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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/14973-0.txt b/14973-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8d3ad3a --- /dev/null +++ b/14973-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1195 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14973 *** +Series One: + + + + + +_Essays on Wit_ + + + + + + +No. 2 + +_Essay on Wit_ (1748); Richard Flecknoe's _Of one that Zany's the good +Companion and Of a bold abusive Wit_ (second edition, 1665); + +Joseph Warton, _The Adventurer_, Nos. 127 and 133 (1754); _Of Wit +(Weekly Register_, 1732). + +With an Introduction to the Series on Wit by Edward N. Hooker + + + + + +The Augustan Reprint Society November, 1946 _Price_: 75c + + + + + + +Membership in the Augustan Reprint Society entitles the subscriber to +six publications issued each year. The annual membership fee is $2.50. +Address subscriptions and communications to the Augustan Reprint +Society in care of one of the General Editors. + +General Editors: Richard C. Boys, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, +Michigan; + +Edward N. Hooker, H.I. Swedenberg, Jr., University of +California, Los Angeles 24, California. + +Editorial Advisors: Louis L. Bredvold, University of Michigan; James +L. Clifford, Columbia University; Benjamin Boyce, University of +Nebraska; Cleanth Brooks, Louisiana State University; Arthur Friedman, +University of Chicago; James R. Sutherland, Queen Mary College +University of London. + + + + + + +INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES ON WIT + +The age of Dryden and Pope was an age of wit, but there were few who +could explain precisely what they meant by the term. A thing so +multiform and. Protean escaped the bonds of logic and definition. In +his sermon "Against Foolish Talking and Jesting" the learned Dr. Isaac +Barrow attempted to describe some of the forms which it took; the +forms were many, and it is difficult to discover any element which +they held in common. Nevertheless Barrow ventured a summary: + + It is, in short, a manner of speaking out of the simple and + plain way, (such as Reason teacheth and proveth things by,) + which by a pretty surprizing uncouthness in conceit of + expression doth affect and amuse the fancy, stirring in it + some wonder, and breeding some delight thereto. + +And about sixty years later, despite the work of Hobbes and Locke in +calling attention to the importance of semantics, the confusion still +existed. According to John Oldmixon (_Essay on Criticism_, 1727, p. +21), "Wit and Humour, Wit and good Sense, Wit and Wisdom, Wit and +Reason, Wit and Craft; nay, Wit and Philosophy, are with us almost the +same Things." Some such confusion is apparent in the definition +presented by the _Essay on Wit_ (1748, p. 6). + +In general it was recognized that there were two main kinds of wit. +Both fancy and judgment, said Hobbes (_Human Nature_, X, sect. 4), are +usually understood in the term _wit_; and wit seems to be "a tenuity +and agility of spirits," opposed to the sluggishness of spirits +assumed to be characteristic of dull people. Sometimes wit was used in +this sense to translate the words _ingenium_ or _l'esprit_. But +Hobbes's disciple Walter Charleton objected to making it the +equivalent of _ingenium_, which, he said, rather signified a man's +natural inclination--that is, genius. Instead, he described wit as +either the faculty of understanding, or an act or effect of that +faculty; and understanding is made up of both judgment and +Imagination. The Ample or Happy Wit exhibits a fine blend of the two +(_Brief Discourse concerning the Different Wits of Men_, 1669, pp. 10, +17-19). In this sense wit combines quickness and solidity of mind. + +In the other, and more restricted sense, wit was made identical with +fancy (or imagination) and distinguished sharply from reason or +judgment. So Hobbes, recording a popular meaning of wit, remarked +(_Leviathan_. I, viii) that people who discover rarely observed +similitudes in objects that otherwise are much unlike, are said to +have a good wit. And judgment, directly opposed to it, was taken to be +the faculty of discerning differences in objects that are +superficially alike. (Between this idea of wit as discovering likeness +in things unlike, and the Platonic idea of discovering the One in the +Many, the Augustans made no connection.) A similar distinction between +wit and judgment was made by Charleton, Robert Boyle, John Locke, and +many others. The full implication lying in Hobbes's definition can be +seen in Walter Charleton, who said (_Brief Discourse_, pp. 20-21) that +imagination (or wit) is the faculty by which "we conceive some certain +similitude in objects really unlike, and pleasantly confound them in +discourse: Which by its unexpected Fineness and allusion, surprizing +the Hearer, renders him less curious of the truth of what is said." In +short, wit is delightful, but, because it leads away from truth, +unprofitable and, it may be, even dangerous. + +The identification of wit with fancy gave it a lowly role in Augustan +thinking; and also in literary prose, which was supposed to be the +language of reason (cf. Donald F. Bond, "'Distrust' of Imagination in +English Neo-Classicism," _PQ_, XIV, 54-69). What of its +position in poetry? According to Hobbes, poetry must exhibit both +judgment and fancy, but fancy should dominate; and the work of fancy +is to adorn discourse with tropes and figures, to please by +extravagance, to disguise meaning, and to create pleasant +illusions. One of Hobbes's followers announced that fancy must have +the upper hand because all poems please chiefly by novelty. While they +made wit the most essential element in poetry, they made it trivial +and empty, and thereby helped to bring poetry itself into contempt. + +Partly to oppose this low opinion of poetry, the neo-Aristotelians +among the critics began to stress the view that fable, design, and +structure were the really essential elements in poetry, and that these +were the product of reason, or judgment. And because reason was the +means by which truth was discovered, poetry by virtue of its +rational framework became capable of revealing and communicating +truth--that is, of instructing. In this conception of poetry there was +little glory left for wit. It was relegated to be used for color and +adornment in serious poetry, or to furnish the substance of the +"little" poetry which could not boast of design or structure. Thus, +the _Essay on Wit_ invites the poet, (p. 15): + + Have as much Wit as you will, or you can, in a Madrigal, in + little light Verses, in the Scene of a Comedy, which is + neither passionate or simple, in a Compliment, in a little + Story, in a Letter where you would be merry yourself to make + your Friends so. + +Be witty in these playful varieties of poetry, because wit in a large +and serious work would be insufferable. + +"These Sports of the Imagination, these Finesses, these Conceits, +these glittering Strokes, these Gaieties, these little cut Sentences, +these ingenious Prodigalities" in which wit is expressed might be +either sober or funny. Most of the examples in the _Essay on Wit_ are +of the sober kind, coming under the order of wit because they are +pretty and diverting fancies. But by the 1690's there had been a clear +tendency to associate wit with mirth, and often with satire. By 1726 +James Arbuckle could write (_A Collection of Letters_, 1729, II, 72): +"... Satire and Ridicule, which are the main Provocatives to Laughter, +still keep their ground among us, and are reckoned the chief +Embellishments of Discourse by all who aim at the Character of Wits." + +The end of wit was to surprise and delight. One may surprise by +novelty, but the easiest road to the goal is audacity; and the +subjects which lent themselves most readily to audacity were sex and +religion. The treatment of the latter proved especially troublesome to +good men like Blackmore, and the frequency of portraits and characters +of the Profance Wit shows that many people were disturbed. Shaftesbury +in _Sensus Communis_ (1709) tried to justify the use of wit in +discussing religion. For the rest of the century Shaftesbury's +position was the center of heated debate, with Akenside supporting, +and John Brown and Warburton opposing, the employment of wit in +religion; and the _Gentleman's Magazine_ is full of the arguments of +lesser men who took sides. The author of the _Essay on Wit_ places +himself firmly beside Shaftesbury when he remarks (p. 14) that "a +Subject which will not bear Raillery, is suspicious." The controversy +is reviewed in an article by A.O. Aldridge, called "Shaftesbury and +the Test of Truth" (_PMLA_, LX, 129-156). + +Wit was taken to be the source, of tropes, and figures of speech, of +all the color and adornments of rhetoric; and the old tradition of +rhetoric, handed down from the Renaissance, tended to regard tropes +and figures as mere ornament, a means of decorating the surface, an +artful prettifying of a subject in order that it might please. For +this reason wit was likely to be considered out of place in serious +works which called for naturalness and passion. The objection to the +simile in the language of passion was an old note in English criticism +(cf. Dennis, _Critical Works_, I, 424); but the author of the _Essay +on Wit_ in condemning glittering strokes and ingenious prodigalities +in impassioned literature shows by his phrasing that he is following +Father Bouhours (cf. Manlere die Bien Penser, Amsterdam, 1688, pp. +8-9, 234, 296, 388). + +In _Spectator_, no. 249, Addison entered the contest known as the +Battle of the Books, and lined himself up squarely on the side of the +Ancients. The ancients, he said, surpassed the moderns in poetry, +painting, oratory, history, architecture, and, in fact, all arts and +sciences which depend more on genius than on experience. It was no +lightening of the judgment when he added that the moderns surpass the +ancients in doggerel, humour burlesque, and all the trivial arts of +ridicule, the arts of the "unlucky little wits." So degraded had wit +become! In the _Adventurer_, nos. 127 and 133, Joseph Warton showed +himself to be essentially in agreement with Addison's verdict, +differing only in thinking that a few moderns might compare with the +ancients in works of genius. He appears somewhat less scornful of wit, +recognizing its part in the arts of civility and the decencies of +conversation; and yet he associates It with ridicule, laughter, and +luxury, and makes it the pleasant plaything of gentlemen. + +Occasionally there were attempts to restore wit to its pristine glory, +to the position it had occupied before it was tied to mirth and +ridicule, when Atterbury could thus define it: "Wit, indeed, as it +implies, a certain uncommon Reach and Vivacity of Thought, is an +Excellent Talent; very fit to be employ'd in the Search of Truth...." +So the anonymous author of _A Satyr upon a Late Pamphlet Entitled, A +Satyr against Wit_ (1700) could rhapsodize: + + Wit is a Radiant Spark of Heav'nly Fire, + Full of Delight, and worthy of Desire; + Bright as the Ruler of the Realms of Day, + Sun of the Soul, with in-born Beauties gay.... + +So Corbyn Morris in his _Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of +Wit, Humour, Raillery, Satire, and Ridicule_, 1744, probably the best +and clearest treatment of the subject in the first half of the +eighteenth century, wrote (p. 1): "Wit is the Lustre resulting from +the quick Elucidation of one Subject, by a just and unexpected +Arrangement of it with another Subject." And so the author of the +essay "Of Wit" in the _Weekly Register_ for July 22, 1732, ventured +his opinion (reprinted in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, II, 861-862): + + Wit is a Start of Imagination in the Speaker, that strikes + the Imagination of the Hearer with an Idea of Beauty common + to both; and the immediate Result of the Comparison is the + Flash of Joy that attends it; it stands in the same Regard + to Sense, or Wisdom, as lightning to the Sun, suddenly + kindled and as suddenly gone.... + +But for the most part wit was becoming an expression of mirth or +ridicule in which fancy was primarily involved; at its best wit was +coupled with politeness and elegance in conversation, and at its worst +with silliness and extravagance, or with indecency and impiety. + +The essay from the _Weekly Register_ is one of a large number of +little histories of wit, which appear through the age of Dryden and +Pope and which attempt to relate developments in wit to changes +in fashion, religion, polities, social manners, and taste. These are +rudimentary but important expressions of the idea that literature is +conditioned by changing circumstances and social customs in the lives +of the people from whom it springs. + +The _Essay on Wit_, 1748, is reprinted here, by permission, +from a copy in the library of the University of Illinois. Flecknoe's +_Characters_ are reprinted from a copy of _Sixty Nine Enigmatical +Character_ owned by the library of the University of Michigan. The +essays of Joseph Warton is the _Adventurer_, and the typescript copy +of the essay + + "Of Wit" from the _Weekly Register_ (as reprinted in the + _Gentleman's Magazine_) are also taken from copies belonging + to the University of Michigan. + + Edward Niles Hooker + University of California, Los Angeles + + * * * * * + + + +[Illustration: Title page] + +AN ESSAY ON WIT. + + +[Price Six-pence.] + + + +AN ESSAY ON WIT: + +To which is annexed, + +A DISSERTATION on Antient and Modern HISTORY. + + * * * * * + + ____ _Sapientia prima + Stultiti‚ caruisse._ HOR. Epist. I. Lib. I. + + * * * * * + +_LONDON_: + +Printed for _T. Lownds_, Bookseller, at the _Bible_ and _Crown_, in +_Exeter-Change_, in the _Strand_, 1748. + + * * * * * + + + + +AN ESSAY ON WIT. + +A Gentleman who had some Knowledge in the human Heart, was consulted +about a Tragedy which was going to be acted: He answer'd that there +was so much Wit in the Piece that he doubted of its Success.