The Project Gutenberg EBook of Essays on Wit No. 2
by Richard Flecknoe and Joseph Warton

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Title: Essays on Wit No. 2

Author: Richard Flecknoe and Joseph Warton

Release Date: February 8, 2005 [EBook #14973]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS ON WIT NO. 2 ***

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Series One:

_Essays on Wit_

No. 2

_Essay on Wit_ (1748); Richard Flecknoe's _Of one that Zany's the good
Companion and Of a bold abusive Wit_ (second edition, 1665);

Joseph Warton, _The Adventurer_, Nos. 127 and 133 (1754); _Of Wit
(Weekly Register_, 1732).

With an Introduction to the Series on Wit by Edward N. Hooker

The Augustan Reprint Society November, 1946 _Price_: 75c

Membership in the Augustan Reprint Society entitles the subscriber to
six publications issued each year. The annual membership fee is $2.50.
Address subscriptions and communications to the Augustan Reprint
Society in care of one of the General Editors.

General Editors: Richard C. Boys, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,
Michigan;

Edward N. Hooker, H.I. Swedenberg, Jr., University of
California, Los Angeles 24, California.

Editorial Advisors: Louis L. Bredvold, University of Michigan; James
L. Clifford, Columbia University; Benjamin Boyce, University of
Nebraska; Cleanth Brooks, Louisiana State University; Arthur Friedman,
University of Chicago; James R. Sutherland, Queen Mary College
University of London.

INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES ON WIT

The age of Dryden and Pope was an age of wit, but there were few who
could explain precisely what they meant by the term. A thing so
multiform and. Protean escaped the bonds of logic and definition. In
his sermon "Against Foolish Talking and Jesting" the learned Dr. Isaac
Barrow attempted to describe some of the forms which it took; the
forms were many, and it is difficult to discover any element which
they held in common. Nevertheless Barrow ventured a summary:

It is, in short, a manner of speaking out of the simple and
plain way, (such as Reason teacheth