Now meet thy fate, incens’d Belinda cry’d, And drew a deadly bodkin from her side, (The same, his ancient personage to deck, Her great-great-grandsire wore about his neck, In three seal rings; which after, melted down, Form’d a vast buckle for his widow’s gown: Her infant grandame’s whistle next it grew, The bells she jingled, and the whistle blew; Then in a bodkin grac’d her mother’s hairs, Which long she wore, and now Belinda wears.) _Ibid._ _canto_ v. 87. Ridicule, as observed above, is no necessary ingredient in a parody. But I did not intend to say, that there is any opposition betwixt them. A parody, no doubt, may be successfully employed to promote ridicule; witness the following example, in which the goddess of Dullness is addressed upon the subject of modern education. Thou gav’st that ripeness, which so soon began, And ceas’d so soon, he ne’er was boy nor man; Through school and college, thy kind cloud o’ercast, Safe and unseen the young Æneas past[19]; Thence bursting glorious, all at once let down, Stunn’d with his giddy larum half the town. _Dunciad_, _b._ iv. 287. The interposition of the gods in the manner of Homer and Virgil, ought to be confined to ludicrous subjects, which are much enlivened by such interposition handled in the form of a parody; witness the cave of Spleen, _Rape of the Lock_, _canto_ 4.; the goddess of Discord; _Lutrin_, _canto_ 1.; and the goddess of Indolence, _canto_ 2. Those who have a talent for ridicule, which is seldom united with a taste for delicate and refined beauties, are quick-sighted in improprieties; and these they eagerly lay hold of, in order to gratify their favourite propensity. The persons galled have no other refuge but to maintain, that ridicule ought not to be applied to grave subjects. It is yielded, on the other hand, that subjects really grave and important, are by no means fit for ridicule: but then it is urged, that ridicule is the only proper test for discovering whether a subject be really grave, or be made so artificially by custom and fashion. This dispute has produced a celebrated question, Whether ridicule be or be not a test of truth? I give this question a place here, because it tends to illustrate the nature of ridicule.