We find here for the first time adopted in England, so far as I have noted, the saying of Juvenal's which one might say became the motto of Elizabethan satire: "Difficile est satiram non scribere." Besides these two citations from Juvenal there is one from Persius in Speke Parrot: "Quis expedivit psittaco suum chaire?" 1

Like Brandt and Erasmus, however, Skelton of course made use of the classical satirists only in the matter of pessimistic tone and in details of illustration,-not in imitation of their form. For like Brandt and Erasmus, again, he was original in the general method of his satire, and had his eye first of all upon distinct objects which he desired to attack in his own time and among his own people. All these men set substance far above form.

We have already met many premonitions of the Reformation, in the satire of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. It was but a few years after the publication of the English Ship of Fools and the writing of the Praise of Folly, and about the time of Skelton's quarrel with the Cardinal, that Luther was entering upon his great career. The satire of the Reformation cannot here be taken up in any detail. So far as

it was general and not purely personal or political, it did not materially differ from what we have already considered. Schneegans enumerates four classes of satire of the Reformation :

"Neben der auch hier vorkommenden directen Satire, welche in Invectiven und Grobheiten schwelgt, und der dialogischen Satire, welche die lutherischen beziehungsweise christlichen Einrichtungen den päpstlichen gegenüberstellt, um das Abscheuliche der letzeren desto greller hervorleuchten zu lassen, neben den allegorischen Satiren, welche besonders häufig den Holzschnitt gebrauchen, um ihre Wahrheiten zu verbreiten, nehmen die grotesken einen besonders hervorragenden Platz ein."2

Perhaps the most interesting English satire of this period, closely connected with that of Skelton by its personal attack

11. 30, vol. ii. p. 247. The quotation is from the Prologue of Persius, 1. 8. 2 Geschichte der Grotesken Satire, pp. 158 ff.

upon Wolsey, is the Rede me and be nott wrothe of Roy and Barlow. This was the work of two English Franciscan friars, and was published in Strasburg, for circulation in England, in 1528. Its form is that of a dialogue, and its immediate occasion seems to have been the "Disputation of Berne," which declared for the abolition of the Mass. I quote Mr. Arber's concise account of the substance of the satire:

At Rome? In

"The Mass is dead in Germany, where shall it be buried? France? In England? This is debated by two servants of a Strasburg priest, apparently, however, not hitherto very intimate with each other. Watkyn, evidently a citizen, is full of faith in the power of the gospel; Jeffray, a new-comer from England, who has been in religion a dozen years continually,' is full of the craft and subtilties of the clergy. Thus the sharpest contrast is kept up in the Dialogue. At last, they fix on a'Becket's shrine at Canterbury as the appropriate grave for the dead Mass. Who then shall be the buriers? The Cardinal? The Bishops? the Secular Clergy? the four orders of mendicant Friars? or the Observant Friars ? In the discussion of their respective fitness for this purpose occurs the opportunity for exposing their misdeeds; and it is on this framework that the attack is made upon the hierarchy, priesthood, and monasticism of England. . . . It was written for circulation in England. A fearfully dangerous book to write or even to possess at that time. Intrinsically it is one of the worthiest Satires in our language. Its spirit is excellent. I say no thinge but trothe

is its true motto. The book is the embodiment of the resentment of its authors at the burning of Tyndale's New Testaments at Paul's Cross in 1526.” i

The dialogue is preceded by a Lamentacion supposed to have been uttered by the ecclesiastics whose occupation was lost in the death of the Mass, an admirable piece of semidramatic irony; and in the midst of the dialogue is introduced a "balett" on the corruption of the times, and an "oracion " against the Cardinal,—both rendered by Jaffray. The "balett" is quite in the manner of the early songs "on the times," and might have been a century old when it was sung for the edification of Watkin. The pessimism is familiar :

1 Rede me and be not wrothe, Arber's English Reprints, p. 6 f.

2 p. 66.

But it is pessimism not unilluminated by hope, for the refrain is constant after every stanza of evils :

"It cannot thus endure all waye."

