fome fervile and bafe Creatures, who cannot ferve their low Ends better, than under the Patronage of the Rich and Full; these will pay them all the Homage they expect; a wretched Servitude to Men of any other Character! But there will generally be others to detect their Emptiness, to expose their Haughtiness, and spoil their Laughter: And when the Laugh turns against them, which must frequently happen, because none are fo apt to laugh in the wrong Place, patent vulneribus: When they fall under Scorn and Mockery, how fore is their Mortification, how sharp their Anguifh, how deeply does the Woe lay hold of them? They fhall mourn and weep. If you prick the Bladder that is full blown, its Bulk immediately difappears, and it is not to be again extended to the fame Dimenfions. Other Men can bear a Sarcasm, or severe Joke with Decency. If it be juft, they Q 2

can

can allow it, they know their own Failings; if it be otherwise, it touches but flightly; they have fomething within themselves to refort to, they are not all furface and Wind. But your Laugher, when he loses the Laugh, lofes all; His high Glee is turned into the most abject Confufion. This will appear in a yet ftronger Light, if we confider him in a more publick Character, which Men of this Turn, if other Circumstances concur, are very apt to affect.

They who are full of their own Sufficiency and Attainments, think nothing above their Merits, and cannot easily be confined to the narrow Bounds of a private Life: They must have a larger Scene to act in: The World must be acquainted with their fuperior Endowments, and their Praises must be fung by Multitudes: The beaten Path is too vulgar for them to walk in; every thing that is common

is low; Antiquity is Infancy. They ftand upon the Shoulders of their Forefathers, and have clearer Views and larger Prospects: They muft difplay their Preeminence by disproving and ridiculing received Opinions and acknowledg'd Truths, and by giving the World new and more important Inftructions. Primum Graius homo---The rest of Mankind are all Bigots and Enthusiasts, theirs is the only School of true Philosophy and Freethinking.

I need not, I believe, obferve to you what a Succeffion of notorious Examples of this Character this Nation has produced of late Years: My present Subject rather leads me to remark that many of them have been profeffed Patrons of Banter and Buffoonry; they have proceeded fo far as to make Ridicule the Test of Truth, and place Rifibility in the room of Reafon. We allow that

this Faculty was not given in vain; that there are proper Times and Occafions to laugh; that Wit and Raillery are Accomplishments, in their due Place, worthy to be efteemed. But to fet Laughter in the Chair; to make it an univerfal Guide; to appeal folely to its Decifion; to treat all Men, who will not laugh when they are bid, as Fools; to treat them with Infolence and Scorn; to call all the whole Race of rational Creatures to play the Monkey together, when they are purfuing the weightiest and most serious Enquiries; this is fuch a Proposal, as could arife only from a Fulness of Self-Esteem and abfolute Sufficiency.

It is further obfervable, that this Set of Men have been great Declaimers against Perfecution; and at a Time when there was the leaft Occafion for it of any; unless perhaps their own Licentioufnefs and Profaneness

faneness might raise in them Apprehenfions of this fort. Here they have been all Good-nature and Forbearance. But could they have increased their Numbers fo far, as to have got the general Laugh on their fide, how the few Serious would have been treated has been fufficiently declared. Ridicule must have been let loose upon them, all the Arts and Infolencies of Burlesque employed, cruel Mockings, and very probably Scourgings too. To be fet at nought; to be an Outcaft to be for ever defpis'd and jeer'd; to have the Lip Shot out, and the Head fbook at us; to encounter nothing but Mockery and Scorn, thefe had been the common Difcouragements. Whether the good-natured Tribe will allow this to be Perfecution, I know not; but it is certainly a very comfortless and afflicted State; a State, which Men would generally be guilty of as mean Compliances to avoid, as

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