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'etoit bien une lune toute entiere.

Moliere les Precieufes Ridicules, fc. 11.

Slender. I came yonder at Eaton to marry Mrs Anne Page; and she'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 Windfor.

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 thou

fand pound; a great deal of money, Brother Fore

fight.

of

Forefight. Ay indeed, Sir Sampfon, a great deal

for a

money he do with it.

Love for Love, at 2. fc.7.

Millamant. I naufeate walking; 'tis a countrydiverfion; I lothe the country, and every thing that relates to it.

Sir

Sir Wilful. Indeed! hah! look

you do? nay, 'tis like you may

choice of pastimes here in town, as plays and the like; that must be confefs'd indeed.

Millamant. 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 some can't relish the town, and others can't away with the country—'tis like you may be one of those, Coufine.

Way of the world, alt 4. fc. 4.

Lord Froth. I affure you, Sir Paul, I lau ́ ́. at no body's jeft but my own, or a lady's: I affure you, Sir Paul.

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

Lord Froth, O foy, don't mifapprehend me, I don't fay fo, for I often fimile 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 efpecially 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 crowd! Now, when I laugh I always laugh alone.

Double Dealer, alt 1. Sc. 4.

So

So fharp-fighted is pride in blemishes, and fo willing to be gratified, that it will take up with the very flighteft improprieties; fuch as a blunder by a foreigner in speaking our language, efpecially if the blunder can bear a fenfe that reflects upon the speaker ;

Quickly. The young man is an honeft man,

Caius. What fhall de honeft man do in my clo fet? dere is no honeft man dat fhall come in my clofet,

Merry Wives of Windfor.

Quoth he, My faith as adamantine,
As chains of destiny, I'll maintain i
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 shall sooner part,
Than love, or you, fhake off my heart;

The fun that fhall no more difpenfe

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 fhall fet
The primrose 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 wané,

Hudibras, part 2. canto 1.

Irony turns things into ridicule in a pe culiar manner. It confifts in laughing at a man under difguife, by appearing to praife or fpeak well of him. Swift affords us ma ny illustrious examples of this fpecies of ri dicule. Take the following example, "By thefe methods, in a few weeks, "there starts up many a writer, capable "of managing the profoundest and most "univerfal

univerfal subjects. For what though his "head be empty, provided his commonplace 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 himself, as often as he shall fee oc"cafion; he will defire no more ingre"dients towards fitting up a treatise that "shall make a very comely figure on a "bookfeller's fhelf, there to be preserved "neat and clean, for a long eternity, ad"orned with the heraldry of its title, fairly "inferibed on a label; never to be thumbed " or greased by students, nor bound to everlafting chains of darkness in a libra

ry;

but when the fullness of time is "come, shall happily undergo the trial of purgatory, in order to ascend the sky * The following paffage from Arbuthnot is not lefs ironical." If the Reverend clergy fhowed more concern than others, I "charitably impute it to their great charge of fouls; and what confirmed me in this

Tale of a Tub, fect. 7.

G 2

" opinion