Perhaps one of his least successful attempts at humour is a collection of fables at the commencement of the Newcomes in which we have conversations between a fox, an owl, a wolf in sheep's clothing, and a donkey in a lion's skin, and such incongruities as would have shocked Aristophanes. His Christmas books depend mostly on the broad caricatures with which they are embellished, and upon a large supply of rough joking.
Thackeray wrote a work named the "English Humorists," but he omits in it all mention of the humour by which his authors were immortalized. Certainly the ordinary habits and little foibles of great men are more entertaining to the general public than inquiries into the nature of their talent, which would only interest those fond of study and investigation.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Dickens—Sympathy with the Poor—Vulgarity—Geniality—Mrs. Gamp—Mixture of Pathos and Humour—Lever and Dickens compared—Dickens' power of Description—General Remarks.
We shall be paying Hood no undue compliment if we couple his name with that of Dickens as betokening the approach of milder and gentler sentiments. They were themselves the chief pioneers of the better way. Hitherto the poor and uneducated had been regarded with a certain amount of contempt; their language and stupidity had formed fertile subjects for the coarse ridicule of the humorist. But now a change was in progress; broader views were gaining ground, and a time was coming when men, notwithstanding the accidents of birth and fortune, should feel mutual sympathy, and
"brothers be for a' that."
With Dickens the poor man was not a mere clown or blockhead; but beneath his "hodden gray" often carried good feeling, intelligence, and wit. He was rather humorous than ludicrous, and had some dignity of character. Since his time, consideration for the poor has greatly increased; we see it in the large charitable gifts, which are always increasing—in the interest taken in schools and hospitals. Probably the respectable and quiet character of the labouring classes has contributed to raise them in the estimation of the richer part of the community.
A large portion of English humour is now employed upon so-called vulgarity. The modification of feeling with regard to the humbler classes has caused changes in the signification of this word. Originally derived from "vulgus," the crowd, it meant that roughness of language and manner which is found among the less educated. It did not properly imply anything culpable, but had a bad sense given it by those who considered "gentlemanly" to imply some moral superiority. The worship of wealth so caused the signification of this latter word to exceed its original reference to high birth, that we now hear people say that there are real gentlemen among the poorer classes; and, conversely, we at times speak of the vulgarity of the rich, as of their pride, impertinence, or affectation—just as Fielding used the word "mob" to signify contemptible people of any class. It is evident that some moral superiority or deficiency is thus implied. There may be, on the whole, some foundation for such distinctions, but they are not so much recognised as they were, scarcely at all in the cases of individuals, and the provincial accents and false grammar of the poor are more amusing than formerly, because we take a kindlier interest in that class.
M. Taine does not seem to have exercised his usual penetration when he says that English humour "far from agreeable, and bitter in taste, like their own beverages, abounds in Dickens. French sprightliness, joy, and gaiety is a kind of good wine only grown in the lands of the sun. In its insular state it leaves an aftertaste of vinegar. The man who jests here is seldom kindly and never happy; he feels and censures the inequalities of life." On the contrary, we are inclined to think that French humour is fully as severe as English—they have such sayings as that "a man without money is a body without blood," and their great wits were not generally free from bitterness.