e I have used from time to time the only possible
phrases for the case, that I mean the Victorian Englishman to appear as
a blockhead, which means an unconscious buffoon. To all this there is a
final answer: that he was also a conscious buffoon--and a successful
one. He was a humorist; and one of the best humorists in Europe. That
which Goethe had never taught the Germans, Byron did manage to teach the
English--the duty of not taking him seriously. The strong and shrewd
Victorian humour appears in every slash of the pencil of Charles Keene;
in every undergraduate inspiration of Calverley or "Q." or J. K. S. They
had largely forgotten both art and arms: but the gods had left them
laughter.

But the final proof that the Victorians were alive by this laughter, can
be found in the fact they could manage and master for a moment even the
cosmopolitan modern theatre. They could contrive to put "The Bab
Ballads" on the stage. To turn a private name into a public epithet is a
thing given to few: but the word "Gilbertian" will probably last longer
than the name Gilbert.

It meant a real Victorian talent; that of exploding unexpectedly and
almost, as it seemed, unintentionally. Gilbert made good jokes by the
thousand; but he never (in his best days) made the joke that could
possibly have been expected of him. This is the last essential of the
Victorian. Laugh at him as a limited man, a moralist, conventionalist,
an opportunist, a formalist. But remember also that he was really a
humorist; and may still be laughing at you.

CHAPTER III

THE GREAT VICTORIAN POETS

What was really unsatisfactory in Victorian literature is something much
easier to feel than to state. It was not so much a superiority in the
men of other ages to the Victorian men. It was a superiority of
Victorian men to themselves. The individual was unequal. Perhaps that is
why the society became unequal: I cannot say. They were lame giants; the
strongest of them walked on one leg a little shorter than the other. A
great man in any age must be a common man, and also an uncommon man.
Those that are only uncommon men are perverts and sowers of pestilence.
But somehow the great Victorian man was more and less than this. He was
at once a giant and a dwarf. When he has been sweeping the sky in
circles infinitely great, he suddenly shrivels into something
indescribably small. There is a moment when Carlyle turns suddenly from
a high creative mystic to a common