"Some did all folly with just sharpness blame,
Whilst others laughed and scorned them into shame.
But of these two, the last succeeded best,
As men aim rightest when they shoot in jest."[1]
The spokesman of the eighteenth century on this point is Young.
"No man can converse much in the world but, at what he
meets with, he must either be insensible, or grieve, or be angry,
or smile. Some passion (if we are not impassive) must be
moved; for the general conduct of mankind is by no means a
thing indifferent to a reasonable and virtuous man. Now,
to smile at it, and turn it into ridicule, I think most eligible;
as it hurts ourselves least, and gives Vice and Folly the greatest
offense.
"Laughing at the misconduct of the world will, in a great measure, ease us of any more disagreeable passion about it. One passion is more effectually driven out by another than by reason."[2]
And about the same time our first satirical novelist
was avowing his own creed and performance:
"If nature hath given me any talents at ridiculing vice and
imposture, I shall not be indolent, nor afraid of exerting them."[3]
Again: "I have employed all the wit and humour of which I am master in the following history; wherein I have endeavoured to laugh mankind out of their favorite follies and vices."[4]
- ↑ Essay on Satire, by the Duke of Buckingham: Dryden's Works, XV, 201.
- ↑ Young: Preface to the Seven Satires.
- ↑ Fielding: Historical Register: Dedication to the Public, III, 341.
- ↑ Fielding: Tom Jones: Dedication to George Lyttleton, VI, 5. He also says, in The Covent Garden Journal: "Few men, I believe, do more admire the works of those great masters who have sent their satire (if I may use the expression) laughing into the world. Such are the great triumvirate, Lucian, Cervantes, and Swift."
