Forefight. Ay indeed, Sir Sampfon, a great deal of money for a young man; I wonder what can he do with

it.

Love for Love, act 2. Sc. 7°

Millament. I naufeate walking; 'tis a country-diverfion; I lothe 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, Cou

fine,

Way of the world, a&t 4. Sc. 4.

Lord Froth. I affure you, Sir Paul, I laugh at no body'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 fmile 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 jest of an inferior perfon, or when any body elfe of the fame quality does not laugh with one; ridiculous! To be pleas'd with what pleafes the crowd! Now, when I laugh I always laugh alone.

Double Dealer, act 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 slightest improprieties; fuch as a blunder by a foreigner in fpeaking our language, efpecially if the blunder can bear a sense that reflects upon the speaker:

Quickly. The young man is an honeft man.

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

Merry Wives of Windfor.

Love-speeches are finely ridiculed in the fol

lowing 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 thine upon me but benignly,
With that one, and that other pigfneye,
The fun and day fhall fooner part,
Than love, or you, fhake off my heart;
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 spring,
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 still survive,
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, by appearing to praise or fpeak well of him. Swift affords us many illuftrious examples of this fpecies of ridicule. Take the following examples.

By these methods, in a few weeks, there ftarts up many a writer, capable of managing the profoundeft and most universal subjects. 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 style, and grammar, and invention; allow him but the common privileges of tranfcribing from others, and digreffing from himself, as often as he fhall fee occafion; he will defire no more ingredients 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, adorned with the heraldry of its title, fairly inferibed on a label; never to be thumbed or greafed by

ftudents,

ftudents, nor bound to everlasting chains of darkness in a library; but when the fullness of time is come, fhall happily undergo the trial of purgatory, in order to a fcend the sky *

"

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

If the Reverend clergy fhewed more concern than o thers, 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 distinguished from every fpecies of ridicule: it inlivens a gay subject by imitating 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 firft of which refers to an expreffion of Mofes.

The fkilful nymph reviews her force with care:
Let fpades be trumps! she said, and trumps they were.
Rape of the Lock, canto iii. 45.

Tale of a Tub, fect. 7.

A true and faithful narrative of what paffed in London du ring the general confternation of all ranks and degrees of man

kind.

Z 4

The

i.

The next is an imitation of Achilles's oath in

Homer:

But by this lock, this facred lock, I fwear,
(Which never more shall join its parted hair,
Which 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.
He spoke, and speaking, în proud triumph fpread
The long-contended honours of her head.

Ibid. canto iv. 133.

The following imitates the history of Agamemnon's fcepter 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 fhe 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 v. 87.

Though ridicule, as obferved above, is no neceffary ingredient in a parody, yet there is no oppofition between them: ridicule may be fuc cessfully employ'd in a parody; and a parody noi lefs fuccefsfully to promote ridicule; witness the following