to, by modern writers, for not one of these professes to have arrived at any final, but only a provisional, arrangement; it seems, however, expedient to notice the fact that some of the authors of the 18th century supposed themselves to have seen the way to dividing what we now know as the family Trochilidae into two groups, the distinction between which was that in the one the bill was arched and in the other straight, since that difference has been insisted on in many works. This was especially the view taken by Brisson and Buffon, who termed the birds having the arched bill" colibris," and those having it straight "oiseaux-mouches." The distinction wholly breaks down, not merely because there are Trochilidae which possess almost every gradation of decurvation of the bill, but some which have the bill upturned after the manner of that strange bird the avocet, while it may be remarked that several of the species placed by those authorities among the "colibris" are not humming-birds at all. In describing the extraordinary brilliant plumage which most of the Trochilidae exhibit, ornithologists have been compelled to adopt the vocabulary of the jeweller in order to give an idea of the indescribable radiance that so often breaks forth from some part or other of the investments of these feathered gems. In all, save a few other birds, the most imaginative writer sees gleams which he may adequately designate metallic, from their resemblance to burnished gold, bronze, copper or steel, but such similitudes wholly fail when he has to do with the Trochilidae, and there is hardly a precious stone-ruby, amethyst, sapphire, emerald or topaz-the name of which may not fitly, and without any exaggeration, be employed in regard to humming-birds. In some cases this radiance beams from the brow, in some it glows from the throat, in others it shines from the tail-coverts, in others it sparkles from the tip only of elongated feathers that crest the head or surround the neck as with a frill, while again in others it may appear as a luminous streak across the cheek or auriculars. The feathers that cover the upper parts of the body very frequently have a metallic lustre of golden-green, which in other birds would be thought sufficiently beautiful, but in the Trochilidae its sheen is overpowered by the almost dazzling splendour that radiates from the spots where Nature's lapidary has set her jewels. The flight feathers are almost invariably dusky-the rapidity of their movement would, perhaps, render any display of colour ineffective: while, on the contrary, the feathers of the tail, which, as the bird hovers over its food-bearing flowers, is almost always expanded, and is therefore comparatively motionless, often exhibit a rich translucency, as of stained glass, but iridescent in a manner that no stained glass ever is-cinnamon merging into crimson, crimson changing to purple, purple to violet, and so to indigo and bottlegreen. But this part of the humming-bird is subject to quite as much modification in form as in colour, though always consisting of ten rectrices. It may be nearly square, or at least but slightly rounded, or wedge-shaped with the middle quills prolonged beyond the rest; or, again, it may be deeply forked, sometimes by the overgrowth of one or more of the intermediate pairs, but most generally by the development of the outer pair. In the last case the lateral feathers may be either broadly webbed to their tip or acuminate, or again, in some forms, may lessen to the filiform shaft, and suddenly enlarge into a terminal spatulation as in the forms known as " racquet tails.' The wings do not offer so much variation; still there are a few groups in which diversities occur that require notice. The primaries are invariably ten in number, the outermost being the longest, except in the single instance of Aithurus, where it is shorter than the next. The group known as "sabre-wings," comprising the genera Campylopterus, Eupetomena and Sphenoproctus, present a most curious sexual peculiarity, for while the female has nothing remarkable in the form of the wing, in the male the shaft of two or three of the outer primaries is dilated proximally, and bowed near the middle in a manner almost unique among birds. The feet again, diminutive as they are, are very diversified in form. In most the tarsus is bare, but in some groups, as Eriocnemis, it is clothed with tufts of the most delicate down, sometimes black, sometimes buff, but more often of a snowy whiteness. In some the toes are weak, nearly equal in length, and furnished with small rounded nails; in others they are largely developed, and armed with long and sharp claws.

Apart from the well-known brilliancy of plumage, of which enough has been here said, many humming-birds display a large amount of ornamentation in the addition to their attire of crests of various shape and size, elongated ear-tufts, projecting neck-frills, and pendant beards-forked or forming a single point. But it would be impossible here to dwell on a tenth of these beautiful modifications, each of which as it comes to our knowledge excites fresh surprise and exemplifies the ancient adage maxime miranda in minimis Natura. It must be remarked, however, that there are certain forms which possess little or no brilliant colouring at all, but, as most tropical birds go, are very soberly clad. These are known to trochilidists as "hermits," and by Gould have been separated as a subfamily under the name of Phaethornithinae, though Elliot says he cannot find any Salerne must be excepted, especially as he was rebuked by Buffon for doing what we now deem right.

