Since I am got so far into this Subject, you must give me leave to go thro' all I have a mind to say upon it; because I am not sure that in a more proper Place my Memory may be so full of it. I cannot find, therefore, from what Reason Satyr is allow'd more Licence than Comedy, or why either of them (to be admir'd) ought not to be limited by Decency and Justice. Let _Juvenal_ and _Aristophanes_ have taken what Liberties they please, if the Learned have nothing more than their Antiquity to justify their laying about them at that enormous rate, I shall wish they had a better excuse for them! The Personal Ridicule and Scurrility thrown upon _Socrates_, which _Plutarch_ too condemns; and the Boldness of _Juvenal_, in writing real Names over guilty Characters, I cannot think are to be pleaded in right of our modern Liberties of the same kind. _Facit indignatio versum_[39] may be a very spirited Expression, and seems to give a Reader hopes of a lively Entertainment: But I am afraid Reproof is in unequal Hands when Anger is its Executioner; and tho' an outrageous Invective may carry some Truth in it, yet it will never have that natural, easy Credit with us which we give to the laughing Ironies of a cool Head. The Satyr that can smile _circum præcordia ludit_, and seldom fails to bring the Reader quite over to his Side whenever Ridicule and folly are at variance. But when a Person satyriz'd is us'd with the extreamest Rigour, he may sometimes meet with Compassion instead of Contempt, and throw back the Odium that was designed for him, upon the Author. When I would therefore disarm the Satyrist of this Indignation, I mean little more than that I would take from him all private or personal Prejudice, and wou'd still leave him as much general Vice to scourge as he pleases, and that with as much Fire and Spirit as Art and Nature demand to enliven his Work and keep his Reader awake.
Against all this it may be objected, That these are Laws which none but phlegmatick Writers will observe, and only Men of Eminence should give. I grant it, and therefore only submit them to Writers of better Judgment. I pretend not to restrain others from chusing what I don't like; they are welcome (if they please too) to think I offer these Rules more from an Incapacity to break them than from a moral Humanity. Let it be so! still, That will not weaken the strength of what I have asserted, if my Assertion be true. And though I allow that Provocation is not apt to weigh out its Resentments by Drachms and Scruples, I shall still think that no publick Revenge can be honourable where it is not limited by justice; and if Honour is insatiable in its Revenge it loses what it contends for and sinks itself, if not into Cruelty, at least into Vain-glory.