Before we take leave of this hasty survey of English satire preceding the Elizabethan Age, we have to notice a piece of Scottish satire which, while in dramatic form, announces its satirical character in its very name. This is Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Threie Estaitis, in Commendatioun of Vertew and Vituperatioun of Vyce, made by Sir David Lindsay. This is in fact a late Morality play, and was acted before the King of Scotland, tradition says, in 1535, certainly (perhaps for a second time) at the Feast of Epiphany, 1540. The title “satire” is clearly used because of the purpose of " commendation of virtue and vituperation of vice," and the play is really another satire of the Reformation. The three estates of the realm are introduced, walking backward (as their custom is said to have been) and led by their vices. But it is the clergy upon whom the brunt of the blame falls; it is they who are oppressing the commons, opposing the free Bible, and clinging to Sensuality and Covetousness. In a satire of this order the prevalence of humor is very noticeable; and the abstract characters of the drama, as in the best of the late Moralities generally, are more than abstractions or even types: they are real dramatis persona. Tradition has it that at the end of the performance of the Satire King James warned the spiritual lords who were present that they would do well to take heed to its admonition.2

1 Printed by Robert Charteris, Edinburgh, 1602. Reprinted by Early English Text Society, 1869. For an abstract see Morley's English Writers, vol. vii. p. 256.

2 It is interesting to note that at almost this same time John Bale was writing his satirical religious plays,-in 1538 A Brefe Comedy or Enterlude of Johan Baptystes Preachynge in the Wyldernesse, and the Newe Comedy or Enterlude concerning the three lawes of Nature, Moises and Christe, corrupted by the Sodomytes, Pharyses and Papistes.

We are now at the end of this preliminary survey of the years preceding the period of classical influence. It was but two years after the 1540 presentation of the Satire of the Three Estates that Sir Thomas Wyatt died, and it was perhaps in the year following the presentation that he wrote what have been frequently called the first true satires in English. Already the Reformation has triumphed in England; the king has broken with Rome; the monasteries and abbeys have been suppressed; the English Bible has been issued; and a new period has begun in literature and society. We have rapidly reviewed the progress of English satire up to the beginning of this new period, omitting only that of a purely personal or political nature, which is but slightly connected with the main line of our investigation. It will be well to reserve the summary of what has been thus considered until we can compare it with the satire of Rome.

II.

There were but three Latin satirists whose works came down to the modern world in sufficient completeness to exercise any specific influence: Horace, Persius and Juvenal. They were not among the authors who were forgotten during the Middle Ages, as manuscript editions and commentaries abundantly testify.1 Juvenal's strictures upon women must have been especially dear to the long line of ascetics who accepted the gospel of Jerome adversus Jovinianum." Chaucer knew Juvenal, and indirectly, at least parts of Horace. The classical satirists of course shared in the general revival of the classics, and as early as 1439 Gregory of Sanok was explaining Juvenal at the University of Cracow.2 Ognibene

1 See Friedländer's Juvenal: Juvenal im späten Alterthum und Mittelalter, vol. i. pp. 80 ff.

2 See Voigt: Die Wiederbelebung des Classischen Alterthums, vol. ii. pp. 329, 391.

da Lonigo made a commentary on Juvenal, too, for his fellowhumanists of Italy. We have already seen evidence of knowledge of the same author on the part of Brandt, Barclay, Skelton, and probably Erasmus. Editions of all three Latin satirists had been printed in 1470, among the first "editiones principes." Translations of course came considerably later. In England the first translation of Horace was that of Drant, who in 1566 printed A medicinable Morall, that is, the two Bookes of Horace his Satyres, Englyshed according to the prescription of saint Hierome.1 An edition of the following year included the Epistles. I have not found that Persius was translated into English before 1616, while of Juvenal there were only fragmentary translations until much later. It is clear enough that, while the Latin satirists very naturally never became as popular as Ovid, Vergil or Cicero, the students of the sixteenth century, whose whole education was based on the classical curriculum, found them included and easily made their work their own.

The influence of the three Latin satirists must, however, be distinguished. Their work was of course by no means of the same order. For a discussion of their differences one may see Dryden's Essay on Satire, though it is probable that very few modern readers will agree in his main distinction that "the meat of Horace is more nourishing, but the cookery of Juvenal more exquisite.' Let us briefly consider just what was the satirical work of all three.

2

Horace wrote eighteen poems which are usually called Satires.

The first is on the folly of avarice, and the possible happy mean between miserliness and prodigality. The second is on opposing extremes of folly, and treats chiefly, in light fashion, of various tastes in amorous indulgence. The third is on the vice of censoriousness, and teaches that, wherever possible, favorable interpretations of conduct should be preferred. The fourth is on the writing of