nces that the poet
mixes the qualities of fire with those of love; and in the same sentence,
speaking of it both as a passion and as real fire, surprises the reader
with those seeming resemblances or contradictions that make up all the
wit in this kind of writing. Mixed wit, therefore, is a composition of
pun and true wit, and is more or less perfect as the resemblance lies in
the ideas or in the words. Its foundations are laid partly in falsehood
and partly in truth; reason 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 occasional poems that in their own
nature are nothing else but a tissue of epigrams. I cannot conclude this
head of mixed 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 wrote; and indeed all other talents of an extraordinary genius.

It may be expected, since I am upon this subject, that I should take
notice of Mr. Dryden's definition of wit, which, with all the deference
that is due to the judgment of so great a man, is not so 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 subject." If this
be a true definition of wit, I am apt to think that Euclid was the
greatest wit that ever set pen to paper. It is certain there never was a
greater propriety of words and thoughts adapted to the subject than what
that author has made use of in his Elements. I shall only appeal to my
reader if this definition agrees with any notion he has of wit. If it be
a true one, I am sure 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 show that it is impossible for any thought to
be beautiful which is not just, and has not its foundation in the nature
of things; that the basis of all wit is truth; and that no thought can be
valuable of which good sense is not the groundwork. Boileau has
endeavoured to inculcate the same notion in several parts of his
writings, both in prose and verse. This is that natural way of writing,
that beautiful simplicity which we so much admire in the compositions of
the ancients, and which nobody deviates from but those who want