Andrew,** a Scottish poet and historian of the 14th century; but very little is known of his life. He was a canon regular of St Andrews, and was prior of the monastery of St Serf in the island of Loch Leven in Kinross-shire; for in the chartulary of the priory of St Andrews there are several public instruments of Andrew Winton, as prior of Loch Leven. They are dated between the years 1395 and 1413, so that Winton must have been contemporary with Barbour, whose merits are on several occasions celebrated by him. Winton is best known as the author of the *Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland.* This work was undertaken at the request of Sir John Wemyss, the ancestor of the noble family of that name. It remained neglected for several centuries, but in 1795 a splendid edition of that part of it relative to Scottish affairs, was published by Mr Macpherson. The time of Winton's death is unknown; but, as he mentions the death of Robert duke of Albany, which happened in 1420, the historian must have been alive at that time.

**WIRE,** a piece of metal drawn through the hole of an iron into a thread of a fineness answerable to the hole it passed through.

Wires are frequently drawn so fine as to be wrought along with other threads of silk, wool, flax, &c.

The metals most commonly drawn into wire are gold, silver, copper, and iron. Gold-wire is made of cylindrical ingots of silver, covered over with a skin of gold, and thus drawn successively through a vast number of holes, each smaller and smaller, till at last it is brought to a fineness exceeding that of a hair. That admirable ductility which makes one of the distinguishing characters of gold, is nowhere more conspicuous than in this gilt wire. A cylinder of 48 ounces of silver, covered with a coat of gold, only weighing one ounce, as Dr Halley informs us, is usually drawn into a wire, two yards of which weigh no more than one grain; whence 98 yards of the wire weigh no more than 49 grains, and one single grain of gold covers the 98 yards; so that the ten-thousandth part of a grain is above one-eighth of an inch long.

In 1784, Mr Rooswag of Strasbourg presented to the board of trade some gauze made of iron wire, for which he received a reward; and the loom he invented for making it was lodged in the collection of machines at Vauxhall. In 1799 Mr Rochon made others, and coated them with a transparent glue, to be substituted instead of horn for ship lanterns, to be used between decks, and in engagements by night. He has since conceived, that with a thin coating of plaster they might be employed to preserve ships from fire, and buildings on shore still more easily; or at least that they might render the ravages of fire less frequent, and less terrible. These gauzes might be very useful too for theatrical decorations, which would not be liable to take fire. Their only inconvenience is their being too little flexible; but Mr Rochon does not despair of means being found by chemistry to remedy this imperfection, and it was with a view of calling attention to this subject, that he read a paper on it to the clas.

**Wire of Lapland.** The inhabitants of Lapland have a sort of thinning slender substance in use among them on several occasions, which is much of the thickness and appearance of our silver wire, and is therefore called, by those who do not examine its structure or substance, Lapland wire. It is made of the fineness of the rein deer, which being carefully separated in the eating, are, by the women, after soaking in water and beating, spun into a sort of thread, of admirable fineness and strength, when wrought to the smallest filaments; but when larger, is very strong, and fit for the purposes of strength and force. Their wire, as it is called, is made of the finest of these threads covered with tin. The women do this business; and the way they take is to melt a piece of tin, and placing at the edge of it a horn, with a hole through it, they draw these finewy threads, covered with the tin, through the hole, which prevents their coming out too thick covered. This drawing is performed with their teeth; and there is a small piece of bone placed at the top of the hole, where the wire is made flat; so that we always find it rounded on all sides but one, where it is flat.

This wire they use in embroidering their clothes, as we do gold and silver; they often sell it to strangers, under the notion of its having certain magical virtues.

**Wisdom,** usually denotes a higher and more refined notion of things immediately presented to the mind, as it were, by intuition, without the assistance of ratiocination.

Sometimes the word is more immediately used, in a moral sense, for what we call prudence, or discretion, which consists in the soundness of the judgement, and a conduct answerable thereto.

**Wisdom of Solomon,** one of the books of the Apocrypha. It abounds with Platonic language, and was probably written after the Cabalistic philosophy was introduced among the Jews.

**Wit,** 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 surprise. Mr Pope defined wit to be a quick conception and 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, of great wit, was a man of vast judgement. We still say, in his wits, out of his wits, for in or out of found 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 so 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 surprise, and that this is owing entirely to the strange assemblage of related ideas presented to the mind. This end is effected, 1. By debasing 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 surprise and novelty, that nothing is more tafteless, and sometimes disgusting, than a joke that has become stale by frequent repetition. For the same reason, 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 slow production 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 debasement 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 simile used 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 saddle, That could as well bind o'er as swaddle, Mighty he was at both of these, And fitly'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 drollery, 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 Dulness crown'd, Shall take thro' Grubstreet her triumphant round; And her Parnassus glancing o'er at once, Behold a hundred sons, and each a dunce.

This whole multitude is spirited. The parent of the celestial 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 _thronical_, or the _mock-majestic_. It affects the most pompous language, and florid 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 chasm disclose.

_Splendid Shilling._

Of the third species of wit, which is by far the most multifarious, and which results from what may be called the quirkiness 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 he slowly fails along: But like a miser in excess he's poor, And pines for thirst amidst her watery store.

_Dispensary._

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 cor- poreal or personal attributes in what is strictly not sus- ceptible 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 speci- mens.

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, po- litics, 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 be- came esteemed for his genius and prudence. At his re- turn to his native country in 1650, he became pension- ary 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 Corne- lius were assassinated by the populace at The Hague in 1674, aged 47.