No. XXI. SATURDAY, AUGUST 4, 1787. Οστις δε διαβολίαις πειθέται ταχύ, Menander. He who willingly extends his credulity to the belief of calumnies, is a wicked man or fool. THAT sacred weapon, Satire, so seldom falls into hands able to wield it with fortitude and discretion, that if we examine the characters of those who have arrogated to themselves the office of stigmatizing vice, the result of our labours will oftentimes prove disappointment and regret. Yet, as not every disappointment is without some useful lesson, it may not, perhaps, be quite unprofitable to offer a few cursory remarks upon some of those writers who have passed through the world under the denomination of Satirists. To fix a period from which satire may be supposed have had its beginning, is to date the origin of that whose existence is coeval with the nature of man. The manners of all times have furnished materials for the pen of the satirist; and writers of all nations have discovered either their integrity in the proper use of it, or their malevolence in the prostitution of it. That Homer gave sufficient proofs of his abilities to become a powerful satirist, we have heard in his Margites, and we have seen in his character of Thersites. The different regulations of the Greek comedy have been accurately and frequently stated to us; it is therefore unnecessary to give a very minute account of what every one is, or may be, so minutely acquainted with. In consequence of the licentious satire produced into public by Cratinus and Eupolis, it was decreed that no one should name another on the stage. Under these restrictions wrote Menander and Philemon, with the chastity of whose style, and the purity of whose sentiments, we have reason to lament that we cannot be more intimately acquainted. To them succeeded Aristophanes, upon whom his biographical panegyrist has been able to heap no other commendation, than such as is due to the misapplication of abili ties, which might have been serviceable to his country and creditable to himself. Let the reader of Aristophanes divest himself of his inclination to become acquainted with the customs of the Greeks, and the niceties of their language, and he will find little in that author tending to make him a wiser or a better man. While ribaldry is considered as the perfection of wit, so long shall we look for a model in Aristophanes ; while the malicious exercise of superior abilities be commendable, so long shall Aristophanes be commended. The humour of this writer is generally low, and frequently obscene; his ridicule, from being misapplied, rather disgusts his reader, than vilifies his object; and that odium, which in the wickedness of his heart he would heap upon an other, falls with justice upon himself. When we consider the reputed elegance even to a proverb of the Athenians, it is not without astonishment that we mark the consequence of his plays; scarce less than infatuation seems to have actuated the minds of his audience. By means of his worthless ribaldry, the finger of scorn was pointed against Eschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles; and to his too efficacious calumny Socrates paid the tribute of his life. Plutarch, in his comparison between Aristophanes and Menander, observes of the former, "that his language is tumid, full of stage trick and illiberality, which is never the case with Menander The man of science is offended, and vulgarity delighted. He, however, obtained popularity by exercising his wit against the tax-gatherers: he is remarkable," adds he, " for having so distributed his speeches, that there is no difference whether a father speaks or a son, a rustic or a deity, an old man or a hero. In Menander it is directly opposite." But the violence with which Plutarch condemns the writings of Aristophanes, may, perhaps, discover that his judgment was somewhat biassed by his indignation against the author. Thus far, however, on all sides will be readily granted; that could the fate of Menander and Aristophanes have been reversed, it is probable, comedy would have found a standard of taste instead of a precedent for licentiousness, and, using such example, would have proved herself the mirror of truth instead of the vehicle of calumny. The reader who has discretion enough to look upon Aristophanes as the skilful advocate in a bad cause, may be entertained by his writings, and not prejudiced by his opinions. But we are too apt to subscribe with. out examination to the dicta of acknowledged abilities:-There is little trouble in this, but much danger. Of the Roman satirists we may speak more favourably than perhaps of any set of writers who have adorned any country. The habits of their lives in general gave a sanction to the gravity of their doctrines. The conduct of Plautus was no disgrace to his writings; Lucilius gave no precepts of virtue to others, which he did not exemplify in himself; and to that best writer of the most accomplished age, Horace, who shall deny the meed of praise, which the testimony of his own times declared his due, and the universal consent of succeeding ages has ratified and confirmed? Equal to him in strength of mind, and in virtue by no means inferior, were Juvenal and Persius: yet they had not that art and judgment, the possession of which has made Horace more read and admired, and the want of which has made themselves more neglected. The policy of the Gauls, and the terrors of the Bastile, have, no doubt, while they curbed the licentiousness of a gay and lively nation, at the same time depressed the ardour of many ingenious satirists that this has been the case, the world has little cause to lament; since the few, who have discovered themselves in that country, seem rather desirous of establishing a reputation for themselves, than zealous for the promotion of virtue. They are content to be called good writers, without ambition to be accounted virtuous men. In order to review some of the best satirists of our own nation, we must pass over the bigotry of one age, in which Milton seems to have presided, and the profligacy of another, in which this land exchanged the horrors of civil war, and intestine discords, for the vicious luxuries of an ill-spent peace, which were ratified by the countenance, encouragement, and example of a king. The wits of this age were consistent in their lives and writings, and immorality was the characteristic of both. They seem to have agreed as it were with universal consent, that "a tale of humour was sufficient knowledge, good-fellowship sufficient honesty," and a restraint from the extremes of vice sufficient virtue. If we descend to what has been called the Augustan age of English literature, we shall find the satirical works of that time will not bear a very near inspection. It is a lamentable truth, that the same pen which had been so often and so successfully employed in the cause of virtue; which had given immortality to the Man of Ross, and the compliment of truth to Addison-was unwarily led into an attempt to pluck the laurels from the brow of Bentley, and to gratify an unmanly malevolence in the publication of the Dunciad. The censures of Swift seem to have been marked by habitual ill-nature; and the compliments of Young by an habitual want of discrimination. And it generally happens, that the censures of such satirists, and the commendations of such panegyrists, keep an equal balance, both weighingnothing. Nothing has, I believe, been more frequently an object of ill-placed ridicule than learning, which, |