Airiness of Spirit; by provoking to such Disposition of Spirit
in Way of Emulation, or Complaisance; and by seasoning Matters
otherwise distasteful or insipid, with an unusual and thence
grateful Tange.

This Description, it is easy to perceive, must have cost the Author of
it a great deal of Labour. It is a very full Specimen of that Talent
of entirely _exhausting_ a Subject, for which Dr. _Barrow_ was
remarkable; and if the _Point_ was, to exhibit all the various Forms
and Appearances, not of WIT only, but of _Raillery_, _Satire_,
_Sarcasms_, and of every Kind of _Poignancy_ and _Pleasantry_ of
Sentiment, and Expression, he seems to have perfectly succeeded; there
being perhaps no Variety, in all the Extent of these Subjects, which
he has not presented to View in this Description.--But he does not
pretend to give any _Definition_ of WIT, intimating rather that it is
quite impossible to be given: And indeed from his Description of it,
as a _Proteus_, appearing in numberless various Colours, and Forms;
and from his mistaking, and presenting for WIT, other different
Mixtures and Substances, it is evident that his Idea of it was quite
confused and uncertain: It is true, he has discovered a vast Scope of
Fertility of Genius, and an uncommon Power of collecting together a
Multitude of Objects upon any Occasion, but he has here absolutely
mistaken his work; for instead of exhibiting the Properties of WIT in
a clearer Light, and confuting the _false Claims_ which are made to
it, he has made it his whole Business to perplex it the more, by
introducing, from all Corners, a monstrous Troop of new unexpected
_Pretenders_.

_Dryden_, in the Preface to his _Opera_, entitled, _The State of
Innocence_, or _Fall of Man_, gives the following _Decree_ upon WIT.