quibbles, of sy.lables, as in echoes and rhymes, or of letters, as in anagrams and acrostics. But every resemblance of ideas is not what we call wit, and it must be such an one that gives delight and surprise to the reader. Where the likeness is obvious it creates no surprise and is not wit. Thus, when a poet tells us that the bosom of his mistress is as white as snow, there is no wit in the comparison; but, when he adds with a sigh, it is as cold too, it then grows into wit."

"1," said BUCKINGHAM, "would not so coldly speak of this vivifier of human intellect :

True wit is everlasting like the sun,,

Which, though sometimes behind a cloud retir'd,
Breaks out again, and is by all admir'd:
A flame that glows amidst conceptions fit,
E'en something of divine, and more than wit,
Itself unseen, yet all things by it shown,
Describing all men, but describ'd by none.''

"Pshaw," exclaimed DENNIS, with the utmost impatience, "what rhapsody is here! His Grace, when he wrote the Rehearsal, obtained reputation as an exemplifier of wit, which he has destroyed, and thus done justice to the world, by attempting to define it. No intelligible characteristic of that quality has he favoured us with, if we except the very amusing paradox, that true wit is something more than vit. But, so it is. Prose writers have seldom been capable of conceiving, illustrating, or defining wit; and for the poets, they have generally lost their wits, in attempting to do the last. For instance, the crooked little gentleman, who has so gravely amused us with his sententious plagiarism from Dryden, when he entered the lists, proprio marte, and soared on his own feeble wings, indulged us with the following delectable apophthegm:

There are whom Heaven has bless'd with store of wit,
Yet want as much again to manage it.'

which would have stood alone in palpable absurdity, but for the kind example orded it by his Grace of Buckingham.'

A general murmur of disapprobation, which arose from the writers both of rose and verse, at this attack of Dennis's two-edged sword, compelled the Zoilus silence; when SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE claimed the attention of the assembly, and Ans deïvered himself · ·

"Wit is à Saxon word that is used to express what the Spaniards and Italians call rigento, a French Esprit, both from the Latin; but I think Wit more peculiarly is the characteristic of poetr of prose, and is displayed in those writings or discourses which are the most pleasing and entertai all that read or hear them."

"I must acknowledge," said JOHNSON, who followed him,

"That I do not perceive the imperative necessity of ascertaining the etymology of a term in gene for the purpose of arriving at its ordinary acceptation; and though the labours of the philologist n usefully and successfully employed in collating the several terms employed in different languag convey the same idea, such research must be deemed futile and superfluous in investigating the import of a word vernacular in our own tongue, and regarded as sufficiently intelligible to g capacities. I cannot see why the properties attributed to wit by Sir William Temple, should chara verse more than prose compositions. Mr. Pope's definition of wit would exclude that originality wi one of its peculiar ornaments. Buckingham's flight, non usitatâ nec tenni pennâ, I shall not pret follow. The attempt to oppose wit to judgment is obviously sophistical, and I consider Sterne's ob tion on this head extremely happy; but a simile is not a definition. When a philosopher of antiquit required to define motion, he simply rose and walked round the room. In my opinion the case is the same with regard to wit. He who cannot conceive its nature, unless it be defined to him, will reap advantage from any definition with which he can be presented."

It was the voice of thunder, and a reproof on the Editors which reached organs of hearing, like the great clock of St. Paul's. However, in à mor they were relieved by the suavity of LOCKE, who suddenly presented himself, lea against one of the eternal stones of the circle.

"If a definition strictly logical," said he, "be intended by the Doctor, opinion is perhaps correct. But this does not seem to be a reason why we sh decline inquiring into the nature and distinguishing properties of Wit. Wit pears to me to consist in the assemblage of ideas, and in putting them together quickness and variety, wherein can be found any semblance or congruity, the to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy. It is a junctio things by distant and fanciful relations, which surprise because they are u pected."

"With all my veneration for the illustrious philosopher," replied CONGREVE, "I cannot join in his of the subject. Wit, I-consider, as a singular and unavoidable manner of doing or saying any thing har and natural to one man only, by which bis speech and actions are distinguished from those of men."

GOLDSMITH NOW spoke, and maintained, with his usual pleasantry, that

"As almost every character which has excited either attention or pity, has owed part of its success to merit, and part to a happy concurrence of circumstances in its favour, had Cæsar or Cromwell exchanged countries, the one might have been a sergeant and the other an exciseman. So it is with Wit, which generally succeeds more from being happily addressed, than from its native poignancy."

"I admire the laconic inference drawn by the last speaker," said the author of Hudibras, "and thus far coincide in his idea of the qualities of wit:

'All wit and fancy, like a diamond,

The more exact and curious 'tis ground,
Is forc'd for every caract to abate

As much in value, as it wants in weight.””

"For my part," said the venerable author of the Night Thoughts, "I have always regarded wit as chiefly characterised by a happy union of courtesy and severity: As in smooth oil, the razor best is whet, So wit is keenest by politeness set.

Their want of edge from their offence is seen,
Both pain us least when exquisitely keen.'

"Tobject," said SELDON," to the observations of the four gentlemen who have last spoken. Those of the first are very loose and general, and all have been too epigrammatic in their remarks; and though I would not place wit and judgment in antithesis, I by no means agree with those persons who entertain an idea that wit necessarily implies wisdom. Wit and wisdom differ: wit is upon the sudden turn; wisdom naging about ends. Nature must be the groundwork of wit and art. Wit must grow like fingers; if be taken from others, it is like plums stuck upon blackthorns, there they are awhile, but they come to tting. He that lets fly all he knows or thinks, may by chance be satirically witty."

