The farther it runs from reason or possibility with them
the better it is.
Socrates.--Theatrical wit.--What could have made them laugh, like to
see Socrates presented, that example of all good life, honesty, and
virtue, to have him hoisted up with a pulley, and there play the
philosopher in a basket; measure how many foot a flea could skip
geometrically, by a just scale, and edify the people from the
engine. This was theatrical wit, right stage jesting, and relishing
a playhouse, invented for scorn and laughter; whereas, if it had
savoured of equity, truth, perspicuity, and candour, to have tasten
a wise or a learned palate,--spit it out presently! this is bitter
and profitable: this instructs and would inform us: what need we
know any thing, that are nobly born, more than a horse-race, or a
hunting-match, our day to break with citizens, and such innate
mysteries?
The cart.--This is truly leaping from the stage to the tumbril
again, reducing all wit to the original dung-cart.
Of the magnitude and compass of any fable, epic or dramatic.
What the measure of a fable is.--The fable or plot of a poem
defined.
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