Turns of Wit, and forced
Conceits, which have no manner of Influence, either for the bettering or
enlarging the Mind of him who reads them, and have been carefully
avoided by the greatest Writers, both among the Ancients and Moderns. I
have endeavoured in several of my Speculations to banish this Gothic
Taste, which has taken Possession among us. I entertained the Town, for
a Week together, with an Essay upon Wit, in which I endeavoured to
detect several of those false Kinds which have been admired in the
different Ages of the World; and at the same time to shew wherein the
Nature of true Wit consists. I afterwards gave an Instance of the great
Force which lyes in a natural Simplicity of Thought to affect the Mind
of the Reader, from such vulgar Pieces as have little else besides this
single Qualification to recommend them. I have likewise examined the
Works of the greatest Poet which our Nation or perhaps any other has
produced, and particularized most of those rational and manly Beauties
which give a Value to that Divine Work. I shall next Saturday enter upon
an Essay on the Pleasures of the Imagination, which, though it shall
consider that Subject at large, will perhaps suggest to the Reader what
it is that gives a Beauty to many Passages of the finest Writers both in
Prose and Verse. As an Undertaking of this Nature is entirely new, I
question not but it will be received with Candour.

O.

[Footnote 1: See note on p. 620, ante [Footnote 3 of No. 379]. This fine
taste was the 'cultismo', the taste for false concepts, which Addison
condemns.]

* * * * *

No. 410. Friday, June 20, 1712. Tickell.

'Dum foris sunt, nihil videtur Mundius,
Nec magis compositum quidquam, nec magis elegans:
Quae, cum amatore suo cum coenant, Liguriunt,
Harum videre ingluviem, sordes, inopiam:
Quam inhonestae solae sint domi, atque avidae cibi,
Quo pacto ex Jure Hesterno panem atrum varent.
Nosse omnia haec, salus est adolescentulis.'

Ter.

WILL. HONEYCOMB, who disguises his present Decay by visiting the Wenches
of the Town only by Way of Humour, told us, that the last rainy Night he
with Sir ROGER DE COVERLY was driven into the Temple Cloister, whither
had escaped also a Lady most exactly dressed from Head to Foot. WILL,
made no Scruple to acquaint us, that she saluted him very familiarly by
his Name, and turning immediately