Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A39728
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A treatise of the sports of wit
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Flecknoe, Richard, d. 1678?
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1675
(1675)
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Wing F1237; ESTC R20266
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20,309
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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 Arâ—mberg retiring themselves to Bâ—rsâ—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 Wooâ— 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 thâ— Nature of the Soil or Vertue of the Hand whâ—â—â— gathered it Heaven having so disposed this plâ—â—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
Christal Branches and bordered about with Silver Sconzaes in which were inchac'd Concave Mirrors of Oval Form for better reflection of the Light When the Dutchess seated in her Fautvil under a Canopy upon an half pace higher than the rest with the Princesses Her Daughter and Sister under Taborets on either side of Her the sports began as followeth The First Nights Sport Of ORACLES THis sport 〈◊〉 when one amongst the rest stands for Oracle and others in order ask Questions of it the Dutchess first and the rest following which the Oracle answers briefly in the Laconick stile As for example Quest. How should one do to be beloved Answ. Love Quest. Who is the fairest Lady Answ. Every one's Mistress And these Questions are easily answered but the Oracle sometimes is hard put to 't when they ask it any captious insiduous ones as was his who asked the Oracle whither what he had in his hand were alive or no to which it answered As you please he grasping a little Sparrow in his hand meaning if the Oracle said it was dead to produce it alive if alive to crush it and produce it dead Which ambiguous answers and words of double sence in such expedience required great wit and dexterity in the Oracle and at this our Oracle Madamoiseille de Beauvais was excellent The Second Nights Sport Of DREAMS THe sport of this is when every one tells their Dreams and some one Interprets them who is not only to know the General Notions as how to dream of Pearl signifies Tears and Gold Ill luck c. But perfectly to understand the Art of Divination and to have well read Artemedorus and Apamasar Such as he to whom a Lady coming once in great anxiety for her Lord who was then actually in the Wars saying She dreamed the General was wounded in his right hand he answered The ill presage of that dream nothing concerned her Lord who had a command of Horse for the right hand of a General was his Foot and the left his Horse and the event proved this prediction true for shortly after the news was brought against the expectation of all that Don Francisco de Melo had lost the Battle of Rocroy most of his Infantry remaining either slain or taken prisoners whilst all the Cavalry escaped by flight This made the Dutchess think him fittest to be president of that nights sport which though far more difficult then that of the Oracle he performed to the general satisfaction of all where note they may shew as much wit who ingenuously feign a Dream as he who interprets it The third Nights Sport Of LOTTERIES ALL the Wit and Art of this Sport is so to contrive the Lots in the Urn as best may fit the qualities of every one As to the Dutchess all Happiness and Felicity to the Princess nothing but Crowns and Scepters then proposed as a match for Crowned-heads and to Madamoseille De Beauvais her choice of Princely-Husbands married not long after to the Marquess of Varanbon who dying without Heirs left Her Inheritrix of his Marquisate and since married to the Noble Prince of Aremberge Nor were the rest of the Ladies less fitted with their Lots the Contriver of the Lottery to please them hazarding the reputation of a Lyer twenty times for that of a Prophet once But all the Sport was to hear the inferior servants handsomely rallied for pastime of the Ladies For example Two waiting Women amongst the rest one who would needs lead Apes to Hell and another who would not go to Heaven without a Husband The Dutchess prohibiting all picquant Rallery which if any offered she declared a dislike of it in a blush a greater reprehension then could be expressed by words to those who understand the Language of the Face The Fourth Nights Sport Of WONDERS THe Sport of this is when every one tells what they most wonder at or the greatest wonder they have seen not such as Lying Travellers report or such as they father upon our Countrey-Man Sir John Mandevile muchless such foul-mouthed slanderous ones as his who said The greatest wonder he had seen was a Woman honest when she was young and handsome when she was old but such witty ingenuous ones as that Ladies and Cavaliers who saying The greatest wonder he had seen was a constant Lady she answered again That the greatest she had seen was a discreet Cavalier All in the way of Gentile Rallery without stumbling or falling foul on the Picquant and at that Gentile Rallery these Ladies were excellent who went on inoffensively without ever making a false pace on their way nay they went farther yet and converting their Sports and Pastimes into Devotion one said what she most wondered at was That any Noble Woman could be otherways then vertuous when Vertue was only true Nobility another That she wondered their could be any Atheists in the World when every thing put them in mind of a Divinity and a third more divinely yet That she wondered how any one could breathe or stir a foot without thinking on him in whom we live move and have our being The Fifth Nights Sport of WISHES THis amongst Gallants is one of their cheifest Sports when striving who should wish somewhat most pleasing to their Mistress One wishes himself Somnus or the God of Sleep to charm her senses into a sweet repose another Morpheus or the God of Dreams to enter into her mind and with some delightful dream insinuate the thought of himself amongst the rest And a third wishing his Brest wholly transparent that she might see through it the pureness of his affection with many such like Gallantries but all in vain For just as Water can be derived no higher then its Fountain head so Earthly minds can think of nothing but Earthly things whilest these Ladies were so heavenly minded as one wished her self a Bird of Paradice to have no more communication with Earth another soared higher yet Wishing her self in Heaven and the third Wished her self an Angel there and she only wanted Wings having in an Angelical Body an Angelical Spirit too And this with more delight and chearfulness then others wished for all the Treasures in the World well knowing this World in comparison with the other was less then a drop of Water compared to the Ocean or Grain of Dust to the whole Globe of the Earth but not to be thought to undervalue this World too much by those who have but too magnificent a conceit of it We will say no more but past to the next Nights Sport The Sixth Nights Sport Of GIPSIES THe Sport of Gipsies was excellent well represented by Her Highness servants all properly habited with their Faces umbered over supposed so many Doxies with their Solyman who making their Entry in a Dance fell to telling Fortunes by Inspection of the Hand or Art of Chyromancy as they pretended though all their Art was to give such Fortunes as they imagined best pleasing to every one like