[67] Browning: Aris. Apol. Cf. Fielding, Tom Jones, VI, 357, for a similar distinction.
[68] Cf. Brown’s Essay on Satire for scorn of Shaftesbury’s idea that ridicule is the test of truth; refuted ironically in the lines,—
“Deride our weak forefathers’ musty rule,
Who therefore smil’d, because they saw a fool;
Sublimer logic now adorns our isle,
We therefore see a fool, because we smile.”
He concludes that wit is safe only when rationalized:
“Then mirth may urge, when reason can explore,
This point the way, that waft us to the shore.”
(Carlyle expresses a similar opinion in his essay on Voltaire.)