--At +hearing such a Judgment, a Man will immediately cry out, What! is Wit +then a Fault, at a Time when every Body aims at having it, when nobody +writes but to shew he has it; when the Publick applauds even false +Thoughts, provided they are shining! Yes, 'twill doubtless be +applauded the first Day, and grow tiresome the next. + +That which they call Wit, is sometimes a new Simile, sometimes a fine +Allusion: Here 'tis the Abuse of a Word which presents itself in one +Sense, and is understood in another; there a delicate Relation between +two uncommon Ideas: 'Tis an extraordinary Metaphor; 'tis something +which in an Object does not at first present itself, but nevertheless +is in it; 'tis the Art, to unite two Things which were far from one +another; to separate two which seem to be joined, or to set them in +Opposition; 'tis the Art, of expressing but half the Thought and +leaving the other to be found out. In short, I'd tell all the +different Ways of shewing Wit, if I knew of any more. + +But all these Brightnesses (and I speak not of the false ones) agree +not, or very seldom agree with a serious Work, which ought to be +interesting. The Reason of it is, that 'tis then the Author that +appears, and the Publick will see no body but the Hero. Moreover the +Hero is always either in a Passion, or in Danger. Danger, and the +Passions seek not Expressions of Wit. _Priam_ and _Hecuba_ don't make +Epigrams, when their Children's Throats are cut and _Troy_ in +Flames:--_Dido_ does not sigh in Madrigals, when she flies to the Pile +upon which she's going to sacrifice herself:--_Demosthenes_ has no +Prettinesses, when he animates the _Athenians_ to War; if he had, he'd +be a Rhetorician indeed, instead of which he's a Statesman. + +If _Pyrrhus_ was always to express himself in this Stile: + + _'Tis true, + My Sword has often reek'd in_ Phrygian _Blood, + And carried Havock through your Royal Kindred: + But you, fair Princess, amply have aveng'd + Old_ Priam's _vanquish'd House: And all the Woes, + I brought on them, fall short of what I suffer._ + +This Character wou'd not touch at all: 'Twou'd soon be perceiv'd, that +true Passion seldom makes Use of such Comparisons, and that there is +very little Proportion between the real Fires which consumed _Troy_, +and the amorous Fires of _Pyrrhus_; between the Havock he made amongst +_Andromache_'s Kindred and the Cruelty she shews him. + +_Chamont_ says, in speaking of _Monimia_: + + _You took her up a little tender Flower, + Just sprouted on a Bank, which the next Frost + Had nipt; and, with a careful loving Hand, + Transplanted her into your own fair Garden, + Where the Sun always shines: There long she flourish'd, + Grew sweet to Sense, and lovely to the Eye; + Till at the last, a cruel Spoiler came, + Cropt this fair Rose, and rifled all its Sweetness, + Then cast it, like a loathsome Weed, away._ + +This Thought has a prodigious Eclat: There's a great deal of Wit in +it, and even an Air of Simplicity that imposes upon one. We all see, +that these Verses, pronounced with the Art and Enthusiasm of a good +Actor never fail of Applause; but I think we may also see, that the +Tragedy of the _Orphan_ wrote entirely in this Taste would never have +lived long. + +In effect, why should _Chamont_ make such a long-winded Simile almost +in the Height of Rage for the Ruin of his Sister? Is that natural? +Does not the Poet here quite hide his Hero to shew himself? + +This brings into my Mind the absurd Custom of finishing the Acts of +almost all our modern Tragedies with a Simile; surely in a great +Crisis of Affairs, in a Council, in a violent Passion of Love or +Wrath, in a pressing Danger, Princes, Ministers, Heroes or Lovers, +should not make Poetical Comparisons.--Even _Marcia_'s (or rather Mr. +_Addison_'s) beautiful Simile at the End of the first Act of _Cato_, +is scarcely to be forgiven. + +What then would a Work be, that was filled with far-fetched and +Problematick Thoughts? How infinitely superior to all such dazling +Ideas, are these simple and natural Words of _Monimia_ to her angry +Brother? + + _Look kindly on me then. I cannot bear + Severity; it daunts, and does amaze me:_ + _My Heart's so tender, should you charge me rough, + I should but weep, and answer you with sobbing. + But use me gently, like a loving Brother, + And search through all the Secrets of my Soul._ + +Or these of _Brutus_, when he receives the News of his Wife's Death: + + Brutus. _Now, as you are a_ Roman, _tell me true._ + + Messala. _Then like a_ Roman _bear the Truth I tell; + For certain she is dead, and by strange manner._ + + Brutus. _Why farewel_ Portia.--_We must die,_ Messala. + _With meditating that she must die once, + I have the Patience to endure it now._ + +Or these noble ones of _Titinius_, when he stabs himself: + + _By your leave Gods--this is a_ Roman's _Part._ + +It is not that which is called Wit, but what is sublime and noble that +makes true Beauty. + +I have purposely chose these Examples from good Authors, that they may +be the more striking; and I speak not of those Points and Quibbles, +whose Impropriety is easily perceiv'd. There is no one but laughs when +_Hotspur_ says, + + _Why, what a deal of candied Courtesie + This fawning Greyhound then did proffer me! + Look, when his infant Fortune came to Age, + And gentle_ Harry Percy--_and kind Cousin_--_The + Devil take such Cozeners_.-- + +_Shakespear_ found the Stage, and all the People of his Days, infected +with these Puerillities, and he very well knew how (though perhaps he +never read it in _Epictetus_) [Greek: ] to attune, or harmonize his +Mind to the Things which happen. + +I now remember one of these shining Strokes, which I have seen quoted +in several Works of Taste, and even in the Treatise of Studies by the +late Mr. _Rollin_. This _Morceau_ is taken from the beautiful Funeral +Oration of the great _Turenne_: The whole Piece is very fine, but it +seems to me that the Stroke I am speaking of should not have been made +Use of by a Bishop.--This is it: + + "O Sovereigns! Enemies of _France_, ye live, and the Spirit + of Christian Charity forbids me to wish your Deaths, + &c.--But ye live, and I mourn in this Pulpit the Death of a + virtuous Captain, whose Intentions were pure, &c.--" + +An Apostrophe in this Taste would have been very proper at _Rome_ in +the Civil Wars, after the Assassination of _Pompey_; or at _London_ +after the Death of _Charles_ the First. But is it decent, in a Pulpit, +to wish for the Death of the Emperor, the King of _Spain_, and the +Electors; to put them in Balance with the General of a King's Army, +who is their Enemy? Or ought the Intentions of a Captain, which can be +no other than to serve his Prince, to be compared with the Politick +Interests of the crown'd Heads against which he serves? What would be +said of a _Frenchman_, who had wished for the Death of the King of +_England_, because of the Loss of the Chevalier _Belleisle_, whose +Intentions were pure? + +For what Reason has this Passage been always praised by the Criticks? +'Tis because the Figure is in itself beautiful and pathetick, but they +did not examine into the Congruity and Bottom of the Thought. + +I return to my Paradox--That all these shining Strokes, to which they +give the Name of Wit, never ought to be introduced into great Works +made to instruct or to move; I'll even say they ought not to be found +in Odes for Musick. Musick expresses Passions, Sentiments and Images: +but what are the Concords that can be giv'n an Epigram? _Dryden_ was +sometimes negligent, but he was always natural. + +In a Sermon of Doctor _South_, where he speaks of Man's Rectitude and +Freedom from Sin before the Fall, are seen these Words: + + "We were not born crooked, we learnt these Windings and + Turnings of the Serpent." + +I remember to have heard this Passage admired by several People: but +who does not see that the Motions, _viz._ the Windings and Turnings of +the Serpent's Body are here confounded with those of its Heart: and +that at best, 'tis but a mere Point and Pleasantry. + +Certainly there's a great Impropriety in putting any kind of Smartness +into Pieces of such a Nature as Dr. _South_'s; but what is still +worse, we generally find these Smartnesses to be quite vague and +superficial; they don't enter, but only play upon the Surface of the +Soul. + +Had a certain polite Author been a Cotemporary of the +Doctor's, he'd have told him that + +[Greek: TÍn men SpoudhhÍn dichph teirein ghelÙi, thyn de gelÙa spoudhÍ.] + +Humour is the only Test of Gravity; and Gravity of Humour. For a +Subject which will not bear Raillery, is suspicious; and a Jest which +will not bear a serious Examination, is certainly false Wit. + +These Sports of the Imagination, these Finesses, these Conceits, these +glittering Strokes, these Gaieties, these little cut Sentences, these +ingenious Prodigalities, which are lavished away in our Times, agree +with none but little Works. The Front of St _Paul_'s Church is simple +and majestick. A Cabinet may with Propriety enough contain little +Ornaments. Have as much Wit as you will, or you can, in a Madrigal, in +little light Verses, in the Scene of a Comedy, which is neither +passionate or simple, in a Compliment, in a little Story, in a Letter +where you would be merry yourself to make your Friends so. + +_Spencer_ was very well acquainted with this Art. In his Fairy Queen, +you find hardly any thing but what is sublime and full of Imagery: but +in his detached Pieces, such as the Hymn in Honour of Beauty, The Fate +of the Butterfly, _Britain_'s Ida, &c. he gave a Loose to his Wit and +Delicacy. The following Verses are Part of the Description of _Venus_ +asleep, in the last mention'd Poem: + + _Her full large Eyes, in jetty-black array'd, + Proud Beauty not confin'd to red and white, + But oft herself in black more rich display'd; + Both Contraries did yet themselves unite, + To make one Beauty in different Delight:_ + _A thousand Loves, sate playing in each Eye, + And smiling Mirth kissing fair Courtesy, + By sweet Persuasion won a bloodless Victory._ + + _Her Lips most happy each in other's Kisses, + From their so wish'd Imbracements seldom parted, + Yet seem'd to blush at such their wanton Blisses; + But when sweet Words their joining Sweets disparted, + To the Ear a dainty Musick they imparted; + Upon them fitly sate delightful Smiling, + A thousand Souls with pleasing Stealth beguiling: + Ah that such shews of Joys shou'd be all Joys exiling!_ + + _Lower two Breasts stand all their Beauties bearing, + Two Breasts as smooth and soft;--but oh alas! + Their smoothest Softness far exceeds comparing: + More smooth and soft--but naught that ever was, + Where they are first, deserves the second Place: + Yet each as soft, and each as smooth as other; + But when thou first try'st one, and then the other, + Each softer seems than each, and each than each seems smoother._ + +These Lines (pretty as they are) would be unsufferable in a large and +serious Work, nay, there are some People who tax them with being too +extravagant even for the Poem where they stand; and in truth, their +warmest Admirer can say no more than this: + + _Nequeo Monstrare, & Sentio tantum._ + +So far am I from reproaching _Waller_ with putting too much Wit in his +Poems; that on the contrary, I have found too little, though he +continually aims at it. They say that Dancing Masters never make a +handsome Bow, because they take too much Pains. I think _Waller_ is +often in this Case; his best Verses are studied; one finds he quite +tires himself to find that which presents itself so naturally to +_Rochester_, _Congreve_, and to so many more, who with all the Ease in +the World, write these Bagatelles better than _Waller_ did with +Labour. + +I know it signifies very little to the Affairs of the World, whether +_Waller_ was or was not a great Genius; whether he only made a few +pretty Things, or that all his Verses may stand for Models. But we who +love the Arts, carry an attentive Eye on that which to the rest of the +World is a Matter of mere Indifference. Good Taste is for us in +Literature, what it is for Women in Dress; and provided we don't make +our Opinions an Affair of Party, I think we may boldly say, that there +are few excellent Things in _Waller_, and that _Cowley_ might be +easily reduced to a few Pages. + +It is not that we would deprive them of their Reputation; 'tis only to +inquire strictly what brought them that Reputation which is so much +respected; and what are the true Beauties which made their Faults be +overlooked. It must be known what ought to be followed in their Works, +and what avoided; this is the true Fruit of a deep Study in the Belles +Lettres; it is this that _Horace_ did, when he examined _Lucilius_ +critically. _Horace_ got Enemies by it, but he enlightened his Enemies +themselves. + +This Desire of shining, and to say in a new Manner what others have +said before, is the Foundation of new Expressions, as well as of +far-fetched Thoughts. + +He that cannot shine by a Thought will distinguish himself by a Word. +This is their Reason for substituting Placid for Peaceful, Joyous for +Joyful, Meandring for Winding; and a hundred more Affectations of the +same kind. If they were to go on at this Rate, the Language of +_Shakespear, Milton, Dryden, Addison_ and _Pope_, would soon become +quite superannuated. And why avoid an Expression in use, to introduce +one which says precisely the same Thing? A new Word is never +pardonable, but when it is absolutely necessary, intelligible and +sonorous; they are forc'd to make them in Physics: A new Discovery, or +a new Machine demands a new Word. But do they make new Discoveries in +the human Heart? Is there any other Greatness than that of +_Shakespear_ and _Milton_? Are there any other Passions than those +that have been handled by _Otway_ and _Dryden_? Is there any other +Evangelic Moral than that of Dr. _Tillotson_? + +Those who accuse the _English_ Language of not being copious enough, +do, in Truth, find a Sterility, but 'tis in themselves. + +_Rem Verba Sequuntur_. + +When one is thoroughly struck with an Idea, when a Man of Sense, +fill'd with Warmth, is in full Possession of his Thought, it comes +from him all ornamented with suitable Expressions, as _Minerva_ sprang +out, compleatly arm'd, from the Head of _Jupiter_. + +In short, the Conclusion of all this is, that you must never seek for +far-fetch'd Thoughts, Conceits or Expressions; and that the Art of all +great Works, is to reason well, without making many Arguments; to +paint accurately, without Painting all; to move, without always +exciting the Passions. + +[Illustration: Title page] + + Sixtynine + ENIGMATICAL + Characters, + ALL + Very exactly drawn to the Life. + + { Persons, + From several { Humours, + { Dispositions. + + PLEASANT + And full of + DELIGHT. + + * * * * * + +The Second Edition by the Author R.F. Esquire. + + * * * * * + +_London_, Printed for _William Crook_, at the sign of the three Bibles +on _Fleet Bridge_, 1665. + + * * * * * + + + + +CHARACTER. + +_Of one that_ Zanys _the good Companion_. + + +He is a wit of an under Region, grosly imitating on the lower rope, +what t'other does neatly on the higher; and is only for the laughter +of the vulgar; whilst your wiser and better sort can scarcely smile at +him: He talks nothing but kennel-raked fluff, and his discourse is +rather like fruit cane up rotten from the ground, than freshly +gathered from the Tree. He is so far from a courtly wit, as his +breeding seems only to have been i' th' Suburbs; or at best, he seems +only graduated good company in a Tavern (the Bedlam of wits) where men +are mad rather than merry; here one breaking a jest on the Drawer, or +a Candlestick; there another repeating the old end of a Play, or some +bawdy song; this speaking bilk, that nonsense, whilst all with loud +houting and laughter confound the _Fidlers_ noise, who may well be +call'd a noise indeed, for no _Musick_ can be heard for them; so +whilst he utters nothing but old stories, long since laught thridbare, +or some stale jest broken twenty times before: His _mirth_ compared +with theirs, new and at first hand, is just like _Brokers_ ware in +comparison with _Mercers_, or _Long-lane_ compar'd unto _Cheap-side_: +his wit being rather the _Hogs-heads_ than his own, favouring more of +_Heidelberg_ than of _Hellicon_, and he rather a drunken than a good +companion. + + * * * * * + + + + +CHARACTER. + +_Of a bold abusive Wit._ + + +He talks madly, _dash, dash,_ without any fear at all, and never cares +how he _bespatters_ others, or defiles himself; nor ceases he till he +has quite run himself out of breath; when no wonder, if to fools he +seems to get the start of those who wisely pick out their way, and are +as fearful of abusing others as themselves: He has the _Buffoons_ +priviledge, of saying or doing anything without exceptions, and he +will call a jealous man _Cuckold_, a childe of doubtful birth +_Bastard_, and a _Lady_ of suspected honor a _Whore_, and they but +laugh at it; and all _Scholars_ are _Pedants_; and _Physicians_, +_Quacks_ with him, when to be angry at it is the avowing it. Then in +_Ladies_ chambers, he will tumble beds, and towse your _Ladies_ dress +up unto the height, to the hazard of a _Bed-staff_ thrown at his head, +or rap o're the fingers with a _Busk_, and that is all; only is this +he is far worse than the _Buffoon_, since they study to _delight_, +this only to _offend_; they to make _merry_, but this onely to make +you _mad_, whence wo be t' ye of he discovers and _imperfection_ or +_fault_ in you, for he never findes a _breach_ but he makes a _hole_ +of it; nor a _hole_ but he _tugs_ at it so long till he tear it quite; +giving you for reason of his _incivility_, because (forsooth) _it +troubled you_, which would make any civil man cease troubling you. So +he wears his _wit_ as _Bravo's_ do their swords, to mischief and +offend others, not as _Gentlemen_ to defend themselves: and tis +_crime_ in him, what is _ornament_ in others; he being onely a _wit_ +at that, at which a good _wit_ is a _fool_. Especially he triumphs +over your modest men; and when he meets with a _simple body_, passes +for a _wit_, but a _wit_ indeed makes a _simplician_ of him; so goes +he persecuting others till some one or other at last (as _chollerick_ +as he is _abusive) cudgel_ him for his pains; when he goes _grumbling_ +away in a mighty _choler_, saying, _They understand not jest_, when +indeed tis rather _he_. