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But I dubitate whether this abstruser sort of speculation (though
enlivened by some apposite instances from Aristophanes) would
sufficiently interest your oppidan readers. As regards their satirical
tone, and their plainness of speech, I will only say, that, in my
pastoral experience, I have found that the Arch-Enemy loves nothing
better than to be treated as a religious, moral, and intellectual being,
and that there is no _apage Sathanas!_ so potent as ridicule. But it is
a kind of weapon that must have a button of good-nature on the point of
it.
'The productions of Mr. B. have been stigmatized in some quarters as
unpatriotic; but I can vouch that he loves his native soil with that
hearty, though discriminating, attachment which springs from an intimate
social intercourse of many years' standing. In the ploughing season, no
one has a deeper share in the well-being of the country than he. If Dean
Swift were right in saying that he who makes two blades of grass grow
where one grew before confers a greater benefit on the state than he who
taketh a city, Mr.


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