the same kind is "Mother Hubbard's Tale" in Spenser, and (if it be
not too vain to mention anything of my own) the poems of "Absalom"
and "MacFlecnoe."

This is what I have to say in general of satire: only, as Dacier
has observed before me, we may take notice that the word satire is
of a more general signification in Latin than in French or English;
for amongst the Romans it was not only used for those discourses
which decried vice or exposed folly, but for others also, where
virtue was recommended. But in our modern languages we apply it
only to invective poems, where the very name of satire is formidable
to those persons who would appear to the world what they are not in
themselves; for in English, to say satire is to mean reflection, as
we use that word in the worst sense; or as the French call it, more
properly, medisance. In the criticism of spelling, it ought to be
with i, and not with y, to distinguish its true derivation from
satura, not from Satyrus; and if this be so, then it is false
spelled throughout this book, for here it is written "satyr," which
having not considered at the first, I thought it not worth
correcting afterwards. But the French are more nice, and never
spell it any otherwise than "satire."

I am now arrived at the most difficult part of my undertaking, which
is to compare Horace with Juvenal and Persius. It is observed by
Rigaltius in his preface before Juvenal, written to Thuanus, that
these three poets have all their particular partisans and favourers.
Every commentator, as he has taken pains with any of them, thinks
himself obliged to prefer his author to the other two; to find out
their failings, and decry them, that he may make room for his own
darling. Such is the partiality of mankind, to set up that interest