[Footnote 1: Hector's parting from Andromache, at the close of Book VI.
No more--but hasten to thy tasks at home,
There guide the spindle, and direct the loom;
Me glory summons to the martial scene,
The field of combat is the sphere for men.]
[Footnote 2: Not a new paragraph in the first issue.]
[Footnote 3: "Souls (I mean those of ordinary Women)." This, however,
was cancelled by an Erratum in the next number.]
[Footnote 4: Addison was six years old when Titus Oates began his
'Popish Plot' disclosures. Under a name which called up recollections of
the vilest trading upon theological intolerance, he here glances at Dr.
Henry Sacheverell, whose trial (Feb. 27-March 20, 1710) for his sermons
in praise of the divine right of kings and contempt of the Whigs, and
his sentence of suspension for three years, had caused him to be admired
enthusiastically by all party politicians who were of his own way of
thinking. The change of person pleasantly puts 'Tory' for 'Whig,' and
avoids party heat by implying a suggestion that excesses are not all on
one side. Sacheverell had been a College friend of Addison's. He is the
'dearest Harry' for whom, at the age of 22, Addison wrote his metrical
'Account of the greatest English Poets' which omitted Shakespeare from
the list.]
[Footnotes 5: Honycombe]
* * * * *
No. 58. Monday, May 7, 1711. Addison.
Ut pictura poesis erit ...
Hor.
Nothing is so much admired, and so little understood, as Wit. No Author
that I know of has written professedly upon it; and as for those who
make any Mention of it, they only treat on the Subject as it has
accidentally fallen in their Way, and that too in little short
Reflections, or in general declamatory Flourishes, without entering into
the Bottom of the Matter. I hope therefore I shall perform an acceptable
Work to my Countrymen, if I treat at large upon this Subject; which I
shall endeavour to do in a Manner suitable to it, that I may not incur
the Censure which a famous Critick bestows upon one who had written a
Treatise upon _the Sublime_ in a low groveling Stile. I intend to lay
aside a whole Week for this Undertaking, that the Scheme of my Thoughts
may not be broken and interrupted; and I dare promise my self, if my
Readers will give me a Week's Attention, that this great City will be
very much changed for the better by next _Saturday_ Night. I shall
endeavour to make what I say intelligible to ordinary Capacities; but if
my Readers meet with any Paper that in some Parts of it may be a little
out of their Reach, I would not have them discouraged, for they may
assure themselves the next shall be much clearer.
As the great and only End of these my Speculations is to banish Vice and
Ignorance out of the Territories of _Great-Britain_, I shall endeavour
as much as possible to establish among us a Taste of polite Writing. It
is with this View that I have endeavoured to set my Readers right in
several Points relating to Operas and Tragedies; and shall from time to
time impart my Notions of Comedy, as I think they may tend to its
Refinement and Perfection. I find by my Bookseller that these Papers of
Criticism, with that upon Humour, have met with a more kind Reception
than indeed I could have hoped for from such Subjects; for which Reason
I shall enter upon my present Undertaking with greater Chearfulness.
In this, and one or two following Papers, I shall trace out the History
of false Wit, and distinguish the several Kinds of it as they have
prevailed in different Ages of the World. This I think the more
necessary at present, because I observed there were Attempts on foot
last Winter to revive some of those antiquated Modes of Wit that have
been long exploded out of the Commonwealth of Letters. There were
several Satyrs and Panegyricks handed about in Acrostick, by which Means
some of the most arrant undisputed Blockheads about the Town began to
entertain ambitious Thoughts, and to set up for polite Authors. I shall
therefore describe at length those many Arts of false Wit, in which a
Writer does not show himself a Man of a beautiful Genius, but of great
Industry.
The first Species of false Wit which I have met with is very venerable
for its Antiquity, and has produced several Pieces which have lived very
near as long as the _Iliad_ it self: I mean those short Poems printed
among the minor _Greek_ Poets, which resemble the Figure of an Egg, a
Pair of Wings, an Ax, a Shepherd's Pipe, and an Altar.
[1] As for the first, it is a little oval Poem, and may not improperly
be called a Scholar's Egg. I would endeavour to hatch it, or, in more
intelligible Language, to translate it into _English_, did not I find
the Interpretation of it very difficult; for the Author seems to have
been more intent upon the Figure of his Poem, than upon the Sense of it.
The Pair of Wings consist of twelve Verses, or rather Feathers, every
Verse decreasing gradually in its Measure according to its Situation in
the Wing. The subject of it (as in the rest of the Poems which follow)
bears some remote Affinity with the Figure, for it describes a God of
Love, who is always painted with Wings.
