great friends, when it is to do ourselves an honour, or the shift of dressing up one who might otherwise be disregarded, to make him pass upon the world for a responsible voucher to our own assertions.
P. 56. v. 5. But now where Jove's.]At this fine episode, in which the gods are introduced, Zoilus has no patience left him to remark, but runs some lines with a long string of such expressions, as trifler, fabler, liar, foolish, impious, all which he lavishly heaps upon the poet. From this knack of calling names, joined with the several arts of finding fault, it is to be suspected, that our Zoiluses might make very able libellers, and dangerous men to the government, if they did not rather turn themselves to be ridiculous censors: for which reason I cannot but reckon the state obliged to men of wit: and under a kind of debt in gratitude, when they take off so much spleen, turbulency, and ill-nature, as might otherwise spend itself to the detriment of the public.
P. 56. v. 21. If my daughter's mind.]This speech, which Jupiter speaks to Pallas with a pleasant kind of air, Zoilus takes gravely to pieces, and affirms, It is below Jupiter's wisdom, and only agreeable with Homer's folly, that he should borrow a reason for her assisting the mice from their attendance in the temple, when they waited to prey upon those things which were sacred to her. But the air of the speech rendering a grave answer unnecessary, I shall only
