Page:Comical adventures of the late Mr. James Spiller, comedian, at Epsom in England.pdf/3

 None so deaf as those who will not hear.

A true humourous Tale and Proverb, exemplified in the following merry Story of Mr. JAMES Spillea, Comedian, of facetious Memory.

AS the art of true humour is very difficult to attain, and very rarely met with. I shall present my reader with the following quotation on that subject from the Spectator.-'Among all kinds of writings, there are none in which authors are more apt to miscarry than in works of humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.

It is not an imagination that teems with monsters ; an head that is filled with extravagant conceptions, which is capable of filling the world with diversions in this nature, and yet, if we look into the productions of several writers, who set up for men of humour, what wild irregular fancies, what unnatural distortions of thoughts do we meet with ? If they speak nonsense, they believe they are talking humour, and