LL
HIS TORT
CARICATURE
AND
GROTES QUE
IN
LITERATURE
AND
ART.
i
CHAPTER
ORIGIN OP CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE.--SPIRIT OF CARICATURE IN
EGYPT.-MONSTERSZ PYTHON AND GORGON.LGREECE.iTHE DIONY-
SIAC CEREMONIES, AND ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA.iTHE OLD COMEDY.
iLOVE OF PARODY.iPARODIES ON SUBJECTS TAKEN FROM GRECIAN
MYTHOLOGYI THE VISIT TO THE LOVER2_APOLLO AT DELPHl.iTl-IE
PARTIALITY FOR PARODY CONTINUED AMONG THE ROMANSZ THE
FLIGHT OF IENEAS.
IT is not my intention in the following pages to difcuis the queilion
what conltitutes the comic or the laughable, or, in other words, to
enter into the philofophy of the fubject; I defign only to trace the hiftory
of its outward development, the various forms it has atfumed, and its
focial iniiuence. Laughter appears to be almoil a necellity of human
nature, in all conditions of man's exiltence, however rude or however cul-
tivated; and fome of the greateft men of all ages, men of the molt refined
intelleets, fuch as Cicero in the ages of antiquity, and Erafmus among
the modems, have been celebrated for their indulgence in it. The former
was fometimes called by his opponents fcurra corfularis, the "confular
jefter and the latter, who has been fpoken of as the "mocking-bird," is
faid to have laughed fo immoderately over the well-known "Epiitolae
Obfcurorum Virorum," that he brought upon hirnfelf a ferious {it of
illnefs. The greateft of comic writers, Ariitophanes, has always been looked
upon as a model of literary perfection. An epigram in the Greek Antho-
B logy,
J