For example Avocettula recurvirostris of Guiana and A. euryptera of Colombia.

characters to distinguish it from the Trochilidae proper. But sight is not the only sense that is affected by humming-birds. The large species known as Pterophanes temmincki has a strong musky odour, very similar to that given off by the petrels, though, so far as appears to be known, that is the only one of them that possesses this property.

All well-informed people are aware that the Trochilidae are a family peculiar to America and its islands, but one of the commonest of common errors is the belief that humming-birds are found in Africa and India-to say nothing even of England. In the first two cases the mistake arises from confounding them with some of the brightly-coloured sun-birds (Nectariniidae), to which British colonists or residents are apt to apply the better-known name; but in the last it can be only due to the want of perception which disables the observer from distinguishing between a bird and an insect-the object seen being a hawk-moth (Macroglossa), whose mode of feeding and rapid flight certainly bears some resemblance to that of the Trochilidae, and hence one of the species (M. stellarum) is very generally called the "humming-bird hawk-moth." But though confined to the New World the Trochilidae pervade almost every part of it. In the south Eustephanus galeritus has been seen flitting about the fuchsias of Tierra del Fuego in a snow-storm, and in the northwest Selatophorus rufus in summer visits the ribes-blossoms of Sitka, while in the north-east Trochilus colubris charms the vision of Canadians as it poises itself over the althaea-bushes in their gardens, and extends its range at least so far as lat. 57° N. Nor is the distri bution of humming-birds limited to a horizontal direction only, it rises also vertically. Oreotrochilus chimborazo and O. pichincha live on the lofty mountains whence each takes its specific name, but just beneath the line of perpetual snow, at an elevation of some 16,000 ft., dwelling in a world of almost constant hail, sleet and rain, and feeding on the insects which resort to the indigenous flowering plants, while other peaks, only inferior to these in height, are no less frequented by one or more species. Peru and Bolivia produce some of the most splendid of the family-the genera Comctes, Diphlogaena and Thaumastura, whose very names indicate the glories of their bearers. The comparatively gigantic Patagona inhabits the west coast of South America, while the isolated rocks of Juan Fernandez not only afford a home to the Eustephanus but also to two other species of the same genus which are not found elsewhere. The slopes of the From The Cambridge National History, Northern Andes and the hill vol. ix. "Birds," by permission of Maccountry of Colombia furnish millan & Co. Ltd. perhaps the greatest number of FIG. 2.—Eulampis jugularus. forms, and some of the most beautiful, but leaving that great range, we part company with the largest and most gorgeously arrayed species, and their number dwindles as we approach the eastern coast. Still there are many brilliant humming-birds common enough in the Brazils, Guiana and Venezuela. The Chrysolampis mosquitus is perhaps the most plentiful. Thousands of its skins are annually sent to Europe to be used in the manufacture of ornaments, its rich ruby-and-topaz glow rendering it one of the most beautiful objects imaginable. In the darkest depths of the Brazilian forests dwell the russet-clothed brotherhood of the genus Phaethornis-the "hermits"; but the great wooded basin of the Amazons seems to be particularly unfavourable to the Trochilidae, and from Pará to Ega there are scarcely a dozen species to be met with. There is no island of the Antilles but is inhabited by one or more humming-birds, and there are some very remarkable singularities of geographical distribution to be found. Northwards from Panama the highlands present many genera whose names it would be useless here to insert, few or none of which are found in South America-though that must unquestionably be deemed the metropolis of the family and advancing towards Mexico the numbers gradually fall off. Eleven species have been enrolled among the fauna of the United States, but some on slender evidence, while others only just cross the frontier line.

The habits of humming-birds have been ably treated by writers like Waterton, Wilson and Audubon, to say nothing of P. H. Gosse, A. R. Wallace, H. W. Bates and others. But there is no one appreciative

The specific name of a species of Chrysolampis, commonly written by many writers moschitus, would lead to the belief that it was a mistake for moschatus, i.e." musky," but in truth it originates with their carelessness, for though they quote Linnaeus as their authority they can never have referred to his works, or they would have found the word to be mosquitus, the "mosquito" of Óviedo, awkwardly, it is true, Latinized. If emendation be needed, muscatus, after Gesner's example, is undoubtedly, preferable. ved anywh

"Why humour, as it is 'ens,' we thus define it,
To be a quality of air or water;

