The men of the greatest character in this kind were Horace and Juvenal. There is not, that I remember, one ill-natured expression in all their writings, not one sentence of severity which does not apparently proceed from the contrary disposition. Whoever reads them, will, I believe, be of this mind; and if they were read with this view, it may possibly persuade our young fellows, that they may be very witty men without speaking ill of any but those who deserve it: but in the perusal of these writers it may not be unnecessary to consider, that they lived in very different times. Horace was intimate with a prince of the greatest goodness and humanity imaginable, and his court was formed after his example; therefore the faults that poet falls upon were little inconsistencies in behaviour, false pretences to politeness, or impertinent affectations of what men were not fit for. Vices of a coarser sort could not come under his consideration, or enter the palace of Augustus. Juvenal, on the other hand, lived under Domitian, in whose reign everything that was great and noble was banished the habitations of the men in power. Therefore he attacks vice as it passes by in triumph, not as it breaks into conversation. The fall of empire, contempt of glory, and a general degeneracy of manners, are before his eyes in all his writings. In the days of Augustus, to have talked like Juvenal had been madness, or in those of Domitian like Horace. Morality and virtue are everywhere recommended in Horace, as became a man in a polite court, from the beauty, the propriety, the convenience, of pursuing them. Vice and corruption are attacked by Juvenal in a style which denotes, he fears he shall not be heard without he calls to them in their own language, with a bare-faced mention of the villanies and obscenities of his contemporaries.
This accidental talk of these two great men runs me from my design, which was to tell some coxcombs that run about this town with the name of smart satirical fellows, that they are by no means qualified for the characters they pretend to, of being severe upon other men, for they want good-nature. There is no foundation in them for arriving at what they aim at; and they may as well pretend to flatter, as rail agreeably without being good-natured.
There is a certain impartiality necessary to make what a man says bear any weight with those he speaks to. This quality, with respect to men's errors and vices, is never seen but in good-natured men. They have ever such a frankness of mind, and benevolence to all men, that they cannot receive impressions of unkindness without mature deliberation; and writing or speaking ill of a man upon personal considerations, is so irreparable and mean an injury, that no one possessed of this quality is capable of doing it: but in all ages there have been interpreters to authors when living, of the same genius with the commentators, into whose hands they fall when dead. I dare say, it is impossible for any man of more wit than one of these to take any of the four-and-twenty letters, and form out of them a name to describe the character of a vicious man with greater life, but one of these would immediately cry, Mr. Such-a-one is meant in that place. But the truth of it is, satirists describe the age, and backbiters assign their descriptions to private men.
In all terms of reproof, when the sentence appears to arise from personal hatred or passion, it is not then made the cause of mankind, but a misunderstanding between two persons. For this reason, the representations of a good-natured man bear a pleasantry in them, which shows there is no malignity at heart, and by consequence are attended to by his hearers or readers because they are unprejudiced. This deference is only what is due to him; for no man thoroughly nettled can say a thing general enough to pass off with the air of an opinion declared, and not a passion gratified. I remember a humorous fellow at Oxford, when he heard any one had spoken ill of him, used to say, "I won't take my revenge of him till I have forgiven him." What he meant by this, was, that he would not enter upon this subject till it was grown as indifferent to him as any other; and I have, by this rule, seen him more than once triumph over his adversary with an inimitable spirit and humour; for he came to the assault against a man full of sore places, and he himself invulnerable.
There is no possibility of succeeding in a satirical way of writing or speaking, except a man throws himself quite out of the question. It is great vanity to think any one will attend a thing because it is your quarrel. You must make your satire the concern of society in general, if you would have it regarded. When it is so, the good-nature of a man of wit will prompt him to many brisk and disdainful sentiments and replies, to which all the malice in the world will not be able to repartee.
FOOTNOTES:
[157] Virgil, "Eclog." iii. 90.
[158] This was said of Lord Buckhurst, afterwards Earl of Dorset, by the Earl of Rochester.