That which they call Wit, is sometimes a new Simile, sometimes a fine Allusion:  Here ’tis the Abuse of a Word which presents itself in one Sense, and is understood in another; there a delicate Relation between two uncommon Ideas:  ’Tis an extraordinary Metaphor; ’tis something which in an Object does not at first present itself, but nevertheless is in it; ’tis the Art, to unite two Things which were far from one another; to separate two which seem to be joined, or to set them in Opposition; ’tis the Art, of expressing but half the Thought and leaving the other to be found out.  In short, I’d tell all the different Ways of shewing Wit, if I knew of any more.

But all these Brightnesses (and I speak not of the false ones) agree not, or very seldom agree with a serious Work, which ought to be interesting.  The Reason of it is, that ’tis then the Author that appears, and the Publick will see no body but the Hero.  Moreover the Hero is always either in a Passion, or in Danger.  Danger, and the Passions seek not Expressions of Wit. Priam and Hecuba don’t make Epigrams, when their Children’s Throats are cut and Troy in Flames:—­Dido does not sigh in Madrigals, when she flies to the Pile upon which she’s going to sacrifice herself:—­Demosthenes has no Prettinesses, when he animates the Athenians to War; if he had, he’d be a Rhetorician indeed, instead of which he’s a Statesman.

If Pyrrhus was always to express himself in this Stile: 

                       ’Tis true,
  My Sword has often reek’d in Phrygian Blood,
  And carried Havock through your Royal Kindred: 
  But you, fair Princess, amply have aveng’d
  Old Priam’s vanquish’d House:  And all the Woes,
  I brought on them, fall short of what I suffer.

This Character wou’d not touch at all:  ’Twou’d soon be perceiv’d, that true Passion seldom makes Use of such Comparisons, and that there is very little Proportion between the real Fires which consumed Troy, and the amorous Fires of Pyrrhus; between the Havock he made amongst Andromache’s Kindred and the Cruelty she shews him.

Chamont says, in speaking of Monimia: 

You took her up a little tender Flower, Just sprouted on a Bank, which the next Frost Had nipt; and, with a careful loving Hand, Transplanted her into your own fair Garden, Where the Sun always shines:  There long she flourish’d, Grew sweet to Sense, and lovely to the Eye; Till at the last, a cruel Spoiler came, Cropt this fair Rose, and rifled all its Sweetness, Then cast it, like a loathsome Weed, away.

This Thought has a prodigious Eclat:  There’s a great deal of Wit in it, and even an Air of Simplicity that imposes upon one.  We all see, that these Verses, pronounced with the Art and Enthusiasm of a good Actor never fail of Applause; but I think we may also see, that the Tragedy of the Orphan wrote entirely in this Taste would never have lived long.