Essay upon Wit

In Short

This treatise investigates the true nature, proper boundaries, and dangerous abuses of wit in contemporary culture. It argues that while a sprightly imagination can gracefully season conversation and support virtuous instruction, its unrestrained exercise leads straight to moral decay, impiety, and libertinism. The work examines how comic writing and the stage have become corrupted by a degenerate public taste that rewards profanity over substance. Ultimately, it calls for a rigorous reclamation of decency through the cooperative efforts of enlightened critics, public authorities, and the watchful guardians of religion.

The Story

The text begins by observing human nature in a degenerate state, noting that people naturally gravitate toward voluptuous objects and inferior enjoyments that gratify the senses. Consequently, society universally admires wit and humour, often placing a higher value on pleasant diversion than on wise instruction. This widespread preference causes solid reason and useful science to fall out of countenance, as the public constantly demands the high seasonings of raillery. The argument then defines wit precisely, distinguishing it from truth and didactic style. Wit is identified as the product of a warm, sprightly, and fertile imagination directed by a regular judgment, serving to animate cold sentiments and present familiar thoughts in a novel, surprising dress, much like a cook's exquisite sauce or a craftsman's rich embroidery.

From this definition, the treatise explores the fatal effects that arise when wit is misapplied. Persons endowed with facetious talents often possess a disproportionate measure of judgment and discretion, exposing them to levity and dissolute manners. Their redundant spirits and impatient appetites make them vulnerable to criminal delights, leading them eventually to disclaim the belief in a supreme being and a future existence simply to quiet their inner remorse. The author asserts that wit has a proper province limited to the common, less important actions of life, such as ordinary conversation and comic writing. It has no place in severe knowledge, history, philosophy, or epic and lyric poetry, where light fancies debase the sublime style.

Expanding on its appropriate uses, the text notes that wit can successfully promote virtue and expose folly when properly harnessed, citing examples like Cervantes's Don Quixote and contemporary periodicals like the Tatler and Spectator. However, the modern stage remains a major source of corruption. Influenced by Archbishop Tillotson's severe strictures against corrupt communication, the argument demonstrates how theatrical plays notoriously foster infidelity and vice. Actors and comic writers pander to a vitiated public taste, prioritizing profit over moral integrity.

To counteract this pervasive evil, the author evaluates various remedies. While government inspectors formally exist to screen public performances, they frequently yield to the demands of actors and audiences. Therefore, additional safeguards are proposed: commissioning men of learning and good taste as a direct check on the theater, freeing comic writers from financial dependence on theatrical managers so they no longer need to pander to vulgar tastes, and urging the clergy to actively condemn the unwarranted entertainments of the stage from the pulpit. Finally, the text defends the incorporation of mirth into political and periodical writings, arguing that pleasantry softens harsh reasoning and helps disseminate wisdom to a wider audience.

How It Unfolds

The universal appeal of amusement The text opens by examining how human beings naturally crave sensory pleasures and light entertainment far above wise instruction. It demonstrates how a public infatuated with witty banter routinely pushes solid reason and useful science completely out of countenance.

Defining the mental faculty The discussion pivots to analyze the precise nature of wit, separating it carefully from objective truth and plain didactic style. It explains that true wit is a sprightly imagination guided by regular judgment, adding novel flair and surprising turns to familiar concepts.

The steep moral hazard The argument deepens by connecting sharp witty talents to personal libertinism and the gradual decay of religious belief. It contends that restless spirits and weak reasoning push talented individuals to abandon their creeds simply to silence inner moral remorse.

The proper provincial boundaries The text maps out the legitimate province of wit, restricting it strictly to ordinary manners and comic writing while banishing it from history, philosophy, and epic poetry. It highlights masterworks like Cervantes's famous Spanish history and modern periodical essays as successful models of instructive pleasantry.

