Essay on Wit

   (1748);

   Richard Flecknoe's

    Of one that Zany's the good Companion

   and

    Of a bold abusive Wit

   (second edition, 1665);

   Joseph Warton,

    The Adventurer

   , Nos. 127 and 133 (1754);

    Of Wit

    (Weekly Register

   , 1732).

   With

    an Introduction

   to the Series on Wit by Edward N. Hooker

   The age of Dryden and Pope was an age of wit, but there were few who could explain precisely what they meant by the term. A thing so multiform and. Protean escaped the bonds of logic and definition. In his sermon "Against Foolish Talking and Jesting" the learned Dr. Isaac Barrow attempted to describe some of the forms which it took; the forms were many, and it is difficult to discover any element which they held in common. Nevertheless Barrow ventured a summary:

    It is, in short, a manner of speaking out of the simple and plain way, (such as Reason 

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