Pope, preserving in his satire a calm deliberation which enabled him both to conceal and to concentrate his inward wrath, was capable, even when most in a rage, of a sustained analysis of those whom he hated, and seldom let his temper sweep him off his feet. Gifford and Byron prefer a more slashing and a less reserved method. Dallas once said of Byron: “His feelings rather than his judgment guided his pen.”[118] The same idea was also expressed by the poet himself:--“Almost all I have written has been mere passion.”[119] These two statements, confirming each other, explain the lack of poise and the want of a sense of proportion which are apparent in _English Bards_, as they were apparent in the _Baviad_. Unlike Dryden, neither Gifford nor Pope allows his victims any merit; each paints entirely in sombre colors, without ever perfecting a finished sketch or alleviating the black picture with the admission of a single virtue. Their conclusions, naturally, are unpleasantly dogmatic, founded as they are on prejudice and seldom subjected to reason. Most satire is, of course, biassed and unjust, but the careful craftsman takes good care that his charges shall have a semblance of plausibility and shall not defeat their purpose by arousing in reaction a sympathy for the defendant.[120] Satire written in a rage is likely to be mere invective, and invective, even when embodied in artistic form, is usually less effective than deliberate irony. Byron in his later satire learned better than to portray an enemy as all fool or all knave. Gifford was, as he sedulously protested, fighting for a principle, aiming at the extermination of certain forms of affectation and false taste in poetry. There is no ground for suspecting his sincerity, any more than there is for questioning Byron’s motive in his effort to defend the classical standards against the encroachments of romanticism. It so happened that Gifford was performing a genuine service to letters, while Byron engaged himself in a struggle at once unnecessary and hopeless. In their zeal and enthusiasm, however, both satirists lost a feeling for values. Gifford delivered sledge-hammer blows at butterflies; Byron classed together, without discernment, the work of mediocrity and genius, and heaped abuse indiscriminately upon poetaster and poet.