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Dancing affords great opportunity for displaying grace, and haranguing still more.

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I conclude with the following reflection, That in vain will a person attempt to be graceful, who is deficient in amiable qualities. A it is true, may form an idea of qualities he is destitute of; and by means of that idea, may endeavour to express those qualities by looks and gestures; but such studied expression will be too faint and obscure to be graceful.

CHAP. XII.

RIDICULE.

To define ridicule has puzzled and vexed every critic. The definition given by Aristotle is obscure and imperfect.* Cicero handles it at great length; but without giving satisfaction; he wanders in the dark, and misses the distinction between risible and ridiculous. Quintilian is sensible of the distinction, but has not attempted to explain it. Luckily this subject lies no longer in obscurity: a risible object produceth an emotion of laughter merely ;§ a ridiculous object is improper as well as risible; and produceth a mixt emotion, which is vented by a laugh of derision or scorn.||

Having therefore happily unravelled the knotty part, I proceed to other particulars.

Burlesque, though a great engine of ridicule, is not confined to that subject; for it is clearly distinguishable into burlesque that excites laughter merely, and burlesque that provokes derision or ridicule. A grave subject, in which there is no impropriety, may be brought down by a certain colouring, so as to be risible; which is the case of Virgil Travestie ;T and also the case of the Secchia Rapita :** the authors laugh first, in order to make their readers laugh. The Lutrin is a burlesque poem of the other sort, laying hold of a low and trifling incident, to expose the luxury, indolence, and contentious spirit of a set of monks. Boileau, the author, gives a ridiculous air to the subject, by dressing it in the heroic style, and affecting to consider it as of the utmost dignity and importance. In a composition of this kind, no image professedly ludicrous ought to find quarter, because such images destroy the contrast; and accordingly, the author shews always the grave face and never once betrays a smile.

Though the burlesque that aims at ridicule, produces its effect by elevating the style far above the subject, yet it has limits beyond. which the elevation ought not to be carried the poet, consulting the imagination of his readers, ought to confine himself to such

* Poet. cap. 5.

† L. 2. De Oratore.

Ideoque anceps ejus rei ratio est, quod a derisu non procul abest risus, lib. 6. cap. 3. sect. 1.

◊ See chap. 7.

| See chap. 10.

¶ Scarron.

** Tassoni.

images as are lively, and readily apprehended; a strained elevation, soaring above an ordinary reach of fancy, makes not a pleasant impression; the reader, fatigued with being always upon the stretch, is soon disgusted; and if he persevere, becomes thoughtless and indifferent. Further, a fiction gives no pleasure unless it be painted in colours so lively as to produce some perception of reality: which never can be done effectually where the images are formed with labour or difficulty. For these reasons, I cannot avoid condemning the Batrachomuomachia, said to be the composition of Homer: it is beyond the power of imagination to form a clear and lively image of frogs and mice, acting with the dignity of the highest of our species; nor can we form a conception of the reality of such an action, in any manner so distinct as to interest our affections even in the slightest degree.

The Rape of the Lock is of a character clearly distinguishable from those now mentioned; it is not properly a burlesque performance, but what may rather be termed an heroi-comical poem: it treats a gay and familiar subject with pleasantry, and with a moderate degree of dignity: the author puts not on a mask like Boileau, nor professes to make us laugh like Tassoni. The Rape of the Lock is a genteel species of writing, less strained than those mentioned; and is pleasant or ludicrous without having ridicule for its chief aim; giving way however to ridicule where it arises naturally from a particular character, such as that of Sir Plume. Addison's Spectator upon the exercise of the fan* is extremely gay and ludicrous, resembling in its subject the Rape of the Lock.

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Humour belongs to the present chapter, because it is connected with ridicule. Congreve defines humour to be "a singular and un"avoidable manner of doing or saying any thing, pecul "tural to one man only, by which his speech and actions "guished from those of other men." Were this definition just, a majestic and commanding air, which is a singular property, is humour; as also a natural flow of correct and commanding eloquence, which is no less singular. Nothing just or proper is denominated humour; nor any singularity of character, words, or actions, that is valued or respected. When we attend to the character of a humorist, we find that it arises from circumstances both risible and improper, and therefore that it lessens the man in our esteem, and makes him in some measure ridiculous.

