mankind; or, at least, to be only participated in a degree by some tribes of monkeys.

2. Hence, as tragedy displays its powers in heightening and embellishing the general energies of human nature, so does comedy in exposing and exaggerating its particular weaknesses and defects. The one exhibits only the genuine feelings and sentiments of nature, expressed in the glowing language of enthusiasm; while the other shows these feelings and sentiments weakened by the restraints, perverted by the habits, and modified by the rules of artificial society; and expressed in the language appropriated to it by the artificial manners of particular ages and countries. The one delights in unity and simplicity of character, such as all character is when under the dominion of enthusiastic passion but the other often produces its happiest effects by assembling and uniting those incongruities and inconsistencies, which, though neither incompatible nor unnatural, exhibit in their junction a perversion or degradation of the natural character of man: such as boasting and cowardice, ignorance and pedantry, dulness and conceit, rudeness and foppery; with all the other heterogeneous combinations of impotent vanity, which generally affects excellence in that, which is most above its reach, because it is that, which it is most prone to admire.

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3. The jealousy of Othello, and the ambition of Lady Macbeth, are those passions operating as the poet, from his general observation of human nature, conceived that they must operate upon great and atrocious minds: but the jealousy of Ford or Kitely, and the ambition · of Malvolio, are the same passions operating as the poet had seen them operate on individuals of his own age and country. In the one, the general characteristics of human nature are merely heightened and embellished: but, in the other, they are modified and debased to suit the peculiarities, either natural or acquired, of particular individuals or classes of men.

4. The same difference is observable, in the character and expression of attitude and countenance, between the pictures of Raphael, and those of Rembrandt. Both drew from nature; but the one drew the general energies and perfections of mankind, and the other their individual peculiarities and perversions: whence the compositions of the one are sublime, and those of the other ridiculous. Raphael raises us in our own estimation by showing us images of men, such as we think might exist; and Rembrandt degrades us by showing us such as we know do exist: for the ridiculous, in whatsoever mode it be exhibited, will ever retain so much of its original principle, that the pleasure,

which it causes, will be in its nature a pleasure of malignity.

5. It has been observed by Locke that wit consists in facility of combination, and judgment in accuracy of discrimination *: but wit in this sense means, not merely pleasantry, but the power of imagination in general; in which signification the word appears to have been universally employed till lately. As limited to that particular species of wit, which excites mirth or pleasantry, it is equally comprehended in this definition: for whether the combinations of imagery be sublime or ludicrous;-be intended to excite admiration or laughter, a facility in discovering resemblances will equally constitute the power of producing them; since invention itself is nothing but a prompt, vigorous, and extensive power of combination.

6. Sublime imagery is not less sublime for being obvious; but all ludicrous combinations must be new and uncommon, though just and natural for it is in the sudden display of unforeseen resemblances between things of different or opposite character; such as the grave and the gay; the pompous and the familiar; the exalted and the humble, &c. that what are called flashes of wit principally consist. In all, the principal feature or figure in the composi

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tion is shown to the imagination, distorted or debased by being placed in an unfavourable light; or associated with degrading ideas; from the influence of which, the air of ridicule, which it acquires, arises.

7. Humour consists in similar coincidences of things generally dissimilar, displayed in manners instead of images and ideas: as when the auctioneer considers himself as a public character in the state, and imagines that his profession requires the talents of a consummate orator and rhetorician: or when a fishmonger, exalted to the rank of a major of militia, describes the moving of his regiment, from village to village, with all the pomp and pedantry of military diction, usually employed in describing the march of numerous armies from one kingdom to another. In all cases, this kind of mock heroic is among the most powerful sources of the ludicrous: as, by joining the forms of the most momentous of human affairs to the most trivial of human actions, it at once amuses the imagination with novelty and contrast, and flatters that innate principle of selfish vanity or malignity, which makes us naturally delight in the degradation of whatsoever is exalted.

8. Of the same kind are the burlesque imitations or parodies of serious compositions; which being the most easy of all the tricks, by

which ridicule is produced, generally constitute the wit and humour of those, who have no other for as the whole art of this species of the ludicrous consists in employing, in a low sense, or upon a low subject, those modes of expression, which another person has employed seriously, or upon an exalted one, it requires neither invention, learning, nor ingenuity; but is always in the power of any person, who will condescend to employ it. The effect, too, is always certain: for when the expressions, appropriated to grand or elevated subjects, are transferred to those which are minute, humble, or familiar, the contrast will necessarily be ridiculous in proportion as it is strong and abrupt." The name of Boileau has preserved a parody, of this kind, of a celebrated scene in the Cid of Corneille; though it is a piece of wit, of which Boileau's valet-de-chambre was just as capable as his master. Ludicrous parodies of some passages in the odes of Pindar are also still extant, in a comedy of Aristophanes *; and probably many more were made by the lesser wits of that age: since no compositions. were ever more open to such kind of ridicule; the change of a single word being, in many stances, sufficient to direct all his dithyrambic pomp of diction to some low or mean object; and consequently to make it ludicrous, in pro

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