Essays on Wit No. 2 by Richard Flecknoe and Joseph Warton
R >>
Richard Flecknoe and Joseph Warton >> Essays on Wit No. 2
I know it signifies very little to the Affairs of the World, whether
_Waller_ was or was not a great Genius; whether he only made a few
pretty Things, or that all his Verses may stand for Models. But we who
love the Arts, carry an attentive Eye on that which to the rest of the
World is a Matter of mere Indifference. Good Taste is for us in
Literature, what it is for Women in Dress; and provided we don't make
our Opinions an Affair of Party, I think we may boldly say, that there
are few excellent Things in _Waller_, and that _Cowley_ might be
easily reduced to a few Pages.
It is not that we would deprive them of their Reputation; 'tis only to
inquire strictly what brought them that Reputation which is so much
respected; and what are the true Beauties which made their Faults be
overlooked. It must be known what ought to be followed in their Works,
and what avoided; this is the true Fruit of a deep Study in the Belles
Lettres; it is this that _Horace_ did, when he examined _Lucilius_
critically. _Horace_ got Enemies by it, but he enlightened his Enemies
themselves.
This Desire of shining, and to say in a new Manner what others have
said before, is the Foundation of new Expressions, as well as of
far-fetched Thoughts.
He that cannot shine by a Thought will distinguish himself by a Word.
This is their Reason for substituting Placid for Peaceful, Joyous for
Joyful, Meandring for Winding; and a hundred more Affectations of the
same kind. If they were to go on at this Rate, the Language of
_Shakespear, Milton, Dryden, Addison_ and _Pope_, would soon become
quite superannuated. And why avoid an Expression in use, to introduce
one which says precisely the same Thing? A new Word is never
pardonable, but when it is absolutely necessary, intelligible and
sonorous; they are forc'd to make them in Physics: A new Discovery, or
a new Machine demands a new Word. But do they make new Discoveries in
the human Heart? Is there any other Greatness than that of
_Shakespear_ and _Milton_? Are there any other Passions than those
that have been handled by _Otway_ and _Dryden_? Is there any other
Evangelic Moral than that of Dr. _Tillotson_?
Those who accuse the _English_ Language of not being copious enough,
do, in Truth, find a Sterility, but 'tis in themselves.
_Rem Verba Sequuntur_.
When one is thoroughly struck with an Idea, when a Man of Sense,
fill'd with Warmth, is in full Possession of his Thought, it comes
from him all ornamented with suitable Expressions, as _Minerva_ sprang
out, compleatly arm'd, from the Head of _Jupiter_.
In short, the Conclusion of all this is, that you must never seek for
far-fetch'd Thoughts, Conceits or Expressions; and that the Art of all
great Works, is to reason well, without making many Arguments; to
paint accurately, without Painting all; to move, without always
exciting the Passions.
[Illustration: Title page]
Sixtynine
ENIGMATICAL
Characters,
ALL
Very exactly drawn to the Life.
{ Persons,
From several { Humours,
{ Dispositions.
PLEASANT
And full of
DELIGHT.
* * * * *
The Second Edition by the Author R.F. Esquire.
* * * * *
_London_, Printed for _William Crook_, at the sign of the three Bibles
on _Fleet Bridge_, 1665.
* * * * *
CHARACTER.
_Of one that_ Zanys _the good Companion_.
He is a wit of an under Region, grosly imitating on the lower rope,
what t'other does neatly on the higher; and is only for the laughter
of the vulgar; whilst your wiser and better sort can scarcely smile at
him: He talks nothing but kennel-raked fluff, and his discourse is
rather like fruit cane up rotten from the ground, than freshly
gathered from the Tree. He is so far from a courtly wit, as his
breeding seems only to have been i' th' Suburbs; or at best, he seems
only graduated good company in a Tavern (the Bedlam of wits) where men
are mad rather than merry; here one breaking a jest on the Drawer, or
a Candlestick; there another repeating the old end of a Play, or some
bawdy song; this speaking bilk, that nonsense, whilst all with loud
houting and laughter confound the _Fidlers_ noise, who may well be
call'd a noise indeed, for no _Musick_ can be heard for them; so
whilst he utters nothing but old stories, long since laught thridbare,
or some stale jest broken twenty times before: His _mirth_ compared
with theirs, new and at first hand, is just like _Brokers_ ware in
comparison with _Mercers_, or _Long-lane_ compar'd unto _Cheap-side_:
his wit being rather the _Hogs-heads_ than his own, favouring more of
_Heidelberg_ than of _Hellicon_, and he rather a drunken than a good
companion.
