She was enjoying herself, although she was, as usual, a trifle distrustful of the quality of Mr. Naylor's smile; it smacked of the satiric.

Over his benefactor too, his protector, Beaumaroy reflected with a satiric smile.

It remains now to but enumerate the enigmas found in all popular literature, and the satiric sayings attributed to holy persons of the fifteenth century, who, for having been virtuous and having possessed the gift of miracles, were none the less men, and as such bore anger and spite.

This "Venetian story," or sketch, in which the author broke ground on his true satiric fieldthe satire of social lifeand first adopted the measure avowedly suggested by Whistlecraft (Frere), was drafted in October, 1817, and appeared in May, 1818.

But we may disregard Ion as a mere dramatic poet who always sees in great men something upon which to exercise his satiric vein; whereas Zeno used to invite those who called the haughtiness of Pericles a mere courting of popularity and affectation of grandeur, to court popularity themselves in the same fashion, since the acting of such a part might insensibly mould their dispositions until they resembled that of their model.

Even his Retaliation is humorous in spirit rather than satiric.

These are: (1) the establishment of the heroic couplet as the fashion for satiric, didactic, and descriptive poetry; (2) his development of a direct, serviceable prose style such as we still cultivate; and (3) his development of the art of literary criticism in his essays and in the numerous prefaces to his poems.

To be sure, poetry was limited in the early eighteenth century; there were few lyrics, little or no love poetry, no epics, no dramas or songs of nature worth considering; but in the narrow field of satiric and didactic verse Pope was the undisputed master.

The philosopher who worked eight years to extract sunshine from cucumbers is typical of Swift's satiric treatment of all scientific problems.

It is too terribly satiric and destructive; it emphasizes the faults and failings of humanity; and so runs counter to the general course of our literature, which from Cynewulf to Tennyson follows the Ideal, as Merlin followed the Gleam, and is not satisfied till the hidden beauty of man's soul and the divine purpose of his struggle are manifest.

While Dryden, Pope, and Johnson were successively the dictators of English letters, and while, under their leadership, the heroic couplet became the fashion of poetry, and literature in general became satiric or critical in spirit, and formal in expression, a new romantic movement quietly made its appearance.

As the satiric censor of his time, Carlyle found frequent occasion for caustic wit.

The Four Georges deals with England's crowned heads in a satiric vein, which caused much comment among Thackeray's contemporaries.

He insisted upon picturing life as he believed that it existed in London society; and, to his satiric eye, that life was composed chiefly of the small vanities, the little passions, and the petty quarrels of commonplace people, whose main objects were money and title.

The following passage upon mankind's fickleness is a good specimen of his satiric vein in dealing with human weakness: "There are no better satires than letters.

And when aroused,but that was rarely,he could wield a burningly satiric pen, and with manly indignation and impassioned scorn wield it to chastise the hypocritical and the arrogant, as his letter to a certain pious lady and his "Ode to Rae Wilson" bear sufficient witness.

" Of Hogarth's house at Chiswick, we have the following slight notice: "The time was now approaching when superstition, and folly, and vice, were to be relieved from the satiric pencil which had awed them so longthe health of Hogarth began to decline.

Double rhymes are said by some to unfit this metre for serious subjects, and to adapt it only to what is meant to be burlesque, humorous, or satiric.

But behind his satiric mask he concealed the manliest tenderness, and a reverence for every thing in human nature that is good and true.

The kind reception of this work awakened in the poet an inordinate vanity, which found expression, in 1753, in that extraordinary effusion, The Hilliad, an attempt to preserve Dr. John Hill in such amber as Pope held at the command of his satiric passion.

We have seen how his Peter Bell, which was Peter Bell the First, took the wind out of Shelley's satiric sails and fluttered the dove-cotes of the Lakeists.

Its merely satiric verse is a little beside my present mark; but as a parody the ballad of Duke Smithson of Northumberland, founded on Chevy Chase, ranks high, and the inscription for the cell in Newgate where Mrs. Brownrigg, who murdered her apprentices, was imprisoned, is even better.

The Satiric and the didactic in Ben Jonson's comedy.

He tells us how he has been in London, and can speak English, and is enthusiastic about the satiric journal which Mr. Punch publishes weekly.

Lady, you'll avoid heart-ache, And scorn of bard satiric, If haply you should deign to take A lesson from our lyric.