so piercing in his looks, as inspired me at once with love and terror. As I was gazing on him, to my unspeakable joy, he took a quiver of arrows from his shoulder, in order to make me a present of it; but as I was reaching out my hand to receive it of him, I knocked it against a chair, and by that means awaked.-C. No. 249. On Laughter and Ridicule; difference between comedy and burlesque; quotation from Milton's L'Allegro. Γέλως άκαιρος ἐν βροτοῖς δεινόν κακόν.—Frag. Vet. Poet. Mirth out of season is a grievous ill. When I make choice of a subject that has not been treated 'of by others, I throw together my reflexions on it without any order or method, so that they may appear rather in the looseness and freedom of an essay, than in the regularity of a set discourse. 10 It is after this manner that I shall consider, laughter and ridicule in my present paper. 20 30 Man is the merriest species of the creation; all above and below him are serious. He sees things in a different light from other beings, and finds his mirth arising from objects, that perhaps cause something like pity or displeasure in higher natures. Laughter is indeed a very good counterpoise to the spleen; and it seems but reasonable that we should be capable of receiving joy from what is no real good to us, since we can receive grief from what is no real evil. I have, in my forty-seventh paper1, raised a speculation on the notion of a modern philosopher, who describes the first motive of laughter to be a secret comparison which we make between ourselves and the persons we laugh at; or, in other words, that satisfaction which we receive from the opinion of some pre-eminence in ourselves, when we see the absurdities of another, or when we reflect on any past absurdities of our own. This seems to hold in most cases, and we may observe that the vainest part of mankind are the most addicted to this passion. I have read a sermon of a conventual in the church of Rome on those words of the wise man, I said of laughter, it is mad; and of mirth, what does it? upon which he laid it down as a point of 1 Omitted from this selection, doctrine, that laughter was the effect of original sin, and that Adam could not laugh before the fall. Laughter, while it lasts, slackens and unbraces the mind, weakens the faculties, and causes a kind of remissness and dissolution in all the powers of the soul: and thus far it may be looked upon as a weakness in the composition of human nature. But if we consider the frequent reliefs we receive from it, and how often it breaks the gloom which is apt to depress the mind, and damp our spirits, with transient unexpected gleams of joy, 10 one would take care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life. The talent of turning men into ridicule, and exposing to laughter those one converses with, is the qualification of little ungenerous tempers. A young man with this cast of mind cuts himself off from all manner of improvement. Every one has his flaws and weaknesses; nay, the greatest blemishes are often found in the most shining characters; but what an absurd thing is it to pass over all the valuable parts of a man, and fix our attention on his infirmities? to observe his imperfections more 20 than his virtues? and to make use of him for the sport of others, rather than for our own improvement? As We therefore very often find, that persons the most accomplished in ridicule are those who are very shrewd at hitting a blot, without exerting anything masterly in themselves. there are many eminent critics who never writ a good line, there are many admirable buffoons that animadvert upon every single defect in another, without ever discovering the least beauty of their own. By this means, these unlucky little wits often gain reputation in the esteem of vulgar minds, and raise themselves 30 above persons of much more laudable characters. If the talent of ridicule were employed to laugh men out of vice and folly, it might be of some use to the world; but, instead of this, we find that it is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything that is solemn and serious, decent and praise-worthy, in human life. We may observe that in the first ages of the world, when the great souls and master-pieces of human nature were produced, men shined by a noble simplicity of behaviour, and were strangers to those little embellishments which are so fashionable in our 10 present conversation. And it is very remarkable, that, notwith standing we fall short at present of the ancients in poetry, painting, oratory, history, architecture, and all the noble arts and sciences which depend more upon genius than experience, we exceed them as much in doggerel, humour, burlesque, and all the trivial arts of ridicule. We meet with more raillery among the moderns, but more good sense among the ancients. The two great branches of ridicule in writing are comedy and burlesque. The first ridicules persons by drawing them in their proper characters, the other by drawing them quite unlike them10 selves. Burlesque is therefore of two kinds; the first represents mean persons in the accoutrements of heroes, the other describes great persons acting and speaking like the basest among the people. Don Quixote is an instance of the first, and Lucian's gods of the second. It is a dispute among the critics, whether burlesque poetry runs best in heroic verse, like that of the Dispensary, or in doggerel, like that of Hudibras. I think, where the low character is to be raised, the heroic is the proper measure; but when an hero is to be pulled down and degraded, it is done best in doggerel. 