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