use we have Hiscups and Hercups; and in like
manner Histerics should be altered into Herterics, the complaint never
being masculine.

None but a 'humorist' would have announced the decease of a cat in
such mingled terms and tones of jest and earnest as the
following:--'Alas! Grosvenor,' writes Southey to his friend Mr Bedford
(1823), 'this day poor old Rumpel was found dead, after as long and
happy a life as cat could wish for, if cats form wishes on that
subject. His full titles were: "The Most Noble the Archduke
Rumpelstiltzchen, Earl Tomlemagne,[3] Baron Raticide, Waowhler and
Skaratch." There should be a court mourning in Catland; and if the
Dragon [a cat of Mr Bedford's] wear a black ribbon round his neck, or
a band of crape _a la militaire_ round one of the fore-paws, it will
be but a becoming mark of respect.... I believe we are, each and all,
servants included, more sorry for this loss than any of us would like
to confess. I should not have written to you at present had it not
been to notify this event.' The notification of such events, in print
too, appears to some thinkers _too_ absurd. Others find a special
interest in these 'trifles light as air,' because presenting
'confirmation strong' of the kindly nature of the man, taking no
unamiable or affected part in the presentment of _Every Man in His
Humour_. His correspondence is, indeed, rich in traits of quiet
humour, if by that word we understand a 'humane influence, softening
with mirth the ragged inequalities of existence'--the very 'juice of
the mind oozing from the brain, and enriching and fertilising wherever
it falls'--and seldom far removed from its kindred spirit, pathos,
with which, however, it is _not_ too closely akin to marry; for pathos
is bound up in mysterious ties with humour--bone of its bone, and
flesh of its flesh.

Nor can we assent to the assertion, that in his ballads, metrical
tales, and rhyming _jeux-d'esprit_, Southey's essay to be comic
results in merely 'quaint and flippant dulness.' Smartly enough he
tells the story of the Well of St Keyne, whereof the legend is, that
if the husband manage to secure a draught before his good dame, 'a
happy man henceforth is he, for he shall be master for life.' But if
the wife should drink of it first--'God help the husband _then_!' The
traveller to whom a Cornishman narrates the tradition, compliments him
with the assumption that _he_ has profited by it in his matrimonial
experience:--