Aristophanes, Shakspeare, Cervantes, Moliere,
Swift, Fielding, Lamb, Richter, Carlyle: widely as these writers
differ from each other in style and genius, the least skilled reader
would hardly need to be told that the list which includes them all
is a catalogue of humourists. And Cicero, Lucian, Pascal, Voltaire,
Congreve, Pope, Sheridan, Courier, Sydney Smith--this, I suppose,
would be recognized at once as an enumeration of wits. Some of these
humourists, like Fielding, like Richter, like Carlyle, are always, or
almost always, humourists alone. Some of these wits, like Pascal,
like Pope, like Courier, are wits with no, or but slight, admixture
of humour; and in the classification of these there is of course
no difficulty at all. But even with the wits who very often give us
humour also, and with the humourists who as often delight us with
their wit, we seldom find ourselves in any doubt as to the real and
more essential affinities of each. It is not by the wit which he has
infused into his talk, so much as by the humour with which he has
delineated the character, that Shakspeare has given his Falstaff an
abiding place in our memories.
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