Shakespeare was undoubtedly a Scotchman, on the ground that his talents would justify the supposition.  The humour of George Sand’s epigram depends upon the perception that rhetoric, which ought to be based upon a profound conviction, an overwhelming passion, an intense enthusiasm, is often little more than the abandonment of a personality to a mood of intoxicating ebullience; while the humour of the Shakespeare story lies in a sense of the way in which a national predilection will override all reasonable evidence.

It will be recognised how much of our humour depends upon our keen perception of the weaknesses and imperfections of other nationalities.  A great statesman once said that if a Scotchman applied for a post and was unsuccessful, his one object became to secure the post for another Scotchman; while if an Irishman made an unsuccessful application, his only aim was to prevent any other Irishman from obtaining the post.  That is a humorous way of contrasting the jealous patriotism of the Scot with the passionate individualism of the Celt.  The curious factor of this species of humour is that we are entirely unable to recognise the typicality of the caricatures which other nations draw of ourselves.  A German fails to recognise the English idea of the German as a man who, after a meal of gigantic proportions and incredible potations, among the smoke of endless cigars, will discuss the terminology of the absolute, and burst into tears over a verse of poetry or a strain of music.  Similarly the Englishman cannot divine what is meant by the Englishman of the French stage, with his long whiskers, his stiff pepper-and-salt clothes, walking arm-in-arm with a raw-boned wife, short-skirted and long-toothed, with a bevy of short-skirted and long-toothed daughters walking behind.

But if it requires a robust humorist to perceive the absurdity of his own nation, what intensity of humour is required for a man to see the absurdity of himself!  To acquiesce in appearing ridiculous is the height of philosophy.  We are glad enough to amuse other people intentionally, but how many men does one know who do not resent amusing other people unintentionally?  Yet if one were a true philanthropist, how delighted we ought to be to afford to others a constant feast of innocent and joyful contemplation.

But the fact which emerges from all these considerations is the fact that we do not give humour its place of due dignity in the moral and emotional scale.  The truth is that we in England have fallen into a certain groove of humour of late, the humour of paradox.  The formula which lies at the base of our present output of humour is the formula, “Whatever is, is wrong.”  The method has been over-organised, and the result is that humour can be manufactured in unlimited quantities.  The type of such humour is the saying of the humorist that he went about the world with one dread constantly hanging over him—­“the dread of not being misunderstood.”  I would not for a