occasions-sometimes he will be lengthening out a verse in the singing psalms, half a minute after the rest of the congregation have done with it; sometimes when he is pleased with the matter of his devotion, he pronounces Amen three or four times to the same prayer, and sometimes stands up when everybody else is upon their knees, to count the congregation, or see if any of his tenants are missing."

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My worthy friend, Sir Roger, is one of those who is not only at peace within himself, but beloved and esteemed by all about him. He receives a suitable tribute for his universal benevolence to mankind, in the returns of affection and good-will, which are paid him by every one that lives within his neighborhood."

"As Sir Roger was giving me this account of Tom Touchy, Will Wimble and his two companions stopped short till we came up to them. After having paid their respects to Sir Roger, Will told him that Mr. Touchy and he must appeal to him upon a dispute that arose between them. Will, it seems, has been giving his fellow traveller an account of his angling one day, in such a hole; when Tom Touchy, instead of hearing out his story, told him that Mr. Such-a-one, if he pleased, might take the law of him for fishing in that part of the river. My friend, Sir Roger, heard them both, upon a round trot, and after having paused some time, told them, with the air of a man who would not give his judgment rashly, that much might be said on both sides. They were neither of them dissatisfied with

the knight's determination, because neither of them found himself in the wrong by it."

"I am afraid he caught his death the last countysessions, when he would go to see justice done to a poor widow woman, and her fatherless children, that had been wronged by a neighboring gentleman; for you know, sir, my good master was always the poor man's friend." "It being a very cold day when he made his will, he left for mourning, to every man in the parish, a great frieze coat, and to every woman a black ridinghood."

Such is the scrupulous reverence observed by this master of delicate humor toward his favorite character, that, even had he not formally given his opinion on humor, in the thirty-fifth number of the Spectator, we should have been at no loss to divine that he esteemed a degree of respect essential to its perfection.

Neither do I think any competent reader of Sterne likely to regard Uncle Toby with contempt, though of all fictitious characters, he is perhaps the most perfect embodiment of delicate humor. His own heart being upright, he entertains not even a suspicion of much evil that is common in the world, and consequently his pure feelings and honest intentions are often brought into incongruous connection with the base reality, necessarily giving rise to mirth-but the farthest possible from contempt. We laugh at Uncle Toby while we love him. One well known passage will be enough to establish this point.

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My uncle Toby was a man patient of injuries-not from want of courage-I have told you in a former chapter that he was a man of courage;' and will add here, that when just occasions presented, or called it forth, I know no man under whose arm I would have sooner taken shelter. Nor did this arise from any insensibility or obtuseness of his intellectual parts, for he felt this insult of my father as feelingly as any man could do; but he was of a peaceful, placid nature-no jarring element in it-all was mixed up so kindly within him; my uncle Toby had scarce a heart to retaliate upon a fly. 'Go,' says he, one day at dinner, to an overgrown one which had buzzed about his nose, and tormented him cruelly all dinner-time-and which, after infinite attempts, he had caught at last, as it flew by him-'I'll not hurt thee,' says my uncle Toby, rising from his chair and going across the room with the fly in his hand; 'I'll not hurt a hair of thy head: Go,' says he lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape- Go, poor devil; get thee gone; why should I hurt thee? This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.'

Judging, therefore, from the best specimen of the class, it seems to me that humor arises from the combination of the risibles with a kindly sympathy for the little mistakes of the good and amiable. I speak not, in this connection, of what is sometimes called broad humor; for that is only buffoonery, already mentioned in the proper place.

Belonging to character, and entering into all the circumstances of life, humor is a more abundant and continuous source of mirth than any other; and from its imaginative delicacy and gentle sympathies, is by far the highest order of mirthful antecedents. True humor, like genius, is always unconscious of the peculiarity of its power while in exercise, and, of course, sees in itself nothing to laugh at. In order to the highest effect, therefore, a humorous writer must assume the air of profound gravity and seriousness.

So large a knowledge of the human heart, in all its weaknesses and its strength, its foibles and faculties, its likings and dislikings, its practical imaginings and little self-deceptions, is required in order to maintain a long train of humor, that only superior genius is equal to the task. Addison, whose Spectator was conducted with the assistance of many other pens, remarked that he had put Sir Roger De Coverly to death long before his time, for fear that some other hand would murder him. And good reason had he to dread that catastrophe, for every time his fellow laborer Steele touched the picture, he added a blemish. Although he introduced the character, he had no conception of that delicate humor in which it was afterward clothed by Addison. And if Steele misconceived the aim, Budgell blundered even in what he did aim at. The greatest masters of humor, belong to the highest order of genius-for we find among them Chaucer, Cervantes, Shakspeare, Addison and Scott.

Now, I think that we speak with acknowledged propriety of beauty in the Satires of Pope, in his Rape of the Lock, in the character of Sir Roger De Coverly, and in that of Elia. And if we do not apply the same term to a well turned epigram, the reason is not of kind, but of degree. The mirthful, which best attains its immediate end consistently with subsequent approbation, is always beautiful. A perception of its fitness to give approved delight, must be accompanied by the kindred emotion. But when the associated ideas are vulgar, or when mirth is made subservient to emotions so repugnant to humanity as contempt and malignity, no perfections of its own conditions can combine them with true pleasure in any well-ordered mind. The ultimate criterion, therefore, of the ludicrous, is that by which all other matters of taste are tried.

SECTION V.-GRAVE EMOTIONS.

PENSIVENESS GRIEF-MORAL EMOTION SUBLIMITY.

I have said that our gay emotions are of short dura tion, and that they quickly settle down into calmer and graver degrees, or give way to those that are essentially of a less exhilerating nature. Mirth and joy are very evanescent, and the former, though the gayer, is the least satisfactory. Joy subsides into gladness, or some milder pleasure, if it does not go out in disappointment.