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE ADVENTURER. + +_VOLUME THE FOURTH._ + + _--Tentanda via est; qu‚ me quoque possim + Tollere humo, victorque vir‚m volitare per ora._ VIRG. + + On vent'rous wing in quest of praise I go, + And leave the gazing multitude below. + +A NEW EDITION, ILLUSTRATED WITH FRONTISPIECES. + +LONDON: PRINTED FOR SILVESTER DOIG, ROYAL EXCHANGE, EDINBURGH. + +1793. + + * * * * * + + + + +No. CXXVII. Tuesday, January 22. 1754. + + _--Veteres ita miratur, laudatque!--_ + HOR. + The wits of old he praises and admires. + + +"It is very remarkable," says Addison, "that notwithstanding we fall +short at present of the ancients in poetry, painting, oratory, +history, architecture, and all the noble arts and sciences which +depend more upon genius than experience; we exceed them as much in +doggerel, humour, burlesque, and all the trivial arts of ridicule." As +this fine observation stands at present only in the form of a general +assertion, it deserves, I think, to be examined by a deduction of +particulars, and confirmed by an allegation of examples, which may +furnish an agreeable entertainment to those who have ability and +inclination to remark the revolutions of human wit. + +That Tasso, Ariosto, and Camoens, the three most celebrated of modern +Epic Poets, are infinitely excelled in propriety of design, of +sentiment, and style, by Horace and Virgil, it would be serious +trifling to attempt to prove: but Milton, perhaps, will not so easily +resign his claim to equality, if not to superiority. Let it, however, +be remembered, that if Milton be enabled to dispute the prize with the +great champions of antiquity, it is entirely owing to the sublime +conceptions he has copied from the book of God. These, therefore, must +be taken away before we begin to make a just estimate of his genius; +and from what remains, it cannot, I presume, be said with candour and +impartiality, that he has excelled Homer in the sublimity and variety +of his thoughts, or the strength and majesty of his diction. + +Shakespear, Corneille, and Racine, are the only modern writers of +Tragedy, that we can venture to oppose to Eschylus, Sophocles, and +Euripides. The first is an author so uncommon and eccentric, that we +can scarcely try him by dramatic rules. In strokes of nature and +character, he yields not to the Greeks: in all other circumstances +that constitute the excellence of the drama, he is vastly inferior. Of +the three moderns, the most faultless is the tender and exact Racine: +but he was ever ready to acknowledge, that his capital beauties were +borrowed from his favourite Euripides; which, indeed, cannot escape +the observation of those who read with attention his PhÊdra and +Andromache. The pompous and truly Roman sentiments of Corneille are +chiefly drawn from Luoan and Tacitus; the former of whom, by a strange +perversion of taste, he is known to have preferred to Virgil. His +diction is not so pure and mellifluous, his characters not so various +and just, nor his plots so regular, so interesting, and simple, as +those of his pathetic rival. It is by this simplicity of fable alone, +when every single act, and scene, and speech, and sentiment, and word, +concur to accelerate the intended event, that the Greek tragedies kept +the attention of the audience immoveably fixed upon one principal +object, which must be necessarily lessened, and the ends of the drama +defeated, by the mazes and intricacies of modern plots. + +The assertion of Addison with respect to the first particular, +regarding the higher kinds of poetry, will remain unquestionably true, +till nature in some distant age, for in the present, enervated with +luxury, she seems incapable of such an effort, shall produce some +transcendent genius, of power to eclipse the Iliad and the Edipus. + +The superiority of the ancient artists in Painting, is not perhaps so +clearly manifest. They were ignorant, it will be said, of light, of +shade, and perspective; and they had not the use of oil colours, which +are happily calculated to blend and unite without harshness and +discordance, to give a boldness and relief to the figures, and to form +those middle Teints which render every well-wrought piece a closer +resemblance of nature. Judges of the truest taste do, however, place +the merit of colouring far below that of justness of design, and force +of expression. In these two highest and most important excellencies, +the ancient painters were eminently skilled, if we trust the +testimonies of Pliny, Quintilian, and Lucian; and to credit them we +are obliged, if we would form to ourselves any idea of these artists +at all; for there is not one Grecian picture remaining; and the +Romans, some few of whose works have descended to this age, could +never boast of a Parrhasius or Apelles, a Zeuxis, Timanthes, or +Protogenes, of whose performances the two accomplished critics above +mentioned, speaks in terms of rapture and admiration. The statues that +have escaped the ravages of time, as the Hercules and Laocoon for +instance, are still a stronger demonstration of the power +of the Grecian artists in expressing the passions; for what was +executed in marble, we have presumptive evidence to think, might also +have been executed in colours. Carlo Marat, the last valuable painter +of Italy, after copying the head of the Venus in the Medicean +collection three hundred times, generously confessed, that he could +not arrive at half the grace and perfection of his model. But to speak +my opinion freely on a very disputable point, I must own, that if the +moderns approach the ancients in any of the arts here in question, +they approach them nearest in The Art of Painting, The human mind can +with difficulty conceive any thing more exalted, than "The Last +Judgment" of Michael Angelo, and "The Transfiguration" of Raphael. +What can be more animated than Raphael's "Paul preaching at Athens?" +What more tender and delicate than Mary holding the child Jesus, in +his famous "Holy Family?" What more graceful than "The Aurora" of +Guido? What more deeply moving than "The Massacre of the Innocents" by +Le Brun? + +But no modern Orator can dare to enter the lists with Demosthenes and +Tully. We have discourses, indeed, that may be admired, for their +perspicuity, purity, and elegance; but can produce none that abound in +a sublime which whirls away the auditor like a mighty torrent, and +pierces the inmost recesses of his heart like a flash of lightning; +which irresistibly and instantaneously convinces, without leaving, him +leisure to weigh the motives of conviction. The sermons of Bourdaloue, +the funeral orations of Bossuet, particularly that on the death of +Henrietta, and the pleadings of Pelisson, for his disgraced patron +Fouquet, are the only pieces of eloquence I can recollect, that bear +any resemblance to the Greek or Roman orator; for in England we have +been particularly unfortunate in our attempts to be eloquent, whether +in parliament, in the pulpit, or at the bar. If it be urged, that the +nature of modern politics and laws excludes the pathetic and the +sublime, and confines the speaker to a cold argumentative method, and +a dull detail of proof and dry matters of fact; yet, surely, the +Religion of the moderns abounds in topics so incomparably noble and +exalted as might kindle the flames of genuine oratory in the most +frigid and barren genius much more might this success be reasonably +expected from such geniuses as Britain can enumerate; yet no piece of +this sort, worthy applause or notice, has ever yet appeared. + +The few, even among professed scholars, that are able to read the +ancient Historians in their inimitable, originals, are startled at the +paradox, of Bolingbroke who boldly prefers Guicciardini to Thucydides; +that is, the most verbose and tedious to the most comprehensive and +concise of writers, and a collector of facts to one who was himself an +eye-witness and a principal actor in the important story he relates. +And, indeed, it may be well presumed, that the ancient histories +exceed the modern from this single consideration, that the latter are +commonly compiled by recluse scholars, unpractised in business, war, +and politics; whilst the former are many of them written by ministers, +commanders, and princes themselves. We have, indeed, a few flimsy +memoirs, particularly in a neighbouring nation, written by persons +deeply interested in the transactions they describe; but these I +imagine will not be compared to "The retreat of the ten thousand" +which Xenophon himself conducted and related, nor to "the Galic war" +of CÊsar, nor "The precious fragments" of Polybius, which our modern +generals and ministers would not have discredited by diligently +perusing, and making them the models of their conduct as well as of +their style. Are the reflections of Machiavel so subtle and refined as +those of Tacitus? Are the portraits of Thuanus so strong and +expressive as those of Sallust and Plutarch? Are the narrations of +Davila so lively and animated, or do his sentiments breathe such a +love of liberty and virtue, as those of Livy and Herodotus? + +The supreme excellence of the ancient Architecture the last particular +to be touched, I shall not enlarge upon, because it has never once +been called in question, and because it is abundantly testified by the +awful ruins of amphitheatres, aqueducts, arches, and columns, that are +the daily objects of veneration, though not of imitation. This art, it +is observable; has never been improved in later ages in one single +instance; but every just and legitimate edifice is still formed +according to the five old established orders, to which human wit has +never been able to add a sixth of equal symmetry and strength. + +Such, therefore, are the triumphs of the Ancients, especially the +Greeks, over the Moderns. They may, perhaps, be not unjustly ascribed +to a genial climate, that gave such a happy temperament of body as was +most proper to produce fine sensations; to a language most harmonious, +copious, and forcible; to the public encouragements and honours +bestowed on the cultivators of literature; to the emulation excited +among the generous youth, by exhibitions of their performances at the +solemn games; to an inattention to the arts of lucre and commerce, +which engross and debase the minds of the moderns; and above all, to +an exemption from the necessity of overloading their natural faculties +with learning and languages, with which we in these later times are +obliged to qualify ourselves, for writers, if we expect to be read. + +It is said by Voltaire, with his usual liveliness, "We shall never +again behold the time, when a Duke de la Rochefoucault might go from +the conversation of a Pascal or Arnauld, to the theatre of Corneille." +This reflection may be more justly applied to the ancients, and it may +with much greater truth be said; "The age will never again return, +when a Pericles, after walking with Plato in a portico, built by +Phidias, and painted by Apelles, might repair to hear a pleading of +Demosthenes, or a tragedy of Sophocles." + +I shall next examine the other part of Addison's assertion, that the +moderns excell the ancients in all the arts of Ridicule, and assign +the reasons of this supposed excellence. + + +No. CXXXIII. Tuesday, February 12. 1754. + + _At nostri proavi Plautinos et numeros et + Laudeveres sales; nimium patienter utrumque, + Ne dicam stule, mirati; si modo ego et vos + Scimus inurbanum lepido seponere dicto_. + HOR. + + "And yet our fires with joy could Plautus hear; + Gay were his jests, his numbers charm'd their ear." + Let me not say too lavishly they prais'd; + But sure their judgment was full cheaply pleas'd, + If you or I with taste are haply blest, + To know a clownish from a courtly jest. + FRANCIS. + +The fondness I have so frequently manifested for the ancients, has not +so far blinded my judgment, as to render me unable to discern, or +unwilling to acknowledge, the superiority of the moderns, in pieces of +Humour and Ridicule. I shall, therefore, confirm the general assertion +of Addison, part of which hath already been examined. + +Comedy, Satire, and Burlesque, being the three chief branches of +ridicule, it is necessary for us to compare together the most admired +performances of the ancients and moderns, in these three kinds of +writing, to qualify us justly to censure or commend, as the beauties +or blemishes of each party may deserve. + +As Aristophanes wrote to please the multitude, at a time when the +licentiousness of the Athenians was boundless, his pleasantries are +coarse and impolite, his characters extravagantly forced, and +distorted with unnatural deformity, like the monstrous caricaturas of +Callot. He is full of the grossest obscenity, indecency, and +inurbanity; and as the populace always delight to hear their superiors +abused and misrepresented, he scatters the rankest calumnies on the +wisest and worthiest personages of his country. His style is unequal, +occasioned by a frequent introduction of parodies on Sophocles and +Euripides. It is, however, certain, that he abounds in artful +allusions to the state of Athens at the time when he wrote; and, +perhaps, he is more valuable, considered as a political satirist than +a writer of comedy. + +Plautus has adulterated a rich vein of genuine wit and humour, with a +mixture of the basest buffoonry. No writer seems to have been born +with a more forcible or more fertile genius for comedy. He has drawn +some characters with incomparable spirit: we are indebted to him for +the first good miser, and for that worn-out character among the +Romans, a boastful Thraso. But his love degenerates into lewdness; and +his jests are insupportably low and illiberal, and fit only for "the +dregs of Romulus" to use and to hear; he has furnished examples of +every species of true and false wit, even down to a quibble and a pun. +Plautus lived in an age when the Romans were but just emerging into +politeness; and I cannot forbear thinking, that if he had been +reserved for the age of Augustus, he would have produced more perfect +plays than even the elegant disciple of Menander. + +Delicacy, sweetness, and correctness, are the characteristics of +Terence. His polite images are all represented in the most clear and +perspicuous expression; but his characters are too general and +uniform, nor are they marked with those discriminating peculiarities +that distinguish one man from another; there is a tedious and +disgusting sameness of incidents in his plots, which, as hath been +observed in a former paper, are too complicated and intricate. It may +be added, that he superabounds in soliloquies; and that nothing can be +more inartificial or improper, than the manner in which he hath +introduced them. + +To these three celebrated ancients, I venture to oppose singly the +matchless Moliere, as the most consummate master of comedy that former +or latter ages have produced. He was not content with painting obvious +and common characters, but set himself closely to examine the +numberless varieties of human nature: