temporary of Shakespeare, and afterwards the celebrated divine, whose life has been so beautifully written by Izaak Walton, wrote some excellent satires. But before him Mr. Hannay rightly classes Bishop Hall, "as the great opener of our formal and classic satire, i. e., the special satirical poem in the heroic metre.' As Hall's satires have been almost eclipsed by his later writings as a divine, a specimen of his poetic powers will probably be found interesting. Warton truly says, "The figure of a famished gallant, or beau, in this satire is much better drawn than any of the old comedies." I extract these lines from Mr. Singer's admirable edition of Hall, "See'st thou how gaily my young master goes, So little in his purse, so much upon his back? So nothing in his maw? Yet seemeth by his belt That his gaunt gut no too much stuffing felt. See'st thou how side [loose] it hangs beneath his hip? To dine with Duke Humphrey was to fast. The allusion is to a tomb in St. Paul's Cathedral-a common resort of the idle and needy in that age. HALL-DONNE.—BUTLER. Yet for all that how stiffly struts he by, What needed he fetch that from farthest Spain His hair, French-like, stares on his frighted head, As if he meant to wear a native cord If chance his fates should him that bane afford. Where thousand double turnings never met: Did never sober nature so conjoin. Lik'st a strawne scarecrow in the new-sown field 207 Both Hall's and Donne's satires, however, had grown antiquated even in Pope's time, and the little-great Alexander tried to modernise much that Donne had written; but who would not rather read Donne in his own language than in Pope's? Butler's "Hudibras" is, perhaps-though never completed the most perfect work of its kind ever written. "We know little about Butler's history, says Dr. Johnson; "all that we know of him with certainty is that he was poor." To this we may add, that he was admired to be neglected, and that he wrote a learned, odd, and witty satire that will live as long as our tongue lasts. Hypocrisy, and religious hypocrisy especially, gets well mauled, beaten, and handled in such lines as these against those who would by force make people good: Such as do build their faith upon The holy text of pike and gun; And prove their doctrine orthodox For nothing else but to be mended; That with more care keep holiday Throughout this satiric poem, in which the Puritans of HE preceding chapter closed with the His grandeur he derived from Heaven above, Made him not greater seem, but greater grow,— lived John Dryden, a true poet, and one of the greatest of our satirists. Certainly, in the satire of heroic or tensyllable verse, no one can on the whole be compared with Dryden, although in ease, majesty, and fluency of expression, Charles Churchill comes very near him. The great political satires of the former are now admired simply for their wonderful power of delineating individual character; but they are so great, in all essentials of satire, that one almost regrets that the poet did not write more generally. Take, however, P as a finished picture, that of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, or that of Shaftesbury, or even that of Settle. Dryden was a busy literary workman, and "whatever he touched he adorned." He not only translated Virgil, but assisted in a translation of Juvenal, thus bringing to our doors, in sound, healthy English, the most vigorous of Latin satirists. How honestly this manly writer hated vice and folly we can judge from the ease with which the splendid living lines leap from his pen. His life was, for a literary man, not unprosperous; he worked hard for his bread, was the recognized chief of authors, and when he died was buried in Westminster Abbey, leaving no greater master of the English language behind him: he was a model for all English satirists. After him, between his death and the rise and culmination of Pope (1688-1744), there was a pause in the singing. Mediocre poets and base imitators had possession of the stage; foolish noblemen, who wrote because it was fashionable, and young clergymen, or Templars, who thought that living by literature was an easy profession, sprung up, and swelled the "mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease.” This interval, however, was but short; for, as a critic has remarked, old John Dryden bore fruit to the last, and young Pope was early in flower and in fruit. The satires of Alexander Pope are particularly worthy of careful perusal by the student bent on self-improvement. Our author's nature as a man had, as is always the case, an immense effect in moulding his character as an author. Small, delicate, deformed; of weak health, and of a timid, retiring disposition, the young poet had a vivid, quick, and correct intellect, prompt to seize, ready to analyze character, and eager to note |