“When some one peculiar quality Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw All his affects, his spirits and his powers, In their confluxions all to run one way, This may be truly said to be a humour.”

There are undoubtedly persons in whom humours such as Ben describes have attained a complete ascendancy.  The avarice of Elwes, the insane desire of Sir Egerton Brydges for a barony, to which he had no more right than to the crown of Spain, the malevolence which long meditation on imaginary wrongs generated in the gloomy mind of Bellingham, are instances.  The feeling which animated Clarkson and other virtuous men against the slave trade and slavery, is an instance of a more honourable kind.  Page l

Seeing that such humours exist, we cannot deny that they are proper subjects for the imitations of art.  But we conceive that the imitation of such humours, however skilful and amusing, is not an achievement of the highest order ; and, as such humours are rare in real life, they ought, we conceive, to be sparingly introduced into works which profess to be pictures of real life.  Nevertheless, a writer may show so much genius in the exhibition of these humours as to be fairly entitled to a distinguished and permanent rank among classics.  The chief seats of all, however, the places on the dais and under the canopy, are reserved for the few who have excelled in the difficult art of portraying characters in which no single feature is extravagantly over-charged.

If we have expounded the law soundly, we can have no difficulty in applying it to the particular case before us.  Madame D’Arblay has left us scarcely anything but humours.  Almost every one of her men and women has some one propensity developed to a morbid degree.  In “Cecilia,” for example, Mr. Delville never opens his lips without some allusion to his own birth and station ; or Mr. Briggs, without some allusion to the hoarding of money; or Mr. Hobson, without betraying the self-indulgence and self-importance of a purseproud upstart; or Mr. Simkins, without uttering some sneaking remark for the purpose of currying favour with his customers; or Mr. Meadows, without expressing apathy and weariness of life; or Mr. Albany, without declaiming about the vices of the rich and the misery of the poor; or Mrs. Belfield, without some-indelicate eulogy on her son ; or Lady Margaret, without indicating jealousy of her husband.  Morrice is all skipping, officious impertinence, Mr. Gosport all sarcasm, Lady Honoria all lively prattle, Miss Larolles all silly prattle.  If ever Madame D’Arblay aimed at more, as in the character of Monckton, we do not think that she succeeded well.(26) We are, therefore, forced to refuse to Madame D’Arblay a place in the highest rank of art; but we cannot deny that, in the rank to which she belonged, she had few equals and scarcely any superior.  The variety of humours which is to be found in her novels is immense ; and though the talk of each person separately is monotonous, the general effect is not monotony, but a very lively and agreeable diversity.  Her plots are rudely constructed and improbable, if we consider them in themselves.  But they are admirably framed for the purpose of exhibiting striking groups of