he soon discovered every +difference, however minute; and by a proper management could make it +striking: his portraits, therefore, though they appear to be +new, are yet discovered to be just. The Tartuffe and the Misantrope +are the most singular, and yet, perhaps, the most proper and perfect +characters that comedy can represent; and his Miser excels that of any +other nation. He seems to have hit upon the true nature of comedy; +which is, to exhibit one singular, and unfamiliar character, by such a +series of incidents as may best contribute to shew its singularities. +All the circumstances in the Misantrope tend to manifest the peevish +and captious disgust of the hero; all the circumstances in the +Tartuffe are calculated to shew the treachery of an accomplished +hypocrite. I am sorry that no English writer of comedy can be produced +as a rival to Moliere: although it must be confessed, that Falstaff +and Morose are two admirable characters, excellently, supported and +displayed; for Shakespear has contrived all the incidents to +illustrate the gluttony, lewdness, cowardice, and boastfulness of the +fat old knight: and Jonson, has, with equal art, displayed the oddity +of a wimsical humourist, who could endure no kind of noise. + +Will it be deemed a paradox, to assert, that Congreve's dramatic +persons have no striking and natural characteristic? His Fondlewife +and Foresight are but faint portraits of common characters, and Ben is +a forced and unnatural caricatura. His plays appear not to be +legitimate comedies, but strings of repartees and sallies of wit, the +most poignant and polite indeed, but unnatural and ill placed. The +trite and trivial character of a fop, hath strangely engrossed the +English stage, and given an insipid similiarity to our best comic +pieces: originals can never be wanting in such a kingdom as this, +where each man follows his natural inclinations and propensities, if +our writers would really contemplate nature, and endeavour to open +those mines of humour which have been so long and so unaccountably +neglected. + +If we proceed to consider the Satirists of antiquity, I shall not +scruple to prefer Boileau and Pope to Horace and Juvenal; the arrows +of whose ridicule are more sharp, in proportion as they are more +polished. That reformers should abound in obscenities, as is the case +of the two Roman poets, is surely an impropriety of the most +extraordinary kind; the courtly Horace also sometimes sinks into mean +and farcical abuse, as in the first lines of the seventh satire of the +first book; but Boileau and Pope have given to their Satire the Cestus +of Venus: their ridicule is concealed and oblique; that of the Romans +direct and open. The tenth satire of Bioleau on women is more bitter, +and more decent and elegant, than the sixth of Juvenal on the same +subject; and Pope's epistle to Mrs. Blount far excels them both, in +the artfulness and delicacy with which it touches female foibles. I +may add, that the imitations of Horace by Pope, and of Juvenal by +Johnson, are preferable to their originals in the appositeness of +their examples, and in the poignancy of their ridicule. Above all, the +Lutrin, the Rape of the Lock, the Dispensary and the Dunciad, cannot +be parallelled by any works that the wittiest of the ancients can +boast of: for, by assuming the form of the epopea, they have acquired +a dignity and gracefulness, which all satires delivered merely in the +poet's own person must want, and with which the satirists of antiquity +were wholly unacquainted; for the Batrachomuomachia of Homer cannot be +considered as the model of these admirable pieces. + +Lucian is the greatest master of Burlesque among the ancients: but the +travels of Gulliver, though indeed evidently copied from his true +history, do as evidently excel it. Lucian sets out with informing his +readers, that he is in jest, and intends to ridicule some of the +incredible stories in Ctesias and Herodotus: this introduction surely +enfeebles his satire, and defeats his purpose. The true history +consists only of the most wild, monstrous, and miraculous persons and +accidents: Gulliver has a concealed meaning, and his dwarfs and giants +convey tacitly some moral or political instruction. The Charon, or the +prospect, (Greek: epischopoyntes) one of the dialogues of Lucian, has +likewise given occasion to that agreeable French Satire, entitled, +"_Le Diable Boiteux_," or "The Lame Devil;" which has highly improved +on its original by a greater variety of characters and descriptions, +lively remarks, and interesting adventures. So if a parallel be drawn +between Lucian and Cervantes, the ancient will still appear to +disadvantage: the burlesque of Lucian principally consists in making +his gods and philosophers speak and act like the meanest of the +people; that of Cervantes arises from the solemn and important air +with which the most idle and ridiculous actions are related; and is, +therefore, much more striking and forcible. In a word, Don Quixote, +and its copy Hudibras, the Splendid Shilling, the Adventures of Gil +Blas, the Tale of a Tub, and the Rehearsal, are pieces of humour which +antiquity cannot equal, much less excel. + +Theophrastus must yield to La Bruyere for his intimate knowledge of +human nature; and the Athenians never produced a writer whose humour +was so exquisite as that of Addison, or who delineated and supported a +character with so much nature and true pleasantry, as that of Sir +Roger de Coverly. It ought, indeed, to be remembered, that every +species of wit written in distant times and in dead languages, appears +with many disadvantages to present readers, from their ignorance of +the manners and customs alluded to and exposed; but the grosness, the +rudeness, and indelicacy of the ancients, will, notwithstanding, +sufficiently appear, even from the sentiments of such critics as +Cicero and Quintilian, who mention corporal defects and deformities as +proper objects of raillery. + +If it be now asked to what can we ascribe this superiority of the +moderns in all the species of ridicule? I answer, to the improved +state of conversation. The great geniuses of Greece and Rome were +formed during the times of a republican government: and though it be +certain, as Longinus asserts, that democracies are the nurseries of +true sublimity; yet monarchies and courts are more productive of +politeness. The arts of civility, and the decencies of conversation, +as they unite men more closely, and bring them more frequently +together, multiply opportunities of observing those incongruities and +absurdities of behaviour, on which ridicule is founded. The ancients +had more liberty and seriousness; the moderns have more luxury and +laughter. + + * * * * * + + + + +[Illustration: Title page] + +THE _Gentleman's Magazine_. OR, MONTHLY INTELLIGENCER, + +For the YEAR 1732. + +CONTAINING + +I. An impartial _VIEW_ of the various _Weekly_ ESSAYS, _Controversial, +Humorous_, and _Satirical; Religious, Moral,_ and _Political_. + +II. Debates in PARLIAMENT. + +III. Select Pieces of _POETRY_. + +IV. A succinct Account of the most _remarkable Transactions_ and +_Occurrences_, Domestick and Foreign. + +V. _Births, Marriages, Deaths, Promotions._ + +VI. The Prices of Goods and Stocks; Bill of Mortality; Bankrupts +declared, &_c_. + +VII. A Register of Books and Pamphlets published. + +WITH A TABLE of CONTENTS to each Month. ALSO ALPHABETICAL INDEXES of +the NAMES of Persons mention'd and Things treated of throughout the +Whole. + +VOL. II. + +_Collected chiefly from the_ Public Papers _by_ SILVANUS URBAN. + +_Prodesse & delettare._ [Illustration] _E Pluribus Unum_. + +_LONDON_, Printed and Sold at ST JOHN'S GATE; by F. JEFFERIES in +_Ludgate-street,_ and by most Booksellers in Town and Country. + + * * * * * + + + + +OF WIT + + +_WIT_ in K. _Charles_ IId's Reign, seem'd to be the Fashion of the +Times; in the next Reign it gave way to Politicks and Religion; while +K. _William_ was on the Throne, it reviv'd under the Protection of +Lord _Somers_ and some other Nobleman, and then those Geniuses +received that Tincture of Elegance and Politeness which afterwards +made such a Figure in the _Tatlers_, _Spectators_, &c. thro' the +greatest Part of the Reign of Q. _Anne_: But since it has broke out +only by Fits and Starts. Few People of Distinction trouble themselves +about the Name of Wit, fewer understand it, and hardly any have +honoured it with their Example. In the next Class of People it seems +best known, most admired, and most frequently practiced; but their +Stations in Life are not eminent enough to dazzle us into Imitation. +Wit is a Start of Imagination in the Speaker, that strikes the +Imagination of the Hearer with an Idea of Beauty, common to both; and +the immediate Result of the Comparison is the Flash of Joy that +attends it; it stands in the same Regard to Sense, or Wisdom, as +Lightning to the Sun, suddenly kindled and as suddenly gone; it as +often arises from the Defect of the Mind, as from its Strength and +Capacity. This is evident in those who are _Wits_ only, without being +grave or wise, Just, solid, and lasting Wit is the Result of fine +Imagination, finished Study, and a happy Temper of Body. As no one +pleases more than the Man of Wit, none is more liable to offend; +therefore he shou'd have a Fancy quick to conceive, Knowledge, good +Humour, and Discretion to direct the whole. Wit often leads a Man into +Misfortunes, that his Prudence wou'd have avoided; as it is the Means +of raising a Reputation, so it sometimes destroys it. He who affects +to be always witty, renders himself cheap, and, perhaps, ridiculous. +The great Use and Advantage of Wit is to render the Owner agreeable, +by making him instrumental to the Happiness of others. When such a +Person appears among his Friends, an Air of Pleasure and Satisfaction +diffuses itself over every Face. _Wit_, so used, is an Instrument of +the sweetest Musick in the Hands of an Artist, commanding, soothing, +and modulating the Passions into Harmony and Peace. Neither is this +the only Use of it; 'tis a sharp Sword, as well as a musical +Instrument, and ought to be drawn against Folly and Affectation. There +is at the same time an humble Ignorance, a modest Weakness, that ought +to be spar'd; they are unhappy already in the Consciousness of their +own Defects, and 'tis fighting with the Lame and Sick to be severe +upon them. The Wit that genteely glances at a Foible, is smartly +retorted, or generously forgiven; because the Merit of the Reprover is +as well known as the Merit of the Reproved. In such delicate +Conversations, Mirth, temper'd with good Manners, is the only Point in +View, and we grow gay and polite together; perhaps there's no Moment +of our Lives so sincerely happy, certainly none so innocent. Wit is a +Quality which some possess, and all covet; Youth affects it, Folly +dreads it, Age despises it, and Dulness abhors it. Some Authors wou'd +persuade us, that Wit is owing to a double Cause; one, the Desire of +pleasing others, and one of recommending ourselves: The first is made +a Merit in the Owners, and is therefore rang'd among the Virtues; the +last is stiled Vanity, and therefore a Vice; tho' this is an erroneous +Distinction, as _Wit_ was never possess'd by any without both; for no +Man endeavours to excell without being conscious of it, and that +Consciousness will produce Vanity, let us disguise it how we please. +Upon the whole, Vanity is inseparable from the; Heart of Man; where +there is Excellency, it may be endur'd; where there is none, it may be +censur'd, but never remov'd. + +(From _The Weekly Register_, July 22, 1732, No. 119, as reprinted in +_The Gentleman's 'Magazine_, II, July, 1732, pp. 861-2.) + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14973 *** diff --git a/14973-h/14973-h.htm b/14973-h/14973-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7bee4ac --- /dev/null +++ b/14973-h/14973-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1283 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-html40-19980424/loose.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> +<title>Essays on Wit No. 2 | Project Gutenberg</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +P { + MARGIN-TOP: 0.75em; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.75em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify; +} +H1 { + TEXT-ALIGN: center; +} +H2 { + TEXT-ALIGN: center; +} +H3 { + TEXT-ALIGN: center; +} +H4 { + TEXT-ALIGN: center; +} +H5 { + TEXT-ALIGN: center; +} +H6 { + TEXT-ALIGN: center; +} +HR { + WIDTH: 33%; +} +HR.full { + WIDTH: 100%; HEIGHT: 5px; +} +BODY { + MARGIN-LEFT: 7%; MARGIN-RIGHT: 8%; +} +.linenum { + LEFT: 4%; POSITION: absolute; TOP: auto; +} +.note { + MARGIN-BOTTOM: 1em; MARGIN-LEFT: 2em; MARGIN-RIGHT: 2em; +} +.blkquot { + MARGIN-LEFT: 4em; MARGIN-RIGHT: 4em; +} +.pagenum { + FONT-SIZE: smaller; LEFT: 92%; POSITION: absolute; TEXT-ALIGN: right; +} +.newpage { + DISPLAY: none; +} +.sidenote { + CLEAR: right; MARGIN-TOP: 1em; PADDING-LEFT: 1em; FONT-SIZE: smaller; FLOAT: right; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 1em; WIDTH: 20%; +} +INS.correction { + BORDER-BOTTOM: red 1px dotted; +} +.poem { + MARGIN-LEFT: 10%; MARGIN-RIGHT: 10%; TEXT-ALIGN: left; +} +.poem BR { + DISPLAY: none; +} +.poem .stanza { + MARGIN: 1em 0em; +} +.poem SPAN { + DISPLAY: block; PADDING-LEFT: 3em; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: -3em; +} +.poem SPAN.i2 { + DISPLAY: block; MARGIN-LEFT: 2em; +} +.poem SPAN.i4 { + DISPLAY: block; MARGIN-LEFT: 4em; +} +.poem .caesura { + VERTICAL-ALIGN: -200%; +} +LI.indent { + MARGIN-LEFT: 5%; +} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14973 ***</div> + +<h4>Series One:</h4> +<br> +<br> + +<hr style="width: 75%;"> +<hr style="width: 100%;"> +<h1><i>Essays on Wit</i></h1> +<hr style="width: 100%;"> +<hr style="width: 75%;"> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>No. 2</h2> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + + +<p><a href="#AN_ESSAY_ON_WIT"><b><i>Essay on Wit</i></b></a> +(1748);</p> +<p>Richard Flecknoe's <a href="#ZANYS"><b><i>Of one that Zany's the good +Companion</i></b></a> and<a href="#Of_a_bold_abusive_Wit"><b><i> Of a bold abusive Wit</i></b></a> (second edition, 1665);</p> +<p> +Joseph Warton, <a href="#The_adventurer"><b><i>The Adventurer</i></b></a>, Nos. 127 and 133 (1754);<br> + +<a href="#OF_WIT"><b><i>Of Wit</i></b></a> <i>(Weekly Register</i>, 1732).</p> + + +<p> +With <a href="#INTRODUCTION"><b><i>an Introduction</i></b></a> to the Series +on Wit by Edward N. Hooker</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h4>The Augustan Reprint Society<br> +November, 1946 <br> +<i>Price</i>: 75c</h4> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<center> +<pre> +Membership in the Augustan Reprint Society entitles the +subscriber to six publications issued each year. The annual +membership fee is $2.50. Address subscriptions and +communications to the Augustan Reprint Society in care of +one of the General Editors. + +General Editors: +Richard C. Boys, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan; +Edward N. Hooker, H.I. Swedenberg, Jr., University of + California, Los Angeles 24, California. + +Editorial Advisors: +Louis L. Bredvold, University of Michigan; +James L. Clifford, Columbia University; +Benjamin Boyce, University of Nebraska; +Cleanth Brooks, Louisiana State University; +Arthur Friedman, University of Chicago; +James R. Sutherland, Queen Mary College + University of London.