Chapter 1
Series One:
_Essays on Wit_
No. 2
_Essay on Wit_ (1748); Richard Flecknoe's _Of one that Zany's the good Companion and Of a bold abusive Wit_ (second edition, 1665);
Joseph Warton, _The Adventurer_, Nos. 127 and 133 (1754); _Of Wit (Weekly Register_, 1732).
With an Introduction to the Series on Wit by Edward N. Hooker
The Augustan Reprint Society November, 1946 _Price_: 75c
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General Editors: Richard C. Boys, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan;
Edward N. Hooker, H.I. Swedenberg, Jr., University of California, Los Angeles 24, California.
Editorial Advisors: Louis L. Bredvold, University of Michigan; James L. Clifford, Columbia University; Benjamin Boyce, University of Nebraska; Cleanth Brooks, Louisiana State University; Arthur Friedman, University of Chicago; James R. Sutherland, Queen Mary College University of London.
INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES ON WIT
The age of Dryden and Pope was an age of wit, but there were few who could explain precisely what they meant by the term. A thing so multiform and. Protean escaped the bonds of logic and definition. In his sermon "Against Foolish Talking and Jesting" the learned Dr. Isaac Barrow attempted to describe some of the forms which it took; the forms were many, and it is difficult to discover any element which they held in common. Nevertheless Barrow ventured a summary:
It is, in short, a manner of speaking out of the simple and plain way, (such as Reason teacheth and proveth things by,) which by a pretty surprizing uncouthness in conceit of expression doth affect and amuse the fancy, stirring in it some wonder, and breeding some delight thereto.
And about sixty years later, despite the work of Hobbes and Locke in calling attention to the importance of semantics, the confusion still existed. According to John Oldmixon (_Essay on Criticism_, 1727, p. 21), "Wit and Humour, Wit and good Sense, Wit and Wisdom, Wit and Reason, Wit and Craft; nay, Wit and Philosophy, are with us almost the same Things." Some such confusion is apparent in the definition presented by the _Essay on Wit_ (1748, p. 6).
In general it was recognized that there were two main kinds of wit. Both fancy and judgment, said Hobbes (_Human Nature_, X, sect. 4), are usually understood in the term _wit_; and wit seems to be "a tenuity and agility of spirits," opposed to the sluggishness of spirits assumed to be characteristic of dull people. Sometimes wit was used in this sense to translate the words _ingenium_ or _l'esprit_. But Hobbes's disciple Walter Charleton objected to making it the equivalent of _ingenium_, which, he said, rather signified a man's natural inclination--that is, genius. Instead, he described wit as either the faculty of understanding, or an act or effect of that faculty; and understanding is made up of both judgment and Imagination. The Ample or Happy Wit exhibits a fine blend of the two (_Brief Discourse concerning the Different Wits of Men_, 1669, pp. 10, 17-19). In this sense wit combines quickness and solidity of mind.
In the other, and more restricted sense, wit was made identical with fancy (or imagination) and distinguished sharply from reason or judgment. So Hobbes, recording a popular meaning of wit, remarked (_Leviathan_. I, viii) that people who discover rarely observed similitudes in objects that otherwise are much unlike, are said to have a good wit. And judgment, directly opposed to it, was taken to be the faculty of discerning differences in objects that are superficially alike. (Between this idea of wit as discovering likeness in things unlike, and the Platonic idea of discovering the One in the Many, the Augustans made no connection.) A similar distinction between wit and judgment was made by Charleton, Robert Boyle, John Locke, and many others. The full implication lying in Hobbes's definition can be seen in Walter Charleton, who said (_Brief Discourse_, pp. 20-21) that imagination (or wit) is the faculty by which "we conceive some certain similitude in objects really unlike, and pleasantly confound them in discourse: Which by its unexpected Fineness and allusion, surprizing the Hearer, renders him less curious of the truth of what is said." In short, wit is delightful, but, because it leads away from truth, unprofitable and, it may be, even dangerous.
