Page:The Pleasures of Imagination - Akenside (1744).djvu/93

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Book III.
of IMAGINATION.
79

Sit down dismay'd, and leave the entangled scene
For scorn to sport with. Such then is th' abode
Of folly in the mind; and such the shapes
In which she governs her obsequious train.240
Thro' every scene of ridicule in things
To lead the tenour of my devious lay;
Thro' every swift occasion, which the hand
Of laughter points at, when the mirthful sting
Distends her sallying nerves and choaks her tongue;245
What were it but to count each crystal drop
Which morning's dewy fingers on the blooms
Of May distill? Suffice it to have said,[1]
Where'er the pow'r of ridicule displays

Her
  1. ————————Suffice it to have said, &c.] By comparing these general sources of ridicule with each other, and examining the ridiculous in other objects, we may obtain a general definition of it equally applicable to every species. The most important circumstance of this definition is laid down in the lines referred to; but others more minute we shall subjoin here. Aristotle's account of the matter seems both imperfect and false; τὸ γὰρ γελοῑον, says he, ἐστὶν αμαρτημα τι και αισχος, ανωδαυνον και ου φθαρτικον: the ridiculous is some certain fault or turpitude without pain, and not destructive to its subject. (Poetic. c. v.) For allowing it to be true, as it is not, that the ridiculous is never accompany'd with pain, yet we might produce many instances of such a fault or turpitude, which cannot with any tolerable propriety be called ridiculous. So that the definition does not distinguish the thing defined. Nay farther, even when we perceive the tupitude tending to the destruction of its subject, we may still be sensible of a ridiculous appearance, till the ruin become imminent,
and