WHAT is become of satire-the good old legitimate satire, for which our language is so fit? Is the task of lashing the follies and vices of the world delivered solely into the hand of the caricaturist and the divine? Or are all other vices allowed to take their course, as of little importance in their effects upon society, in comparison with our great political sins, which defy the slowness of the structure of verse, and are within the province peculiar of the daily press? We certainly cannot take another position, that we live in a most virtuous age; we know there is a canting spirit going about with this daring assumption; and sometimes bold, and sometimes soft and insinuating, are the tones by which an acquiescence in our general virtue is demanded. But it is sheer wickedness and hypocrisy. Pretence and pretension, nearly allied, indeed, are the great sins of the day, infecting all grades, all professions, and are the great masters in all the arts and sciences. We are, all of a sudden, become the wisest people the world ever knew ; so knowing, that all who have gone before us are fools; and so good, that we can afford, seemingly, to cast off every principle in turn to play with, and it will fly back to us, as if the very centripetal force, or the attraction of virtue was in our own selves, self-engendered, self-nourished, and self-promoting. The ages past are nothing to us; and we should equally treat with contempt the ages to come, did we not look upon them as to be illuminated by ourselves, and but a continuation to perfection of our own excellence. And yet satire, the good old satire, is nearly dumb. And very properly dumb, say the sly knaves, that would have their own way with out disturbance. Satan takes the shape of Demure Propriety, and walks about with pitch-plasters for every one's mouth that would utter words that wither and burn. There is strength in real goodness; there is indignation, the very birthright of vigorous nature, salutary to the soul, and

throwing off from it the pestilences that brood in the atmosphere of the evil world. The wicked know this well, and will suppress the honest feeling with every art. They threaten one with brute force, and endeavour to cajole another with lessons of pretended meekness; and are open-mouthed against the whole clergy, with texts of Holy Writ, suggested by their master, if one in the duty of his sacred calling cry aloud and spare not. The low villains, that would set all things wrong that they may gain by the plunder, without religion or morality, have long known that the superior education, knowledge, and morals of the clergy must make them powerful adversaries; to get them out of the field, therefore, is a great object. What would not the malignant press say should a priest publish a powerful satire yet who so qualified! The clergy dare not open their mouths on politics; they must be excluded from every thing but their calling, as if their calling was not in every thing. For what human action is there that should not be conducted on religious principles? And who ought so well to search into, and know the hearts of men-and to mix whereever duty, civil or political, calls them? They are not to be disfranchised. It is neither just to them nor good for society. Then the wicked think, and truly, that if the clergy are put aside from expressing strong opinions, so all those under their influence, too, are got rid of all who would be thought, as well as all that are, religious-and where, then, are the adversaries to attack vice in the strongholds and in high places? It is insisted upon that it is unchristian to use harsh names, and downright weakness and compliance is demanded, under the names of gentleness, forbearance, meekness, and charity. We are to forget that our Lord, who to us is an example in all things, called men hypocrites, and whited sepulchres full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. It would follow that St Paul was unchristian when he uttered the words

to the smiter, "thou whited wall;" or when he quoted the Greek poet, and called the Cretans "liars, evil beasts, slow bellies." But the scoundrel part of mankind have greatly succeeded in this respect, and have driven off the field, by their outery, many a one capable of wielding the very battle-axe of legitimate satire; and hence it is that every iniquity under the sun has the more play. Prose satires, indeed, we have, of a new kind, in our Reviews, but they are too general, and want that solemn burst of indignation of the old verse, and the bold positions and representations of poetry. They are rather appeals to reason than feeling, and are therefore subjected to a longer process of thought. They may abash fools-and almost knaves-for a time, but they rise up again and reply. Villany should lie prostrate, scathed, an awful warning, with the mark of the single stroke upon its forehead. It is an evil sign when the solemn and indignant satirist gives place to the caricaturist. There is something unmanly in the viewing lightly what seriously affects our interests. It is an evil sign to laugh at a lack of principle, to be amused with selfishness, to smile at errors which bring empires into peril. It has been said that we are a nation of caricaturists. It is no compliment. It were better that we had the bolder virtue than the simpering accomplishment. But even in this we are nowadays the tamest of the tame. We have H. B. the master of the sports; and, while it might make angels weep to see the antics men are playing, the grilled world is invited to be merry over the most timid drolleries. There is not the touch of strength in his hand. How different, how very different, were the productions of Gillray! His was a masterly hand, and dignified caricature-his was a power to be respected and feared. We should have thought Cruickshank had possessed the caricaturist's mind and genius. Does he think it beneath him? If so, he greatly mistakes, while he dedicates his pencil too exclusively to the vulgarities of low London life. But why are we to look to the pleasantries of caricature, when there is such a demand for the utmost severity of satire? Good, strong, nervous, and in dignant versification is the only satisfactory, the only complete satire, and

