convenient than to append characteristic examples to Vituperation, Ridicule, and Humour, separately. For although the three forms of composition are distinct in themselves, the best illustrations of one are not always confined to that

one.

The quality of simple Vituperation can be exemplified with the greatest purity. I commence with a modern instance-Macaulay's article on Barère.

The circumstance that gives value to this article, as exemplifying vituperation, is the excessive badness of the subject. All the vices of human nature that could co-exist in the same individual are considered to attach to Barère: hence the vocabulary of moral invective is drawn upon by a master's hand to the limits of exhaustion. The author begins with the following summary:

"Our opinion then is this: that Barère approached nearer than any person mentioned in history or fiction, whether man or devil, to the idea of consummate and universal depravity. In him the qualities which are the proper objects of hatred, and the qualities which are the proper objects of contempt, preserve an exquisite and absolute harmony. In almost every particular sort of wickedness he has had rivals. His sensuality was immoderate; but this was a failing common to him with many great and amiable men. There have been many men as cowardly as he, some as cruel, a few as mean, a few as impudent. There may also have been as great liars, though we never met with them or read of them. But when we put everything together, sensuality, poltroonery, baseness, effrontery, mendacity, barbarity, the result is something which in a novel we should condemn as caricature, and to which, we venture to say, no parallel can be found in history."

The chief disadvantage in choosing the treatment of such a vile wretch is the utter absence of apologists that have to be met and conciliated. This dispenses with much of the art that renders vituperative style illustrative. Macaulay in some degree makes up for the defect by assuming a certain incredulousness on our part to admit the existence of such a monster. He begins by expressing his own willingness and anxiety to find in the memoirs that he reviews something to palliate the worst aspersions on the character of Barère. Allowance is also made for an unfortunate badness of temperament. Moreover, the standard

MACAULAY'S 'BARÈRE'.

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of moral judgment is purposely made low, the better to show how he fell beneath it, and distanced all the vices of the most infamous actors in the French Revolution.

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Fouché seems honest; Billaud seems humane; Hébert seems to rise into dignity." He had many associates in guilt; but he distinguished himself from them all by the Bacchanalian exultation which he seemed to feel in the work of death. He was drunk with innocent and noble blood, laughed and shouted as he butchered, and howled strange songs, and reeled in strange dances amidst the carnage.' "It is not easy to settle the order of precedence among his vices, but we are inclined to think that his baseness was, on the whole, a rarer and more marvellous thing than his cruelty."

All

The author supports his view by an extensive recital of Barère's doings in the Revolution. In this part of the case, the usual device of partisan vituperation is to colour, select and suppress circumstances, with a view to the effect. this was needless, in Macaulay's judgment; and the only art that belongs to his treatment is to let the facts speak for themselves, and to let the readers draw their own conclusions and boil up with indignation of their own accord. Of course, an author like Macaulay can also set forth the conclusion from the facts in impressive terms; and the reader, being sufficiently worked up, is pleased to have his views of the case so forcibly put. The error would lie in presuming too much upon the reader's acquiescence in unqualified vituperation. Suggestiveness is preferable to wordy abuse.

Macaulay is a master of all the Figures that lend themselves to effective denunciation-Irony, Innuendo, Epigram, as well as damaging Similitudes. The operation of one or more of these, in the form called Sarcasm, is seen in the account of Barère's Christianity.

“We had, we own, indulged a hope that Barère was an atheist. We now learn, however, that he was at no time even a sceptic, that he adhered to his faith through the whole Revolution, and that he has left several manuscript works on divinity. One of these is a pious treatise, entitled Of Christianity, and of its Influence'. Another consists of meditations on the Psalms, which will doubtless greatly console and edify the Church. This makes the character complete."

The richness of vituperative phraseology, the profusion of the illustrative comparisons, the invention of turns of thought to heighten the effect, are Macaulay's own, and cannot be imitated, although they may be appropriated and reproduced. Yet withal, there are numerous devices of art that are strictly imitable; and these make the rhetorical lesson of the article.

Dryden's Achitophel' (Shaftesbury) is a specimen of invective, abounding in strength of language, in profusion of damaging circumstances, and in well compacted verse; but there is scarcely a redeeming touch. An ordinary reader can hardly enjoy the malignity of the picture without selfreproach. As a slight indication to show what might have been a softening treatment, we may refer to the famous line

Great wits are sure to madness near allied.

Had concessions of positive merit, moral as well as intellectual, been freely made, the picture would have been more pleasing even as a feast of malignity.

