deserved. In _The Methodist_, however, he participates in
a short-lived revolt against the tyranny of Augustan satire and shows
considerable evidence of a talent that might have created a new style
for formal verse satire.

The seventeen-sixties were a difficult period for satire. The struggle
between Crown and Parliament, the new industrial and agricultural
methods, the workers' demands for higher pay, the new rural and urban
poor, the growth of the Empire, the deteriorating relations with the
American colonies, the increasing influence of the ideas of the
Enlightenment, the popularity of democratic ideas, the Wilkes
controversy, the growth of Methodism, the growth of the novel,
the interest in the gothic and the picturesque and in chinoiserie,
sentimentality, enthusiasm--all these activities made England a highly
volatile country. Some changes were truly dynamic, others just fads.
But to someone living in the period, who dared to look around him, the
complexity of the present and the uncertainty of the future must have
seemed enormous.

To a satirist, such complexity makes art difficult. Satire usually deals
with every-day realities, to which it applies simple moral ideals. The
Augustan satiric alternative--returning to older beliefs in religion,
government, philosophy, art--and the stylistic expression of such
beliefs--formal verse satire and epistle, mock-poem, heroic or
Hudibrastic couplet, diction of polite conversation, ironic metaphysical
conceits, fantastic fictional situations--become irrelevant to the
satirist writing when the past seems lost. In his later works, Pope
took Augustan satire about as far as it could go. _The Epilogue to the
Satires_ becomes an epilogue to all Augustan satire and the conclusion
of _The New Dunciad_ declares the death of its own tradition. There is a
sense now that England and the world have reached the point of no return.
The satirist of the seventeen-sixties who repeats the ideas and styles
of Butler, Dryden, Swift, Gay, and Pope seems not only imitative but
out-of-touch with the world around him.

But such difficulties can provide the impetus for new forms and for
original styles. And in the seventeen-sixties the writers of formal
satire show signs of responding to the challenge. Christopher Anstey,
Charles Churchill, Robert Lloyd, and Evan Lloyd seem, during this decade,
to be developing their considerable facilities with satiric technique
toward the creation of new styles.