Page:An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.djvu/170

 and the critic, by demanding an impossibility from the comic poet, has, in effect, banished new comedy from the stage. But to put the same thought in a different light:

an unexpected similitude in two objects strikes the imagination; in other words, when a thing is wittily expressed, all our pleasure turns into admiration of the artist, who had fancy enough to draw the picture. When a thing is humourously described, our burst of laughter proceeds from a very different cause; we compare the absurdity of the character represented with our own, and triumph in our conscious superiority. No natural defect can be a cause of laughter, because it is a misfortune to which ourselves are liable; a defect of this kind, changes the passion into pity or horror; we only laugh at those instances of moral absur-