This taste for parodies was very prevalent with the Grecians, and is a species of humour which perhaps has been too rarely practised by the moderns: Cervantes has some passages of this nature in his parodies of the old chivalric romances; Fielding in some parts of his Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews, in his burlesque poetical descriptions; and Swift in his “Battle of Books,” and “Tale of a Tub,” but few writers have equalled the delicacy and felicity of Pope’s parodies in the “Rape of the Lock.” Such parodies give refinement to burlesque. The ancients made a liberal use of it in their satirical comedy, and sometimes carried it on through an entire work, as in the Menippean satire, Seneca’s mock _Eloge_ of Claudius, and Lucian in his Dialogues. There are parodies even in Plato, and an anecdotical one recorded of this philosopher shows them in their most simple state. Dissatisfied with his own poetical essays he threw them into the flames; that is, the sage resolved to sacrifice his verses to the god of fire; and in repeating that line in Homer where Thetis addresses Vulcan to implore his aid, the application became a parody, although it required no other change than the insertion of the philosopher’s name instead of the goddess’s:[3] “Vulcan, arise! ’tis _Plato_ claims thy aid!” Boileau affords a happy instance of this simple parody. Corneille, in his Cid, makes one of his personages remark, “Pour grands que soient les rois ils sont ce que nous sommes, Ils peuvent se tromper comme les autres hommes.” A slight alteration became a fine parody in Boileau’s “Chapelain Décoiflé.” “Pour grands que soient les rois ils sont ce que nous sommes, Ils se trompent _en vers_ comme les autres hommes.”