WIRE-DRAWING

The art of extending the ductile metals into wire. The operation is performed by casting or hammering the metal into a bar, which is then succe ively drawn through holes in a steel plate, each being smaller than the other, until the requisite finene ; is attained. The holes through which extremely fine WITCH. wires of platinum, gold, or silver are occasionally drawn, are sometimes made in a diamond or rubv. See Gold, . WIT (Germ, witz), has been defined briefly to be the unexpected combination of distant resemblances. The term wit has in the course of two centuries pa ed through more significations than most others in the English Ian. guage. Without going further back than the reign of James I., wit is used by Sir J. Davies as the most general name for the intellectual faculties, of which reason, judgment, wisdom, . are subdivisions. In the time of Cowley and Hobbes, it came to denote a superior degree of understanding, and more particularly a quick and brilliant reason. By Dryden it is used as very nearly synonymous with talent or ability; but after his time, and more particularly by Add is on in his papers on Wit, we find a gradual approximation to the modern signification of the term. The forms of wit are so various that it would be impo ible to include them all within the circle of a precise definition; but the following comprehensive enumeration of these forms by the celebrated Dr. Barrow may be interesting to the reader. " Sometimes it lieth in pat allusion to a known story, or in seasonable application of a trivial saying, or in forging an apposite tale; sometimes it playeth in words and phrases, taking advantage from the ambiguity of their sense, or the affinity of their sound; sometimes it is wrapped in a dre of humorous expre ion; sometimes it lurketh under an odd similitude; sometimes it is lodged in a sly question, in a smart answer, in a quirkish reason, in a shrewd intimation, in cunningly diverting, or cleverly retorting an objection; sometimes it is couched in a bold scheme of speech, in a tart irony, in a lusty hyperbole, in a startling metaphor, in a plausible reconciling of contradictions, or in acute nonsense; sometimes a scenical representation of persons or things, a counterfeit speech, a mimical look or gesture, pa eth for it; sometimes an affbcted simplicity, sometimes a presumptuous bluntne giveth it being; sometimes it riseth only from a lucky hitting upon what is strange; sometimes from a crafty wresting obvious matter to the purpose. Often it consist eth in one knows not what, and spring eth up one can hardly tell how. Its ways are unaccountable and inexplicable, being answerable to the numberle rovings of fancy and windings of language." ( See, as to the difference of meaning between wit and buUs, Edin. Rev. vol. iii. p. 399.) WITCH, [s. 1346]