tire were as furprising as they were swift; the taste of the whole kingdom was reformed immediately, and the abfurdity of their former notions was confidered in its true light. No modern fatire was ever so generally read as this of Cervantes. It has been tranflated into all the languages of Europe; and every polite nation admires the fine ftrokes it contains, as much as the Spaniards themselves. Quevedo might well declare his intention of burning all his own books, when he read Don Quixote ||.

But there is one impropriety, which I wonder the critics never observed, in a book wherein propriety is in general fo exactly obferved. Cervantes has painted Sancho a dull illiterate clown ; but when he fixes him in his government, he is there no longer the Sancho that had attended Don Quixote, but a governor whose shrewdness and understanding far exceeds any thing that could have been expected from him.

Rabe

The

Rabelais poffeffed as much wit almost as any man that ever existed. ftrokes of humour that he has introduced into his celebrated romance are numerous, and peculiarly marked; the fatire is keen, and the whole work bears many figns of a fertile imagination. This author would have been in higher efteem, had he not wrote in too licentious a ftrain.

Boileau's fatires and his Lutrin, difcover throughout an infinite deal of poignant fatire, happily tempered with great politeness and delicacy of wit. This elegant writer had remarkable fuccefs, when he followed the bent of his genius, and applied himself to fatirical compofitions. Yet he has fometimes offended against the just rules of fatire, by making mankind in general, instead of the vicious

vicious part, the fubject of his ridicule. "Monfieur Boileau," fays Mr. Addifon, has in his laft fatire endeavoured to expose the female fex in general, without doing juftice to the valuable part of it. Such levelling fatires are of no ufe to the world, and for this reafon I have often wondered how Monf. Boileau, who was a man of exquifite judgment, and a lover of virtue, could think human nature a proper fubject for fatire in another of his celebrated pieces, which is called, The fatire upon man. What vice or frailty can a difcourfe correct, which cenfures the whole fpecies alike, and endeavours to fhow by fome fuperficial ftrokes of wit, that brutes are the most excellent creatures of the two? A fatire fhould expofe nothing but what is corrigible, and make a due difcrimi

nation between those who are, and those who are not the proper objects of it *."

But the Lutrin of this agreeable au

thor is free from thofe faults that Mr. Addison fo juftly corrects in the above paffage. It is, although inferior to Pope's Rape of the Lock, certainly a very beautiful poem; full of ftriking and lively imagery, and abounds with many exquifite defcriptions.

Among the writers of our own nation have appeared fome geniufes particularly formed for fatire. The Hudibras of Butler is univerfally known, and, among those who take the pains to inform themfelves of the many perfons and circumftances alluded to, as univerfally admired. His poem certainly contains many

Spectator, Vol. iii. Numb. 209.

beautiful

beautiful paffages, that are compofed with infinite wit*. 'Tis well known what great advantage the royal caufe received from this ingenious fatire; nevertheless fo unmindful was Charles the Second to reward merit, that he fuffered Butler to remain in obfcurity and want, without ever having the generofity to affit him. At prefent Hudibras is but feldom read t.

Dryden

No author ever excelled Butler in the art of introducing abundance of erudition into fo comic a poem. Few pieces ever compofed contain more learning than Hudibras.

+ Voltaire, speaking of Hudibras, fays, " Il y a fur tout un poeme Anglois que je désespererois de vous faire connoître, il s'appelle Hudibrafs. Le fujet eft la guerre civile, & la fecte des puritains tournée en ridicule. C'eft Don Quichotte, c'eft notre fatire Menippée fondus enfemble. C'eft de tous les livres que j'ai jamais lu, celui où j'ai trouvé le plus d'esprit, mais c'est aussi le plus intraduifible.