Satire is, of course, one of the less noble forms of literary expression; and in satire uttering itself through burlesque, there is special danger of the presence of qualities which are positively ignoble. Yet never was satire employed in a better cause, or for loftier objects, or in a more disinterested spirit. The author of _M’Fingal_ wrote his satire under no personal or petty motive. His poem was a terrific assault on men who, in his opinion, were the public enemies of his country; and he did not delay that assault until they were unable to strike back. _M’Fingal_ belongs, indeed, to a type of literature hard, bitter, vengeful, often undignified; but the hardness of _M’Fingal_, its bitterness, its vengeful force are directed against persons believed by its author to be the foes--the fashionable and the powerful foes--of human liberty; if at times it surrenders its own dignity, it does so on behalf of the greater dignity of human nature. That _M’Fingal_ is, in its own sphere, a masterpiece, that it has within itself a sort of power never attaching to a mere imitation, is shown by the vast and prolonged impression it has made upon the American people. Immediately upon its first publication, it perfectly seized and held the attention of the public. It was everywhere read. Probably as many as forty editions of it have been issued in this country and in England. It was one of the forces which drove forward that enormous movement of human thought and passion which we describe as the American Revolution; and in each of the great agitations of American thought and passion which have occurred since that time, occasioned by the French Revolution, by the War of 1812, and by the war which extinguished American slavery, this scorching satire against social reaction, this jeering burlesque on political obstructiveness, has been sent forth again and again into the world, to renew its mirthful and scornful activity in the ever-renewing battle for human progress.