And in itself holds these two properties
Moisture and fluxure: as, for demonstration
Pour water on this floor. Twill wet and run.
Likewise the air forced through a horn or trumpet
Flows instantly away, and leaves behind
A kind of dew; and hence we do conclude
That whatsoe'er hath fluxure and humidity
As wanting power to contain itself

Is humour. So in every human body

The choler, melancholy, phlegm and blood
By reason that they flow continually
In some one part and are not continent

Receive the name of humours. Now thus far

It may, by metaphor, apply itself
Unto the general disposition;

As when some one peculiar quality
Doth so possess a man that it doth draw
All his effects, his spirits and his powers,
In their confluxion all to run one way,-
This may be truly said to be a humour.'

or even an

37 66

A humour in this sense is a "ruling passion," and has done excellent service to English authors of "comedies of humours," to the Spanish authors of comedias de figuron, and to the French followers of Molière. Nor is the metaphor racked out of its fair proportions if we suppose that there may be a temporary, "adventitious and acquisite predominance of a humour," and that "deliveries of a man's self" to passing passion, or to imitation, are also "humours," though not primary, but only second or third concoctions. By a natural extension, therefore, humours" might come to mean oddities, tricks, practices, mere whims, and the aping of some model admired for the time being. "But," as Falstaff has told us, "it was always yet the trick of our English, if they have a good thing, to make it too common." ." The word "humour" was a good thing, but the Elizabethans certainly made it too common. It became a hack epithet of all work, to be used with no more discretion, though with less imbecile iteration, than the modern "awful." Shakespeare laughed at the folly, and pinned it for ever to the ridiculous company of Corporal Nym-" I like not the humour of lying. He hath wronged me in some humours. I should have borne the humoured letter to her...I love not the humour of bread and cheese; and there's the humour of it." The humour of Jonson was that he tried to clear the air of thistledown by stamping on it. Asper ends in denunciation:'But that a rook by wearing a pied feather, The sable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff, A yard of shoe tie, or the Switzer knot On his French gaiters, should affect a humour, O! it is more than most ridiculous."

The abuse of the word was the peculiar practice of England. The use of it was not confined wholly to English writers. The Spaniards of the 16th and 17th centuries knew humores in the same sense, and still employ the word as a name for caprices, whims and vapours. Humorada was, and is, the correct Spanish for a festive saying or writing of epigrammatic form. Martial's immortal reply to the critic who admired only dead poets

Ignoscas petimus Vacerra: tanti Non est, ut placeam tibi perire,

is a model humorada. It would be a difficult and would certainly be a lengthy task to exhaust all the applications given

senses. "Good humour" or "bad humour" are simply good temper or bad temper. There is a slight archaic flavour about the phrases "grim humour,” “the humour they were in," in the sense of suspicious, or angry or careless mood, which were favourites with Carlyle, but though somewhat antiquated they are not affected, or very unusual. With the proviso that the exceptions must always be excepted, we may say that for a long time" humour " came to connote comic matter less refined than the matter of wit. It had about it a smack of the Boar's Head Tavern in Eastcheap, and of the unyoked "humour" of the society in which Prince Henry was content to imitate the sun"Who doth permit the base contagious clouds To smother up his beauty from the world."

The presence of a base contagious cloud is painfully felt in the so-called humorous literature of England till the 18th century. The reader who does not sometimes wonder whether humour in the mouths of English writers of that period did not stand for maniacal tricks, horse-play, and the foul names of foul things, material and moral, must be very determined to prove himself a whole-hearted admirer of the ancient literature. Addison, who did much to clean it of mere nastiness, gives an excellent example of the base use of the word in his day. In Number 371 of the Spectator he introduces an example of the "sort of men called Whims and Humourists." It is the delight of this person to play practical jokes on his guests. He is proud when "he has packed together a set of oglers" who had " an unlucky cast in the eye," or has filled his table with stammerers. The humorist, in fact, was a mere practical joker, who was very properly answered by a challenge from a military gentleman of peppery temper. Indeed, the pump and a horse-whip would appear to have been the only effective forms of criticism on the prevalent humour and humours of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. But the pump and the horse-whip were themselves humours. Carlo Buffone in Jonson's play is put "out of his humour" by the counter humour of Signor Puntarvolo, who knocks him down and gags him with candle wax. The brutal pranks of Fanny Burney's Captain Mirvan, who belongs to the earlier part of the 18th century, were meant for humour, and were accepted as such, Examples might easily be multiplied. A briefer and also a more convincing method of demonstration is to take the deliberate judgment of a great authority. No writer of the 18th century possessed a finer sense of humour in the noble meaning than Goldsmith. What did he understand the word to mean? Not what he himself wrote when he created Dr Primrose. We have his express testimony in the 9th chapter of The Present State of Polite Learning. Goldsmith complains that "the critic, by demanding an impossibility from the comic poet, has, in effect, banished true comedy from the stage." This he has done by banning "low subjects, and by proscribing the comic or satirical muse from every walk but high life, which, though abounding in fools as well as the humbler station, is by no means so fruitful in absdity..... Absurdity is the poet's game, and good breeding is the nice concealment of absurdity. The truth is, the critic generally mistakes 'humour' for 'wit, which is a very different excellence; wit raises human nature above its level; humour acts a contrary part, and equally depresses it. To expect exalted humour is a contradition in terms.... The poet, therefore, must place the object he would have the subject of humour in a state of inferiority; in other words, the subject of humour must be low."

