ability. Far otherwise. The bravery of the jest is
its improbability. There is a wild audacity proper to the burlesque Epos
which laughs at conventional rules, and the tame obligations of ordinary
poetry. The absurd is one legitimate source of the comic.

For example, are the GAMES probable? Take the reading to sleep--which is
purely witty--a thing which the poet does not go out of his way to
invent. It lies essentially on the theme, being a literary ~agon~; and
it is indeed only that which is continually done, (oh, us miserable!)
thrown into poetical shape. But it is perfectly absurd and improbable,
done in the manner in which it is represented--not therefore to be
blamed, but therefore to be commended with cachinnation while the world
endures.

The truth is, that the Dunces are there, not for the business of saying
what they think of themselves, or not that alone, but they must say that
which we think of them. They must act from motives from which men do not
act. They must aspire to be dull, and be proud of their dulness. They
must emulate one another's dulness, or they are unfaithful votaries. In
short, they are poetically made, and should be so made, to do,
consciously and purposely, that which, in real life, they do
undesignedly and unawares.

Lord Kames goes wrong--and very far wrong indeed--though Warburton was
not the man to set him right--through applying to a composition
extravagantly conceived--an epic extravaganza--rules of writing that
belong to a sober and guarded species. In a comedy, you make a man play
the fool without his knowing that he is one; because that is an
imitation of human manners. And if you ironically praise the virtues of
a villain, you keep the veil of irony throughout. You do not now and
then forget yourself, and call him a villain by that name. But the
spirit and rule of the poem here is, that discretion and sobriety are
thrown aside. Here is no imitation of manners--no veil. The persons of
the poem, under the hand of the poet, are something in the condition of
the wicked ghosts who come before the tribunal of the Gnossian
Rhadamanthus; and whom he, by the divine power of his judgment-seat,
constrains to bear witness against themselves. The poor ghosts do it,
knowing that they condemn themselves. Here the mirth of the poet makes
the Dull glorify themselves by recounting each misdeed under its proper
appellation.

Joseph Warton mistakes the whole matter as much as Lord Kames. "Just