Humbug

The universal jester: or, a pocket companion for the wits. Being a choice collection of merry conceits, facetious Drolleries, humorous Waggeries, smart Repartees, pleasant Jokes, Clenchers, Closures, Bon Mots, and Humbugs; comic Stories, notable Puns, witty Quibbles, and ridiculous Bulls. To which are added, Mr. Puzzlewit's gimcracks ; or, A long String of out-o'th'-way Conundrums, diverting Rebusses, poignant Epigrams, odd and uncommon Epitaphs, &c. &c. All calculated to promote inoffensive Mirth, and divert good Company with Elegance and Taste. Containing more in Number, and greater Variety, than any Book of the Kind yet published. Humbly inscribed to the choice spirits of the age. By Ferdinando Killigrew, Esq.

The profeſſor of the modern Humbugg, for ſuch is the polite name of this qualification, muſt either have from nature an unalterable countenance, or from art a power of commanding all its ſucceſſive variations, and preſerving it inviolably in each, as long as the present ſituation of the caſe renders it neceſſary: he muſt have a head full of imagination, and a heart empty of every trace of candor and humanity.

Look at the affairs of nations on the widest scale—look at their intercourse with each other—look at the manifestoes, by which war is declared—look at the treaties, by which peace is restored—look at the professions of kings, or popes, or generals, or ministers. Is not cant, humbug, hypocrisy, the staple of them all? What is modern diplomacy, but a system of duplicity and deceit?

What is the civility of the landlord and his waiters but humbug? What the smirking, smiling, ducking and bowing of the shopkeeper, but humbug? What his sweet and gentle "yes, sirs," and "no, sirs," and "proud to serve you, sirs," but humbug? You are not goose enough to believe for a moment that he is serious, that he has either the least regard or respect for you.

Many times a whole audience will not only be crowded into a small room, but are noisy disbelievers, call it all a humbug, distract the mind of the magnetizer, and added to these, absolutely outwill the magnetizer, in their wish to bring odium upon the science, and carry their points and gain their ends.

[Phineas Taylor] Barnum turned profits detecting humbug, staging humbugs, and in authoring books that present him as a humbug. In each case he operated by aestheticizing humbug: in writing tongue-in-cheek "reform" literature about avoiding humbug, in creating narratives or mythologies to advertise his own humbugs, and in celebrating in prose his own ability to balance contradictory roles.

He is a political humbug, the greatest of all humbugs; a man who swaggers about London clubs and consults solemnly about his influence, and in the country is a nonentity.

All poets are humbugs, all literary men are humbugs; directly a man begins to sell his feelings for money he’s a humbug.