The identification of wit with fancy gave it a lowly role in Augustan thinking; and also in literary prose, which was supposed to be the language of reason (cf. Donald F. Bond, "'Distrust' of Imagination in English Neo-Classicism," _PQ_, XIV, 54-69). What of its position in poetry? According to Hobbes, poetry must exhibit both judgment and fancy, but fancy should dominate; and the work of fancy is to adorn discourse with tropes and figures, to please by extravagance, to disguise meaning, and to create pleasant illusions. One of Hobbes's followers announced that fancy must have the upper hand because all poems please chiefly by novelty. While they made wit the most essential element in poetry, they made it trivial and empty, and thereby helped to bring poetry itself into contempt.
Partly to oppose this low opinion of poetry, the neo-Aristotelians among the critics began to stress the view that fable, design, and structure were the really essential elements in poetry, and that these were the product of reason, or judgment. And because reason was the means by which truth was discovered, poetry by virtue of its rational framework became capable of revealing and communicating truth--that is, of instructing. In this conception of poetry there was little glory left for wit. It was relegated to be used for color and adornment in serious poetry, or to furnish the substance of the "little" poetry which could not boast of design or structure. Thus, the _Essay on Wit_ invites the poet, (p. 15):
Have as much Wit as you will, or you can, in a Madrigal, in little light Verses, in the Scene of a Comedy, which is neither passionate or simple, in a Compliment, in a little Story, in a Letter where you would be merry yourself to make your Friends so.
Be witty in these playful varieties of poetry, because wit in a large and serious work would be insufferable.
"These Sports of the Imagination, these Finesses, these Conceits, these glittering Strokes, these Gaieties, these little cut Sentences, these ingenious Prodigalities" in which wit is expressed might be either sober or funny. Most of the examples in the _Essay on Wit_ are of the sober kind, coming under the order of wit because they are pretty and diverting fancies. But by the 1690's there had been a clear tendency to associate wit with mirth, and often with satire. By 1726 James Arbuckle could write (_A Collection of Letters_, 1729, II, 72): "... Satire and Ridicule, which are the main Provocatives to Laughter, still keep their ground among us, and are reckoned the chief Embellishments of Discourse by all who aim at the Character of Wits."
The end of wit was to surprise and delight. One may surprise by novelty, but the easiest road to the goal is audacity; and the subjects which lent themselves most readily to audacity were sex and religion. The treatment of the latter proved especially troublesome to good men like Blackmore, and the frequency of portraits and characters of the Profance Wit shows that many people were disturbed. Shaftesbury in _Sensus Communis_ (1709) tried to justify the use of wit in discussing religion. For the rest of the century Shaftesbury's position was the center of heated debate, with Akenside supporting, and John Brown and Warburton opposing, the employment of wit in religion; and the _Gentleman's Magazine_ is full of the arguments of lesser men who took sides. The author of the _Essay on Wit_ places himself firmly beside Shaftesbury when he remarks (p. 14) that "a Subject which will not bear Raillery, is suspicious." The controversy is reviewed in an article by A.O. Aldridge, called "Shaftesbury and the Test of Truth" (_PMLA_, LX, 129-156).
Wit was taken to be the source, of tropes, and figures of speech, of all the color and adornments of rhetoric; and the old tradition of rhetoric, handed down from the Renaissance, tended to regard tropes and figures as mere ornament, a means of decorating the surface, an artful prettifying of a subject in order that it might please. For this reason wit was likely to be considered out of place in serious works which called for naturalness and passion. The objection to the simile in the language of passion was an old note in English criticism (cf. Dennis, _Critical Works_, I, 424); but the author of the _Essay on Wit_ in condemning glittering strokes and ingenious prodigalities in impassioned literature shows by his phrasing that he is following Father Bouhours (cf. Manlere die Bien Penser, Amsterdam, 1688, pp. 8-9, 234, 296, 388).
In _Spectator_, no. 249, Addison entered the contest known as the Battle of the Books, and lined himself up squarely on the side of the Ancients. The ancients, he said, surpassed the moderns in poetry, painting, oratory, history, architecture, and, in fact, all arts and sciences which depend more on genius than on experience. It was no lightening of the judgment when he added that the moderns surpass the ancients in doggerel, humour burlesque, and all the trivial arts of ridicule, the arts of the "unlucky little wits." So degraded had wit become! In the _Adventurer_, nos. 127 and 133, Joseph Warton showed himself to be essentially in agreement with Addison's verdict, differing only in thinking that a few moderns might compare with the ancients in works of genius. He appears somewhat less scornful of wit, recognizing its part in the arts of civility and the decencies of conversation; and yet he associates It with ridicule, laughter, and luxury, and makes it the pleasant plaything of gentlemen.
