Shaftesbury
in _Sensus Communis_ (1709) tried to justify the use of wit in
discussing religion. For the rest of the century Shaftesbury's
position was the center of heated debate, with Akenside supporting,
and John Brown and Warburton opposing, the employment of wit in
religion; and the _Gentleman's Magazine_ is full of the arguments of
lesser men who took sides. The author of the _Essay on Wit_ places
himself firmly beside Shaftesbury when he remarks (p. 14) that "a
Subject which will not bear Raillery, is suspicious." The controversy
is reviewed in an article by A.O. Aldridge, called "Shaftesbury and
the Test of Truth" (_PMLA_, LX, 129-156).
Wit was taken to be the source, of tropes, and figures of speech, of
all the color and adornments of rhetoric; and the old tradition of
rhetoric, handed down from the Renaissance, tended to regard tropes
and figures as mere ornament, a means of decorating the surface, an
artful prettifying of a subject in order that it might please. For
this reason wit was likely to be considered out of place in serious
works which called for naturalness and passion. The objection to the
simile in the language of passion was an old note in English criticism
(cf. Dennis, _Critical Works_, I, 424); but the author of the _Essay
on Wit_ in condemning glittering strokes and ingenious prodigalities
in impassioned literature shows by his phrasing that he is following
Father Bouhours (cf.
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