The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface
• Key to Abbreviations and References
• Introduction
• 1.: The Manuscript
• 2.: The Lectures
• 3.: Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages
• 4.: Rhetoric and Literary Criticism
• 5.: System and Aesthetics
• Bibliographical Note
• Lectures On Rhetoric and Belles Lettres: Lecture 2D.
• Lecture 3D.: Of the Origin and Progress of Language 1
• Lecture 4tha
• Lecture 5. A
• Lecture 6.THA: Of What Is Called the Tropes and Figures of Speech. B
• Lecture. 7. A
• Lecture. 8. A
• Lecture. 9tha
• Lecture. 10tha
• Lecture. 11 a
• Lecture. 12.THA: Of Composition
• Lecture. 13 a
• | Lecture. 14 a
• Lecture 15tha
• Lecture. 16th. a
• Lecture XVII. A
• Lecture Xviii a
• Lecture. Xixth. a
• Lecture. XX.THA
• Lecture Xxist. a
• Lecture Xxiida
• Lecture Xxiiida
• Lecture Xxivtha
• Lecture XXV. A
• Lecture Xxvitha
• Lecture Xxvii a
• Lecture Xxviiitha
• Lecture Xxix a
• Lecture. Xxx a
• Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages,&c. &c.1
• Appendix 1 (see P. 32) the Bee, Or Literary Weekly Intelligencer, For Wednesday, May 11, 1791.
• Appendix 2 Table of Corresponding Passages

Lecture. 8. ^a

Friday. Dc.^r 1762

Having in the foregoing lecture made some observations on tropes and figures and endeavoured to shew that it was not in their use, as the ancient Rhetoricians imagined, that the beauties of stile consisted, I pointed out what it was that realy gave beauty to stile: That when the words neatly and properly expressed the thing to be described, and conveyed the sentiment the author entertained of it and desired to communicate [to his hearer] by sympathy to his hearers; then the expression had all the beauty language was capable of bestowing on it. I endeavoured to shew also that the form of the stile was not to be confined to any particular point. The view of the author | 97 and the means he takes to accomplish that end must vary the stile not only in ^b describing diferent objects or delivering different opinions, ^c but even when these are the same in both; as the sentiment will be different, so will the stile also. Besides this I endeavoured to shew that ^d when all other circumstances are alike the character of the author must make ^e the stile different. One of grave cast of mind will describe an object in a very different way from one of more levity, a plain man will have ^f a stile very different from that of a simple man.—There is however no one particular which we esteem, but many are equally agreable. Extreme moroseness and gravity, such that | 98 no risible objects will in the least affect, would not be admired: neither would one of such levity that the smallest incident would make lose himself. But it is not in the middle point betwixt these two characters that an agreable one is alone to be found, many others that partake more or less of the two extremes are equally the objects of our affection. In the same way it is with regard to a spirited and silly behaviour, and every two other opposite extremes in the Characters of men.

These ^g characters tho all good and agreable must nevertheless as they are different be expressed in very different stiles, all of which may be very agreable. | 99 And here likewise the rule may be applied that one should stick to his naturall character: a gay man should not endeavour to be grave nor the grave man to be gay, but each should regulate that character and manner that is naturall to him and hinder it from running into that vicious extreme to which he is most inclined.

This difference of stile arising from the character of the author, I endeavoured to illustrate by comparing the Stiles of two celebrated English writers, Swift and Sir W^m Temple, the one as an example of the plain Stile and the other of a simple one. Both are very good writers; Swift as I observed is remarkable for his propriety and | 100 precision, the other is not perhaps so very accurate, but he is perhaps as entertaining and much more instructive. I shall now proceed to make some farther observation on the Stile of Dr. Swift.

There is perhaps no writer whose works are more generally read than his, and yet it has been very late, ^h that very few in this country particularly understand his real worth. He is read with the same view and the same expectations as we read Tom Brown,1 etc. They are considered ⁱ as writers just of <the> same class. Swifts graver work<s> are never almost read, they are looked upon as silly and trifling, and his other works are read merely for their humour.

We shall therefore endeavour to find out what are the causes of this generall taste: and first Swifts sentiments in Religious matters are not at all suitable to | 101 those which for some time past have prevail’d in this country. He is indeed no friend to tyranny either religious or civill; he expresses his abhorr[r]ence to them on many occasions; but then he never has such warm exclamations for civill or religious liberty as are now generally in fashion. This would not suit his character, the plain man he affects to appear would never be subject to such strong admiration. The levity of mind ^j as well as freedom of thought now in fashion demands ^k warmer and more earnest expressions than he ever allows himself.

