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A39728 A treatise of the sports of wit Flecknoe, Richard, d. 1678? 1675 (1675) Wing F1237; ESTC R20266 20,309 62

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A TREATISE OF THE SPORTS OF WIT. Omne tulit punctam quae miscuit utile dulci. Hor. Printed for the Author 1675. Inquire for them at Simon Neals at the Three Pidgeons in Bedfordstreet in Covent-Garden The Epistle Dedicatory To all our Fair and Vertuous Ladies Ladies I Present you here as most resembling them the Sports and Recreations of these great Ladies who have so sublimed them by a Divine quality they have to convert all into Vertue as Midas did all he touched to Gold whence their very Sports are as vertuous as others devotions Those melancholly Spirits then enemies of all chearfulness who call such Sports as these but idle things seem wholly ignorant of their first institution and very signification of their names For wherefore were they called Relaxations Divertisements and Recreations but for relaxing our over bended thoughts diverting our minds from cares and troubles of this life and recreating our Spirits when tired and spent with Worldly businesses Whence to conclude whoever in this mortal life can live without them must either be a God or else a Beast above or else below Humanity And so much for their Sports as for the Ladies themselves I suppose they are so well known to all as I need in this Epistle to say no more of them but that they had always a high esteem for our English Ladies and therefore I doubt not but you will have the like of them Be pleased then Ladies for their sakes to accept a Dedication of this short Treatise from him who is naturally an enemy of all that is long and tedious a friend to these Sports and Recreations an honorer and admirer of all your Nobler Sex especially of all Fair and Vertuous Ladies like your selves R. Flecknoe The Preface to the Reader Of Wit in order to these Sports IT is as hard to describe Wit in particular as it is our Taste they so vary with Time and Custom the wit of our Ancestors being grosser then that we have now And as the Age refines so do the Wits of Men. However this we will say of it in general Wit to the subject it treats of is as the Soul to the Body animating it with Life and Spirit which else were but dead and dull it is the quintescence of Conceit extracted out of Words and Matter as the Bee extracts Honey out of Flowers and as out of dull Flint we strike sparks of Fire so out of dull Matter we strike sparks of Wit It is not so solid as Wisdom but the less solid the more Spiritual and is so volatile as it easily evaporates but fixed by Judgment and with a lay of Discretion it surpasses bare Wisdom as far as that doth Folly and is in the Brain as Nobility is in the Blood only one fault it hath it is more pleasant to others then profitable to its self wherein it differs from Worldly Wisdom but that wherein it differs from Divine is its greatest Fault Wit now being but a new name for an Atheist and Debauchée but that is the fault of the Persons not of Wit for Wit is no ways scurrilous and profane But finally we may say of it as the corruption of the best is the worst so when good nothing better when bad nothing worse And so much for Wit as it differences these Sports from the old homely ones of Substantives and Adjectives Questions and Commands Cross Purposes and the like as much out of date as the last years Almanacks and scarcely deserving so much as the name of Wit The Occasion of Writing this TREATISE THe Dutchess of Lorrain with the Princess and Madamoseille De Beauvois her Highness Sister now Princess of Ar●mberg retiring themselves to B●rs●ll near Brussels in the Spring time of the year fifty where they passed their time in all sorts of innocent and delightful Divertisements and amongst the rest that of the Sports of Wit being after Supper their ordinary entertainment At which both they and the Ladies of her Highness Court were so excellent as it was impossible to imagine a more Spiritual Assembly I having the honor to be there amongst the rest which I shall always account not only the most honorable but the most delightful moment of my life it pleased her Highness to command me to write this Treatise of the Sports of Wit which now I publish at the desire of some Ladies whose least desire has the force of a command Of the Original Of these Sports of Wit WE read in Boccas and other Italian Authors to say nothing of the more Antient that these Sports began in Italy about the beginning of the Last Century both at Florence Sienna and other places especially at Ferrara when those of the most Illustrious Family of d'Este were Dukes thereof From Italy Queen Catherine de Medicis carried them along with her into France a Fertile Countrey where all that is rare in Italy transplanted grows better and more flourishing then in its Native Soyl. From thence about the beginning of their Civil Wars they were transplanted into England where by the culture of Sir Philip Sidney Sir Foulk Grevill and other the prime Wits and Gallants of the times and Ladies no less inclined to Gallantry they flourished as much as in Italy and France not only all the time of Queen Elizabeths Reign but that of following Kings till our Civil Wars likewise beginning here they were not only neglected but wholly irradicated by the Fanatick Rebels Enemies of all Mirth and Recreation till they begin to be Replanted and take Root again under the happy Reign of His present Majesty Of their ordering their Sports and how they past their time FOr preparation to them some one by lot or otherwise was chosen for president whose Office was to give out the Subject or Argument of the following Sport and to distribute the parts for the next Assembly that so betwixt premeditated and ex tempore they might not come unto them wholly unprepared but have the following night and part of the following day for their preparation For the rest of the day the time was thus distributed Having finished their Morning Devotions they went to dinner and having dined each one retired to their several Cabinets till towards Evening when either they rode abroad in their Coaches to take the Air which Promenade never ended without some Banquet or Collation or walked out into the Garden or adjoyning Woo● which seemed an Academy of Nightingales is the Garden a Treasury of all Flora's choicest and rarest Flowers when gather but one and seven more sprang up in its place whether it were th● Nature of the Soil or Vertue of the Hand wh●●● gathered it Heaven having so disposed this pl●●sant and delightful place should never fall but into the fairest and vertuousest hands of the Universe it being a part of the Apinage or Inheritance of Madamoiselle de Beauvais From thence they went to Supper and having supp'd retired into a large Appartement illuminated by six fair