: PREFACE. In order to make amends for that absence of prose-wit and humour which the limitation of this volume to verse rendered at once unavoidable and provoking (considering how much some of the best of the writers excelled in prose, often to the far greater advantage of their pleasantry), the Introductory Essay has been plentifully supplied with examples of both sorts. Comedy, indeed, has had comparatively little to say for itself, in verse, even in Shakspeare. Wit and satire, and the observation of common life, want, of necessity, the enthusiasm of poetry, and are not impelled by their nature into musical utterance. Wits and satirists may write verse in order to concentrate their powers and sharpen their effect; but it will never be of any high or inspired order. It will be pipe and tabor music; not that of the organ or the orchestra. Juvenal sometimes gives us stately hexameters; but then he was a very serious worked himself up into a lofty indignation. satirist, and |