A man may be capable, as Jack Ketch's[41] wife said of his servant, of a plain piece of work, a bare hanging; but to make a malefactor die sweetly, was only belonging to her husband. I wish I could apply it to myself, if the reader would be kind enough to think it belongs to me. The character of Zimri in my "Absalom," is, in my opinion, worth the whole poem: it is not bloody, but it is ridiculous enough; and he, for whom it was intended, was too witty to resent it as an injury.[42] If I had railed, I might have suffered for it justly; but I managed my own work more happily, perhaps more dexterously. I avoided the mention of great crimes, and applied myself to the representing of blind-sides, and little extravagancies; to which, the wittier a man is, he is generally the more obnoxious. It succeeded as I wished; the jest went round, and he was laughed at in his turn who began the frolic. And thus, my lord, you see I have preferred the manner of Horace, and of your lordship, in this kind of satire, to that of Juvenal, and I think, reasonably. Holyday ought not to have arraigned so great an author, for that which was his excellency and his merit: or if he did, on such a palpable mistake, he might expect that some one might possibly arise, either in his own time, or after him, to rectify his error, and restore to Horace that commendation, of which he has so unjustly robbed him. And let the manes of Juvenal forgive me, if I say, that this way of Horace was the best for amending manners, as it is the most difficult. His was an _ense rescindendum_; but that of Horace was a pleasant cure, with all the limbs preserved entire; and, as our mountebanks tell us in their bills, without keeping the patient within doors for a day. What they promise only, Horace has effectually performed: yet I contradict not the proposition which I formerly advanced. Juvenal's times required a more painful kind of operation; but if he had lived in the age of Horace, I must needs affirm, that he had it not about him. He took the method which was prescribed him by his own genius, which was sharp and eager; he could not rally, but he could declaim; and as his provocations were great, he has revenged them tragically. This notwithstanding, I am to say another word, which, as true as it is, will yet displease the partial admirers of our Horace. I have hinted it before, but it is time for me now to speak more plainly.