Page:The Hind and Panther transvers'd to the story of the country mouse and the city mouse (1709).djvu/9



Favourers of the Hind and Panther will be apt to say in its Defence, That the best things are capable of being turn'd to Ridicule; that Homer has been Burlesque'd, and Virgil Travested without suffering any thing in their Reputation from that Buffoonry; and that in like manner, the Hind and the Panther'' may be an exact Poem tho' 'tis the Subject of our Raillery: But there is this difference, that those Authors are wrested from their true Sense, and this naturally falls into Ridicule; there is nothing Represented here as monstrous and unnatural, which is not equally so in the Original. First as to the General Design, Is it not as ease to imagine two Mice bilking Coachmen, and Supping at the Devil; as to suppose a Hind entertaining the Panther at a Hermit's Cell, discussing the greatest Mysteries of Religion, and telling you her Son Rodriguez writ very good Spanish? What can be more improbable''