are more fit to be _admired_ for their _Happiness_ and
_Propriety_, than to excite our _Laughter_.--Besides, WIT, in the
frequent Repetition of it, tires the Imagination with its precipitate
Sallies and Flights; and teizes the Judgment.--Whereas HUMOUR, in the
Representation of it, puts no Fatigue upon the _Imagination_, and
gives exquisite Pleasure to the _Judgment_.

These seem to me to be the different Powers and Effects of HUMOUR and
WIT. However, the most agreeable Representations or Competitions of
all others, appear not where they _separately_ exist, but where they
are _united_ together in the same Fabric; where HUMOUR is the _Ground-
work_ and chief Substance, and WIT happily spread, _quickens_ the
whole with Embellishments.

This is the Excellency of the _Character_ of Sir _John Falstaff_;
the _Ground-work_ is _Humour_, the Representation and Detection of
a bragging and vaunting _Coward_ in _real Life_; However, this alone
would only have expos'd the _Knight_, as a meer _Noll Bluff_, to the
Derision of the Company; And after they had once been gratify'd with
his Chastisement, he would have sunk into Infamy, and become quite
odious and intolerable: But here the inimitable _Wit_ of Sir _John_
comes in to his Support, and gives a new _Rise_ and _Lustre_ to his
Character; For the sake of his _Wit_ you forgive his _Cowardice_; or
rather, are fond of his _Cowardice_ for the Occasions it gives to his
_Wit_. In short, the _Humour_ furnishes a Subject and Spur to the
_Wit_, and the _Wit_ again supports and embellishes the _Humour_.

At the _first_ Entrance of the _Knight_, your good Humour and Tendency
to _Mirth_ are irresistibly excited by his jolly Appearance and
Corpulency; you feel and acknowledge him, to be the fittest Subject
imaginable for yielding _Diversion_ and _Merriment_; but when you
see him immediately set up for _Enterprize_ and _Activity_, with his
evident _Weight_ and _Unweildiness_, your Attention is all call'd
forth, and you are eager to watch him to the End of his Adventures;
Your Imagination pointing out with a full Scope his future
Embarrassments. All the while as you accompany him forwards, he
_heightens_ your Relish for his future Disasters, by his happy Opinion
of his own Sufficiency, and the gay Vaunts which he makes of his
Talents and Accomplishments; so that at last when he falls into a
Scrape, your Expectation is exquisitely gratify'd, and you have the
full Pleasure of seeing all his tru