</pre></center> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION">INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES ON WIT</a></h2> +<br> +<p>The age of Dryden and Pope was an age of wit, but there were few who +could explain precisely what they meant by the term. A thing so +multiform and. Protean escaped the bonds of logic and definition. In +his sermon "Against Foolish Talking and Jesting" the learned Dr. Isaac +Barrow attempted to describe some of the forms which it took; the +forms were many, and it is difficult to discover any element which +they held in common. Nevertheless Barrow ventured a summary:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It is, in short, a manner of speaking out of the simple and + plain way, (such as Reason teacheth and proveth things by,) + which by a pretty surprizing uncouthness in conceit of + expression doth affect and amuse the fancy, stirring in it + some wonder, and breeding some delight thereto.</p></div> + +<p>And about sixty years later, despite the work of Hobbes and Locke in +calling attention to the importance of semantics, the confusion still +existed. According to John Oldmixon (<i>Essay on Criticism</i>, 1727, p. +21), "Wit and Humour, Wit and good Sense, Wit and Wisdom, Wit and +Reason, Wit and Craft; nay, Wit and Philosophy, are with us almost the +same Things." Some such confusion is apparent in the definition +presented by the <i>Essay on Wit</i> (1748, p. 6).</p> + +<p>In general it was recognized that there were two main kinds of wit. +Both fancy and judgment, said Hobbes (<i>Human Nature</i>, X, sect. 4), are +usually understood in the term <i>wit</i>; and wit seems to be "a tenuity +and agility of spirits," opposed to the sluggishness of spirits +assumed to be characteristic of dull people. Sometimes wit was used in +this sense to translate the words <i>ingenium</i> or <i>l'esprit</i>. But +Hobbes's disciple Walter Charleton objected to making it the +equivalent of <i>ingenium</i>, which, he said, rather signified a man's +natural inclination—that is, genius. Instead, he described wit as +either the faculty of understanding, or an act or effect of that +faculty; and understanding is made up of both judgment and +Imagination. The Ample or Happy Wit exhibits a fine blend of the two +(<i>Brief Discourse concerning the Different Wits of Men</i>, 1669, pp. 10, +17-19). In this sense wit combines quickness and solidity of mind.</p> + +<p>In the other, and more restricted sense, wit was made identical with +fancy (or imagination) and distinguished sharply from reason or +judgment. So Hobbes, recording a popular meaning of wit, remarked +(<i>Leviathan</i>. I, viii) that people who discover rarely observed +similitudes in objects that otherwise are much unlike, are said to +have a good wit. And judgment, directly opposed to it, was taken to be +the faculty of discerning differences in objects that are +superficially alike. (Between this idea of wit as discovering likeness +in things unlike, and the Platonic idea of discovering the One in the +Many, the Augustans made no connection.) A similar distinction between +wit and judgment was made by Charleton, Robert Boyle, John Locke, and +many others. The full implication lying in Hobbes's definition can be +seen in Walter Charleton, who said (<i>Brief Discourse</i>, pp. 20-21) that +imagination (or wit) is the faculty <ins class="correction" +Title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'be'"> +by</ins> which "we conceive some certain +similitude in objects really unlike, and pleasantly confound them in +discourse: Which by its unexpected Fineness and allusion, surprizing +the Hearer, renders him less curious of the truth of what is said." In +short, wit is delightful, but, because it leads away from +<ins class="correction" +Title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'tu'"> +truth</ins>, +unprofitable and, it may be, even dangerous.</p> + +<p>The identification of wit with fancy gave it a lowly role in Augustan +thinking; and also in literary prose, which was supposed to be the +language of reason (cf. Donald F. Bond, "'Distrust' of Imagination in +English Neo-<ins class="correction" Title="Transcriber's note: original +reads 'Classiecism'"> +Classicism</ins>," <i>PQ</i>, XIV, 54-69). What of its +position in poetry? According to Hobbes, poetry must exhibit both +judgment and fancy, but fancy should dominate; and the work of fancy +is to adorn discourse with tropes and figures, to please by +extravagance, to disguise meaning, and to create pleasant +illusions. One of Hobbes's followers announced that fancy must have +the upper hand because all poems please chiefly by novelty. While they +made wit the most essential element in poetry, they made it trivial +and empty, and thereby helped to bring poetry itself into contempt.</p> + +<p>Partly to oppose this low opinion of poetry, the neo-Aristotelians +among the critics began to stress the view that fable, design, and +structure were the really essential elements in poetry, and that these +were the product of reason, or judgment. And because reason was the +means +<ins class="correction" +Title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'be'"> +by</ins> which truth was discovered, poetry by virtue of its +rational framework became capable of revealing and communicating +truth—that is, of instructing. In this conception of poetry there was +little glory left for wit. It was relegated to be used for color and +adornment in serious poetry, or to furnish the substance of the +"little" poetry which could not boast of design or +structure. Thus, the <i>Essay on Wit</i> invites the poet. (p. +15):</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p> +Have as much Wit as you will, or you can, in a Madrigal, in +little light Verses, in the Scene of a Comedy, which is +neither passionate or simple, in a Compliment, in a little +Story, in a Letter where you would be merry yourself to make +your Friends so.</p></div> + +<p>Be witty in these playful varieties of poetry, because wit in a large +and serious work would toe insufferable.</p> + +<p>"These Sports of the Imagination, these Finesses, these Conceits, +these glittering Strokes, these Gaieties, these little cut Sentences, +these ingenious Prodigalities" in which wit is expressed might be +either sober or funny. Most of the examples in the <i>Essay on Wit</i> are +of the sober kind, coming under the order of wit because they are +pretty and diverting fancies. But by the 1690's there had been a clear +tendency to associate wit with mirth, and often with satire. By 1726 +James Arbuckle could write (<i>A Collection of Letters</i>, 1729, II, 72): +"... Satire and Ridicule, which are the main Provocatives to Laughter, +still keep their ground among us, and are reckoned the chief +Embellishments of Discourse by all who aim at the Character of Wits."</p> + +<p>The end of wit was to surprise and delight. One may surprise by +novelty, but the easiest road to the goal is audacity; and the +subjects which lent themselves most readily to audacity were sex and +religion. The treatment of the latter proved especially troublesome to +good men like Blackmore, and the frequency of portraits and characters +of the Profance Wit shows that many people were disturbed. Shaftesbury +in <i>Sensus Communis</i> (1709) tried to justify the use of wit in +discussing religion. For the rest of the century Shaftesbury's +position was the center of heated debate, with Akenside supporting, +and John Brown and Warburton opposing, the employment of wit in +religion; and the <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i> is full of the arguments of +lesser men who took sides. The author of the <i>Essay on Wit</i> places +himself firmly beside Shaftesbury when he remarks (p. 14) that "a +Subject which will not bear Raillery, is suspicious." The controversy +is reviewed in an article by A.O. Aldridge, called "Shaftesbury and +the Test of Truth" (<i>PMLA</i>, LX, 129-156).</p> + +<p>Wit was taken to be the source, of tropes, and figures of speech, of +all the color and adornments of rhetoric; and the old tradition of +rhetoric, handed down from the Renaissance, tended to regard tropes +and figures as mere ornament, a means of decorating the surface, an +artful prettifying of a subject in order that it might please. For +this reason wit was likely to be considered out of place in serious +works which called for naturalness and passion. The objection to the +simile in the language of passion was an old note in English criticism +(cf. Dennis, <i>Critical Works</i>, I, 424); but the author of the <i>Essay +on Wit</i> in condemning glittering strokes and ingenious prodigalities +in impassioned literature shows by his phrasing that he is following +Father Bouhours (cf. Manlere die Bien Penser, Amsterdam, 1688, pp. +8-9, 234, 296, 388).</p> + +<p>In <i>Spectator</i>, no. 249, Addison entered the contest known as the +Battle of the Books, and lined himself up squarely on the side of the +Ancients. The ancients, he said, surpassed the moderns in poetry, +painting, oratory, history, architecture, and, in fact, all arts and +sciences which depend more on genius than on experience. It was no +lightening of the judgment when he added that the moderns surpass the +ancients in doggerel, humour burlesque, and all the trivial arts of +ridicule, the arts of the "unlucky little wits." So degraded had wit +become! In the <i>Adventurer</i>, nos. 127 and 133, Joseph Warton showed +himself to be essentially in agreement with Addison's verdict, +differing only in thinking that a few moderns might compare with the +ancients in works of genius. He appears somewhat less scornful of wit, +recognizing its part in the arts of civility and the decencies of +conversation; and yet he associates It with ridicule, laughter, and +luxury, and makes it the pleasant plaything of gentlemen.</p> + +<p>Occasionally there were attempts to restore wit to its pristine glory, +to the position it had occupied before it was tied to mirth and +ridicule, when Atterbury could thus define it: "Wit, indeed, as it +implies, a certain uncommon Reach and Vivacity of Thought, is an +Excellent Talent; very fit to be employ'd in the Search of Truth...." +So the anonymous author of <i>A Satyr upon a Late Pamphlet Entitled, A +Satyr against Wit</i> (1700) could rhapsodize:</p> + +<p> + Wit is a Radiant Spark of Heav'nly Fire,<br> + Full of Delight, and worthy of Desire;<br> + Bright as the Ruler of the Realms of Day,<br> + Sun of the Soul, with in-born Beauties gay.... +</p> + +<p>So Corbyn Morris in his <i>Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of +Wit, Humour, Raillery, Satire, and Ridicule</i>, 1744, probably the best +and clearest treatment of the subject in the first half of the +eighteenth century, wrote (p. 1): "Wit is the Lustre resulting from +the quick Elucidation of one Subject, by a just and unexpected +Arrangement of it with another Subject." And so the author of the +essay "Of Wit" in the <i>Weekly Register</i> for July 22, 1732, ventured +his opinion (reprinted in the <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>, II, 861-862):</p> + +<div class="blkquot"> +<p>Wit is a Start of Imagination in the Speaker, that strikes +the Imagination of the Hearer with an Idea of Beauty common +to both; and the immediate Result of the Comparison is the +Flash of Joy that attends it; it stands in the same Regard +to Sense, or Wisdom, as lightning to the Sun, suddenly +kindled and as suddenly gone.... +</p></div> + +<p>But for the most part wit was becoming an expression of mirth or +ridicule in which fancy was primarily involved; at its best wit was +coupled with politeness and elegance in conversation, and at its worst +with silliness and extravagance, or with indecency and impiety.</p> + +<p>The essay from the <i>Weekly Register</i> is one of a large number of +little histories of wit, which appear through the age of Dryden and +Pope and which attempt to relate developments in wit to +<ins class="correction" +Title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'chages'"> +changes</ins> in fashion, religion, polities, social manners, and taste. These are +rudimentary but important expressions of the idea that literature is +conditioned by changing circumstances and social customs in the lives +of the people from whom it springs.</p> + +<p> +The <i>Essay on Wit</i>, 1748, is reprinted here, by +<ins class="correction" +Title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'premission'"> +permission</ins>, from a copy in the library of the University of Illinois. Flecknoe's +<i>Characters</i> are reprinted from a copy of <i>Sixty Nine Enigmatical</i> +<ins class="correction" +Title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'Character'"> +<i>Characters</i></ins> owned by the library of the University of Michigan. The +essays of Joseph Warton is the <i>Adventurer</i>, and the typescript copy +of the essay</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Of Wit" from the <i>Weekly Register</i> (as reprinted in the + <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>) are also taken from copies belonging + to the University of Michigan.</p></div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Edward Niles Hooker</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">University of California, Los Angeles</span><br> +</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> + + + + +<hr style="width:100 %;"> +<h2><a name="AN_ESSAY_ON_WIT" id="AN_ESSAY_ON_WIT"></a><b> AN ESSAY ON WIT. </b></h2> +<hr style="width:100 %;"> +<br> +<br> +<br> + +<center> +<img alt="Title page of An Essay On Wit" src="images/image01.gif" width="393" height="619"></center> +<br> +<br> +<center>AN ESSAY ON WIT.</center> + +<p>A Gentleman who had some Knowledge in the human Heart, was consulted +about a Tragedy which was going to be acted: He answer'd that there +was so much Wit in the Piece that he doubted of its Success.—At +hearing such a Judgment, a Man will immediately cry out, What! is Wit +then a Fault, at a Time when every Body aims at having it, when nobody +writes but to shew he has it; when the Publick applauds even false +Thoughts, provided they are shining! Yes, 'twill doubtless be +applauded the first Day, and grow <ins class="correction" +Title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'tiresom'"> +truth</ins>tiresome the next.</p> + +<p>That which they call Wit, is sometimes a new Simile, sometimes a fine +Allusion: Here 'tis the Abuse of a Word which presents itself in one +Sense, and is understood in another; there a delicate Relation between +two uncommon Ideas: 'Tis an extraordinary Metaphor; 'tis something +which in an Object does not at first present itself, but nevertheless +is in it; 'tis the Art, to unite two Things which were far from one +another; to separate two which seem to be joined, or to set them in +Opposition; 'tis the Art, of expressing but half the Thought and +leaving the other to be found out. In short, I'd tell all the +different Ways of shewing Wit, if I knew of any more.</p> + +<p>But all these Brightnesses (and I speak not of the false ones) agree +not, or very seldom agree with a serious Work, which ought to be +interesting. The Reason of it is, that 'tis then the Author that +appears, and the Publick will see no body but the Hero. Moreover the +Hero is always either in a Passion, or in Danger. Danger, and the +Passions seek not Expressions of Wit. <i>Priam</i> and <i>Hecuba</i> don't make +Epigrams, when their Children's Throats are cut and <i>Troy</i> in +Flames:—<i>Dido</i> does not sigh in Madrigals, when she flies to the Pile +upon which she's going to sacrifice herself:—<i>Demosthenes</i> has no +Prettinesses, when he animates the <i>Athenians</i> to War; if he had, he'd +be a Rhetorician indeed, instead of which he's a Statesman.</p> + +<p>If <i>Pyrrhus</i> was always to express himself in this Stile:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>'Tis true,</i></span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>My Sword has often reek'd in</i> Phrygian <i>Blood</i>,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>And carried Havock through your Royal Kindred:</i></span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>But you, fair Princess, amply have aveng'd</i></span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Old</i> Priam's <i>vanquish'd House: And all the Woes,</i></span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>I brought on them, fall short of what I suffer.