"Sir, "Your most humble Servant, "SCOTO-BRITANNUS."
Whereas Mr. Humphrey Trelooby, wearing his own hair, a pair of buck-skin breeches, a hunting-whip, with a new pair of spurs, has complained to the Censor, that on Thursday last he was defrauded of half-a-crown, under pretence of a duty to the sexton for seeing the Cathedral of St. Paul, London: it is hereby ordered, that none hereafter require above sixpence of any country gentleman under the age of twenty-five for that liberty; and that all which shall be received above the said sum of any person for beholding the inside of that sacred edifice, be forthwith paid to Mr. John Morphew for the use of Mr. Bickerstaff, under pain of further censure on the above-mentioned extortion.
From _Tuesday, Oct. 24_, to _Thursday, Oct. 26, 1710_.
----Quis iniquæ Tam patiens urbis, tam ferreus, ut teneat se?
It was with very great displeasure I heard this day a man say of a companion of his with an air of approbation, "You know Tom never fails of saying a spiteful thing. He has a great deal of wit, but satire is his particular talent. Did you mind how he put the young fellow out of countenance that pretended to talk to him?" Such impertinent applauses, which one meets with every day, put me upon considering what true raillery and satire were in themselves; and this, methought, occurred to me from reflection upon the great and excellent persons that were admired for talents this way. When I had run over several such in my thoughts, I concluded (however unaccountable the assertion might appear at first sight) that good-nature was an essential quality in a satirist, and that all the sentiments which are beautiful in this way of writing must proceed from that quality in the author. Good-nature produces a disdain of all baseness, vice, and folly, which prompts them to express themselves with smartness against the errors of men, without bitterness towards their persons. This quality keeps the mind in equanimity, and never lets an offence unseasonably throw a man out of his character. When Virgil said, he that did not hate Bavius might love Mævius,[157] he was in perfect good-humour, and was not so much moved at their absurdities as passionately to call them sots or blockheads in a direct invective, but laughed at them with a delicacy of scorn, without any mixture of anger.