Neither is it true
that this fineness of raillery is offensive; a witty man is tickled,
while he is hurt in this manner; and a fool feels it not. The
occasion of an offence may possibly be given, but he cannot take it.
If it be granted that in effect this way does more mischief; that a
man is secretly wounded, and though he be not sensible himself, yet
the malicious world will find it for him; yet there is still a vast
difference betwixt the slovenly butchering of a man, and the
fineness of a stroke that separates the head from the body and
leaves it standing in its place. A man may be capable, as Jack
Ketch's wife said of his servant, of a plain piece of work, a bare
hanging; but to make a malefactor die sweetly was only belonging to
her husband. I wish I could apply it to myself, if the reader would
be kind enough to think it belongs to me. The character of Zimri,
in my "Absalom" is, in my opinion, worth the whole poem; it is not
bloody, but it is ridiculous enough; and he for whom it was intended
was too witty to resent it as an injury.
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