The second kind, consisting of the aggrandizement of little things, which is by far the most splendid, and displays a soaring imagination, these lines of Pope will serve to illustrate :

As Berecynthia, while her offspring vie
In homage to the mother of the sky,
Surveys around her in the blest abode,
An hundred sons, and every son a god :
Not with less glory mighty Dulness crown'd,

Shall take thro' Grub-street her triumphant round;
And her Parnassus glancing o'er at once,

Behold an hundred sons, and each a dunce3.

This whole similitude is spirited. The parent of the celestials is contrasted by the daughter of Night and Chaos; heaven by Grub-street; gods by dunces. Besides, the parody it contains on a beautiful passage in Virgil, adds a particular lustre to it9. This species we may term the thrasonical, or the mock-majestic. It affects the most pompous language, and sonorous phraseology, as much as the other affects the reverse, the vilest and most grovelling dialect.

I shall produce another example from the same writer, which is, indeed, inimitably fine. It represents a lady employed at her toilet, attended by her maid, under the allegory of the celebration of some solemn and religious ceremony. The passage is rather long for a quotation, but as the omission of any part would be a real mutilation, I shall give it entire.

And now unveil'd the toilet stands display'd,
Each silver vase in mystic order laid.
First, rob'd in white, the nymph intent adores,
With head uncovered, the cosmetic powers.
A heavenly image in the glass appears,
To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears;
Th' inferior priestess, at her altar's side,
Trembling begins the sacred rites of pride;
Unnumbered treasures opes at once, and here
The various offerings of the world appear;
From each she nicely culls with curious toil,
And decks the goddess with the glittering spoil.
This casket India's glowing gems unlocks,
And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.
The tortoise here and elephant unite,

Transform'd to combs, the speckled and the white.
Here files of pins extend their shining rows,
Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billet-doux.
Now awful beauty puts on all its arms,
The fair each moment rises in her charms,

8 Dunciad, B.
The passage is this,

Felix prole virum, qualis Berecynthia mater
Invehitur curru Phrygias turrita per urbes,
Læta deum partu, centum complexa nepotes,
Omnes cœlicolas, omnes supera alta tenent es.

ENEIS.

Repairs her smiles, awakens every grace,
And calls forth all the wonders of her face;
Sees by degrees a purer blush arise,

And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes1.

To this class also we must refer the application of grave reflections to mere trifles. For that great and serious are naturally associated by the mind, and likewise little and trifling, is sufficiently evinced by the common modes of expression on these subjects used in every tongue. An apposite instance of such an application we have from Philips,

My galligaskins, that have long withstood
The winter's fury and encroaching frosts,
By time subdued, (what will not time subdue?)
A horrid chasm disclose2.

Like to this, but not equal, is that of Young,

One day his wife (for who can wives reclaim?)
Levell❜d her barbarous needle at his fame3.

To both the preceding kinds the term burlesque is applied, but especially to the first.

Of the third species of wit, which is by far the most multifarious, and which results from what I may call the queerness or singularity of the imagery, I shall give a few specimens that will serve to mark some of its principal varieties. To illustrate all would be impossible.

The first I shall exemplify is where there is an apparent contrariety in the things she exhibits as connected. This kind of contrast we have in these lines of Garth,

Then Hydrops next appears amongst the throng;
Bloated and big she slowly sails along;

But, like a miser, in excess she's poor;

And pines for thirst amidst her watery store1.

The wit in these lines doth not so much arise from the comparison they contain of the dropsy to a miser, (which falls under the description that immediately succeeds,) as from the union of contraries they present to the imagination, poverty in the midst of opulence, and thirst in one who is already drenched in

water.

A second sort is where the things compared are what with dialecticians would come under the denomination of disparates, being such as can be ranked under no common genus. this I shall subjoin an example from Young,

Of

1

Rape of the Lock, Canto 1.

3 Universal Passion.

2

Splendid Shilling. 4 Dispensary.

Health chiefly keeps an Atheist in the dark.

A fever argues better than a Clarke:

Let but the logic in his pulse decay,

The Grecian he 'll renounce, and learn to pray5.

Here, by implication, health is compared to a sophister, or darkener of the understanding, a fever to a metaphysical disputant, a regular pulse to false logic, for the word logic in the third line is used ironically. In other words, we have here modes and substances, the affections of body, and the exercise of reason, strangely, but not insignificantly linked together; strangely, else the sentiment, however just, could not be denominated witty; significantly, because an unmeaning jumble of things incongruous would not be wit, but nonsense.

A third variety in this species springs from confounding artfully the proper and metaphorical sense of an expression. In this way, one would assign as a motive what is discovered to be perfectly absurd, when but ever so little attended to; and yet, from the ordinary meaning of the words, hath a specious appearance on a single glance. Of this kind you have an instance in the subsequent lines,

While thus the lady talk'd, the knight
Turn'd th' outside of his eyes to white,
As men of inward light are wont
To turn their optics in upon 't.

For whither can they turn their eyes more properly than to the light?

A fourth variety, much resembling the former, is when the argument or comparison (for all argument is a kind of comparison) is founded on the supposal of corporeal or personal attributes in what is strictly not susceptible of them, as in this,

But Hudibras gave him a twitch
As quick as lightning in the breech,
Just in the place where honour 's lodg'd,
As wise philosophers have judg'd;
Because a kick in that place more

Hurts honour, than deep wounds before".

