the humour of these typical
persons who so swell the _dramatis personae_; of an Elizabethan is, to
say the least of it, far to seek. There is a certain warm-hearted
tradition about their very names which makes disrespect painful. It
seems a churl's part not to laugh, as did our fathers before us, at the
humours of the conventional parasite or impossible serving-man; but we
laugh because we will, and not because we must.

Genuine comedy--the true tickling scene, exquisite absurdity,
soul-rejoicing incongruity--has really nothing to do with types,
prevailing fashions, and such-like vulgarities. Sir Andrew Aguecheek is
not a typical fool; he _is_ a fool, seised in fee simple of his folly.

Humour lies not in generalizations, but in the individual; not in his hat
nor in his hose, even though the latter be 'cross-gartered'; but in the
deep heart of him, in his high-flying vanities, his low-lying
oddities--what we call his 'ways'--nay, in the very motions of his back
as he crosses the road. These stir our laughter whilst he lives and our
tears when he dies, for in mourning over him we know full well we are
taking part in our own obsequies. 'But indeed,' wrote Charles Lamb, 'we
die many deaths before we die, and I am almost sick when I think that
such a hold as I had of you is gone.'

Literature is but the reflex of life, and the humour of it lies in the
portrayal of the individual, not the type; and though the young man in
_Locksley Hall_ no doubt observes that the 'individual withers,' we have
but to take down George Meredith's novels to find the fact is otherwise,
and that we have still one amongst us who takes notes, and against the
battery of whose quick wits even the costly raiment of Poole is no
protection. We are forced as we read to exclaim with Petruchio: 'Thou
hast hit it; come sit on me.' No doubt the task of the modern humorist
is not so easy as it was. The surface ore has been mostly picked up. In
order to win the precious metal you must now work with in-stroke and out-
stroke after the most approved methods. Sometimes one would enjoy it a
little more if we did not hear quite so distinctly the snorting of the
engine, and the groaning and the creaking of the gear as it painfully
winds up its prize: but what would you? Methods, no less than men, must
have the defects of their qualities.

If, therefore, it be the fact that our national comedy is in decline, we
must look for some other reasons for it th