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had made use of the four following rhymes, Amaryllis, Phillis, Marne, Arne, defiring him to give me his opinion of it. He told me immediately, that my verfes were good for nothing. "And upon my asking his reason, he faid, because 'the rhymes are too common; and for that reafon eafy to be put into verfe. Marry, fays I, if it be fo, I am very well rewarded for all the pains 'I have been at. But by Monfieur Gombaud's leave, notwithstanding the feverity of the criticifm, the verses were good.' Vid. MENAGIANA. Thus far the learned Menage, whom I have tranflated word for word.

The firft occafion of these Bouts Rimez made them in fome manner excufable, as they were tasks which the French ladies used to impofe on their lovers. But when a grave author, like him abovementioned tasked himself, could there be any thing more ridiculous? Or would not one be apt to believe that the author played booty, and did not make his lift of rhymes till he had finished his poem?

I fhall only add, that this piece of falfe wit has been finely ridiculed by Monfieur Sarafin, in a poem intituled, La Defaite des Bouts-Rimex, The Rout of the Bouts-Rimez.

4T I must fubjoin to this laft kind of wit the double rhymes, which are ufed in doggrel poetry, and generally applauded by ignorant readers. If the thought of the couplet in fuch compofitions is good, the rhyme adds little to it; and if bad, it will not be in the power of the rhyme to recommend it. I am afraid that great numbers of thofe who admire the incomparable Hudibras, do it more on account of thefe doggrel rhymes, than of the parts that really deserve admiration. I am fure I have heard the

and

Pulpit, drum ecclefiaftic,

Was beat with fift instead of a ftick

of fome of the greatest authors in the Greek tongue. Cicero has sprinkled several of his works with puns, and in his book, where he lays down the rules of oratory, quotes abundance of fayings. as pieces of wit, which alfo upon examination. prove arrant puns. But the age in which the Pun chiefly flourished, was the reign of King James the Firft. That learned monarch was himself a tolerable punfter, and made very few bishops or privy-counfellors that had not fome time or other fignalized themselves by a clinch, cr a Conundrum. It was therefore in this age that the pun appeared with pomp and dignity. It had before been admitted into merry fpeeches and ludicrous. compositions, but was now delivered with great gravity from the pulpit, or pronounced in the most folemn manner at the council-table. The greatest authors, in their most serious works, made frequent ufe of puns. The fermons of Bishop. Andrews, and the tragedies of Shakefpear, are full of them. The finner was punned into re pentance by the former; as in the latter nothing is more ufual than to fee a hero weeping and quibbling for a dozen lines together.

There was an ancient fage philofopher Who had read Alexander Rofs overmore frequently quoted, than the finest pieces of wit in the whole poem. C.

N° 61: THURSDAY, MAY 10.

Non equidem ftudeo, bullatis ut mibi nugis
Pagina turgefcat, darc pondus idonea fumo.

'Tis not indeed my talent to engage In lofty trifles, or to fwell my page With wind and noise.

T

DRYDEN.

I must add to thefe great authorities, which, feem to have given a kind of sanction to this piece of falfe wit, that all the writers of rhetoric have treated of punning with very great refpect, and divided the feveral kinds of it into hard names, that are reckoned among the figures of fpeech, and recommended as ornaments in difcourfe. I remember a country schoolmaster of my acquaintance told me once, that he had been in company with a gentleman whom he looked upon to be the greatest paragrammatift among the moderns. Upon inquiry, I found my learned friend had dined that day with Mr. Swan, the famous punfter; and defiring him to give me fome account of Mr. Swan's converfation, he told me that he generally talked in the Paranomafia, that he fometimes gave into the Ploce, but that in his humble opinion he fhined most in the Antanaclafis.

I must not here omit, that a famous University of this land was formerly very much infefted with puns; but whether or no this might not arise from the fens and marshes in which it was fituated, and which are now drained, I must leave to the deter mination of more skilful naturalists.

