duce of a variety of special faculties, the other is a special faculty itself; and both require to be carefully analyzed before we can arrive at the true account of either.

The cases we are now to examine, where the contrasted ideas are brought together by some point of resemblance, will require us to take notice of both. These cases include, as a necessary ingredient, the perception of difference or contrast; and it appears to me, that whatever be the degree or nature of this resemblance, or whatever may be our admiration of the cleverness shown in discovering that resemblance, or our surprise at its unexpected discovery, the laughable effect of the combination is always in proportion to the contrast existing between the related or compared ideas; that the most laughable combinations are always those where this contrast is the greatest.

Some of the finest specimens of Wit (in the popular sense) are not laughable. Lord Chesterfield observed, that true wit never excites more than a smile; but in this he is wrong. It may excite laughter or not according to circum

stances.

As it is essential to Wit that the resemblance discovered be unexpected, it follows that it should not be quite obvious. We hardly bestow the term Wit upon the discovery of a single point of resemblance, however striking, as this may occur almost to any one; but if to this first or more obvious point of similarity we can add another not so obvious, so as to present a double resemblance to the mind, then it becomes Wit. Thus, Addison observes, when a poet tells us the bosom of his mistress is as white as snow, there is no wit in the comparison, but when he adds, with a sigh, that it is as cold too, it then grows into wit. Cowley, observing the cold regard of his mistress's eyes, and at the same time their power of producing love in him, compares them to burning glasses made of ice; and, finding himself able to live in the greatest extremities of love, he concludes the torrid zone to be habitable.

Among the finest pieces of serious Wit in our language

may be mentioned Addison's verses to Sir Godfrey Kneller, where he compares his portraits of the British kings and queens to the statues carved by Phidias of the heathen gods. and goddesses. It is hardly necessary to remind the reader, that the monarchs alluded to were Charles II., noted for his attachment to the fair sex, and who was preserved after the battle of Worcester by climbing into an oak; James II., who abdicated the throne; William III., who was fond of war, as his queen, Mary II., was of tapestry; Anne, who was married to a subject, and whose son died before herself; and, lastly, George I., in whose reign a dangerous rebellion was suppressed in the Highlands:

Wise Phidias thus, his skill to prove,
Thro' many a god advanced to Jove,
And taught the polish'd rocks to shine,
With many a lineament divine,
Till Greece amazed, and half afraid,
Th' assembled deities survey'd.

First, Pan, who wont to chase the fair,
And loved the spreading oak, was there.
Old Saturn next, with upcast eyes,
Beheld his abdicated skies;

Then mighty Mars, for war renown'd,
In adamantine armour frown'd.

By him the childless goddess rose,
Minerva, studious to compose

Her twisted threads, the web she strung,
And o'er a loom of marble hung.
Thetis, the troubled ocean's queen,
Match'd with a mortal, next was seen,
Reclining o'er a funeral urn,

Her short-lived darling son to mourn.
The last was he whose thunder slew
The Titan race, a rebel crew,
Who, from an hundred hills allied,
In impious league the king defied.

There never was a finer specimen of this species of Wit than one which occurs in the romance of Kenilworth, where the author compares the mind of Queen Elizabeth to one of those ancient druidical monuments called rocking-stones. "The finger of Cupid, boy as he is painted, could put her feelings in motion, but the power of Hercules could not "have destroyed their equilibrium.”

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I may mention one instance more, worthy of a better place and a better subject, from the Flash song in the Beg'gar's Opera :

See the ball I hold;

Let the chemists toil like asses,
Our fire their fire surpasses,

And turns all our lead to gold.

It would be easy to state numerous examples of this kind of wit, which, like the above, have nothing laughable about them. I wish now to produce instances of similes which excite laughter. The following well-known ones from Hudibras may serve our purpose:

Rhymes the rudders are of verses,

With which, like ships, they steer their courses.

Rhymes are compared to the rudders of ships, partly, I suppose, because they come in at the tail of the verse, and partly because they influence greatly the direction of the author's ideas. The following description of morning is equally original:

Now, like a lobster boil'd, the morn

From black to red began to turn.

