generally is at a deplorably low level in England.

Hence come all sorts of mischief, arisen since you left us; and it
may be said that inordinate philanthropy, genteel sympathy with
Irish murder and arson, Societies for Badgering the Poor, Esoteric
Buddhism, and a score of other plagues, including what was once
called AEstheticism, are all, primarily, due to want of humour.
People discuss, with the gravest faces, matters which properly
should only be stated as the wildest paradoxes. It naturally
follows that, in a period almost destitute of humour, many
respectable persons "cannot read Dickens," and are not ashamed to
glory in their shame. We ought not to be angry with others for
their misfortunes; and yet when one meets the cretins who boast that
they cannot read Dickens, one certainly does feel much as Mr. Samuel
Weller felt when he encountered Mr. Job Trotter.

How very singular has been the history of the decline of humour! Is
there any profound psychological truth to be gathered from
consideration of the fact that humour has gone out with cruelty? A
hundred years ago, eighty years ago--nay, fifty years ago--we were a
cruel but also a humorous people. We had bull-baitings, and badger-
drawings, and hustings, and prize-fights, and cock-fights; we went
to see men hanged; the pillory and the stocks were no empty "terrors
unto evil-doers," for there was commonly a malefactor occupying each
of these institutions. With all this we had a broad-blown comic
sense. We had Hogarth, and Bunbury, and George Cruikshank, and
Gilray; we had Leech and Surtees, and the creator of Tittlebat
Titmouse; we had the Shepherd of the "Noctes," and, above all, we
had YOU.