tations of odd and incongruous originals; which please us, not only by fhewing them often more perfectly than we could have ourselves obferved them, but alfo by fuperadding the gratification which refults from imitation. This gratification is in its own nature ferious, but is altered by the fentiment which attends the objects imitated, and only ferves to heighten the contempt or amufement which they produce.

In all these modes of imitation, the incongruity of the object, in itself, or in respect of the imagery used for illuftrating it, is obvious. When Butler represents all ranks as intent on reforming the church and the state, he employs a furprifing complication of wit and humour, in order to ridicule the epidemical diftraction. There is a wonderful mixture of diffonance and relation; diffonance, between

of imitation are widely different. It would be a very curious work to afcertain the peculiar nature of each, and to mark its real diftinction from the reft. But, as the fubject is in a great measure new, it could not be examined with accuracy, or fo as to produce conviction of the juftness of the theory, in a very narrow compass. And a large difquifition would be more than falls to its fhare in an inquiry concerning tafte in general. It was therefore judged proper to be contented with pointing out what is common to wit, humour, and ridicule ; and with giving examples which show that the theory here eftablished extends to all of them.

the ordinary occupations of low mechanics and the difficult and noble office of legislation and political government; relation, not only as the perfons thus inconfiftently employed are the fame, but also as their demands of redress are generally expreffed in language adapted to the style of their respective vocations *. The description of Hudibras's learning becomes witty, by the ftrange contrast between the dignity of the fciences afcribed to him, and the proofs of his understanding them, drawn from the lowest inftances †. A hofe used for a cupboard, the basket-hilt of a sword

*Then tinkers baul'd aloud to settle
Church-difcipline, for patching kettle, &c.
Botchers left old cloaths in the lurch,
And fell to turn and patch the church, &c.
And fome for old fuits, coats, or cloak;

No furplices nor fervice-book.

for

Hudib. part 1. cant. 2. ver. 536. &c.

He was in logic a great critic,
Profoundly skill'd in analytic, &c.
He'd undertake to prove by force
Of argument a man's no horse;
He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl,
And that a lord may be an owl;

A calf an alderman, a goose a juftice,

And rooks committee-men and trustees, &c.

For rhetoric, he could not ope

Cant, I. ver. 65.

His mouth, but out there flew a trope, &c.

Ver. 81. &c.

In mathematics he was greater, &c. ver. 119.—188,

for holding broth, a dagger for cleaning fhoes, or toasting cheese to bait a mouse-trap, prefent ideas strikingly heterogeneous *. A fword ànd a dagger are fo unlike to a knight-errant and his dwarf; a reftive horse to an unmanageable body-politic; courage whetted by martial mufic, to ale turned four by thunder; the dawning of the day to the change of colour in boiling a lobster; torn breeches to a leaky veffel; that, when they are brought into view at once by comparison, metaphor, infinuation, or alufion, their unexpected fimilitude in fome circumstances produces mirth f. In Addifon's

When of his hofe we come to treat,

The cupboard where he kept his meat, ver. 303.
His puiffant fword unto his fide,

Near his undaunted heart was tied,

With basket-hilt that would hold broth,

And ferve for fight and dinner both, ver. 351.
When it had stabb'd or broke a head,
It would fcrape trenchers, or chip bread,
Toast cheese or bacon, though it were
To bait a mouse-trap, 'twould not care.
'Twould make clean shoes, and in the earth
Set leeks and onions, and fo forth. ver. 381.

This fword a dagger had his page,

That was but little for his age:
And therefore waited on him fo,

As dwarfs upon Knights-errant do. ver. 375.920. 931.

Instead of trumpet and of drum,

Which makes the warrior's ftomach come,

Whose

ror,

fon's humorous reprefentation of Tinfel's terit is the oddity and prepofterous nature of the paffion that diverts us; it is contrary to his profeffed principles and pretended fortitude, and it rises to a violent panic on a trifling occafion *. When Swift ridicules human foibles, whether he makes the attack by wit, or by humour, he paints their incongruity and abfurdity. Attempts to produce learned volumes by the motions of a mechanical engine; to extract funbeams from a cucumber; to build houfes downward from the roof; to improve cobwebs into filk; to foften marble for pillows and pincufhions; to propagate a breed of naked sheep; are palpably impoffible or useless, or both at once t

SECT.

Whose noise whets valour sharp, like beer

By thunder turn'd to vinegar. Cant. 2. ver. 107.

The fun had long fince in the lap

Of Thetis taken out his nap,
And like a lobster boil'd, the morn

From black to red began to turn.

Part 2. cant. 2. ver. 29.

My Galligafkins that have long withstood
The winter's fury and incroaching frofts,
By time fubdu'd, (what will not time fubdue!)
An horrid chasm disclose, &c.

Thus a well-fraught ship, &c.

*The Drummer.

Gulliver's Travels.

Splendid fhilling

Tof

HE moral fenfe is not only itself a taste of a fuperior order, by which, in-characters and conduct, we diftinguish between the right and the wrong, the excellent and the faulty; but it also spreads its influence over all the most confiderable works of art and ge nius. It is never unregarded in ferious performances, and it enters even into the most ludicrous. It claims a joint authority with the other principles of tafte; it requires an attachment to morality in the epos and the drama, and it pronounces the quickest flights of wit, without it, phrenfy and diftraction. Something moral has infinuated itself, not only into the serious defigns of Raphael, but also into the humorous representations of Hogarth.

NAY our moral fenfe claims authority fuperior to all the reft. It renders morality the chief requifite; and where this is in any degree violated, no other qualities can atone for the tranfgreffion. Particular beauties may be approved, but the work is, on the whole, condemned.

How great a part of the fentiments produced by works of genius, arises from the

exertion