Comments on Sterne. g 5 
folemn paffages by a vicious levity. Rabelais flew 
a higher pitch, too, than Sterne. Great part of 
the voyage to the Pays de Lanternois,* which fo 
feverely fRtigmatizes the vices of the Romifh Clergy 
of that age, was performed in more hazard of fire 
than water. 
The follies of the beennied may as is jultly is 
corrected, as the vices of Hypocrites; but for the 
. former Ridicule is a fufficient punifhment. Ridi- 
dicule is even more effectual to this purpofe, as well 
as more agreeable than feurrility, which is gene- 
rally preferred, notwithftanding, by the learned 
themfelves in their contefts, becaufe Anger feizes 
the readieft weapons; 
Jamque faces et faxa volant; furor arma miniftrat: 
' And where a little “extraordinary Power has 
accidentally been lodged in the hands of difputants, 
they have not ferupled to employ the moft cogent 
methods of convincing their adverfaries. Dionyfius 
the Younger fent thofe Critics who difliked his 
verfes, to work in the Quarries; and there was a 
pleafant Tyrant, mentioned by Horace, who obliged 
his deficient debtors to hear him read his own 
Compofitions, amaras hiftorias, by way of commu- 
tation. I fay nothing of the ‘ holy faith of pike 
and 
* I do not reeolleé& to have feen it obferved by Rabelais’s 
Commentators, that this name, as well as the plan of the 
Satire, is imitated from Lucian’s True Hiftory, Lucian’s 
town is called Lychnopolis, 
+ ,Plutarch, 
