VII.

’Tis not such Lines as almost crack the Stage,
  When Bajazet begins to rage;
Not a tall Metaphor in th’ bombast Way,
Nor the dry Chips of short-lung’d Seneca. 
  Nor upon all Things to obtrude,
  And force some odd Similitude. 
What is it then, which like the Pow’r Divine,
We only can by Negatives define?

VIII.

In a true Piece of Wit, all Things must be,
  Yet all Things there agree;
As in the Ark, join ’d without Force or Strife,
All Creatures dwelt; all Creatures that had Life. 
  Or as the primitive Forms of all,
  (If we compare great Things with small)
Which without Discord or Confusion lie,
In the strange Mirror of the Deity.

IX.

But Love, that moulds one Man up out of two,
  Makes me forget, and injure you. 
I took You for Myself, sure when I thought
That You in any thing were to be taught. 
  Correct my Error with thy Pen,
  And if any ask me then,
What thing right Wit, and Height of Genius is,
I’ll only shew your Lines, and say, ’Tis this.

The Spirit and Wit of this Ode are excellent; and yet it is evident, through the whole, that Mr. Cowley had no clear Idea of Wit, though at the same time it shines in most of these Lines:  There is little Merit in saying what WIT is not, which is the chief Part of this Ode.  Towards the End, he indeed attempts to describe what it is, but is quite vague and perplex’d in his Description; and at last, instead of collecting his scatter’d Rays into a Focus, and exhibiting succinctly the clear Essence and Power of WIT, he drops the whole with a trite Compliment.

The learned Dr. Barrow, in his Sermon against foolish Talking and Jesting, gives the following profuse Description of WIT.

But first it may be demanded, What the Thing we speak of is?  Or what the Facetiousness (or Wit as he calls it before) doth import?  To which Questions I might reply, as Democritus did to him that asked the Definition of a Man, ’Tis that we all see and know. Any one better apprehends what it is by Acquaintance, than I can inform him by Description.  It is indeed a Thing so versatile and multiform, appearing in so many Shapes, so many Postures, so many Garbs, so variously apprehended by several Eyes and Judgments, that it seemeth no less hard to settle a clear and certain Notion thereof, than to make a Portrait of Proteus, or to define the Figure of the fleeting Air.  Sometimes it lieth in pat Allusion to a known Story, or in seasonable Application of a trivial Saying, or in forging an apposite Tale:  Sometimes it playeth in Words and Phrases, taking Advantage from the