[Footnote: This was one of the points upon which Dr Johnson was
strangely heterodox. For, surely, Mr Burke, with his other remarkable
qualities, is also distinguished for his wit, and for wit of all kinds
too; not merely that power of language which Pope chooses to
denominate wit.

True wit is Nature to advantage drest;
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well exprest.

but surprising allusions, brilliant sallies of vivacity, and pleasant
conceits. His speeches in Parliament are strewed with them. Take, for
instance, the variety which he has given in his wide range, yet exact
detail, when exhibiting his Reform Bill. And his conversation abounds
in wit. Let me put down a specimen. I told him, I had seen, at a blue
stocking assembly, a number of ladies sitting round a worthy and tall
friend of ours, listening to his literature. 'Ay,' said he, 'like
maids round a May-pole.' I told him, I had found a perfect definition
of human nature, as distinguished from the animal. An ancient
philosopher said, man was a 'two-legged animal without feathers', upon
which his rival sage had a cock plucked bare, and set him down in the
school before all the disciples, as a 'Philosophick Man'. Dr Franklin
said, man was 'a tool-making animal', which is very well; for no
animal but man makes a thing, by means of which he can make another
thing. But this applies to very few of the species. My definition of
man is, 'a Cooking Animal'. The beasts have memory, judgment and all
the faculties and passions of our mind, in a certain degree; but no
beast is a cook. The trick of the monkey using the cat's paw to roast
a chestnut is only a piece of shrewd malice in that turpissima bestia,
which humbles us so sadly by its similarity to us. Man alone can dress