After this short hiftory of punning, one would wonder how it fhould be fo entirely banished out. PERS. Sat, v. 19. of the learned world as it is at prefent; especially fince it had found a place in the writings of the maft ancient polite authors. To account for this we must confider, that the first race of authors, who were the great heroes in writing, were deftiHERE is no kind of falfe wit which has been tute of all rules and arts of criticism ; and for that fo recommended by the practise of all ages, reafon, though they excel later writers in greatas that which confifts in a jingle of words, and is nefs of genius, they fall fhort of them in accuracomprehended under the general name of Pun- cy and correctnefs. The moderns cannot reach hing. It is indeed impoffible to kill a weed, whith their beauties, but can avoid their imperfections. the foil has a natural disposition to produce. The When the world was furnifhed with thefe aufeeds of punning are in the minds of all men; and though they may be fubdued by reafon, refection, and good fenfe, they will be very apt to fhoot up in the greatest genius that is not broken and cultivated by the rules of art. Imitation is natural to us, and when it does not raife the mind to poetry, painting, music, or other more noble arts, it often breaks out in puns and quibbles.

Ariftotle, in the eleventh chapter of his book of rhetoric, defcribes two or three kinds of puns, which he calls paragrams, among the beauties of good writing, and produces inftances of them out

of the firft eminence, there grew up another fet of writers, who gained themfelves a reputation by the remarks which they made on the works of thofe who preceded thein. It was one of the cmployments of thefe fecondary authors to diftinguish the feveral kinds of wit by terms of art, and to confider them as more or lefs perfect, according as they were founded in truth. It is no wender therefore, that even fuch authors as Ifocrates, Plato, and Cicero, fhould have fuch little blemishes as are not to be met with in authors of a much inferior character, who have written fince thofe

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the cleareft judgment, or deepest reason. For 'wit lying moft in the affemblage of ideas, and putting thofe together with quickness and variety, wherein can be found any refemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable vifions in the fancy; judgment, on the contrary, lies quite on the other fide, in feparating carefully one from another, ideas

feveral blemishes were discovered. I do not find that there was a proper feparation made between puns and true wit by any of the ancient authors, except Quintilian and Longinus. But when this distinction was once Hettled, it was very natural for all men of fenfe to agree in it. As for the revival of this falfe wit, it happened about the time of the revival of letters; but as foon as it was once detected, it immediately vanished and difap-wherein can be found the leaft difference, there

peared. At the fame time there is no queftion, but as it has funk in one age and rofe in another, it will again recover itself in some diftant period of time, as pedantry and ignorance fhall prevail upon wit and fenfe. And, to fpeak the truth, I do very much apprehend, by fome of the last winter's productions, which had their fets of admirers, that our pofterity will in a few years degenerate into a race of punsters; at least, a man may be very excufable for any apprehenfions of this kind, that has feen Acroftics handed about the town with great fecrecy and applaufe; to which I muft alfo add a little epigram called the Witches Prayer, that fell into verfe when it was read either backward or forward, excepting only that it curfed one way and bleffed the other. When one fees there are actually fuch pains-takers among our British wits, who can tell what it may end in? If we must lash one another, let it be with the manly strokes of wit and fatire; for I am of the old phi lofopher's opinion, that if I muft fuffer from one or the other, I would rather it should be from the paw of a lion, than the hoof of an afs. I do not fpeak this out of any spirit of party. There is a most crying dulnefs on both fides. I have feen Tory Acroftics and Whig Anagrams, and do not quarrel with either of them, because they are Whigs or Tories, but because they are Anagrams and Acroftics.

But to return to punning. Having pursued the hiftory of a pun, from its original to its downfal, I fhall here define it to be a conceit arifing from the use of two words that agree in the found, but differ in the fenfe. The only way therefore fo try a piece of wit, is to tranflate it into a different language; if it bears the teft, you may pronounce it true; but if it vanishes in the experiment, you may conclude it to have been a pun. In fhort, one may fay of a pun, as the countryman described his nightingale, that it is vox & præterea nibil, a found, and nothing but a found. On the contrary, one may reprefent true wit by the defcription which Ariftenetus makes of a fine woman; when the is dreffed fhe is beautiful, when he is undreffed the is beautiful; or as Mercerus has translated it more emphatically, Induitur, formofa eft; exuitur, ipfa forma eft. C

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by to avoid being misled by fimilitude, and by affinity to take one thing for another. This is a way of proceeding quite contrary to metaphor and allufion; therein, for the most part, lies that entertainment and pleafantry of wit which ftrikes fo lively on the fancy, and is therefore so acceptable to all people.'

This is I think the best and most philosophical account that I ever met with of wit, which generally, though not always, confifts in fuch a refemblance and congruity of ideas as this author mentions. I fhall only add to it, by way of explanation, that every refemblance of ideas is not that which we call wit, unless it be such an one that gives Delight and Surprize to the reader: these two properties feem effential to wit, more particularly the last of them. In order therefore that the refemblance in the ideas be wit, it is neceffary that the ideas fhould not lie too near one another in the nature of things; for where the likeness is obvious, it gives no furprise. To compare one man's finging to that of another, or to reprefent the whiteness of any object by that of milk and fnow, or the variety of its colours by thofe of the rainbow, cannot be called wit, unless, befides this obvious refemblance, there be fome further congruity difcovered in the two ideas that is capable of giving the reader fome furprise. Thus when a poet tells us, the bofom of his miftrefs is as white as fnow, there is no wit in the comparison; but when he adds, with a figh, that it is as cold too, it then grows into wit. Every reader's memory may fupply him with innumer able inftances of the fame nature. For this rea> fon the fimilitudes in heroic poets, who endeavour rather to fill the mind with great conceptions, than to divert it with fuch as are new and furprifing, have feldom any thing in them that can be called wit. Mr. Locke's account of wit, with this fhort explanation, comprehends most of the species of wit, as metaphors, fimilitudes, allegories, ænigmas, mottos, parables, fables, dreams, vifions, dramatic writings, burlesques, and all the methods of allufion: as there are many other pie.. ces of wit, how remote foever they may appear at first fight, from the foregoing description, which upon examination will be found to agree with it.

As true wit generally confifts in this refemblance and congruity of ideas, false wit chiefly confifts in the refemblance and congruity fometimes of fingle letters, as in anagrams, chronograms, lipograms, and acroftics; fometimes of fyllables, as in echos and doggerel rhymes: fometimes of words, as in puns and quibbles; and sometimes of whole fentences or poems, caft into the figure of eggs, axes or altars: nay fome carry the notion of wit fo far, as to afcribe it even to external mimicry; and to look upon a man as an ingenious perfon, that can refemble the tone, pofture, or face of another..

As true wit confifts in the resemblance of ideas, and falfe wit in the refemblance of words, ac cording to the foregoing inftances; there is ano

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thor kind of wit which confifts partly in the refemblance of ideas, and partly in the resemblance of words, which for diftinction fake I fhall call mixt wit. This kind of wit is that which abounds in Cowley, more than in any author that ever wrote. Mr. Waller has likewife a great deal of it. Mr. Dryden is very sparing in it. Milton had a genious much above it. Spenfer is in the fame class with Milton. The Italians, even in their epic poetry, are full of it. Monfieur Boileau, who formed himself upon the ancient poets, has every where rejected it with fcorn. If we look after mixt wit among the Greek writers, we shall find it no where but in the epigrammatifts. There are indeed some strokes of it in the little poem afcribed to Mufæus, which by that, as well as many other marks, betrays itself to be a modern compofition. If we look into the Latin writers, we find none of this mixt wit in Virgil, Lucretius, or Catullus: very little in Horace; but a great deal of it in Ovid; and scarce any thing else in Martial.

