nd--

There was an ancient philosopher
Who had read Alexander Ross over

(_Part_ I., _Canto_ 2, 1),

more frequently quoted than the finest pieces of wit in the whole poem.

Fourth Paper.

_Non equidem hoc studeo bullatis ut mihi nugis_
_Pagina turgescat_, _dare pondus idonea fumo_.

PERS., _Sat._ v. 19.

'Tis not indeed my talent to engage
In lofty trifles, or to swell my page
With wind and noise.

DRYDEN.

There is no kind of false wit which has been so recommended by the
practice of all ages as that which consists in a jingle of words, and is
comprehended under the general name of punning. It is indeed impossible
to kill a weed which the soil has a natural disposition to produce. The
seeds of punning are in the minds of all men, and though they may be
subdued by reason, reflection, and good sense, they will be very apt to
shoot up in the greatest genius that is not broken and cultivated by the
rules of art. Imitation is natural to us, and when it does not raise the
mind to poetry, painting, music, or other more noble arts, it often
breaks out in puns and quibbles.

Aristotle, in the eleventh chapter of his book of rhetoric, describes two
or three kinds of puns, which he calls paragrams, among the beauties of
good writing, and produces instances of them out of some of the greatest
authors in the Greek tongue. Cicero has sprinkled several of his works
with puns, and, in his book where he lays down the rules of oratory,
quotes abundance of sayings as pieces of wit, which also, upon
examination, prove arrant puns. But the age in which the pun chiefly
flourished was in the reign of King James the First. That learned
monarch was himself a tolerable punster, and made very few bishops or
Privy Councillors that had not some time or other signalised themselves
by a clinch, or a conundrum. It was, therefore, in this age that the pun
appeared with pomp and dignity. It had been before admitted into merry
speeches and ludicrous compositions, but was now delivered with great
gravity from the pulpit, or pronounced in the most solemn manner at the
council-table. The greatest authors, in their most serious works, made
frequent use of puns. The sermons of Bishop Andrews, and the tragedies
of Shakespeare, are full of them. The sinner was punned into repentance
by the former; as in the latter, nothing is more usual than to see a hero
weeping and quibbling for a dozen lines toge