Of satirical
vigour they have scarcely a semblance. There are three kinds of
satire, corresponding to as many different views of humanity and life,
the Stoical, the Cynical, and the Epicurean. Of Stoical satire, with
its strenuous hatred of vice and wrong, the type is Juvenal. Of
Cynical satire, springing from bitter contempt of humanity, the type is
Swift's Gulliver, while its quintessence is embodied in his lines on
the Day of Judgment. Of Epicurean satire, flowing from a contempt of
humanity which is not bitter, and lightly playing with the weakness and
vanities of mankind, Horace is the classical example. To the first two
kinds, Cowper's nature was totally alien, and when he attempts anything
in either of those lines, the only result is a querulous and censorious
acerbity, in which his real feelings had no part, and which on mature
reflection offended his own better taste. In the Horatian kind he
might have excelled, as the episode of the _Retired Statesman_ in one
of these poems shows.
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