1

A true critic in the perufal of a book, is like a dog at a feaft, whofe thoughts and ftomach are wholly fet upon what the guests fling away, and confequently is apt to fnarl moft when there are the fewelt bones.

Tale of a Tub.

In the following inftances, the ridicule arifes from abfurd conceptions in the perfons introduced.

Mafcarille. Te fouvient-il, vicomte de cette demi-lune, que nous emportâmes fur les ennemis au fiege d'arras? Jodelet. Que veux tu dire avec ta demi-lune? c'étoit bien une lune tout entiere.

Moliere les Precieufes Ridicules, fc. 11.

Slender. I came yonder at Eaton to Marry Mrs. Anne Page; and fhe's a great lubberly boy.

Page. Upon my life then you took the wrong.

Slender. What need you tell me that? I think fo when I took a boy for a girl; if I had been marry'd to him, for all he was in woman's apparel, I would not have had him. Merry Wives of Windsor.

Valentine. Your bleffing, Sir.

Sir Sampfon. You've had it already, Sir; I think I fent it you to day in a bill for four thousand pound; a great deal of money, Brother Forefight.

Forefight. Ay indeed, Sir Sampfon, a great deal of money for a young man; I wonder what he can do with it. Love for Love, act 2. fc. 7.

Millament. I naufeate walking; 'tis a country-diverfion; I loathe the country, and every thing that relates to it. Sir Wilful. Indeed! hah! look ye, look ye, you do? nay, 'tis like you may-here are choice of paftimes here in town, as plays and the like; that must be confefs'd indeed.

Millament. Ah l'etourdie! I hate the town too.

Sir Wilful. Dear heart, that's much-hah! that you fhould hate 'em both! hah! 'tis like you may; there are fome can't relifh the town, and others can't away with the country'tis like you may be one of thefe, Coufine. Way of the World, act 4. Sc. 4. Lord Froth.

Lord Froth. I affure you, Sir Paul, I laugh at nobody's jefts but my own, or a lady's: I affure, you, Sir Paul.

Brifk. How how, my Lord? what, affront my wit! Let me perish, do I never fay any thing worthy to be laugh'd at?

Lord Froth. O foy, don't misapprehend me, I don't fay fo, for I often smile at your conceptions. But there is nothing more unbecoming a man of quality than to laugh; 'tis fuch a vulgar expreffion of the paffion! every body can laugh. Then especially to laugh at the jeft of an inferior perfon, or when any body else of the fame quality does not laugh with one; ridiculous! To be pleas'd with what pleases the crow'd! Now, when I laugh I always laugh alone.

Double Dealer, act 1. fc. 4.

So fharp-fighted is pride in blemishes, and fo willing to be gratified, that it takes up with the very flighteft improprieties; fuch as a blunder by a foreigner in fpeaking our language, especially if the blunder can bear a sense that reflects on the speaker,

Quickly. The young man is an honeft man.

Caius. What fhall de honeft man do in my clofet? dere is no honest man dat shall come in my clofet. Merry Wives of Windsor.

Love-fpeeches are finely ridiculed in the following

· paffage.

Quoth he, My faith as adamantine,
As chains of deftiny, I'll maintain ;
True as Apollo ever spoke,

Or oracle from heart of oak;

And if you'll give my flame but vent,
Now in clofe hugger mugger pent,
And shine upon me but benignly,
With that one, and that other pigfneye,
The fun and day fhall fooner part,
Than love, or you, shake off my heart;

The

The fun that fhall no more difpenfe
His own but your bright influence:
I'll carve your name on barks of trees,
With true love-knots, and flourishes;
That fhall infufe eternal fpring,
And everlasting flourishing:
Drink ev'ry letter on't in ftum,
And make it brifk champaign become.
Where-e'er you tread, your foot shall set
The primrofe and the violet;

All fpices, perfumes, and fweet powders,
Shall borrow from your breath their odours!
Nature her charter fhall renew,

And take all lives of things from you;
The world depend upon your eye,
And when you frown upon it, die.
Only our loves fhall ftill furvive,
New worlds and natures to outlive;
And, like to herald's moons, remain
All crefcents, without change or wane.

