tire", in the hands of Andrew Marvell, was utilized to
fight the battle of freedom of conscience in the matter of the
observances of external religion. _The Rehearsal Transposed, Mr.
Smirke, or the Divine in Mode, and his Political Satires_ are
masterpieces of lofty indignation mingled with grave and ironical
banter. Among many others Edmund Waller showed himself an apt disciple
of Horace, and produced charming social satires marked by delicate wit
and raillery in the true Horatian mode; while the Duke of Buckingham,
in the _Rehearsal_, utilized the dramatic parody to travesty the plays
of Dryden. Abraham Cowley, in the _Mistress_, also imitated Horace, and
in his play _Cutter of Coleman Street_ satirized the Puritans'
affectation of superior sanctity and their affected style of
conversation. Then came John Oldham and John Cleiveland, who both
accepted Juvenal as their model. Cleiveland's antipathy towards
Cromwell and the Scots was on a par with that of John Wilkes towards
the latter, and was just as unreasonable, while the language he
employed in his diatribes against both was so extravagant as to lose
its sarcastic point in mere vulgar abuse. In like manner Oldham's
_Satires on the Jesuits_ afford as disgraceful a specimen of sectarian
bigotry as the language contains. Only their pungency and wit render
them readable. He displays Juvenal's violence of invective without his
other redeeming qualities. All these, however, were entirely eclipsed
in reputation by a writer who made the mock-epic the medium through
which the bitterest onslaught on the anti-royalist party and its
principles was delivered by one who, as a "king's man", was almost as
extreme a bigot as those he satirized. The _Hudibras_ of Samuel Butler,
in its mingling of broad, almost extravagant, humour and sneering
mockery has no parallel in our literature. Butler's characters are
rather mere "humours" or _qualities_ than real personages. There is no
attempt made to observe the modesty of nature. _Hudibras_, therefore,
is an example not so much of satire, though satire is present in rich
measure also, as of burlesque. The poem is genuinely satirical only in
those parts where the author steps in as the chorus, so to speak, and
offers pithy moralizings on what is taking place in the action of the
story. There is visible throughout the poem, however, a lack of
restraint that causes him to overdo his part. Were _Hudibras_ shorter,
the satire would be more effec