party, be no discouragement for the authors to proceed; but let them remember, it is with wits as with razors, which are never so apt to cut those they are employed on, as when they have lost their edge. Besides, those, whose teeth are too rotten to bite,[1] are best, of all others, qualified to revenge that defect with their breath.
I am not like other men, to envy or undervalue the talents I cannot reach; for which reason I must needs bear a true honour to this large eminent sect of our British writers. And I hope, this little panegyrick will not be offensive to their ears, since it has the advantage of being only designed for themselves. Indeed, nature herself has taken order, that fame and honour should be purchased at a better pennyworth by satire, than by any other productions of the brain; the world being soonest provoked to praise by lashes, as men are to love. There is a problem in an ancient author, why dedications, and other bundles of flattery, run all upon stale musty topicks, without the smallest tincture of any thing new; not only to the torment and nauseating of the christian reader, but, if not suddenly prevented, to the universal spreading of that pestilent disease, the lethargy, in this island: whereas there is very little satire, which has not something in it untouched before. The defects of the former, are usually imputed to the want of invention among those, who are dealers in that kind; but, I think, with a great deal of injustice; the solution being easy and natu-
- ↑ Are best, of all others, qualified, &c. Here the disjunction of the word best from the word qualified makes the sentence uncouth; which would run better thus——Are, of all others, best qualified, &c.
