SATIRE 



169 



the mock romance, Marnix and the writers of 

 Reynard the Fox the beast-fable, Voltaire fictitious 

 travels, Moliere and Gay plays, John Barclay the 

 allegory, James and Horace Smith the parody. 

 Pictorial illustration was turned to splendid pur- 

 pose as a satiric weapon by Hogarth, and by the 

 caricaturists ( Rowlandson, Gilray ) and cartoonists 

 of more modern times ; and medals even have been 

 put to satiric purposes. 



Ancient Greece, though she never produced a 

 school of satire, had in Aristophanes and others 

 men of the highest satiric genius. Archilochus 

 (720-680 B.C.) is the 6rst we read of as having 

 used the iambic metre for the purposes of satire. 

 He wrote with such effect that certain of his 

 victims are said to have gone and hanged them- 

 selves. Simonides of Amorgus and Hipponax of 

 Ephesus intervene between Archilochus and Aris- 

 tophanes. The last named is the most brilliant 

 representative of the Athenian Old Comedy, the 

 writers of which, bold and outspoken, constituted 

 themselves censors of public morality and critics 

 of current events. Satire as a special branch 

 of literature was the creation, the only original 

 literary creation, of the practical -minded Romans. 

 It grew out of the rude dramatic medleys (satune) 

 with which, in primitive republican times, the citi- 

 zens were wont to be diverted on the occasion of 

 large festive gatherings. The father of poetical 

 satire was Luciliu.s, who criticised boldly ana freely, 

 equally without moral indignation and without 

 any desire to provoke laughter. It is, however, 

 Horace and Juvenal whose names are principally 

 associated with Roman satire. Both expended 

 their chief efforts upon social topics ; but whilst 

 the former uses satire as a medium for recording 

 his personal tastes and distastes, and enlarging 

 on his own experience, and writes with the easy 

 good-nature of a thorough man of the world, 

 Juvenal dwells upon the tragic and sombre aspects 

 of the society of his time ( the age of Domitian and 

 Trajan ), and denounces them with the scornful 

 indignation of the moralist. Horace is i In- model, 

 the archetype of 'classic satire,' the form that was 

 imitated or adapted by the French satirist* of the 

 school of Boileau and by their English successors. 

 For grim intensity of scorn and sustained power of 

 invective Juvenal's work has never been equalled ; 

 indeed the only man who can at all be put on the 

 same level with him is Dean Swift. The Greek 

 Lucian, and the Romans Persius, Petronius, 

 Martial, and Apuleius, all wrote satire, but in 

 different forms ; and some of the strongest satire 

 ever written stands in the grave pages of the his- 

 torian Tacitus. 



During the long night of the dark ages satire, 

 like most other branches of good literature, was 

 almost entirely neglected. It began to revive 

 in the 10th century : certain of the early versions 

 of Reynard the Fox (e.g. Reinardus Vulpes and 

 Reinsert Von) are thinly disguised satires on the 

 clergy. This class continued a favourite butt until 

 past the Reformation ; they were attacked, for 

 instance, by the goliards, wandering scholars with 

 a turn for witty buffoonery, who jotted down their 

 effusions in doggerel Latin verse. Walter Mapes, 

 whose name is connected with the preservation of 

 the Grail legends, wrote (12th century) vigorous 

 Latin verses in the same strain. 



