English Examples.
The merry and pleasant sayings incident here∣unto Page 68 are called Facetia (i.e.) the pleasures and delights of speech which are taken from divers places.
1. From Equivocation, as when a word ha∣ving two significations, is exprest in the one, and understood in the other, either contrary or at least much differing, which as it is witty, so ve∣ry pleasant.
2. The occasion of mirth may be taken from a fallacy in sophistry, that is, when a saying is captiously taken and turned to another sense, contrrary or much different from the speakers meaning r as,
To one demanding of Diogenes what he would take for a knock upon his pate, he made this answer, that he would take an helmet.
Now he that made the demand, meant what hire, and not what defence.
To one that said, he knew not if he should be ejected his house, where to hide his head: another made him answer, that he might hide it in his cap.