Another circumstance that will tend to confirm this opinion is that the thoughts of most men of genius in this country have of late <inclined> ^l to ^m abstract and Speculative reasonings which perhaps tend very | 102 little to the bettering of our practise. {Even the Practicall Sciences of Policticks and Morality or Ethicks have of late been treated too much in a Speculative manner.} ⁿ These studies Swift seems to have been rather entirely ignorant of, or what I am rather inclined to believe, did not hold them to be of great value. His generall character as a plain man would lead him to be of this way of thinking; he would be more inclined to prosecute what was immediately beneficial. Accordingly we find that all his writings are adapted to the present time, ^o either in ridiculing some prevailing vice or folly or exposing some particular character. ^p We can not now enter altogether into the true spirit of these; and besides as I said such confined thoughts do not suit the present taste which delights only in generall and abstract speculations.

| 103 But his language may possibly have brought about the generall disregard for his serious works as much as any other part of his character. We in this country are most of us very sensible that the perfection of language is very different from that we commonly speak in. ^q The idea we form of a good stile is almost conterary to that which we generally hear. Hence it is that we con<c>eive ^r the farther ones stile is removed from the common manner [the] it is ^s so much the nearer to purity and the perfection we have in view. Shaftesbury who keeps at a vast distance from the language we commonly meet with is for this reason universally admired. Thomson who perhaps was of the same opinion himself, is equalled with {Milton} ^t who amongst | 104 his other beauties has this also, that he does not affect forced expressions even when he is ^u most sublime. Swift on the other hand, who is the plainest as well as the most proper and precise of all the English writers, is despised as nothing out of the common road; each of us thinks he could have wrote as well; And our thoughts of the language give us the same idea of the substance of his writings. But it does not appear that this opinion is ^v well grounded. There are four things 2 that are requisite to make a good writer. 1st—That he have a complete knowledge of his Subjects; 2.^dlyw That he should arrange all the parts of his Subject in their proper order; 3^dly That he paint | 105 <or> describe the Ideas he has of these severall in the most proper and expressive manner; this is the art of painting or imitation (or at least we may call it so).

Now we will find that Swift has attained all these perfections. All his works shew a comple<te> knowledge of his Subject. He does not indeed ever introduce any thing foreign to his subject, in order to display his knowledge of his subject; but then he never omitts any thing necessary His rules ^x for behaviour 3 and his directions for a Servant shew a knowledge of both those opposite characters that could not have been attained but by the closest attention continued for many years. {It would have been impossible for any one who had not given such attention to alledge so many particulars.} ^y The same is apparent in all his political works, insomuch that one would imagine his thoughts had been altoge| 106ther turned that way.— —

One who has such a complete knowledge of what he treats will naturally arange it in the most proper order. This we see Swift always does. There is no part that we can think would have been better disposed of. That he paints but each thought in the best and most proper manner and with the greatest strength of colouring must be visible to any one at first sight. ^z Now that a writer who has all these qualities in such perfection should not make the best stile for expressing himself in ^a with propriety and precision can not be imagined. {That he does this when he speaks in his own person we ^b observed already and that he does so when he takes in the character of another is sufficiently evident from his Gulliver or 4 — —}

Notwithstanding of all this, perhaps for the reasons already shewn his graver works are not much regarded. It is his talent for ridi| 107cule that is most commonly and I believe most justly admired. We shall therefore consider how far [far] this talent is agreable to the generall character we have already given of him, and whether or not he has prosecuted it with the same exactness as the other subjects we mentioned. But before we enter upon this it will be necessary to make a few previous observations on [the] this Talent. ^c {This Leibnit ^d and after him Mr Locke 5 supposed to be excited by the viewing of some mean object; but that this is not the case will appear from what follows.}

Whatever we see that is great or noble excites our admiration and amazement, and whatever is little or mean on the other hand excites our contempt. ^e A greatt object never excites our laughter, neither does a mean one, simply as being such. It is the blending and joining of those two ideas which alone causes that Emotion.

| 108 { ^f The foundation of Ridicule is either when what is in most respects Grand or pretends to be so or is expected to be so, ^g has something mean or little ^h in it or when we find something that is realy mean with some pretensions and marks of grandeur.} Now this may happen either when an object which is in most respects a grand one, is represented to us and described as mean, ⁱ or e contra when a grand object is found in company as it were with others that are mean; [or] or e contra when ^j our expectation is dessapointed and what we imagined was either grand or mean turns out to be the reverse. These different combinations of ideas afford each a different form ^k or manner of ridicule.