Occasionally there were attempts to restore wit to its pristine glory, to the position it had occupied before it was tied to mirth and ridicule, when Atterbury could thus define it: "Wit, indeed, as it implies, a certain uncommon Reach and Vivacity of Thought, is an Excellent Talent; very fit to be employ'd in the Search of Truth...." So the anonymous author of _A Satyr upon a Late Pamphlet Entitled, A Satyr against Wit_ (1700) could rhapsodize:
Wit is a Radiant Spark of Heav'nly Fire, Full of Delight, and worthy of Desire; Bright as the Ruler of the Realms of Day, Sun of the Soul, with in-born Beauties gay....
So Corbyn Morris in his _Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Raillery, Satire, and Ridicule_, 1744, probably the best and clearest treatment of the subject in the first half of the eighteenth century, wrote (p. 1): "Wit is the Lustre resulting from the quick Elucidation of one Subject, by a just and unexpected Arrangement of it with another Subject." And so the author of the essay "Of Wit" in the _Weekly Register_ for July 22, 1732, ventured his opinion (reprinted in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, II, 861-862):
Wit is a Start of Imagination in the Speaker, that strikes the Imagination of the Hearer with an Idea of Beauty common to both; and the immediate Result of the Comparison is the Flash of Joy that attends it; it stands in the same Regard to Sense, or Wisdom, as lightning to the Sun, suddenly kindled and as suddenly gone....
But for the most part wit was becoming an expression of mirth or ridicule in which fancy was primarily involved; at its best wit was coupled with politeness and elegance in conversation, and at its worst with silliness and extravagance, or with indecency and impiety.
The essay from the _Weekly Register_ is one of a large number of little histories of wit, which appear through the age of Dryden and Pope and which attempt to relate developments in wit to changes in fashion, religion, polities, social manners, and taste. These are rudimentary but important expressions of the idea that literature is conditioned by changing circumstances and social customs in the lives of the people from whom it springs.
The _Essay on Wit_, 1748, is reprinted here, by permission, from a copy in the library of the University of Illinois. Flecknoe's _Characters_ are reprinted from a copy of _Sixty Nine Enigmatical Character_ owned by the library of the University of Michigan. The essays of Joseph Warton is the _Adventurer_, and the typescript copy of the essay
"Of Wit" from the _Weekly Register_ (as reprinted in the _Gentleman's Magazine_) are also taken from copies belonging to the University of Michigan.
Edward Niles Hooker University of California, Los Angeles
* * * * *
AN ESSAY ON WIT.
[Price Six-pence.]
AN ESSAY ON WIT:
To which is annexed,
A DISSERTATION on Antient and Modern HISTORY.
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____ _Sapientia prima Stultiti‚ caruisse._ HOR. Epist. I. Lib. I.
* * * * *
_LONDON_:
Printed for _T. Lownds_, Bookseller, at the _Bible_ and _Crown_, in _Exeter-Change_, in the _Strand_, 1748.
* * * * *
AN ESSAY ON WIT.
A Gentleman who had some Knowledge in the human Heart, was consulted about a Tragedy which was going to be acted: He answer'd that there was so much Wit in the Piece that he doubted of its Success.--At hearing such a Judgment, a Man will immediately cry out, What! is Wit then a Fault, at a Time when every Body aims at having it, when nobody writes but to shew he has it; when the Publick applauds even false Thoughts, provided they are shining! Yes, 'twill doubtless be applauded the first Day, and grow tiresome the next.
That which they call Wit, is sometimes a new Simile, sometimes a fine Allusion: Here 'tis the Abuse of a Word which presents itself in one Sense, and is understood in another; there a delicate Relation between two uncommon Ideas: 'Tis an extraordinary Metaphor; 'tis something which in an Object does not at first present itself, but nevertheless is in it; 'tis the Art, to unite two Things which were far from one another; to separate two which seem to be joined, or to set them in Opposition; 'tis the Art, of expressing but half the Thought and leaving the other to be found out. In short, I'd tell all the different Ways of shewing Wit, if I knew of any more.
