Mr. Augustine Birrell, in an illuminating essay on the writings of Pope, brings forward, with reference to satire, a standard of judgment which merits a wider application. “Dr. Johnson,” says Mr. Birrell, “is more to my mind as a sheer satirist than Pope, for in satire character tells more than in any other form of verse. We want a personality behind—a strong, gloomy, brooding personality; soured and savage if you will—nay, as sour and savage as you like, but spiteful never.” Without subscribing unreservedly to Mr. Birrell’s preference of Johnson over Pope, we may still point out that the most conspicuous feature of Byron’s satire, as, indeed, of most of his other poetry, is the underlying personality of the author, too powerful and aggressive to be obscured or hidden. There have been satirists who, in assuming to express public opinion, have succeeded in partly or entirely effacing themselves, and who have thus acted in the rôle of judicial censors, self-appointed to the task of voicing the sentiments of a party. In the poetry of the Anti-Jacobin, it is by no means easy to detect where the work of one Tory satirist leaves off and that of another begins. So in Dryden’s work we are seldom confronted directly by the emotions or partialities of the writer himself; Absalom and Achitophel gives the impression of a cool impersonal commentary on certain episodes of history, prejudiced perhaps, but carried on with real or feigned calmness. Byron’s satire is of a different sort; we can read scarcely a page without recognizing the potency of the personality that produced it. Just as in Childe Harold the hero usually represents Byron himself in some of the phases of his complex individuality; just as the Lara and the Corsair of his verse romances and the Cain and Manfred of his dramas are reflections of the misanthropical, theatrical and skeptical poet; so, in the satires, no matter what method he uses, it is always Byron who criticises and assails.
Most of the characteristics which make up this personality accountable for Byron’s satiric spirit have been brought out and discussed in previous chapters. The most important of all, probably, is the haste and impetuosity with which he was accustomed to act. In this respect he may be again contrasted with Dryden, who proceeded to satirize an enemy after due preparation, without apparent agitation or excitement, much as a surgeon performs a necessary operation. Even Pope, sensitive and irritable though he was, did not usually strike when his temper was beyond his control. Byron, on the other hand, was, in most cases, feverish and impulsive; what he thought to be provocation was followed at once by a blow. He did not adopt a position of unmoved superiority, but, both too proud and too impatient to delay, sought instinctively to settle a dispute on the spot. Except in some instances notable because of their rarity, Byron seems to have had no understanding of the method of toying with a prospective victim; he planned to close with his opponent, to meet him in a grapple, and to overwhelm him by sheer energy and intrepidity.
This want of restraint had, of course, some favorable results on his satire; the work was indisputably vigorous, effective because of the ungoverned passion which sustained it. At the same time this hasty action was detrimental to Byron’s art, and accounts, in part, for the frequent lack of subtlety in his satire. We may be roused temporarily by the fury of the lines; but when, in less enthusiastic moods, we examine the details, we miss the technique and the transforming craftsmanship of the supreme artist. Only in The Vision of Judgment did he devote himself to devising means for gaining his end in the most dexterous fashion; and the consequence is that poem is the finest of his satires. In the earlier satires we have Byron, the man, talking out spontaneously, angrily, unguardedly, without second thought or reconsideration, like Churchill, a mighty wielder of the bludgeon but a poor master with the rapier.
Byron’s satiric spirit was always combative rather than argumentative or controversial. He preferred to assail men rather than principles. When he disliked an institution or a party, his invariable custom was to select some one as its representative and to proceed to call him to account. It is this desire to war with persons and not with theories that explains his attacks on Castlereagh, whom he never knew, but whom he singled out as the embodiment of England’s repressive policy. By nature Byron was much more ready to quarrel with the Foreign Minister as an individual than he was to discuss the prudence and expediency of that statesman’s measures.
The characteristics so far mentioned could belong only to a daring and fearless man. Byron never hesitated to avow his ideas, nor did he ever retract his invective except in cases in which he had been convinced that he was unjust. He published the Lines to a Lady Weeping under his own name at a time when no one suspected his authorship. For years he satirized European sovereigns without showing the slightest sign of trepidation. He espoused unpopular causes, and often, of his own choice, ran close to danger, when mere silence would have assured him security.
But despite the fact that Byron’s hatreds were seldom disguised and that he was, on the whole, open and manly in his satire, there is another side to his nature which cannot be left unnoticed. He was, unfortunately, implicated in certain incidents which leave him under the suspicion of a kind of treachery towards his friends. His lampoon on Samuel Rogers, beginning,
“Nose and chin would shame a knocker;
Wrinkles that would puzzle Cocker;”
and ending,
“For his merits, would you know ’em?