What wit is," said HUME gravely, "it may not be easy to define; but it is sufficient to our purpose datat affects taste and sentiment, and bestows immediate enjoyment. The most profound metaphysics ght nevertheless be employed in explaining the various kinds and species of wit, and many classes of it ight perhaps be resolved into more general principles."

On Hume's silence, LORD KAIMES thus addressed the audience.

"After all the ingenious, and, in many instances, profound observations, which have been elicited the preceding speakers, some of the most striking and decided properties of wit seem to have been iced. Wit," as Mr. Locke has justly remarked, "consists chiefly in joining things by distant fciful relations, which surprise, because they are unexpected. Wit is of all the most elegant reSo: the image enters the mind with gaiety, and gives a sudden, flush, which is extremely pleasant. Wadrelore gently elevates without straining, raises mirth without dissoluteness, and relaxes while it

entertains. The term Wit is applied to such thoughts and expressions as are ludicrous, and o some degree of surprise by their singularity. In its proper sense it is of two kinds; wit in the t and wit in the words or expression."

KANT, who had hitherto stood in a corner, now darted in the midst of the a bly and proceeded thus:

"In every thing capable of exciting hearty laughter, there must be absurdity. Laughter is an tion from the sudden change of a strained imagination into nothing. This change, which certain no means grateful to the understanding, indirectly, and for a moment, produces very lively gratif The cause must therefore consist in an influence, exerted upon the body, and in the reaction of thi the mind. The idea presented is not, in itself, an object of pleasure, as it is in the case of a pers receives tidings of a successful stroke in trade. How, in fact, can mere balked expectations be ple But a play of ideas takes place, and this excites a play of the powers of life.

"An Indian, at table with an Englishman, at Surat, expressed his surprise by loud exclamatio seeing a vast quantity of froth ooze out of a bottle of porter, as soon as the cork was drawn. asked, What surprised him so? Nay, said he, don't suppose I wonder it comes out; but how d ever contrive to squeeze it in? We do not laugh at this story, because we find ourselves wiser th poor Indian, or because the understanding finds in it any thing satisfactory, but our expectatio straine, and suddenly vanishes. A rich man's heir is desirous to celebrate his funeral with all nity, but he complains that he cannot accomplish his purpose: for, says he, the more I give my m to look sorrowful, the more cheerful do these fellows appear. The reason why we laugh aloud at the sudden vanishing of expectation. Let a person of humour, by way of reply, seriously and circu tially relate how a merchant, on his return home with all his whole fortune in goods, was obl throw them all overboard during a violent storm, and that the loss affected him so, that the ver night his periwig turned grey; and we shall laugh aloud. For we feel pleasure in striking to and idea we are catching at, as if it were a ball.

"Assuming that, with all our thought, corporeal movements are harmonically connected, we can well conceive how the sudden removal of the mind, from station to station, in order to consider its is answered by a reciprocating contraction and dilatation of the elastic parts of our viscera. The communicated to the diaphragm, which (as from tickling) throws the air out by sudden jerks, and sions a healthy concussion. This alone, and not what passes in the mind, is the true cause of the sure derived from a thought, which in reality contains nothing. Voltaire says, that Providence has us hope and sleep, as a compensation for the inany cares of life. He might have added laughter, wit and originality of humour, necessary to excite it among rational people, were not so rare.";

At the conclusion of KANT's discourse, several of the assembly sought at to deliver their opinions, but before the point of precedency could be adjusted, the limited for their absence from the Shades expired. The sunbeams now touche eastern horizon, and the shadowy congregation disappeared in an instant.

Thus, gentle reader, have we, the Editors of this volume, enabled thee to benefit at thine ease by the discourses uttered by these luminaries of wit at the solemn hour of night, in obedience to preternatural power. Who shall decide when such doctors disagree? Thou wilt doubtless remark the discrepancies of opinion existing among the hallowed dead, and wilt hesitate, ere presumption shall make thee arbiter among them, by rashly deciding where wit is and is not. Our self-love induces us to believe, that there is no part of our collection which may not take shelter under one or other of the great authorities composing this illustrious convocation. We have endeavoured "to be all things to all men, that we might by any means win some." Judge not, therefore, of the contents of our volume by the extent of thy reading, nor by thy own bright conceptions, for that which is familiar to thee may be new to others; and thou shouldst moreover remember that wit, like music, seldom becomes old, unless it be really good.

.

Neither let the refinement of thy taste be, in all cases a criterion of the merit of our labours; for in works of humour, as in those of theology, there must be "milk for babes." Every reader is not endued with a microscopic perception of wit; and the rough jest of a sailor, or the blunder of a rude Irishman, will afford unequivocal delight to many, who would derive little pleasure from the sallies of Congreve or Addison. Yet if thine own disposition incline thee to seek the higher regions of intellectual amusement, thou canst here indulge it. Our book is not a where collection of jests and stories, or a revived Joe Miller. We have not aimed wholly at exciting the yews doßeoTOS, and cracking the sides of the reader. Thou wilt find treasures of humour drawn from the richest veins of classic ore, in which be voluptuary of wit may revel in perfect enjoyment. And let not thy judgment, f that judgment should happily incline in our favour, be biassed against us, albeit Sage splenetic railer, obtuse in his perceptions, should say of our book in thy hearing, There is nothing in it," but remember the just observation of Sterne, that "it is at in the power of every one to taste humour, however he may wish it; it is the