marked. The character, too, produces the whole plot of the piece, which is according to the true formula. The writer was fortunate enough to see two performances of this popular piece within a very recent period, and they offered rather a curious contrast. One was

at the St. James's Theatre, brought forward elaborately with all the leading parts "starred"-Mr. Brough and Mr. Farren and Mrs. John Wood in the leading rôles. The other was at the Theatre Royal, Dublin, with Mr. Toole and a stock company. The effect of the first was dull, and the impression left as of a dull, old-fashioned piece; of the last, of something singularly amusing and entertaining. The reason was that at the first house so much was made of every line, the effect became forced and overdone; whereas, at the Dublin Theatre all was given naturally and without effort, in an unpretending way, as it would be in real life. The centre figure stood out in greater relief. But, in truth, Mr. Brough has the true secret of acting, which is earnestness-not the idea of producing "fun" by a certain series of arts and tricks, but by simply conceiving the character, leaving to it the task of producing the result. Hence, after seeing this actor, an audience does not take away, as in Mr. Toole's case, some comic phrase, or mere comic expression or trick, but a general notion of character. Here is his strong point, and one that should commend him to the judicious. But when he departs out of this line and wishes to compete with the average burlesque actor, he shows his deficiency in the coarse, vulgar gifts which make the success of the burlesque player. Thus, his Smith, in "La Belle Sauvage," seemed always forced and stiff-undirected by any purpose or meaning. No; "character" is his department, and by and by, when the reforma which is beginning shall be established, it requires no prophet to foretell that Mr. Brough will develop powers that will surprise even his admirers.

ON THE COMIC WRITERS OF

ENGLAND.

BY CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE.

No. VIII.-ENGLISH SATIRISTS.

SATIRICAL writing is a class of composition attractive to the million, because its object is to expose the weaknesses, follies, or vices of our species; upon the same principle as Drawcansir criticism is always more popular than dispassionate judgment; for the majority would rather read a rough and detracting article upon the production of a popular author than a well-digested analytical treatise on its merits; in the former case, the egotism and self-love (not to say the envy) of mankind are gratified by the thought that great mental structures have their assailable points for attack; and common minds believe that their own position rises in proportion as the higher natures suffer from detraction. Rochefoucauld says, "There is a something in the misfortunes of our friends that is not wholly displeasing to us." This "something" is the vital principle and the aliment of satire. The well-known aphorism upon slanderers is applicable to the satirist: "Like flies, they pass over the healthy parts of a beast, and fix upon its sores."

No class of composition is so uninteresting, and even worthless, as mediocre satire. Indeed, it has no medium; it is like an olive-if not palatable, it is disgusting. Flabby satire is a satire upon satire; a scorpion that turns its sting upon itself. It commits suicide in endeavouring to wound another. When, however, the satirist is a true knight-errant-a redresser of wrongs, a reformer of abuses—and his weapons are polished and keen and tempered and true as his own nature-then his calling becomes an important one, and his mission is sure; for nothing but truth can stand the test of ridicule. Where truth-moral, intellectual, and artistical-is concerned, a compromising satirist is a traitor.

The most eminent of our early English satirists was the celebrated Joseph Hall, Bishop of Exeter and Norwich, born at Ashby-de-laZouch in 1574. He, indeed, claims to himself the honour of being the father of the tribe; for he says:

I first adventure, follow me who list,
And be the second English satirist.

His compositions of this class he divided into two parts, calling the first "toothless satires," from their being merely moral and scholastic; and the second "biting satires," for an obvious reason. These are not distinguished by their poetry, but frequently by their elegance as well as wit; and as specimens of ridicule, as well as indignation, they are eminently fine. In an historical point of view they are also interesting, being illustrations of the existing manners and customs of his age. Hall likewise appears as a prose satirist, in his "Characters of Virtues and Vices," which he gave to the world in 1608. From the sententiousness of his style he has acquired the title of the "English Seneca ;" and his "Meditations" have been compared to the morality and manner of the same Roman philosopher, which qualities he doubtless adopted for his models. His language is always condensed, frequently animated, and at times tender and delicate. The two most vivid of his personal descriptions of "Character" are "The Happy Man" and "The Hypocrite." Here is the concluding paragraph of "The Hypocrite." It is not only suitable to the present purpose, but it exhibits considerably the more power, both in wit and in delineation. One prominent feature in this short quotation, and one which, when well employed, is a distinguishing characteristic of wit, is the felicity with which he employs the paradox. He begins with one :

A hypocrite (he says) is the worst kind of player, by so much that he acts the better part, which hath always two faces, oft-times two hearts; that can compose his forehead to sadness and gravity, while he bids his heart be wanton and careless within; and (in the meantime) laughs within himself to think how smoothly he hath cozened the beholder. In whose silent face are written the characters of religion, which his tongue and gestures pronounce, but his hands recant. That hath a clean face and garment, with a foul soul. Whose mouth belies his heart, and his fingers belie his mouth. . . . He greets his friend in the street with a clear countenance, so fast a closure that the other thinks he reads his heart in his face; and shakes hands with an indefinite invitation of "When will you come?" and when his back is turned, joys that he is so well rid of a guest; yet,

that guest visit him unfeared, he counterfeits a smiling welcome, and excuses his cheer, when closely he frowns on his wife for too much. He shows well, and he says well, and himself is the worst thing he hath. In brief, he is the stranger's saint; the neighbour's disease; the blot of goodness; a rotten stick in a dark night; the poppy in a corn-field; an ill-tempered candle with a great snuff, that in going out smells ill; an angel abroad, and a devil at home; and worse when an angel than when a devil.