That no doubt may remain in his reader's mind, Goldsmith gives an example of true humour. It is nothing more or less than the absurdity and incongruity obvious in a man who, though

wanting a nose," is extremely curious in the choice of his snuffbox. We applaud "the humour of it," for "we here see him guilty of an absurdity of which we imagine it impossible for ourselves to be guilty, and therefore applaud our own good sense on the comparison."

Nothing could be more true as an account of what the Elizabethans, the Restoration, the Queen Anne men, and the 18th century meant by. "humour.". Nothing could be more false

The food of humming-birds consists mainly of insects, mostly gathered in the manner already described from the flowers they visit; but, according to Wallace, there are many species which he has never seen so occupied, and the "hermits" especially seem to live almost entirely upon the insects which are found on the lower surface of leaves, over which they will closely pass their bill, balancing themselves the while vertically in the air. The same excellent observer also remarks that even among the common flower-frequenting species he has found the alimentary canal entirely filled with insects, and very rarely a trace of honey. It is this fact doubtless that has hindered almost all attempts at keeping them in confinement for any length of time-nearly every one making the experiment having fed his captives only with syrup, which, without the addition of some animal food, is insufficient as sustenance, and seeing therefore the wretched creatures gradually sink into inanition and die of hunger. With better management, however, several species have been brought on different occasions to Europe, some of them to England.

The beautiful nests of humming-birds, than which the work of fairies could not be conceived more delicate, are to be seen in most museums, and will be found on examination to be very solidly and tenaciously built, though the materials are generally of the slightest -cotton-wool or some vegetable down and spiders' webs. They vary greatly in form and ornamentation-for it would seem that the portions of lichen which frequently bestud them are affixed to their exterior with that object, though probably concealment was the original intention. They are mostly cup-shaped, and the singular fact is on record (Zool. Journal, v. p. 1) that in one instance as the young grew in size the walls were heightened by the parents, until at last the nest was more than twice as big as when the eggs were laid and hatched. Some species, however, suspend their nests from the stem or tendril of a climbing plant, and more than one case has been known in which it has been attached to a hanging rope. These pensile nests are said to have been found loaded on one side with a small stone or bits of earth to ensure their safe balance, though how the compensatory process is applied no one can say. Other species, and especially those belonging to the "hermit" group, weave a frail structure round the side of a drooping palm-leaf. The eggs are never more than two in number, quite white, and having both ends nearly equal. The solicitude for her offspring displayed by the mother is not exceeded by that of any other birds, but it seems doubtful whether the male takes any interest in the brood. (A. N.)

HUMMOCK (of uncertain derivation; cf. hump or hillock), a boss or rounded knoll of ice rising above the general level of an ice-field, making sledge travelling in the Arctic and Antarctic region extremely difficult and unpleasant. Hummocky ice is caused by slow and unequal pressure in the main body of the packed ice, and by unequal structure and temperature at a later period.

