Climate, more than any other, makes Entertainments of this Nature in a manner necessary.
If what I have here said does not recommend, it will at least excuse the Variety of my Speculations. I would not willingly Laugh but in order to Instruct, or if I sometimes fail in this Point, when my Mirth ceases to be Instructive, it shall never cease to be Innocent. A scrupulous Conduct in this Particular has, perhaps, more Merit in it than the Generality of Readers imagine; did they know how many Thoughts occur in a Point of Humour, which a discreet Author in Modesty suppresses; how many Stroaks in Raillery present themselves, which could not fail to please the ordinary Taste of Mankind, but are stifled in their Birth by reason of some remote Tendency which they carry in them to corrupt the Minds of those who read them; did they know how many Glances of Ill-nature are industriously avoided for fear of doing Injury to the Reputation of another, they would be apt to think kindly of those Writers who endeavour to make themselves Diverting, without being Immoral.
may apply to these Authors that Passage in
Waller
,
Poets lose half the Praise they would have got,
Were it but known what they discreetly blot.
As nothing is more easy than to be a Wit, with all the above-mentioned Liberties, it requires some Genius and Invention to appear such without them.
What I have here said is not only in regard to the Publick, but with an Eye to my particular Correspondent who has sent me the following Letter, which I have castrated in some Places upon these Considerations.