The lamentable absence of any established body of criteria available as a basis for the study of satire is a difficulty which must be recognized and met at the very outset. First of all, therefore, it is necessary to make clear just what matter is to be included under the rather vague heading, satire. Broadly speaking, satire comprises any manifestation of the satiric spirit in literature; but this statement is really evasive, since the satiric spirit, like the romantic spirit, is intangible and not susceptible to precise definition. In general, as Professor Tucker has pointed out, the essential feature of the satiric spirit, wherever found, is its disposition to tear down and destroy. Variations in temper and aim may exist in different satirists; other subservient emotions may appear and other feelings may operate, in individual cases, to modify the underlying mood; but fundamentally the satiric spirit is negative and pessimistic.[1] It furthers disillusion by confronting romance with realism and fiction with fact. The satirist thus perceives and exposes incongruity, the discrepancy between profession and performance. He is actuated always by a destructive motive, and it is his function to condemn and to reprove. Humor is, of course, usually a concomitant of satire, but authorities differ as to its value. Dryden, considering the question from the standpoint of the literary artist, says:--“The nicest and most delicate touches of satire consist in fine raillery.” Gifford, posing as a moralist, takes another position:--“To raise a laugh at vice is not the legitimate office of satire, which is to hold up the vicious, as objects of reprobation and scorn, for the example of others, who may be deterred by their sufferings.” When humor is wanting and the mood is entirely vituperative, the result is invective, which some critics are desirous of excluding arbitrarily from satire. But however advantageous it may be, for practical reasons, to limit the application of the word satire, it is difficult to neglect invective; and in this essay, since a considerable part of Byron’s so-called satire is sheer abuse, failure to treat that portion of his work would result in much confusion. An additional argument for including invective is furnished by the fact that to pass it over would mean relegating outside the domain of satire a large proportion of the work of other authors who have always been classed as satirists, among them Churchill and Gifford.