HUMOUR (Latin humor), a word of many meanings and of strange fortune in their evolution. It began by meaning simply "liquid." It passed through the stage of being a term of art used by the old physicians-whom we should now call physiologists and by degrees has come to be generally understood to signify a certain "habit of the mind," shown in speech, in literature and in action, or a quality in things and events observed by the human intelligence. The word reached its full development by slow degrees. When Dr Johnson compiled his dictionary, he gave nine definitions of, or equivalents for, "humour." They may be conveniently quoted: " (1) Moisture. (2) The different kinds of moisture in man's body, reckoned by

which as they predominate are supposed to determine the temper of mind. (3) General turn or temper of mind. (4) Present disposition. (5) Grotesque imagery, jocularity, merriment. (6) Tendency to disease, morbid disposition. (7) Petulance, peevishness. (8) A trick, a practice. (9) Caprice, whim, predominant inclination." The list was not quite complete, even in Dr Johnson's own time. Humour was then, as it is now, the name of the semi-fluid parts of the eye. Yet no dictionary-maker has been more successful than Johnson in giving the literary and conversational meaning of an English word, or the main lines of its history. It is therefore instructive to note that in no one of his nine clauses does humour bear the meaning it has for Thackeray or for George Meredith. "General turn or temper of mind " is at the best too vague, and has moreover another application. His list of equivalents only. carries the history of the word up to the beginning of the last stage of its growth.

The limited original sense of liquid, moisture, mere wet, in which "humour " is used in Wycliffe's translation of the Bible, continued to attach to it until the 17th century. Thus Shakespeare, in the first scene of the second act of Julius Caesar, makes Portia say to her husband:-'Is Brutus sick? and is it physical

To walk unbraced and suck up the humours
Of the dank morning?"

In the same scene Decius employs the word in the wide meta-
phorical sense in which it was used, and abused, then and
afterwards. "Let me work," he says, referring to Caesar-
'For I can give his humour the true bent,
And I will bring him to the Capitol."

Here we have "the general turn or temper of mind," which can be flattered, or otherwise directed to present disposition." We have travelled far from mere fluid, and have been led on the road by the old physiologists. We are not concerned with their science, but it is necessary to see what they mean by "primary humours," and "second or third concoctions," if we are to understand how it was that a name for liquid could come to mean general turn or present disposition," or "whim" or "jocularity." Part I., Section 1, Member 2, Subsection 2, of Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy will supply all that is necessary for literary purposes. "A humour is a liquid or fluent part of the body comprehended in it, and is either born with us, or is adventitious and acquisite." The first four primary humours are "Blood, a hot, sweet, tempered, red humour, prepared in the meseraic veins, and made of the most temperate parts of the chylus (chyle) in the liver, whose office it is to nourish the whole body, to give it strength and colour, being dispersed through every part of it. And from it spirits are first begotten in the heart, which afterwards in the arteries are communicated to the other parts. Pituita or phlegm is a cold and moist humour, begotten of the colder parts of the chylus (or white juice coming out of the meat digested in the stomach) in the liver. His office is to nourish and moisten the members of the body," &c. "Choler is hot and dry, begotten of the hotter parts of the chylus, and gathered to the gall. It helps the natural heat and senses. Melancholy, cold and dry, thick, black and sour, begotten of the more feculent part of nourishment, and purged from the spleen, is a bridle to the other two hot humours, blood and choler, preserving them in the blood, and nourishing the bones." Mention must also be made of serum, and of "those excrementitious humours of the third concoction, sweat and tears." An exact balance of the four primary humours makes the justly constituted man, and allows for the undisturbed production of the "concoctions

or processes of digestion and assimilation. Literature seized upon these terms and definitions. Sometimes it applied them gravely in the moral and intellectual sphere. Thus the Jesuit Bouhours, a French critic of the 17th century, in his Entretiens d'Ariste el d'Eugène, says that in the formation of a bel esprit, "La bile donne le brillant et la pénétration, la mélancolie donne le bon sens et la solidité; le sang donne l'agrément et

"Why humour, as it is 'ens,' we thus define it,
To be a quality of air or water;

And in itself holds these two properties
Moisture and fluxure: as, for demonstration
Pour water on this floor. "Twill wet and run.
Likewise the air forced through a horn or trumpet
Flows instantly away, and leaves behind
A kind of dew; and hence we do conclude
That whatsoe'er hath fluxure and humidity
As wanting power to contain itself

Is humour. So in every human body

The choler, melancholy, phlegm and blood
By reason that they flow continually
In some one part and are not continent
Receive the name of humours. Now thus far
It may, by metaphor, apply itself
Unto the general disposition;

As when some one peculiar quality
Doth so possess a man that it doth draw
All his effects, his spirits and his powers,
In their confluxion all to run one way,-
This may be truly said to be a humour."

