erstood in a man who had seen the "Rivals" and the
"Critic." In the present day no one, it may be supposed, would echo it,
after Scott with the Baron, the Antiquary, Dalgetty, &c., and Thackeray
with Mrs. O'Dowd, Major Pendennis, and Colonel Newcome. The epithet
"_Vafer_" applied to Horace by Persius is not inapplicable to Addison.
There is a slyness about some of his sketches which breathes something
of the Horatian facetiousness. It is remarkable that in all this long
and varied criticism Walpole scarcely mentions _wit_, which he seems to
allow to no one but Horace and Boileau. His comparative denial of it to
Aristophanes and Lucian creates a supposition that his Greek was
inferior to his Latin scholarship. It is not always easy to distinguish
humour from wit; of the two, the former seems the higher quality. Wit is
verbal, conversant with language, combining keenness and terseness of
expression with a keen perception of resemblances or differences; humour
has, comparatively speaking, little to do with language, and is of
different kinds, varying with the class of composition in which it is
found. In one of his "Imaginary Conversations" Savage Landor remarks
that "It is no uncommon thing to hear, 'Such an one has humour rather
than wit.' Here the expression can only mean _pleasantry_, for whoever
has humour has wit, although it does not follow that whoever has wit has
humour.... The French have little humour, because they have little
_character_; they excel all nations in wit, because of their levity and
sharpness."]

The Grecians had grace in everything; in poetry, in oratory, in
statuary, in architecture, and probably, in music and painting. The
Romans, it is true, were their imitators; but, having grace too,
imparted it to their copies, which gave them a merit that almost raises
them to the rank of originals. Horace's "Odes" acquired their fame, no
doubt, from the graces of his manner and purity of his style--the chief
praise of Tibullus and Propertius, who certainly cannot boast of more
meaning than Horace's "Odes."

Waller, whom you proscribe, Sir, owed his reputation to the graces of
his manner, though he frequently stumbled, and even fell flat; but a few
of his smaller pieces are as graceful as possible: one might say that he
excelled in painting ladies in enamel, but could not succeed in
portraits in oil, large as life. Milton had such superior merit, that I
will only say, that if his angels, his Satan, and hi