L: which; for, though we knew that an idiot had accidentally written it, or that a wrongheaded enthusiast had seriously spoken it, the reafoning would ftill be ludicrous. Is then a trifling argument from analogy a laughable object, whether advanced feriously or in jeft? If this be the cafe, it must be owned, that the fentiments of mortal men are ftrangely perverted in thefe latter times; for that many a volume of elaborate controversy, instead of disposing the gentle reader to flumber by its darknefs and dullness, ought to have "fet the table in a roar" by its vain and fophiftical analogies. Further, I deny not, that all performances in wit and humour are connected with a mind, and lead our thoughts to the performer as naturally as any other effect to its caufe. But do we not fometimes laugh at fortuitous combinations, in which, as mental energy is concerned in producing them, there cannot be either fault or turpitude? Could not one imagine a set of people jumbled together by accident, fo as to prefent a laughable group to thofe who know their characters? If Pope and Colley Cibber had been so squeezed by a croud in the playhouse, as to be compelled to fit with their heads contiguous, and the arm of one about the neck of the other, expreffing at the fame time in their looks a mutual antipathy and reluctance, I believe the fight would have been entertaining enough, especially if believed Uu2 Our coffee believed to be accidental. house-politicians were lately betrayed into a fimile, by one Papirius Curfor, a wag who read the news-papers quite across the page, without minding the space that distinguishes the columns, and fo pretended to light upon fome very amufing combinations. Thefe were no doubt the contrivance of Papirius himfelf; but, fuppofing them to have been accidental, and that the printer had without defign neglected to feparate his columns, I afk, whether they would have been lefs ridiculous? The joke I fhall allow to be as wretched as you please: but we are not now talking of the delicacies of wit or humour, (which will be touched upon in the sequel), but of thofe combinations of ideas that provoke laughter. And here let me beg of the critic, not to take offence at the familiarity of these examples. I fhall apologize for them afterwards. Meantime he will be pleafed to confider, that my fubject is a familiar one, and the phenomenon I would account for as frequent among clowns and children as among philofophers. III. Hutchefon has given another account of the ludicrous quality. He feems to think, that it is the contraft or oppofition of dig ་་ nity and meannefs that occafions laughter. Granting this to be true, (and how far this is true will appear by and by), I would obferve, in the first place, what the ingenious author feems to have been aware of, that that there may be a mixture of meanness. and dignity, where there is nothing ludicrous. A city, confidered as a collection of low and lofty houfes, is no laughable object. Nor was that perfonage either ludicrous or ridiculous, whom Pope so justly characterifes, The greatest, wifeft, meaneft, of mankind. But, fecondly, cafes might be mentioned, of laughter arifing from a group of ideas or objects, wherein there is no difcernible oppofition of meannefs and dignity. We are told of the dagger of Hudibras, that It could fcrape trenchers, or chip bread, The humour of the paffage cannot arise from, the meanness of thefe offices compared with the dignity of the dagger, nor from any oppofition of meannefs and dignity in the offices themselves, they being all equally mean; and must therefore be owing to fome other We laugh, peculiarity in the defcription. when a droll mimics the folemnity of a grave perfon; here dignity and meannefs are indeed united: but we laugh alfo (though not fo heartily perhaps) when he mimics the pe culiarities culiarities of a fellow as infignificant as himfelf, and difplays no oppofition of dignity and meannefs. The levities of Sancho Pança opposed to the folemnity of his mafter, and compared with his own schemes of preferment, form an entertaining contraft: but fome of the vagaries of that renowned fquire are truly laughable, even when his preferment and his mafter are out of the queftion. We do not perceive any contrast of meannefs and dignity in Mistress Quickly, Sir Toby in Twelfth Night, the nurfe in Romeo and Juliet, or Autolycus in the Winter's Tale ; yet they are all ludicrous characters: Dr Harrison in Fielding's Amelia is never mean, but always refpectable; yet their is a dash of humour in him, which often betrays the reader into a smile. -Men laugh at puns; the wifeft and wittieft of our fpecies have laughed at them; Queen Elifabeth, Cicero, and Shakespeare, laughed at them; clowns and children laugh at them; and most men, at one time or other, are inclined to do the fame but in this fort of low wit, is it an oppofition of meannefs and dignity that entertains us? Is it not rather a mixture of fameness and diversity, -famenefs in the found, and diverfity in the fignification? : IV. Akenfide, in the third book of his excellent Poem, treats of Ridicule at confiderable length. He gives a detail of ridiculous characters; ignorant pretenders to learnboaftful foldiers, and lying travellers, ing, -hypo - hypocritical churchmen, conceited politicians, old women that talk of their charms and virtue, — ragged who rail at riches, ragged philofophers virtuofi intent upon trifles, -romantic lovers, wits wantonly fatirical,-fops that out of vanity affect to be difeafed and profligate, daftards who are ashamed or afraid without reason, and fools who are ignorant of what they ought to know. These characters may no doubt be fet in fuch a light as to move at once our laughter and contempt, and are therefore truly ridiculous, and fit objects of comic fatire but the author does not distinguish between what is laughable in them and what is contemptible; fo that we have no reason to think, that he meant to specify the qualities peculiar to those things that provoke pure laughter.- Having finifhed the detail of characters, he makes fome general remarks on the cause of ridicule; and explains himfelf more fully in a profe definition illuftrated by examples. The definition, or rather description, is in these words. "That which "makes objects ridiculous, is fome ground "of admiration or efteem connected with "other more general circumstances compa ratively worthlefs or deformed; or it is "fome circumftance of turpitude or defor"mity connected with what is in general "excellent or beautiful: the inconfiftent properties exifting either in the objects "themselves, or in the apprehenfion of the perfon |