Out of the innumerable branches of mixt wit, I fhall choose one inftance which may be met with in all the writers of this clafs. The paffion of love in its nature has been thought to resemble fire; for which reason the words fire and flame are made use of to fignify Love. The witty poets therefore have taken an advantage from the doubtful meaning of the word fire, to make an infinite number of witticisms. Cowley obferving the cold regard of his mistress's eyes, and at the fame time their power of producing love in him, confiders them as burning-glasses made of ice; and finding himself able to live in the greatest extremities of love, concludes the Torrid Zone to be habitable, When his mistress had read his letter written in juice of lemon by holding it to the fire, he defires her to read it over a fecond time by love's flames, When the weeps, he withes it were inward heat that diftilled thofe drops from the limbec. When she is abfent, he is beyond eighty, that is, thirty degrees nearer the pole than when the is with him. His ambitious love is a fire that naturally mounts upwards; his happy love is the beams of heaven, and his unhappy love flames of hell. When it does not let him fleep, it is a flame that fends up no smoke; when it is oppofed by counfel and advice, it is a fire that rages the more by the winds blowing upon it. Upon the dying of a tree in which he had cut his loves, he obferves that his written flames had burnt up and withered When he refolves to give over his paffion, he tells us that one burnt like him for ever dreads the fire. His heart is an Ætna, that inftead of Vulcan's fhop, inclofes Cupid's forge in it. His endeavouring to drown his love in wine, is throwing oil upon the fire. He would infinuate to his miftrefs, that the fire of love, like that of the fun, which produces fo many living creatures, should not only warm but beget. Love in another place cooks pleasure at his fire. Sometimes the poet's heart is frozen in every breast, and fometimes fcorched in every eye. Sometimes he is drowned in tears, and burnt in love, like a ship fet on fire in the middle of the sea.

the tree.

The reader may observe, in every one of thefe inftances, that the poet mixes the qualities of fire with thofe of love; and in the fame fentence speaking of it both as a paffion and as real fire, furprises the reader with thofe fecming resemblances or contradictions that make up all the wit in this kind of writing. Mixt wit therefore is a compofition of pun and true wit, and is more or lefs perfe&

as the refemblance lies in the ideas or in the words: its foundations are laid partly in falfhood, and partly in truth: reafon puts in her claim for one half of it, and extravagance for the other. The only province therefore for this kind of wit, is epigram, or those little occafional poems that in their own nature are nothing else but a tiffue of epigrams. I cannot conclude this head of mixt wit, without owning that the admirable poet, out of whom I have taken the examples of it, had as much true wit as any author that ever writ; and indeed all other talents of an extraordinary genius.

It may be expected, fince I am upon this fubject, that I fhould take notice of Mr. Dryden's definition of wit? which with all the deference that is due to the judgment of fo great a man, is not fo properly a definition of wit, as of good writing in general. Wit, as he defines it, is a propriety of words and thoughts adapted to the fubject.' If this be a true definition of wit, I am apt to think that Euclid was the greatest wit that ever fet pen to paper: it is certain that never was a greater propriety of words and thoughts adapted to the fubject, than what that author has made use of in his Elements. I fhall only appeal to my reader, if this definition agrees with any notion he has of wit; if it be a true one, I am fure Mr. Dryden was not only a better poet, but a greater wit, than Mr. Cowley; and Virgil a much more facetious man than either Ovid or Martial.

Bouhours, whom I look upon to be the most penetrating of all the French critics, has taken pains to fhew, that it is impoffible for any thought to be beautiful which is not just, and has not its foundation in the nature of things; that the bafis of all wit is truth; and that no thought can be valuable, of which good fenfe is not the groundwork. Boileau has endeavoured to inculcate the fame notion in several parts of his writings, both in profe and verfe. This is that natural way of writing, that beautiful fimplicity, which we fo much admire in the compofitions of the ancients: and which nobody deviates from, but those who want ftrength of genius to make a thought fhine in its own natural beauties. Poets, who want this ftrength of genius to give that majestic fimplicity to nature, which we fo much admire in the works of the ancients, are forced to hunt after foreign ornaments, and not to let any piece of wit of what kind soever escape them. I look upon these writers as Goths in poetry, who, like those in architecture, nor being able to come up to the beautiful fimplicity of the old Greeks and Romans, have endeavoured to fupply its place with all the extravagances of an irregular fancy. Mr. Dryden makes a very handfome obfervation, on Ovid's writing a letter from Dido to Æneas, in the following words. Ovid.' fays he, speaking of Virgil's fiction of Dido and Æneas, takes it up af

