true melancholy breeds your perfect fine wit," as the motto for Nightmare Abbey. Butler's persiflage, however, covers a more real and permanent pessimism, perhaps because it is directed against the spectacle of the wilfully blind leading the born blind, rather than against a lot of "sentimentalists, chasers after novelty, bilious malcontents."[1]
As was natural, neither was acclaimed by the populace, and neither cared. Peacock had little concern for the British public, which might like him or not, as it pleased; and Butler was content to write for the coming generation, in whose appreciation he placed a not unjustified confidence. Both could afford to publish at their own expense and were willing to do so.
But in spite of their apparent detachment from local affairs, and preoccupation with the past, perhaps indeed for that very reason, these two thoughtful scholars were able to observe their environment keenly and judge it shrewdly. It was the total environment that interested each one, his own Zeitgeist, of which neither approved. Peacock rebelled against the futile ferment and restless experimenting of the first half of the century; Butler protested against the torpid acquiescence and smug complacency of the second.
These attitudes represent the chief contrast between them. Peacock was a calm soul, caught in a vortex. He could not be expected to like it. Butler was a speculative one, pent in a self-satisfied halcyon. He could not like that. What each would have been if exchanged in time with the other, it were idle to guess. But it was no irony of fate that made it the congenial mission of one to
- ↑ Draper: Social Satire of Thomas Love Peacock. Modern Language Notes, XXXIV, 1.
