as the greatest Painters give him a Pair of Horns and a Tail in fuch awful Pieces as the Refurrection, and the Laft Fudgement. Father Bouhours allows, that when a Thing is pleafantly faid in Drollery or Raillery, there is not fuch Strictnefs of Truth required; and that the Devils were in a merry Mood, Milton himself told us,

Thus they among Themselves, in pleasant Vein,
Stood Scoffing.

I know very well how extreamly delicate our two Univerfities are as to the Perfection of that Education. I have heard every Academy in Europe turn'd into Ridicule, to raise the Character of our own Nurferies, and therefore I will not prefume to fay any Thing of them my self. If they will give me Leave to think, I defire no more. But the Spectator brings in a downright Charge against the Wits on the Bank of the Cam, for dealing too much in thefe Equivocals; and my Lord Shaftsbury in his Characteristicks, charges both Univerfities with it. He is rejoycing in the Difgrace that Pun and Quibble are fall'n into, There are only fome few Footsteps of it in the "Country, and it seems at laft confin'd to the Nurseries "of Youth, as the chief Entertainment of Pedants and "their Pupils." I have a MSS by me in which the Author has touch'd a little upon the Punsters, as will appear by his Verses.

Hence! all Equivocals, where Senfe is drown'd,
And all the Merit's in the doubtful Sound.

The Pun offends the reasonable Man,

And fuch we did not Purcel deem or Swan.

Whole Hours I've heard 'em cracking Puns like Squibs,
And laughing till they've almost crack'd their Ribs.
But when you heard 'em long it gave you Pain,
And falfe Delight was turn'd to true Difdain.
The Punfter has a Mark for ev'ry Pun,
Nor fhoots at Random, like Militia Gun.
Obferve how craftily he lays his Traps,
As Rowe his rhiming Exits laid for Claps.
Affoon as he his Chimes begins to ring,
He runs you o'er a long fucceffive String.
But when to Reafon you the Sot invite,

He Yawns---And his next Word is then----Good Night.

C 2

E'en

F'en let him go---I'll warrant you take Care
How you again to Punfter lend your Ear.
In Wantonness of Mirth a Pun, perhaps,
Without Defign, a Man of Senfe escapes.
You'll never fee him for a Laugh prepare,
As if he had been faying fomething rare:
He's heedless of th Effect, but calls not bad,
What helps to make the Converfation glad.
Th' abandon'd Punfter, and the study'd Pun,
Are naufeous Things, which Men of Wit will shun.
Yet, e'en from fuck, a Pun by Chance may drop,
And be who's then offended, is a Fop.

Fortune fortun'd the Fate of Rome, was vile,
Yet ftudy'd by the Prince of Roman Stile.
What other Plea for Tully can you find,
Than Error, which is Nature in Mankind?
The wifeft Monarch *, that e'er fill'd a Throne,
Since Pharaoh's Daughter rul'd King Solomon,
If Collier's Word, or Echard's, you will take,
Oft made the Bifhop for the Punfter's fake.
But that wife King upon his Throne did fit,
As Politician fage, and not a Wit:
And Pun and Peliticks, you must allow,
Did in all Times agree, as well as now.

The Reverend Prelate t, who St. Swithin's Chair
So fairly fill'd, wou'd Pun yè out a Pray'r.
At Vifitation he'd inftruct his Sons,

In Sermons made of nothing else but Puns.
The Court itself fo tickled with his Chimes,
They call'd him the beft Preacher of his Times.
But cou'd you hear grave South, without a Grin,
Cry, Death the Wages, who can live by Sin?
Yet I've wish'd often of a Levi's Son,
Rather than be fo dull, that he wou'd Pun.
Punning to Dulness is to be prefer'd,
As Mirth to Moping, or as Brains to Beard.
One has no Senfe, the other is too fcant,
Dulness is Deprivation, Punning want.

* James I.

† Andrews Bishop of Winchester.

To return to Pere Bouhours. All Equivocals are not alike faulty, but all Equivocals that are meerly fuch, that turn only on the Samenefs of the Sound, and have no Senfe in them, are infufferable to Men of a good Tafte. All Fi

gures

gures that contain a double Meaning, have each in their kind thofe Beauties and Graces which fet a Value upon them, tho' they are not without fomething equivocal. One Inftance will fuffice to give a Conception of what I mean. Martial to Domitian,

Vox diverfa fonat, Populorum vox tamen una,
Cum verus Patriæ diceris effe Pater.

As different as your Subject's Tongues may be,
In one Thing thro' your Empire they agree,
One only Tongue is us'd among them all,

You, Father of your Country, when they call. The Senfe is here double and makes an Antithefis fpeak different Tongues, and ufe one only Tongue. They are both True, according to what they are intended for, and the one does not deftroy the other, as in the Ambiguity of a Pun; on the contrary, they agree very well together, and from the Union of this double Senfe, there refults a certain Ingenuity founded on the equivocal Word Vox in Latin, and Tongue in English. Add to this, that there are feveral Epigrams, and Abundance of witty Repartees, that wou'd not ftrike us without this double Senfe, and thefe are properly the Thoughts which Macrobius terms Cavillationes, pleafant Sophifms; and Seneca, Vafre & ludicre Conclufiones, fly and ludicrous Inferences or Conclufions; and it cannot be deny'd, that Truth in Thinking is not incompatible with the Équivocal in ingenious Difcourfes.

