In literature the ironic temper has acquitted itself with distinguished success. Among its contributions one recalls _The Dinner of Trimalchio_, _The Golden Ass_ (and the medieval Burnellus), _Letters of Obscure Men_, _Praise of Folly_, _Gargantua_, _Don Quixote_, _The Gull’s Hornbook_, _Knight of the Burning Pestle_, _A Modest Proposal_, _The Shortest Way with Dissenters_, _Candide_, _Jonathan Wild_, _Murder as a Fine Art_, _Castle Rackrent_, _Northanger Abbey_, _The Fair Haven_. A glance at the list shows the versatile nature of irony both as to form and idea, though its history taken as a whole has shown more predilection for the romantic than for the realistic method. It is an ingredient in all burlesque and caricature, and is on the other hand least necessary to an explicit presentation of reality, however full this last may be of implicit irony. Its consistent practice is to deceive, and this can more easily be accomplished through fantasy and symbolism. When, however, it is accomplished by more demure and disarming means, the deception is more thorough just because of taking the reader unaware. One is on guard against any form of the symbolic, knowing that some suspicious thing is therein concealed. But who would think of questioning a collection of letters, an essay or a treatise? Yet these are the culprits guilty of ruthlessly hoodwinking the trusting literal mind. Ulrich von Hutten’s _Epistolæ_ were edited by Maittaire, and the edition reviewed by Steele (whom we should not expect to be caught napping), both taking them seriously. Defoe’s pilloried renown is well known. Butler’s work “in Defense of the Miraculous Element in Our Lord’s Ministry upon Earth,” was solemnly greeted by the reviewers as a champion of orthodoxy, and sent by Canon Ainger to a friend he wished to convert. Swift and De Quincey have been condemned for abuse of children and encouragement of crime. Misunderstanding of this sort is a triumph for irony, a test of success. But there are also signs of a misapprehension of the ironic disposition, especially as related to the satiric. Of this conception two modern critics afford examples. In the Introduction to his _Defoe_, Masefield remarks,-- “An ironical writer has always nobility of soul; a satirist has seldom any quality save greater baseness than his subject. An ironical writer knows the good; a satirist need only know the evil.” The superb eulogy of the first statement may be dismissed as a bit of rhetoric, but the doom pronounced in its corollary, is based on a double confusion; first between the ironist and the humorist, and second between the satirist and the misanthrope. In a recent discussion the same fallacy is promulgated at greater length:[173]