Like his own “Sidonia,” Disraeli “said many things that were strange, yet they instantly appeared to be true;” like his own “Pinto,” he “had the art of viewing common things in a fanciful light.” I shall notice both these characteristics. He believed in the force of phrases as a pollen, so to speak, of ideas wafted through the air; and he believed in the perpetual miracles of existence. His favourite English authors were the romantics of Queen Elizabeth and the wits of Queen Anne and the Georges. It was once said that wit is a point, but humour a straight line. This epigram is inadequate. Wit is no _résumé_ of humour; the two qualities differ in kind. Wit is a department of style; and style is gesture, accent, expression. Wit is the faculty of combining the unlike, by the language of illustration, suggestion, and surprise. It sums up characters, things, and ideas. Like misery, “it yokes strange bedfellows,” but with the link of words alone. It is best when intellectually true, but its requisite is _fancy_, and its domain expression. Humour, on the other hand, is an exercise of perceptive sympathy; it is the faculty of discerning the incongruous, especially of human nature, in the visible alone; it “looks on this picture and on that;” it is most excellent when ethically sound, but its essence is insight, and its sphere, situation. No one ever heard of a witty picture, or a humorous epigram. We laugh at humour, whereas at wit we smile. Wit is, as it were, Yorick with cap and bells; but humour unmasks him with a moral. Popular proverbs are the wit of the people; what the crowd laughs at is its humour, and its humour varies in different countries; but the standard of wit is the same in all civilisations. To define wit and humour would require both qualities, but, if I were to try my hand, I would venture to call wit, mirth turned philosopher--humour, philosophy at play.