is a quality of certain thoughts and expressions, much easier perceived than defined. According to Mr Locke, wit lies in the assemblage of ideas, and putting those together with quickness and variety, wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions to the fancy. Mr Addison limited this definition considerably, by observing, that every resemblance of ideas does not constitute wit, but those only which produce delight and surprize. Mr Pope defined wit to be a quick conception and an easy delivery: while, according to a late writer, it consists in an assimilation of distant ideas.

The word wit originally signified wisdom. A witte was anciently a wise man: the wittenagemot, or Saxon parliament, an assemblage of wise men. So late as the reign of Elizabeth, a man of pregnant wit, or great wit, was a man of vast judgment. We still say, in his wits, out of his wits, for in or out of sound mind. The word, however, is now applied in a more limited sense.

Without attempting to expose the inaccuracy of the definitions above mentioned, or hazarding a definition of our own where to many eminent men have failed, we shall endeavour to show in what true wit consists.

It is evident that wit excites in the mind an agreeable surprize, and that this is owing entirely to the strange assemblage of related ideas presented to the mind. This end is effected, 1. By debauching things pompous or seemingly grave; 2. By aggrandizing things little or frivolous; 3. By setting ordinary objects in a particular and uncommon point of view, by means not only remote but apparently contrary. Of so much consequence are surprizes and novelty, that no common thing is more talkable, and sometimes disgusting, than a ridiculous joke that has become stale by frequent repetition. For the sake of ridicule, even a pun or happy allusion will appear excellent when thrown out extempore in conversation, which would be deemed execrable in print. In like manner, a witty repartee is infinitely more pleasing than a witty attack: for though, in both cases, the thing may be equally new to the reader or hearer, the effect on him is greatly injured, when there is access to suppose that it may be the product of study and premeditation. This, however, holds most with regard to the inferior tribes of witticisms, of which their readiness is the best recommendation.

We shall illustrate these observations by subjoining a specimen or two of each of these sorts of wit:

Of the first sort, which consists in the debauchment of things great and eminent, Butler, amongst a thousand other instances, hath given us those which follow:

And now had Phoebus in the lap Of Thetis taken out his nap: And, like a lobster boil'd, the morn From black to red began to turn.

Hudibras, part ii. canto 2.

Here the low allegorical style of the first couplet, and the simple style in the second, afford us a just notion of this lowest species, which is distinguished by the name of the ludicrous. Another specimen from the same author you have in these lines:

Great on the bench, great in the faddle, That could as well bind o'er as swaddle, Mighty he was at both of these, And fly'd of war, as well as peace: So some rats of amphibious nature, Are either for the land or water.

Ibid. part i. canto 1.

In this coarse kind of drolleries, those laughable translations or paraphrases of heroic and other serious poems, wherein the authors are said to be travestied, chiefly abound.

The second kind, consisting in the aggrandisement of little things, which is by far the most splendid, and displays a soaring imagination, these lines of Pope will serve to illustrate:

As Berecynthia, while her offspring vie In homage to the mother of the sky, Surveys around her in the blest abode, An hundred sons, and every son a god: Not with less glory mighty dulcets crown'd, Shall take thro' Grubstreet her triumphant round;

And And her Parnassus glancing o'er at once, Behold a hundred sons, and each a dunce.

This whole similitude is spirited. The parent of the celestials is contrasted by the daughter of night and chaos; heaven by Grubstreet; gods by dunces. Besides, the parody it contains on a beautiful passage in Virgil adds a particular lustre to it. This species we may term the *thronofical*, or the *mock-majestic*. It affects the most pompous language, and sonorous phraseology, as much as the other affects the reverse, the vilest and most grovelling dialect.

To this class also we must refer the application of grave reflections to mere trifles. For that *great* and *serious* are naturally associated by the mind, and likewise little and trifling, is sufficiently evinced by the common modes of expression on these subjects used in every tongue. An apposite instance of such an application we have from Philips:

My galligaskins, that have long withstood The winter's fury and encroaching frosts, By time subdued, (*What will not time subdue!*) An horrid chafin diabol. *Splendid Shilling.*

Of the third species of wit, which is by far the most multifarious, and which results from what may be called the quercetons or singularity of the imagery, we shall give a few specimens that will serve to mark some of its principal varieties. To illustrate all would be impossible. The first shall be where there is an apparent contrariety in the things she exhibits as connected. This kind of contrast we have in these lines of Garth:

Then Hydrops next appears amongst the throng; Bloated and big she slowly falls along: But like a miser in excess she's poor, And pines for thirst amidst her watery store.

*Diffenbury.*

A second sort is, where the things compared are what with dialecticians would come under the denomination of *disparates*, being such as can be ranked under no common genus. Of this we shall subjoin an example from Young:

Health chiefly keeps an Atheist in the dark; A fever argues better than a Clarke: Let but the logic in his pulse decay, The Grecian he'll renounce, and learn to pray.

*Universal Passion.*

A third variety in this species springs from confounding artfully the proper and the metaphorical sense of an expression. In this way, one will assign as a motive what is discovered to be perfectly absurd, when but ever so little attended to; and yet, from the ordinary meaning of the words, hath a specious appearance on a single glance. Of this kind we have an instance in the subsequent lines:

While thus the lady talk'd, the knight Turn'd th' outside of his eyes to white, As men of inward light are wont To turn their optics in upon't.

*Hudibras, part iii. canto i.*

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

A fourth variety, much resembling the former, is when the argument or comparison (for all argument is a kind of comparison) is founded on the supposal of corporeal or personal attributes in what is strictly not susceptible of them; as in this,

But Hudibras gave him a twitch, As quick as lightning in the breech, Just in the place where honour's lodg'd, As wise philosophers have judg'd:

Because a kick in that place more Hurts honour than deep wounds before.

*Ibid., part ii. canto 3.*

The fifth, and only other variety which we shall mention, is that which arises from a relation, not in the things signified, but in the signs of all relations, no doubt the slightest. Identity here gives rise to puns and clinches; resemblance to quibbles, cranks, and rhimes: Of these it is quite unnecessary to exhibit specimens.

Wit (John de), a celebrated pensioner of Holland, and one of the greatest politicians of his time, was the son of Jacob de Wit, burgomaster of Dort, and was born in 1625. He became well skilled in civil law, politics, mathematics, and other sciences; and wrote a treatise on the Elements of Curved Lines, published by Francis Schooten. Having taken his degree of doctor of law, he travelled into foreign courts, where he became esteemed for his genius and prudence. At his return to his native country in 1650, he became pensionary of Dort, then counsellor-pensionary of Holland and West Friesland, intendant and registrar of the fiefs, and keeper of the great seal. He was thus at the head of affairs in Holland; but his opposition to the re-establishment of the office of stadtholder, which he thought a violation of the freedom and independence of the republic, cost him his life, when the prince of Orange's party prevailed. He and his brother Cornelius were assassinated by the populace at the Hague in 1674, aged 47.