These relationships extend on the internal side, so to speak, into such matters as quantity, quality, and range; and on the external, into the larger realms of the two satiric factors--criticism and humor--and thence into the neighboring domains of pessimism and tragedy, comedy and wit, realism and romanticism, emotion and intellect, and idealism. In none of these things, of course, can we do more than indicate briefly the effect they may have upon satire, or satire upon them. Those who have furnished the largest amount of satire,--proportionately, as it happens, both to their own total production, and to the satiric production of others,--are Peacock, Dickens, Butler, and Meredith. But when it comes to quality,--tested by subtlety of wit, self-command, justice as to objects, and moderation of amount,--the only one to remain on the preëminent list is Meredith. At the other extreme we find the same overlapping as to quantity and quality. The smallest satiric amounts come from Brontë, Reade, and Gaskell, but, while the first two are correspondingly inferior in quality, the last is promoted several degrees up the qualitative scale, by reason of her lack of flourish, and the deft sureness of her touch. The low place she leaves vacant belongs by desert to Kingsley, who, like Brontë and Reade, never learned to solve the satirist’s problem,--to trifle without being trivial. Frivolity, to be sure, was never a besetting sin of the Victorians, but in their earnestness they were prone to the opposite fault, and are occasionally caught beating a big satiric drum when softer notes would be more effective. Neither are any on the entire list guilty of downright insincerity, but the less successful ones are sometimes betrayed by partisan zeal, acrimonious temper, or unsound judgment, into more or less injustice. This is true to some extent of Peacock, Dickens, and Thackeray, as well as of those just mentioned. In range of interest Dickens easily leads, followed by Meredith and Trollope. From _Oliver Twist_ to _Edwin Drood_, this satirist spreads his attacks over more ground, and lays about him in more different directions than does any one else. With the exception of the Church, no possible word of importance is omitted from his satiric lexicon. His tastes in the ridiculous are catholic, and scarcely a satirizible subject languishes under his neglect. The other writers are more or less specialists in their chosen fields.