Would mad Earl Robin saw these humourists: 'Twould feed him fit with laughter!

Thackery's English Humourists, ed. 1858, p. 94.

Sir, You know very well that our Nation is more famous for that sort of Men who are called Whims and Humourists, than any other Country in the World; for which reason it is observed that our English Comedy excells that of all other Nations in the Novelty and Variety of its Characters.

I need not trouble you with the long list of the Cockney humourists who have discharged their bills (or failed to discharge them) in our noble old City taverns.

In that potential paradise I may walk among the Cockney humourists, if not an equal, at least a companion.

Rabelais is one of the very great French writers and humourists whose work is closely connected with English literature.

THACKERAY, W.M., English Humourists, London, 1858.

English Humourists, i. 199, n, 2. English Malady, The, i. 65; iii. 27, n. 1.

In France they have no humourists who seem impelled by their nature to do good, in spite of their temperamentnor have we in England many people who are cold and unfeeling, yet systematically aimable:

Thus you see Flatterers are the Agents in Families of Humourists, and those who govern themselves by any thing but Reason.

Sir, You know very well that our Nation is more famous for that sort of Men who are called Whims and Humourists, than any other Country in the World; for which reason it is observed that our English Comedy excells that of all other Nations in the Novelty and Variety of its Characters.

Men of this kind are generally known by the name of Humourists, an appellation by which he that has obtained it, and can be contented to keep it, is set free at once from the shackles of fashion: and can go in or out, sit or stand, be talkative or silent, gloomy or merry, advance absurdities or oppose demonstration, without any other reprehension from mankind, than that it is his way, that he is an odd fellow, and must be let alone.

Men do not blossom forth as wits, humourists, masterly delineators of character, and skilful performers on a highly-strung and carefully-tuned sentimental instrument all at once, after entering their "forties;" and the only wonder is that a possessor of these powerssome of them of the kind which, as a rule, and in most men, seeks almost as irresistibly for exercise as even the poetic instinct itselfshould have been held so long unemployed.

[Footnote 1: It is curious to note, as a point in the chronology of language, how exclusive is Sterne's employment of the words "humour," "humourists," in their older sense of "whimsicality," "an eccentric.

" [Footnote 1: It is the penaltyI suppose the just penaltypaid by habitually extravagant humourists, that meaning not being always expected of them, it is not always sought by their readers with sufficient care.

Some wits have been humourists also; nearly all humourists have been also wits; yet the two fall, on the whole, into tolerably well-marked classes, and the ordinary uncritical judgment would, probably, enable most men to state with sufficient certainty the class to which each famous name in the world's literature belongs.

Some wits have been humourists also; nearly all humourists have been also wits; yet the two fall, on the whole, into tolerably well-marked classes, and the ordinary uncritical judgment would, probably, enable most men to state with sufficient certainty the class to which each famous name in the world's literature belongs.

Aristophanes, Shakspeare, Cervantes, Molière, Swift, Fielding, Lamb, Richter, Carlyle: widely as these writers differ from each other in style and genius, the least skilled reader would hardly need to be told that the list which includes them all is a catalogue of humourists.

Some of these humourists, like Fielding, like Richter, like Carlyle, are always, or almost always, humourists alone.

Some of these humourists, like Fielding, like Richter, like Carlyle, are always, or almost always, humourists alone.

But even with the wits who very often give us humour also, and with the humourists who as often delight us with their wit, we seldom find ourselves in any doubt as to the real and more essential affinities of each.

It is by his humourhis humour of character, his dramatic as distinct from his critical descriptive personal humourthough, of course, he possesses this also, as all humourists mustthat he lives and will live.

It is not necessary to my purpose, nor doubtless congenial to the taste of the reader, that I should enter upon any critical analysis of this quality in the author's work, or compare him in this respect with the two other great humourists who have been the worst offenders in the same way.

Carlyle classes Sterne with Cervantes among the great humourists of the world; and from one, and that the most important, point of view the praise is not extravagant.

And oftentimes do flit Remembrances before me of old men Old humourists, who have been long in their graves, And having almost in my mind put off Their human names, have into phantoms passed 580 Of texture midway between life and books.