JONSON studied "THE HUMOURS," and not the passions. What were these
"humours"? The bard himself does not distinguish them from "manners"--
Their MANNERS, now call'd HUMOURS, feed the stage.
The ambiguity of the term has confounded it with humour itself; they
are, however, so far distinct, that a "humour," that is, some absorbing
singularity in a character, may not necessarily be very humorous--it may
be only absurd.
When this term "humours" became popular, it sunk into a mystification.
Every one suddenly had his "humour." It served on all occasions as an
argument which closed all discussion. The impertinent insisted on the
privilege of his "humour." "The idiot" who chose to be "apish," declared
that a lock of hair fantastically hung, or the dancing feather in his
cap, were his "humour." A moral quality, or an affection of the mind,
was thus indiscriminately applied to things themselves, when they were
objects of affectation or whim. The phrase was tossed about till it bore
no certain meaning. Such indeed is the fate of all fashionable
cant--ephemera which, left to themselves, die away with their season.
The ludicrous incongruity of applying these physical qualities to moral
acts, and apologizing for their caprices by their "humours," was too
exquisitely ludicrous not to be seized on as the property of our comic
satirists. Shakespeare and Jonson have given perpetuity to this term of
the vocabulary in vogue, and Jonson has dignified it by transferring it
to his comic art. Shakespeare has personified these "humours" in that
whimsical, blunt, grotesque Corporal Nym, the pith of whose reason and
the chorus of whose tune are his "humours;" admirably contrasting with
that other "humourist," his companion, ranting the fag-ends of tragedies
"in Cambyses' vein." Jonson, more elaborate, according to his custom,
could not quit his subject till he had developed the whole system in
two comedies of "Every Man IN" and "Every Man OUT of his HUMOUR."
The vague term was least comprehended when most in use. Asper, the
censor of the times,[1] desires Mitis, who had used it, "to answer what
was meant:" Mitis, a neutralized man, "who never acts, and has therefore
no character," can only reply, "Answer what?" The term was too plain or
too obscure for that simple soul to attach any idea to a word current
with all the world.