While thus the lady talk'd, the knight

Turn'd th' outfide of his eyes to white,
As men of inward light are wont

To turn their optics in upon't t.

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

A FOURTH variety, much refembling the former, is when the argument or comparison (for all argument is a kind of comparifon) is founded on the fuppofal of corporeal or perfonal attributes in what is ftrictly not fufceptible of them, as in this, But Hudibras gave him a twitch As quick as lightning in the breech, Juft in the place where honour's lodg'd, As wife philofophers have judg'd; Because a kick in that place, more

Hurts honour than deep wounds before ‡.

Is demonftration itfelf more fatisfactory? Can any thing be hurt but where it is? However, the mention of this as the fage deduction of philofophers, is no inconfiderable addition to the wit. Indeed, this particular circumftance belongs properly to the firft fpecies mentioned, in which, high and low, great and little, are coupled. Another example not unlike the preceding you have in thefe words,

+ Hudibras, Part III. Canto 1.

Ibid, Part II. Canto 3.

What makes morality a crime,

The most notorious of the time;
Morality, which both the faints
And wicked too cry out against ?
'Cause grace and virtue are within
Prohibited degrees of kin :

And therefore no true faint allows

They fhall be fuffer'd to espouse *.

When the two foregoing inftances are compared together, we should say of the first, that it has more of fimplicity and nature, and is therefore more pleafing; of the fecond, that it has more of ingenuity and conceit, and is confequently more furprising.

THE fifth and only other variety I fhall obferve, is that which arifeth from a relation not in the things fignified, but in the figns, of all relations, no doubt, the flighteft. Identity here gives rife to puns and clinches. Refemblance to quibbles, cranks, and rhimes: Of thefe, I imagine, it is quite unneceffary to exhibit fpecimens. The wit here is fo dependent on the found, that it is commonly incapable of being transfufed into another language, and as, among perfons of taste and difcernment, it is in less requeft than the other forts above enumerated,

* Hudibras, Part III. Canto 1.

3.

thofe

1

those who abound in this, and never rise to any thing fuperior, are diftinguished by the diminutive appellation of witlings.

LET it be remarked in general, that from one or more of the three laft mentioned varieties, thofe plebeian tribes of witticifm, the conundrums, the rebufes, the riddles, and fome others, are lineally, though perhaps not all legitimately, defcended. I fhall only add, that I have not produced the forenamed varieties as an exact enumeration of all the fubdivifions, of which the third fpecies of wit is fufceptible. It is capable, I acknowledge, of being almost infinitely diversified; and it is principally to its various exhibitions, that we apply the epithets sportive, fpritely, ingenious, according as they recede more or lefs from thofe of the declaimer.

SECTION II.
Of humour.

As wit is the painting, humour is the pathetic, in this inferior fphere of eloquence. The nature and efficacy of humour may be thus unravelled. A juft exhibition of any ardent or durable paffion, excited by fome adequate cause, inftantly attacheth fympathy, the common tie

of

1

of human fouls, and thereby communicates the paffion to the breaft of the hearer. But when the emotion is either not violent or not durable, and the motive not any thing real, but imaginary, or at least quite difproportionate to the effect; or when the paffion difplays itself prepofterously, so as rather to obftruct than to promote its aim; in these cafes a natural reprefentation, instead of fellow-feeling, creates amusement, and univerfally awakens contempt. The portrait in the former cafe we call pathetic, in the latter humorous. It was faid, that the emo

tion

It ought to be observed, that this term is also used to exprefs any lively ftrictures of fuch fpecialities in temper and conduct, as have neither moment enough to interest sym pathy, nor incongruity enough to excite contempt. In this cafe, humour not being addressed to paffion, but to fancy, muft be confidered as a kind of moral painting, and differs from wit only in these two things: firft, in that, character alone is the fubject of the former, whereas all things whatever fall within the province of the latter; secondly, humour paints more fimply by direct imitation, wit more variously by illuftration and imagery. Of this kind of humour merely graphical, Addison hath given us numberless examples in many of the characters he hath fo finely drawn, and little incidents he hath fo pleasantly related in his Tatlers and Spectators. I might remark of the word humour, as I did of the term wit, that we fcarcely find in other languages a word exactly correfponding. The Latin facetia feems to come the nearest. Thus Cicero, "Huic generi orationis afpergentur etiam fales, qui in di

cendo mirum quantum valent; quorum duo genera funt,

** unum

tion must be either not violent or not durable, This limitation is neceffary, because à paffion extreme in its degree, as well as lafting, cannot yield diverfion to a well-difpofed mind, but generally affects it with pity, not feldom with a mixture of horror and indignation. The fenfe of the ridiculous, though invariably the fame, is in this cafe totally furmounted by a principle of our nature, much more powerful.

THE paffion which humour addreffeth as its object, is, as hath been fignified above, contempt. But it ought carefully to be noted, that every addrefs, even every pertinent addrefs to contempt, is not humorous. This paffion is

ot lefs capable of being excited by the fevere and tragic, than by the merry and comic manner. The subject of humour is always character, but not every thing in character; its foibles ge

unum facetiaram, alterum dicacitatis; utetur utroque, fed "altero in narrando aliquid venufté, altero in jaciendo mit "tendoque ridiculo; cujus genera plura funt," Orator, 48. Here one would think, that the philofopher must have had in his eye the different provinces of wit and humour, calling the former dicacitas, the latter facetic. It is plain, however, that, both by him and other Latin authors, these two words are often confounded. There appears, indeed, to be more uniformity in the ufe that is made of the fecond term, than in the application of the firft.

nerally,