* * * * *
CHARACTER.
_Of a bold abusive Wit._
He talks madly, _dash, dash,_ without any fear at all, and never cares
how he _bespatters_ others, or defiles himself; nor ceases he till he
has quite run himself out of breath; when no wonder, if to fools he
seems to get the start of those who wisely pick out their way, and are
as fearful of abusing others as themselves: He has the _Buffoons_
priviledge, of saying or doing anything without exceptions, and he
will call a jealous man _Cuckold_, a childe of doubtful birth
_Bastard_, and a _Lady_ of suspected honor a _Whore_, and they but
laugh at it; and all _Scholars_ are _Pedants_; and _Physicians_,
_Quacks_ with him, when to be angry at it is the avowing it. Then in
_Ladies_ chambers, he will tumble beds, and towse your _Ladies_ dress
up unto the height, to the hazard of a _Bed-staff_ thrown at his head,
or rap o're the fingers with a _Busk_, and that is all; only is this
he is far worse than the _Buffoon_, since they study to _delight_,
this only to _offend_; they to make _merry_, but this onely to make
you _mad_, whence wo be t' ye of he discovers and _imperfection_ or
_fault_ in you, for he never findes a _breach_ but he makes a _hole_
of it; nor a _hole_ but he _tugs_ at it so long till he tear it quite;
giving you for reason of his _incivility_, because (forsooth) _it
troubled you_, which would make any civil man cease troubling you. So
he wears his _wit_ as _Bravo's_ do their swords, to mischief and
offend others, not as _Gentlemen_ to defend themselves: and tis
_crime_ in him, what is _ornament_ in others; he being onely a _wit_
at that, at which a good _wit_ is a _fool_. Especially he triumphs
over your modest men; and when he meets with a _simple body_, passes
for a _wit_, but a _wit_ indeed makes a _simplician_ of him; so goes
he persecuting others till some one or other at last (as _chollerick_
as he is _abusive) cudgel_ him for his pains; when he goes _grumbling_
away in a mighty _choler_, saying, _They understand not jest_, when
indeed tis rather _he_.
* * * * *
THE ADVENTURER.
_VOLUME THE FOURTH._
_--Tentanda via est; qua me quoque possim
Tollere humo, victorque viram volitare per ora._ VIRG.
On vent'rous wing in quest of praise I go,
And leave the gazing multitude below.
A NEW EDITION, ILLUSTRATED WITH FRONTISPIECES.
LONDON: PRINTED FOR SILVESTER DOIG, ROYAL EXCHANGE, EDINBURGH.
1793.
* * * * *
No. CXXVII. Tuesday, January 22. 1754.
_--Veteres ita miratur, laudatque!--_
HOR.
The wits of old he praises and admires.
"It is very remarkable," says Addison, "that notwithstanding we fall
short at present of the ancients in poetry, painting, oratory,
history, architecture, and all the noble arts and sciences which
depend more upon genius than experience; we exceed them as much in
doggerel, humour, burlesque, and all the trivial arts of ridicule." As
this fine observation stands at present only in the form of a general
assertion, it deserves, I think, to be examined by a deduction of
particulars, and confirmed by an allegation of examples, which may
furnish an agreeable entertainment to those who have ability and
inclination to remark the revolutions of human wit.
That Tasso, Ariosto, and Camoens, the three most celebrated of modern
Epic Poets, are infinitely excelled in propriety of design, of
sentiment, and style, by Horace and Virgil, it would be serious
trifling to attempt to prove: but Milton, perhaps, will not so easily
resign his claim to equality, if not to superiority. Let it, however,
be remembered, that if Milton be enabled to dispute the prize with the
great champions of antiquity, it is entirely owing to the sublime
conceptions he has copied from the book of God. These, therefore, must
be taken away before we begin to make a just estimate of his genius;
and from what remains, it cannot, I presume, be said with candour and
impartiality, that he has excelled Homer in the sublimity and variety
of his thoughts, or the strength and majesty of his diction.
