ed with these authors of the firft eminence, there grew up another fet of writers, who gained themselves a repu tation by the remarks which they made on the works of those who preceded them. It was one of the employments of thefe fecondary authors to diftinguish the feveral kinds of wit by terms of art, and to confider them as more or lefs perfect, according as they were founded in truth. It is no wonder therefore, that even fuch authors as Ifocrates, Plato, and Cicero, fhould have fuch little blemishes as are not to be met with in authors of a much inferior character, who have written fince those several blemishes were difcovered. I do not find that there was a proper feparation made between puns and true wit by any of the ancient authors, except Quintilian and Longinus. But when this distinction was once fettled, it was very natural for all men of fenfe to agree in it. As for the revival of this falfe wit, it happened about the timeof the revival of letters; but as foon as it was once detected, it immediately vanished and difappeared. At the fame time there is no queftion, but as it has funk in one age and rofe in another, it will again recover itself in fome diftant period of time, as pedantry and ignorance fhall prevail upon wit and fenfe. And, to speak the truth, I do very much apprehend, by fome of the last winter's productions, which had their fets of admirers, that our pofterity will in a few years degenerate into a race of purfters; at lcaft, a man may be very excufable for any apprehenfions of this kind, that has feen Acroftics handed about the town with great fecrecy and applaufe; to which I must also add a little epigram called the Witches Prayer, that fell into verfe when it was read · either backward or forward, excepting only that it curfed one way and bleffed the other. When one fees there are actually fuch pains-takers among our British wits, who can tell what it may end in? If we muft lafh one another, let it be with the manly ftrokes of wit and fatire; for I am of the old philofopher's opinion, that if I muft suffer from one or the other, I would rather it fhould be from the paw of a lion, than the hoof of an afs. I do not fpeak this out of any fpirit of party. There is a moft erying dulnefs on both fides. I have feen Tory Acroftics and Whig Anagrams, and do not quarrel with either of them, because they are Whigs or Tories, but because they are Anagrams and Acroftics. But to return to punning. Having purfued the history of a pun, from its original to its downfall, I fhall here define it to be a conceit arifing from the ufe of two words that agree in the found, but differ in the fenfe. The only way therefore to try a piece of it, is to tranflate it into a different language; if it bears the teft, you may pronounce it true; but if it vanishes in the experiment, you may conclude it to have been a pun. In short, one may fay of a pun, as the countryman defcribed his nightingale, that it is vox & præterea nipil, a sound, and nothing but a found. On the contrary, one may reprefent true wit by the defcription which Ariftenetus makes of a fine woman; when the is dreffed fhe is beautiful, when fhe is undreffed fhe is beautiful; or as Mercerus has tranflated it more emphatically, Induitur, formofa eft; exuitur, ipfa forma eft. No. LXII. FRIDAY, MAY 11. Scribendi rectè fapere eft & principium & fons. MR. HOR. ROSCOMMON. R. Locke has an admirable reflection upon the difference of wit and judgment, whereby he endeavours to fhew the reason why they are not always the talents of the fame perfon. His words are as follow: • And hence, perhaps, may be given some reason of that common obfervation, that men who have a great deal of wit and prompt memories, have not always the clearest judgment, or deepest reafon. For wit lying most in the affemblage of ideas, and putting thofe together with quickness and variety, wherein can be found any refemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant 6 pictures pictures and agreeable vifions in the fancy; judgment, on the contrary, lies quite on the other fide, in feparating carefully one from another, ideas wherein can be found the leaft difference, thereby to avoid being mifled by fimilitude, and by affinity to take one thing for another. This is a way of proceeding quite contrary to metaphor and allufion; therein, for the most part, lies that entertainment and pleafantry of wit which ftrikes fo lively on the fancy, and is therefore fo acceptable to all people.' This is I think the best and most philofophical account that I ever met with of wit, which generally, though not always, confifts in fuch a resemblance and congruity of ideas as this author mentions. I fhall only add to it, by way of explanation, that every refemblance of ideas is not that which we call wit, unless it be fuch an one that gives Delight and Surprife to the reader: thefe two properties feem effential to wit, more particularly the last of them. In order therefore that the refemblance in the ideas be wit, it is neceffary that the ideas fhould not lie too near one another in the nature of things; for where the likeness is obvious, it gives no furprife. To compare one man's finging to that of another, or to represent the whiteness of any object by that