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ter him, even in the fame age, and makes an an'cient heroine of Virgil's new-created Dido; dic'tates a letter for her just before her death to the ungrateful fugitive; and, very unluckily for himself, is, for measuring a sword with a man fo much fuperior in force to him on the fame fubject. I think I may be judge of this, because 'I have tranflated both. The famous author of the Art of Love has nothing of his own: he borrows all from a greater master in his own profeffion, and, which is worfe, improves nothing which he finds: nature fails him, and being 'forced to his old shift, he has recourse to witti

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cifm. This paffes indeed with his foft admirers, and gives him the preference to Virgil in their efteen.'

Were not I fupported by fo great an authority as that of Mr. Dryden, I fhould not venture to obferve, that the taste of moft of our English poets, as well as readers, is extremely Gothic. He quotes Monfieur Segrais for a threefold diftinction of the readers of poetry in the firft of which he com"prehends the rabble of readers, whom he does not treat as fuch with regard to their quality, but to their numbers and the coarfenefs of their taste. His words are as follows: Segrais has diftinguifhed the readers of poetry, according to their capacity of judging, into three claffes. [He might have faid the fame of writers too, if he had pleafed.] In the lowest form he places thofe whom he calls Les Petits Efprits, fuch things as our upper-gallery audience in a playhoufe; who like nothing but the husk and rhind of wit, prefer a quibble, a conceit, an epigram, before folid fenfe and elegant expreffion: thefe are mob-readers. If Virgil and Martial ftood for parliament-men, we know already who would carry it. But though they make the greateft appearance in the field, and cry the loudeft, the belt on't is they are but a fort of French huguenots, or Dutch boors, brought over in herds, but not naturalized; who have not lands of two pounds per annum in Parnaffus, and therefore are not privileged to poll. Their authors are of the fame level, fit to represent them on a mountebank's ftage, or to be mafters of < the ceremonies in a bear-garden: yet thefe are they who have the most admirers. But it often happens, to their mortification, that as their ⚫ readers improve their stock of fenfe, as they may by reading better books, and by converfation with men of judgment, they foon forfake

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ployed. The thoughts will be rifing of themselves from time to time, though we give them no encouragement; as the t fings and fluctuations of the fea continue feveral hours after the winds are laid.

It is to this that I impute my last night's dream or vifion, which formed into one continued alle gory the feveral fchemes of wit, whether falfe, mixed, or true, that have been the fubject of my late papers.

Methought I was tranfported into a country that was filled with prodigies and er chantments, governed by the goddess of Faithood, and intitled The Region of falfe Wit. There was nothing in the fields, the woods, and the rivers that appeared natural. Several of the trees bloffomed in leaf-gold, fome of them produced bone-lace, and fome of them precious ftones. The fountains bubbled in an opera tune, and were filled with tags, wild-boars, and mermaids, that lived among the waters; at the fame time that dolphins and feveral kinds of fish played upon the banks or took their paftime in the meadows. The birds had many of them golden beaks, and human voices. The flowers perfumed the air with smells of incenfe, amber-greafe, and pulvillios; and were fo interwoven with one another, that they grow up in pieces of embroidery. The winds were filled with fighs and meffages of diftant lovers. As I was walking to and fro in this enchanted wildernefs, I could not forbear breaking out into foliloquies upon the feveral wonders which lay before me, when to my great furprife I found there were artificial echoes in every walk, that, by repetitions of certain words which I fpoke, agreed with me, or contradicted me, in every thing I faid. In the midst of my converfation with these invifible companions, I discovered in the centre of a very dark grove a monstrous fabric built after the Gothic manner, and covered with innumerable deI must not difinifs this fubject without obferv.vices in that barbarous kind of fculpture. Iiming, that as Mr. Locke, in the paffage abovemen- mediately went up to it, and found it to be a kind tioned, has difcovered the most fruitful fource of of heathen temple confecrated to the god of Dulwit, fo there is another of a quite contrary nature nefs. Upon my entrance, I faw the deity of the to it, which does likewife branch itfeif out into place dreffed in the habit of a monk, with a book feveral kinds. For not only the refemblance, but in one hand, and a rattle in the other. Upon his the oppofition of ideas, does very often produce right hand was Induftry, with a lamp burning wit; as I could fhew in feveral little points, before her; and on his left Caprice, with a monturns, and antithefes, that I may poffibly enlarge key fitting on her fhoulder. Before his feet there upon in fome future fpeculation. C food an altar of a very odd make, which, as I af, terwards found, was fhaped in that manner to comply with the infcription that furrounded it, Upon the altar there lay feveral offerings of axes, wings, and eggs, cut in paper, and infcribed with verfes. The temple was filled with votaries, who applied themfelves to different diverfions, as their fancies directed them. In one part of it I saw a regiment of Anagrams, who were continually in motion, turning to the right or to the left, facing about, doubling their ranks, fhifting their stations, HOR. Ars Poet. ver. I. and throwing themfelves into all the figures and countermarches of the most changeable and perplexed exercife.

