And, in

nift finds a well-known plant in an unexpected place. general, though the attention of the curious be ftrongly drawn to fuch objects as we call lufus naturæ, and they seem to excite no fentiment capable of ftifling a laugh, if it were ftrongly prompted; yet, though in the eye of a virtuofo, a lufus naturæ bears every characteristic that is ufually given of a rifible object, no inclination to laugh is felt; unless, in a gay humour, we fecretly perfonify such objects, and wonder how the frangers came there, and what is their business.

If this obfervation be juft, we shall be able to determine what particular kind and degree of confequence an object, in other respects rifible, must be of, in order to move laughter; viz. it muft produce a perfonification. Then, if any incongruity attend it, and it be not capable of exciting a serious emotion, the tendency to laugh will be inevitable. However, left this obfervation should not be found to be universally juft, the definition in the former part of the lecture is left to ftand in more general

terms.

To fhew that any ferious emotion will deftroy the property we call either risible or ridiculous in objects, we may confider the case of Sancho Panca fallen into a hole, which he took to be a deep pit, in the dark, and clinging to the fides with his hands and feet, in the utmost dread of being dafhed to pieces, and all the while within a foot of the bottom. This, especially confidering the character of the man, is certainly an object highly rifible. Perhaps no person could have refrained from laughing, if he had found him in that fituation; yet, if we had seen him in the fame posture, and his danger had been real; or, perhaps, if we had found any perfon for whom we entertained a higher kind of refpect, in the fame fituation, and without danger, we should not have

E e

have been disposed to laugh at all. Our anxiety and concern in the former cafe, and our respect in the latter, would have overpowered it.

We, likewife, fee that, in perfons of little ferious religion, and great levity of mind, nothing will excite more profuse laughter, than the application of paffages of Scripture to very foreign and ludicrous purposes; whereas the fame thing will strike every serious perfon, who entertains a profound veneration for the Scriptures, with the greatest horror; or if the greatness and unexpectedness of the contrast should, in spite of himself, as it were, furprize him into a laugh, he will foon recollect himself,. and be very uneafy about it. We, likewise, see every day, that the fame views provoke only the laughter and ridicule of some perfons, and the serious indignation of others.

LECTURE

LECTURE XXV.

Of BURLESQUE, PARODY, the MOCK-HEROIC, HUMOUR, and IRONY.

T%

O make a fudden transition from a very high to a very low object that is fimilar to it, though such a tranfition be in itself disagreeable, yet, by means of the contraft which it produces, it may affect the mind with a lively sense of pleasure. This we may perceive in the following lines of Butler:

The fun had long fince in the lap)
Of Thetis taken out his nap;

And, like a lobster boil'd, the morn

From black to red began to turn.

HUD. Part II. Cant. II. Ver. 29.

This effect is called burlefque; and a great object degraded in this manner, and placed in the fame light with a mean and contemptible one, is faid to be burlesqued; the meaning of which is, that the ideas of meanness annexed to the leffer object are, by this comparison, transferred to the greater, and adhere to it by affociation. Thefe transferred ideas, being the reverse of the fublime, destroy the effect of every thing fimilar to it in the idea

of a great object; and the confequence is, that the great object is afterwards mentioned with less respect and reverence than it was before.

A Parody, which is the application of a paffage of any author to a foreign, and generally lower purpose, is a kind of burlesque of a grave and serious writer and confequently parodies have often an unfavourable effect upon the original author. For those foreign allufions will often occur in reading the original passage, and prevent it from having its proper and intended effect.

For this reason, if it be a matter of importance to preserve our reverence for any writings (as, for inftance, the fcriptures) it is: adviseable not to liften to fuch ludicrous applications of them. The unhappy effect of fuch applications is never wholly lost, till the allufion be forgotten. Should the allufion even miss of its ufual effect upon light minds, and raife horror and indignation at the first hearing, it may not find the mind in fo favourable a difpofition every time that it occurs; or if it do, ftill, as the fentiments of indignation are foreign to the design of the passage, it is desirable that nothing even of that kind come in view when we read it.

Neither art, fcience, profeffion, character, nor any thing else, however venerable or refpectable, is exempt from the power of ridicule; because there is no fetting bounds to those analogies in: nature or art which give rife to it. We fee the greatest things. analogous to the leaft, and the leaft to the greatest, without end or limit: infomuch that it is impoffible to name an object in any clafs of things (let us make the diftribution of them as we please) but fome other object may be found analogous to it in any other class, even the most remote we can think of. And whenever thefe

I

thefe analogies are brought into view, the refult is an alteration. in the ideas of both the objects in which the analogy is perceived, occafioned by the reciprocal influences of the one upon the other.. They are univerfally either increased or diminifhed, raised or deprelled, &c. and the effect is more or lefs permanent, in proportion as the analogy is more or lefs ftriking. This effect is the fame, whether the objects be brought together in order to be compared or contrafted, becaufe analogy is the foundation of both, and they differ only in this, that when things are compared, the points of refemblance are chiefly attended to; whereas, when they are contrafted, the circumftances of difference are principally noted. But it is necessary, in order to their producing their respective effects, that the circumftances of difference be attended to in the former cafe, and thofe of refemblance in the latter.

Confidering how far and how wide analogies extend themselves through all the parts of nature; how poffible is it that an object,, the most respectable in the world, may be discovered to be fo analogous, in fome refpects, to another, even the most con-temptible, that the oddnefs of the contrast shall produce a laugh? May not the most serious and fenfible paffage of any author whatever be applied to a purpose so foreign, and yet fo fimilar to its original use, as infallibly to produce the fame effect? But fhould we, notwithstanding this, in our judgments (however our imaginations might, for a time, be impofed upon) entertain a lower idea either of the object, or of the paffage that was thus burlesqued? How then is ridicule the test of truth? It requires only an attention to the nature of contraft to refute the fallacy. Ridicule can only discover contrafts capable of producing a laugh; and, confidering the levity and irritability of fome perfons minds,

there