"Forbid it Heaven, the hermit cried,

"And clasp'd her to his breast;

"The wond'ring fair one turn'd to chide,

""Twas Edwin's self that press'd.

EDWIN AND ANGELINA,

The tender however will sometimes be found in a scene of perfect tranquillity; and it must be remarked that the expression of tenderness is the great excellence in the fine Madonna's of the Italian school of painting. In the Scripture, the finest examples of this will also be found, as for instance, Isaiah xlix. 14, 15..

"But Zion said, the Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me-Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb: yea, she may forget, yet will I not forget thee.'

LETTER VI.

V. The Ludicrous.

MY DEAR JOHN,

THE transition from the pathetic to the ludicrous will appear rather violent, though, if you take Dr. Hartley's opinion on the subject, laughing and crying are more nearly allied than is vulgarly supposed. "Laughter," says he," is a nascent cry raised by pain, or the apprehension of pain, suddenly checked, and repeated at very short intervals." I do not, however, press the doctor's opinion upon you; for really if I was called upon for an example of the ridiculous, I do not know that I should not quote this passage as soon as any of the notions attributed to the mock philosophers, so happily ridiculed by Butler-who knew

"Where entity and quiddity,

"The ghosts of defunct bodies, lie;
“Where truth in person does appear,

Like words congeal'd in northern air,

"Who knew the seat of paradise,
"Could tell in what degree it lies-
"What Adam dreamt of when his bride
"Came from the closet in his side," &c.

It may serve to shew you, however, the general inanity of metaphysical speculations, which I advise you by all means to avoid, and to what lengths of folly human reason will go, when it pretends to account for every thing.

Though we discard, however, Dr. Hartley's theory of the ridiculous, yet I think we may fairly say that it always arises from a striking ✅ contrast suddenly brought before the mind by an unexpected combination or association of ideas. Contrast alone, unless connected with the terrific or some strong passion, has a tendency to excite risible emotions. Children whose animal spirits are very active, and whose perceptions are vivid, will frequently be disposed to laugh, at seeing a man with one leg much thicker than the other, or at an animal with only one ear. One of the finest instances of strong sublime contrast that I remember, was when Mr. Burke, in one of his speeches in the house, called the extravagant French reformers "Architects of ruin ;" and Pope affords an in

stance of witty contrast in his ridicule of Ti mon's villa

"Lo! what huge heaps of littleness around';
"The whole a laboured quarry above ground."

The contrast must not however be too violent, nor must it involve any thing of too serious a nature, for in that case, a different train of ideas would be excited, which would destroy the ridiculous effect. A better instance it is impossible to give than the celebrated distich from the great master in wit and humour, the point and ridicule of which is wholly independant of the double rhime.

"When pulpit, drum ecclesiastic,

"Was beat with fist, instead of a stick."

And again

"We grant, altho' he had much wit,

"He was very shy of using it;

"As being loth to wear it out,
"And therefore bore it not about,

Unless on holidays or so,

"As men their best apparel do."

In these instances, the contrast is strong between a pulpit and a drum; and wit and a suit of cloathes. Yet, in the first instance, both (the pulpit and the drum) were made use of to

excite a multitude to arms; here was a curious agreement found out, and both were beaten, but the ridiculous contrast is again brought to view, the one was beaten with a fist, the other with a stick.

In the other quotation there is a mixture of irony; for it is meant to imply that Sir Hudibras had no wit at all, but was in reality, as described in another place,

a tool

"Which knaves do work with, called a fool."

Yet the drollery is exquisite in the agreement which the writer finds out between the parsimony of his hero, and that of a miser with respect to his holiday suit. The irony is displayed particularly in the couplet:

On the subject of irony I shall have something more to add, when I treat of the figures of rhetoric.

Metaphysicians have established three relations as influencing the chain of our ideas upon different occasions, there are-1st. Contiguity