Is a peculiar fantastic that has a wonderful natural affection to some
particular kind of folly, to which he applies himself and in time
becomes eminent. 'Tis commonly some outlying whimsy of Bedlam, that,
being tame and unhurtful, is suffered to go at liberty. The more serious
he is the more ridiculous he becomes, and at the same time pleases
himself in earnest and others in jest. He knows no mean, for that is
inconsistent with all humour, which is never found but in some extreme
or other. Whatsoever he takes to he is very full of, and believes every
man else to be so too, as if his own taste were the same in every man's
palate. If he be a virtuoso, he applies himself with so much earnestness
to what he undertakes that he puts his reason out of joint and strains
his judgment; and there is hardly anything in the world so slight or
serious that some one or other has not squandered away his brains and
time and fortune upon to no other purpose but to be ridiculous. He is
exempted from a dark room and a doctor, because there is no danger in
his frenzy; otherwise he has as good a title to fresh straw as another.
Humour is but a crookedness of the mind, a disproportioned swelling of
the brain, that draws the nourishment from the other parts to stuff an
ugly and deformed crup-shoulder. If it have the luck to meet with many
of its own temper, instead of being ridiculous it becomes a church, and
from jest grows to earnest.