Series One: _Essays on Wit_ No. 2 _Essay on Wit_ (1748); Richard Flecknoe's _Of one that Zany's the good Companion and Of a bold abusive Wit_ (second edition, 1665); Joseph Warton, _The Adventurer_, Nos. 127 and 133 (1754); _Of Wit (Weekly Register_, 1732). With an Introduction to the Series on Wit by Edward N. Hooker The Augustan Reprint Society November, 1946 _Price_: 75c Membership in the Augustan Reprint Society entitles the subscriber to six publications issued each year. The annual membership fee is $2.50. Address subscriptions and communications to the Augustan Reprint Society in care of one of the General Editors. General Editors: Richard C. Boys, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan; Edward N. Hooker, H.I. Swedenberg, Jr., University of California, Los Angeles 24, California. Editorial Advisors: Louis L. Bredvold, University of Michigan; James L. Clifford, Columbia University; Benjamin Boyce, University of Nebraska; Cleanth Brooks, Louisiana State University; Arthur Friedman, University of Chicago; James R. Sutherland, Queen Mary College University of London. INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES ON WIT The age of Dryden and Pope was an age of wit, but there were few who could explain precisely what they meant by the term. A thing so multiform and. Protean escaped the bonds of logic and definition. In his sermon "Against Foolish Talking and Jesting" the learned Dr. Isaac Barrow attempted to describe some of the forms which it took; the forms were many, and it is difficult to discover any element which they held in common. Nevertheless Barrow ventured a summary: It is, in short, a manner of speaking out of the simple and plain way, (such as Reason teacheth and proveth things by,) which by a pretty surprizing uncouthness in conceit of expression doth affect and amuse the fancy, stirring in it some wonder, and breeding some delight thereto. And about sixty years later, despite the work of Hobbes and Locke in calling attention to the importance of semantics, the confusion still existed. According to John Oldmixon (_Essay on Criticism_, 1727, p. 21), "Wit and Humour, Wit and good Sense, Wit and Wisdom, Wit and Reason, Wit and Craft; nay, Wit and Philosophy, are with us almost the same Things." Some such confusion is apparent in the definition presented by the _Essay on Wit_ (1748, p. 6).