--the three first named,--and
are to be found in all libraries, is proof that his life was not thrown
away.

I almost question Prior's right to be in the list, unless indeed the
mastery over well-turned conceits is to be included within the border of
humour. But Thackeray had a strong liking for Prior, and in his own
humorous way rebukes his audience for not being familiar with _The Town
and Country Mouse_. He says that Prior's epigrams have the genuine
sparkle, and compares Prior to Horace. "His song, his philosophy, his
good sense, his happy easy turns and melody, his loves and his
epicureanism bear a great resemblance to that most delightful and
accomplished master." I cannot say that I agree with this. Prior is
generally neat in his expression. Horace is happy,--which is surely a
great deal more.

All that is said of Gay, Pope, Hogarth, Smollett, and Fielding is worth
reading, and may be of great value both to those who have not time to
study the authors, and to those who desire to have their own judgments
somewhat guided, somewhat assisted. That they were all men of humour
there can be no doubt. Whether either of them, except perhaps Gay, would
have been specially ranked as a humorist among men of letters, may be a
question.

Sterne was a humorist, and employed his pen in that line, if ever a
writer did so, and so was Goldsmith. Of the excellence and largeness of
the disposition of the one, and the meanness and littleness of the
other, it is not necessary that I should here say much. But I will give
a short passage from our author as to each. He has been quoting somewhat
at length from Sterne, and thus he ends; "And with this pretty dance and
chorus the volume artfully concludes. Even here one can't give the whole
description. There is not a page in Sterne's writing but has something
that were better away, a latent corruption,--a hint as of an impure
presence. Some of that dreary double entendre may be attributed to freer
times and manners than ours,--but not all. The foul satyr's eyes leer
out of the leaves constantly. The last words the famous author wrote
were bad and wicked. The last lines the poor stricken wretch penned were
for pity and pardon." Now a line or two about Goldsmith, and I will then
let my reader go to the volume and study the lectures for himself. "The
poor fellow was never so friendless but that he could befriend some
one; never so pinched and wretched but he could give of his crust, and
sp