The old writers treated humour by help of their general {314} theory of temperaments as compounded of certain physical elements. The learned Burton, for instance, in the chapter already quoted, discourses agreeably of pleasant vapours which break from the heart, and thinks that these may explain why the melancholy are witty, as Aristotle suggested. The passage is valuable as indicating that antiquity recognised the connection between laughter and the melancholy disposition. Modern testimony might be added. Thus Savage Landor remarks that genuine humour, as well as true wit, requires a sound and capacious mind, which is always a grave one;[271] and Tennyson notes that humour “is generally most fruitful in the highest and most solemn human spirits”.[272] The need of this deep and massive seriousness, if not of a marked tendency to sombre reflection, seems to be borne out by what we know of the great humorists. Sainte-Beuve regards Rabelais, who was a grave doctor, and who worthily represented in his public lectures at Lyons “the majesty of science,” as writing with the quite serious purpose of throwing out in advance certain ideas of deep import (_de grand sens_) “dans un rire immense”. Much the same is true of Cervantes, who is said—though the assertion has been challenged—to have conceived of his delightful romance in the dreary surroundings of a sponging-house.[273] The germination of a mirthful sense in the soil of a serious character has been noted, indeed, in the case of some who represent the lighter moods of comedy—a fact which points to the more general relation of laughter to seriousness spoken of in an earlier chapter. Thus {315} Sainte-Beuve, writing of Molière, says that he was called “the contemplative”; and was wont to be taken with sadness (_tristesse_) and melancholy when he was alone.[274] Victor Hugo has somewhere spoken of him as “ce moqueur pensif comme un apôtre”. It was remarked of Sheridan and other dealers in the mirthful by those who knew them that they seldom even smiled. It is easy to see that the transformation of laughter which we find in humour will carry with it a large modification of the range of enjoyment. While, as has been admitted, the changes of feeling and mental attitude involved will tend to restrain the earlier reckless merriment, they will also add vast regions to the territory of the amusing. With regard to restriction, one must protest against the common misapprehension, that the development of humour spoils the taste for simple modes of mirth. I have known sad-looking humorists who were well endowed with the valuable capability of joining in children’s fun. What humour does undoubtedly restrain is any tendency in laughter which smacks of the brute and the bully in man.