of that we have none. Prose has its more limited scope, and however forcible against an individual, or an individual case, admits not of general views, nor free play of illustration, and the complete summing up by artful arrangement. There is so much of the real spirit of satire occasionally in Burke, that we could almost believe that he wrote great parts of his letter to the Duke of Bedford, with his portrait of the Leviathan of Royal favour, and parts of his French Revolution, particularly the display of the insolence of the personified Regicide, in verse, and originally intended for versified satire. We are not disposed to grant this spirit to Junius. His letters want imagery-bold, assuming, they tell wonderfully; but are rather invective than satire. It is the adjunct of poetry that is wanting. It makes the dullest reader feel the spark. "Si natura negat facit indignatio versus ;" who reads it, thinks he could similarly pour out his indignation-he adopts it; it is his own, and he repeats it; and oh! what a noble feeling is indignation! it is the lordly feeling of manhood against all that is mean, low, contemptible. It is that which a very vile person never felt, and which a foolish one could never express. We are not afraid of being thought paradoxical in asserting that it is an amiable feeling. That the gentlest, the mildest natures, the wisest, the best, have it-dormant, indeed, until a worthy occasion calls it forth, and then out it bursts like inspired virtue. We would assert, that there never was a true poet without it. All poets are in mind and genius essentially satirists-they only want the occasion. Even the amiable Cowper could not resist the impulse, and in his gentlest subjects, where a minor poet would be all elegance and softness, he throws about his satiric lash with a vehement power. We confess, that when we read satire ourselves, we feel the better man-it flogs at once out of the mind all petty things, and bids energy and resolution do their best within us. Yet does it make us humble, seeing that we are of a nature that needs so much correction, and so much aid to rescue us from things which in our better moments we abhor. And it makes us better towards men. It is the safety-valve-it is the

storm that clears the atmosphere of our minds, with one grand thunderburst dispersing the ill-humours, and leaving the mind's sight clearer, and the heart purer and more tranquil. The rage of indignation has been expended, pity has followed, and then forbearance, and then love. Never let us have fellowship, much less friendship, with men who walk in the world's ways without ever feeling one touch of indignation, for their tame souls can never rise to any ecstasy of affection; and their benevolence is half affected, a simpering quiescence, to cover the little bilious bitternesses of disposition that lurk and make them uncomfortable within, and press upon and narrow the heart so that it cannot expand to any manliness of act or feeling. Better to hear the warwhoop of a generous enemy than encounter the smiles of an universal quietist. To smother indignation is to stifle virtue, and if we quell it entirely in young minds, we smother virtue in the very cradle as she is awaking from her sweet sleep into healthy and active existence. How beautiful is it in youthful hearts, where as yet there is uncorrupted honesty; and through feeling they acquire knowledge, and the wise nurse's wish is accomplished for her child-"Sapere et fari quæ sentiat." And then, where there is the bold, the open, the

fearless expression, there is ever the gentler love, the affection better worth the cherishing. We have at this moment the tenderer feelings, and have the more enjoyed a volume of much sweet poetry, because we have been led to it through good wholesome satire, and would recommend to all who would be thus rendered amiable, a volume of good poetry, the better part of which, we think, is satire, by John Kenyon, formerly of St Peter's College, Cambridge." The first piece is "Moonlight"-and beautiful moonlight it is as ever illuminated lands of dream and vision. But pass it by awhile; let the moon rise, and you will see the divine orb in her glory above the world, when you have seen a little what the world is, over which she would benevolently spread her veil, half of silver light, and half of darkness. Read first, "Pretence, a Satire," and then, when honest Virtue has had full sway, and has discharged the peccant humours of your disposition, be you amiable as you may-you will be enabled to rise in dream and vision of poetry, and meet half-way angels of the moon, and visit either world together in love and purity. The process of the preparatory fib is not unpleasant-so enter we on "Prince Ercles' Vein." Our author makes a nice and happy distinction between Pretence and Pretension.

Yes, one lesson does hold to the end, the great lesson, too early taught, to seem, and not to be. These lines bring to mind a scene, or rather two scenes in the farce of Humbug, which we ourselves saw this year, eighteen hundred and thirty-eight, of our advancement to perfection.-Had it not been for the ridiculous mixed up with them, the lamentable folly would have

VOL. XLIV. NO. CCLXXVIII,

left but a sense of melancholy. On Whit-Monday the large and populous city of, was from one end to the other a pattern or picture of goodness. There was not a street in which there was not a school procession, with their banners and colours. The SabbathSchool of this district, the SundaySchool of that-the School of the Meeting, the Tabernacle, the Church.

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