If we represent an object which we are apt to conceive as a grand one <or> as of no dignity, and turn its qualities into the conterary, the mixture of the ideas excites our laughter tho neither of them seperately would do so. Hence come the Ridicule conveyed to us by burlesque or mock heroick compositions. The circumstances a thing is in also, if their be any great contradiction betwixt the objects, | 109 for the same reason excites our laughter. A tall man is no object of laughter, neither is a little, but a very tall man amongst a number of dwarfs, like Gulliver amongst the Lillyputians, or a little man amongst a set of very tall men as the same Gulliver in Brobdignag, appear = ly ^l ridiculous. There is no real foundation for laughter here but the odd association of grand and mean or little ideas. {In this and similar cases it is the Groupe of figures and no individuall one which is the object of our Ridicule ^m . The Ridicule in the Rape of the Lock proceeds from the Ridiculousness of the Characters themselves, but that of the Dunciad is owing altogether to the circumstances the persons are placed in. Any two men, Pope and Swift themselves, would look as ridiculous as Curl 6 and Lintot ⁿ if they were described running the same races.} We laugh against our will at the employment of Socrates when we see him in the Clouds 7 of Aristophanes measuring the length of a Fleas Leap by the length of the same fleas foot; or suspended in a basket making observations. If this philosopher had been <seen> ^o so employed he ^p would have appeared ridiculous, and the great contrariety of the ideas makes the very supposition appear so.

| 110 {The wit of some of the French Comedians as ^q is founded in this principle. The Lover in fousque 8 is no ways ridiculous but by the circumstances.} The Italian Comedians, at Paris, as they are called, as soon as any grave or solemn tragedy appears on the theatre give the same play, that is the same Incidents ^r applied to some very opposite character. Generalls and Emperors become Burghers or turn ^s mechanicks; the ridicule here is owing to the contrast <betwixt> the high Idea connected with the incidents we have seen attendant on great characters, and the same incidents happening to persons of a rank so much lower. When what we expect to find ^t great and noble turns out otherwise we are in the same manner moved to laughter, and e contra. A sow wallowing in the mire is certainly a loathsome object, but no one would laugh at it, as it is agreable to the nature of the beast. But if he saw the sow afterwards in a drawingroom, the case would | 111 be altered. On the other hand a lean poor looking rawboned horse excites ones laughter as {that noble animall seems to lay claim to our admiration}, we expect something great and noble in the appearance of that animall. One would not laugth at a bad prospect, as there <is> no contradiction in supposing one, unless we had been made to expect a fine one, but we laugh at a bad picture because we expect that art is exeersised in some noble manner.

’Tis from such combinations chiefly that ridicule proceeds; we may laugh too at things we contemn, but in ^u a different manner. A Coxcomb walking on the Street and looking around him to see those about admiring him as he expects is a subject of laughter to the graver sort; but then this laughter that proceeds from an object we contemn is evidently mixt with somewhat of anger. But if this same coxcomb should slip a foot | 112 and fall into the kennel the grave gentlemen would laugh ^v but from a different motive, <at> the ridiculous plight such a fine fellow was in; which was the very condition they at their hearts would have wished him. Some philosophers 9 as ^w observing that laughter proceeds sometimes from contempt, have made <it> the originall of all ridiculous perceptions. But we may frequently laugh at objects that are not at all contemptible. A tall man amongst a number of little men or e contra makes us laugh but we dont contemn either. Things that have no sort of connexion, but where the ideas we have are strangely contradictory, excite our laughter. I remember once a mouse ^x running across the area of a chappel spoilt the effect | 113 of an excellent discourse. Any such trivial accidents excite our laughter when they happen at any solemn or important work, as a Funerall. Tis for this reason that we are diverted with those ^y phrases that we are accustomed to connect in our imagination with noble objects, when we meet with them applied to mean and trifling ones. Hence comes the ridiculousness[ness] of Paradoies (or applying whole passages of an author by a sort of translation to subje<c>ts of a very different sort, and Centos where single phrases are applid.) The Cento of Apuleius, 10 where the Grave and chaste Virgil is made to speak in his own words on a very different Subject and not very chaste language, no where makes us laugh but in the Story of the Marriage. {All the ridicule of Scarrons Virgil Travesti 11 in the same manner proceeds from the Grave ^z and solemn adventures of Æneas being told in the most ridiculous language and trivial mean expressions.} The Modern Latin Poets, Vida, Sanazarious, 12 etc. are all Paradies on some of the | 114 ancient Latin Poets. They ^a not being on trivial subjects but such as are equally important, do not excite our laughter but are rather taedious and wearisome. The English poets are more originall, they do not usually borrow from others; such dealings would be counted no better than stealing; and for that reason are not so tiresome. The Splendid shilling 13 diverts us by the ridiculous appearance ^b Mi<l>tons language makes when used to extoll the Charms of a Shilling. {The incongruity of the language to the Subject has also its effect here ^c as well as in works of the conterary sort as Virgil travesti.} But so far is <it> from being a sign of any passages being a mean one that a parrodie has been made upon it, that ’tis rather a sign of the conterary, as the more sublime and Pompous a passage is the ^d greater the contrast will be when the phraseology is applied to triviall | 115 subjects. Thus we see the soliloquy of Hamlet, 14 the last speech of Cato, have undergone more parodies than any others I know, and indeed make very good ones. For the same reason Parodies on the Scriptures tho very profane are at the same time very ridiculous.