The satire on Shadwell is equally vituperative, but with some pretence to art. It is introduced by the character of MacFlecknoe, and is conducted in a more properly humorous vein.

All human things are subject to decay,

And when Fate summons, monarchs must obey.
This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young
Was called to empire and had governed long,
In prose and verse was owned without dispute
Through all the realms of Nonsense absolute.

The ironical bombast of the picture is severe enough, but does not grate on our feelings like a free employment of the vocabulary of abuse.

The fiction is continued by supposing MacFlecknoe to be on the look-out for a worthy successor. This he finds in Shadwell :

Shadwell alone my perfect image bears,
Mature in dulness from his tender years;
Shadwell alone of all my sons is he
Who stands confirmed in full stupidity.

The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,

But Shadwell never deviates into sense.

And so on in a similar strain, which is very little removed from coarse invective.

POPE'S DUNCIAD'.

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The most vituperative work of Pope is the Dunciad; but the most elevated in its style and power is the Rupe of the Lock. A study of the latter would show whether he has any imitable arts of style, especially in the contribution to Humour. The supposition, that the actual subject may herself have looked upon the poem as a grand compliment, is in its favour. The same could not be said of the Dunciad; none of the persons there felt honoured by the notoriety given to them.

The limitations of Humour are observed in the windings of the story of the Rape of the Lock: the heroine is never accused of serious moral flaws; only of feminine vanities, and little arts, compatible with a good name, and even inspiring a certain pride. The moments of weakness are atoned for by the splendour of the compliment and the delicacy of the innuendo. The gorgeous poetry adorns everything; the burlesque is splendid. The introduction

of creations of fancy is made humorous by the liberties taken with supernatural dignities.

Even a moral is introduced, but so slight and passing that it does not detract from the enjoyment of the satire; the moralizing beauty being scouted, although the lesson is read all the same.

The poet never indulges in brutal malignity; which only shows the restraining power of his private friendship. Had the heroine been indifferent to him or inimical, his other writings show what would have been her fate; and the world would have missed the Humour, and had a treat of pure vituperation instead.

Take now the Addison passage. The denunciation is fearful, although minced. To say that he did not sneer himself, but set on others to do it, is about the heaviest charge that could be brought against a man; and should have been well sustained by proof, or else redeemed in some way, which it is not. The weeping line at the end is without relevance or force; a mere affectation of sorrow, which, had it been real, would have mitigated the ferocity of the invective.

As regards the Dunciad, the vituperation is pure and simple, supported by the genius of style, and made acceptable by that means alone. There is none of the apologetic approaches of Macaulay's 'Barère'. It is abuse carried to incredible extravagance, and sullied by vulgarities and filth,

allowable only in the intensest partisanship. The sheer force of the style is incommunicable.

The vituperative eloquence of Chatham is magnificent in language; while the invective is redeemed by the greatness of the occasions. His famous denunciation of the employment of Indians against the revolted Americans, thrills every fibre of righteous indignation; so thoroughly does our sense of its justice accompany our abhorrence. It was a case for plain speaking, and dispensed with the softening arts that are usually needed to procure acceptance to severe denunciation. The most powerful language and the most impressive figures concur to make a passage without a rival in the annals of oratory.

The Letters of Junius is a work celebrated in our Literature as an example of invective. The unredeemed malignity did not deprive those letters of the power to sting their victims, nor does it detract from their remarkable literary merits. The choice of strong language, without coarseness; the elaborate balance and compactness of the sentences; the occasional splendour of the similes; the working out of all the circumstances that could intensify detraction,-enable us to tolerate the author's venomous intentions, but without securing our sympathy or concurrence. There is no attempt to veil the abuse, no plausible modes of approach. The handling of the Duke of Grafton's descent from Charles II. is a sample of the lengths that the author can go to find materials for denunciation. The attack on the Duke of Bedford is a pitiless onslaught of the bitterest reproaches that could be conveyed in language.

We may store up in the memory something of this wealth of opprobrious denunciation. What we fail to discover is something in the management, apart from the genius, that would improve ourselves in the vituperative art.

The Figures that enter into sarcasm are exemplified to perfection. The following strain of irony is addressed to the Duke of Bedford :

"My lord, you are so little accustomed to receive any marks of respect or esteem from the public, that if in the following lines a compliment or expression of applause should escape me, I fear you would consider it as a mockery of your established character, and perhaps an insult to your