</i></span><br> +</p> + +<p>This Character wou'd not touch at all: 'Twou'd soon be perceiv'd, that +true Passion seldom makes Use of such Comparisons, and that there is +very little Proportion between the real Fires which consumed <i>Troy</i>, +and the amorous Fires of <i>Pyrrhus</i>; between the Havock he made amongst +<i>Andromache</i>'s Kindred and the Cruelty she shews him.</p> + +<p><i>Chamont</i> says, in speaking of <i>Monimia</i>:</p> + +<p> + <i>You took her up a little tender Flower,<br> + Just sprouted on a Bank, which the next Frost<br> + Had nipt; and, with a careful loving Hand,<br> + Transplanted her into your own fair Garden,<br> + Where the Sun always shines: There long she flourish'd,<br> + Grew sweet to Sense, and lovely to the Eye;<br> + Till at the last, a cruel Spoiler came,<br> + Cropt this fair Rose, and rifled all its Sweetness,<br> + Then cast it, like a loathsome Weed, away.</i></p> + + +<p>This Thought has a prodigious Eclat: There's a great deal of Wit in +it, and even an Air of Simplicity that imposes upon one. We all see, +that these Verses, pronounced with the Art and Enthusiasm of a good +Actor never fail of Applause; but I think we may also see, that the +Tragedy of the <i>Orphan</i> wrote entirely in this Taste would never have +lived long.</p> + +<p>In effect, why should <i>Chamont</i> make such a long-winded Simile almost +in the Height of Rage for the Ruin of his Sister? Is that natural? +Does not the Poet here quite hide his Hero to shew himself?</p> + +<p>This brings into my Mind the absurd Custom of finishing the Acts of +almost all our modern Tragedies with a Simile; surely in a great +Crisis of Affairs, in a Council, in a violent Passion of Love or +Wrath, in a pressing Danger, Princes, Ministers, Heroes or Lovers, +should not make Poetical Comparisons.—Even <i>Marcia</i>'s (or rather Mr. +<i>Addison</i>'s) beautiful Simile at the End of the first Act of <i>Cato</i>, +is scarcely to be forgiven.</p> + +<p>What then would a Work be, that was filled with far-fetched and +Problematick Thoughts? How infinitely superior to all such dazling +Ideas, are these simple and natural Words of <i>Monimia</i> to her angry +Brother?</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Look kindly on me then. I cannot bear</i></span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Severity; it daunts, and does amaze me:</i></span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>My Heart's so tender, should you charge me rough,</i></span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>I should but weep, and answer you with sobbing.</i></span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>But use me gently, like a loving Brother,</i></span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>And search through all the Secrets of my Soul.</i></span><br> +</p> + +<p>Or these of <i>Brutus</i>, when he receives the News of his Wife's Death:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Brutus. <i>Now, as you are a</i> Roman, <i>tell me true.</i></span><br> +<br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Messala. <i>Then like a</i> Roman <i>bear the Truth I tell;</i></span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;"><i>For certain she is dead, and by strange manner.</i></span><br> +<br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Brutus. <i>Why farewel</i> Portia.—<i>We must die,</i> Messala.</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;"><i>With meditating that she must die once,</i></span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;"><i>I have the Patience to endure it now.</i></span><br> +</p> + +<p>Or these noble ones of <i>Titinius</i>, when he stabs himself:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>By your leave Gods—this is a</i> Roman's <i>Part.</i></span><br> +</p> + +<p>It is not that which is called Wit, but what is sublime and noble that +makes true Beauty.</p> + +<p>I have purposely chose these Examples from good Authors, that they may +be the more striking; and I speak not of those Points and Quibbles, +whose Impropriety is easily perceiv'd. There is no one but laughs when +<i>Hotspur</i> says,</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Why, what a deal of candied Courtesie</i></span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>This fawning Greyhound then did proffer me!</i></span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Look, when his infant Fortune came to Age,</i></span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>And gentle</i> Harry Percy—<i>and kind Cousin</i>—<i>The</i></span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Devil take such Cozeners</i>.—</span><br> +</p> + +<p><i>Shakespear</i> found the Stage, and all the People of his Days, infected +with these Puerillities, and he very well knew how (though perhaps he +never read it in <i>Epictetus</i>)</p> + +<center> +<img alt="Greek: " src="images/image02.gif" width="422" height="33" ></center> +<p>to +attune, or harmonize his +Mind to the Things which happen.</p> + +<p>I now remember one of these shining Strokes, which I have seen quoted +in several Works of Taste, and even in the Treatise of Studies by the +late Mr. <i>Rollin</i>. This <i>Morceau</i> is taken from the beautiful Funeral +Oration of the great <i>Turenne</i>: The whole Piece is very fine, but it +seems to me that the Stroke I am speaking of should not have been made +Use of by a Bishop.—This is it:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"O Sovereigns! Enemies of <i>France</i>, ye live, and the Spirit + of Christian Charity forbids me to wish your Deaths, + &c.—But ye live, and I mourn in this Pulpit the Death of a + virtuous Captain, whose Intentions were pure, &c.—</p></div> + +<p>An Apostrophe in this Taste would have been very proper at <i>Rome</i> in +the Civil Wars, after the Assassination of <i>Pompey</i>; or at <i>London</i> +after the Death of <i>Charles</i> the First. But is it decent, in a Pulpit, +to wish for the Death of the Emperor, the King of <i>Spain</i>, and the +Electors; to put them in Balance with the General of a King's Army, +who is their Enemy? Or ought the Intentions of a Captain, which can be +no other than to serve his Prince, to be compared with the Politick +Interests of the crown'd Heads against which he serves? What would be +said of a <i>Frenchman</i>, who had wished for the Death of the King of +<i>England</i>, because of the Loss of the Chevalier <i>Belleisle</i>, whose +Intentions were pure?</p> + +<p>For what Reason has this Passage been always praised by the Criticks? +'Tis because the Figure is in itself beautiful and pathetick, but they +did not examine into the Congruity and Bottom of the Thought.</p> + +<p>I return to my Paradox—That all these shining Strokes, to which they +give the Name of Wit, never ought to be introduced into great Works +made to instruct or to move; I'll even say they ought not to be found +in Odes for Musick. Musick expresses Passions, Sentiments and Images: +but what are the Concords that can be giv'n an Epigram? <i>Dryden</i> was +sometimes negligent, but he was always natural.</p> + +<p>In a Sermon of Doctor <i>South</i>, where he speaks of Man's Rectitude and +Freedom from Sin before the Fall, are seen these Words:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"We were not born crooked, we learnt these Windings and + Turnings of the Serpent."</p></div> + +<p>I remember to have heard this Passage admired by several People: but +who does not see that the Motions, <i>viz.</i> the Windings and Turnings of +the Serpent's Body are here confounded with those of its Heart: and +that at best, 'tis but a mere Point and Pleasantry.</p> + +<p>Certainly there's a great Impropriety in putting any kind of Smartness +into Pieces of such a Nature as Dr. <i>South</i>'s; but what is still +worse, we generally find these Smartnesses to be quite vague and +superficial; they don't enter, but only play upon the Surface of the +Soul.</p> + +<p>Had a certain polite Author been a Cotemporary of the +Doctor's, he'd have told him that</p> + +<p><img alt="[Greek: ]" src="images/image05.gif" width="521" height="33"></p> + +<p>Humour is the only Test of Gravity; and Gravity of Humour. For a +Subject which will not bear Raillery, is suspicious; and a Jest which +will not bear a serious Examination, is certainly false Wit.</p> + +<p>These Sports of the Imagination, these Finesses, these Conceits, these +glittering Strokes, these Gaieties, these little cut Sentences, these +ingenious Prodigalities, which are lavished away in our Times, agree +with none but little Works. The Front of St <i>Paul</i>'s Church is simple +and majestick. A Cabinet may with Propriety enough contain little +Ornaments. Have as much Wit as you will, or you can, in a Madrigal, in +little light Verses, in the Scene of a Comedy, which is neither +passionate or simple, in a Compliment, in a little Story, in a Letter +where you would be merry yourself to make your Friends so.</p> + +<p><i>Spencer</i> was very well acquainted with this Art. In his Fairy Queen, +you find hardly any thing but what is sublime and full of Imagery: but +in his detached Pieces, such as the Hymn in Honour of Beauty, The Fate +of the Butterfly, <i>Britain</i>'s Ida, &c. he gave a Loose to his Wit and +Delicacy. The following Verses are Part of the Description of <i>Venus</i> +asleep, in the last mention'd Poem:</p> + +<p><i> + Her full large Eyes, in jetty-black array'd,<br> + Proud Beauty not confin'd to red and white,<br> + But oft herself in black more rich display'd;<br> + Both Contraries did yet themselves unite,<br> + To make one Beauty in different Delight:</i><br> + <i>A thousand Loves, sate playing in each Eye,<br> + And smiling Mirth kissing fair Courtesy,<br> + By sweet Persuasion won a bloodless Victory.<br> +<br> + Her Lips most happy each in other's Kisses,<br> + From their so wish'd Imbracements seldom parted,<br> + Yet seem'd to blush at such their wanton Blisses;<br> + But when sweet Words their joining Sweets disparted,<br> + To the Ear a dainty Musick they imparted;<br> + Upon them fitly sate delightful Smiling,<br> + A thousand Souls with pleasing Stealth beguiling:<br> + Ah that such shews of Joys shou'd be all Joys exiling!<br> +<br> + Lower two Breasts stand all their Beauties bearing,<br> + Two Breasts as smooth and soft;—but oh alas!<br> + Their smoothest Softness far exceeds comparing:<br> + More smooth and soft—but naught that ever was,<br> + Where they are first, deserves the second Place:<br> + Yet each as soft, and each as smooth as other;<br> + But when thou first try'st one, and then the other,<br> + Each softer seems than each, and each than each seems smoother.</i> +</p> + +<p>These Lines (pretty as they are) would be unsufferable in a large and +serious Work, nay, there are some People who tax them with being too +extravagant even for the Poem where they stand; and in truth, their +warmest Admirer can say no more than this:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Nequeo Monstrare, & Sentio tantum.</i></p></div> + +<p>So far am I from reproaching <i>Waller</i> with putting too much Wit in his +Poems; that on the contrary, I have found too little, though he +continually aims at it. They say that Dancing Masters never make a +handsome Bow, because they take too much Pains. I think <i>Waller</i> is +often in this Case; his best Verses are studied; one finds he quite +tires himself to find that which presents itself so naturally to +<i>Rochester</i>, <i>Congreve</i>, and to so many more, who with all the Ease in +the World, write these Bagatelles better than <i>Waller</i> did with +Labour.</p> + +<p>I know it signifies very little to the Affairs of the World, whether +<i>Waller</i> was or was not a great Genius; whether he only made a few +pretty Things, or that all his Verses may stand for Models. But we who +love the Arts, carry an attentive Eye on that which to the rest of the +World is a Matter of mere Indifference. Good Taste is for us in +Literature, what it is for Women in Dress; and provided we don't make +our Opinions an Affair of Party, I think we may boldly say, that there +are few excellent Things in <i>Waller</i>, and that <i>Cowley</i> might be +easily reduced to a few Pages.</p> + +<p>It is not that we would deprive them of their Reputation; 'tis only to +inquire strictly what brought them that Reputation which is so much +respected; and what are the true Beauties which made their Faults be +overlooked. It must be known what ought to be followed in their Works, +and what avoided; this is the true Fruit of a deep Study in the Belles +Lettres; it is this that <i>Horace</i> did, when he examined <i>Lucilius</i> +critically. <i>Horace</i> got Enemies by it, but he enlightened his Enemies +themselves.</p> + +<p>This Desire of shining, and to say in a new Manner what others have +said before, is the Foundation of new Expressions, as well as of +far-fetched Thoughts.</p> + +<p>He that cannot shine by a Thought will distinguish himself by a Word. +This is their Reason for substituting Placid for Peaceful, Joyous for +Joyful, Meandring for Winding; and a hundred more Affectations of the +same kind. If they were to go on at this Rate, the Language of +<i>Shakespear, Milton, Dryden, Addison</i> and <i>Pope</i>, would soon become +quite superannuated. And why avoid an Expression in use, to introduce +one which says precisely the same Thing? A new Word is never +pardonable, but when it is absolutely necessary, intelligible and +sonorous; they are forc'd to make them in Physics: A new Discovery, or +a new Machine demands a new Word. But do they make new Discoveries in +the human Heart? Is there any other Greatness than that of +<i>Shakespear</i> and <i>Milton</i>? Are there any other Passions than those +that have been handled by <i>Otway</i> and <i>Dryden</i>? Is there any other +Evangelic Moral than that of Dr. <i>Tillotson</i>?</p> + +<p>Those who accuse the <i>English</i> Language of not being copious enough, +do, in Truth, find a Sterility, but 'tis in themselves.</p> + +<p><i>Rem Verba Sequuntur</i>.</p> + +<p>When one is thoroughly struck with an Idea, when a Man of Sense, +fill'd with Warmth, is in full Possession of his Thought, it comes +from him all ornamented with suitable Expressions, as <i>Minerva</i> sprang +out, compleatly arm'd, from the Head of <i>Jupiter</i>.</p> + +<p>In short, the Conclusion of all this is, that you must never seek for +far-fetch'd Thoughts, Conceits or Expressions; and that the Art of all +great Works, is to reason well, without making many Arguments; to +paint accurately, without Painting all; to move, without always +exciting the Passions.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<hr style="width: 100%;"> + +<h4><a name="ZANYS" id="ZANYS"> +<ins class="correction" +Title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'CAARACTER'"> +CHARACTER.</ins></a></h4> +<h2><i>Of one that</i> Zanys <i>the good Companion</i>.