But "Shall we debar Youth of such an innocent and harmless recreation, of such a great quickener of Parts and promoter of sagacity?" As for the first, its innocency of being allowed of for a time; I am so far from that persuasion that, from what has been before hinted, I count it perfectly contagious! and as a thing that, for the most part, infects the whole life, and influences most actions! For he that finds himself to have the right knack of letting off a joque, and of pleasing the Humsters; he is not only very hardly brought off from admiring those goodly applauses, and heavenly shouts; but it is ten to one! if he directs not the whole bent of his studies to such idle and contemptible books as shall only furnish him with materials for a laugh; and so neglects all that should inform his Judgement and Reason, and make him a man of sense and reputation in this world. And as for the pretence of making people sagacious, and pestilently witty; I shall only desire that the nature of that kind of Wit may be considered! which will be found to depend upon some such fooleries as these-- As, first of all, the lucky ambiguity of some word or sentence. O, what a happiness is it! and how much does a youngster count himself beholden to the stars! that should help him to such a taking jest! And whereas there be so many thousand words in the World, and that he should luck upon the right one! that was so very much to his purpose, and that at the explosion, made such a goodly report! Or else they rake LILLY's _Grammar_; and if they can but find two or three letters of any name in any of the _Rules_ or _Examples_ of that good man's Works; it is as very a piece of Wit as any has passed in the Town since the King came in [1660]! O, how the Freshmen will skip, to hear one of those lines well laughed at, that they have been so often yerked [_chided_] for! It is true, such things as these go for Wit so long as they continue in Latin; but what dismally shrimped things would they appear, if turned into English! And if we search into what was, or might be pretended; we shall find the advantages of Latin-Wit to be very small and slender, when it comes into the World. I mean not only among strict Philosophers and Men of mere Notions, or amongst all-damning and illiterate HECTORS; but amongst those that are truly ingenious and judicious Masters of Fancy. We shall find that a quotation out of _Qui mihi_, an Axiom out of Logic, a Saying of a Philosopher, or the like, though managed with some quickness and applied with some seeming ingenuity, will not, in our days, pass, or be accepted, for Wit.