Persius is never wanting to us in some profitable doctrine, and in
exposing the opposite vices to it. His kind of philosophy is one,
which is the Stoic, and every satire is a comment on one particular
dogma of that sect, unless we will except the first, which is
against bad writers; and yet even there he forgets not the precepts
of the "porch." In general, all virtues are everywhere to be
praised and recommended to practice, and all vices to be reprehended
and made either odious or ridiculous, or else there is a fundamental
error in the whole design.
I have already declared who are the only persons that are the
adequate object of private satire, and who they are that may
properly be exposed by name for public examples of vices and
follies, and therefore I will trouble your lordship no further with
them. Of the best and finest manner of satire, I have said enough
in the comparison betwixt Juvenal and Horace; it is that sharp well-
mannered way of laughing a folly out of countenance, of which your
lordship is the best master in this age.
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