A would-be satirist, a hired buffoon,
A monthly scribbler of some low lampoon,
Condemned to drudge, the meanest of the mean,
And furbish falsehoods for a magazine. [ Byron ]

It is by vivacity and wit that man shines in company; but trite jokes and loud laughter reduce him to a buffoon. [ Chesterfield ]

The province of music is rather to express the passions and feelings of the human heart than the actions of men, or the operations of nature. When employed in the former capacity, it becomes an eloquent language; when in the latter, a mere mimic - an imitator, and a very miserable one - or rather a buffoon, caricaturing what it cannot imitate; the idea of the different stages of a battle, or the progress of a tempest being represented to the eye or the ear, or even the imagination, by the quavering of a fiddler's elbow, or the squeaking of catgut, is preposterous. [ G. P. Morris ]