{Puns, which are the Lowest Species of Wit, 15 are never witty or agreable but when there is some contrast betwixt the ideas they excite; a mere quibble is never agreable.}

There are two species of Comic writing derived from two species of ridiculous circumstances. The one is when characters ridiculous in themselves are described and the other when characters that have nothing ridiculous in themselves are described in ridiculous circumstances. The ^e in the of is an instance of the former and the Lover of ^e in the fouguer 16 of ^f is an instance of the latter. The whole | 116 of Congreves wit consists in the ridiculousness of his similies, 17 as his comparing two persons bespattering one another to two apples roasting, or the young lady newly come to town, gaping with amazement, he compares her wide opend mouth to the gate of her fathers house ^g .

It is proper to be observed ^h that of all these species of Ridicule: Burlesque, Doggerel, Mock Heroick, Parodies, Centos, Puns, Quibbles and even that sort of Comedy which ridicules characters not from their real defects ⁱ <but> from the circumstances they are brought into, are ^j all of the buffoonish sort and unworthy of a gentleman who has had a regular education; | v.116 and whenever such an one exercises his wit in this manner, he lays aside that character to assume that of a buffoon at least for the time he does so. The only species of Ridicule which is true and genuine wit is that where Real foibles and blemishes in the Characters or behaviour of men are exposed to our view in a ridiculous light. This is altogether consistent with the character of a Gentleman ^k as it tends to the reformation of manners and the benefit of mankind.

{The objects of Ridicule are two: either those which, affecting to be Grand or being expected to be so, are mean, or being Grand in some of their parts are mean in others—or such as pretending etc. etc. to beauty are deformed.} ^l

[a]MS 7

[b]the deleted

[c]replaces sentiments

[d]not only the deleted

[e]replaces vary

[f]he deleted

[g]different deleted

[h]perhaps late, or his fate; very is added above line, perhaps by anticipation

[1 ]Tom Brown (1663–1704), a prolific writer of satirical dialogues, tracts, fiction, verse; he translated, among much else, the works of Scarron (1700).

[i]them deleted

[j]MS me

[k]more deleted

[l]conjecturally supplied

[m]the deleted

[n]Hand B

[o]being deleted

[p]These deleted

[q]and deleted

[r]whatever is most deleted

[s]the it is replaces to be

[t]Milton W supplied by Hand B at top of v. 103

[u]the deleted

[v]at a deleted

[2 ]Read ‘three’; but the scribe may have omitted one.

[w]That he paint if we may so, the ideas of deleted

[x]replaces directions

[3 ]A Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding (in the Earl of Orrery’s Remarks on the Life and Writings of Swift, 1752); Directions to Servants (1745).

[y]Hand B

[z]and deleted; strength . . . sight replaces precision, was observed on a former occasion, then and deleted

[a]and that deleted

[b]MS whe

[4 ]Supply ‘Drapier’, which gave Hand A trouble also at i.120 and for which Hand B supplied ‘Dyer’.

[c]replaces subject

[d]written in different ink above a blank beginning sc

[5 ]Leibnitz, Locke: see Introduction, p. 21.

[e]or disdain deleted

[f]Ridicule proceds deleted

[g]last six words inserted in margin

[h]last three words replace noble

[i]last eight words replace but has some particulars that are/do about it as presented (last five words interlined then deleted)

[j]one that deleted

[k]or stile deleted

[l]utterly (?), equally (?)

