1593.

the needed encouragement. There is no trace of that centon. As to the five satires contained in the Fig for Momus,' the preface quoted leaves little to be added. The importance of them lies in their form rather than in their matter or intrinsic merit. Lodge takes Juvenal for his model, and in the fifth satire follows the tenth satire of Juvenal closely. But his denunciations are of too general a character to have much interest, and his style is too much steeped in euphuism to redeem that defect.1

Of his other works in this line, 'Truth's complaint over England' is a fairly vigorous satirical poem, the exact meaning of which is concealed under an allegory, a course dictated alike by prudence and fashion, but which, it must be admitted, somewhat spoils the satire.

'Catharos-a Nettle for Nice Noses' is a rabid and pedantic prose-dialogue of no merit. It abounds in this sort of stuff, put in the mouth of Diogenes: 'My friend, sayth the shoemaker, your shooe is good on the last, but whoso puts it on shall find small peniworth in the lasting.' The 'Alarum against Usurers' is a tedious moral story of no merit.

Lodge, as we have hinted, dabbled in almost every style of literature, and was too anxious to have his oar in every paper boat' to achieve very great success; but we must give him the credit he deserves for being the introducer into English of the satire in heroics, which passed from him, through Hall and Donne, to Dryden, Pope, Churchill, and Byron.

The MSS. of two of Donne's satires are, indeed, dated 1593, earlier, that is, than the publication of Lodge's Momus.' Donne is the chief of that meta

1 It is worth noting that in the same volume Lodge published some Epistles to various friends in heroic verse-also the first of their kind in English.

physical school which delighted in 'the irregular and eccentric violence of wit."1

His satire is fresh, but too often, like the elegies, extremely coarse. The see-saw style of reading does not suit his lines, which have a deep and subtle music of their own."2 This, however, is often spoilt by the metrical roughness deliberately affected by classical satirists of this period.3 The Romans allowed licences in this branch of literature; their object was to preserve the free, open-air character of the satiric muse. But the satires of Horace, Persius, and Juvenal are only harsh when compared, not with the crude vigour of Ennius, but with the correctness of Virgil's Epic and the curiosa felicitas of Horace's 'Odes."4 Donne and his fellows, on the other hand, are uncouth, even in comparison with the imperfect precisians of their own day. This slavish copying of Roman models-especially of Persius, the most crabbed of them all-is responsible also for the deliberate obscurity of allusion and the air of imitation which mar the poetical satirists of the Elizabethan period. But the gain is greater than the loss; for without these classical models English satiric poetry would not so readily have found the proper form in which to express itself, or a canon by which to test its material.

Donne, however, is not so wilfully obscure as Hall. In his matter he is pungent, but never angry. He knows how to proportion his criticism. Vices he treats not too gently, but he deals lightly with vanities. Sometimes he laughs out joyously, some

1 Johnson, 'Life of Cowley.'

2 Cf. Craik's 'History of English Literature.'
As prone to ill, and of good as forget-
Full, as proud, lustfull, and as much in debt.'

3 E.g.,

Sat. iv. 13.

4 Petronius, Satyr. 118: 'Horatii curiosa felicitas.'

1608.

times you catch a sob of unutterable sorrow and remorse;1 but you will not find in him that extravagant exaggeration and only half-sincere denunciation of contemporary vice and folly which Marston and Hall borrowed from Juvenal. The cry Omne in præcipiti vitium stetit-The world is worse than ever it was-disfigures many English satirists, and not least the learned and voluminous Bishop Hall.

