[156] See Nos. 56, 61, 67, and 70.
[No. 242. [Steele.]
From Tuesday, Oct. 24, to Thursday, Oct. 26, 1710.
——Quis iniquæ
Tam patiens urbis, tam ferreus, ut teneat se?
Juv., Sat. i. 30.
From my own Apartment, Oct. 25.
It was with very great displeasure I heard this day a man say of a companion of his with an air of approbation, "You know Tom never fails of saying a spiteful thing. He has a great deal of wit, but satire is his particular talent. Did you mind how he put the young fellow out of countenance that pretended to talk to him?" Such impertinent applauses, which one meets with every day, put me upon considering what true raillery and satire were in themselves; and this, methought, occurred to me from reflection upon the great and excellent persons that were admired for talents this way. When I had run over several such in my thoughts, I concluded (however unaccountable the assertion might appear at first sight) that good-nature was an essential quality in a satirist, and that all the sentiments which are beautiful in this way of writing must proceed from that quality in the author. Good-nature produces a disdain of all baseness, vice, and folly, which prompts them to express themselves with smartness against the errors of men, without bitterness towards their persons. This quality keeps the mind in equanimity, and never lets an offence unseasonably throw a man out of his character. When Virgil said, he that did not hate Bavius might love Mævius,[157] he was in perfect good-humour, and was not so much moved at their absurdities as passionately to call them sots or blockheads in a direct invective, but laughed at them with a delicacy of scorn, without any mixture of anger.
The best good man, with the worst-natured muse, was the character among us of a gentleman as famous for his humanity as his wit.[158]
The ordinary subjects for satire are such as incite the greatest indignation in the best tempers, and consequently men of such a make are the best qualified for speaking of the offences in human life. These men can behold vice and folly when they injure persons to whom they are wholly unacquainted, with the same severity as others resent the ills they do themselves. A good-natured man cannot see an overbearing fellow put a bashful man of merit out of countenance, or outstrip him in the pursuit of any advantage; but he is on fire to succour the oppressed, to produce the merit of the one, and confront the impudence of the other.