The first notable name in the annals of English 

 satire is that of William Langland, who in Piers 

 Plowman inveighs against the clergy and mendi- 

 cant orders, the law-courts, and abuses gener- 

 ally. Skelton, wlio railed at Wolsey, and at 

 the clergy, was perhaps the wildest and most 

 reckless of English satirists. Thomas Nash, one 

 of the most able opponents of the Martin Mar- 

 prelate writers, puts a good deal of strong vitupera- 



tion into his Anatomie of Absurdity (1589). The 

 invectives of Gosson and Stubbes are not satire, 

 for they are hardly literature. In the same 

 century Scotland had two satirists of rare quality, 

 one in Sir David Lvndsay, whose Satyre of 

 the Thrie Estaitis, written in the vernacular, 

 helped to pave the way for the Reformation, 

 and the other in George Buchanan, the ripest 

 scholar of his country, who made the Franciscans 

 smart under his cutting irony. Bishop Joseph 

 Hall and John Donne are chiefly notable as the 

 forerunners of Dryden and Pope, both writing 

 classic satire in the heroic verse measure. Then 

 came John Barclay, the author of the clever politi- 

 cal allegory Argents ( 1621 ) ; Andrew Marvel), who 

 was very skilful in the use of banter, with which 

 he assailed the private and social corruptions of the 

 reign of the second Charles ; Oldham ( lii.Mi s:i i. an 

 imitator of Horace and Juvenal, and a writer who 

 in spite of much extravagance had something of the 

 gift of true satiric wrath, which he expended upon 

 the Jesuits ; and Congreve, the master of witty 

 repartee, who went in for light lampooning, and 

 in The Double-dealer and other pieces ridiculed the 

 fashionables of the Restoration. But the reputa- 

 tions of all these is eclipsed by Samuel Butler, the 

 writer of Huilibnu, a burlesque character-sketch, 

 in doggerel rhymes, of the Puritan anti-royalist. 

 He was seconded, though at a long distance, by 

 the royalist Cleveland, who enjoyed great popu- 

 larity in his day for his satires on Cromwell and 

 the Scotch. The greatest English writer in the 

 Held of classic satire was John Dryden ; a manly, 

 large-hearted man, a stranger to meanness and 

 spite, he spoke out boldly and dealt downright 

 stunning blows, pouring the most unsparing 

 ridicule upon Shaftesbury, the supporters ol Mon- 

 iimiiili, the literary satellites of the Whigs, and 

 the poet Shadwell. Amongst others who had 

 to repent for having provoked 'Glorious John' 

 were the Duke of Buckingham, author of the 

 Rehearsal, and Tom Brown 'of facetious memory.' 

 The reign of Anne is, however, the golden age of 

 English satire, its brightest ornaments being 

 Swift, Pope, and Addison. The first named is 

 both philosophical and personal in his treatment, 

 and writes with marvellous force of invective and 

 savage scorn. Pope, as a man almost the direct 

 opposite of the masculine Swift, had a wholly 

 inimitable way of putting things, with the finest 

 point and precision, elegance and ease, and the 

 keenest wit. His satire is by preference personal, 

 strongly spiced with malice, and feminine spite, 

 and elfish fun. Next to these two conies Addison, 

 whose subtle irony and exquisite literary touch 

 and admirable character-sketching are familiar to 

 all readers of good English. Gay, the friend of 

 satirists, had literary partnerships with Swift, 

 Po|>e, and Arbuthnot, and won enormous success 

 with /'/" Beggar*' Opera, a hit at the social 

 vices of the day. Dr Arbuthnot, the chief if not 

 sole author of Martinus Scriblerus, in which he 

 gibbeted the pedantic follies of antiquaries and 

 metaphysicians, is best known for his History of 

 John Bull, an amusing attack on Marlborough 

 and the war policy of the Whigs. Dr Johnson too 

 tried his hand at satire, and wrote London and The 

 Vanity of Unman Wishes in free imitation of 

 Juvenal. Young of the Night Thoughts wrote on 

 The Universal Passion ( i.e. love of fame ), but with- 

 out much point. Charles Churchill is the most 

 important satirist between Pope and Byron. A 

 literary swashbuckler, he assailed with plenty of 

 Drydenic vigour the actors, critics, and opponents 

 of Wilkes (of whom he was a rabid partisan), as 

 well as Dr Johnson, Warlmrton, and other indi- 

 viduals. Sir C. Hanbury Williams, one of Wai- 

 pole's men, was accounted by his admirers a 



