But it is urged, that the gravest and most serious matters may be set in a ridiculous light. Hardly so; for where an object is neither risible nor improper, it lies not open in any quarter to an attack from ridicule. But supposing the fact, I foresee not any harmful consequence. By the same sort of reasoning, a talent for wit ought to be condemned, because it may be employed to burlesque a great or lofty subject. Such irregular use made of a talent for wit or ridicule, cannot long impose upon mankind. It cannot stand the test of correct and delicate taste; and truth will at last prevail even with the vulgar. To condemn a talent for ridicule because it may be perverted to wrong purposes, is not a little ridiculous. Could one forbear to smile, if a talent for reasoning were condemned because it also may be perverted? And yet the conclusion in the latter case, would be not less just than in the former; perhaps more just, for no talent is so often perverted as that of reason.
We had best leave Nature to her own operations. The most valuable talents may be abused, and so may that of ridicule. Let us bring it under proper culture if we can, without endeavouring to pull it up by the root. Were we destitute of this test of truth, I know not what might be the consequences: I see not what rule would be left us to prevent splendid trifles passing for matters of importance, show and form for substance, and superstition or enthusiasm for pure religion.
CHAP. XIII.
WIT.
WIt is a quality of certain thoughts and expressions. The term is never applied to an action or a passion, and as little to an external object.
However difficult it may be in every particular instance to distinguish a witty thought or expression from one that is not so, yet in general it may be laid down, that the term wit is appropriated to such thoughts and expressions as are ludicrous, and also occasion some degree of surprise by their singularity. Wit also in a figurative sense expresses that talent which some men have of inventing ludicrous thoughts or expressions. We say commonly, a witty man, or a man of wit.
Wit in its proper sense, as suggested above, is distinguishable into two kinds; wit in the thought, and wit in the words or expression. Again, wit in the thought is of two kinds; ludicrous images, and ludicrous combinations of things that have little or no natural relation.
Ludicrous images that occasion surprise by their singularity, as having little or no foundation in nature, are fabricated by the imagination. And the imagination is well qualified for the office; being of all our faculties the most active, and the least under restraint. Take the following example.
Shylock. You knew (none so well, none so well as you) of my daughter’s flight.
Salino. That’s certain; I, for my part, knew the tailor that made the wings she flew withal.