y the marvels of that compound of thirst and scholarship that no
one had the heart to laugh when, after one of his narrations, a
gentleman asked the Bibliotaph if he himself had studied under Porson.

'Not _under_ him but _with_ him,' said the Bibliotaph. 'He was my
coeval. Porson, Richard Bentley, Joseph Scaliger, and I were all
students together.'

Speaking of Jowett the Bibliotaph once said that it was wonderful to
note how culture failed to counteract in an Englishman that
disposition to heave stones at an American. Jowett, with his
remarkable breadth of mind and temper, was quite capable of observing,
with respect to a certain book, that it was American, 'yet in perfect
taste.' 'This,' said the Bibliotaph, 'is as if one were to say, "The
guests were Americans, but no one expectorated on the carpet."' The
Bibliotaph thought that there was not so much reason for this
attitude. The sins of Englishmen and Americans were identical, he
believed, but the forms of their expression were different. 'Our sin
is a voluble boastfulness; theirs is an irritating, unrestrainable,
all-but-constantly manifested, satisfied self-consciousness. The same
results are reached by different avenues. We praise ourselves; they
belittle others.' Then he added with a smile: 'Thus even in these
latter days are the Scriptures exemplified; the same spirit with
varying manifestations.'

He was once commenting upon Jowett's classification of humorists.
Jowett divided humorists 'into three categories or classes; those who
are not worth reading at all; those who are worth reading once, but
once only; and those who are worth reading again and again and for
ever.' This remark was made to Swinburne, who quotes it in his all too
brief _Recollections of Professor Jowett_. Swinburne says that the
starting-point of their discussion was the _Biglow Papers_, which
'famous and admirable work of American humour' Jowett placed in the
second class. Swinburne himself thought that the _Biglow Papers_ was
too good for the second class and not quite good enough for the third.
'I would suggest that a fourth might be provided, to include such
examples as are worth, let us say, two or three readings in a
life-time.'

The Bibliotaph made a variety of comments on this, but I remember only
the following; it is a reason for not including the _Biglow Papers_ in
Jowett's third and crowning class. 'Humor to be popular permanently
must be general rather than local, and have