Is demonstration itself more satisfactory? Can any thing be hurt but where it is? However, the mention of this as the sage deduction of philosophers, is no inconsiderable addition to the wit. Indeed, this particular circumstance belongs properly to the first species mentioned, in which high and low, great and little, are coupled. Another example, not unlike the preceding, you have in these words,

5 Universal Passion.

7 Ibid. Part ii. Canto 2.

6 Hudibras, Part iii. Canto 1.

What makes morality a crime,
The most notorious of the time;
Morality which both the saints
And wicked too cry out against?
'Cause grace and virtue are within
Prohibited decrees of kin :
And therefore no true saint allows
They shall be suffer'd to espouses.

When the two foregoing instances are compared together we should say of the first, that it has more of simplicity and nature, and is therefore more pleasing; of the second, that it has more of ingenuity and conceit, and is consequently more surprising.

The fifth and only other variety I shall observe, is that which ariseth from a relation not in the things signified, but in the sign, of all relations, no doubt, the slightest. Identity here gives rise to puns and clinches: resemblance to quibbles, cranks, and rhymes: Of these, I imagine, it is quite unnecessary to exhibit specimens. The wit here is so dependent on the sound, that it is commonly incapable of being transfused into another language, and as, among persons of taste and discernment, it is in less request than the other sorts above enumerated, those who abound in this, and never rise to any thing superior, are distinguished by the diminutive appellation of witlings.

I

Let it be remarked in general, that from one or more of the three last-mentioned varieties, those plebeian tribes of witticism, the conundrums, the rebuses, the riddles, and some others, are lineally, though not perhaps not all legitimately descended. shall only add, that I have not produced the forenamed varieties as an exact enumeration of all the sudivisions of which the third species of wit is susceptible. It is capable, I acknowledge, of being almost infinitely diversified; and it is principally to its various exhibitions that we apply the epithets sportive, sprightly, ingenious, according as they recede more or less from those of the declaimer.

SECTION II.-Of Humour.

As wit is the painting, humour is the pathetic, in this inferior sphere of eloquence. The nature and efficacy of humour may be thus unravelled. A just exhibition of any ardent or durable passion, excited by some adequate cause, instantly attacheth sympathy, the common tie of human souls, and thereby communicates the passion to the breast of the hearer. But when the emotion is either not violent or not durable, and the motive not any thing real, but imaginary, or at least quite disproportionate to the effect; or when the passion displays itself

8 Hudibras, Part iii. Canto 1.

preposterously, so as rather to obstruct than to promote its aim; in these cases a natural representation, instead of fellow-feeling, creates amusement, and universally awakens contempt. The portrait in the former case we call pathetic, in the latter humorous. It was said that the emotion must be either not violent or not durable. This limitation is necessary, because a passion extreme in its degree, as well as lasting, cannot yield diversion to a well-disposed mind, but generally affects it with pity, not seldom with a mixture of horror and indignation. The sense of the ridiculous, though invariably the same, is in this case totally surmounted by a principle of our nature, much more powerful.

The passion which humour addresseth as its object, is, as hath been signified above, contempt. But it ought carefully to be noted, that every address, even every pertinent address to contempt, is not humorous. This passion is not less capable of being excited by the severe and tragic, than by the merry and comic manner. The subject of humour is always character, but not every thing in character; its foibles generally, such as caprices, little extravagances, weak anxieties, jealousies, childish fondness, pertness, vanity, and self-conceit. One finds the greatest scope for exercising this talent in telling familiar stories, or in acting any whimsical part in an assumed character. Such an one, we say, has the talent of humouring a tale, or any queer manner which he chooseth to exhibit. Thus we speak of the passions in tragedy, but of the humours in comedy; and even to express passion as appearing in the more trivial occurrences of life, we commonly use this term, as when we talk of good humour, ill humour, peevish or pleasant humour; hence it is that a capricious temper we call humorsome, the person possessed of it a humorist, and such facts or events as afford subject for the humours, we denominate comical.

4 It ought to be observed, that this term is also used to express any lively strictures of such specialities in temper and conduct, as have neither moment enough to interest sympathy, or incongruity enough to excite contempt. In this case, humour, not being addressed to passion, but to fancy, must be considered as a kind of moral painting, and differs from wit only in these two things; first, in that character alone is the subject of the former, whereas all things whatever fall within the province of the latter; secondly, humour paints more simply by direct imitation, wit more variously by illustration and imagery. Of this kind of humour, merely graphical, Addison hath given us numberless examples in many of the characters he hath so finely drawn, and little incidents he hath so pleasantly related in his Tatlers and Spectators. I might remark of the word humour, as I did of the term wit, that we scarcely find in other languages a word exactly corresponding. The Latin facetic seems to comes the nearest. Thus Cicero," Huic generi orationis aspergentur etiam sales, qui in dicendo mirum quantum valent: quorum duo genera sunt, unum facetiarum, alterum dicacitatis: utetur utroque, sed altero in narrando aliquid venuste, altero in jaciendo mittendoque ridiculo; cujus genera plura sunt." Orator. 48. Here one would think, that the philosopher must have had in his eye the different provinces of wit and humour, calling the former dicucitas, and the latter facetia. It is plain, however, that, both by him and other Latin authors, these two words are often confounded. There appears indeed, to be more uniformity in the use that is made of the second term, than in the application of the first.