It is to Horace that we are indebted not only for the first finished formal satire, but for the first attempt at an analysis of the then newest literary type. He sketches the history of satire as an exposure of crime, but insists that this mission may be performed with courtesy and the light touch, since even weighty matters are sometimes settled more effectively by a jest than by grim asperity. “_Ridiculum acri_ _Fortius et melius magnas plerumque secat res._”[2] It is interesting to note that his own consistent practice in this matter is acknowledged by his successor Persius, who says of him, “Sportive and pleasant round the heart he played, And wrapt in jests the censure he conveyed.”[3] When Jonson reintroduced the Aristophanic vehicle of comedy to carry his satire, though fashioned in a different style, he also re-voiced the Horatian satiric philosophy, promising realism,--such characters and actions as comedy would choose, “When she would show an image of the times, And sport with human follies, not with crimes. Except we make ’hem such, by loving still Our popular errors, when we know they’re ill. I mean such errors, as you’ll all confess, By laughing at them, they deserve no less:”[4] A writer of the Restoration Period carries on the tradition: “Some did all folly with just sharpness blame, Whilst others laughed and scorned them into shame. But of these two, the last succeeded best, As men aim rightest when they shoot in jest.”[5] The spokesman of the eighteenth century on this point is Young. “No man can converse much in the world but, at what he meets with, he must either be insensible, or grieve, or be angry, or smile. Some passion (if we are not impassive) must be moved; for the general conduct of mankind is by no means a thing indifferent to a reasonable and virtuous man. Now, to smile at it, and turn it into ridicule, I think most eligible; as it hurts ourselves least, and gives Vice and Folly the greatest offense. “Laughing at the misconduct of the world will, in a great measure, ease us of any more disagreeable passion about it. One passion is more effectually driven out by another than by reason.”[6] And about the same time our first satirical novelist was avowing his own creed and performance: “If nature hath given me any talents at ridiculing vice and imposture, I shall not be indolent, nor afraid of exerting them.”[7] Again: “I have employed all the wit and humour of which I am master in the following history; wherein I have endeavoured to laugh mankind out of their favorite follies and vices.”[8] The self-conscious nineteenth century is full of comments on this topic, as on all others, but two or three representative ones will suffice as examples. It is not really the great Greek satirist but his modern interpreter who utters this explanatory sentiment: