of me, "He is no metaphysician: not even an English
metaphysician," I could swallow the insult to my metaphysics, but I
should feel angry about the insult to my country. So I do not urge that
I am a humourist; but I do insist that I am a Cockney. If I were a
humourist, I should certainly be a Cockney humourist; if I were a saint,
I should certainly be a Cockney saint. I need not recite the splendid
catalogue of Cockney saints who have written their names on our noble
old City churches. I need not trouble you with the long list of the
Cockney humourists who have discharged their bills (or failed to
discharge them) in our noble old City taverns. We can weep together
over the pathos of the poor Yorkshireman, whose county has never
produced some humour not intelligible to the rest of the world. And we
can smile together when he says that somebody or other is "not even" a
Cockney humourist like Samuel Johnson or Charles Lamb. It is surely
sufficiently obvious that all the best humour that exists in our
language is Cockney humour. Chaucer was a Cockney; he had his house
close to the Abbey. Dickens was a Cockney; he said he could not think
without the London streets. The London taverns heard always the
quaintest conversation, whether it was Ben Johnson's at the Mermaid or
Sam Johnson's at the Cock. Even in our own time it may be noted that the
most vital and genuine humour is still written about London. Of this
type is the mild and humane irony which marks Mr. Pett Ridge's studies
of the small grey streets. Of this type is the simple but smashing
laughter of the best tales of Mr. W. W. Jacobs, telling of the smoke and
sparkle of the Thames. No; I concede that I am not a Cockney humourist.
No; I am not worthy to be. Some time, after sad and strenuous
after-lives; some time, after fierce and apocalyptic incarnations; in
some strange world beyond the stars, I may become at last a Cockney
humourist. In that potential paradise I may walk among the Cockney
humourists, if not an equal, at least a companion. I may feel for a
moment on my shoulder the hearty hand of Dryden and thread the
labyrinths of the sweet insanity of Lamb. But that could only be if I
were not only much cleverer, but much better than I am. Before I reach
that sphere I shall have left behind, perhaps, the sphere that is
inhabited by angels, and even passed that which is appropriated
exclusively to the use of Yorkshiremen.

No; London is in this matter attacked upon