When he resolves to give
over his passion, he tells us that one burnt like him for ever
dreads the fire. His heart is an AEtna, that, instead of Vulcan's
shop, encloses Cupid's forge in it. His endeavouring to drown his
love in wine is throwing oil upon the fire. He would insinuate to
his mistress that the fire of love, like that of the sun, which
produces so many living creatures, should not only warm, but beget.
Love in another place cooks Pleasure at his fire. Sometimes the
poet's heart is frozen in every breast, and sometimes scorched in
every eye. Sometimes he is drowned in tears and burnt in love, like
a ship set on fire in the middle of the sea.
The reader may observe in every one of these instances that the poet
mixes the qualities of fire with those of love; and in the same
sentence, speaking of it both as a passion and as real fire,
surprises the reader with those seeming resemblances or
contradictions that make up all the wit in this kind of writing.
Mixed wit, therefore, is a composition of pun and true wit, and is
more or less perfect as the resemblance lies in the ideas or in the
words. Its foundations are laid partly in falsehood and partly in
truth; reason puts in her claim for one half of it, and extravagance
for the other.
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