A representative of the Elizabethan group is Marston:[12]
“I would show to be
Tribunus plebis, ’gainst the villainy
Of those same Proteans, whose hypocrisy
Doth still abuse our fond credulity.”
Milton manages here as elsewhere to sound a clarion note over the clash of seventeenth century partisanship:[13]
“A taste for delicate satire cannot be general until refinement of manners is general likewise; till we are enlightened enough to comprehend that the legitimate object of satire is not to humble an individual, but to improve the species. * * * For a satire as it is born out of a tragedy so it ought to resemble its parentage, to strike high, to adventure dangerously at the most eminent vices among the greatest persons.”
Defoe[14] echoes Dryden,[15] both speaking with reasonable consistency; and even Pope[16] tries to make out a case for himself. But the completest paean is from the pen of John Brown.[17] His poetic analysis begins at the beginning:
“In every breast there burns an active flame,
The love of glory, or the dread of shame: