and books, as if we who occupy the tribunal were,
during that moment at least, miracles of clear-sighted incorruptible
justice, and of all the virtues generally. Conscience reasserts her
whole sway in our minds as soon as we sit on other men's merits and
demerits; almost the innocence of Eden re-establishes itself in our
breasts. Self-delusion! Men we are at the guilty bar--Men on the
blameless bench. There is a disorderly spirit in every one of us--a
spice of iniquity. Human nature forgives a crime for a jest. Not that
crimes and jests are commensurable or approximable; but they are before
the same judge. He dislikes, or professes to dislike, the crime.
Indubitably, and without a pretence, he likes the jest. Here, then, is
an opportunity given of balancing the liking against the disliking; and,
under that form, the jest against the crime. If he likes the jest more
than he dislikes the crime, the old saw holds good--

"Solvuntur risu tabulae, tu missus abibis."

Well, then, the wit of Dryden and Pope is irresistible. What follows?
For having contented our liking, we let them do any thing that they
like. Poor Og! poor Shadwell! poor Bayes, poor Cibber! He sprawls and
kicks in the gripe of the giant, and we--as if we had sat at bull-fights
and the shows of gladiators--when the blood trickles we are tickled,
and--oh, shame!--we laugh.

The DUNCIAD suffers under the law of compensations. As the renown of the
actor is intense whilst he lives, and languishes with following
generations, so is it with poems that embrace with ardour the Present.
When the Present has become the Past, they are, or at least their
liveliest edge is, past too. No commentary can restore the fiery hates
of Dante--nor the repellent scorn of Hudibras--nor the glow of laughter
to MAC-FLECNOE and the DUNCIAD. Eternal things are eternal--transitory
things are transitory. The transitory have lost their zest--the eternal
have their revenge.

Yet, a hundred years and more after the DUNCIAD, a critic may wish that
the matter had been a little more diligently moulded, with more
consideration of readers to come--that there had been less of mere
names--that every Gyas and Cloanthus had somewhat unfolded his own
individuality upon the stage--had been his own commentary--had, by a
word or two, painted himself to everlasting posterity, in hue, shape,
and gesture, as he stood before the contemporary eye. 'Tis an idle
speculation! The thing, by its inspiring passio