“Her magic quill, that like Ithuriel’s spear
Reveals the cloven hoof, or lengthen’d ear;
Drags the vile whisperer from his dark abode,
’Till all the daemon starts up from the toad.”
Feeling perhaps that after all his client’s status is a trifle dubious, her advocate continues with a caution and a climax:
“Who combats Virtue’s foe is Virtue’s friend;
Then judge of Satire’s merit by her end:
To guilt alone her vengeance stands confin’d,
The object of her love is all mankind.”
The sober eighteenth century brings us back to reality with a characteristic comment by the best satirist of the period, who admires his favorite predecessors, “not indeed for that wit and humour alone which they all so eminently possessed, but because they all endeavoured, with the utmost force of their wit and humour, to expose and extirpate those follies and vices which chiefly prevailed in their several countries.”[18]