LOVE OF FAME, THE UNIVERSAL PASSION. In Seven Characteristical Satires. -Fulgente trahit constrictos gloria curru Non minus ignotos generosis. Hor. PREFACE. THESE Satires have been favourably received at home and abroad. I am not conscious of the least malevolence to any particular person through all the characters, though some persons may be so selfish as to engross a general application to themselves. A writer in polite letters should be content with reputation, the private amusement he finds in his compositions, the good influence they have on his severer stu dies, that admission they give him to his superiors, and the possible good effect they may have on the public, or else he should join to his politeness some more lucrative qualification. But it is possible that satire may not do much good. Men may rise in their affections to their follies, as they do to their friends, when they are abused by others. It is much to be feared that misconduct will never be chased out of the world by satire; all therefore that is to be said for it is, that misconduct will certainly be never chased out of the world by satire if no satires are written. Nor is that term unapplicable to graver composition: ethics, Heathen and Christian, and the Scriptures themselves, are in a great measure a satire on the weakness and iniquity of men; and some part of that satire is in verse too : nay, in the first ages, philosophy and poetry were the same thing; wisdom wore no other dress: so that I hope these Satires will be the more easily pardoned that misfortune by the severe. If they like not the fashion, let them take them by the weight; for some weight they have, or the author has failed in his aim. Nay, historians themselves may be considered as satirists, and satirists most severe; since such are most human actions, that to relate is to expose them. 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 offence: and that for this reason, because, what men aim at by them is generally public opinion and esteem; which truth is the subject of the following Satires; and joins them together, as several branches from the same root: an unity of design which has not, I think, in a set of satires, been attempted before. 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, whatever some may teach; for to reason we owe our passions. Had we not reason, we should not be |