4.
_Leonidas_ the _Spartan_ General, when he advanced near the _Persian_
Army, was told by one of his own Captains, that _their Enemies were so
numerous, it was impossible to see the Sun for the Multitude of their
Arrows_; To which he gallantly reply'd, _We shall then have the
Pleasure of fighting in the Shade_.
The vast Cope of _Persian_ Arrows is here the _original_ Subject;
which instead of being observed by _Leonidas_ with Terror, presents
to his Fancy the pleasant Idea of a cool _Canopy_. There is an
_Agreement_ and Affinity between the two Objects, in regard to the
_Shelter from the Sun_, which is at once obvious, and _unexpected_;
And the Cloud of the Enemies Arrows is thus gaily _elucidated_, by the
_Arrangement_ and Comparison of it with so desirable an Object as
_shady Covering_.
This Saying of the _Spartan_ General has been handed through many Ages
to the present Time; But the chief Part of the Pleasure it gives us,
results not so much from the WIT it contains, as from the _Gallantry_,
and _chearful Spirit_, discover'd in Danger, by _Leonidas_.
5.
An Instance of WIT in the _Opposition_, I remember to have read
somewhere in the _Spectators_; where Sir _Roger de Coverley_
intimating the Splendor which the perverse Widow should have appear'd
in, if she had commenced Lady _Coverley_, says:
_That he would have given her a_ Coalpit _to have kept her in_ clean
Linnen: _And that her Finger should have_ sparkled _with one hundred
of his richest_ Acres.
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