steel; cast for duelling, restless in the scabbard, being so pretty when
out of it. To shine, it must have an adversary. Moliere's wit is like a
running brook, with innumerable fresh lights on it at every turn of the
wood through which its business is to find a way. It does not run in
search of obstructions, to be noisy over them; but when dead leaves and
viler substances are heaped along the course, its natural song is
heightened. Without effort, and with no dazzling flashes of achievement,
it is full of healing, the wit of good breeding, the wit of wisdom.

'Genuine humour and true wit,' says Landor, {7} 'require a sound and
capacious mind, which is always a grave one. Rabelais and La Fontaine
are recorded by their countrymen to have been _reveurs_. Few men have
been graver than Pascal. Few men have been wittier.'

To apply the citation of so great a brain as Pascal's to our countryman
would be unfair. Congreve had a certain soundness of mind; of capacity,
in the sense intended by Landor, he had little. Judging him by his wit,
he performed some happy thrusts, and taking it for genuine, it is a
surface wit, neither rising from a depth nor flowing from a spring.

'On voit qu'il se travaille a dire de bons mots.'

He drives the poor hack word, 'fool,' as cruelly to the market for wit as
any of his competitors. Here is an example, that has been held up for
eulogy:

WITWOUD: He has brought me a letter from the fool my brother, etc.
etc.

MIRABEL: A fool, and your brother, Witwoud?