But all these Brightnesses (and I speak not of the false ones) agree not, or very seldom agree with a serious Work, which ought to be interesting. The Reason of it is, that 'tis then the Author that appears, and the Publick will see no body but the Hero. Moreover the Hero is always either in a Passion, or in Danger. Danger, and the Passions seek not Expressions of Wit. _Priam_ and _Hecuba_ don't make Epigrams, when their Children's Throats are cut and _Troy_ in Flames:--_Dido_ does not sigh in Madrigals, when she flies to the Pile upon which she's going to sacrifice herself:--_Demosthenes_ has no Prettinesses, when he animates the _Athenians_ to War; if he had, he'd be a Rhetorician indeed, instead of which he's a Statesman.
If _Pyrrhus_ was always to express himself in this Stile:
_'Tis true, My Sword has often reek'd in_ Phrygian _Blood, And carried Havock through your Royal Kindred: But you, fair Princess, amply have aveng'd Old_ Priam's _vanquish'd House: And all the Woes, I brought on them, fall short of what I suffer._
This Character wou'd not touch at all: 'Twou'd soon be perceiv'd, that true Passion seldom makes Use of such Comparisons, and that there is very little Proportion between the real Fires which consumed _Troy_, and the amorous Fires of _Pyrrhus_; between the Havock he made amongst _Andromache_'s Kindred and the Cruelty she shews him.
_Chamont_ says, in speaking of _Monimia_:
_You took her up a little tender Flower, Just sprouted on a Bank, which the next Frost Had nipt; and, with a careful loving Hand, Transplanted her into your own fair Garden, Where the Sun always shines: There long she flourish'd, Grew sweet to Sense, and lovely to the Eye; Till at the last, a cruel Spoiler came, Cropt this fair Rose, and rifled all its Sweetness, Then cast it, like a loathsome Weed, away._
This Thought has a prodigious Eclat: There's a great deal of Wit in it, and even an Air of Simplicity that imposes upon one. We all see, that these Verses, pronounced with the Art and Enthusiasm of a good Actor never fail of Applause; but I think we may also see, that the Tragedy of the _Orphan_ wrote entirely in this Taste would never have lived long.
In effect, why should _Chamont_ make such a long-winded Simile almost in the Height of Rage for the Ruin of his Sister? Is that natural? Does not the Poet here quite hide his Hero to shew himself?
This brings into my Mind the absurd Custom of finishing the Acts of almost all our modern Tragedies with a Simile; surely in a great Crisis of Affairs, in a Council, in a violent Passion of Love or Wrath, in a pressing Danger, Princes, Ministers, Heroes or Lovers, should not make Poetical Comparisons.--Even _Marcia_'s (or rather Mr. _Addison_'s) beautiful Simile at the End of the first Act of _Cato_, is scarcely to be forgiven.
What then would a Work be, that was filled with far-fetched and Problematick Thoughts? How infinitely superior to all such dazling Ideas, are these simple and natural Words of _Monimia_ to her angry Brother?
_Look kindly on me then. I cannot bear Severity; it daunts, and does amaze me:_ _My Heart's so tender, should you charge me rough, I should but weep, and answer you with sobbing. But use me gently, like a loving Brother, And search through all the Secrets of my Soul._
Or these of _Brutus_, when he receives the News of his Wife's Death:
Brutus. _Now, as you are a_ Roman, _tell me true._
Messala. _Then like a_ Roman _bear the Truth I tell; For certain she is dead, and by strange manner._
Brutus. _Why farewel_ Portia.--_We must die,_ Messala. _With meditating that she must die once, I have the Patience to endure it now._
Or these noble ones of _Titinius_, when he stabs himself:
_By your leave Gods--this is a_ Roman's _Part._
It is not that which is called Wit, but what is sublime and noble that makes true Beauty.
I have purposely chose these Examples from good Authors, that they may be the more striking; and I speak not of those Points and Quibbles, whose Impropriety is easily perceiv'd. There is no one but laughs when _Hotspur_ says,
_Why, what a deal of candied Courtesie This fawning Greyhound then did proffer me! Look, when his infant Fortune came to Age, And gentle_ Harry Percy--_and kind Cousin_--_The Devil take such Cozeners_.--
_Shakespear_ found the Stage, and all the People of his Days, infected with these Puerillities, and he very well knew how (though perhaps he never read it in _Epictetus_) [Greek: ] to attune, or harmonize his Mind to the Things which happen.
