Part 1 (1/2)
An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744).
by Corbyn Morris.
INTRODUCTION
The _Essay_ here reproduced was first advertised in the London _Daily Advertiser_ as ”this day was published” on Thursday, 17 May 1744 (The same advertis.e.m.e.nt, except for the change of price from one s.h.i.+lling to two, appeared in this paper intermittently until 14 June). Although on the t.i.tle-page the authors.h.i.+p is given as ”By the Author of a Letter from a By-stander,” there was no intention of anonymity, since the Dedication is boldly signed ”Corbyn Morris, Inner Temple, Feb. 1, 1743 [44].”
Not much is known of the early life of Corbyn Morris. Born 14 August 1710, he was the eldest son of Edmund Morris of Bishop's Castle, Salop. (_Alumni Cantabrigienses_). On 17 September 1727 he was admitted (pensioner) at Queen's College, Cambridge, as an exhibitioner from the famous Charterhouse School. Exactly when he left the university, or whether he took a degree, is not certain.
Morris first achieved some prominence, though anonymously, with _A Letter from a By-stander to a Member of Parliament; wherein is examined what necessity there is for the maintenance of a large regular land-force in this island_. This pamphlet, dated at the end, 26 February 1741/42, is a wholehearted eulogy of the Walpole administration and is filled with statistics and arguments for the Mercantilist theories of the day. At the time there was some suspicion that the work had been written either by Walpole himself or by his direction. When the _Letter from a By-stander_ was answered by the historian Thomas Carte, an angry pamphlet controversy ensued, with Morris writing under the pseudonym of ”A Gentleman of Cambridge.”
Throughout, Morris showed himself a violent Whig, bitter in his attacks on Charles II and the non-jurors; and it was undoubtedly this fanatical party loyalty which laid the foundation for his later government career.
The princ.i.p.al facts of Morris's later life may be briefly summarized.
On 17 June 1743 he was admitted at the Inner Temple. Throughout the Pelham and Newcastle administrations he was employed by the government, as he once put it, ”in conciliating opponents.” From 1751 to 1763 be acted as Secretary of the Customs and Salt Duty in Scotland, in which post he was acknowledged to have shown decided ability as an administrator. From 1763 to 1778 he was one of the commissioners of customs. He died at Wimbledon 22 December 1779 (_Musgrave's Obituary_), described in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ as a ”gentleman well known in the literary world, and universally esteemed for his unwearied services and attachment to government.”
Throughout his long years of public service he wrote numerous pamphlets, largely on economic and political questions. Merely the t.i.tles of a few may be sufficient to indicate the nature of his interests. _An Essay towards Deciding the Question whether Britain be Permitted by Right Policy to Insure the s.h.i.+ps of Her Enemies _(1747); _Observations on the Past Growth and Present State of the City of London_ (containing a complete table of christenings and burials 1601- 1750) (175l); _A Letter Balancing the Causes of the Present Scarcity of Our Silver Coin_ (1757).
It would be a mistake, however, to consider Morris merely as a statistical economist and Whig party hack. A gentleman of taste and wit, the friend of Hume, Boswell, and other discerning men of the day, he was elected F.R.S. in 1757, and appears to have been much respected. In later life Morris had a country place at Chiltern Vale, Herts., where he took an active delight in country sports. One of his late pamphlets, not listed in the _D.N.B_. account of him, entertainingly ill.u.s.trates one of his hobbies. _The Bird-fancier's Recreation and Delight, with the newest and very best instructions for catching, taking, feeding, rearing, &c all the various sorts of SONG BIRDS... containing curious remarks on the nature, s.e.x, management, and diseases of ENGLISH SONG BIRDS, with practical instructions for distinguis.h.i.+ng the c.o.c.k and hen, for taking, choosing, breeding, keeping, and teaching them to sing, for discovering and caring their diseases, and of learning them to sing to the greatest perfection_.
Although there is little surviving evidence of Morris's purely literary interests, a set of verses combining his economic and artistic views appeared in a late edition of _The New Foundling Hospital for Wit_ (new edition, 1784, VI, 95). Occasioned by seeing Bowood in Wilts.h.i.+re, the home of the Earl of Shelburne, the lines are ent.i.tled: ”On Reading Dr. Goldsmith's Poem, the Deserted Village.”
This was the man who at the age of thirty-three brought out _An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Raillery, Satire, and Ridicule_. That it was ever widely read we have no evidence, but at least a number of men of wit and judgment found it interesting.
Horace Walpole included it in a packet of ”the only new books at all worth reading” sent to Horace Mann, but the fulsome dedication to the elder Walpole undoubtedly had something to do with this recommendation. More disinterested approval is shown in a letter printed in the _Daily Advertiser_ for 31 May 1744. Better than any modern critique the letter ill.u.s.trates the contemporary reaction to the _Essay_.
