Akıl Durumu (1711)
 Bir Arkadaşa Ülke Mektubunda - The Present State of Wit (1711)
In a Letter to a Friend in the Country

Produced by David Starner, Linda Cantoni, and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team.

Series One:

Essays on Wit

No. 3

John Gay, The Present State of Wit (1711)

With an Introduction by

Donald F. Bond

and

a Bibliographical Note

and

Excerpts from

The English Theophrastus: or the Manners of the Age (1702)

With an Introduction by

W. Earl Britton

The Augustan Reprint Society

May, 1947

Price: 75c

GENERAL EDITORS: Richard C. Boys, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor;Edward N. Hooker, H.T. Swedenberg, Jr., University of California,Los Angeles 24, California.

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EDITORIAL ADVISORS: Louis I. Bredvold, University of Michigan; James
L. Clifford, Columbia University; Benjamin Boyce, University of
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Friedman, University of Chicago; James R. Sutherland, Queen Mary
College, University of London; Emmett L. Avery, State College of
Washington; Samuel Monk, Southwestern University.

Lithoprinted from Author's Typescript

EDWARDS BROTHERS, INC.

Lithoprinters

ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN

1947

THE

Present State

OF

WIT,

IN A

LETTER

TO A

Friend in the Country.

LONDON Printed in the Year, MDCCXI

(Price 3 d.)

INTRODUCTION

Gay's concern in his survey of The Present State of Wit is with theproductions of wit which were circulating among the coffee-houses of1711, specifically the large numbers of periodical essays which wereperhaps the most distinctive kind of "wit" produced in the "four lastyears" of Queen Anne's reign. His little pamphlet makes no pretence atan analysis of true and false wit or a refining of critical distinctionswith regard to wit in its relations to fancy and judgment. Addressed to"a friend in the country," it surveys in a rapid and engaging manner theproductions of Isaac Bickerstaff and his followers which are engrossingthe interest of London. In other words it is an early example of apopular eighteenth-century form, of which Goldsmith's more extendedInquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning is the best knowninstance.

As such it well deserves a place in the Augustan Reprints series on wit.It has been reproduced before in this century, in An English Garner:Critical Essays and Literary Fragments (Westminster, 1903, pp. 201-10),with an attractive and informative introduction by J. Churton Collins.More information, however, is

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