irable when it is well performed. I
write not this with the least intention to undervalue the other parts
of poetry: for Comedy is both excellently instructive, and extremely
pleasant; satire lashes vice into reformation, and humour represents
folly so as to render it ridiculous. Many of our present writers are
eminent in both these kinds; and, particularly, the author of the
"Plain Dealer," whom I am proud to call my friend, has obliged all
honest and virtuous men, by one of the most bold, most general, and
most useful satires, which has ever been presented on the English
theatre. I do not dispute the preference of Tragedy; let every man
enjoy his taste: but it is unjust, that they, who have not the least
notion of heroic writing, should therefore condemn the pleasure which
others receive from it, because they cannot comprehend it. Let them
please their appetites in eating what they like; but let them not
force their dish on all the table. They, who would combat general
authority with particular opinion, must first establish themselves a
reputation of understanding better than other men. Are all the flights
of heroic poetry to be concluded bombast, unnatural, and mere madness,
because they are not affected with their excellencies? It is just as
reasonable as to conclude there is no day, because a blind man cannot
distinguish of light and colours. Ought they not rather, in modesty,
to doubt of their own judgments, when they think this or that
expression in Homer, Virgil, Tasso, or Milton's "Paradise," to be too
far strained, than positively to conclude, that it is all fustian, and
mere nonsense? It is true, there are limits to be set betwixt the
boldness and rashness of a poet; but he must understand those limits,
who pretends to judge as well as he who undertakes to write: and he
who has no liking to the whole, ought, in reason, to be excluded from
censuring of the parts. He must be a lawyer before he mounts the
tribunal; and the judicature of one court, too, does not qualify a man
to preside in another. He may be an excellent pleader in the Chancery,
who is not fit to rule the Common Pleas. But I will presume for once
to tell them, that the boldest strokes of poetry, when they are
managed artfully, are those which most delight the reader.

Virgil and Horace, the severest writers of the severest age, have made
frequent use of the hardest metaphors, and of the strongest
hyperboles; and in this case the best authority is