Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 096.djvu/155

Rh throughout its sportive convolutions; sounding on their dim and perilous way among jokes that de jure should be lights to their path, but de facto are stumbling-blocks and pitfalls—that should have the effect of cheering their hearts, but, on the contrary, threaten to break their necks, His humour, then, is not for all comers. It is not patent for the use and delight of all tastes and degrees of men amongst us. For some it is too subtle and tangential and allusive; for others too complex, intricate, parenthetical; for others too ponderous, too "high and dry," too pedantic; for others too unlicensed in its verbiage, too eccentric in its orbit, too colloquial and slangy in its neological solecisms. Racy as it often is, there is a twang of Alma Mater about it, a soupçon of cap-and-gown scholarship, to relish which pre-supposes a taste habituated to the Fellows' table and the Combination Room. And keen and delicate as are many of its tones, they not uncommonly peal out such a burden of harum-scarum glee, such wild and wilful, as well as merry chimes, that precisians shake their heads, and close their ears, and harden their hearts, and turn their backs, upon such a discordant omniumgatherum of laughing devilries.

According to Mr. Landor, whoever haa humour has wit, though it does not follow that whoever has wit has humour. "Humour is wit appertaining to character, and indulges in breadth of drollery rather than in play and brilliancy of point. Wit vibrates and spirts; humour springs up exuberantly as from a fountain, and runs on." Mr, Leigh Hunt, again, pronounces wit to be the arbitrary juxtaposition of dissimilar ideas, for some lively purpose of assimilation or contrast, or both; and humour, a tendency of the mind to run in particular directions of thought or feeling, more amusing than accountable." Taking either of these definitions as a standard, it might seem a feasible allegation that whatever of the vis comica belongs to the Opium-eater's writings, should be classified in the department—not of humour, but of wit. But, while acknowledging to the full his claims as a wit of high degree, we contend that he is also o humorist of the first class; so long at least, as we continue,to hold that humour is, in fact, wit, and something more—super-adding to the ludicrous the kindly—tempering the laughable with the loving—chastening the ridiculous with a spirit of tenderness; that whilst wit pertains to the intellect, humour involves amoral element also; that whilst wit is a sort of dry, light humour, as its name implies, has something moist in its nature; and that wit disports itself regardless of the feelings, whereas, without sympathy, humour cannot exist. While Voltaire meg he fairly pointed out as one of the wittiest. of wits, and Jean Paul as one of the most humorous of humorists, we entertain a conviction that an intelligent and comprehensive scrutiny of De Quincey's voluminous opera omnia would ratify our doctrine, that he is at once entitled to be called one of the wittiest of humorists and most humorous of wits.

Do you demur, reader? And do you cavalierly reject the idea of making good your objection, by proving a negative? And do you make over to me the onus probandi? Well, had I a "fair field"—in the