It is, indeed, much easier to describe what is not humour than what
is; and very difficult to define it otherwise than as Cowley has
done wit, by negatives. Were I to give my own notions of it, I
would deliver them after Plato's manner, in a kind of allegory, and,
by supposing Humour to be a person, deduce to him all his
qualifications, according to the following genealogy. Truth was the
founder of the family, and the father of Good Sense. Good Sense was
the father of Wit, who married a lady of a collateral line called
Mirth, by whom he had issue Humour. Humour therefore being the
youngest of this illustrious family, and descended from parents of
such different dispositions, is very various and unequal in his
temper; sometimes you see him putting on grave looks and a solemn
habit, sometimes airy in his behaviour and fantastic in his dress;
insomuch that at different times he appears as serious as a judge,
and as jocular as a merry-andrew. But, as he has a great deal of
the mother in his constitution, whatever mood he is in, he never
fails to make his company laugh.
But since there is an impostor abroad, who takes upon him the name
of this young gentleman, and would willingly pass for him in the
world; to the end that well-meaning persons may not be imposed upon
by cheats, I would desire my readers, when they meet with this
pretender, to look into his parentage, and to examine him strictly,
whether or no he be remotely allied to Truth, and lineally descended
from Good Sense; if not, they may conclude him a counterfeit.
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