112 TIIE NEW SCIENCE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE 



I 



The satirists of the period, the "Wits and Railleurs", repre- 

 sent in general one kind of attitude and may, therefore, be classed 

 together. Their avowed purpose was to unmask pretense; they 

 professed to Avage war against vice. "Sincere or not, satire is 

 essentially a kind of writing which pretends to unmask pretense".^ 

 Joseph Hall, the father of this kind of verse in England, wrote, — 

 "The satire should be like the porcupine 

 That shoots sharp quilles out in each angry line, 

 And wounds the blushing cheek and fiery eye 

 Of him that hears, and readeth guiltily. 



Meanwhile, sufficeth me, the world may say 



That I these vices loath 'd another day. "^ 



Andrew Marvell eloquently declared that "when the sword 



glitters over the judge's head and the churchmen are silenced 



through fear, then is the poet's time, 'tis then he drawls and single 



fights forsaken virtues cause."* "Satire," wrote Dryden, "is a 



kind of poetry invented for the purging of our mind; 



in which human vices, ignorance, and errors, and all things be- 

 sides, which are produced from them in every man are severely 

 reprehended".^ Swuft said, "There are tw^o ends that men pro- 

 pose in writing satire, one private satisfaction and pleas- 

 ure of the writer the other a public spirit 



prompting men of genius and virtue to mend the world as far as 

 they are able"." The great master of satiric verse. Pope, added, — 

 "And indeed there is not in the world a greater error, than that 

 which Fools are so apt to fall into, and Knaves with good reason 

 to encourage, the mistaking a satirist for a Libeller; whereas to 

 a true Satirist nothing is so odious as a Libeller, for the same 

 reason as to a man truly virtuous nothing is so hateful as a Hypo- 

 crite."^ The purpose of satire, thus expounded, seems worthy 

 and justifiable. No man need be ashamed to fight for virtue and 

 truth against vice and error. 



» Wendell, Barrett, The Temper of the 17th Century Lit. p. 336. 



•Hall, Joseph, Bk. Y, Sat. III. 



♦Marvell, Andrew, Tom May's Death, 11, 63-66. 



* Dryden, John, Essay on Satire. 



* Intelligencer III. 



' Pope, Alexander, Satire and Epistles of Horace, Advertisement. 



