The following advertisement is subjoined to _The General Postscript_, No. 19 (Wednesday, November 9, 1709):
"Nick Doubt desires the public to take notice, that he did not bring that letter to Basket-hilt's maid, that begins, 'Isaac, you seem a very honest fellow;' and he's a double jackanapes that thinks he'd disturb the squire's 'lucubrations' with any such impertinent messages."
From _Tuesday, Nov. 8_, to _Thursday, Nov. 10, 1709_.
Falsus honor juvat, et mendax infamia terret Quem nisi mendosum et mendacem?
I know no manner of speaking so offensive as that of giving praise, and closing it with an exception; which proceeds (where men do not do it to introduce malice, and make calumny more effectual) from the common error of considering man as a perfect creature. But if we rightly examine things, we shall find, that there is a sort of economy in Providence, that one shall excel where another is defective, in order to make men more useful to each other, and mix them in society. This man having this talent, and that man another, is as necessary in conversation, as one professing one trade, and another another, is beneficial in commerce. The happiest climate does not produce all things; and it was so ordered, that one part of the earth should want the product of another, for uniting mankind in a general correspondence and good understanding. It is therefore want of good sense as well as good nature, to say, Simplicius has a better judgment, but not so much wit, as Latius; for that these have not each other's capacities, is no more a diminution to either than if you should say, Simplicius is not Latius, or Latius not Simplicius. The heathen world had so little notion that perfection was to be expected amongst men, that among them any one quality or endowment in an heroic degree made a god. Hercules had strength; but it was never objected to him that he wanted wit. Apollo presided over wit, and it was never asked whether he had strength. We hear no exceptions against the beauty of Minerva, or the wisdom of Venus. These wise heathens were glad to immortalise any one serviceable gift, and overlook all imperfections in the person who had it; but with us it is far otherwise, for we reject many eminent virtues, if they are accompanied with one apparent weakness. The reflecting after this manner, made me account for the strange delight men take in reading lampoons and scandal, with which the age abounds, and of which I receive frequent complaints. Upon mature consideration, I find it is principally for this reason that the worst of mankind, the libellers, receive so much encouragement in the world. The low race of men take a secret pleasure in finding an eminent character levelled to their condition by a report of its defects, and keep themselves in countenance, though they are excelled in a thousand virtues, if they believe they have in common with a great person any one fault. The libeller falls in with this humour, and gratifies this baseness of temper, which is naturally an enemy to extraordinary merit. It is from this that libel and satire are promiscuously joined together in the notions of the vulgar, though the satirist and libeller differ as much as the magistrate and the murderer. In the consideration of human life, the satirist never falls upon persons who are not glaringly faulty, and the libeller on none but who are conspicuously commendable. Were I to expose any vice in a good or great man, it should certainly be by correcting it in some one where that crime was the most distinguishing part of the character; as pages are chastised for the admonition of princes.[272] When it is performed otherwise, the vicious are kept in credit by placing men of merit in the same accusation. But all the pasquils,[273] lampoons, and libels we meet with nowadays, are a sort of playing with the four-and-twenty letters, and throwing them into names and characters, without sense, truth, or wit. In this case, I am in great perplexity to know whom they mean, and should be in distress for those they abuse, if I did not see their judgment and ingenuity in those they commend. This is the true way of examining a libel; and when men consider, that no one man living thinks the better of their heroes and patrons for the panegyric given them, none can think themselves lessened by their invective. The hero or patron in a libel is but a scavenger to carry off the dirt, and by that very employment is the filthiest creature in the street.