20 If Hudibras had been set out with as much wit and humour in heroic verse as he is in doggerel, he would have made a much more agreeable figure than he does"; though the generality of his readers are so wonderfully pleased with the double rhymes, that I do not expect many will be of my opinion in this particular. I shall conclude this essay upon laughter with observing, that the metaphor of laughing, applied to fields and meadows when they are in flower, or to trees when they are in blossom, runs through all languages; which I have not observed of any other 30 metaphor, excepting that of fire and burning when they are applied to love. This shews that we naturally regard laughter as what is in itself both amiable and beautiful. For this reason likewise Venus has gained the title of Doμμéidns, the laughterloving dame, as Waller has translated ita, and is represented by Horace as the goddess who delights in laughter. Milton, in a joyous assembly of imaginary persons, has given us a very poetical figure of laughter. His whole band of mirth is so finely described, that I shall set down the passage at length ". But come thou goddess, fair and free, TASTE. And by men, heart-easing mirth, Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles, And in thy right hand lead with thee To live with her, and live with thee, In unreproved pleasures free. 347 C. No. 409. On Taste; what it is, and how it may be improved; a Gothic taste to be eschewed. Musæo contingere cuncta lepore.-LUCR. i. 933. Gratian" very often recommends the fine taste as the utmost perfection of an accomplished man. As this word arises very often in conversation, I shall endeavour to give some account of it, and to lay down rules how we may know whether we are possessed of it, and how we may acquire that fine taste of writing which is so much talked of among the polite world. Most languages make use of this metaphor to express that faculty of the mind which distinguishes all the most concealed faults and nicest perfections in writing. We may be sure this 。 metaphor would not have been so general in all tongues, had there not been a very great conformity between that mental taste which is the subject of this paper, and that sensitive taste which gives us a relish for every different flavour that affects the palate. Accordingly we find there are as many degrees of refinement in the intellectual faculty, as in the sense which is marked out by this common denomination. I knew a person who possessed the one in so great a perfection, that, after having tasted ten different kinds of tea, he would distinguish, without seeing the colour of it, the particular sort which was offered him; and not only so, but any two sorts of them that were mixed together in an equal proportion; nay, he has carried the experiment so far, as, upon tasting the composition of three different sorts, to name the parcels from whence the three several ingredients were taken. A man of a fine taste in writing will discern after the same manner, not only the general beauties and imperfections of an author, but discover the several ways of thinking and expressing himself which diversify him from all other authors, with the several 10 foreign infusions of thought and language, and the particular authors from whom they were borrowed. After having thus far explained what is generally meant by a fine taste in writing, and shewn the propriety of the metaphor which is used on this occasion, I think I may define it to be, that faculty of the soul, which discerns the beauties of an author with pleasure, and the imperfections with dislike. If a man would know whether he is possessed of this faculty, I would have him read over the celebrated works of antiquity, which have stood the test of so many different ages and countries, or those works among the 20 moderns which have the sanction of the politer part of our contemporaries. If, upon the perusal of such writings, he does not find himself delighted in an extraordinary manner, or if, upon reading the admired passages in such authors, he finds a coldness and indifference in his thoughts, he ought to conclude, not (as is too usual among tasteless readers) that the author wants those perfections which have been admired in him, but that he himself wants the faculty of discovering them. He should, in the second place, be very careful to observe, whether he tastes the distinguishing perfections, or, if I may be 30 allowed to call them so, the specific qualities of the author whom he peruses; whether he is particularly pleased with Livy for his manner of telling a story; with Sallust, for his entering into those internal principles of action which arise from the characters and manners of the persons he describes; or with Tacitus, for his displaying those outward motives of safety and interest, which give birth to the whole series of transactions which he relates. He may likewise consider how differently he is affected by the same thought which presents itself in a great writer, from what he is when he finds it delivered by a person of an ordinary 40 genius. For there is as much difference in apprehending a |