of milk and snow, or the variety of its colours by thofe of the rainbow, cannot be called wit, unlefs, befides this obvious resemblance, there be fome further congruity difcovered in the two ideas that is capable of giving the reader fome furprise. Thus when a poet tells us, the bosem of his mistress is as white as fnow, there is no wit in the comparison : but when he adds, with a figh, that it is as cold too, it then grows into wit. Every reader's memory may supply him with innumerable inftances of the fame nature. For this reafon the fimilitudes in heroic poets, who endeavour rather to fill the mind with great conceptions, than to divert it with fuch as are new and furprising, have feldom any thing in them that can be called wit. Mr. Locke's account of wit, with this fhort explanation, · comprehends most of the fpecies of wit, as metaphors, fimilitudes, allegories, ænigmas, mottos, parables, fables, dreams, dreams, vifions, dramatic writings, burlesques, and all the methods of allufion as there are many other pieces of wit, how remote foever they may appear at firft fight, from the foregoing defcription, which upon examination will be found to agree with it. As true wit generally confifts in this refemblance and congruity of ideas, falfe wit chiefly confifts in the refemblance and congruity fometimes of fingle letters, as in anagrams, chronograms, lipograms, and acroftics; fometimes of fyllables, as in echos and doggercl rhymes: fometimes of words, as in puns and quibbles; and fometimes of whole fentences or poems, caft into the figure of eggs, axes or altars: nay fome carry the notion of wit fo far, as to afcribe it even to external mimicry, and to look upon a man as an ingenious perfon, that can refemble the tone, pofture, or face of another. As true wit confifts in the refemblance of ideas, and falfe wit in the refemblance of words, according to the foregoing inftances; there is another kind of wit which confifts partly in the resemblance of ideas, and partly in the refemblance of words, which for diftinction fake I fhall call mixt wit. This kind of wit is that which abounds in Cowley, more than in any author that ever wrote. Mr. Waller has likewife a great deal of it. Mr. Dryden is very fparing in it. Milton had a genius much above it. Spenfer is in the fame clafs with Milton. The Italians, even in their epic poetry, are full of it. Monfieur Boileau, who formed himself upon the ancient poets, has every where rejected it with fcorn. If we look after mixt wit among the Greek writers, we fhall find it no where but in the epigrammatifts. There are indeed fome ftrokes of it in the little poem afcribed to Mufæus, which by that, as well as many other marks, betrays itfelf to be a modern compofition. If we look into the Latin writers, we find none of this mixt wit in Virgil, Lucretius, or Catullus; very little in Horace; but a great deal of it in Ovid; and scarce any thing elfe in Martial. Out of the innumerable branches of mixt wit, I fhall choose one inftance which may be met with in all the writers writers of this clafs. The paffion of love in its naturé has been thought to refemble fire; for which reafon the words fire and flame are made use of to fignify Love. The witty poets therefore have taken an advantage from the doubtful meaning of the word fire, to make an infinite number of witticifms. Cowley, obferving the cold regard of his miftrefs's eyes, and at the fame time their power of producing love in him, confiders them as burning-glaffes made of ice; and finding himself able to live in the greateft extremities of love, concludes the Torrid Zone to be habitable. When his miftrefs had read his letter written in juice of lemon by holding it to the fire, he defires her to read it over a fecond time by love's flames. When the weeps, he wishes it were inward heat that diftilled thofe drops from the limbec. When she is abfent, he is beyond eighty, that is, thirty degrees nearer the pole than when he is with him. His ambitious love is a fire that naturally mounts upwards; his happy love is the beams of heaven, and his unhappy love flames of hell. When it does not let him fleep, it is a flame that fends up no fmoke; when it is oppofed by counsel and advice, it is a fire that rages the more by the winds blowing upon it. Upon the dying of a tree in which he had cut his loves, he obferves that his written flames had burnt up and withered the tree. When he refolves to give over his paffion, he tells us that one burnt like him for ever dreads the fire. His heart is an Ætna, that instead of Vulcan's fhop, inclofes Cupid's forge in it. His endeavouring to drown his love in wine, is throwing oil upon the fire. He would infinuate to his miftrefs, that the fire of love, like that of the fun, which produces fo many living creatures, fhould not only warm but beget. Love in another place cooks pleasure at his fire. Sometimes the poet's heart is frozen in every breast, and fometimes fcorched in every eye. Sometimes he is drowned in tears, and burnt in love, like a fhip fet on fire in the middle of the fea. The reader may observe, in every one of these instances, that the poet mixes the qualities of fire with thofe of love; and in the same sentence, fpeaking of it both as a paffion |