Page:Satire in the Victorian novel (IA satireinvictoria00russrich).pdf/38

 They are, however, also distinct, and particularly so in this case; as cause is a psychological and hidden thing, and effect is more external and visible. In turning from the first to the second we pass from deductive argument to inductive. The logic of the former is an Idol of the Tribe, particularly of the British tribe, unable to rest until everything has been drafted under the ethic flag and brought into the moral fold. We pass also from spacious promise to rather cramped and meager performance. Satiric intent looms as large as the imposing first appearance of the giant of Destiny, in Maeterlinck's Betrothal; satiric accomplishment shrinks to the size of his exit as the babe in arms. And while the assertion of inexorability and omnipotence is continued bravely to the end, albeit in a voice of quavering diminuendo, a counter voice is also heard, repudiating extravagant claims.

Both attitudes are expressed in turn by an eighteenth century satirist. In his Epistle to William Hogarth Churchill exclaims,

"Can Satire want a subject, where Disdain, By virtue fired, may point her sharpest strain? Where, clothed in thunder, Truth may roll along, And Candour justify the rage of song?"

But in The Candidate, he announces reform of his former practices, in a series of rhetorical "Enoughs," coming to a climax in—

"Enough of Satire—in less hardened times Great was her force, and mighty were her rhymes."

In his own degenerate days, however,—

"Satire throws by her arrows on the ground, And if she cannot cure, she will not wound. Come, Panegyric," * * *