I now remember one of these shining Strokes, which I have seen quoted in several Works of Taste, and even in the Treatise of Studies by the late Mr. _Rollin_. This _Morceau_ is taken from the beautiful Funeral Oration of the great _Turenne_: The whole Piece is very fine, but it seems to me that the Stroke I am speaking of should not have been made Use of by a Bishop.--This is it:
"O Sovereigns! Enemies of _France_, ye live, and the Spirit of Christian Charity forbids me to wish your Deaths, &c.--But ye live, and I mourn in this Pulpit the Death of a virtuous Captain, whose Intentions were pure, &c.--"
An Apostrophe in this Taste would have been very proper at _Rome_ in the Civil Wars, after the Assassination of _Pompey_; or at _London_ after the Death of _Charles_ the First. But is it decent, in a Pulpit, to wish for the Death of the Emperor, the King of _Spain_, and the Electors; to put them in Balance with the General of a King's Army, who is their Enemy? Or ought the Intentions of a Captain, which can be no other than to serve his Prince, to be compared with the Politick Interests of the crown'd Heads against which he serves? What would be said of a _Frenchman_, who had wished for the Death of the King of _England_, because of the Loss of the Chevalier _Belleisle_, whose Intentions were pure?
For what Reason has this Passage been always praised by the Criticks? 'Tis because the Figure is in itself beautiful and pathetick, but they did not examine into the Congruity and Bottom of the Thought.
I return to my Paradox--That all these shining Strokes, to which they give the Name of Wit, never ought to be introduced into great Works made to instruct or to move; I'll even say they ought not to be found in Odes for Musick. Musick expresses Passions, Sentiments and Images: but what are the Concords that can be giv'n an Epigram? _Dryden_ was sometimes negligent, but he was always natural.
In a Sermon of Doctor _South_, where he speaks of Man's Rectitude and Freedom from Sin before the Fall, are seen these Words:
"We were not born crooked, we learnt these Windings and Turnings of the Serpent."
I remember to have heard this Passage admired by several People: but who does not see that the Motions, _viz._ the Windings and Turnings of the Serpent's Body are here confounded with those of its Heart: and that at best, 'tis but a mere Point and Pleasantry.
Certainly there's a great Impropriety in putting any kind of Smartness into Pieces of such a Nature as Dr. _South_'s; but what is still worse, we generally find these Smartnesses to be quite vague and superficial; they don't enter, but only play upon the Surface of the Soul.
Had a certain polite Author been a Cotemporary of the Doctor's, he'd have told him that
[Greek: TÍn men SpoudhhÍn dichph teirein ghelÙi, thyn de gelÙa spoudhÍ.]
Humour is the only Test of Gravity; and Gravity of Humour. For a Subject which will not bear Raillery, is suspicious; and a Jest which will not bear a serious Examination, is certainly false Wit.
These Sports of the Imagination, these Finesses, these Conceits, these glittering Strokes, these Gaieties, these little cut Sentences, these ingenious Prodigalities, which are lavished away in our Times, agree with none but little Works. The Front of St _Paul_'s Church is simple and majestick. A Cabinet may with Propriety enough contain little Ornaments. Have as much Wit as you will, or you can, in a Madrigal, in little light Verses, in the Scene of a Comedy, which is neither passionate or simple, in a Compliment, in a little Story, in a Letter where you would be merry yourself to make your Friends so.
_Spencer_ was very well acquainted with this Art. In his Fairy Queen, you find hardly any thing but what is sublime and full of Imagery: but in his detached Pieces, such as the Hymn in Honour of Beauty, The Fate of the Butterfly, _Britain_'s Ida, &c. he gave a Loose to his Wit and Delicacy. The following Verses are Part of the Description of _Venus_ asleep, in the last mention'd Poem:
_Her full large Eyes, in jetty-black array'd, Proud Beauty not confin'd to red and white, But oft herself in black more rich display'd; Both Contraries did yet themselves unite, To make one Beauty in different Delight:_ _A thousand Loves, sate playing in each Eye, And smiling Mirth kissing fair Courtesy, By sweet Persuasion won a bloodless Victory._