Christ Church College, Oxford,
SIR:
I have examin'd the _Essay_ you have sent me for _fixing the true Standards of Wit, Humour, &c._ and cannot perceive upon what pretence the Definitions, as you tell me, are censured for Obscurity, even by Gentlemen of Abilities, and such as in other Parts of the Work very frankly allow it's Merit: the Definition of Wit, which presents itself at first, you say is, particularly objected to, as dark and involv'd; in answer to which I beg Leave to give you my plain Sentiments upon it, and which I apprehend should naturally occur to every Reader: In treating upon Wit, the Author seems constantly to carry in his View a Distinction between _This_ and _Vivacity_: there is a l.u.s.tre or Brilliancy which often results from wild unprovok'd Sallies of Fancy; but such unexpected Objects, which serve not to _elucidate_ each other, discover only a Flow of Spirits, or rambling Vivacity; whereas, says he, Wit is the l.u.s.tre which results from the quick _Elucidation_ of one Subject, by the just and unexpected Arrangement of it with another Subject.--To const.i.tute _Wit_, there must not only arise a _l.u.s.tre_ from the quick Arrangement together of two Subjects, but the new Subject must be naturally introduced, and also serve to _elucidate_ the original one: the Word _Elucidation_, though it be not new, is elegant, and very happily applied in this Definition; yet I have seen some old Gentlemen here stumble at it, and have found it difficult to persuade them to advance farther:--I have also heard Objections made to the Words _l.u.s.tre_ and _Brilliancy_ of Ideas, though they are Terms which have been used by the _Greeks_ and _Romans_, and by elegant Writers of all Ages and Nations; and the Effect which they express, is perfectly conceiv'd and felt by every Person of true Genius and Imagination.
The Distinctions between _Wit_ and _Humour_, and the Reasons why _Humour_ is more pleasurably felt than _Wit_, are new and excellent: as is the Definition of an _Humourist_, and the happy a.n.a.lysis of the Characters of _Falstaff_, _Sir Roger de Coverly_, and _Don Quixote_; But, as you say, the Merit of these Parts is universally allowed; as well as the Novelty, and liberal Freedom of the [word apparently omitted]; which have such Charms in my Eye, as I had long ceased to expect in a Modern Writer.
I am, &c 25 May, 1744 J---- W---- [not identified]
If the ”Gentlemen of Abilities” of the day found some of Morris's definitions obscure, modern readers will find them more precise than those of most of his predecessors. All who had gone before--Cowley, Barrow, Dryden, Locke, Addison, and Congreve (he does not mention Hobbes)--Morris felt had bungled the job. And although he apologizes for attempting what the great writers of the past had failed to do, he has no hesitation in setting forth exactly what he believes to be the proper distinctions in the meanings of such terms as wit, humour, judgment, invention, raillery, and ridicule. The mathematician and statistician in Morris made him strive for precise accuracy. It was all very clear to him, and by the use of numerous anecdotes and examples he hoped to make the distinctions obvious to the general reader.
The _Essay_ shows what a man of some evident taste and perspicacity, with an a.n.a.lytical mind, can do in defining the subtle semantic distinctions in literary terms. Trying to fix immutably what is certain always to be s.h.i.+fting, Morris is noteworthy not only because of the nature of his attempt, but because he is relatively so successful. As Professor Edward Hooker has pointed out in an Introduction to an earlier _ARS_ issue (Series I, No. 2), his is ”probably the best and clearest treatment of the subject in the first half of the eighteenth century.” It may be regretted that political and economic concerns occupied so much of his later life, leaving him no time for further literary essays.
In the present facsimile edition, for reasons of s.p.a.ce, only the Introduction and the main body of the _Essay_ are reproduced. Although Morris once remarked to David Hume that he wrote all his books ”for the sake of the Dedications” (_Letters of David Hume_ ed. Greig, I, 380), modern readers need not regret too much the omission of the fulsome 32 page dedication to Walpole (The Earl of Orford). Morris insists at the beginning that the book was inspired by a fervent desire of ”attempting a Composition, independent of Politics, which might furnish an occasional Amus.e.m.e.nt” to his patron. The praise which follows, in which Walpole is said to lead ”the _Empire_ of _Letters_,”
is so excessive as to produce only smiles in twentieth century readers. Walpole is praised for not curbing the press while necessarily curbing the theatre, his aid to commerce and industry, indeed almost every act of his administration, is lauded to the skies.
The Church of England, in which ”the _Exercise_ of _Reason_ in the solemn Wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d, is the sacred _Right_, and indispensible _Duty_, of Man,” receives its share of eulogy. In every connection the Tories are violently attacked.
The Dedication ends in a peroration of praise for Walpole's public achievements which ”shall adorn the History of _Britain_,” and for his ”_Private Virtues_ and all the _softer Features_” of his mind. His home of retirement is referred to in the lines of Milton:
”Great Palace now of Light!
Hither, as to their Fountain, other Stars Repairing, in their golden Urns, draw Light; And here [sic] the Morning Planet gilds her Horns.”
[P.L. 7. 363-66]