Hudibras, part 2. canto 1.

Irony turns things into ridicule in a peculiar manner; it confifts in laughing at a man under difguife of appearing to praife or fpeak well of him. Swift affords us many illuftrious examples of that fpecies of ridicule. Take the following.

By thefe methods, in a few weeks, there ftarts up many a writer, capable of managing the profoundefst and most univerfal fubjects. For what though his head be empty, provided his common-place book be full! And if you will bate him but the circumftances of method, and ftyle, and grammar, and invention; allow him but the common privileges of tranfcribing from others, and digreffing from himfelf, as often as he fhall fee occafion; he will defire no more ingredients towards fitting up a treatife that fhall make a very comely figure on a bookfeller's fhelf, there to be preferved neat and clean, for a long eternity, adorned with the heraldry of its title, fairly infcribed on a label; never to be thumbed or greafed by ftudents, nor bound to everlasting

chains of darkness in a library; but when the fulness of time is come, fhall happily undergo the trial of purgatory, in order to afcend the fky."

I cannot but congratulate our age on this peculiar felicity, that though we have indeed made great progrefs in all other branches of luxury, we are not yet debauch'd with any high relish in poetry, but are in this one taste less nice than our ancestors.

If the Reverend clergy fhewed more concern than others, I charitably impute it to their great charge of fouls; and what confirmed me in this opinion was, that the degrees of apprehenfion and terror could be distinguished to be greater or less, according to their ranks and degrees in the church.t

A parody must be diftinguished from every fpecies of ridicule: it enlivens a gay fubject by imitat ing fome important incident that is ferious; it is ludicrous, and may be rifible; but ridicule is not a neceffary ingredient. Take the following examples, the first of which refers to an expreffion of Mofes.

The skilful nymph reviews her force with care:
Let fpades be trumps! fhe faid, and trumps they were.
Rape of the Lock, Canto iii. 45.

The next is in imitation of Achilles's oath in Ho mer :

But by this lock, this facred lock, I fwear,
(Which never more shall join its parted hair,
Whià never more its honours fhall renew,
Clip'd from the lovely head where late it grew,)
That while my noftrils draw the vital air,
This hand, which won it, fhall for ever wear.

* Tale of a Tub, fe&t. 7.

He

A true and faithful narrative of what paffed in London during the general confternation of all ranks and degrees of mankind.

VOL. I

U

He fpoke, and fpeaking, in proud triumph spread
The long-contended honours of her head.

Ibid. canto iv.

133.

The following imitates the history of Agamemnon's fceptre in Homer.

Now meet thy fate, incens'd Belinda cry'd,
And drew a deadly bodkin from her fide,
(The fame, his ancient perfonage to deck,
Her great-great-grandfire wore about his neck,
In three feal-rings; which after, melted down,
Form'd a vaft buckle for his widow's gown :
Her infant grandame's whistle next it grew,
The bells the jingled, and the whistle blew ;
Then in a bodkin grac'd her mother's hairs,
Which long she wore, and now Belinda wears.)
Ibid. canto 5.87.

Though ridicule, as obferved above, is no neceffary ingredient in a parody, yet there is no oppofition between them ridicule may be fuccefsfully employed in a parody: and a parody may be employed to promote ridicule; witness the following example with respect to the latter, in which the goddefs of Dullnefs is addreffed upon the fubject of modern education :

Thou gav'ft that ripenefs, which fo foon began,
And ceas'd fo foon, he ne'er was boy nor man;
Through fchool and college, thy kind cloud o'ercaft,
Safe and unfeen the young Æneas paft ;*

Thence bursting glorious, all at once let down,
Stunn'd with his giddy larum half the town.

Dunciad, b. iv. 289.

The interpofition of the gods, in the manner of Homer and Virgil, ought to be confined to ludicrous fubjects,

* Æn. 1. 1. At Venus obfcuro, &c.