The tenth satire of Bioleau on women is more bitter,
and more decent and elegant, than the sixth of Juvenal on the same
subject; and Pope's epistle to Mrs. Blount far excels them both, in
the artfulness and delicacy with which it touches female foibles. I
may add, that the imitations of Horace by Pope, and of Juvenal by
Johnson, are preferable to their originals in the appositeness of
their examples, and in the poignancy of their ridicule. Above all, the
Lutrin, the Rape of the Lock, the Dispensary and the Dunciad, cannot
be parallelled by any works that the wittiest of the ancients can
boast of: for, by assuming the form of the epopea, they have acquired
a dignity and gracefulness, which all satires delivered merely in the
poet's own person must want, and with which the satirists of antiquity
were wholly unacquainted; for the Batrachomuomachia of Homer cannot be
considered as the model of these admirable pieces.
Lucian is the greatest master of Burlesque among the ancients: but the
travels of Gulliver, though indeed evidently copied from his true
history, do as evidently excel it. Lucian sets out with informing his
readers, that he is in jest, and intends to ridicule some of the
incredible stories in Ctesias and Herodotus: this introduction surely
enfeebles his satire, and defeats his purpose.
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