Illustrated with Twenty-four Portraits on Steel, and many Hundred Wood Engravings. EDITED BY WILLIAM E. BURTON. VOLUME I. "I have observed, that in Comedy, the best actor plays the part of the droll, while NEW D. APPLETON YORK: AND COMPANY, 346 & 348 BROADWAY. LONDON: 16 LITTLE BRITAIN. 1859. PREFACE. WHAT constitutes Wit? Wherein is Wit different from Humor? These questions have exercised the pens of various searching expositors, who, in analytical language and graceful periods, prove the truth of the essayist's remark, that "it requires Wit to describe what Wit is." Aristotle, Barrow, Dryden, La Bruyère, Bouhours, Montaigne, Locke, Voltaire, Addison, Cowley, Pope, Davison, Leigh Hunt, Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, Sydney Smith-all good men and true-have enlivened the pensive public with their several definitions, but an acceptable and satisfactory standard of authority has not yet been given. In the prescribed limits of a preface, it would be supererogatory to promulgate any new dogma, or attempt to controvert the hypotheses and pleasant perorations of the many celebrated writers named above. But sufficient evidence may be cited in proof that as yet the Anatomy of Wit and Humor is an unwritten book. Dr. Barrow, in his Sermon against Foolish and Idle Talking and Jesting, has given an able and comprehensive exposition of the habitudes and actualities of Wit. It is worthy of being quoted entire. "It may be demanded what the thing we speak of is, or what this facetiousness doth import. It is indeed a thing so versatile and multiform, appearing in so many shapes, so many postures, so many garbs, so variously apprehended by several eyes and judgments, that it seemeth no less hard to settle a clear and certain notion thereof, than to make a portrait of Proteus, or to define the figure of fleeting air. Sometimes it lieth in pat allusion to a known story, or in seasonable application of a trivial saying, or in forging an apposite tale; sometimes it playeth in words and phrases, taking advantage from the ambiguity of their sense or the affinity of their sound; sometimes it is wrapped in a dress of humorous expression; sometimes it lurketh under an odd similitude. Sometimes it is lodged in a sly question; in a smart answer; in a quirkish reason; in a shrewd intimation; in cunningly diverting or cleverly retorting an objection; sometimes it is couched in a bold scheme of speech; in a tart irony; in a lusty hyperbole; in a startling metaphor; in a plausible reconciling of contradictions; or in acute nonsense. Sometimes a scenical representation of persons or things, a counterfeit speech, a mimical look or gesture, passeth for it. Sometimes an affected simplicity, sometimes a presumptuous bluntness, gives it being. Sometimes it riseth only from a lucky hitting upon what is strange; sometimes from a crafty wresting obvious matter to the purpose. Often it consisteth in one knows not what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how. Its ways are unaccountable and inexplicable, being answerable to the numberless rovings of fancy and windings of language. 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 surprising uncouthness in conceit or expression doth affect and amuse the fancy, stirring in it some wonder, and breeding some delight thereto. It raiseth admiration, as signifying a nimble sagacity of apprehension, a special felicity of invention, a vivacity of spirit, and reach of Wit more than vulgar; it seeming to argue a rare quickness of parts, that one can fetch in remote conceits applicable; a notable skill that he can dexterously accommodate them to the purpose before him; together with a lively briskness of Humor, not apt to damp those sportful flashes of imagination. It also procureth delight, by gratifying curiosity with its rareness or semblance of difficulty (as monsters, not for their beauty but their rarity-as juggling tricks, not for their use but their abstruseness-are beheld with pleasure); by diverting the mind from its road of serious thoughts; by instilling gayety and airiness of spirit; by provoking to such dispositions of spirit in way of emulation or complaisance; and by seasoning matters, otherwise distasteful or insipid, with an unusual and thence grateful tang." As an exposition of the "shapes," the "postures," and the "garbs" of Wit, this is admirable! and minutely elaborate, in accordance with the mathematical fancies of the old divine. But, as regards the combination of spiritual or æsthetical qualities in the construction of the various phases of "facetiousness," little is said. Indeed, as Leigh Hunt observes, "it includes a modest confession of its incompleteness, notwithstanding the writer was in a state of embarras des richesses—of perplexity in his abundance." Perhaps this is the only instance wherein Barrow did not thoroughly exhaust his subject matter in every shape; Charles II. called him "the most unfair preacher in the world, for he left nothing to be said on the other side." Voltaire's enumeration of the shapes of Wit bears such a verisimilitude to the catalogue of the divine as to give authority to a reasonable supposition that the philosopher of Ferney had benefited by a perusal of Barrow's works. "What is called Wit, is sometimes a new comparison, sometimes a subtle allusion; here it is the abuse of a word, which is presented in one sense and left to be understood in another; there, a delicate relation between two ideas not very common. It is a singular metaphor; it is the discovery of something in an object which does not at first strike the observation, but which is really in it; it is the art either of bringing together two things apparently remote, or of dividing two things which seem to be united, or of opposing them to each other. It is that of expressing only one half of what you think, and leaving the other to be guessed. In short, I would tell you of all the different ways of showing Wit, if I had more." Dryden, with classic terseness, says that Wit is "a propriety of thoughts and words adapted to the subject ;" and Pope plagiarises or rather paraphrases the same idea, thus ; True wit is nature to advantage dressed, What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed. Locke's definition of Wit, lauded by Addison, is a plagiarism from Montaigne. The English philosopher asserts that "men who have a great deal of Wit, and prompt memories, have not always the clearest Judgment or deepest reason. For Wit, lying most in the assemblage of ideas, and putting those together with quickness and variety, wherein can be found any semblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy; Judgment, on the contrary, lies quite on the other side, in separating carefully, one from another, ideas wherein can be found the least difference, thereby to avoid being misled by similitude, and by affinity, to take one thing for another." Addison says this is a most admirable reflection upon the dif ference of Wit and Judgment; and Judgment is elsewhere described as the offspring of Truth and Wisdom. In his Genealogy of Humor, Addison states that "Truth was the founder of the family, and the father of Good Sense. Good Sense was the father of Wit, who married a lady of collateral line called Mirth, by whom she had issue Humor. Humor, therefore, being the youngest of this illustrious family, and descended from parents of such different dispositions, is very various and unequal in his temper; sometimes you see him putting on grave looks and a solemn habit; sometimes airy in his behavior, and fantastic in his dress, insomuch that at different times he appears as grave as a judge, and as jocular as a merry-andrew. But as he has a good deal of his mother in his constitution, whatever mood he is in, he never fails to make his company laugh." This is very Spectatorial and witty, but how can the |