[m]In this . . . Ridicule, Hand B

[6 ]Edmund Curll and Bernard Lintot, the booksellers who appear in both 1729 and 1743 versions of Pope’s Dunciad, especially Book ii.

[n]inserted by Hand B in blank left

[7 ]Lines 143–52.

[o]been has been changed to seen by haplography

[p]MS the, 1 deleted

[q]blank of six leters in MS

[8 ]No doubt a first attempt at the title of which ‘Fouguer’ (i.115 n.16) is the second version. The Italian Comedians: the Gelosi, allowed to play commedia dell’arte in Paris, later presented parodies of tragedies, etc. Expelled 1697–1716 for exceeding their licence; later still, fused with the Opéra–Comique. Writers for them included Regnard, Dufresny, Marivaux.

[r]tur deleted

[s]MS ton; see note r

[t]of a gra deleted

[u]replaces from

[v]at his above line, deleted

[9 ]‘Some philosophers’: perhaps Hobbes, See i.107 n.5, and Introduction, p. 21.

[w]blank of fourteen letters in MS

[x]original order a mouse, once changed by numbers written above

[y]replaces any

[10 ]i.e. Ausonius, Opuscula, Lib. xvii: Cento nuptialis.

[11 ]Paul Scarron, Virgile travesti (1648–52).

[z]Langu deleted

[12 ]Jacopo Sannazzaro (1456–1530). Latin poems: Elegiae and Epigrammata are personal lyrics. Eclogae piscatoriae substitute fishermen for the shepherds of pastoral. De partu Virginis treats Christ’s birth in classical epic style; criticised by Du Bos in Réflexions critiques (1719), I.xxiv.

[a]replaces but

[13 ]The Splendid Shilling: an Imitation of Milton, by John Philips (in A Collection of Poems, 1701), began a vogue for the application of Miltonic style and verse to trivial subjects: his own Cerealia (1706) and Cyder (1708), John Gay’s Wine (1708), the Countess of Winchilsea’s Fanscomb Barn. In 1709 appeared a protest in Miltonic verse: Milton’s Sublimity Asserted.

[b]of m deleted

[c]also (already inserted above line) deleted after here

[d]more ridicu deleted

[14 ]Hamlet, III.i.56–88; Addison’s Cato, V.iv, referring either to Cato’s dying speech or to the lines spoken over him by Lucius, 105 17.

[15 ]This sounds already a proverbial phrase, as it has remained. It goes back to Dryden’s ‘the lowest and most grovelling kind of wit, which we call clenches’ (Defence of the Epilogue, 1672, §20). The word pun, which gradually replaced clench or clinch from 1660 onwards, was used perjoratively from the start. Addison devoted Spectator 61 (10 May 1711) to an attack on it. His strictures in Spectator 279 (19 Jan. 1712) on the devils’ puns in Paradise Lost vi were rebutted by John Oldmixon, The Arts of Logick and Rhetorick (1728), 18: ‘Milton, ’tis plain, thought he cou’d not make worse Devils of them, than by making them Punsters’, just as serious painters give them horns and a tail. ‘Of all meanness’, wrote Johnson in the Rambler 140 (20 July 1751), ‘that has least to plead which is produced by mere verbal conceits, which depending only upon sounds, lose their existence by the change of a syllable’.

[e–e]five blanks of about ten letters each in MS

[16 ]Cf. i.110 n.8 above. This comedy cannot be identified.

[f]blank of four letters in MS

[17 ]Witwoud, The Way of the World, IV.viii (‘. . . fell a–sputt’ring at one another like two roasting Apples’); Belinda. The Old Batchelor, IV.viii (‘I fansied her like the Front of her Father’s Hall; her Eyes were the two Jut–Windows, and her Mouth the great Door, most hospitably kept open . . .’). But the ‘wit’ is not Congreve’s; he is creating two comic characters whose affectation is a pretence to wit. Witwoud at one point gives a recital of similes (II.iv) till Millamant cries ‘Truce with your Similtudes’. For the distinction see Congreve’s Concerning Humour in Comedy (1696).

[g]before house illegible word (pony?) deleted; after house, Lucian has chosen the one of these 2 sorts of comick Subjects and Swift the other deleted

[h]that I mentioned inserted above then deleted

[i]and of deleted

[j]replaces use

[k]it is the deleted

[l]Hand B at foot of v.116