i need some help with the meaning of couplets on wit by alexander pope.. if you know anything about this poem.. please help!!

Here they are, for people to look over. What specific problems are you having?

I would say that he's using the word 'Wit' to mean an intellectual, someone who's putting their opinion out for others, and saying that it's the right one. Today, he'd be writing about newspaper columnists or talk show hosts.

pam

Couplets on Wit
by: Alexander Pope

I

But our Great Turks in wit must reign alone
And ill can bear a Brother on the Throne.


II

Wit is like faith by such warm Fools profest
Who to be saved by one, must damn the rest.


III

Some who grow dull religious strait commence
And gain in morals what they lose in sence.


IV

Wits starve as useless to a Common weal
While Fools have places purely for their Zeal.

V

Now wits gain praise by copying other wits
As one Hog lives on what another sh---.


VI

Wou'd you your writings to some Palates fit
Purged all you verses from the sin of wit
For authors now are so conceited grown
They praise no works but what are like their own.

From Webster:

Main Entry: 2wit
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English; akin to Old High German wizzi knowledge, Old English witan to know
Date: before 12th century
4 a : a person of superior intellect : THINKER b : an imaginatively perceptive and articulate individual especially skilled in banter or persiflage
- at one's wit's end or at one's wits' end : at a loss for a means of solving a problem
synonyms WIT, HUMOR, IRONY, SARCASM, SATIRE, REPARTEE mean a mode of expression intended to arouse amusement. WIT suggests the power to evoke laughter by remarks showing verbal felicity or ingenuity and swift perception especially of the incongruous . HUMOR implies an ability to perceive the ludicrous, the comical, and the absurd in human life and to express these usually without bitterness . IRONY applies to a manner of expression in which the intended meaning is the opposite of what is seemingly expressed . SARCASM applies to expression frequently in the form of irony that is intended to cut or wound . SATIRE applies to writing that exposes or ridicules conduct, doctrines, or institutions either by direct criticism or more often through irony, parody, or caricature . REPARTEE implies the power of answering quickly, pointedly, or wittily .

Was it Reverend Spooner who said his college dean was a 'shining wit'?

Well, that's what he claimed he meant to say.

pam