safely doubted whether he is to be ranked among the first of satirists for his moral position, and the impulse which made him write satire. He is shown to have had much in common with Horace—"moral insight of the same kind,—similar mastery over a subtle gaiety of ridicule (by dint of which likeness he has imitated him so well); but he was bitterer by nature and temper, and makes wounds that do not heal. Horace was a fatter man (if I may be permitted the liberty to mention such a fact); was more happily circumstanced, under the kindly protection of a great emperor, and a great emperor's favourite; lived in a lovely climate, was an easier, more playful, more essentially humorous man, and a more healthy man. Pope could be either ferocious or light; but his ferocity was so deliberate and so sly,—there is such a snaky coldness of self-command about him while he is inflicting hellish torture, that he appears more unamiable than the most violent professors of satiric indignation." A good word, and he needs it, is said for Churchill, than whom a better-hearted man, Mr. Hannay contends, never lived; "he was an affectionate, enthusiastic, loving soul, and English in his tastes and prejudices," and he had "all the qualities that go to make up a fine satirist,—warm feeling, penetrating sense, bright wit, and fancy,"—taking for his master, not Pope, but Dryden, whose "flowing vigour and manly ease" he often achieved. Junius gets at least his full meed of admiration, though his theatrical affectation is said to make him cut a figure half-Roman and half-French, and look like the ghost of Brutus uttering quotations from a lampoon. Then, again , we come to Wolcot, "rather a buffoon than a satirist;" and Burns, who, in one instance at least, is said to have employed irony as exquisite as Swift's; and Gifford, who "flung his whole soul into Billingsgate" as heartily as erst into algebra in the shoemaker's shop; and Byron, about whom Mr. Hannay delivers some opinions that will not go unquestioned—the paradoxical one, for instance, that Juan is the healthiest and most cheerful of Byron's productions, and, in spite of "certain levities," a "high and valuable work." The "certain levities," Mr. Hannay makes over to the concrete nonentity he calls Stiggins, to preach about at leisure and at length, and adds, "I think it disgraceful, the way in which this book is often treated. I do not consider it a dangerous book to anybody who is fit to read it." Why should we demur to this ipse dixi? To demur is to argue oneself a Stiggins ipso facto, and Stiggins will only be told that he'd better "shut up" at once.
But Stiggins would seem welcome to lift up his voice against Tom Moore, on the charge of breaches in good manners, and sacrifice of the decorum to the dulce. Mr. Hannay, who has such perfect confidence in Don Juan, and its innocuous attractions, says of Moore, "In my opinion, his laurel is too big for him. Let us deny no man his merit. …. He is a brilliant man; a melodious, ornamental, glittering genius;—a genius like an Eastern dancing -girl, with bells at the ankles, and bells at the waist, ringing with lively music, and bright with holiday-colour in the sunshine. All very graceful and pretty, no doubt. But the fancy, rather than the heart, is touched by the spectacle; and sometimes seriously-disposed persons had better keep in-doors when the performance is going to begin." Master Tom, however, as the lecturer styles him, is allowed to have had his good points as a satirist—"good sharp satire" he could
