I would not be thought to
confine wit and humour to these writers. Shakspeare, Moliere, and some
other authors, have been blessed with the same talents, and have
employed them to the same purposes. There are some, however, who,
though not void of these talents, have made so wretched a use of them,
that, had the consecration of their labours been committed to the
hands of the hangman, no good man would have regretted their loss; nor
am I afraid to mention Rabelais, and Aristophanes himself, in this
number. For, if I may speak my opinion freely of these two last
writers, and of their works, their design appears to me very plainly
to have been to ridicule all sobriety, modesty, decency, virtue, and
religion, out of the world. Now, whoever reads over the five great
writers first mentioned in this paragraph, must either have a very bad
head or a very bad heart if he doth not become both a wiser and a
better man.
In the exercise of the mind, as well as in the exercise of the body,
diversion is a secondary consideration, and designed only to make that
agreeable which is at the same time useful, to such noble purposes as
health and wisdom. But what should we say to a man who mounted his
chamber-hobby, or fought with his own shadow, for his amusement only?
how much more absurd and weak would he appear who swallowed poison
because it was sweet?
How differently did Horace think of study from our modern readers!
Quid verum atque decens curo et rogo, et omnis in hoc sum:
Condo et compono, quae mox depromere possim.
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