you. Now let me ask you a question seriously. Did you ever see any body
eat any hasty-pudding? What faces they make when it scalds their mouths!
Phoo, phoo, phoo! What faces will you all make when old Nick nicks you?
Now unto a bowl of punch I compare matrimony; there's the sweet part of
it, which is the honey-moon: then there's the largest part of it, that's
the most insipid, that comes after, and that's the water; then there's
the strong spirits, that's the husband; then there's the sour spirit,
that's the wife. But you don't mind me, no more than a dead horse does
a pair of spectacles; if you did, the sweet words which I utter would be
like a treacle posset to your palates. Do you know how many taylors
make a man?--Why nine. How many half a man?--Why four journeymen and an
apprentice. So have you all been bound 'prentices to madam Faddle, the
fashion-maker; ye have served your times out, and now you set up for
yourselves. My bowels and my small guts groan for you; as the cat on the
house-top is caterwauling, so from the top of my voice will I {100}be
bawling. Put--put some money in the plate, then your abomination shall
be scalded off like bristles from the hog's back, and ye shall be
scalped of them all as easily as I pull off this periwig.

My attempt you have heard to succeed the projector, And I tremblingly
wait your award of this lecture; No merits I plead, but what's fit for
my station, And that is the merit of your approbation. And, since for
mere mirth I exhibit this plan, Condemn, if you please--but excuse, if
you can.

END OF THE LECTURE,

AN ESSAY ON SATIRE.

{101}The vice and folly which overspread human nature first created
the satirist. We should not, therefore, attribute his severity to a
malignity of disposition, but to an exquisite sense of propriety, an
honest indignation of depravity, and a generous desire to reform the
degenerated manners of his fellow-creatures. This has been the cause
of Aristophanes censuring the pedantry and superstition of Socrates;
Horace, Persius, Martial, and Juvenal, the luxury and profligacy of the
Romans; Boileau and Moliere the levity and refinement of the French;
Cervantes the romantic pride and madness of the Spanish; and Dorset,
Gldharn, Swift, Addison, Churchill, Stevens, and Foote, the variety
of vice, folly, and luxury, which we have imported from our extensive
commerce and intercourse with other nations. We should, consequently,
reverse the satirist an