< them. *

N° 63. SATURDAY, MAY 12.
Humano capiti cervicem pictor equinam
Jungere fi velit, & varias inducere plumas,
Undique collatis membris, ut turpiter atrum
Definat in pifcem mulier formofa fupernè:
Spectatum admiffi rifum teneatis amici?
Credite, Pifones, ifti tabula fore librum
Perfimilem, cujus, velut ægri fomnia, vane
Finguntur fpecies ——

If in a picture, Pifo, you should fee

!

A handfome woman with a fifn's tail,
Or a man's head upon a horfe's neck,
Or limbs of beafts, of the moft different kinds,
Cover'd with feathers of all forts of birds:
Wou'd you not laugh, and think the painter mad?
Trust me that book is as ridiculous,
Whose incoherent ftyle, like fick mens dreams,
Various all shapes, and mixes all extremes.'
ROSCOMMON.
Tis very hard for the mind to difengage itfelf
from a subject in which it has been long em-

I

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Not far from thefe was a body of Acroftics, made up of very difproportioned persons. It was difpofed into three columns, the officers planting themfelves in a line on the left-hand of each column. The officers were all of them at leaft fix feet high, and made three rows of very proper men; but the common foldiers, who filled up the spaces between the officers, were fuch dwarfs, cripples, and fcarecrows, that one could hardly look upon them without laughing. There were

behind the Acroftics two or three files of Chronograms, which differed only from the former, as their officers were equipped, like the figure of time, with an hour-glafs in one hand, and a scythe in the other, and took their pofts promiscuously among the private men whom they commanded. In the body of the temple, and before the very face of the deity, methought I faw the phantom of Tryphiodorus the Lipogrammatist, engaged in a ball with four-and-twenty perfons, who purfued him by turns through all the intricacies and labyrinths of a country dance, without being able to overtake him.

Observing several to be very bufy at the western end of the Temple, I inquired into what they were doing, and found there was in that quarter the great magazine of Rebus's. There were feveral things of the most different natures 'tied up in bundles, and thrown upon one another in heaps like faggots, You might behold an anchor, a night-rail, and a hobby-horse, bound up together. One of the workmen feeing me very much furprized, told me, there was an infinite deal of wit in feveral of those bundles, and that he would explain them to me if I pleafed. I thanked him for his civility, but told him I was in very great hafte at that time. As I was going out of the Temple, I obferved in one corner of it a clufter of men and women laughing very heartily, and diverting themfelves at a game of Crambo. heard feveral Double Rhymes as I paffed by them, which raifed a great deal of mirth.