Humour in writing is very different from humour in character. When an author insists upon ludicrous subjects with a professed purpose to make his readers laugh, he may be styled a ludicrous writer; but is scarce entitled to be styled a writer of humour. This quality belongs to an author, who, affecting to be grave and serious, paints his objects in such colours as to provoke mirth and laughter. A writer that is really a humorist in character, does this without design; if not, he must affect the character in order to succeed. Swift and Fontaine were humorists in character, and their writings are full of humour. Addison was not a humorist in character; and yet in his prose writings a most delicate and refined humour prevails,

No. 120.

Arbuthnot exceeds them all in drollery and humerous painting; which shews a great genius, because, if I am not misinformed, he had nothing of that peculiarity in his character.

There remains to show by examples the manner of treating subjects, so as to give them a ridiculous appearance.

Il ne dit jamais, je vous donne, mais, je vous prête le bon jour.-Moliere.

Orleans. I know him to be valiant.

Constable. I was told that by one that knows him better than you.

Orleans. What's he?

Constable. Marry, he told me so himself; and he said he car'd not who knew it.-Henry V. Shakspeare.

He never broke any man's head but his own, and that was against a post when he was drunk.-Ibid.

Millament. Sententious Mirabell! pr'ythee don't look with that violent and flexible wise face, like Solomon at the dividing of the child in an old tapestry banging.-Way of the World.

A true critic in the perusal of a book, is like a dog at a feast, whose thoughts and stomach are wholly set upon what the guests fling away, and consequently is apt to snarl most when there are the fewest bones.-Tale of a Tub.

In the following instances, the ridicule arises from absurd conceptions in the persons introduced.

Mascarille. Te souvient-il, vicomte de cette demi-lune, que nous emportâmes sur les ennemis au siège d'Arras?

Jodelet. Que veux tu dire avec ta demi-lune? cétoit bien une lune tout entière.-Moliere les Precieuses Ridicules, sc. 11.

S'ender. Lame yonder at Eaton to marry Mrs. Ann Page; and she's a great

a my life then you took the wrong.

Burles What need you tell me that? I think so when I took a boy for a girl; if I had been marry'd to him, for all he was in woman's apparel, I would not have had him.-Merry Wives of Windsor.

Valentine. Your blessing, Sir.

Sir Sampson. You've had it already, Sir; I think I sent it to you to-day in a bill for four thousand pounds; a great deal of money, Brother Foresight.

Foresight. Ay indeed, Sir Sampson, a great deal of money for a young man ; I wonder what can he do with it.-Love for Love, act 2. sc. 7.

Millament. I nauseate walking; 'tis a country-diversion; I loathe the country, and every thing that relates to it.

Sir Wilful. Indeed! hah! look ye, look ye, you do? nay, 'tis like you may -here are choice of pastimes here in town, as plays, and the like; that must be confess'd indeed.

Millament. Ah l'etourdie! I hate the town too.

Sir Wilful. Dear heart, that's much- -hah! that you should hate them both! hah! 'tis like you may; there are some can't relish the town, and others can't away with the country-'tis like you may be one of these, Cousing. Way of the World, act 4. sc. 4.

Lord Froth. I assure you, Sir Paul, I laugh at nobody's jests but my own, or a lady's: I assure you, Sir Paul.

Brisk. How? how my lord? what, affront my wit! Let me perish, do I never say any thing worthy to be laughed at?

Lord Froth. O foy, don't misapprehend me, I don't say so, for I often smile at your conceptions. But there is nothing more unbecoming a man of quality

than to laugh; 'tis such a vulgar expression of the passion! every body can laugh. Then especially to laugh at the jest of an inferior person, or when any body else of the same quality does not laugh with one; ridiculous! To be pleas'd with what pleases the crowd! Now, when I laugh I always laugh alone.-Double Dealer, act 1. sc. 4.

So sharp-sighted is pride in blemishes, and so willing to be gratified, that it takes up with the very slightest improprieties; such as a blunder by a foreigner in speaking our language, especially if the blunder can bear a sense that reflects on the speaker:

Quickly. The young man is an honest man.

Caius. What shall de honest man do in my closet? dere is no honest man dat shall come in my closet.-Merry Wives of Windsor.

