Diogenes never
laughed, and the same has been asserted of Swift. And although we may
safely conclude that these statements were not literally true, there was
probably some foundation for them. No doubt they appreciated humour, but
their minds were earnest and ambitious. Moreover, great wits are
accustomed to the character of their own humour, and are often merely
repeating what they have heard or said frequently.

Nature has endowed few men with two gifts, and emotional joyousness and
high intellectual culture form a rare combination, such as was found in
Goldsmith with his hearty laughter, and in Macaulay, who tells us that
he laughed at Mathews' comic performance "until his sides were sore."
Bishop Warburton said that humorists were generally men of learning, but
although those who were so would have been most prominent, we scarcely
find the name of one of them in the course of these volumes; many of
those mentioned sprang from the humbler paths of life, but all were men
of study. Still those who are altogether unable to enjoy a joke are men
of imperfect sympathies.

Charles Lamb observes that in a certain way the character, even of a
ludicrous man, is attractive--"The more laughable blunders a man shall
commit in your company, the more tests he gives you that he will not
betray or over-reach you. And take my word for this, reader, and say a
fool told it you, if you please, that he who hath not a dram of folly in
his mixture, hath pounds of much worse matter in his composition. What
are commonly the world's received fools, but such whereof the world is
not worthy?"

We have intimated that our sense of the ludicrous varies in accordance
with memory, imagination, observation, and association. The minds of
some are so versatile, and so richly endowed with intellectual gifts,
that their ideas sparkle and coruscate, they splinter every ray of light
into a thousand colours, and produce all kinds of strange juxtapositions
and combinations. (This exuberance has probably led to the seemingly
contradictory saying that men of sentiment are generally men of humour.)
No doubt their sallies would be poor and appreciated by themselves alone
were they without a certain foundation, but a vast number of things are
capable of affording amusement. Pleasantries often turn upon something
much more difficult to define than to feel--upon some nicety of regard,
or neatness of proportion. No interchange of ideas can take place
without much