Page:Satire in the Victorian novel (IA satireinvictoria00russrich).pdf/104

 to determining whether any particular ingredient made for success in this sort, we might observe the connection between originality and exaggeration in their relation to effectiveness. Evidence from the data seems to indicate that satiric value, estimated by weight and pertinence of ideas, is in direct proportion to the amount of inventive wit; but in irregular or even inverse ratio to extravaganza or caricature.

For example, the general order of both satiric and constructive excellence, is approximately as follows,—listed in an ascending series: Meredith, Thackeray, Lytton, Disraeli, Peacock, Butler. But to reach a climax of pure fantasy we would pass from Thackeray through Peacock, Disraeli, Butler, and Lytton, to Meredith. Exaggeration does not seem, therefore, to inhere in satire though it may enhance it.

The chief advantage of the fantastic is that it gives unfettered play to whatever fancy the mind is endowed with; and it enlists a naturally too serious Criticism under the brilliant banner of Wit. That its attractions are many is proved by its distinguished history; for enrolled among the members of this versatile society are such names as Reynard the Fox, Romance of the Rose, Piers Plowman, Don Quixote, Dunciad, Gulliver, Don Juan. Few on our list deserve comparison with these; none perhaps except Erewhon. Peacock's name might have a place, not for any one tale but for the toute ensemble. What one of Disraeli's biographers says of Popanilla, that it is "a work of the same kind as Swift's Gulliver's