THE FOURTH EDITION. REVISED, CORRECTED, AND ENLARGED. London: PRINTED FOR APPLEYARDS, WIMPOLE-STREET. THE Rising Sun. CHAPTER I. CONTAINS AN ESSAY ON SATIRE, and on ANCIENT AND MODERN SATIRISTS. A SATIRIST, or moralist, can have only two aims in view; either to expose and lash vice, or to laugh folly to shame.-Among the Romans, Juvenal has given us an example of the former, and Horace of the latter. Juvenal's wit is of a more masculine and nervous kind than that of Horace, although, perhaps, the latter might have shown himself equally vigorous if he had not been a courtier. His wit was enervated by the courtly polish which he gave it, and was deprived of a considerable portion of that Attic salt, with which it is evident he might have seasoned it. Horace, however, showed himself a much more prudent man than Juvenal, as be was well received at court, and, consequently caressed in all the fashionable circles; whilst poor Juvenal, only because he cast some reflections on Paris, a favourite actor, was sent away with the command of a small company, or, in plain English, banished into Egypt, where he died in obscurity. There can be no doubt, therefore, that Horace's Satires were a more useful work than Juvenal's, because the former were greedily read, and the latter was rigourously proscribed. The only end of a book is to contain what is useful, and what will be read. A satirist, therefore, should pursue the means which are most likely to produce his end, the annihilation of vice, or correction of folly, by seasoning his writings so that they may be read. Such is the line which we have chalked out to ourselves, and we shall endeavour to blend the utile dulci, and to carry on our matters suavitèr in modo, fortitèr in re. The modern English, no less sensitive than the Romans, have no relish for downright but chery: but they can put up with being decently dissected.-A. rigid moralist dares not pop his cynic face out of his own door, without danger of having a snatch made at his hat and wig, a fillip o' th' nose, or a pinch o' th' ear, from some or other of the dissolute wags of the present day; and if he turn about to enter his house, and eclipse himself, it is a hundred to one that they take leave of him by a kick on the last part of his constellation which is visible. Men of lively wit, eccentricity, and genius, like PETER P - R, Colonel H. R, and others, may walk about the streets, without even soaping their noses, in their Harlequin and Pantaloon garbs, and bestow blows on persons of all ranks and stations, with their wooden swords, or pantomimic kicks o' th' breech, and be sure of receiving the applause and admiration of the gaping multitude for their dexterity; whilst such a downright butcher as ToM PAINF, would be justly obliged to fly the country, or to make Newgate his town residence. Vice must not be knocked down and cut up like a bullock, · but must be agreeably tickled into a kind of Lethargy. Every delicate and feeling mind would |