Shakespear, Corneille, and Racine, are the only modern writers of
Tragedy, that we can venture to oppose to Eschylus, Sophocles, and
Euripides. The first is an author so uncommon and eccentric, that we
can scarcely try him by dramatic rules. In strokes of nature and
character, he yields not to the Greeks: in all other circumstances
that constitute the excellence of the drama, he is vastly inferior. Of
the three moderns, the most faultless is the tender and exact Racine:
but he was ever ready to acknowledge, that his capital beauties were
borrowed from his favourite Euripides; which, indeed, cannot escape
the observation of those who read with attention his Phaedra and
Andromache. The pompous and truly Roman sentiments of Corneille are
chiefly drawn from Luoan and Tacitus; the former of whom, by a strange
perversion of taste, he is known to have preferred to Virgil. His
diction is not so pure and mellifluous, his characters not so various
and just, nor his plots so regular, so interesting, and simple, as
those of his pathetic rival. It is by this simplicity of fable alone,
when every single act, and scene, and speech, and sentiment, and word,
concur to accelerate the intended event, that the Greek tragedies kept
the attention of the audience immoveably fixed upon one principal
object, which must be necessarily lessened, and the ends of the drama
defeated, by the mazes and intricacies of modern plots.
The assertion of Addison with respect to the first particular,
regarding the higher kinds of poetry, will remain unquestionably true,
till nature in some distant age, for in the present, enervated with
luxury, she seems incapable of such an effort, shall produce some
transcendent genius, of power to eclipse the Iliad and the Edipus.
The superiority of the ancient artists in Painting, is not perhaps so
clearly manifest. They were ignorant, it will be said, of light, of
shade, and perspective; and they had not the use of oil colours, which
are happily calculated to blend and unite without harshness and
discordance, to give a boldness and relief to the figures, and to form
those middle Teints which render every well-wrought piece a closer
resemblance of nature. Judges of the truest taste do, however, place
the merit of colouring far below that of justness of design, and force
of expression. In these two highest and most important excellencies,
the ancient painters were eminently skilled, if we trust the
testimonies of Pliny, Quintilian, and Lucian; and to credit them we
are obliged, if we would form to ourselves any idea of these artists
at all; for there is not one Grecian picture remaining; and the
Romans, some few of whose works have descended to this age, could
never boast of a Parrhasius or Apelles, a Zeuxis, Timanthes, or
Protogenes, of whose performances the two accomplished critics above
mentioned, speaks in terms of rapture and admiration. The statues that
have escaped the ravages of time, as the Hercules and Laocoon for
instance, are still a stronger demonstration of the power
of the Grecian artists in expressing the passions; for what was
executed in marble, we have presumptive evidence to think, might also
have been executed in colours. Carlo Marat, the last valuable painter
of Italy, after copying the head of the Venus in the Medicean
collection three hundred times, generously confessed, that he could
not arrive at half the grace and perfection of his model. But to speak
my opinion freely on a very disputable point, I must own, that if the
moderns approach the ancients in any of the arts here in question,
they approach them nearest in The Art of Painting, The human mind can
with difficulty conceive any thing more exalted, than "The Last
Judgment" of Michael Angelo, and "The Transfiguration" of Raphael.
What can be more animated than Raphael's "Paul preaching at Athens?"
What more tender and delicate than Mary holding the child Jesus, in
his famous "Holy Family?" What more graceful than "The Aurora" of
Guido? What more deeply moving than "The Massacre of the Innocents" by
Le Brun?
But no modern Orator can dare to enter the lists with Demosthenes and
Tully. We have discourses, indeed, that may be admired, for their
perspicuity, purity, and elegance; but can produce none that abound in
a sublime which whirls away the auditor like a mighty torrent, and
pierces the inmost recesses of his heart like a flash of lightning;
which irresistibly and instantaneously convinces, without leaving, him
leisure to weigh the motives of conviction. The sermons of Bourdaloue,
the funeral orations of Bossuet, particularly that on the death of
Henrietta, and the pleadings of Pelisson, for his disgraced patron
Fouquet, are the only pieces of eloquence I can recollect, that bear
any resemblance to the Greek or Roman orator; for in England we have
been particularly unfortunate in our attempts to be eloquent, whether
in parliament, in the pulpit, or at the bar. If it be urged, that the
nature of modern politics and laws excludes the pathetic and the
sublime, and confines the speaker to a cold argumentative method, and
a dull detail of proof and dry matters of fact; yet, surely, the
Religion of the moderns abounds in topics so incomparably noble and
exalted as might kindle the flames of genuine oratory in the most
frigid and barren genius much more might this success be reasonably
expected from such geniuses as Britain can enumerate; yet no piece of
this sort, worthy applause or notice, has ever yet appeared.
The few, even among professed scholars, that are able to read the
ancient Historians in their inimitable, originals, are startled at the
paradox, of Bolingbroke who boldly prefers Guicciardini to Thucydides;
that is, the most verbose and tedious to the most comprehensive and
concise of writers, and a collector of facts to one who was himself an
eye-witness and a principal actor in the important story he relates.