Like Donne, Hall thought it necessary for a satire to be hard of conceit and harsh of style'; but, for all that, he lets us see that he is a master of style, and the fabric of the couplets in 'Virgidemiarum approaches much nearer to the standard of Pope. Unlike Donne, he can raise a laugh without the aid of quibbles and conceits. But, though his felicitous phrases, racy humour, and intrepid invective are pleasing for a while, the author's too obvious delight in laying bare the frailty of mankind soon nauseates the reader. Saturnine is the epithet to be applied to his wit. The real value of his work lies in the realistic portraiture of men and manners. 'Mundus Alter et Idem' he ventures not unsuccessfully into the domain of satirical fiction. There he proves himself more akin to the author of 'Gulliver' than to the author of 'Rasselas.' Unfortunately, it is written in Latin-the language of More's 'Utopia,' and of Erasmus' Encomium Moriæ.' Hall, in his 'Vertus and Vices,' also set the example of writing character studies, after the manner of Theophrastus -an example quickly followed by Dr. Earle, and later by Sir Thomas Överbury. These 'characters'

1 See his sermons passim.

In

2 Their contemporary Regnier could have taught them to avoid this fault in moral preaching.

3 Juvenal, i. 149.

4 Rede Me and be nott Wroth.'
Postscript to 'Virgidemiarum.'

gave plenty of scope for satire and epigrammatic description.

Hall comes nearest of any at that period to the classical prototypes. The influence of Persius is reflected in occasional crabbed obscurities and ellipses; there are reminiscences also of Horace, but Juvenal is the great master whom he imitates at every turn,1 both in his view of life and his tricks of style, especially in that artifice of making his illustrations and allusions themselves satirical. Taking pleasure in detecting faults, Hall was indiscriminate in his literary criticism; thus he was led into conflict with Milton on the one hand and Marston on the other.

John Marston's3 castigation of living characters was but thinly disguised, and brought upon him rebukes from Ben Jonson, who ridiculed his somewhat absurd vocabulary, from Hall, and from anonymous writers. Of these, the author of 'The Whippinge of the Satyre' says truly enough,

'He scourgeth villainies in young and old

As boys scourge tops for sport on Lenten day.'

Decidedly, the author of the licentious 'Pigmalion's Image' was not likely to prove a sincere satirist. Marston, however, had a considerable power of ridicule and of incisive description. More facile than Hall, he is less pedantic. Hall thinks deeper, and is more obscure; Marston is clear, but less acute and less epigrammatic. Hall is more humorous and forced; Marston more acrimonious, but also more natural.

1

'Renowned Aquine, now I follow thee
Farre as I may for feare of jeopardie.'
Lib. v., Sat. i. 8.

2 Milton, Apology for Smectymnus.'

3'Pigmalion's Image and Certain Satyres' and 'Scourge of Villainie.'

• Crispinus in the 'Poetaster.'

1598.

1610.

1613.

Marston, indeed, was more of a satirist in his dramatic work than in his avowed satires, where he rails in a harsh and disconnected fashion at the affectations and effeminacies of his time. But his railing is that of a boisterous buffoon, and the 'Scourge of Villainie' proves him the foulest writer of his time.

In the great era of dramatic writing on which we have now entered, criticism of life and manners naturally found its chief expression on the stage. The Histrio-mastix,' the Poetaster,' and the 'Satiro-mastix " are examples of this tendency, which needs no further illustration.

In the region of pure satire, the Abuses Stript and Whipt' of George Wither earned for its author a long imprisonment in the Marshalsea. It is a vague and somewhat profuse condemnation of the vices of the time, lacking both vigour and wit, and we cannot help sharing Lamb's wonder that these perfectly general denunciations of gluttony, and so forth, should have seemed worthy of such punishment. He meant, no doubt, Qui capit, ille facit, but it seems hard to imprison a man for meaning more than he says. With the exception of the 'Canterbury Tale'-too long for insertion in our extracts there is little that is amusing in these satires, which have, truth to say, a smack of priggishness about them.

From the Marshalsea Wither addressed 'A Satire to the King,' in justification of himself, with the

1 The 'Satiro-mastix' was a retort to Ben Jonson's 'Poetaster' by Thomas Dekker on behalf of himself, Marston, and others. Dekker wrote, besides his plays, a large quantity of prose, some of it satirical. Another dramatist whose satirical gifts call for notice is John Day. His 'Parliament of Bees' would come under the heading of dramatic satire, a subject too large to enter on here, but I give an extract from the delightful ramblings of his 'Peregrinatio Scholastica.'