Hyperbole.

As to the Hyperbole, the very Word determines the Thing. Whatever is exceffive, is vicious; even Virtue carry'd to Extreams, and not keeping within Bounds, ceafes to be Virtue. All Thoughts which turn upon the Hyperbole, are falfe of themfelves, and deferve no Place in a reasonable Work ; unless the Hyperbole is of a particular Kind, or the Excefs of it is temper'd with fome foftning Expreffions, Ultra Fidem, non ultra Modum, fays Quintilian, Beyond Faith, but not beyond Meafure. For there are fome Hyperboles, which are not fo bold as others, which keep within Bounds, tho' above common Belief; fome of them are naturaliz'd by Ufe, and are fo well establish'd, that there's nothing fhocking in them. Homer fays, Nerea is Beauty it felf; and Martial, that Zoilus is not vicious, but Vice it felf:

Mentitur qui te vitiofum, Zoile, dixit:

Non vitiofus Homo es, Zoile, fed Vitium.
Who calls thee vitious, is a lying Elf,

Thou art not vicious, thou art Vice it felf.

This Verfe was happily turn'd lately on Account of one Dr. Zachary Grey, who wrote a Book full of Falfehoods, to charge an innocent Man with as many :

Non vitiofus Homo es, Zachary, fed vitium.

On the contrary, when you speak of an honeft Man, we often fay, He's Honesty it felf; we also say, as the Greeks and Latins do, She's whiter than Snow; He flies fafter than the Wind. Thefe Hyperboles lye without deceiving: Monere fatis eft mentiri Hyperbolen, nec ita ut mendacio fallere poffit; Quintilian, Lib. viii. c. 6. and Seneca tells us, they, by Fable, bring the Mind to the Truth, In hoc Hyperbole extenditur, ut ad verum Mendacio veniat. De Ben. They give us a Conception of what they fignifie, by expreffing it in a manner which feems to render it incredible. Lord Lanfdown, in his Poem on unnatural Flights in Poetry, explains this very well:

The Reader what in Reafon's due believes,
Nor can we call that falfe, which not deceives.
Hyperboles fo daring, and fo bold,

Dijdaining Bounds, are yet by Rules controul'd
Above the Clouds, but yet within our Sight,
They mount with Truth, and make a tow'ring Flight.
Prefenting Things impoffible to View,

They wander thro' Incredible to True.

Falsehoods thus mix'd like Metals are refin'd,
And Truth like Silver leaves a Drofs behind.

THOSE Hyperboles, which are prepar'd and rais'd by Degrees, do not fet the Reader's Mind against them. They gain Belief, fome how or other, as we are told by Hermogenes, and what they offer, which is most falfe, becomes at leaft probable. We have a noted Example of it in Homer. He does not fay, all at once, that Polyphemus tore up the Top of the Mountain; that wou'd have deftroy'd all Faith immediately: He difpofes the Mind of the Reader by his Defcription of the Cyclops, whom he makes to be of an enormous Size, and his Strength equal

to

to his Bulk: His Club is the Trunk of a huge Tree, and instead of a Stone at his Gate, he has a Rock: he eats as much as Fifty Men at a Meal: In a Word, he's the Son of the Sea. After all these Preparations, when the Poet comes and tells you, he tore up the Top of a Mountain, you do not think it fuch a ftrange Thing, as it wou'd have appeared to you without Preparation. Nothing feems impoffible to a Man, who had Neptune for his Father, and was not of the Make of other Men.

THERE are other Ways of foftning what wou'd elfe be hard in the Hyperbole, and of giving it an Air of Verifimility. Virgil fpeaking of Mark Anthony, and Auguftus's Fleets, at the Battle of Altium, fays,

Cycladas

Pelago credas innare revulfas

You would believe the Cyclades
Were rooted up, and floated on the Seas.

Dryden tranflates it thus,

It seems as if the Cyclades again

Were rooted up and juftled in the Main.

Where did he read that the Cyclades were ever rooted up before? Did Virgil tell him, they juftled in the Main, as the Gods in Oedipus: "Tis certain Mr. Dryden fo little thought of a Critick on his Virgil, that he feems to have tranflated in Defiance of it, and to make Virgil fpeak, as he himself would have fpoken on the like Occafion; whereas he fhou'd have imitated every where the Judgement and Discretion of his Author, who was discreet even in Enthusiasm, as Pere Boubours fays. Segrais renders this Verse thus,

De loin on pense voir les Cyclades flotter.

Far off one wou'd have thought the Cyclades
Were floating on the Sea.

The De loin there, Far off, leffens the Hyperbole rather
more than the Credas of the Original, you wou'd believe:
For at a greater Distance the Object impofes more on the
Sight than at a lefs. Mr. Waller in the Battle of the
Summer Inlands, has fomething like it upon a Whale.