</h2> +<hr style="width: 100%;"> +<center><img alt="" src="images/image03.gif" width="587" height="916"></center> +<br> +<p>He is a wit of an under Region, grosly imitating on the lower rope, +what t'other does neatly on the higher; and is only for the laughter +of the vulgar; whilst your wiser and better sort can scarcely smile at +him: He talks nothing but kennel-raked fluff, and his discourse is +rather like fruit cane up rotten from the ground, than freshly +gathered from the Tree. He is so far from a courtly wit, as his +breeding seems only to have been i' th' Suburbs; or at best, he seems +only graduated good company in a Tavern (the Bedlam of wits) where men +are mad rather than merry; here one breaking a jest on the Drawer, or +a Candlestick; there another repeating the old end of a Play, or some +bawdy song; this speaking bilk, that nonsense, whilst all with loud +houting and laughter confound the <i>Fidlers</i> noise, who may well be +call'd a noise indeed, for no <i>Musick</i> can be heard for them; so +whilst he utters nothing but old stories, long since laught thridbare, +or some stale jest broken twenty times before: His <i>mirth</i> compared +with theirs, new and at first hand, is just like <i>Brokers</i> ware in +comparison with <i>Mercers</i>, or <i>Long-lane</i> compar'd unto <i>Cheap-side</i>: +his wit being rather the <i>Hogs-heads</i> than his own, favouring more of +<i>Heidelberg</i> than of <i>Hellicon</i>, and he rather a drunken than a good +companion.</p> + +<br> +<br> + + + +<hr style="width: 100%;"> +<h4><a name="Of_a_bold_abusive_Wit" id="Of_a_bold_abusive_Wit">CHARACTER.</a></h4> + +<h2><i>Of a bold abusive Wit.</i></h2> +<hr style="width: 100%;"> + +<p>He talks madly, <i>dash, dash,</i> without any fear at all, and never cares +how he <i>bespatters</i> others, or defiles himself; nor ceases he till he +has quite run himself out of breath; when no wonder, if to fools he +seems to get the start of those who wisely pick out their way, and are +as fearful of abusing others as themselves: He has the <i>Buffoons</i> +priviledge, of saying or doing anything without exceptions, and he +will call a jealous man <i>Cuckold</i>, a childe of doubtful birth +<i>Bastard</i>, and a <i>Lady</i> of suspected honor a <i>Whore</i>, and they but +laugh at it; and all <i>Scholars</i> are <i>Pedants</i>; and <i>Physicians</i>, +<i>Quacks</i> with him, when to be angry at it is the avowing it. Then in +<i>Ladies</i> chambers, he will tumble beds, and towse your <i>Ladies</i> dress +up unto the height, to the hazard of a <i>Bed-staff</i> thrown at his head, +or rap o're the fingers with a <i>Busk</i>, and that is all; only is this +he is far worse than the <i>Buffoon</i>, since they study to <i>delight</i>, +this only to <i>offend</i>; they to make <i>merry</i>, but this onely to make +you <i>mad</i>, whence wo be t' ye of he discovers and <i>imperfection</i> or +<i>fault</i> in you, for he never findes a <i>breach</i> but he makes a <i>hole</i> +of it; nor a <i>hole</i> but he <i>tugs</i> at it so long till he tear it quite; +giving you for reason of his <i>incivility</i>, because (forsooth) <i>it +troubled you</i>, which would make any civil man cease troubling you. So +he wears his <i>wit</i> as <i>Bravo's</i> do their swords, to mischief and +offend others, not as <i>Gentlemen</i> to defend themselves: and tis +<i>crime</i> in him, what is <i>ornament</i> in others; he being onely a <i>wit</i> +at that, at which a good <i>wit</i> is a <i>fool</i>. Especially he triumphs +over your modest men; and when he meets with a <i>simple body</i>, passes +for a <i>wit</i>, but a <i>wit</i> indeed makes a <i>simplician</i> of him; so goes +he persecuting others till some one or other at last (as <i>chollerick</i> +as he is <i>abusive) cudgel</i> him for his pains; when he goes <i>grumbling</i> +away in a mighty <i>choler</i>, saying, <i>They understand not jest</i>, when +indeed tis rather <i>he</i>.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> + +<hr style="width: 100%;"> +<h2><a name="The_adventurer" id="The_adventurer">THE ADVENTURER.</a></h2> +<hr style="width: 100%;"> +<center> +<img alt="" src="images/image04.gif" width="582" height="913"> +</center> + +<br> + + + +<br> +<br> +<h4><i>VOLUME THE FOURTH.</i></h4> + + +<h4>No. CXXVII. Tuesday, January 22. 1754.</h4> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>—Veteres ita miratur, laudatque!—</i></span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 22em;">HOR.</span><br> +<br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The wits of old he praises and admires.</span><br> +</p> + + +<p>"It is very remarkable," says Addison, "that notwithstanding we fall +short at present of the ancients in poetry, painting, oratory, +history, architecture, and all the noble arts and sciences which +depend more upon genius than experience; we exceed them as much in +doggerel, humour, burlesque, and all the trivial arts of ridicule." As +this fine observation stands at present only in the form of a general +assertion, it deserves, I think, to be examined by a deduction of +particulars, and confirmed by an allegation of examples, which may +furnish an agreeable entertainment to those who have ability and +inclination to remark the revolutions of human wit.</p> + +<p>That Tasso, Ariosto, and Camoens, the three most celebrated of modern +Epic Poets, are infinitely excelled in propriety of design, of +sentiment, and style, by Horace and Virgil, it would be serious +trifling to attempt to prove: but Milton, perhaps, will not so easily +resign his claim to equality, if not to superiority. Let it, however, +be remembered, that if Milton be enabled to dispute the prize with the +great champions of antiquity, it is entirely owing to the sublime +conceptions he has copied from the book of God. These, therefore, must +be taken away before we begin to make a just estimate of his genius; +and from what remains, it cannot, I presume, be said with candour and +impartiality, that he has excelled Homer in the sublimity and variety +of his thoughts, or the strength and majesty of his diction.</p> + +<p>Shakespear, Corneille, and Racine, are the only modern writers of +Tragedy, that we can venture to oppose to Eschylus, Sophocles, and +Euripides. The first is an author so uncommon and eccentric, that we +can scarcely try him by dramatic rules. In strokes of nature and +character, he yields not to the Greeks: in all other circumstances +that constitute the excellence of the drama, he is vastly inferior. Of +the three moderns, the most faultless is the tender and exact Racine: +but he was ever ready to acknowledge, that his capital beauties were +borrowed from his favourite Euripides; which, indeed, cannot escape +the observation of those who read with attention his Phædra and +Andromache. The pompous and truly Roman sentiments of Corneille are +chiefly drawn from Luoan and Tacitus; the former of whom, by a strange +perversion of taste, he is known to have preferred to Virgil. His +diction is not so pure and mellifluous, his characters not so various +and just, nor his plots so regular, so interesting, and simple, as +those of his pathetic rival. It is by this simplicity of fable alone, +when every single act, and scene, and speech, and sentiment, and word, +concur to accelerate the intended event, that the Greek tragedies kept +the attention of the audience immoveably fixed upon one principal +object, which must be necessarily lessened, and the ends of the drama +defeated, by the mazes and intricacies of modern plots.</p> + +<p>The assertion of Addison with respect to the first particular, +regarding the higher kinds of poetry, will remain unquestionably true, +till nature in some distant age, for in the present, enervated with +luxury, she seems incapable of such an effort, shall produce some +transcendent genius, of power to eclipse the Iliad and the Edipus.</p> + +<p>The superiority of the ancient artists in Painting, is not perhaps so +clearly manifest. They were ignorant, it will be said, of light, of +shade, and perspective; and they had not the use of oil colours, which +are happily calculated to blend and unite without harshness and +discordance, to give a boldness and relief to the figures, and to form +those middle Teints which render every well-wrought piece a closer +resemblance of nature. Judges of the truest taste do, however, place +the merit of colouring far below that of justness of design, and force +of expression. In these two highest and most important excellencies, +the ancient painters were eminently skilled, if we trust the +testimonies of Pliny, Quintilian, and Lucian; and to credit them we +are obliged, if we would form to ourselves any idea of these artists +at all; for there is not one Grecian picture remaining; and the +Romans, some few of whose works have descended to this age, could +never boast of a Parrhasius or Apelles, a Zeuxis, Timanthes, or +Protogenes, of whose performances the two accomplished critics above +mentioned, speaks in terms of rapture and admiration. The statues that +have escaped the ravages of time, as the Hercules and Laocoon for +instance, are still a stronger +<ins class="correction" +Title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'demonstation'"> +demonstration</ins> + of the power +of the Grecian artists in expressing the passions; for what was +executed in marble, we have presumptive evidence to think, might also +have been executed in colours. Carlo Marat, the last valuable painter +of Italy, after copying the head of the Venus in the Medicean +collection three hundred times, generously confessed, that he could +not arrive at half the grace and perfection of his model. But to speak +my opinion freely on a very disputable point, I must own, that if the +moderns approach the ancients in any of the arts here in question, +they approach them nearest in The Art of Painting, The human mind can +with difficulty conceive any thing more exalted, than "The Last +Judgment" of Michael Angelo, and "The Transfiguration" of Raphael. +What can be more animated than Raphael's "Paul preaching at Athens?" +What more tender and delicate than Mary holding the child Jesus, in +his famous "Holy Family?" What more graceful than "The Aurora" of +Guido? What more deeply moving than "The Massacre of the Innocents" by +Le Brun?</p> + +<p>But no modern Orator can dare to enter the lists with Demosthenes and +Tully. We have discourses, indeed, that may be admired, for their +perspicuity, purity, and elegance; but can produce none that abound in +a sublime which whirls away the auditor like a mighty torrent, and +pierces the inmost recesses of his heart like a flash of lightning; +which irresistibly and instantaneously convinces, without leaving, him +leisure to weigh the motives of conviction. The sermons of Bourdaloue, +the funeral orations of Bossuet, particularly that on the death of +Henrietta, and the pleadings of Pelisson, for his disgraced patron +Fouquet, are the only pieces of eloquence I can recollect, that bear +any resemblance to the Greek or Roman orator; for in England we have +been particularly unfortunate in our attempts to be eloquent, whether +in parliament, in the pulpit, or at the bar. If it be urged, that the +nature of modern politics and laws excludes the pathetic and the +sublime, and confines the speaker to a cold argumentative method, and +a dull detail of proof and dry matters of fact; yet, surely, the +Religion of the moderns abounds in topics so incomparably noble and +exalted as might kindle the flames of genuine oratory in the most +frigid and barren genius much more might this success be reasonably +expected from such geniuses as Britain can enumerate; yet no piece of +this sort, worthy applause or notice, has ever yet appeared.</p> + +<p>The few, even among professed scholars, that are able to read the +ancient Historians in their inimitable, originals, are startled at the +paradox, of Bolingbroke who boldly prefers Guicciardini to Thucydides; +that is, the most verbose and tedious to the most comprehensive and +concise of writers, and a collector of facts to one who was himself an +eye-witness and a principal actor in the important story he relates. +And, indeed, it may be well presumed, that the ancient histories +exceed the modern from this single consideration, that the latter are +commonly compiled by recluse scholars, unpractised in business, war, +and politics; whilst the former are many of them written by ministers, +commanders, and princes themselves. We have, indeed, a few flimsy +memoirs, particularly in a neighbouring nation, written by persons +deeply interested in the transactions they describe; but these I +imagine will not be compared to "The retreat of the ten thousand" +which Xenophon himself conducted and related, nor to "the Galic war" +of Cæsar, nor "The precious fragments" of Polybius, which our modern +generals and ministers would not have discredited by diligently +perusing, and making them the models of their conduct as as well as of +their style. Are the reflections of Machiavel so subtle and refined as +those of Tacitus? Are the portraits of Thuanus so strong and +expressive as those of Sallust and Plutarch? Are the narrations of +Davila so lively and animated, or do his sentiments breathe such a +love of liberty and virtue, as those of Livy and Herodotus?</p> + +<p>The supreme excellence of the ancient Architecture the last particular +to be touched, I shall not enlarge upon, because it has never once +been called in question, and because it is abundantly testified by the +awful ruins of amphitheatres, aqueducts, arches, and columns, that are +the daily objects of veneration, though not of imitation. This art, it +is observable; has never been improved in later ages in one single +instance; but every just and legitimate edifice is still formed +according to the five old established orders, to which human wit has +never been able to add a sixth of equal symmetry and strength.</p> + +<p>Such, therefore, are the triumphs of the Ancients, especially the +Greeks, over the Moderns. They may, perhaps, be not unjustly ascribed +to a genial climate, that gave such a happy temperament of body as was +most proper to produce fine sensations; to a language most harmonious, +copious, and forcible; to the public encouragements and honours +bestowed on the cultivators of literature; to the emulation excited +among the generous youth, by exhibitions of their performances at the +solemn games; to an inattention to the arts of lucre and commerce, +which engross and debase the minds of the moderns; and above all, to +an exemption from the necessity of overloading their natural faculties +with learning and languages, with which we in these later times are +obliged to qualify ourselves, for writers, if we expect to be read.</p> + +<p>It is said by Voltaire, with his usual liveliness, "We shall never +again behold the time, when a Duke de la Rochefoucault might go from +the conversation of a Pascal or Arnauld, to the theatre of Corneille." +This reflection may be more justly applied to the ancients, and it may +with much greater truth be said; "The age will never again return, +when a Pericles, after walking with Plato in a portico, built by +Phidias, and painted by Apelles, might repair to hear a pleading of +Demosthenes, or a tragedy of Sophocles."</p> + +<p>I shall next examine the other part of Addison's assertion, that the +moderns excell the ancients in all the arts of Ridicule, and assign +the reasons of this supposed excellence.</p> +<br> +<br> + +<h4>No. CXXXIII. Tuesday, February 12. 1754.</h4> +<br> +<p><i> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">At nostri proavi Plautinos et numeros et</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Laudeveres sales; nimium patienter utrumque,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ne dicam stule, mirati; si modo ego et vos</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Scimus inurbanum lepido seponere dicto</span></i>.<br> +<span style="margin-left: 23.5em;">HOR.</span><br> +<br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"And yet our fires with joy could Plautus hear;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gay were his jests, his numbers charm'd their ear."</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let me not say too lavishly they prais'd;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But sure their judgment was full cheaply pleas'd,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If you or I with taste are haply blest,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To know a clownish from a courtly jest.