The following accumulation of similitudes in Swift's Tale of a Tub may amuse at once from their oddity, their variety, and their number:-" Wisdom is a fox, which, after long "hunting, will at last cost you the pains to dig out; it is a cheese "which, by how much the richer, has the thicker, homelier, and "coarser coat, and whereof, to a judicious palate, the maggots are "the best; it is a sack-posset, wherein the deeper you go you will "find it the sweeter. Wisdom is a hen, whose cackling we must va"lue and consider, because it is attended with an egg; but then, "lastly, it is a nut, which, unless you choose with judgment, may cost you a tooth, and pay you with nothing but a worm."

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I now quote from the writings of the same author, another similitude, which is rather more amplified than is usual with him. It occurs in the Drapier's letters, where he is phillipizing against poor Mr Wood and his brass halfpence. He mentions, that he had received some hints from an eminent person in aid of his argument, some of which he had spoiled by endeavouring to make them of a piece with his own

productions, and the rest he was not able to manage :-" I "was," says he, " in the case of David; I could not move in the armour of Saul, and therefore I rather chose to attack this uncir"cumcised Philistine (Wood, I mean,) with a sling and a stone. "And I may say, for Wood's honour as well as my own, that he "resembles Goliath in many circumstances very applicable to the present purpose; for Goliath had a helmet of brass upon his head, " and he was armed with a coat-of-mail, and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of brass, and he had greaves of brass upon his legs, and a target of brass between his shoulders. In "short, he was like Mr Wood, all over brass, and he defied the "armies of the living God. Goliath's conditions of combat were like"wise the same with that of Wood; if he prevail against us, then "shall we be his servants. But if it happen that I prevail over " him, I renounce the other part of the condition; he shall never be a servant of mine, for I do not think him fit to be trusted in any " honest man's shop."

Now, let us consider how it happens, that one set of similitudes just now quoted appears highly ludicrous, while the others are not in the least so. In both, we have the discovery of one or more points of resemblance, when we did not expect to find any; but the difference between the two sets of cases seems to be this. In the comparisons which are serious, and do not excite laughter, the objects compared, however actually different, do not excite any very opposite emotions. When the author of Waverley compares the mind of England's Elizabeth to a druidical pillar, one object of a great and dignified kind is compared to another of a similar character. Both of them address themselves to our Veneration and Ideality, and no discordant feeling of a lower description comes in to mar the impression. But when the gigantic Goliath, the champion of the enemies of God's people, the terror of the house of Judah, and before whom all her stoutest warriors trembled, is compared to so insignificant a person as one William Wood, an old brass-founder and hardwareman, a dealer in old copper, brass kettles, coalskuttles, and warming-pans, the contrast cannot fail to strike every one as far more remarkable than the resemblance. Here we have not one great and elevated object compared to another that is great and elevated, but we have a great and

elevated object compared to one that is devoid of the smallest dignity. The one excites terror and wonder and awe, the other only contempt,-the two objects excite a totally opposite set of feelings. It seems to be in consequence of this, that, in the instances of serious wit, we think chiefly of the resemblance, and the difference, though sufficiently obvious, is not dwelt upon; it occurs only so far as to give a sort of relief to the resemblance, and to occasion that pleasing surprise at its discovery which this species of wit excites. But in the ludicrous simile the resemblance is merely a sort of hook and eye to tie two things together which are the most opposite in nature. What strikes us most here is the difference, and though surprised certainly at the discovery of a resemblance between two things so prodigiously unlike, it is the contrast that chiefly occupies our attention; and it is this, as appears to me, which is the cause of our laughter.

It would answer no purpose to go through the other cases quoted, which every one can easily do for himself after the principle is stated. I shall only give two other instances of this kind of Wit, one of them grave and the other ludicrous, which may help to illustrate my position.

Sir Lucius O'Trigger, in the Rivals, tells Acres, that “his "valour should be as keen, but at the same time as polish"ed, as his sword." The thought may have been borrowed from the following very witty and polished epigram, where it is most ingeniously applied as descriptive of wit itself:True Wit is like the brilliant stone,

Dug from an Indian mine,

Which boasts two various powers in one,

To cut as well as shine.

Genius, like that, if polish'd right,

With the same gifts abounds,
Appears at once both keen and bright,
And sparkles while it wounds.

I beg to contrast this with the following

One day, in Chelsea meadows walking,
Of poetry and such things talking,
Says Ralph, a merry wag,