There is one important and intricate question which can hardly be passed over, though here, at least, it can only be very summarily dealt with. It has been said that until the present century no French writer, except Montaigne and Rabelais deserves the title of humorist, and this would, of course, exclude Lesage. On the other hand, the exclusion has been objected to in the interest of some mediæval writers. The truth is, that the whole question turns on one of the most disputed points in literature--the definition of humour. If, as it has been admirably put, the humorist is a man who "thinks in jest when he feels in earnest;" or if, as Thackeray puts it, he is a weekday preacher, then Lesage most assuredly is not one. For not only has he no direct moral purpose, which, indeed, is oftener than not fatal to humour, but it is difficult to discern that he has, as Rabelais, Montaigne, and Shakspeare had, any general theory or grasp of the world or of life, whether poetical, ironical, or sceptical, which could supply him with the necessary background for humour. Neither had he, like Fielding and Thackeray himself, a passionate interest in that world--a sympathy with it which, in its way, is also sufficient to bring out the strokes of the strange invisible ink called humour. It would seem, therefore, that his exclusion is justified, and as he shares it with Molière, and even with Lafontaine, he need not be ashamed of his company. Like these still greater men, however, he had a wit so fine, so flexible, so far transcending the ordinary limitations of wit, that it almost amounted to humour, and may be said to be practically a substitute for it.