be thought impertinent by the reader, if he considers how wonderfully it
hath been mistaken, even by writers who have professed it: for to what
but such a mistake can we attribute the many attempts to ridicule the
blackest villanies, and, what is yet worse, the most dreadful
calamities? What could exceed the absurdity of an author, who should
write the comedy of Nero, with the merry incident of ripping up his
mother's belly? or what would give a greater shock to humanity than an
attempt to expose the miseries of poverty and distress to ridicule? And
yet the reader will not want much learning to suggest such instances
to himself.

Besides, it may seem remarkable, that Aristotle, who is so fond and free
of definitions, hath not thought proper to define the Ridiculous.
Indeed, where he tells us it is proper to comedy, he hath remarked that
villany is not its object: but he hath not, as I remember, positively
asserted what is. Nor doth the Abbe Bellegarde, who hath written a
treatise on this subject, though he shows us many species of it, once
trace it to its fountain.

The only source of the true Ridiculous (as it appears to me) is
affectation. But though it arises from one spring only, when we consider
the infinite streams into which this one branches, we shall presently
cease to admire at the copious field it affords to an observer. Now,
affectation proceeds from one of these two causes, vanity or hypocrisy:
for as vanity puts us on affecting false characters, in order to
purchase applause; so hypocrisy sets us on an endeavour to avoid
censure, by concealing our vices under an appearance of their opposite
virtues. And though these two causes are often confounded (for there is
some difficulty in distinguishing them), yet, as they proceed from very
different motives, so they are as clearly distinct in their operations: