according to Dr Johnson, means flight satire, or satirical merriment; and a beautiful writer of the last century compares it to a light which dazzles, and which does not burn. It is sometimes innocent and pleasant, and it should always be so, but it is most frequently offensive. Railery is of various kinds; there is a serious, severe, and good-humoured railery; and there is a kind which perplexes, a kind which offends, and a kind which pleases.

To rally well, it is absolutely necessary that kindness run through all you say; and you must ever preserve the character of a friend to support your pretensions to be free with a man. Allusions to past follies, hints to revive what a man has a mind to forget for ever, should never be introduced as the subjects of railery. This is not to thrust with the skill of fencers, but to cut with the barbarity of butchers. But it is below the character of men of humanity and good-breeding to be capable of mirth, while there is any in the company in pain and disorder.