If I had railed, I might
have suffered for it justly; but I managed my own work more happily,
perhaps more dexterously. I avoided the mention of great crimes,
and applied myself to the representing of blind-sides and little
extravagances; to which the wittier a man is, he is generally the
more obnoxious. It succeeded as I wished; the jest went round, and
he was laughed at in his turn who began the frolic.
And thus, my lord, you see I have preferred the manner of Horace and
of your lordship in this kind of satire to that of Juvenal, and, I
think, reasonably. Holyday ought not to have arraigned so great an
author for that which was his excellency and his merit; or, if he
did, on such a palpable mistake he might expect that some one might
possibly arise (either in his own time, or after him) to rectify his
error, and restore to Horace that commendation of which he has so
unjustly robbed him. And let the manes of Juvenal forgive me if I
say that this way of Horace was the best for amending manners, as it
is the most difficult.
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