We cannot be said to have lost a quality which we never possessed.

Many of my readers are no doubt familiar with what Sydney Smith declared on this point, and certainly on the question of wit he must be considered an authority.

He used to say (I am almost ashamed to repeat it), "It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding.

Their only idea of wit, which prevails occasionally in the north, and which, under the name of WUT, is so infinitely distressing to people of good taste, is laughing immoderately at stated intervals." Strange language to use of a country which has produced Smollett, Burns, Scott, Galt, and Wilson--all remarkable for the humour diffused through their writings! Indeed, we may fairly ask, have they equals in this respect amongst English writers?
Charles Lamb had the same notion, or, I should rather say, the same prejudice, about Scottish people not being accessible to wit; and he tells a story of what happened to himself, in corroboration of the opinion.

He had been asked to a party, and one object of the invitation had been to meet a son of Burns.