It may be expected, since I am upon this Subject, that I should take notice of Mr. Dryden’s Definition of Wit; which, with all the Deference that is due to the Judgment of so great a Man, is not so properly a Definition of Wit, as of good writing in general.  Wit, as he defines it, is ’a Propriety of Words and Thoughts adapted to the Subject.’ [2] If this be a true Definition of Wit, I am apt to think that Euclid [was [3]] the greatest Wit that ever set Pen to Paper:  It is certain that never was a greater Propriety of Words and Thoughts adapted to the Subject, than what that Author has made use of in his Elements.  I shall only appeal to my Reader, if this Definition agrees with any Notion he has of Wit:  If it be a true one I am sure Mr. Dryden was not only a better Poet, but a greater Wit than Mr. Cowley; and Virgil a much more facetious Man than either Ovid or Martial.

Bouhours, whom I look upon to be the most penetrating of all the French Criticks, has taken pains to shew, that it is impossible for any Thought to be beautiful which is not just, and has not its Foundation in the Nature of things:  That the Basis of all Wit is Truth; and that no Thought can be valuable, of which good Sense is not the Ground-work. [4] Boileau has endeavoured to inculcate the same Notions in several Parts of his Writings, both in Prose and Verse. [5] This is that natural Way of Writing, that beautiful Simplicity, which we so much admire in the Compositions of the Ancients; and which no Body deviates from, but those who want Strength of Genius to make a Thought shine in its own natural Beauties.  Poets who want this Strength of Genius to give that Majestick Simplicity to Nature, which we so much admire in the Works of the Ancients, are forced to hunt after foreign Ornaments, and not to let any Piece of Wit of what kind soever escape them.  I look upon these writers as Goths in Poetry, who, like those in Architecture, not being able to come up to the beautiful Simplicity of the old Greeks and Romans, have endeavoured to supply its place with all the Extravagancies of an irregular Fancy.  Mr. Dryden makes a very handsome Observation, on Ovid’s writing a Letter from Dido to AEneas, in the following Words. [6]

‘Ovid’ says he, (speaking of Virgil’s Fiction of Dido and AEneas) ’takes it up after him, even in the same Age, and makes an Ancient Heroine of Virgil’s new-created Dido; dictates a Letter for her just before her Death to the ungrateful Fugitive; and, very unluckily for himself, is for measuring a Sword with a Man so much superior in Force to him on the same Subject.  I think I may be Judge of this, because I have translated both.  The famous Author of the Art of Love has nothing of his own; he borrows all from a greater Master in his own Profession, and, which is worse, improves nothing