And, indeed, it may be well presumed, that the ancient histories
exceed the modern from this single consideration, that the latter are
commonly compiled by recluse scholars, unpractised in business, war,
and politics; whilst the former are many of them written by ministers,
commanders, and princes themselves. We have, indeed, a few flimsy
memoirs, particularly in a neighbouring nation, written by persons
deeply interested in the transactions they describe; but these I
imagine will not be compared to "The retreat of the ten thousand"
which Xenophon himself conducted and related, nor to "the Galic war"
of Caesar, nor "The precious fragments" of Polybius, which our modern
generals and ministers would not have discredited by diligently
perusing, and making them the models of their conduct as well as of
their style. Are the reflections of Machiavel so subtle and refined as
those of Tacitus? Are the portraits of Thuanus so strong and
expressive as those of Sallust and Plutarch? Are the narrations of
Davila so lively and animated, or do his sentiments breathe such a
love of liberty and virtue, as those of Livy and Herodotus?
The supreme excellence of the ancient Architecture the last particular
to be touched, I shall not enlarge upon, because it has never once
been called in question, and because it is abundantly testified by the
awful ruins of amphitheatres, aqueducts, arches, and columns, that are
the daily objects of veneration, though not of imitation. This art, it
is observable; has never been improved in later ages in one single
instance; but every just and legitimate edifice is still formed
according to the five old established orders, to which human wit has
never been able to add a sixth of equal symmetry and strength.
Such, therefore, are the triumphs of the Ancients, especially the
Greeks, over the Moderns. They may, perhaps, be not unjustly ascribed
to a genial climate, that gave such a happy temperament of body as was
most proper to produce fine sensations; to a language most harmonious,
copious, and forcible; to the public encouragements and honours
bestowed on the cultivators of literature; to the emulation excited
among the generous youth, by exhibitions of their performances at the
solemn games; to an inattention to the arts of lucre and commerce,
which engross and debase the minds of the moderns; and above all, to
an exemption from the necessity of overloading their natural faculties
with learning and languages, with which we in these later times are
obliged to qualify ourselves, for writers, if we expect to be read.
It is said by Voltaire, with his usual liveliness, "We shall never
again behold the time, when a Duke de la Rochefoucault might go from
the conversation of a Pascal or Arnauld, to the theatre of Corneille."
This reflection may be more justly applied to the ancients, and it may
with much greater truth be said; "The age will never again return,
when a Pericles, after walking with Plato in a portico, built by
Phidias, and painted by Apelles, might repair to hear a pleading of
Demosthenes, or a tragedy of Sophocles."
I shall next examine the other part of Addison's assertion, that the
moderns excell the ancients in all the arts of Ridicule, and assign
the reasons of this supposed excellence.
No. CXXXIII. Tuesday, February 12. 1754.
_At nostri proavi Plautinos et numeros et
Laudeveres sales; nimium patienter utrumque,
Ne dicam stule, mirati; si modo ego et vos
Scimus inurbanum lepido seponere dicto_.
HOR.
"And yet our fires with joy could Plautus hear;
Gay were his jests, his numbers charm'd their ear."
Let me not say too lavishly they prais'd;
But sure their judgment was full cheaply pleas'd,
If you or I with taste are haply blest,
To know a clownish from a courtly jest.
FRANCIS.
The fondness I have so frequently manifested for the ancients, has not
so far blinded my judgment, as to render me unable to discern, or
unwilling to acknowledge, the superiority of the moderns, in pieces of
Humour and Ridicule. I shall, therefore, confirm the general assertion
of Addison, part of which hath already been examined.
Comedy, Satire, and Burlesque, being the three chief branches of
ridicule, it is necessary for us to compare together the most admired
performances of the ancients and moderns, in these three kinds of
writing, to qualify us justly to censure or commend, as the beauties
or blemishes of each party may deserve.
As Aristophanes wrote to please the multitude, at a time when the
licentiousness of the Athenians was boundless, his pleasantries are
coarse and impolite, his characters extravagantly forced, and
distorted with unnatural deformity, like the monstrous caricaturas of
Callot. He is full of the grossest obscenity, indecency, and
inurbanity; and as the populace always delight to hear their superiors
abused and misrepresented, he scatters the rankest calumnies on the
wisest and worthiest personages of his country. His style is unequal,
occasioned by a frequent introduction of parodies on Sophocles and
Euripides. It is, however, certain, that he abounds in artful
allusions to the state of Athens at the time when he wrote; and,
perhaps, he is more valuable, considered as a political satirist than
a writer of comedy.
