688, pp.
8-9, 234, 296, 388).

In _Spectator_, no. 249, Addison entered the contest known as the
Battle of the Books, and lined himself up squarely on the side of the
Ancients. The ancients, he said, surpassed the moderns in poetry,
painting, oratory, history, architecture, and, in fact, all arts and
sciences which depend more on genius than on experience. It was no
lightening of the judgment when he added that the moderns surpass the
ancients in doggerel, humour burlesque, and all the trivial arts of
ridicule, the arts of the "unlucky little wits." So degraded had wit
become! In the _Adventurer_, nos. 127 and 133, Joseph Warton showed
himself to be essentially in agreement with Addison's verdict,
differing only in thinking that a few moderns might compare with the
ancients in works of genius. He appears somewhat less scornful of wit,
recognizing its part in the arts of civility and the decencies of
conversation; and yet he associates It with ridicule, laughter, and
luxury, and makes it the pleasant plaything of gentlemen.

Occasionally there were attempts to restore wit to its pristine glory,
to the position it had occupied before it was tied to mirth and
ridicule, when Atterbury could thus define it: "Wit, indeed, as it
implies, a certain uncommon Reach and Vivacity of Thought, is an
Excellent Talent; very fit to be employ'd in the Search of Truth...."
So the anonymous author of _A Satyr upon a Late Pamphlet Entitled, A
Satyr against Wit_ (1700) could rhapsodize:

Wit is a Radiant Spark of Heav'nly Fire,
Full of Delight, and worthy of Desire;
Bright as the Ruler of the Realms of Day,
Sun of the Soul, with in-born Beauties gay....

So Corbyn Morris in his _Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of
Wit, Humour, Raillery, Satire, and Ridicule_, 1744, probably the best
and clearest treatment of the subject in the first half of the
eighteenth century, wrote (p. 1): "Wit is the Lustre resulting from
the quick Elucidation of one Subject, by a just and unexpected
Arrangement of it with another Subject." And so the author of the
essay "Of Wit" in the _Weekly Register_ for July 22, 1732, ventured
his opinion (reprinted in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, II, 861-862):

Wit is a Start of Imagination in the Speaker, that strikes
the Imagination of the Hearer with an Idea of Beauty common
to both; and the immediate Result of the Comparison is the
Flash of Joy that attends it; it stands in the same Re