After these parts of the subject which hold chiefly of admiration,
or naturally warm and interest the mind, a pleasure of a very
different nature, that which arises from ridicule, came next to be
considered. As this is the foundation of the comic manner in all the
arts, and has been but very imperfectly treated by moral writers, it
was thought proper to give it a particular illustration, and to
distinguish the general sources from which the ridicule of
characters is derived. Here, too, a change of style became necessary;
such a one as might yet be consistent, if possible, with the general
taste of composition in the serious parts of the subject: nor is it
an easy task to give any tolerable force to images of this kind,
without running either into the gigantic expressions of the mock
heroic, or the familiar and poetical raillery of professed satire;
neither of which would have been proper here.
The materials of all imitation being thus laid open, nothing now
remained but to illustrate some particular pleasures which arise
either from the relations of different objects one to another, or
from the nature of imitation itself. Of the first kind is that
various and complicated resemblance existing between several parts
of the material and immaterial worlds, which is the foundation of
metaphor and wit.
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