Page:Satire in the Victorian novel (IA satireinvictoria00russrich).pdf/99

 dangerous opportunity to talk politics. The phrases "Ministry Out," "Formation of New Cabinet," are bandied about. Finally a change of scene is prescribed for the Queen. Her departure is celebrated by an elaborate banquet and a magnificent procession, and we left to infer that the future belongs to the reactionaries.

We, however, follow the fortunes of Proserpine, who dwells for a season in Elysium, after a visit en route to the dethroned Saturn, who discusses with her The Spirit of the Age. Elysian society is of course the English of Disraeli's set; gay, graceful, complacent, and malicious. The finest gentleman there is Achilles; the worst cad is Æneas, who would fain make up with the now popular Dido, but being repulsed, must content himself with becoming head of the Elysian saints and president of a society to induce Gnomes to drink only water.

In form these last two productions belong to the general division of burlesque. There are also touches of travesty in Peacock. But the main instances of this type of the grotesque are found in the two writers who filled in this line the interval betwen the last of Disraeli's, in 1833, and the last of Peacock's, in 1861. During the forties and first half of the fifties stood Thackeray, monopolist of parody and caricature. Immediately following came the two contributions of Meredith to satiric persiflage. In both cases this fantastic stuff formed the preliminary to the real work, being merely the romantic avenue by which two of the greatest realistic satirists came into their own kingdom.

It happens, therefore, that though the quantity of this