heard about his Majesty, we merely
see the humour, unless we are so far abstracted as to regard the scene
as ludicrous. In the same way a conversation between foolish men on the
stage may be amusing, but cannot be witty.

An old stanza tells us--

"True wit is like the brilliant stone
Dug from the Indian mine.
Which boasts two various powers in one
To cut as well as shine."

Bacon observes that those who make others afraid of their wit had need
be afraid of others' memory. And Sterne says that there is as great a
difference between the memory of jester and jestee as between the purse
of the mortgager and mortgagee. Humour is fully as unamiable as wit, but
the latter has obtained the worse character simply because it is the
more salient of the two. There is always a jealous and ill-natured side
to human nature which gives a semblance of truth to Rochefoucauld's
saying that we are not altogether grieved at the misfortunes even of our
friends; and wit often, from its point and the element of truth it
possesses, has been used to add a sting and adhesiveness to malevolent
attacks. Writers therefore often remind us to be sparing and circumspect
in the use of wit, as if it were necessarily, instead of accidentally
offensive.

As an instance of the danger of wit, I may mention a case in which two
celebrated divines, one of the "high" church, and the other of the
"broad" church school, had been attacking and confuting one another in
rival reviews. They met accidentally at an evening party, and the high
churchman, who was a well-known wit, could not forbear exclaiming, as he
grasped the other's hand, "The Augurs have met face to face"--an
observation which, if it implied anything, must have meant that they
were both hypocrites.

Those who consider humour objectionable, have no idea of the variety of
circumstances under which our emotions may be excited. A man may smile
at his own misfortunes after they are over--sometimes our laughter seems
scarcely directed against anyone, and in the most profane and indelicate
humour there is often nothing personal.

Occasionally it is too general to wound, being aimed at nations, as in
my old friend's saying, "The French do not know what they want, and will
never be satisfied until they get it," or it may strike at the great
mass of mankind, as when one of the same dissatisfied nation calls
marriage "a tiresome book with a very fine preface." There is nothing
unamiable in