in wit, but maintains that they furpafs. him in poetry.. If Wit be well defcribed by Pope, as being that which has been often "thought, but was never before fo well "expreffed," they certainly never attained, nor ever fought it; for they endeavoured to be fingular in their thoughts, and were careless of their diction. But Pope's account of wit is. undoubtedly erroneous: he depreffes it below its natural dignity, and reduces it from ftrength of thought to happinefs of language.. If by a more. noble and more ade-quate conception that be confidered as Wit, which is at once natural and new,. that which, though not obvious, is, проп upon its first production, acknowledged to be juft; if it be that, which he that never found it, wonders how he miffed; to wit of this kind the metaphyfical poets have feldom rifen. Their thoughts are often new, but feldom natural; they are not obvious, but neither are they juft; and the reader, far from wondering that he miffed them, wonders more frequently by what perversenefs of industry they were ever found. But Wit, abftracted from its effects upon the hearer, may be more rigorously and philofophically confidered as a kind of difcordia concors; a combination of diffimilar images, or discovery of occult refemblances in things apparently unlike. Of wit, thus defined, they have more more than enough. The moft heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ranfacked for illuftrations, comparisons, and allufions; their learning inftructs, and their fubtilty furprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought, and though he fometimes admires is feldom pleased. From this account of their compofitions it will be readily inferred, that they were not fuccefsful in representing or moving the affections. As they were wholly employed on fomething unexpected and surprifing, they had no regard to that uniformity of fentiment which enables us to conceive and to excite the pains and the pleafure of other other minds they never enquired what, on any occafion, they fhould have faid. or done; but wrote rather as beholders. than partakers of human nature; as Beings looking upon good and evil, impaffive and at leifure; as Epicurean deities making remarks on the actions of men, and the viciffitudes of life, without intereft and without emotion. Their courtship was void of fondnefs, and their lamentation of forrow. Their wish was only to fay what they hoped had been never faid before. Nor was the fublime more within their reach than the pathetick; for they never attempted that comprehenfion and expanfe of thought which at once fills the whole mind, and of which the the firft effect is fudden aftonishment, and the fecond rational admiration. Sublimity is produced by aggregation, and littleness by difperfion. Great thoughts are always general, and confift in pofitions not limited by exceptions, and in defcriptions not defcending to minuteness. It is with great propriety that Subtlety, which in its original im port means exility of particles, is taken in its metaphorical meaning for nicety of diftinction. Those writers who lay on the watch for novelty could have little hope of greatnefs; for great things cannot have escaped former obfervation. Their attempts were always analytick; they broke every image into fragments; and could no more repre fent, |