English Satires | Page 9

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 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",[15] 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."[16]
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 decade to come. This then was the literary censor to whom English satire of the post-Drydenic epochs owed so much. Neither Swift nor Pope was ashamed to confess his literary indebtedness to the great Frenchman; nay, Dryden himself has confessed his obligations to Boileau, and in his Discourse on Satire has quoted his authority as absolute. Before pointing out the differences between the Drydenic and post-Drydenic satire let us note very briefly the special characteristics of the former. Apart from the "matter" of his satire, Dryden laid this department of letters under a mighty obligation through the splendid service he rendered by the first successful application of the heroic couplet to satire. Of itself this was a great boon; but his good deeds as regards the "matter" of satiric composition have entirely obscured the benefit he conferred on its manner or technical form. Dryden's four great satires, Absalom and Achitophel, The Medal, MacFlecknoe, and the Hind and the Panther, each exemplify a distinct and important type of satire. The first named is the classical instance of the use of "historic parallels" as applied to the impeachment of the vices or abuses of any age. With matchless skill the story of Absalom is employed not merely to typify, but actually to represent, the designs of Monmouth and his Achitophel--Shaftesbury. The Medal reverts to the type of the classic satire of the Juvenalian order. It is slightly more rhetorical in style, and is partly devoted to a bitter invective against Shaftesbury, partly to an argument as to the unfitness of republican institutions for England, partly to a satiric address to the Whigs. The third of the great series, MacFlecknoe, is Dryden's masterpiece of satiric irony; a purely personal attack upon his rival, Shadwell, "Crowned King of Dulness, and in all the realms of nonsense absolute". Finally, the Hind and the Panther represents a new development of the "satiric fable". Dryden gave to British satire the impulse towards that final form of development which it received from the great satirists of the next century. There is little that appears in Swift, Addison, Arbuthnot, Pope, or even Byron, for which the way was not prepared by the genius of "Glorious John".
Of the famous group which adorned the reign of Queen Anne, Steele lives above all in his Isaac Bickerstaff Essays, the vehicle of admirably pithy and trenchant prose satire upon current political abuses. But, unfortunately for his own fame, his lot was to be associated with the greatest master of this form of composition that has appeared in literature, and the celebrity of the greater writer dimmed that of the lesser. Addison in his papers in the Tatler and the Spectator has brought what may be styled the Essay of Satiric Portraiture--in after days to be developed along other lines by Praed, Charles Lamb, Leigh Hunt, and R.L. Stevenson--to an unsurpassed standard of excellence. Such character studies as those of