the poet here meant to ridicule, he ought to confider, that if any one hath been tickled with the paffage to whom the fame thought never occurred, that fingle inftance would be fufficient to fubvert the doctrine, as it would thew that there may be laughter, where there is no triumph or glorying over any body, and confequently no conceit of one's own fuperiority. So that there may be, and often is, both contempt without laughter, and laughter without contempt.

BESIDES, where wit is really pointed, which conftitutes ridicule, that it is not from what gives the conceit of our own eminence by comparison, but purely from the odd affemblage of ideas, that the laughter fprings, is evident from this, that if you make but a trifling alteration on the expreffion, fo as to deftroy the wit (which often turns on a very little circumftance), without altering the real import of the fentence, (a thing not only poffible but eafy) you will produce the fame opinion, and the fame contempt; and confequently will give the fame subject of triumph, yet without the leaft tendency to laugh and conversely, in reading a well-writ ten satire, a man may be much diverted by the

wit, whofe judgment is not convinced by the ridicule or infinuated argument, and whofe former efteem of the object is not in the leaft impaired. Indeed, men's telling their own blunders, even blunders recently committed, and laughing at them, a thing not uncommon in very rifible difpofitions, is utterly inexplicable on Hobbes's fyftem. For, to confider the thing only with regard to the laugher himself, there is to him no fubject of glorying, that is not counterbalanced by an equal fubject of humiliation, (he being both the perfon laughing, and the perfon laughed at) and these two subjects muft deftroy one another. With regard to others, he appears folely under the notion of inferiority, as the perfon triumphed over. Indeed, as in ridicule, agreeably to the doctrine here propounded, there is always fome degree, often but a very flight degree of contempt; it is not every character, I acknowledge, that is fond of prefenting to others fuch fubje&s of mirth. Wherever one fhews a pronenefs to it, it is demonftrable that on that perfon fociality and the love of laughter have much greater influence, than vanity or felf-conceit: fince, for the fake of fharing with others in the joyous entertain ment, he can fubmit to the mortifying circum

ftance

ftance of being the fubject. This, however, is in effect no more than enjoying the sweet which predominates, notwithstanding a little of the bitter with which it is mingled, The laugh in this cafe is fo far from being expreffive of the paffion, that it is produced in fpite of the paffion, which operates against it, and if strong enough, would effectually refrain it.

BUT it is impoffible that there could be any enjoyment to him on the other hypothefis, which makes the laughter merely the expreffion of a triumph, occafioned by the fudden display of one's own comparative excellence, a triumph in which the perfon derided could not partake. In this cafe, on the contrary, he must undoubtedly fuftain the part of the weeper, (according to the account which the fame author hath given of that oppofite paffion, as he calls it) and "fuddenly fall out with himfelf, on the fudden

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conception of defect." To fuppofe that a person in laughing enjoys the contempt of himfelf as a matter of exultation over his own infirmity, is of a piece with Cowley's description of envy exaggerated to abfurdity, wherein the

is faid

• Hobbes's Hum. Nat. Chap. ix. § 14.

Το

To envy at the praise herself had won f.

In the fame way, a miser may be said to grudge the money that himself hath got, or a glutton the repafts; for the luft of praife as much terminates in felf, as avarice or gluttony. It is a ftrange fort of theory which makes the fruftration of a paffion, and the gratification, the same thing.

As to the remark, that wit is not the only cause of this emotion, that men laugh at indecencies and mifchances; nothing is more certain. A well-dreffed man falling into the kennel, will raise in the fpectators a peal of laughter But this confirms, inftead of weakening, the doctrine here laid down. The genuine object is always things grouped together, in which there is some striking unsuitableness. The effect is much the fame, whether the things themselves are prefented to the fenfes by external accident, or the ideas of them are prefented to the imagination by wit and humour; though it is only with the latter that the fubject of eloquence is concerned.

Davideis, Book I.

IN

IN regard to Hobbes's fyftem, I fhall only remark further, that, according to it, a very rifible man, and a very felf-conceited fupercilious man, fhould imply the fame character, yet, in fact, perhaps no two characters more rarely meet in the fame perfón. Pride, and contempt, its usual attendant, considered in themselves, are unpleasant paffions, and tend to make men faftidious, always finding ground to be diffatisfied with their fituation and their company. Accordingly, those who are most addicted to thefe paffions, are not generally the happiest of mortals. It is only when the laft of thefe hath gotten for an alloy, a confiderable share of fenfibility in regard to wit and humour, which ferves both to moderate and to fweeten the paffion, that it can be termed in any degree fociable or agreeable. It hath been often remarked of very proud perfons, that they difdain to laugh, as thinking that it derogates from their dignity, and levels them too much with the common herd. The merrieft people, on the contrary, are the leaft fufpected of being haughty and contemptuous people. The company of the former is generally as much courted as that of the latter is thunned. To refer ourselves to fuch