I would deliver them after Plato's manner, in a kind of allegory--and by
supposing humour to be a person, deduce to him all his qualifications,
according to the following genealogy. Truth was the founder of the
family, and the father of Good Sense. Good Sense was the father of Wit,
who married a lady of collateral line called Mirth, by whom he had
issue, Humour. Humour, therefore, being the youngest of this illustrious
family, and descendant from parents of such different dispositions, is
very various and unequal in his temper: sometimes you see him putting on
grave looks and a solemn habit, sometimes airy in his behaviour, and
fantastic in his dress; inasmuch that at different times he appears as
serious as a judge, and as jocular as a merry-andrew. But as he has a
great deal of the mother in his constitution, whatever mood he is in, he
never fails to make his company laugh."

In carrying on the allegory farther, he says of the false humourists,
"But since there is an impostor abroad, who takes upon him the name of
this young gentleman, and would willingly pass for him in the world: to
the end that well-meaning persons may not be imposed upon by cheats, I
would desire my readers, when they meet with this pretender, to look
into his parentage and examine him strictly, whether or no he be
remotely allied to truth, and lineally descended from good sense; if
not, they may conclude him a counterfeit. They may likewise distinguish
him by a loud and excessive laughter, in which he seldom gets his
company to join with him. For as true Humour generally looks serious,
while everybody laughs about him; false Humour is always laughing, while
everybody about him looks serious. I shall only add, if he has not in
him a mixture of both parents, that is, if he would pass for the
offspring of Wit without Mirth, or Mirth without Wit, you may conclude
him to be altogether spurious and a cheat.

The impostor of whom I am speaking descends originally from Falsehood,
who was the mother of Nonsense, who gave birth to a son called Frenzy,
who married one of the daughters of Folly, commonly known by the name of
Laughter, from whom came that monstrous infant of which I have been
speaking. I shall set down at length the genealogical table of False
Humour, and, at the same time, place by its side the genealogy of True
Humour, that the reader may at one view behold their different pedigree
and relations:--

Falsehood. Truth.