Satirical Romance [pp. 298-303]

29 &trcZRmac.fA
By every future joy or hope, which may'
thy bosom fill,
Ask not my harp, why every string vibrates
of changes still.
continued to subsist together in a state of
the most intimate combination.
Gods, poets, philosophers. statesmen,
private individuals, and even women,
were personally subjected to the most
caustic and unsparing ridicule, nor was it
until a period long subsequent thlat this direct method of applying the lash to public
and private offenders, was aband(loned, and
purely fictitious characters and incidents
came to be substituted in the p!ace of real
ones.. This salutary reform, resulting necessarily from the progress of social refinement, gave rise to what was termed " the
new comedy," which received its highest
finish from the hand of Menander, about
the year'380, B. C., his plays being translated into Latin, a century or so later, by
Plautus and Terence.*
The Romans were the first to produce
satireas a distinct species of literary composition, but inasmuch as they borrowed
their comedy from the "new comedy" of
the Greeks, which was itself strongly suggestive of the satirical style, no great
merit can be consistently claimed for
merely designating by name, what already
possessed a real, if not an acknowledged,
existence. However, comedy and satire
became finally separated in form, though
still retaining that mutual affinity and internal resemblance that had characterized
them from their earliest origin. Nor can
we regret that such is the cases The profound wordly'experience and philosophic
acumen which Horace so delightfilly exhibits in his satires, is in no respect less
worthy of admiration than the pure and
noble sentiment of Terence, or the genuine humiour of Plautus, who reveals much
more of the Roman character than his
celebrated successor. Much indeed might
be said of the Roman satirists, and especially of Juvenal, whose genius was
scarcely inferior to that of his Epicurean
predecessor, but a passing allusion is all
that our present purpose requires.
Passing over a portion of the sixteenth
century, during which comedy was repre
I cannot sweep another chord, all echo but
on e tone,
And mem'ry wakens painfully to find its
music gone.
Then, marvel not that aching hearts, can
breathe no joyous strain,,
Nor heedlessly re-ope, the wounds that
have beeni closed with pain.
Think how much more of happiness has
been thy lot, than theirs,
And from their long seal'd fountains, bring
not the flooding tears.
The silent heart that miser-like, from all,
withholds the key,
Must own a bitter thraldom in remember'd
misery.
Originally, comedy and s atir ee were identical, at least in form. Accordingly, we
find Aristophanes aiming not only to realize the ludicrous, which in general constitutes the essential characteristic of comedy, bu t at the same time exhibiting towards
the follies and abuses of his age, a spirit
so decidedly intolerant and d erisive, th a t
he included a moral purposealso, i. e. cengure, which belongs, more strictly speaking, to the province of satire. No attempt
had yet been made to resolve this compound phenomenon into its primary elements, at least to the extent of giving
them each a separate form, and thus they
e "P. Terentius Afer appears to have
been born at Carthage, about the year 195,
B. C., and was, therefore, some half'century younger than, Plautus."-LIDDEL,
298
Satirical Bomance..
FMAY
SATIRICAL ROMANCE-THACKE I RAY, DICKENS, LEVER.
BY SA31UZL D. DAVIES.
0
Eupolis, atque Cratinus, Aristopha'nesque,
oetm,
Atque.alii, quorum comedia prisca viro rum est,
Si quis erat dignus describi, quod n-ialus
ac fur,
Quod moecliiis fotet, aut sicarius, aut allio qui
Famo,sus, multa cum libertate notabant.
HORATIUS.