Plautus has adulterated a rich vein of genuine wit and humour, with a
mixture of the basest buffoonry. No writer seems to have been born
with a more forcible or more fertile genius for comedy. He has drawn
some characters with incomparable spirit: we are indebted to him for
the first good miser, and for that worn-out character among the
Romans, a boastful Thraso. But his love degenerates into lewdness; and
his jests are insupportably low and illiberal, and fit only for "the
dregs of Romulus" to use and to hear; he has furnished examples of
every species of true and false wit, even down to a quibble and a pun.
Plautus lived in an age when the Romans were but just emerging into
politeness; and I cannot forbear thinking, that if he had been
reserved for the age of Augustus, he would have produced more perfect
plays than even the elegant disciple of Menander.
Delicacy, sweetness, and correctness, are the characteristics of
Terence. His polite images are all represented in the most clear and
perspicuous expression; but his characters are too general and
uniform, nor are they marked with those discriminating peculiarities
that distinguish one man from another; there is a tedious and
disgusting sameness of incidents in his plots, which, as hath been
observed in a former paper, are too complicated and intricate. It may
be added, that he superabounds in soliloquies; and that nothing can be
more inartificial or improper, than the manner in which he hath
introduced them.
To these three celebrated ancients, I venture to oppose singly the
matchless Moliere, as the most consummate master of comedy that former
or latter ages have produced. He was not content with painting obvious
and common characters, but set himself closely to examine the
numberless varieties of human nature: he soon discovered every
difference, however minute; and by a proper management could make it
striking: his portraits, therefore, though they appear to be
new, are yet discovered to be just. The Tartuffe and the Misantrope
are the most singular, and yet, perhaps, the most proper and perfect
characters that comedy can represent; and his Miser excels that of any
other nation. He seems to have hit upon the true nature of comedy;
which is, to exhibit one singular, and unfamiliar character, by such a
series of incidents as may best contribute to shew its singularities.
All the circumstances in the Misantrope tend to manifest the peevish
and captious disgust of the hero; all the circumstances in the
Tartuffe are calculated to shew the treachery of an accomplished
hypocrite. I am sorry that no English writer of comedy can be produced
as a rival to Moliere: although it must be confessed, that Falstaff
and Morose are two admirable characters, excellently, supported and
displayed; for Shakespear has contrived all the incidents to
illustrate the gluttony, lewdness, cowardice, and boastfulness of the
fat old knight: and Jonson, has, with equal art, displayed the oddity
of a wimsical humourist, who could endure no kind of noise.
Will it be deemed a paradox, to assert, that Congreve's dramatic
persons have no striking and natural characteristic? His Fondlewife
and Foresight are but faint portraits of common characters, and Ben is
a forced and unnatural caricatura. His plays appear not to be
legitimate comedies, but strings of repartees and sallies of wit, the
most poignant and polite indeed, but unnatural and ill placed. The
trite and trivial character of a fop, hath strangely engrossed the
English stage, and given an insipid similiarity to our best comic
pieces: originals can never be wanting in such a kingdom as this,
where each man follows his natural inclinations and propensities, if
our writers would really contemplate nature, and endeavour to open
those mines of humour which have been so long and so unaccountably
neglected.
If we proceed to consider the Satirists of antiquity, I shall not
scruple to prefer Boileau and Pope to Horace and Juvenal; the arrows
of whose ridicule are more sharp, in proportion as they are more
polished. That reformers should abound in obscenities, as is the case
of the two Roman poets, is surely an impropriety of the most
extraordinary kind; the courtly Horace also sometimes sinks into mean
and farcical abuse, as in the first lines of the seventh satire of the
first book; but Boileau and Pope have given to their Satire the Cestus
of Venus: their ridicule is concealed and oblique; that of the Romans
direct and open. The tenth satire of Bioleau on women is more bitter,
and more decent and elegant, than the sixth of Juvenal on the same
subject; and Pope's epistle to Mrs. Blount far excels them both, in
the artfulness and delicacy with which it touches female foibles. I
may add, that the imitations of Horace by Pope, and of Juvenal by
Johnson, are preferable to their originals in the appositeness of
their examples, and in the poignancy of their ridicule. Above all, the
Lutrin, the Rape of the Lock, the Dispensary and the Dunciad, cannot
be parallelled by any works that the wittiest of the ancients can
boast of: for, by assuming the form of the epopea, they have acquired
a dignity and gracefulness, which all satires delivered merely in the
poet's own person must want, and with which the satirists of antiquity
were wholly unacquainted; for the Batrachomuomachia of Homer cannot be
considered as the model of these admirable pieces.