examine, if these different designs might not be
executed with equal delicacy.

We shall know this by a view of the particulars; in this place we say
only that the reigning taste, or the love of striking likenesses, might
justify Aristophanes for having turned, as Plutarch says, art into
malignity, simplicity into brutality, merriment into farce, and amour
into impudence; if, in any age, a poet could be excused for painting
publick folly and vice, in their true colours.

There is a motive of interest, at the bottom, which disposed Elian,
Plutarch, and many others, to condemn this poet without appeal.
Socrates, who is said to have been destroyed by a poetical attack, at
the instigation of two wretches[30], has too many friends among good
men, to have pardon granted to so horrid a crime. This has filled them
with an implacable hatred against Aristophanes, which is mingled with
the spirit of philosophy; a spirit, wherever it comes, more dangerous
than any other. A common enemy will confess some good qualities in his
adversary; but a philosopher, made partial by philosophy, is never at
rest till he has totally destroyed him who has hurt the most tender part
of his heart; that is, has disturbed him in his adherence to some
character, which, like that of Socrates, takes possession of the mind.
The mind is the freest part of man, and the most tender of its
liberties; possessions, life, and reputation may be in another's power,
but opinion is always independent. If any man can obtain that gentle
influence, by which he ingratiates himself with the understanding, and
makes a sect in a commonwealth, his followers will sacrifice themselves
for him, and nobody will be pardoned that dares to attack him, justly or
unjustly, because that truth, real or imaginary, which he maintained, is
now become an idol. Time will do nothing for the extinction of this
hatred; it will be propagated from age to age; and there is no hope that
Aristophanes will ever be treated with tenderness by the disciples of
Plato, who made Socrates his hero. Every body else may, perhaps,
confess, that Aristophanes, though in one instance a bad man, may,
nevertheless, be a good poet; but distinctions, like these, will not be
admitted by prejudice and passion, and one or other dictates all
characters, whether good or bad.

As I add my own reasons, such as they are, for or against Aristophanes,
to those of Frischlinus, his defender, I must not omit one thing which
h