ment was very strong in the Egyptians; no laughter lurks in
the wondering eyes and the broad calm lips of their statues. Still less
can the Assyrians have had any genius for the comic: the round eyes and
simpering satisfaction of their ideal faces belong to a type which is not
witty, but the cause of wit in others. The fun of these early races was,
we fancy, of the after-dinner kind--loud-throated laughter over the
wine-cup, taken too little account of in sober moments to enter as an
element into their Art, and differing as much from the laughter of a
Chamfort or a Sheridan as the gastronomic enjoyment of an ancient Briton,
whose dinner had no other "removes" than from acorns to beech-mast and
back again to acorns, differed from the subtle pleasures of the palate
experienced by his turtle-eating descendant. In fact they had to live
seriously through the stages which to subsequent races were to become
comedy, as those amiable-looking preadamite amphibia which Professor Owen
has restored for us in effigy at Sydenham, took perfectly _au serieux_
the grotesque physiognomies of their kindred. Heavy experience in their
case, as in every other, was the base from which the salt of future wit
was to be made.

Humor is of earlier growth than Wit, and it is in accordance with this
earlier growth that it has more affinity with the poetic tendencies,
while Wit is more nearly allied to the ratiocinative intellect. Humor
draws its materials from situations and characteristics; Wit seizes on
unexpected and complex relations. Humor is chiefly representative and
descriptive; it is diffuse, and flows along without any other law than
its own fantastic will; or it flits about like a will-of-the-wisp,
amazing us by its whimsical transitions. Wit is brief and sudden, and
sharply defined as a crystal; it does not make pictures, it is not
fantastic; but it detects an unsuspected analogy or suggests a startling
or confounding inference. Every one who has had the opportunity of
making the comparison will remember that the effect produced on him by
some witticisms is closely akin to the effect produced on him by subtle
reasoning which lays open a fallacy or absurdity, and there are persons
whose delight in such reasoning always manifests itself in laughter.
This affinity of wit with ratiocination is the more obvious in proportion
as the species of wit is higher and deals less with less words and with
superficialities than with the essential