THE IMPOTENCE OF SATIRE.—A correspondent has made the admirable suggestion that a new _Don Quixote_ be written to slay the dragon of Capitalism with the pen of satire. The suggestion is unconditionally free; no acknowledgment of its source need be made; but anybody is at liberty to begin on the work at once. Some excellent arguments are adduced why the work should be undertaken. Capitalism has long troubled the land, and its evils are generally admitted. Reason has failed to make any impression on the beast, and sentiment appears almost to be its favourite food. Satire, therefore, is plainly indicated as the appropriate weapon, and at its crack, my correspondent suggests, the beast would dissolve into nothing amidst universal laughter. What more need be said but “Cervantes, forward!”? Unfortunately my correspondent proceeds to weaken his appeal by affirming that Cervantes himself had Capitalism in his mind when writing certain chapters of the First Book of _Don Quixote_. In Chaps. 44 and 45 it appears to me, he says, that Don Quixote’s identity as a capitalist is undoubted. Sancho Panza’s identity with the mass of labour is equally undoubted; and the middle classes are represented by a number of ladies and gentlemen, a canon, a judge, and a doctor. These chapters standing by themselves would be a good allegorical explanation of the present financial position. But why of the “present” position, if satire is capable of dissolving Capitalism in laughter? Without questioning the allegorical character of the chapters referred to, which may, for all I dare say, be a perfect anticipation of the economics of Douglas—it is not encouraging to our present-day Cervantes to be told that their proposed method has already been tried by a master only to leave the dragon of Capitalism still to be tickled to death. Now one comes to think of it, not even Chivalry, an even more undoubted object than Capitalism of Cervantes’s satire, really died of the shock, for the very good reason that it was dead before Cervantes rained his laughter upon it. Even Cervantes’s satire killed nothing, and the task to be undertaken for my correspondent is therefore greater than Cervantes’. In the spirit of Squeers, I can only suggest that he who spells window, w-i-n-d-e-r, should clean it. My correspondent, forward!