an excursion to "the adjacent nations of Greece, renowned in antiquity," where he dwells upon the virtues of Socrates, Plato, and Aristides. Finally he falls into the error of using many technical terms, and though this is occasioned by the intensity of his actual experience, it mars the effect of his striking descriptions by compelling the reader to refer constantly to foot-notes. Thus Roused from his trance, he mounts with eyes aghast, A giant surge down rushes from on high, As when Britannia's empire to maintain, 1 Canto ii. 447-466. CHAPTER VIII DECLINE OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SATIRE CHARLES CHURCHILL; THE ROLLIAD; PETER PINDAR THE forty years between the fall of Walpole and the rise of the younger Pitt are, perhaps, the most confused and perplexing in the political history of England. In no other period of the same length were there so many changes of Government, so much inconsistency in the profession of party principles, such strange alliances between leading statesmen. "Those persons," said Lord North in the House of Commons, defending himself for his alliance with Fox, "who reprobate the present Coalition forget that it is almost impossible to find in this assembly any individuals now acting together who have not differed materially on great and important points." 1 And this appearance of disorder is the more remarkable because the time is distinguished for the greatness of its achievements and the genius of the men that belonged to it. The supremacy of England at sea was firmly established. If she had to submit to the loss of her American colonies, her power was vastly increased in the West and the East by the conquest of Canada and the founding of her Indian Empire. It was the Golden Age of parliamentary oratory; no modern assembly has matched for lofty eloquence the Houses of Commons that listened to the speeches of the two Pitts, Burke, Fox, and Sheridan. English painting then pro 1 Historical and Posthumous Memoirs of Sir Nathaniel William Wraxall (1884), vol. iii. p. 40. duced its greatest masterpieces from the hands of Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Romney. Wit and social refinement were illustrated by the conversation of Johnson and Burke, and by the letter-writing of Horace Walpole, Gray, and Cowper. It is at first sight difficult to understand how so much brilliancy in the general life of the nation should have coexisted with so much factiousness, corruption, and cynicism in the sphere of its Government. Looking below the surface, however, we see that the inconsistency may in great part be accounted for by the fact that the age was one of transition. The problem of Constitutional Liberty that had arisen out of the conflict between the Crown and the Parliament in the seventeenth century had received a practical solution; the questions of democratic government raised by the French Revolution as yet existed only in the germ. No continuous traditional principle any longer separated the historic parties. On the other hand, the difficulties of governing a free and growing empire occasioned frequent mistakes on the part of statesmen; and, accordingly, the conflicts of factious ambition were proportionately bitter. The struggle for the control of affairs lay between the Crown, of which the prerogative had been left nominally unimpaired at the Revolution of 1688, and the associated groups of aristocratic families-Wentworths, Cavendishes, Russells, and others-under whose conduct the Revolution had been practically effected. The key of the position was the extent of influence which either side could bring to bear on the House of Commons through the votes of the representatives of the small boroughs; and to secure these all the arts of parliamentary corruption were practised with unscrupulous skill. But beyond Crown and Parliament were the irregular and incalculable forces of unrepresented Public Opinion, and the balance in the conflict between the two Constitutional Powers was often rudely disturbed by the oratory of the demagogue and the violence of the mob. The age of the Bill of Rights, of the Act of Settlement, and of the Septennial Act was followed by the age of the party fight for the control of the India VOL. V Q Board, of the warfare between the House of Commons and the electorate about the question of privilege, of the riots about Admiral Byng and about Popery. Public affairs were conducted in the midst of bribery, backstairs intrigues, and frequent incendiarism. In a political atmosphere, where party interests counted for more than great constitutional principles, the importance of every little political magnate-whether a nabob who was a "King's Friend," or a borough-owner who voted with the "Revolution Houses "-was greatly increased, and even a John Wilkes, a Lord George Gordon, or a Tom Paine, might fill a larger space in the imagination of the people than had formerly been occupied by a Somers or a Shrewsbury. 1 As was inevitable, the changed conditions of politics found a reflection in the sphere of poetry. For at least a hundred years satire had been developing itself as the chief literary weapon of offence in the civil conflicts of a free nation, and from the very first it had been distinguished by a strong personal and party character. Cleveland's bitter invectives against the Scots and the English Presbyterians 1 were followed by Dryden's assaults on Shaftesbury and his Whig followers, and these had been outdone by the intense personality of Pope's vivisection of the Dunces. But in all those instances some pretence of lofty principle lifted the use of satire above the level of mere lampoon to a more generous plane of thought. Cleveland's satires were the representative utterances of one of the parties in a civil war. Absalom and Achitophel stands above all other English satires in the admirable public spirit by which it is professedly animated; even the author of The Dunciad claims to be striking at his enemies as the saviour of society. But satire in the reign of George III. was seldom inspired by anything higher than a factious motive. Such popularity as it enjoyed-and this was often immense was due to the excitement of transient popular emotions or to the enmities of private individuals, and as these vanished, the 1 Vol. iii. pp. 296-299. point of the satire itself was lost to posterity. Of this tendency the most striking example is the satire of Churchill. Charles Churchill was born in Vine Street, Westminster, in February 1731. His father was rector of Rainham in Essex, and curate and lecturer of St. John's, Westminster. Sent to school at Westminster when he was only eight years old, Churchill found himself the companion of a number of able boys, many of whom, such as William Cowper, Warren Hastings, George Colman, and Robert Lloyd, became afterwards more or less famous. Though he was designed for orders, he never resided at Oxford or Cambridge. After being ordained deacon, he first served as curate at South Cadbury in Somersetshire, from which place, when he had taken priest's orders, he went in 1756 to Rainham as curate, and, on his father's death in 1758, succeeded him as lecturer of St. John's, Westminster. An early, secret, and ill-assorted marriage had involved him in money difficulties, from which he was relieved by the kindness of Dr. Lloyd, under-master of Westminster, and the father of his friend Robert Lloyd, the poet. Churchill now turned his attention to literature, and after two of his compositions, The Bard and The Conclave, had been rejected, had the good judgment and good fortune to find an object for his satire in the stage. Though the genius of the poetic drama had long departed, the art of poetic acting had now reached its zenith, and the actors of the day formed an organised society, which was connected by intimate ties of many kinds with the ruling aristocracy. This society had as yet encountered no criticism from without, though Robert Lloyd had approached the subject in a poem, called The Actor, published in 1760. When, therefore, Churchill's satire, The Rosciad, appeared in 1761 it exploded like a bombshell among its astonished victims. The good sense and independence of its criticism, as well as the freedom and vigour of its style, interested all "the town," and Churchill followed up his success with a spirited sequel, called The Apology, written to chastise The Critical Review |