+----+---------+----------+-----------+----------+---------+------------+----------+-------------+ EXERCISES 1. Compare the two following passages as examples of satire. They represent the bitterest passages from Dryden and Pope respectively. Remark upon the two methods--whether they are personal or general, vindictive or magnanimous. Add a note on the style of Dryden contrasted with that of Pope, and compare their handling of the heroic couplet. Say which passage you prefer, and why you prefer it. (1) Doeg,[160] though without knowing how or why, Made still a blundering kind of melody; Spurred boldly on, and dashed through thick and thin, Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in; Free from all meaning, whether good or bad, And, in one word, heroically mad, He was too warm on picking-work to dwell, But faggoted his notions as they fell, And, if they rhymed and rattled, all was well. Spiteful he is not, though he wrote a satire, For there still goes some thinking to ill-nature; He needs no more than birds and beasts to think, All his occasions are to eat and drink. If he call rogue and rascal from a garret, He means you no more mischief than a parrot; The words for friend and foe alike were made, To fetter them in verse is all his trade. DRYDEN, _Absalom and Achitophel_ (_Part II_) (2) _Pope._ A lash like mine no honest man shall dread, But all such babbling blockheads in his stead. Let Sporus[161] tremble-- _Arbuthnot._ What? that thing of silk, Sporus, that mere white curd of ass’s milk? Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel? Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?