But it is said, the practice is dangerous, and may be inconsistent with the regard we owe to objects of real dignity and excellence. I answer, the practice fairly managed can never be dangerous; men may be dishonest in obtruding circumstances foreign to the object, and we may be inadvertent in allowing those circumstances to impose upon us: but the sense of ridicule always judges right. The Socrates of Aristophanes is as truly ridiculous a character as ever was drawn: --true; but it is not the character of Socrates, the divine moralist and father of ancient wisdom. What then? did the ridicule of the poet hinder the philosopher from detecting and disclaiming those foreign circumstances which he had falsely introduced into his character, and thus rendered the satirist doubly ridiculous in his turn? No; but it nevertheless had an ill influence on the minds of the people. And so has the reasoning of Spinoza made many atheists: he has founded it, indeed, on suppositions utterly false; but allow him these, and his conclusions are unavoidably true. And if we must reject the use of ridicule, because, by the imposition of false circumstances, things may be made to seem ridiculous, which are not so in themselves; why we ought not in the same manner to reject the use of reason, because, by proceeding on false principles, conclusions will appear true which are impossible in nature, let the vehement and obstinate declaimers against ridicule determine. ENDNOTE HH. _'The inexpressive semblance'_, etc.--P. 53. This similitude is the foundation of almost all the ornaments of poetic diction. ENDNOTE II. _'Two faithful needles'_, etc.--P. 55. See the elegant poem recited by Cardinal Bembo in the character of Lucretius.-_Strada Prolus_. vi. _Academ_. 2. c. v. ENDNOTE JJ. _'By these mysterious ties'_, etc.--P. 55. The act of remembering seems almost wholly to depend on the association of ideas. ENDNOTE KK. _'Into its proper vehicle'_, etc.--P. 57. This relates to the different sorts of corporeal mediums, by which the ideas of the artists are rendered palpable to the senses: as by sounds, in music; by lines and shadows, in painting; by diction, in poetry, etc. ENDNOTE LL. _'One pursues The vast alone'_, etc.--P. 61. See the note to ver. 18 of this book. ENDNOTE MM. _'Waller longs'_, etc.--P. 61. Oh! how I long my careless limbs to lay Under the plantane shade; and all the day With amorous airs my fancy entertain, etc. _WALLER, Battle of the Summer-Islands_, Canto I. And again, While in the park I sing, the list'ning deer Attend my passion, and forget to fear, etc. At Pens-hurst. ENDNOTE NN. _'Not a breeze'_, etc.--P. 63.