Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw
All his effects, his spirits, and his powers,
In their confluctions, all to run one way,
This may be truly said to be a humour. [1]


Hence we may explain the congeniality of humour with pathos, so
exquisite in Sterne and Smollett, and hence also the tender feeling
which we always have for, and associate with, the humours or
hobby-horses of a man. First, we respect a humourist, because absence of
interested motive is the ground-work of the character, although the
imagination of an interest may exist in the individual himself, as if a
remarkably simple-hearted man should pride himself on his knowledge of
the world, and how well he can manage it:--and secondly, there always is
in a genuine humour an acknowledgement of the hollowness and farce of the
world, and its disproportion to the godlike within us. And it follows
immediately from this, that whenever particular acts have reference to
particular selfish motives, the humourous bursts into the indignant and
abhorring; whilst all follies not selfish are pardoned or palliated. The
danger of this habit, in respect of pure morality, is strongly
exemplified in Sterne.

This would be enough, and indeed less than this has passed, for a
sufficient account of humour, if we did not recollect that not every
predominance of character, even where not precluded by the moral sense,
as in criminal dispositions, constitutes what we mean by a humourist, or
the presentation of its produce, humour. What then is it? Is it
manifold? Or is there some one humorific point common to all that can be
called humourous?--I am not prepared to answer this fully, even if my
time permitted; but I think there is;--and that it consists in a certain