The Ax methinks would have been a good Figure for a Lampoon, had the
Edge of it consisted of the most satyrical Parts of the Work; but as it
is in the Original, I take it to have been nothing else but the Posy of
an Ax which was consecrated to _Minerva_, and was thought to have been
the same that _Epeus_ made use of in the building of the _Trojan_ Horse;
which is a Hint I shall leave to the Consideration of the Criticks. I am
apt to think that the Posy was written originally upon the Ax, like
those which our modern Cutlers inscribe upon their Knives; and that
therefore the Posy still remains in its ancient Shape, tho' the Ax it
self is lost.
The Shepherd's Pipe may be said to be full of Musick, for it is composed
of nine different Kinds of Verses, which by their several Lengths
resemble the nine Stops of the old musical Instrument, [that [2]] is
likewise the Subject of the Poem. [3]
The Altar is inscribed with the Epitaph of _Troilus_ the Son of
_Hecuba_; which, by the way, makes me believe, that these false Pieces
of Wit are much more ancient than the Authors to whom they are generally
ascribed; at least I will never be perswaded, that so fine a Writer as
_Theocritus_ could have been the Author of any such simple Works.
It was impossible for a Man to succeed in these Performances who was not
a kind of Painter, or at least a Designer: He was first of all to draw
the Out-line of the Subject which he intended to write upon, and
afterwards conform the Description to the Figure of his Subject. The
Poetry was to contract or dilate itself according to the Mould in which
it was cast. In a word, the Verses were to be cramped or extended to the
Dimensions of the Frame that was prepared for them; and to undergo the
Fate of those Persons whom the Tyrant _Procrustes_ used to lodge in his
Iron Bed; if they were too short, he stretched them on a Rack, and if
they were too long, chopped off a Part of their Legs, till they fitted
the Couch which he had prepared for them.
Mr. _Dryden_ hints at this obsolete kind of Wit in one of the following
Verses, [in his _Mac Flecno_;] which an _English_ Reader cannot
understand, who does not know that there are those little Poems
abovementioned in the Shape of Wings and Altars.
... _Chuse for thy Command
Some peaceful Province in Acrostick Land;
There may'st thou Wings display, and_ Altars _raise,
And torture one poor Word a thousand Ways._
This Fashion of false Wit was revived by several Poets of the last Age,
and in particular may be met with among _Mr. Herbert's_ Poems; and, if I
am not mistaken, in the Translation of _Du Bartas_. [4]--I do not
remember any other kind of Work among the Moderns which more resembles
the Performances I have mentioned, than that famous Picture of King
_Charles_ the First, which has the whole Book of _Psalms_ written in the
Lines of the Face and the Hair of the Head. When I was last at _Oxford_
I perused one of the Whiskers; and was reading the other, but could not
go so far in it as I would have done, by reason of the Impatience of my
Friends and Fellow-Travellers, who all of them pressed to see such a
Piece of Curiosity. I have since heard, that there is now an eminent
Writing-Master in Town, who has transcribed all the _Old Testament_ in a
full-bottomed Periwig; and if the Fashion should introduce the thick
kind of Wigs which were in Vogue some few Years ago, he promises to add
two or three supernumerary Locks that shall contain all the _Apocrypha_.
He designed this Wig originally for King _William_, having disposed of
the two Books of _Kings_ in the two Forks of the Foretop; but that
glorious Monarch dying before the Wig was finished, there is a Space
left in it for the Face of any one that has a mind to purchase it.
But to return to our ancient Poems in Picture, I would humbly propose,
for the Benefit of our modern Smatterers in Poetry, that they would
imitate their Brethren among the Ancients in those ingenious Devices. I
have communicated this Thought to a young Poetical Lover of my
Acquaintance, who intends to present his Mistress with a Copy of Verses
made in the Shape of her Fan; and, if he tells me true, has already
finished the three first Sticks of it. He has likewise promised me to
get the Measure of his Mistress's Marriage-Finger, with a Design to make
a Posy in the Fashion of a Ring, which shall exactly fit it. It is so
very easy to enlarge upon a good Hint, that I do not question but my
ingenious Readers will apply what I have said to many other Particulars;
and that we shall see the Town filled in a very little time with
Poetical Tippets, Handkerchiefs, Snuff-Boxes, and the like Female
Ornaments. I shall therefore conclude with a Word of Advice to those
admirable _English_ Authors who call themselves Pindarick Writers, [5]
that they would apply themselves to this kind of Wit without Loss of
Time, as being provided better than any other Poets with Verses of all
Sizes and Dimensions.