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 Regard to Sense, or Wisdom, as lightning to the Sun, suddenly kindled and as suddenly gone....

But for the most part wit was becoming an expression of mirth or ridicule in which fancy was primarily involved; at its best wit was coupled with politeness and elegance in conversation, and at its worst with silliness and extravagance, or with indecency and impiety.

The essay from the Weekly Register is one of a large number of little histories of wit, which appear through the age of Dryden and Pope and which attempt to relate developments in wit to changes in fashion, religion, polities, social manners, and taste.  These are rudimentary but important expressions of the idea that literature is conditioned by changing circumstances and social customs in the lives of the people from whom it springs.

The Essay on Wit, 1748, is reprinted here, by permission, from a copy in the library of the University of Illinois.  Flecknoe’s Characters are reprinted from a copy of Sixty Nine Enigmatical Character owned by the library of the University of Michigan.  The essays of Joseph Warton is the Adventurer, and the typescript copy of the essay

     “Of Wit” from the Weekly Register (as reprinted in the
     Gentleman’s Magazine) are also taken from copies belonging
     to the University of Michigan.

  Edward Niles Hooker
  University of California, Los Angeles

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[Illustration:  Title page]

AN ESSAY ON WIT.

[Price Six-pence.]

AN ESSAY ON WIT: 

To which is annexed,

A DISSERTATION on Antient and Modern HISTORY.

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____ Sapientia prima
Stultitia caruisse. HOR.  Epist.  I. Lib.  I.

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LONDON: 

Printed for T.  Lownds, Bookseller, at the Bible and Crown, in Exeter-Change, in the Strand, 1748.

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AN ESSAY ON WIT.

A Gentleman who had some Knowledge in the human Heart, was consulted about a Tragedy which was going to be acted:  He answer’d that there was so much Wit in the Piece that he doubted of its Success.—­At hearing such a Judgment, a Man will immediately cry out, What! is Wit then a Fault, at a Time when every Body aims at having it, when nobody writes but to shew he has it; when the Publick applauds even false Thoughts, provided they are shining!  Yes, ’twill doubtless be applauded the first Day, and grow tiresome the next.