The thoroughly corrupted stage Drawing heavily on Archbishop Tillotson, the treatise exposes the contemporary theater as a primary engine of public infidelity and lewdness. It shows how financially desperate writers and profit-driven actors pander shamelessly to a thoroughly degenerate audience.

Reforming public culture The progression concludes by proposing concrete solutions to restore public decency, including independent funding for comic writers, stricter oversight by learned commissioners, and vocal opposition from the clergy. It ends by defending the careful, necessary use of harmless mirth within serious political discourse.

The People

The text engages with several central figures and intellectual archetypes whose behaviors shape the entire cultural landscape. Sir Richard Blackmore examines the common wit, a man richly endowed with a sprightly imagination who desperately seeks constant public applause and social popularity. His primary obstacle is his own undisciplined temperament and weak reasoning, which leave him completely vulnerable to sensual temptations, ultimately ending in severe moral decay and the eventual abandonment of his religious creed. Michael de Cervantes appears as an exemplary comic writer who successfully uses his fine raillery to vanquish the fashionable delusion of romantic chivalry, achieving his noble goal of correcting public folly. Archbishop Tillotson emerges as a steadfast moral authority who fiercely opposes corrupt communication and theatrical lewdness, warning society against the dangers of scoffing at sacred matters and guiding readers toward true piety. Dr. Eachard is noted for using strong reason and agreeable raillery to expose conceited philosophers like Mr. Hobbes. Finally, the actors and day-laboring dramatists populate the commercial theater, seeking financial survival by pandering to the vitiated tastes of a degenerate audience, thereby trapping themselves in the continuous production of immoral plays despite the nominal existence of official public inspectors.

In Its Own Voice

The author vividly describes the seductive appeal of clever entertainment over serious instruction in the opening pages.

No Productions of Human Understanding are receiv'd with such a general Pleasure and Approbation, as those that abound with Wit and Humour, on which the People set a greater Value, than on the wisest and most instructive Discourses.

Archbishop Tillotson issues a stern warning regarding the dangerous misuse of sharp talents against serious subjects.

It is a sharp Weapon, as apt for Mischief as for good Purposes, if it be not well manag'd: The proper use of it is to season Conversation, to represent what is Praise-worthy to the greatest Advantage, and to expose the Vices and Follies of Men, such things as are in themselves truly ridiculous.

The text captures the unfortunate commercial reality governing the contemporary stage and its actors.

It happens, that the greatest part of Men of Wit and Humour, who not being easy in their Fortunes, work for the Stage, and are Day-Labourers to the Muses, lie under a Necessity of bringing those Productions to Market, which are in Fashion, and therefore vendible.

What It's Really About

This work explores the profound tension between entertaining wit and strict moral responsibility within human society. It investigates how an unrestrained cultural appetite for clever ridicule undermines serious reasoning, erodes personal virtue, and fosters widespread religious skepticism among talented individuals. At its core, the argument is a passionate defense of sober judgment, asserting that intellectual brilliance must always remain strictly subordinate to moral duty and Christian decency. The treatise addresses the mechanics of creative expression, the sociological pressures governing commercial art, and the urgent necessity of institutional and spiritual reform to rescue literature from degradation and moral collapse.

Why Read It Today

Readers deeply interested in the history of literary criticism, Augustan culture, and the eternal friction between popular entertainment and personal morality will find this historical treatise fascinating. Reading it feels like sitting across from a stern, highly articulate moralist who views the cultural landscape with unyielding clarity and intense seriousness. Modern readers must be prepared for the dense, period-specific prose style, lengthy discursive paragraphs, and overtly pious eighteenth-century theological assumptions that shape every single page. Yet, the great reward lies in encountering a razor-sharp analysis of how public media, commercial pressures, and popular taste constantly interact to shape societal standards. It forces a timeless, uncomfortable reflection on modern entertainment culture, leaving behind a lingering awareness of how easily cleverness can eclipse wisdom, and how fragile public decency remains when subjected to the relentless pursuit of mere amusement.