"My humble pen hath never winged its way Athwart the field satiric, that low plain Which leads to foul rewards, and quick decay."
In the bitterly partisan seventeenth century Sir Thomas
Browne might well say, "It is seldom that men who care
much for the truth write satire." And in the beginning
of the next century we find the confession,—[1]
"Our Satire is nothing but Ribaldry and Billingsgate. Scurrility
passes for wit; and he who can call names in the greatest
variety of phrases, is looked upon to have the shrewdest pen."
A later eighteeth century view is voiced by Cowper:[2]
"Most satirists are indeed a public scourge;
Their mildest physic is a farrier's purge;
Their acrid temper turns, as soon as stirr'd,
The milk of their good purpose all to curd.
Their zeal begotten, as their works rehearse,
By lean despair upon an empty purse,
The wild assassins start into the street,
Prepar'd to poignard whomsoe'er they meet."
It is with reference to this conception, induced by this type of satire, that a modern critic observes, "It is commonly held by the unreflecting that your satirist is bitter, your humorist a jester."[3]
But in the nineteenth century comes a change brought about by two influences: a finer discrimination, which shrinks from passing snap judgments on things in the lump; and a more gracious urbanity, sometimes springing from that humanitarianism which is the Victorian's pride, sometimes masquerading under its guise, sometimes even
