tionary of sciences and commerce? Wisdom of this sort is to be
sparingly used in a work of art.

In these matters I cannot but feel that Hardy has a reticence so
commendable that praise of it is superfluous and impertinent. After
all, men and women are better than sheep and cows, and had he been
more explicit, he would have tempted one to inquire whether he
proposed making a story or a volume which might bear the title _The
Wessex Farmer's Own Hand-Book_, and containing wise advice as to pigs,
poultry, and the useful art of making two heads of cabbage grow where
only one had grown before.

III

Among the most engaging qualities of this writer is humor. Hardy is a
humorous man himself and entirely appreciative of the humor that is in
others. According to a distinguished philosopher, wit and humor
produce love. Hardy must then be in daily receipt of large measures of
this 'improving passion' from his innumerable readers on both sides of
the Atlantic.

His humor manifests itself in a variety of ways; by the use of witty
epithet; by ingenious description of a thing which is not strikingly
laughable in itself, but which becomes so from the closeness of his
rendering; by a leisurely and ample account of a character with
humorous traits,--traits which are brought artistically into
prominence as an actor heightens the complexion in stage make-up; and
finally by his lively reproductions of the talk of village and country
people,--a class of society whose everyday speech has only to be heard
to be enjoyed. I do not pretend that the sources of Hardy's humor are
exhausted in this analysis, but the majority of illustrations can be
assigned to some one of these divisions.

He is usually thought to be at his best in descriptions of farmers,
village mechanics, laborers, dairymen, men who kill pigs, tend sheep,
furze-cutters, masons, hostlers, loafers who do nothing in particular,
and while thus occupied rail on Lady Fortune in good set terms.
Certainly he paints these people with affectionate fidelity. Their
virile, racy talk delights him. His reproductions of that talk are
often intensely realistic. Nearly every book has its chorus of human
grotesques whose mere names are a source of mirth. William Worm,
Grandfer Cantle, 'Corp'el' Tullidge, Christopher Coney, John Upjohn,
Robert Creedle, Martin Cannister, Haymoss Fry, Robert Lickpan, and
Sammy Blore,--men so denominated should stand for comic things, and
these men do. William