Marvell, in _An Historical Poem_, wishes for the glorious period of the Tudors; Dryden, in the _Epistle to Henry Higden, Esq._, cries out against “our degenerate times”; and Pope, in the _Dunciad_, has a familiar reference to “these degen’rate days.” The same strain is repeated in Young,[64] in Johnson,[65] in Cowper,[66] in Gifford,[67] and even in Barrett.[68] The tone of Byron’s jeremiad differs very little from that of those which have been cited: “Time was, ere yet in these degenerate days Ignoble themes obtained mistaken praise, When Sense and Wit with Poesy allied, No fabled Graces, flourished side by side.”[69] It is not inappropriate to point out that this ideal era to which Byron refers had been termed by Pope, who lived in it, “a Saturnian Age of lead.”[70] It required a maturer Byron to satirise this very satiric convention as he did in the first line of _The Age of Bronze_: “The ‘good old times’--all times when old are good.” Another generally accepted custom for the satirist was the apologetic formality of calling upon some supposedly more powerful censor to revive and scourge folly. Thus Young had asked, “Why slumbers Pope, who leads the tuneful train, Nor hears the virtue which he loves complain.”[71] Whitehead’s _State Dunces_ had opened with a similar invocation to Pope. At the end of the eighteenth century it was Gifford who seemed to have sunk into a torpor. Thus we find Canning in _New Morality_ attempting to rouse him: “Oh, where is now that promise? why so long Sleep the keen shafts of satire and of song?” Hodgson, Byron’s friend, in his _Gentle Alterative_ had also appealed to Gifford. In the preface to the second edition of _English Bards_, Byron had, in his turn, regretted the listlessness of Gifford, and had modestly professed himself a mere country practitioner officiating in default of the regular physician; while in the satire itself he again sounded the familiar note, repeating the interrogation of Canning: “‘Why slumbers Gifford?’ once was asked in vain; Why slumbers Gifford? let us ask again.”[72] The emphatic language which he used elsewhere in admitting his indebtedness and even his inferiority to Gifford is, however, proof of the sincerity of this outburst. A third convention, established if not originated in English by Pope, is the obligation felt by the satirist to pose as a defender of public morals and to insist upon his ethical purpose. Byron, partly affected by this tradition, partly believing himself to be, like Gifford, a champion of law and order in literature, tries to persuade his public that he is instigated entirely by lofty motives in giving vent to his anger: “For me, who, thus unasked, have dared to tell My country, what her sons should know too well, Zeal for her honor bade me here engage The host of idiots that infest her age.”[73]