Correct my Error with thy Pen,
And if any ask me then,
What thing right _Wit_, and Height of _Genius_ is,
I'll only shew your _Lines_, and say, _'Tis this_.
The _Spirit_ and _Wit_ of this _Ode_ are excellent; and yet it is
evident, through the whole, that Mr. _Cowley_ had no clear Idea of
_Wit_, though at the same time it _shines_ in most of these Lines:
There is little Merit in saying what WIT _is not_, which is the chief
Part of this _Ode_. Towards the End, he indeed attempts to describe what
_it is_, but is quite vague and perplex'd in his Description; and at
last, instead of collecting his scatter'd Rays into a _Focus_, and
exhibiting succinctly the clear Essence and Power of WIT, he drops the
whole with a trite Compliment.
The learned Dr. _Barrow_, in his _Sermon against foolish Talking and
Jesting_, gives the following profuse Description of WIT.
But first it may be demanded, What the Thing we speak of is? Or
what the Facetiousness (or _Wit_ as he calls it before) doth
import? To which Questions I might reply, as _Democritus_ did to
him that asked the Definition of a Man, _'Tis that we all see and
know._ Any one better apprehends what it is by Acquaintance,
than I can inform him by Description. It is indeed a Thing so
versatile and multiform, appearing in so many Shapes, so many
Postures, so many Garbs, so variously apprehended by several
Eyes and Judgments, that it seemeth no less hard to settle a
clear and certain Notion thereof, than to make a Portrait of
_Proteus_, or to define the Figure of the fleeting Air.
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