The Consolidator | Page 6

as 'tis a thing, indeed, I never could find any Person compleatly
Master of, it pleased me very much, to find this Author has made a
large Essay, to prove there is really no such Power in Nature; and that
the Pretenders to it are all Impostors, and put a Banter upon the World;
for that it is impossible for any Man to oblige himself to forget a thing,
since he that can remember to forget, and at the same time forget to
remember, has an Art above the Devil.
In his Laboratory you see a Fancy preserv'd a la Mummy, several
Thousand Years old; by examining which you may perfectly discern,
how Nature makes a Poet: Another you have taken from a meer Natural,
which discovers the Reasons of Nature's Negative in the Case of
humane Understanding; what Deprivation of Parts She suffers, in the
Composition of a Coxcomb; and with what wonderful Art She prepares
a Man to be a Fool.
Here being the product of this Author's wonderful Skill, you have the
Skeleton of a Wit, with all the Readings of Philosophy and Chyrurgery
upon the Parts: Here you see all the Lines Nature has drawn to form a
Genius, how it performs, and from what Principles.
Also you are Instructed to know the true reason of the Affinity between
Poetry and Poverty; and that it is equally derived from what's Natural
and Intrinsick, as from Accident and Circumstance; how the World
being always full of Fools and Knaves, Wit is sure to miss of a good
Market; especially, if Wit and Truth happen to come in Company; for
the Fools don't understand it, and the Knaves can't bear it.
But still 'tis own'd, and is most apparent, there is something also
Natural in the Case too, since there are some particular Vessels Nature
thinks necessary, to the more exact Composition of this nice thing call'd
a Wit, which as they are, or are not Interrupted in the peculiar Offices
for which they are appointed, are subject to various Distempers, and
more particularly to Effluxions and Vapour, Diliriums Giddiness of the
Brain, and Lapsa, or Looseness of the Tongue; and as these Distempers,

occasion'd by the exceeding quantity of Volatiles, Nature is obliged to
make use of in the Composition, are hardly to be avoided, the Disasters
which generally they push the Animal into, are as necessarily
consequent to them as Night is to the Setting of the Sun; and these are
very many, as disobliging Parents, who have frequently in this Country
whipt their Sons for making Verses; and here I could not but reflect
how useful a Discipline early Correction must be to a Poet; and how
easy the Town had been had N---t, E---w, T. B--- P---s, D-- S-- D---fy,
and an Hundred more of the jingling Train of our modern Rhymers,
been Whipt young, very young, for Poetasting, they had never perhaps
suckt in that Venome of Ribaldry, which all the Satyr of the Age has
never been able to scourge out of them to this Day.
The further fatal Consequences of these unhappy Defects in Nature,
where she has damn'd a Man to Wit and Rhyme, has been loss of
Inheritance, Parents being aggravated by the obstinate young Beaus,
resolving to be Wits in spight of Nature, the wiser Head has been
obliged to Confederate with Nature, and with-hold the Birth-right of
Brains, which otherwise the young Gentleman might have enjoy'd, to
the great support of his Family and Posterity. Thus the famous Waller,
Denham, Dryden, and sundry Others, were oblig'd to condemn their
Race to Lunacy and Blockheadism, only to prevent the fatal
Destruction of their Families, and entailing the Plague of Wit and
Weathercocks upon their Posterity.
The yet farther Extravagancies which naturally attend the Mischief of
Wit, are Beau-ism, Dogmaticality, Whimsification, Impudensity, and
various kinds of Fopperosities (according to Mr. Boyl,) which issuing
out of the Brain, descend into all the Faculties, and branch themselves
by infinite Variety, into all the Actions of Life.
These by Conseqence, Beggar the Head, the Tail, the Purse, and the
whole Man, till he becomes as poor and despicable as Negative Nature
can leave him, abandon'd of his Sense, his Manners, his Modesty, and
what's worse, his Money, having nothing left but his Poetry, dies in a
Ditch, or a Garret, A-la-mode de Tom Brown, uttering Rhymes and
Nonsence to the last Moment.

In Pity to all my unhappy Brethren, who suffer under these
Inconveniencies, I cannot but leave it on Record, that they may not be
reproached with being Agents of their own Misfortunes, since I assure
them, Nature has form'd them with the very Necessity of acting like
Coxcombs, fixt upon them by the force of Organick Consequences, and
placed down at the