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CHAP.

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portion to its inflation and magnificence. The ridiculous seems indeed to be always lying in wait on the extreme verge of the sublime and pathetic; and, as the chill of a single drop of cold water can condense into torpid dew an elastic mass of steam sufficient to give motion to the most powerful engine, so the damp of a single low word or incongruous circumstance is sufficient to sink into meanness and ridicule the most lofty imagery, or pathetic effusion, expressed otherwise in the most dignified and appropriate terms; and the higher the pitch, to which the strings of passion or enthusiasm are strained, the more sudden and complete will be their relaxation.

9. Upon the same principle, incongruities in dress, deportment, and dialect; such as dirt and finery, awkwardness and affectation, pomp and vulgarity, are ludicrous; and, above all, the heterogeneous confusion of accent and idiom, which a foreigner makes, when speaking a language, with which he is but imperfectly acquainted; a species of the ridiculous, which, howsoever low and contemptible it may appear to the polished courtier, or proud philosopher, has been a constant resource of comedy, from the time of Aristophanes, to the present day; Moliere being the only writer, distinguished for much vis comica, who has not condescended to employ it.

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10. The pleasure, which we receive from the imitations of a common mimic, who takes off, of the Ridias it is called, the peculiarities of voice, gesture, manner, and expression of particular individuals, is of the same kind, and derived from the same principle: for, in the imitation, those peculiarities are always, in some degree, distorted and exaggerated; and, by being exhibited through organs and features, to which they do not naturally belong, they acquire a new character; which becomes ludicrous, in proportion as it becomes remote from the general style then in use in the polished ranks of society. There is scarcely any person, whose manner a good mimic will not make appear ludicrous; or whose features a good caricaturist will not make appear ridiculous without, in either case, losing the general resemblance for there is scarcely any individual, who has not some peculiarity both in his manner and features; and, by exaggerating this, and making it prominent, both the one and the other are enabled to give a vitiated and distorted; and, consequently, a ludicrous resemblance of him.

11. In all these cases, it is something of defect or deformity which pleases us; and consequently, how degrading soever it may be to own it, the passion flattered must be of the malignant kind. Those persons, nevertheless,

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who are most prone to laughter, and most Of the Ridi- ready to enjoy every kind of social pleasantry or ridicule, without reflecting at whose expence it is indulged, are commonly called good natured; while those, on the contrary, who show no such disposition; but who chill with grave looks; or check with moral observations, the mirth, which a gay circle is deriving from a ludicrous display of the follies and foibles of a person, whom they, perhaps, all reverence and esteem, are as commonly styled morose, sour, ill-natured fellows. But in this case, we confound two qualities, which are extremely different, good-nature, and good-humour. Goodnature is that benevolent sensibility of mind, which disposes us to feel both the happiness and misery of others; and to endeavour to promote the one, and prevent or mitigate the other: but, as this 'is often quite impossible; and as spectacles of misery are more frequent and obtrusive than those of bliss; the good-natured man often finds his imagination so haunted with unpleasant images; and his memory so loaded with dismal recollections; that his whole mind becomes tinged with melancholy; which frequently shows itself in unseasonable gravity, and even austerity of countenance and deportment; and in a gloomy roughness of behaviour; which is easily mistaken for the sour morosity of the worst spe

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cies of malignant temper. Good humour, on the contrary, is that prompt susceptibility of of the Ridievery kind of social or festive gratification, which a mind void of suffering or sorrow in itself; and incapable, through want of thought or sensibility, of feeling the sufferings or sorrows of others, ever enjoys. A certain degree of vanity, or light pride, is absolutely necessary to feed and support it; and, though it is never allied to dark envy or atrocious malignity, it is never, I believe, entirely free from a certain share of sordid selfishness: for, as the perpetual smile of gaiety can only flow from the heart, which is perpetually at ease, it can only flow from that, which carries the ingredients of perpetual ease always within itself; and these are affections, which never diverge far from its own centre.

12. There is, nevertheless, a certain degree of sympathy in joy, as well as in sorrow-in laughter, as well as in tears

Ut ridentibus adrident, ita flentibus adflent
Humani vultus.

1

But still, I think, the sympathy is weaker; and the comparative degree of joy or exhilaration, which we feel in beholding the gaiety and festivity of others, is much less than that of the grief or pity, which we feel in beholding their sufferings and sorrows. This, however, may

CHAP. 11.

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depend, in a great degree, on the respective Of the Ridi- constitutions of different individuals; for each will of course sympathize most with that passion, to which he is most prone by nature or habit but, nevertheless, in exciting laughter, sympathy seems, in all cases, to be less powerful than contrast; for the dry joker or grave buffoon is always more successful, in creating mirth, than the gay giggling one. What the poet says of sympathetic sorrow

Si vis me flere dolendum est

Primum ipsi tibi

is certainly not applicable to sympathetic merriment: for, in proportion as the wit laughs at his own joke, his audience are generally disposed to be serious *.

13. All the selfish passions, or those passions which peculiarly belong to self-preservation or self-gratification; such as fear, parsimony, avarice, vanity, gluttony, &c. are the most common and proper subjects of the ridiculous; and are consequently the leading characteristics in the most prominent personages of comic fiction for, as they show vice without energy; and make human nature appear base without being atrocious, and vile without being destruc

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"Quamquam gratiæ plurimum dictis severitas affert; fitque ridiculum id ipsum, quia qui dicit non ridet.”— QUINCTIL. Inst. 1. vi. c. iii.

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