The surprise, the truth, and the wit of that last paradox have surely never been surpassed. Pope-no mean authority, and especially upon such a subject-entertained, and always expressed, the highest opinion of Hall's genius.

One essay in this series having been devoted to the illustrious author of "Hudibras," I pass (with this simple reference) to his eminent contemporary, the witty Lord Rochester.

When some miserable wretch lies charged with an atrocious crime, there is no lack of daily agents to supply the gaping multitude with tales of enormity imputed to his charge, the greater part being pure fictions. This was the fortune of Lord Rochester, who was by nature one of the most brilliant, as he was by practice the most perilously licentious, wit of his age. In the collected editions of his poems-or poems attributed to him-a large proportion of them are so unworthy of his talent that it were unbelievable he could have so written below himself. The man had quite enough to answer for on the score of moral delinquency without having stupidity as well as indecency heaped upon his memory. But, indeed, the amount of natural ability that he possessed, and the proofs of it adduced by the testimony of the best judges (his contemporaries), justified his candidature to a niche with the satirists. He was evidently a spoiled child of the Court at the Restoration; for upon his early introduction to that world of ribaldry, he is said to have been remarkable for the modesty of his demeanour, even to a tendency to blush, when distinguished in company. His "virgin modesty," however, soon became casehardened in the Court furnace, and strange indeed was the course he ran.

With an inborn talent for shedding a lustre over the horizon of the gayest and most intellectual circles, he did not decline hazarding his person in the rudest warfare. He was a volunteer in the great Dutch fight under Albemarle; and was afterwards in the desperate affair at Berghem. Nothing but excess of excitement, and of triumph in everything he undertook, seemed to content him.

Rochester also inherited from nature a noble generosity of disposition, an invariable affability of demeanour, and a repugnance to all meanness in whatever station he found it; which he vented upon prince or commoner in a strain of invective as surprising for its intrepidity as in its diction it was copious and forcible. Marvell, who was no feeble or partial judge, and was himself a keen satirist, used to say that "Rochester was the only man in England who had the true vein of satire." It is to be presumed that Marvell would consider Butler as a "star dwelling so far apart" that with him no comparison could be instituted. Bishop Burnett also, when speaking of Rochester, says that he defended his personal sallies against public characters by saying that "there were some people who could not be kept in order, or admonished, but in that way." It has been said

that "some brains will yield to an appeal, others only to a crow-bar."

Before his last illness Rochester began to alter his way of life, and to inform himself of public business, and especially of the constitution of his country. He spoke at times in the House of Peers with general approbation; and there is little doubt that, with his uncommon powers of understanding, he would have become as celebrated for his acuteness in civil policy as he had already been the admiration of the literary community for the remarkable fluency as well as versatility of his wit and fancy. His reform, however, commenced too late; and, like other wits of the same era, he seemed to have lived, as it were, in an atmosphere of hydro-oxygen, kindling the vital spark to an intensity of splendour, and thereby anticipating its natural resources. Worn out with intemperance, he died in the bosom of Mother Church, at the early age of thirty-three.

One branch of Rochester's talent consisted in the most successful mimicry. When he was banished from the Court, for some personal libel on the Duke of York (James II.), whom he pursued with implacable hatred, and when he was, in fact, playing at hide-and-seek with the civil powers, he upon one occasion turned mountebank, and harangued the populace upon Tower Hill in a strain of extraordinary cleverness, acting his part of the quack with such truth that even those who were in his secret could perceive nothing by which he might be betrayed.

Rochester's satires are by no means to be indiscriminately instanced; and the keenest are the least tolerable anywhere. Here are four lines from his "Satire on the Times," quoted solely to give an idea of the rough and bold speaking of that age, when even the highest persons in the State became the objects of a lynch-law vituperation. In the reign of Charles II. licence of speech and licentiousness of morals appear to have struggled for a bad preeminence—each a natural consequence of the other; and the conse quence was as fortunate as natural; for, like the Kilkenny cats, they devoured each other. This is the passage of personality alluded to: it is an attack upon the same Duke of York, who was Lord High Admiral. Its coarse insolence forms its distinguishing feature:

This is the man whose vice each satire feeds;
And for whom no one virtue intercedes:

Destin'd for England's plague from infant time;
Curs'd with a person fouler than his crime.

Rochester's poem on "Nothing" has been justly celebrated for its wit and originality; indeed, it comprises more novelty of thought and