbed of his T."
Mistakes of words by the uneducated are a very ordinary resource of
humorists, but, of course, there is a great difference in the quality of
such jests. Mrs. Ramsbottom in Paris, eats a _voulez-vous_ of fowl, and
some pieces of _crape_, and goes to the _symetery_ of the _Chaise and
pair_.
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