--_Risu inepto res ineptior nulla est_.
CATULL., _Carm._ 39 _in Egnat_.
Nothing so foolish as the laugh of fools.
Among all kinds of writing, there is none in which authors are more apt
to miscarry than in works of humour, as there is none in which they are
more ambitious to excel. It is not an imagination that teems with
monsters, a head that is filled with extravagant conceptions, which is
capable of furnishing the world with diversions of this nature; and yet,
if we look into the productions of several writers, who set up for men of
humour, what wild, irregular fancies, what unnatural distortions of
thought do we meet with? If they speak nonsense, they believe they are
talking humour; and when they have drawn together a scheme of absurd,
inconsistent ideas, they are not able to read it over to themselves
without laughing. These poor gentlemen endeavour to gain themselves the
reputation of wits and humorists, by such monstrous conceits as almost
qualify them for Bedlam; not considering that humour should always lie
under the check of reason, and that it requires the direction of the
nicest judgment, by so much the more as it indulges itself in the most
boundless freedoms. There is a kind of nature that is to be observed in
this sort of compositions, as well as in all other; and a certain
regularity of thought which must discover the writer to be a man of
sense, at the same time that he appears altogether given up to caprice.
For my part, when I read the delirious mirth of an unskilful author, I
cannot be so barbarous as to divert myself with it, but am rather apt to
pity the man, than to laugh at anything he writes.
The deceased Mr. Shadwell, who had himself a great deal of the talent
which I am treating of, represents an empty rake, in one of his plays, as
very much surprised to hear one say that breaking of windows was not
humour; and I question not but several English readers will be as much
startled to hear me affirm, that many of those raving, incoherent pieces,
which are often spread among us, under odd chimerical titles, are rather
the offsprings of a distempered brain than works of humour.
It is, indeed, much easier to describe what is not humour than what is;
and very difficult to define it otherwise than as Cowley has done wit, by
negatives. Were I to give my own notions of it, I would deliver them
after Plato's manner, in a kind of allegory, and, by supposing Humour to
be a person, deduce to him all his qualifications, according to the
following genealogy. Truth was the founder of the family, and the father
of Good Sense. Good Sense was the father of Wit, who married a lady of a
collateral line called Mirth, by whom he had issue Humour. Humour
therefore being the youngest of this illustrious family, and descended
from parents of such different dispositions, is very various and unequal
in his temper; sometimes you see him putting on grave looks and a solemn
habit, sometimes airy in his behaviour and fantastic in his dress;
insomuch that at different times he appears as serious as a judge, and as
jocular as a merry-andrew. But, as he has a great deal of the mother in
his constitution, whatever mood he is in, he never fails to make his
company laugh.
But since there is an impostor abroad, who takes upon him the name of
this young gentleman, and would willingly pass for him in the world; to
the end that well-meaning persons may not be imposed upon by cheats, I
would desire my readers, when they meet with this pretender, to look into
his parentage, and to examine him strictly, whether or no he be remotely
allied to Truth, and lineally descended from Good Sense; if not, they may
conclude him a counterfeit. They may likewise distinguish him by a loud
and excessive laughter, in which he seldom gets his company to join with
him. For as True Humour generally looks serious while everybody laughs
about him, False Humour is always laughing whilst everybody about him
looks serious. I shall only add, if he has not in him a mixture of both
parents--that is, if he would pass for the offspring of Wit without
Mirth, or Mirth without Wit, you may conclude him to be altogether
spurious and a cheat.
The impostor of whom I am speaking descends originally from Falsehood,
who was the mother of Nonsense, who was brought to bed of a son called
Phrensy, who married one of the daughters of Folly, commonly known by the
name of Laughter, on whom he begot that monstrous infant of which I have
been here speaking. I shall set down at length the genealogical table of
False Humour, and, at the same time, place under it the genealogy of True
Humour, that the reader may at one view behold their different pedigrees
and relations:--
Falsehood.
Nonsense.
Phrensy.--Laughter.
False Humour.
Truth.
Good Sense.
Wit.--Mirth,
Humour.
I might extend the allegory, by mentioning several of the children of
False Humour, who are more in number than the sands of the sea, and might
in particular enumerate the many sons and daughters which he has begot in
this island. But as this would be a very invidious task, I shall only
observe in general that False Humour differs from the True as a monkey
does from a man.
First of all, he is exceedingly given to little apish tricks and
buffooneries.
Secondly, he so much delights in mimicry, that it is all one to him
whether he exposes by it vice and folly, luxury and avarice; or, on the
contrary, virtue and wisdom, pain and poverty.
Thirdly, he is wonderfully unlucky, insomuch that he will bite the hand
that feeds him, and endeavour to ridicule both friends and foes
indifferently. For, having but small talents, he must be merry where he
can, not where he should.
Fourthly, Being entirely void of reason, he pursues no point either of
morality or instruction, but is ludicrous only for the sake of being so.
Fifthly, Being incapable of anything but mock representations, his
ridicule is always personal, and aimed at the vicious man, or the writer;
not at the vice, or at the writing.
I have here only pointed at the whole species of false humorists; but, as
one of my principal designs in this paper is to beat down that malignant
spirit which discovers itself in the writings of the present age, I shall
not scruple, for the future, to single out any of the small wits that
infest the world with such compositions as are ill-natured, immoral, and
absurd. This is the only exception which I shall make to the general
rule I have prescribed myself, of attacking multitudes; since every
honest man ought to look upon himself as in a natural state of war with
the libeller and lampooner, and to annoy them wherever they fall in his
way. This is but retaliating upon them, and treating them as they treat
others.