But I have said enough, and it may be too much, on this subject.
Will your lordship be pleased to prolong my audience only so far
till I tell you my own trivial thoughts how a modern satire should
be made? I will not deviate in the least from the precepts and
examples of the ancients, who were always our best masters; I will
only illustrate them, and discover some of the hidden beauties in
their designs, that we thereby may form our own in imitation of
them. Will you please but to observe that Persius, the least in
dignity of all the three, has, notwithstanding, been the first who
has discovered to us this important secret in the designing of a
perfect satire--that it ought only to treat of one subject; to be
confined to one particular theme, or, at least, to one principally?
If other vices occur in the management of the chief, they should
only be transiently lashed, and not be insisted on, so as to make
the design double. As in a play of the English fashion which we
call a tragicomedy, there is to be but one main design, and though
there be an under-plot or second walk of comical characters and
adventures, yet they are subservient to the chief fable, carried
along under it and helping to it, so that the drama may not seem a
monster with two heads.
Pages:
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162