THE NEW SCIENCE AND POETRY 113 



This high satiric ideal, however, was not always followed. Too 

 many writers of verse found **the easiest way to be witty is to 

 be cynical";* others were "goaded into inspiration" by malice 

 or personal grudge; others, still, followed the fashion set by their 

 betters and railed indiscriminately against the world; too few 

 sought with fairness and candor to discover truth and laugh fol- 

 lies away. Satiric verse, like the satiric comedy, exploited the 

 humors of men. Weaknesses were exaggerated; foibles were mag- 

 nified; characters were defamed. To the satirists men were either 

 "Fools" or "Knaves", and this age was counted the most de- 

 plorable in the history of the world. Their general attitude was 

 one of contempt. "However exalted the satirist's aims, or aimable 

 his temper, a basis of contempt is the ground work of his art".^ 

 "A man could not write with life unless he were heated by re- 

 venge," said Burnett of the Earl of Rochester.^" 



It was not to be expected, therefore, that the new philosophers 

 would receive fair treatment from these wits, or that the new ideas 

 would find appreciation among them. In spite of their protests 

 to the contrary the satirists were looking for someone or something 

 from which to raise a laugh. "To make jests, to live and move in 

 the ludicrous, to find fun in everything under heaven and over 

 hell, or even within these realms themselves, so far as they were 

 voted to exist, was the business of the popular Restoration writ- 

 gpgMii They were merciless in their ridicule and undiscriminat- 

 ing in their attacks. Hence, the new science was an easy prey for 

 them, for "of all men the most subject to ridicule are philoso- 

 phers".^- 



Early in the period rises the sullen and morose figure of Samuel 

 Butler, whose poetic fame rests upon Hudibras. In this poem he 

 ridicules with utter abandon "every theory of the physical order 

 of the universe, whether founded on the deductive or inductive 

 system of philosophy ".^^ His attack was aimed primarily at as- 

 trology. Sidrophel and his servant Whachum embody that 

 pseudo-science. But the claims of the master are unbounded, — 



* Stephens, Leslie, History of the Literature and Society in 18th Cent., p. 63. 



^Ency. Brit., XXI, p. 317, 15th Ed. 



^^ Lives, p. 204. 



^1 Masson, David, Life of Milton, vol. VI, p. 343. 



1= Ibid. vol. VI, p. 284. 



" Courthope, J. W., Hist, of Eng. Poetry, vol. Ill, p. 304. 



