Note 68 — Chapter I · THE SATIRIC SPIRIT
Reading edition
Cf. Brown’s Essay on Satire for scorn of Shaftesbury’s idea that ridicule is the test of truth; refuted ironically in the lines,—
“Deride our weak forefathers’ musty rule, Who therefore smil’d, because they saw a fool; Sublimer logic now adorns our isle, We therefore see a fool, because we smile.”
He concludes that wit is safe only when rationalized:
“Then mirth may urge, when reason can explore, This point the way, that waft us to the shore.”
(Carlyle expresses a similar opinion in his essay on Voltaire.)