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There is no kind of false wit which has been so recommended by the practice of all ages as that which consists in a jingle
of words, and is comprehended under the general name of punning. It is indeed impossible to kill a weed which the soil
has a natural disposition to produce. The seeds of punning are in the minds of all men, and though they may be subdued by
reason, reflection, and good sense, they will be very apt to shoot up in the greatest genius that is not broken and cultivated by the rules of art. Imitation is natural to us, and when it does not raise the mind to poetry, painting, music, or other more noble arts, it often breaks out in puns and quibbles. ..I shall here define it to be a conceit arising from the use of two words that agree in the sound, but differ in the sense. The only way, therefore, to try a piece of wit is to translate it into a different language. If it bear the test, you may pronounce it true; but if it vanish in the experiment you may conclude it to have been a pun. In short, one may say of a pun, as the countryman described his nightingale, that it is a "vox et prczterea nihil"–"a sound, and nothing but a sound." |
https://books.google.com/books?id=JEqJpAPC5dsC&pg=PA146