That must be a natal gift in
the Comic poet. The substance he deals with will show him a startling
exhibition of the dyer's hand, if he is without it. People are ready to
surrender themselves to witty thumps on the back, breast, and sides; all
except the head: and it is there that he aims. He must be subtle to
penetrate. A corresponding acuteness must exist to welcome him. The
necessity for the two conditions will explain how it is that we count him
during centuries in the singular number.
'C'est une etrange entreprise que celle de faire rire les honnetes gens,'
Moliere says; and the difficulty of the undertaking cannot be
over-estimated.
Then again, he is beset with foes to right and left, of a character
unknown to the tragic and the lyric poet, or even to philosophers.
We have in this world men whom Rabelais would call agelasts; that is to
say, non-laughers; men who are in that respect as dead bodies, which if
you prick them do not bleed. The old grey boulder-stone that has finished
its peregrination from the rock to the valley, is as easily to be set
rolling up again as these men laughing.
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