Not far from thefe was another fet of merry people engaged at a diverfion, in which the whole jeft was to mistake one perfon for another. To give occafion for thefe ludicrous mistakes, they were divided into pairs, every pair being covered from head to foot with the fame kind of drefs, though perhaps there was not the leaft refemblance in their faces. By this means an old man was fometimes mistaken for a boy, a woman for a man, and a black-a-moor for an European, which very often produced great peals of laughter. Thefe I gueffed to be a party of Puns. But being very defirous to get out of this world of magic, which had almost turned my brain, I left the temple, and croffed over the fields that lay about it with all the fpeed I could make. I was not gone far before I heard the found of trumpets and alarms, which feemed to proclaim the march of an enemy; and, as I afterwards found, was in reality what I apprehended it. There appeared at a great diftance a very fhining light, and, in the midst of it, a person of a most beautiful afpect; her name was Truth. On her righthand there marched a male deity, who bore feveral quivers on his fhoulder, and grafped feveral arrows in his hand. His name was Wit. The approach of these two enemies filled all the territories of Falfe Wit with an unfpeakable confternation, infomuch that the goddess of thofe regions appeared in perfon upon her frontiers, with the feveral inferior deities, and the different bodies of forces which I had before feen in the temple, who were now drawn up in array, and prepared to give their foes a warm reception. As the march of the enemy was very flow, it gave time to the feveral inhabitants who bordered upon the regions of Falfhood to draw their forces into a body, with a defign to ftand upon their guard as neuters, and attend the issue of the combat.

I must here inform my reader, that the fron

tiers of the enchanted region, which I have before defcribed, were inhabited by the fpecies of Mixed Wit, who made a very odd appearance when they were mustered together in an army. There were men whofe bodies were stuck full of darts, and women whofe eyes were burning glaffes; men that had hearts of fire, and women that had breafts of fnow. It would be endless to defcribe feveral monsters of the like nature, that compofed this great army; which immediately fell afunder and divided itself into two parts, the one half throwing themfelves behind the banners of Truth, and the others behind those of Falfhood.

The goddess of Falfhood was of gigantic ftature, and advanced fome paces before the front of her army; but as the dazzling light, which flowed from Truth, began to shine upon her, fhe faded infenfibly; infomuch, that in a little space fhe looked rather like an huge phantom than a real fubftance. At length, as the goddess of Truth approached ftill nearer to her, the fell away intirely, and vanifhed amidft the brightness of her prefence; fo that there did not remain the leaft trace or impreffion of her figure in the place where the had been seen.

As at the rifing of the fun the conftellations grow thin, and the ftars go out one after another, till the whole hemifphere is extinguished; fuch was the vanishing of the goddess: and not only of the goddefs herfelf, but of the whole army that attended her, which fympathized with their leader, and fhrunk into nothing, in proportion as the goddefs difappeared. At the fame time the whole temple funk, the fish betook themselves to the ftreams, and the wild beafts to the woods, the fountains recovered their murmurs, the birds their voices, the trees their leaves, the flowers their fcents, and the whole face of nature its true and genuine appearance. Though I till continued afleep, I fancied myself as it were awakened out of a dream, when I saw this region of prodigies reftored to woods and rivers, fields and meadows.

Upon the removal of that wild fcene of wonders, which had very much disturbed my imagination, I took a full furvey of the perfons of Wit and Truth; for indeed it was impoffible to look upon the firit, without feeing the other at the fame time. There was behind them a strong and compact body of figur.s. The genius of Heroic Poetry appeared with the fword in her hand, and a

laurel on her head. Tragedy was crowned with cyprefs, and covered with robes dipped in blood. Satire had smiles in her look, and a dagger under her garment. Rhetoric was known by her thunderbolt; and Comedy by her mask. After feveral other figures, Epigram marched up in the rear, who had been posted there at the beginning of the expedition, that he might not revolt to the enemy, whom he was fufpected to favour in his heart. I was very much awed and delighted with the appearance of the God of Wit; there was fomething fo amiable, and yet so piercing in his looks, as infpired me at once with love and terror. As I was gazing on him, to my unspeakable joy, he took a quiver of arrows from his fhoulder, in order to make me a prefent of it; but as I was reaching out my hand to receive it of him, I knocked it against a chair, and by that means awaked,

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