“Who combats Virtue’s foe is Virtue’s friend; Then judge of Satire’s merit by her end: To guilt alone her vengeance stands confin’d, The object of her love is all mankind.” The sober eighteenth century brings us back to reality with a characteristic comment by the best satirist of the period, who admires his favorite predecessors, “not indeed for that wit and humour alone which they all so eminently possessed, but because they all endeavoured, with the utmost force of their wit and humour, to expose and extirpate those follies and vices which chiefly prevailed in their several countries.”[18] But Gifford, akin in spirit to the satirist he translated, goes to the extreme in taking the satiric office seriously: “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.”[19] De Quincey carries the tradition over into the nineteenth century by reminding us that “the satirist has a reformative as well as a punitive duty to discharge.” Meredith[20] agrees that “the satirist is a moral agent, often a social scavenger, working on a storage of bile.” Symonds[21] affirms that “Without an appeal to conscience the satirist has no _locus standi_.” Browning has Balaustion say to Aristophanes: “Good Genius! Glory of the poet, glow O’ the humorist who castigates his kind, Suave summer-lightning lambency which plays On stag-horned tree, misshapen crag askew, Then vanishes with unvindictive smile After a moment’s laying black earth bare, Splendor of wit that springs a thunderball-- Satire--to burn and purify the world, True aim, fair purpose; just wit justly strikes Injustice,--right, as rightly quells the wrong, Finds out in knaves’, fools’, cowards’ armory The tricky tinselled place fire flashes through, No damage else, sagacious of true ore.” And Dawson[22] brings satiric utilitarianism into the present century: “It is quite beside the mark to say that we do not like satire. It is equally beside the mark to say that we have never known such a world as this. The thing to be remembered is that in all ages the satirist of manners has been of the utmost service to society in exposing its follies and lashing its vices. It is the work of a great satirist to apply the caustic to the ulcers of society; and if we are to let our dislike of satire overrule our judgment, we shall not only record our votes against a Juvenal and a Swift, but equally against the whole line of Hebrew prophets.”