An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule, page 29 by Corbyn Morris
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; By which are intended, not such as are common, but such as have no extraordinarily exalted, or enlarged, Qualities; and are not unsizeable in the particular Circumstances in which they are compared to each other;--otherwise it is easy to perceive, that the Result of their Arrangement will not be so properly WIT, as either the SUBLIME, or BURLESQUE.
To all this is to be added, that either _Gallantry, Raillery_, Humour, Satire, Ridicule, Sarcasms, or other Subjects, are generally blended with WIT; It has been for want of this Discovery, and of a proper Separation of these Subjects, that the Attempts which have hitherto been made to define WIT, have been all involv'd and overwhelm'd in Perplexity; For the different Mixtures of these foreign Ingredients with WIT, have discover'd such various and opposite Colours and Substances, as were impossible to be comprehended in one certain steady _Definition_;--Whereas pure WIT alone, constantly appears in one uniform Manner; which is, _In the quick Elucidation of one Subject, by unexpectedly exhibiting its Agreement or Contrast with another Subject_.
It is proper in this Place, to distinguish between WIT, SIMILES, and METAPHORS. SIMILES, though they illustrate one Subject, by arranging it with another Subject, are yet different from WIT, as they want its sudden and quick Elucidation.
Again; In WIT, the Elucidation is thrown only upon one Point of a Subject; or if more Points be elucidated, they are so many different Strokes of WIT;--Whereas every SIMILE touches the Subject it illustrates in several Points.
It is from hence, that the Elucidation, as before mention'd, arising from a SIMILE, is slower than from WIT; But then is is generally more accurate and _compleat_;--In short,