against it; yet even he shewed us how far it was justifiable, and allowed it, as used by Arbuthnot, or after reason had proved its fairness. But now, when its quiver is stored with blunter shafts, I cannot think it ought to be less encouraged. As far as strictures on ridicule, when it aids irreligion and injustice, tends to check vanity by shewing the compositions where it prevails, are not those of the greatest dignity, it deserves our commendation. But even censure, which now threatens the existence of every new, as well as old, establishment, ought not to be condemned (nor have I done it) in a work which fails pointedly to mark the proper exceptions to the rules it lays down. Ridicule,

unprincipled unbeliever; and I ask, what is the difference. shewn by this opinion between the characters? It is this; that A is a greater fool than B. However A, from principle, will not swerve from his usual line of conduct, on account of your maxim, and you are safe from him. But consider the effect of it on B. Will not he be proud to shew his wisdom, at the same time that he indulges his passions, and in consequence indulge them a great deal more? You may therefore oppress A with impunity, but you cannot B. We should reflect upon the estimate of charity, as a subordinate motive in the Scriptures, and then forbear, in any way, to discourage it.

therefore, cannot be prohibited, without rashly sanctioning the prohibition of every mental effort; and if the loss of it be a slight one, it still shews the human character different from what nature intended it, as the human figure is rendered defective by the amputation of its least valuable part. And have the firmest friends of the constitution and church of England always been convinced, that the laws are so incapable of protecting us against the consequences of the passions, that the trivial one of laughter is to be forbidden? On the contrary, I believe, they have judged it more beneficial to moderate, than to extinguish almost any. Of that dramatic composition, which is the vehicle of the ridiculous, it has been said by the critic, "its professed end and purpose, if we allow it to have any reasonable one, is to INSTRUCT."* Ridicule may be intended to assimilate with a vicious gaiety, unprepared to listen to sober reasoning; in the same manner as the "tragic spirit" has been said to do with melancholy sentiments, in order to correct the passions. It is therefore principally respectable for its moral; yet I am so far from thinking it always the employment of a feeble mind, that it

• Hurd on the Provinces of the Drama.

appears to me the natural sport of genius. The widest associations of ideas will generally, though not always, extend to such as are combined by simple fancy; and accordingly, the best writers have seldom forborne from trying the fertility of their imaginations in the forced images of wit and ridicule. Nor have either of them always appeared in an age destitute of taste and genius. I do not take the part of ridicule, as thinking it wants encouragement; for it deserves only to be left to itself, and

+ For instance, Homer, the first and greatest epic poet, was the author of the Margites; a work which the fragments of it still remaining, shew to have been probably in style, strictly speaking, burlesque. A few centuries after, when the arts were carried to such a perfection, as to secure unrivalled glory to that age, Aristophanes made the utmost use of his powers; and though any share in the death of a Socrates is not easily to be forgiven, yet, as he ably ridiculed very young ministers, no sooner in power, than plunging their country into a cruel war; female politicians, who held their meetings in order to rule the state, contrary to law; sophists who taught their children to disobey, and even to strike, their parents; tanners, who obtained the government of a country, by flattering the people's prejudices, in the place of those who were in a situation to expect it; and other vicious or absurd persons, it may be said of the eleven farces which still remain of his writing, that even they shew

that too in such a manner as to debar it from doing mischief. I only wish it to be remembered,

the good in proportion to the harm he occasioned, to be possibly as ten to one. If we call to mind the earlier times of the Roman republic, we shall find that Plautus, a writer of the same kind, had other ingenious cotemporaries besides Ennius. In the Augustan age, there was no one who left works which still exist, and in which the ridiculous predominates; but it was a style in great request with Cicero and Cæsar, two not only of the ablest, but the purest writers of antiquity. In modern times, we find a Rabelais flourishing at the same period as an Ariosto; and not long afterwards, Berni and Tasso, born within a year of each other; and Cervantes alive with nearly all the greatest poets of Spain, Italy, and England, and dying in the very year that Shakspeare did. The different parts of Hudibras were coming out during the few years in which the first editions of Paradise Lost made their appearance; and at the birth of Scarron only four had elapsed since that of Corneille, the herald of the literary triumphs of Lewis the Fourteenth's reign. It would have been well if, in this century, the virtuous energy and sublimity of Pope and Gray, could not have suffered the impious wit and merriment of Voltaire; but this, unfortunately, was far from the case. I must own, therefore, it seems to me, that not only this style of writing is to be found in an age distinguished for genius, but that, in no eminent work, does it prevail in any other.

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that it is in the sanguine spirit of innovation, to alter a manner of acting for the production of good demonstrably flowing from none; and that, in the present case, the temptation to do so is greater, from the dangerous plausibility of the motive. Certainly, to the superficial thinker, ludicrous language may seem incompatible with serious reflection; and the word reason may convey an idea of every thing that is good and wise. The combinations of the rarest judgment, or most faithful caution, without lucid order, and the imposing air of scholastic deduction, may appear to him contemptible ipse dixits, while a sophistry in form, threatening every evil to society, wins ready assent, and enthusiastic applause, from his unwary candour. How little, therefore, must ridicule, which appeals avowedly to the passions, be to his taste; since he not only finds in it neither major, minor, nor consequence; but misses that gravity, from which, in his opinion, virtue and wisdom are almost inseparable! There is no one unacquainted with the argument, that ridicule betrays a doubt of the truth of the opinion it defends, and a dread of bringing it to the test of what is called fair reason. But we are, (and Christians in particular ought to consider themselves) not such perfect