Two of them, _Maid Marian_ and _The Misfortunes of Elphin_, are in historic costume, and thus afford a chance for the inverted satire that comes from a contrast between past and present, not to the advantage of the latter. The other five are all domiciled in contemporary English house parties; in Hall, Court, Abbey, Castle, or Grange. These are not, however, the habitations of the conventional citizen. They are “Headlong,” “Nightmare,” “Crochet.” They harbor all sorts of whimsies and fads. Those assembled dine, drink, and talk. Between meals they have a few adventures, not recounted for their own sake, but that of the additional talk they will bring forth.[92] Though the repartee of these dramatized Imaginary Conversations is always at concert pitch, it harmonizes with the whimsically theatrical setting; and the _toute ensemble_ edifies while it sparkles, like a set of fireworks displaying maxims of intellectual wit as they explode. The characters themselves wear their very names as satiric labels. Mr. Feathernest, Mr. Dross, Mrs. Pinmoney, the Honorable Mr. Listless, Sir Oliver Oilcake, the Reverends Gaster, Grovelgrub, Vorax, are ticketed after the fashion inherited from the Morality Plays, a device that distills a quaint mediæval odor on the nineteenth-century air, and persists only in some of Trollope’s minor characters. Of all these people exploiting all their “humours” Peacock is the ever amused spectator. He speaks ironically through the voice of the artlessly ambitious Squire Crochet:[93] “The sentimental against the rational, the intuitive against the inductive, the ornamental against the useful, the intense against the tranquil, the romantic against the classical; these are great and interesting controversies, which I should like, before I die, to see satisfactorily settled.” It is because of this effect of inconsequent raillery, doubtless, that Peacock appears to lack humanity,[94] and to laugh without responsibility.[95] But one feels that such criticisms would not have ruffled the twinkling serenity of his placid spirit; that he would not have deplored the loss of power nor demurred at the penalty. He was a born sportsman. The hunting was good. Pleasure to him was in pursuit more than possession. Having had the fun, he would willingly give away his bag of game before he went home. One turns with an especial interest to the belated _Gryll Grange_ to see what change there may be thirty years after, but finds little more than the natural mellowing influence of time. He is indeed “satirist to the last,” albeit he is disposed to use “more oil and less vinegar.”[96] If Peacock is Horatian, without the Roman’s sense of realism, Butler is more of a Juvenal, as the latter might have been, perhaps, had he lived under Victoria instead of Domitian. The wind of invective is now tempered, not to the shorn lamb, but to the modern prejudice against the rudeness of tempests unmitigated by sunshine.