SATIRE (Lat. satire; older form, satitra), the name given by the Romans to a species of poetry of which they may be considered the inventors. The word suture. (from the root sat, enough) is strictly and originally an adjective, meaning " full" or "tilled;" b afterward it came to possess also a substantive signification, and denoted a dish filled with ir medley of ingeedients, like the potpourri (q. v.) of the French, or the Oa podrida (q.v.) of the Spaniards. lIence, in its figurative application to a branch of literature, it throws a light on the primary character of that literature. The oldest Roman satire was a medley of scenic or 'dramatic improvisations expressed in varying meters lib. 7, cap. 2), like the Fescennine verses (q.v.); but the sharp banter and rude jocularity of these unwritten effusions bore little resemblance, either in form or spirit, to the earnest and acrimonious criticism that formed the essential characteristic of the later satire. The earliest—so far as we know—who wrote saturce, were Ennius (q.v.) and Pacuvius; but the metrical miscellanies of these authors were little more than serious and prosaic descriptions. or didactic homilies and dialogues. Lucilins (b. 148. d. 103 n.c.) is univer sally admitted to be the first who handled men and manners in that peculiar style which has ever thwe been recognized as the satirical; and the particular glory of ',tiepins, in a literary paint of view, consists in this, that lie was the creator of especial kind of poetry. which in all subsequent ages has been the terror and aversion of fools and knaves. flee serious and even gravity of the Roman mind must have readily disposed a -0 a censorious view of public and private vices After the death of Locilius satire, as well as other forms of literature, languished, nor do we meet with any satirist of note till the age of Horace (q.v.), whose writings are as a glass in which we behold mirrored the tastes and habits of the Augustan age. His satire, though sharp enough at tines, is in the main humorous and playful. It is different when we come to Juvenal (q.v.)—a century later, when satire became a stem indignatio, a savage onslaught on the tremendous vices of the capital. Persius (q.v.), who lived in the generation before Juvenal, is every way inferior, in force of genius, to the latter. AfterJuvenal we have noprofessed satirist, but several writers, prose and poetic, in whom the satiric element is found, of whom Martial, the epigrammatist., is perhaps the most notable.
During the middle agcs the satirical element showed itself abundantly in the gen :t t literature of France, Italy, Germany, England. and Scotland. Melt who have a to the character of satirists, par excellence, are Ulrich von Ilutten, one of the authors tit the Epueoke Obscurerum Virornm (q.v.), Erasmus (q.v.), Rabelais (q.v.), sit David Lint' say (q v.), George Buchanan (q.v.). In all of these writers, priests are the special objects of attack; their, vices, their greed, their folly. their, ignorance, are lashed with a fiwoe rage. But it was in France that satire as a formal literary imitation of antiquity first appeared in modern times. Vanquelin (q.v.) may be considered the true ibunder of modern French satire. The satirical verses of Moffitt, of Shrogne, and of Bert helot of Matnurin Ren'nier, L'Espaden Satirique of Fourqueraux• and Le Pernasse Satirwoe, attributed to Theophile Viand, are very impure in expression, and remind its that at this time a satire was understood to be an obscene work—the 17th c.'seholars supposing that the name had something to do whit Satyr, and that the style ought to be cottformcd what might he thought appropriate to the lascivious deities of ancient Greece! Din-in9. the 17th and 18th centuries, both England and France produced professed satirists 4 the first order of merit, who have surpassed by the best either of their predeces sors or successors. The names of Dryden (q.v.). Butler (q.v.), Pope (q.v.), and Churchill (q.v.) on this side of the channel, of Boileau (q.v.) and Voltaire (q.v.) on the other. are too well known to require more than mention.' Dr. Edward Young (q.i. ) and Dr. John. son (q.v.) have also made a name for themselves in this branch of literature. It may be noticed. however. as a distinguishing characteristic of Dryden, Boileau, Young, Churchill, and John•on, and as a mark of the difference of the times in which they raved from those of the satirists of the reformation, that it is co longer the church that is assailed. but society, political opponents, literary etc. ; the war is carried on, not so much against bad morals in the clergy as against the common vices of men in general, or is even the-expression of partisan hatreds. swift (q.v.) and-Arbuthnot, (q v.) are perhaps as great satirists as any of those we have mentioned.