satiric romance, or, in other words, the adaptation of the "Milesian tale" of Petronius to state affairs. During the Parliamentary War, satire was the only species of composition which did not suffer more or less eclipse, but its character underwent change. It became to a large extent a medium for sectarian bitterness. It lost its catholicity, and degenerated in great measure into the instrument of partisan antagonism, and a means of impaling the folly or fanaticism, real or imagined, of special individuals among the Cavaliers and Roundheads.1 Of such a character was the bulk of the satires produced at that time. In a few instances, however, a higher note was struck, as, for example, when dignified political satire", in the hands of Andrew Marvell, was utilized to fight the battle of freedom of conscience in the matter of the observances of external religion. The Rehearsal Transposed, Mr. Smirke, or the Divine in Mode, and his Political Satires are masterpieces of lofty indignation mingled with grave and ironical banter. Among many others Edmund Waller showed himself an apt disciple of Horace, and produced charming social satires marked by delicate wit and raillery in the true Horatian mode; while the Duke of Buckingham, in the Rehearsal, utilized the dramatic parody to travesty the plays of Dryden. Abraham Cowley, in the Mistress, also imitated Horace, and in his play Cutter of Coleman Street satirized the Puritans' affectation of superior sanctity and their affected style of conversation. Then came John Oldham and John Cleiveland, who both accepted 1 English Literature, by Prof. Craik. Hannay's Satires and Satirists. Juvenal as their model. Cleiveland's antipathy towards Cromwell and the Scots was on a par with that of John Wilkes towards the latter, and was just as unreasonable, while the language he employed in his diatribes against both was so extravagant as to lose its sarcastic point in mere vulgar abuse. In like manner Oldham's Satires on the Jesuits afford as disgraceful a specimen of sectarian bigotry as the language contains. Only their pungency and wit render them readable. He displays Juvenal's violence of invective without his other redeeming qualities. All these, however, were entirely eclipsed in reputation by a writer who made the mock-epic the medium through which the bitterest onslaught on the anti-royalist party and its principles was delivered by one who, as a "king's man", was almost as extreme a bigot as those he satirized. The Hudibras of Samuel Butler, in its mingling of broad, almost extravagant, humour and sneering mockery has no parallel in our literature. Butler's characters are rather mere "humours" or qualities than real personages. There is no attempt made to observe the modesty of nature. Hudibras, therefore, is an example not so much of satire, though satire is present in rich measure also, as of burlesque. The poem is genuinely satirical only in those parts where the author steps in as the chorus, so to speak, and offers pithy moralizings on what is taking place in the action of the story. There is visible throughout the poem, however, a lack of restraint that causes him to overdo his part. Were Hudibras shorter, the satire would be more effective. Though in parts often as terse in style as GOLDEN AGE OF ENGLISH SATIRE xxxiii Pope's best work, still the poem is too long, and it undoes the force of its attack on the Puritans by its exaggeration. All these writers, even Butler himself, simply prepared the way for the man who is justly regarded as England's greatest satirist. The epoch of John Dryden has been fittingly styled the "Golden Age of English Satire". To warrant this description, however, it must be held to include the writers of the reign of Queen Anne. The Elizabethan period was perhaps richer, numerically speaking, in representatives of certain types of satirical composition, but the true perfection, the efflorescence of the long-growing plant, was reached in that era which extended from the publication of Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel (Part I.) in 1681 to the issue of Pope's Dunciad in its final form in 1742. During these sixty years appeared the choicest of English satires, to wit, all Dryden's finest pieces, the Medal, MacFlecknoe, and Absalom and Achitophel, Swift's Tale of a Tub, and his Miscellanies-among which his best metrical satires appeared; all Defoe's work, too, as well as Steele's in the Tatler, and Addison's in the Spectator, Arbuthnot's History of John Bull, Churchill's Rosciad, and finally all Pope's poems, including the famous "Prologue" as well as the "Epilogue" to the Satires. It is curious to note how the satirical succession (if the phrase be permitted) is maintained uninterruptedly from Bishop Hall down to the death of Pope-nay, we may even say down to the age of Byron, to whose epoch one may trace something like a continuous tradi 1 Life of Dryden, by Sir Walter Scott. Saintsbury's Life of Dryden. (M 569) с tion. Hall did not die until Dryden was twentyseven years of age. Pope delighted to record that, when a boy of twelve years of age, he had met "Glorious John ", though the succession could be passed on otherwise through Congreve, one of the most polished of English satirical writers, whom Dryden complimented as "one whom every muse and grace adorn", while to him also Pope dedicated his translation of the Iliad. Bolingbroke, furthermore, was the friend and patron of Pope, while the witty St. John, in turn, was bound by ties of friendship to Mallet, who passed on the succession to Goldsmith, Sheridan, Ellis, Canning, Moore, and Byron. Thereafter satire begins to fall upon evil days, and the tradition cannot be so clearly traced. But satire, during this "succession", did not remain absolutely the same. She changed her garb with her epoch. Thus the robust bludgeoning of Dryden and Shadwell, of Defoe, Steele, D'Urfey, and Tom Brown, gave place to the sardonic ridicule of Swift, the polished raillery of Arbuthnot, and the double-distilled essence of acidulous sarcasm present in the Satires of Pope. There is as marked a difference between the Drydenic and the Swiftian types of satire, between that of Cleiveland and that of Pope, as between the diverse schools known as the "Horatian" and the "Juvenalian". The cause of this, over and above the effect produced by prolonged study of these two classical models, was the overwhelming influence exercised on his age by the great French critic and satirist, Boileau. Difficult 1 Thackeray's English Humorists. Hannay's Satires and Satirists. indeed it is for us at the present day to understand the European homage paid to Boileau. As Hannay says, "He was a dignified classic figure supposed to be the model of fine taste". His word was law in the realm of criticism, and for many years he was known, not alone in France, but throughout a large portion of Europe, as "The Lawgiver of Parnassus". Prof. Dowden, referring to his critical authority, remarks: "The genius of Boileau was in a high degree intellectual, animated by ideas. As a moralist he is not searching or profound; he saw too little of the inner world of the heart, and knew too imperfectly its agitations. When, however, he deals with literature-and a just judgment in letters may almost be called an element in morals-all his penetration and power become apparent. To clear the ground for the new school of nature, truth, and reason was Boileau's first task. It was a task which called for courage and skill . . . he struck at the follies and affectations of the world of letters, and he struck with force. It was a needful duty, and one most effectively performed. . . . Boileau's influence as a critic of literature can hardly be overrated; it has much in common with the influence of Pope on English literature, beneficial as regards his own time, somewhat restrictive and even tyrannical upon later generations." "2 Owing to the predominance of French literary modes in England, this was the man whose influence, until nearly the close of last century, was paramount in England even when it was most bitterly disclaimed. Boileau's Satires were published during 1660-70, and he himself died in 1711; but, though dead, he still ruled for many a 1 Satire and Satirists, by James Hannay. Lecture III. |