Wit is a Start of Imagination in the Speaker, that strikes the Imagination of the Hearer with an Idea of Beauty common to both; and the immediate Result of the Comparison is the Flash of Joy that attends it; it stands in the same Regard to Sense, or Wisdom, as lightning to the Sun, suddenly kindled and as suddenly gone....
But for the most part wit was becoming an expression of mirth or ridicule in which fancy was primarily involved; at its best wit was coupled with politeness and elegance in conversation, and at its worst with silliness and extravagance, or with indecency and impiety.
The essay from the Weekly Register is one of a large number of little histories of wit, which appear through the age of Dryden and Pope and which attempt to relate developments in wit to changes in fashion, religion, polities, social manners, and taste. These are rudimentary but important expressions of the idea that literature is conditioned by changing circumstances and social customs in the lives of the people from whom it springs.
The Essay on Wit, 1748, is reprinted here, by permission, from a copy in the library of the University of Illinois. Flecknoe's Characters are reprinted from a copy of Sixty Nine Enigmatical Characters owned by the library of the University of Michigan. The essays of Joseph Warton is the Adventurer, and the typescript copy of the essay
"Of Wit" from the Weekly Register (as reprinted in the Gentleman's Magazine) are also taken from copies belonging to the University of Michigan.
Edward Niles Hooker
University of California, Los Angeles
AN ESSAY ON WIT.
