is least liable to exceptions; he is therefore obliged to choose his
mediums accordingly. Casaubon (who saw that Persius could not laugh
with a becoming grace, that he was not made for jesting, and that a
merry conceit was not his talent) turned his feather, like an
Indian, to another light, that he might give it the better gloss.
"Moral doctrine," says he, "and urbanity or well-mannered wit are
the two things which constitute the Roman satire; but of the two,
that which is most essential to this poem, and is, as it were, the
very soul which animates it, is the scourging of vice and
exhortation to virtue." Thus wit, for a good reason, is already
almost out of doors, and allowed only for an instrument--a kind of
tool or a weapon, as he calls it--of which the satirist makes use in
the compassing of his design. The end and aim of our three rivals
is consequently the same; but by what methods they have prosecuted
their intention is further to be considered. Satire is of the
nature of moral philosophy, as being instructive; he therefore who
instructs most usefully will carry the palm from his two
antagonists. The philosophy in which Persius was educated, and
which he professes through his whole book, is the Stoic--the most
noble, most generous, most beneficial to humankind amongst all the
sects who have given us the rules of ethics, thereby to form a
severe virtue in the soul, to raise in us an undaunted courage
against the assaults of fortune, to esteem as nothing the things
that are without us, because they are not in our power; not to value
riches, beauty, honours, fame, or health any farther than as
conveniences and so many helps to living as we ought, and doing good
in our generation. In short, to be always happy while we possess
our minds with a good conscience, are free from the slavery of
vices, and conform our actions and conversation to the rules of
right reason. See here, my lord, an epitome of Epictetus, the