S. Austin Allibone, comp. Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay. 1880.
Wags
A wag is the last order even of pretenders to wit and good humour. He has generally his mind prepared to receive some occasion of merriment, but is of himself too empty to draw any out of his own set of thoughts; and therefore laughs at the next thing he meets, not because it is ridiculous, but because he is under a necessity of laughing. A wag is one that never in its life saw a beautiful object; but sees what it does see in the most low and most inconsiderable light it can be placed.
Sir Richard Steele: Tatler, No. 184.