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any general character, by which objects of that kind may be diftinguished from others. Nor is that a fingular cafe; for, upon a review, we find the fame difficulty in most of the articles already handled. There is nothing more easy, viewing a particular object, than to pronounce that it is beautiful or ugly, grand or little but were we to attempt general rules for ranging objects under different claffes, according to thefe qualities, we should be much gravelled. A feparate caufe increases the difficulty of diftinguishing rifible objects by a general character: all men. are not equally affected by rifible objects; nor the fame man at all times; for in high fpirits a thing will make him laugh outright, which fcarce provokes a fmile in a grave mood. fible objects, however, are circumfcribed within certain limits; which I fhall fuggeft, without pretending to accuracy. And, in the first place, I obferve, that no object is rifible but what appears flight, little, or trivial; for we laugh at nothing that is of importance to our own intereft, or to that of others. A real diftress raises pity, and therefore cannot be rifible; but a flight or imaginary diftrefs, which moves not pity, is rifible. The adventure of the fullingmills in Don Quixote, is extremely rifible; fo is the scene where Sancho, in a dark night, tumbling into a pit, and attaching himself to the fide by hand and foot, hangs there in terrible difmay till the morning, when he difcovers himself

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to be within a foot of the bottom. A nofe remarkably long or fhort, is rifible; but to want it altogether, far from provoking laughter, raises horror in the spectator. Secondly, With refpect to works both of nature and of art, none of them are rifible but what are out of rule, fome remarkable defect or excefs; a very long visage, for example, or a very short one. Hence nothing juft, proper, decent, beautiful, proportioned, or grand, is rifible.

Even from this flight fketch it will readily be conjectured, that the emotion raised by a rifible object is of a nature fo fingular, as fcarce to find place while the mind is occupied with any other paffion or emotion: and the conjecture is verified by experience; for we fcarce ever find that emotion blended with any other. One emotion I muft except; and that is, contempt raised by certain improprieties every improper act infpires us with fome degree of contempt for the author; and if an improper act be at the fame time rifible to provoke laughter, of which blunders and abfurdities are noted inftances, the two emotions of contempt and of laughter unite intimately in the mind, and produce externally what is termed a laugh of derifion or of corn. Hence objects that caufe laughter may be diftinguished into two kinds they are either rifible or ridiculous. A rifible object is mirthful only a ridiculous object is both mirthful and contemptible. The first

raifes

raises an emotion of laughter that is altogether pleasant: the pleasant emotion of laughter raised by the other, is blended with the painful emotion of contempt; and the mixed emotion is termed the emotion of ridicule. The pain a ridiculous object gives me is refented and punished by a laugh of derifion. A rifible object, on the other hand, gives me no pain it is altogether pleasant by a certain fort of titillation, which is expressed externally by mirthful laughter. Ridicule will be more fully explained afterward: the prefent chapter is appropriated to the other

emotion.

Rifible objects are fo common, and fo well understood, that it is unneceffary to confume paper or time upon them. Take the few following examples.

Falstaff. I do remember him at Clement's inn, like a man made after fupper of a cheese-paring. When he was naked, he was for all the world like a forked radish, with a head fantaftically carved upon it with a knife.

Second Part, Henry IV. A& 111. Sc. 5.

The foregoing is of difproportion. The following examples are of flight or imaginary miffortunes.

Falstaff. Go fetch me a quart of fack; put a toast in't. Have I liv'd to be carried in a basket, like a barrow of butcher's offal, and to be thrown into the Thames!

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Thames! Well, if I be ferved fuch another trick, I'll have my brains ta'en out and butter'd, and give them to a dog for a new year's gift. The rogues flighted me into the river with as little remorfe as they would have drown'd a bitch's blind puppies, fifteen i'th'litter; and you may know by my fize, that I have a kind of alacrity in finking: if the bottom were as deep as hell, I fhould down. I had been drown'd, but that the fhore was shelvy and fhallow; a death that I abhor; for the water fwells a man: and what a thing should I have been when I had been fwell'd? I fhould have been a mountain of mummy.

Merry Wives of Windsor, A&t 111. Sc. 15.

Falstaff. Nay, you shall hear, Mafter Brook, what I have fuffer'd to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being thus cramm'd in the basket, a couple of Ford's knaves, his hinds, were call'd forth by their mistress, to carry me in the name of foul clothes to Datchet-lane. They took me on their fhoulders, met the jealous knave their master in the door, who ask'd them once or twice what they had in their basket. I quak'd for fear, left the lunatic knave would have fearch'd it; but Fate, ordaining he fhould be a cuckold, held his hand. Well, on went he for a search, and away went I for foul clothes. But mark the fequel, Mafter Brook. I fuffer'd the pangs of three egregious deaths; first, an intolerable fright, to be detected by a jealous rotten bell-weather; next, to be compafs'd like a good bilbo, in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and then to be ftopt in, like a strong diftillation, with ftinking clothes that fretted in their own greafe. Think of that, a man of my kidney; think of that, that am as fubject

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to heat as butter; a man of continual diffolution and thaw; it was a miracle to 'fcape fuffocation. And in the height of this bath, when I was more than half stew'd in grease, like a Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames, and cool'd glowing hot, in that surge, like a horse shoe; think of that; hiffing hot; think of that, Mafter Brook.

Merry Wives of Windsor, A&t 111. Sc. 17.