</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">FRANCIS.</span><br> +</p> + + +<p>The fondness I have so frequently manifested for the ancients, has not +so far blinded my judgment, as to render me unable to discern, or +unwilling to acknowledge, the superiority of the moderns, in pieces of +Humour and Ridicule. I shall, therefore, confirm the general assertion +of Addison, part of which hath already been examined.</p> + +<p>Comedy, Satire, and Burlesque, being the three chief branches of +ridicule, it is necessary for us to compare together the most admired +performances of the ancients and moderns, in these three kinds of +writing, to qualify us justly to censure or commend, as the beauties +or blemishes of each party may deserve.</p> + +<p>As Aristophanes wrote to please the multitude, at a time when the +licentiousness of the Athenians was boundless, his pleasantries are +coarse and impolite, his characters extravagantly forced, and +distorted with unnatural deformity, like the monstrous caricaturas of +Callot. He is full of the grossest obscenity, indecency, and +inurbanity; and as the populace always delight to hear their superiors +abused and misrepresented, he scatters the rankest calumnies on the +wisest and worthiest personages of his country. His style is unequal, +occasioned by a frequent introduction of parodies on Sophocles and +Euripides. It is, however, certain, that he abounds in artful +allusions to the state of Athens at the time when he wrote; and, +perhaps, he is more valuable, considered as a political satirist than +a writer of comedy.</p> + +<p>Plautus has adulterated a rich vein of genuine wit and humour, with a +mixture of the basest buffoonry. No writer seems to have been born +with a more forcible or more fertile genius for comedy. He has drawn +some characters with incomparable spirit: we are indebted to him for +the first good miser, and for that worn-out character among the +Romans, a boastful Thraso. But his love degenerates into lewdness; and +his jests are insupportably low and illiberal, and fit only for "the +dregs of Romulus" to use and to hear; he has furnished examples of +every species of true and false wit, even down to a quibble and a pun. +Plautus lived in an age when the Romans were but just emerging into +politeness; and I cannot forbear thinking, that if he had been +reserved for the age of Augustus, he would have produced more perfect +plays than even the elegant disciple of Menander.</p> + +<p>Delicacy, sweetness, and correctness, are the characteristics of +Terence. His polite images are all represented in the most clear and +perspicuous expression; but his characters are too general and +uniform, nor are they marked with those discriminating peculiarities +that distinguish one man from another; there is a tedious and +disgusting sameness of incidents in his plots, which, as hath been +observed in a former paper, are too complicated and intricate. It may +be added, that he superabounds in soliloquies; and that nothing can be +more inartificial or improper, than the manner in which he hath +introduced them.</p> + +<p>To these three celebrated ancients, I venture to oppose singly the +matchless Moliere, as the most consummate master of comedy that former +or latter ages have produced. He was not content with painting obvious +and common characters, but set himself closely to examine the +numberless varieties of human nature: he soon discovered every +difference, however minute; and by a proper management could make it +striking: his portraits, therefore, though they +<ins class="correction" +Title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'appaer'"> +appear</ins> to be +new, are yet discovered to be just. The Tartuffe and the Misantrope +are the most singular, and yet, perhaps, the most proper and perfect +characters that comedy can represent; and his Miser excels that of any +other nation. He seems to have hit upon the true nature of comedy; +which is, to exhibit one singular, and unfamiliar character, by such a +series of incidents as may best contribute to shew its singularities. +All the circumstances in the Misantrope tend to manifest the peevish +and captious disgust of the hero; all the circumstances in the +Tartuffe are calculated to shew the treachery of an accomplished +hypocrite. I am sorry that no English writer of comedy can be produced +as a rival to Moliere: although it must be confessed, that Falstaff +and Morose are two admirable characters, excellently, supported and +displayed; for Shakespear has contrived all the incidents to +illustrate the gluttony, lewdness, cowardice, and boastfulness of the +fat old knight: and Jonson, has, with equal art, displayed the oddity +of a wimsical humourist, who could endure no kind of noise.</p> + +<p>Will it be deemed a paradox, to assert, that Congreve's dramatic +persons have no striking and natural characteristic? His Fondlewife +and Foresight are but faint portraits of common characters, and Ben is +a forced and unnatural caricatura. His plays appear not to be +legitimate comedies, but strings of repartees and sallies of wit, the +most poignant and polite indeed, but unnatural and ill placed. The +trite and trivial character of a fop, hath strangely engrossed the +English stage, and given an insipid similiarity to our best comic +pieces: originals can never be wanting in such a kingdom as this, +where each man follows his natural inclinations and propensities, if +our writers would really contemplate nature, and endeavour to open +those mines of humour which have been so long and so unaccountably +neglected.</p> + +<p>If we proceed to consider the Satirists of antiquity, I shall not +scruple to prefer Boileau and Pope to Horace and Juvenal; the arrows +of whose ridicule are more sharp, in proportion as they are more +polished. That reformers should abound in obscenities, as is the case +of the two Roman poets, is surely an impropriety of the most +extraordinary kind; the courtly Horace also sometimes sinks into mean +and farcical abuse, as in the first lines of the seventh satire of the +first book; but Boileau and Pope have given to their Satire the Cestus +of Venus: their ridicule is concealed and oblique; that of the Romans +direct and open. The tenth satire of Bioleau on women is more bitter, +and more decent and elegant, than the sixth of Juvenal on the same +subject; and Pope's epistle to Mrs. Blount far excels them both, in +the artfulness and delicacy with which it touches female foibles. I +may add, that the imitations of Horace by Pope, and of Juvenal by +Johnson, are preferable to their originals in the appositeness of +their examples, and in the poignancy of their ridicule. Above all, the +Lutrin, the Rape of the Lock, the Dispensary and the Dunciad, cannot +be parallelled by any works that the wittiest of the ancients can +boast of: for, by assuming the form of the epopea, they have acquired +a dignity and gracefulness, which all satires delivered merely in the +poet's own person must want, and with which the satirists of antiquity +were wholly unacquainted; for the Batrachomuomachia of Homer cannot be +considered as the model of these admirable pieces.</p> + +<p>Lucian is the greatest master of Burlesque among the ancients: but the +travels of Gulliver, though indeed evidently copied from his true +history, do as evidently excel it. Lucian sets out with informing his +readers, that he is in jest, and intends to ridicule some of the +incredible stories in Ctesias and Herodotus: this introduction surely +enfeebles his satire, and defeats his purpose. The true history +consists only of the most wild, monstrous, and miraculous persons and +accidents: Gulliver has a concealed meaning, and his dwarfs and giants +convey tacitly some moral or political instruction. The Charon, or the +prospect, (επισχοπουντες) one of the dialogues of Lucian, has +likewise given occasion to that agreeable French Satire, entitled, +"<i>Le Diable Boiteux</i>," or "The Lame Devil;" which has highly improved +on its original by a greater variety of characters and descriptions, +lively remarks, and interesting adventures. So if a parallel be drawn +between Lucian and Cervantes, the ancient will still appear to +disadvantage: the burlesque of Lucian principally consists in making +his gods and philosophers speak and act like the meanest of the +people; that of Cervantes arises from the solemn and important air +with which the most idle and ridiculous actions are related; and is, +therefore, much more striking and forcible. In a word, Don Quixote, +and its copy Hudibras, the Splendid Shilling, the Adventures of Gil +Blas, the Tale of a Tub, and the Rehearsal, are pieces of humour which +antiquity cannot equal, much less excel.</p> + +<p>Theophrastus must yield to La Bruyere for his intimate knowledge of +human nature; and the Athenians never produced a writer whose humour +was so exquisite as that of Addison, or who delineated and supported a +character with so much nature and true pleasantry, as that of Sir +Roger de Coverly. It ought, indeed, to be remembered, that every +species of wit written in distant times and in dead languages, appears +with many disadvantages to present readers, from their ignorance of +the manners and customs alluded to and exposed; but the grosness, the +rudeness, and indelicacy of the ancients, will, notwithstanding, +sufficiently appear, even from the sentiments of such critics as +Cicero and Quintilian, who mention corporal defects and deformities as +proper objects of raillery.</p> + +<p>If it be now asked to what can we ascribe this superiority of the +moderns in all the species of ridicule? I answer, to the improved +state of conversation. The great geniuses of Greece and Rome were +formed during the times of a republican government: and though it be +certain, as Longinus asserts, that democracies are the nurseries of +true sublimity; yet monarchies and courts are more productive of +politeness. The arts of civility, and the decencies of conversation, +as they unite men more closely, and bring them more frequently +together, multiply opportunities of observing those incongruities and +absurdities of behaviour, on which ridicule is founded. The ancients +had more liberty and seriousness; the moderns have more luxury and +laughter.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> + + +<hr style="width:100 %;"> +<h2><a name="OF_WIT" id="OF_WIT">OF WIT</a></h2> +<hr style="width:100 %;"> +<center><img alt="Greek: " src="images/image06.gif" width="587" height="916"></center> +<br> +<p><i>WIT</i> in K. <i>Charles</i> IId's Reign, seem'd to be the Fashion of the +Times; in the next Reign it gave way to Politicks and Religion; while +K. <i>William</i> was on the Throne, it reviv'd under the Protection of +Lord <i>Somers</i> and some other Nobleman, and then those Geniuses +received that Tincture of Elegance and Politeness which afterwards +made such a Figure in the <i>Tatlers</i>, <i>Spectators</i>, &c. thro' the +greatest Part of the Reign of Q. <i>Anne</i>: But since it has broke out +only by Fits and Starts. Few People of Distinction trouble themselves +about the Name of Wit, fewer understand it, and hardly any have +honoured it with their Example. In the next Class of People it seems +best known, most admired, and most frequently practiced; but their +Stations in Life are not eminent enough to dazzle us into Imitation. +Wit is a Start of Imagination in the Speaker, that strikes the +Imagination of the Hearer with an Idea of Beauty, common to both; and +the immediate Result of the Comparison is the Flash of Joy that +attends it; it stands in the same Regard to Sense, or Wisdom, as +Lightning to the Sun, suddenly kindled and as suddenly gone; it as +often arises from the Defect of the Mind, as from its Strength and +Capacity. This is evident in those who are <i>Wits</i> only, without being +grave or wise, Just, solid, and lasting Wit is the Result of fine +Imagination, finished Study, and a happy Temper of Body. As no one +pleases more than the Man of Wit, none is more liable to offend; +therefore he shou'd have a Fancy quick to conceive, Knowledge, good +Humour, and Discretion to direct the whole. Wit often leads a Man into +Misfortunes, that his Prudence wou'd have avoided; as it is the Means +of raising a Reputation, so it sometimes destroys it. He who affects +to be always witty, renders himself cheap, and, perhaps, ridiculous. +The great Use and Advantage of Wit is to render the Owner agreeable, +by making him instrumental to the Happiness of others. When such a +Person appears among his Friends, an Air of Pleasure and Satisfaction +diffuses itself over every Face. <i>Wit</i>, so used, is an Instrument of +the sweetest Musick in the Hands of an Artist, commanding, soothing, +and modulating the Passions into Harmony and Peace. Neither is this +the only Use of it; 'tis a sharp Sword, as well as a musical +Instrument, and ought to be drawn against Folly and Affectation. There +is at the same time an humble Ignorance, a modest Weakness, that ought +to be spar'd; they are unhappy already in the Consciousness of their +own Defects, and 'tis fighting with the Lame and Sick to be severe +upon them. The Wit that genteely glances at a Foible, is smartly +retorted, or generously forgiven; because the Merit of the Reprover is +as well known as the Merit of the Reproved. In such delicate +Conversations, Mirth, temper'd with good Manners, is the only Point in +View, and we grow gay and polite together; perhaps there's no Moment +of our Lives so sincerely happy, certainly none so innocent. Wit is a +Quality which some possess, and all covet; Youth affects it, Folly +dreads it, Age despises it, and Dulness abhors it. Some Authors wou'd +persuade us, that Wit is owing to a double Cause; one, the Desire of +pleasing others, and one of recommending ourselves: The first is made +a Merit in the Owners, and is therefore rang'd among the Virtues; the +last is stiled Vanity, and therefore a Vice; tho' this is an erroneous +Distinction, as <i>Wit</i> was never possess'd by any without both; for no +Man endeavours to excell without being conscious of it, and that +Consciousness will produce Vanity, let us disguise it how we please. +Upon the whole, Vanity is inseparable from the; Heart of Man; where +there is Excellency, it may be endur'd; where there is none, it may be +censur'd, but never remov'd.</p> + +<p>(From <i>The Weekly Register</i>, July 22, 1732, No. 119, as reprinted in +<i>The Gentleman's 'Magazine</i>, II, July, 1732, pp. 861-2.)</p> +<hr style="width:100 %;"> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14973 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/14973-h/images/image01.gif b/14973-h/images/image01.gif Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..47e2303 --- /dev/null +++ b/14973-h/images/image01.gif diff --git a/14973-h/images/image02.gif b/14973-h/images/image02.gif Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d444614 --- /dev/null +++ b/14973-h/images/image02.gif diff --git a/14973-h/images/image03.gif b/14973-h/images/image03.gif Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6b5d8d0 --- /dev/null +++ b/14973-h/images/image03.gif diff --git a/14973-h/images/image04.gif b/14973-h/images/image04.gif Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e6f35f9 --- /dev/null +++ b/14973-h/images/image04.gif diff --git a/14973-h/images/image05.gif b/14973-h/images/image05.gif Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..663de4e --- /dev/null +++ b/14973-h/images/image05.gif diff --git a/14973-h/images/image06.gif b/14973-h/images/image06.gif Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3703006 --- /dev/null +++ b/14973-h/images/image06.gif diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b5dba15 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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