39 66

A humour in this sense is a "ruling passion," and has done excellent service to English authors of "comedies of humours,” to the Spanish authors of comedias de figuron, and to the French followers of Molière. Nor is the metaphor racked out of its fair proportions if we suppose that there may be a temporary, or even an "adventitious and acquisite predominance of a humour," and that "deliveries of a man's self" to passing passion, or to imitation, are also "humours," though not primary, but only second or third concoctions. By a natural extension, therefore, humours" might come to mean oddities, tricks, practices, mere whims, and the aping of some model admired for the time being. "But," as Falstaff has told us, "it was always yet the trick of our English, if they have a good thing, to make it too common." The word "humour" was a good thing, but the Elizabethans certainly made it too common. It became a hack epithet of all work, to be used with no more discretion, though with less imbecile iteration, than the modern "awful." Shakespeare laughed at the folly, and pinned it for ever to the ridiculous company of Corporal Nym-"I like not the humour of lying. He hath wronged me in some humours. I should have borne the humoured letter to her...I love not the humour of bread and cheese; and there's the humour of it." The humour of Jonson was that he tried to clear the air of thistledown by stamping on it. Asper ends in denunciation:'But that a rook by wearing a pied feather, The sable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff, A yard of shoe tie, or the Switzer knot On his French gaiters, should affect a humour, O! it is more than most ridiculous."

The abuse of the word was the peculiar practice of England. The use of it was not confined wholly to English writers. The Spaniards of the 16th and 17th centuries knew humores in the same sense, and still employ the word as a name for caprices, whims and vapours. Humorada was, and is, the correct Spanish for a festive saying or writing of epigrammatic form. Martial's immortal reply to the critic who admired only dead poets

Ignoscas petimus Vacerra: tanti Non est, ut placeam tibi perire,

is a model humorada. It would be a difficult and would certainly be a lengthy task to exhaust all the applications given

"Who doth permit the base contagious clouds

To smother up his beauty from the world."

The presence of a base contagious cloud is painfully felt in the so-called humorous literature of England till the 18th century. The reader who does not sometimes wonder whether humour in the mouths of English writers of that period did not stand for maniacal tricks, horse-play, and the foul names of foul things, material and moral, must be very determined to prove himself a whole-hearted admirer of the ancient literature. Addison, who did much to clean it of mere nastiness, gives an excellent example of the base use of the word in his day. In Number 371 of the Spectator he introduces an example of the "sort of men called Whims and Humourists." It is the delight of this person to play practical jokes on his guests. He is proud when “he has packed together a set of oglers" who had "an unlucky cast in the eye," or has filled his table with stammerers. The humorist, in fact, was a mere practical joker, who was very properly answered by a challenge from a military gentleman of peppery temper. Indeed, the pump and a horse-whip would appear to have been the only effective forms of criticism on the prevalent humour and humours of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. But the pump and the horse-whip were themselves humours. Carlo Buffone in Jonson's play is put "out of his humour" by the counter humour of Signor Puntarvolo, who knocks him down and gags him with candle wax. The brutal pranks of Fanny Burney's Captain Mirvan, who belongs to the earlier part of the 18th century, were meant for humour, and were accepted as such, Examples might easily be multiplied. A briefer and also a more convincing method of demonstration is to take the deliberate judgment of a great authority. No writer of the 18th century possessed a finer sense of humour in the noble meaning than Goldsmith. What did he understand the word to mean? Not what he himself wrote when he created Dr Primrose. We have his express testimony in the 9th chapter of The Present State of Polite Learning. Goldsmith complains that "the critic, by demanding an impossibility from the comic poet, has, in effect, banished true comedy from the stage." This he has done by banning "low" subjects, and by proscribing "the comic or satirical muse from every walk but high life, which, though abounding in fools as well as the humbler station, is by no means so fruitful in absdity. .... Absurdity is the poet's game, and good breeding is the nice concealment of absurdity. The truth is, the critic generally mistakes 'humour' for 'wit, which is a very different excellence; wit raises human nature above its level; humour acts a contrary part, and equally depresses it. To expect exalted humour is a contradition in terms.... The poet, therefore, must place the object he would have the subject of humour in a state of inferiarity; in other words, the subject of humour must be low."

That no doubt may remain in his reader's mind, Goldsmith gives an example of true humour. It is nothing more or less than the absurdity and incongruity obvious in a man who, though "wanting a nose," is extremely curious in the choice of his snuffbox. We applaud" the humour of it," for "we here see him guilty of an absurdity of which we imagine it impossible for ourselves to be guilty, and therefore applaud our own good sense on the comparison."

Nothing could be more true as an account of what the Elizabethans, the Restoration, the Queen Anne men, and the 18th century meant by "humour.". Nothing could be more false