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Effay on RIDICULE, WIT and HUMOUR. 

 • i5y WILLIAM PRESTON, Efq-, M.R.I. A. 



PARTtheSECOND. 



aIAVING confidered the nature of ridicule, and traced out Read Jan; 

 the fources of the pleafure which attends it, let me, for a moment, '"' '7°9' 

 advert to the corporeal external expreffion of that pleafure, I 

 mean laughter, and endeavour to inveftigate its phyfical caufe, fo 

 far as it is an expreffion of mirth, or a corporeal movement indi- 

 cating pleafure. I fpeak with this refervation, becaufe, as I have 

 already, in fome mcafure hinted, laughter is not always expreffive 

 of mirth, no, nor even of a pleafurable fenfation ; laughter, when 

 produced by tickling, is expreffive of pain ; in choleric perfons it 

 is expreffive of anger. 



Mr. Burke, in his Effiiy on the Sublime and Beautiful, takes 

 occafion to confider the mechanical or phyfical caufe oi pleafure 



in 



