Essay on Wit(1748);
Richard Flecknoe's Of one that Zany's the goodCompanion and Of a bold abusive Wit (second edition, 1665);
Joseph Warton, The Adventurer, Nos. 127 and 133 (1754);
Of Wit (Weekly Register, 1732).
With an Introduction to the Serieson Wit by Edward N. Hooker
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The age of Dryden and Pope was an age of wit, but there were few whocould explain precisely what they meant by the term. A thing somultiform and. Protean escaped the bonds of logic and definition. Inhis sermon "Against Foolish Talking and Jesting" the learned Dr. IsaacBarrow attempted to describe some of the forms which it took; theforms were many, and it is difficult to discover any element whichthey held in common. Nevertheless Barrow ventured a summary:
It is, in short, a manner of speaking out of the simple and plain way, (such as Reason teacheth and proveth things by,) which by a pretty surprizing uncouthness in conceit of expression doth affect and amuse the fancy, stirring in it some wonder, and breeding some delight thereto.
And about sixty years later, despite the work of Hobbes and Locke incalling attention to the importance of semantics, the confusion stillexisted. According to John Oldmixon (Essay on Criticism, 1727, p.21), "Wit and Humour, Wit and good Sense, Wit and Wisdom, Wit andReason, Wit and Craft; nay, Wit and Philosophy, are with us almost thesame Things." Some such confusion is apparent in the definitionpresented by the Essay on Wit (1748, p. 6).
In general it was recognized that there were two main kinds of wit.Both fancy and judgment, said Hobbes (Human Nature, X, sect. 4), areusually understood in the term wit; and wit seems to be "a tenuityand agility of spirits," opposed to the sluggishness of spiritsassumed to be characteristic of dull people. Sometimes wit was used inthis sense to translate the words ingenium or l'esprit. ButHobbes's