f the Speeches there made die for the
most part with the Sound; but the Wit, the Irony, the Drollery, the
Ridicule, the Satire, and Repartees, are thought worthy to be remember'd
and repeated in Conversation, and make a Part of the History of the
Proceedings of those Bodies, no less than their grave Transactions, as
some such must necessarily be.

Whoever will look into Antiquity for an Account of the Lives, Actions, and
Works of the old Philosophers, will find little remaining of them; but
some of their witty, drolling, and bantering Sayings, which alone have
been thought worthy to be preserv'd to Posterity. And if you will look
into the Lives of the modern Statesmen, Philosophers, Divines, Lawyers,
_&c._ you will find that their witty Sayings ever make a considerable
Part: by reporting which great Honour is intended to be done to their
Memory. The great and most religious Philosopher Dr. _H. More_, has a
great many Pieces of Wit attributed to him in his _Life_ by Mr. _Ward_,
who represents him from his Companions, [101] _as one of the merriest
Greeks they were acquainted with_, and tells us, that the Doctor said in
his _last Illness_, to him[102], _that the merry way was that which he saw
mightily to take; and so he used it the more_.

The great and famous Sir _Thomas More_, Lord Chancellor of _England_ in
_Henry_ the Eighth's time, was an inexhaustible Source of _Drollery_[103],
as his voluminous Works, which consist for the most part of controversial
Divinity in behalf of Popery, show, and which are many of them written in
Dialogue, the better to introduce the _drolling_ Way of Writing, which he
has us'd in such Perfection, that it is said [104] _none can ever be weary
of reading them, tho they be never so long_. Nor could Death it self, in
immediate view before his Eyes, suppress his _merry_ Humour, and hinder
him from cracking _Jests_ on the _Scaffold_; tho he was a Man of great
_Piety_ and _Devotion_, whereof all the World was convinced by his Conduct
both in his Life and at his Death.

It is said (as I have before observ'd) of my Lord Chancellor _Clarendon_,
that "he had too much _Levity_ in his _Wit_[105], and that he did not
always observe the _Decorum_ of his Post." Which implies not only his
Approbation of _Drollery_ in the most _grave_ Business, but also his great
Knowledge of Mankind, by applying to them in that _Way_; which he knew
from Experience, and especially from the common _drolling_ [106]
Convers