lime paffage of Mofes, Let there be light, and there was light, weak and ineffectual.

The fkilful nymph reviews her force with care,
Let Spades be trumps, fhe faid; and thrumps they were.
RAPE OF THE LOCK, Cant. III. ver. 45.

Such poor attempts at parody as this affect only the persons who make them. The original paffages themselves fuffer no injury from them, as they were observed to do from a happy and fuccessful parody.

LECTURE

LECTURE XXVI.

Of RIDDLES, PUNS, and the ferious ANTITHESIS.

THE pleasure we receive from the folution of

riddles may not improperly be mentioned under this head of Contraft. The generality of riddles are nothing more than very ftrong and harsh metaphors, or rather allegories, and the pleasure we receive from them is in proportion to the greatnefs of the analogy between two things which are very different. Of this nature is the famous riddle of the Sphynx, "What creature is that "which walks upon four legs in the morning,

upon two at noon, and upon three at night?" Every thing that ftrikes us in the application of this to a man, is to find that hands and a staff are called legs, when, like them, they reft upon the ground, and support a perfon; that infancy is the morning, middle age the noon, and old age the evening of life.

Some other riddles are of another kind, and particularly that of Samfon; "Out of the eater

came forth meat, and out of the strong came "forth fweetnefs." The figure in this riddle is not a metaphor, because a lion is not called the eater; nor honey, fweetnefs, on account of their refemblance

refemblance to one another; but on account of another relation which will be explained when I treat of the Metonymy.

A contraft of ideas is not always neceffary to please and to divert: a verbal contraft, arising from the different meanings of the fame term, is often fufficient. A word used in different fenfes is called a pun, or a play upon words; fuch is that upon the word grace, in the following paffage of Shakefpeare, who abounds in this species of wit:

1

Fal. "God fave thy grace; majefty I should "have faid, for grace thou wilt have none. Henry. "What none !

.

Fal. "

No, by my troth, not fo much as will "serve to be a prologue to an egg and butter." First Part of HENRY IV. A&t I. Scene 2.

The word grace is, in fact, ufed in three fenfes in this paffage; and it is true that the three ideas fignified by it, viz. a title of honour, goodness of heart, and a grace before meat, have no real resemblance, as they agree in nothing but that they happen to be fignified by the fame term; which is no relation founded in nature, but is merely accidental, and arbitrary. Yet, fince the resemblance in expreffion appears to be, in fact, fufficient to make the difference in fenfe very striking and diverting, it feems to be enough to intitle it to the name of

wit,

wit, in common with other diverting contrafts, which the ingenuity of men hath hit upon.

Sometimes we meet with a double contraft, viz. both in the ideas, and in the words; as in the following paffage of Mr. Pope:

Here thou, great Anna, whom three realms obey,
Doft fometimes counfel take, and sometimes tea.

RAPE OF THE LOCK, Cant. III. v. 7.

If the ambiguous word take be changed in this paffage, the contraft in fenfe is fufficiently ftriking: but the use of that word, which happens to be equally applicable to counsel and tea, though in very different fenfes, feems to give an additional beauty, of this lower kind, to the paffage.

There is a like double contraft in the old infcription,

Beneath this ftone my wife doth lie:
She's now at reft, and fo am I.

The reafon why puns have been fo much condemned of late, notwithstanding both the ingenuity requifite to difcover them, and their well-known effects, fufficiently prove them to be a fpecies of wit, feems to be, that they have been generally mifapplied; that is, the pleasure they give us is of a nature unfuitable to the proper effect of the works in which they have often been introduced. To fay they are no fpecies of wit, because they will not bear tranflating into another language, is

tog

too weak to need any refutation. But when they have occurred in fermons, in tragedies, in a variety of ferious compofitions, and in converfations upon serious fubjects, it is no wonder they have been perceived to have a disagreeable effect, and that the grofs abuse of them hath made the use of them to be univerfally condemned. Indeed, puns accord only with the tone of compofitions which abound with the flightest and most trifling contrafts; infomuch that they have an ill effect when intermixed in many fpecies of wit. They can only please in a peculiarly gay humour, when the mind is uncommonly irritable, and difpofed to be diverted with any thing.

Indeed, for the fame reason that we condemn the use of puns, we also condemn the use of any fpecies of wit, of any contrafts intended to divert; fince thefe, with regard to their effects, differ only in degree, and not in kind. They are univerfally improper when they do not accord with the reft of the piece in which they are introduced; that is, when the temper of mind which is requifite to relish them is not naturally produced by the general ftrain of the compofition. In all ferious compofitions, therefore, of whatever kind, they ought carefully to be avoided, as also the frequent ufe of the grave antithefis, when we would appear to be in earneft, and more intent upon the fubject than the manner of compofition. The ftrong and pointed antithefis occurs fo feldom in

real