Love-speeches are finely ridiculed in the following passage:

Quoth he, My faith is adamantine,
As chains of destiny, I'll maintain;
True as Apollo ever spoke,

Or oracle from heart of oak;
And if you'll give my flame but vent,
Now in close hugger-mugger pent,
And shine upon me but benignly,
With that one, and that other pigsneye,
The sun and day shall sooner part,
Than love, or you, shake off my heart;
The sun that shall no more dispense
His own, but your bright influence:
I'll carve your name on barks of trees,
With true-love knots, and flourishes;
That shall infuse eternal spring,
And everlasting flourishing:
Drink ev'ry letter on't in stum,

And make it brisk champaign become.
Where'er you tread, your foot shall set
The primrose and the violet;

All spices, perfumes, and sweet powders,
Shall borrow from your breath their odours;
Nature her charter shall renew,

And take all lives of things from you;
The world depend upon your eye,
And when you frown upon it, die.

Only our loves shall still survive,
New worlds and natures to outlive;
And, like to heralds' moons, remain

All crescents, without change or wane.-Hudibras, part 2. canto 1.

Irony turns things into ridicule in a peculiar manner; it consists in laughing at a man under disguise of appearing to praise or speak well of him. Swift affords us many illustrious examples of that species of ridicule. Take the following.

By these methods, in a few weeks, there starts up many a writer, capable of managing the profoundest and most universal subjects. For what though his head be empty, provided his common-place book be full. And if you will bate him but the circumstances of method, aud style, and grammar, and invention; allow him but the common privileges of transcribing from others, and digressing from himself, as often as he shall see occasion; he will desire no more ingredients towards fitting up a treatise that shall make a very comely fignre on a bookseller's shelf, there to be preserved neat and clean, for a long eternity, adorned with the heraldry of its title, fairly inscribed on a label; never to be thumbed or

greased by students, nor bound to everlasting chains of darkness in a library: but when the fulness of time is come, shall happily undergo the trial of purgatory, in order to ascend the sky.*

I cannot but congratulate our age on this peculiar felicity, that though we have indeed made great progress in all other branches of luxury, we are not yet debauched with any high relish in poetry, but are in this one taste less nice than our ancestors.

If the reverend clergy shewed more concern than others, I charitably impute it to their great charge of souls; and what confirmed me in this opinion was, that the degrees of apprehension and terror could be distinguished to be greater or less, according to their ranks and degrees in the church.t

A parody must be distinguished from every species of ridicule : it enlivens a gay subject by imitating some important incident that is serious it is ludicrous, and may be risible; but ridicule is not a necessary ingredient. Take the following examples, the first of which refers to an expression of Moses.

The skilful nymph reviews her force with care:

Let spades be trumps! she said, and trumps they were.

Rape of the Lock, canto iii. 45.

The next is in imitation of Achilles's oath in Homer:

But by this lock, this sacred lock, I swear
(Which never more shall join its parted hair,
Which never more its honour shall renew,
Clipp'd from the lovely head where late it grew),
That while my nostrils draw the vital air,

This hand, which won it, shall for ever wear.

He spoke, and speaking, in proud triumph spread

The long-contended honours of her head.-Ibid. canto iv. 133.

The following imitates the history of Agamemnon's sceptre in

Home

Now meet thy fate, incens'd Belinda cry'd,
And drew a deadly bodkin from her side,
(The same, his ancient personage to deck,
Her great-great-grandsire wore about his neck,
In three seal-rings; which after, melted down,
Form'd a vast buckle for his widow's gown:
Her infant grandame's whistle next it grew,
The bells she jingled, and the whistle blew ;
Then in a bodkin grac'd her mother's hairs,

Which long she wore, and now Belinda wears.)—Ibid, canto v. 87. Though ridicule, as observed above, is no necessary ingredient in a parody, yet there is no opposition between them: ridicule may be successfully employed in a parody, and a parody may be employed to promote ridicule: witness the following example with respect to the latter, in which the goddess of Dulness is addressed upon the subject of modern education:

Thou gav'st that ripeness, which so soon began,
And ceas'd so soon, he nev'r was boy nor man;
Thro' school and college, thy kind cloud o'ercast,
Safe and unseen the young Eneas past;
Thence bursting glorious, all at once let down,

Stunn'd with his giddy larum half the town.--Dunciad, b. iv. 287. The interposition of the gods, in the manner of Homer and *Tale of a Tub, sect. 7.

A true and faithful narrative of what passed in London during the general consternation of all ranks and degrees of mankind.

En, I. 1. At Venus obscuro, &c.

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