352 FACTS AND INFERENCES, GRAVE AND GAY. 



amongst so grave a people, sly strokes and "pauky" hits 

 must bo hard enough to penetrate a mail of more than 

 average thickness. Any frivolous creature can be tickled 

 with a straw ; it needs a battering ram to shake the sides 

 of Behemoth. 



But the wit of James Wilson was hardly Scottish. 

 Quite distinct from the rollicking exuberance and con- 

 tagious glee of Christopher North, as well as from the 

 diverting drollery of Dr Thomson ; and still more remote 

 from the coarse buffoonery and caustic malice of Clerk 

 of Eldin, it was more akin to the easy playfulness of 

 La Bruyere, or the quiet, kindly humour which glistens 

 over the more familiar epistles of William Cowper. Charles 

 Lamb and James Wilson would have understood each 

 other. 



Such as it was, his wit was inexhaustible. It flowed 

 like light from the lantern-fly, like the phosphorescence 

 from a Medusa in a summery sea ; and whether it wan- 

 dered zigzag like a will o' the wisp, or settled at the mast- 

 head like the fire of St Elm — whether it sj^arkled up in a 

 pungent and unexpected repartee, or spread out for the 

 whole evening in a subtile and fantastic aurora, — sponta- 

 neous and abounding, to restrain it was the effort, to exert 

 it was none : but, never malignant, it made no enemies 

 and hurt no feelings, and, under a vise man's control, it 

 had the rare excellence of stopping in time. 



