The other kind of attack accused Pope of wasting his talents in The Dunciad, but palliated blame by reminding him of his demonstrated ability in more worthy poetical pursuits. This was one of Ward's resources; perhaps disingenuously, he professed amazement that a poet with Pope's "sublime Genius," born for "an Epick Muse," "sacred Hymns," and "heav'nly Anthems," would lower himself to mock at "trifling Foibles" or "the Starvlings of Apollo's Train."[[15]] More concerned with Pope's potentialities than with his recent ignominy, George Lyttelton nevertheless made essentially the same point: Pope could never become the English Virgil if he "let meaner Satire ... stain the Glory" of his "nobler Lays."[[16]] And Aaron Hill wrote an allegorical poem to show Pope the error of The Dunciad and to suggest means of escape from entombment "in his own PROFUND."[[17]] In such censure we perhaps glimpse an opinion attributable to the still influential genres theories: a poet of "sublime Genius" should work in a more sublime poetic genre than satire.
In opposing this low view of satire, Harte drew upon ideas more congenial to his purposes and far more congenial to The Dunciad. Originating with the Renaissance commentaries on the formal verse satire of the Romans, their lineage was just as venerable as that of the low view. These critical concepts were probably just as influential too, for they continued to be reiterated by commentaries down to and beyond Pope's time.
Whatever their quarrels, the Renaissance commentaries were virtually united in regarding satire as exalted moral instruction and satirists as ethical philosophers. Casaubon's choice for this sort of praise was Persius; Heinsius and Stapylton likened their respective choices, Horace and Juvenal, to Socrates and Plato; and Rigault considered all three satirists to be philosophers, distinguished only by the different styles which their different periods required. The satirist might disguise himself as a jester, but only to make his moral wisdom more easily digestible; peeling away his mask, "we find in him all the Gods together," "Maxims or Sentences, that like the lawes of nature, are held sacred by all Nations."[[18]]
Dryden's Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire drew heavily and eclectically upon these commentaries, investing their judgments with a new popularity and authority. Although Dryden condemned Persius for obscurity and other defects, he agreed with Casaubon that Persius excels as a moral philosopher and that "moral doctrine" is more important to satire than wit or urbanity. Dryden knew, moreover, that the satirist's inculcation of "moral doctrine" meant a dual purpose, a pattern of blame and praise—not only "the scourging of vice" but also "exhortation to virtue"—long recognized as a definitive characteristic of formal verse satire.[[19]] But if Dryden insisted on the moral dignity of satire, he laid equal stress on the dignity attainable through verse and numbers. After complimenting Boileau's Lutrin for its successful imitation of Virgil, its blend of "the majesty of the heroic" with the "venom" of satire, Dryden speaks of "the beautiful turns of words and thoughts, which are as requisite in this [satire], as in heroic poetry itself, of which the satire is undoubtedly a species"; and earlier in the Discourse he had called heroic poetry "certainly the greatest work of human nature."[[20]]
It is clear that Harte's Essay belongs in the tradition of criticism established by the commentaries on classical satire and continued by Dryden. Like these predecessors, Harte believes that satire is moral philosophy, teaching "the noblest Ethicks to reform mankind" (p. 6). Like them again, he believes that to fulfill this purpose satire must not only lash vice but recommend virtue, at least by implication:
Blaspheming Capaneus obliquely shows
T'adore those Gods Aeneas fears and knows, (p. [10])[[21]]
But perhaps Harte's overriding concern was to do for satire (with The Dunciad as his focus) what Dryden's Discourse had done: to reassert its dignity and majesty.
Although Harte is quite careful to distinguish satire from epic poetry, the total effect of his Essay is to blur this distinction and to raise The Dunciad very nearly to the level of genuine epic. The term "Epic Satire" (p. [6]) certainly seems to refer to the wedding of two disparate genres in The Dunciad, lifting it above satire that is merely "rugged" or "mischievously gay" (p. [8]). (The epithet is also, perhaps, a thrust at Edward Ward, who had pinned it on The Dunciad with a sneer.)[[22]] Harte's claim that
Books and the Man demands as much, or more,
Than He who wander'd to the Latian shore (p. [9])
has a similar effect. The greatest epic poets and satirists have always transcended rules to follow "Nature's light"; Pope, over-topping them all, has "still corrected Nature as she stray'd" (pp. [19], [21]). But perhaps Harte's most successful attempt to elevate The Dunciad comes in section two of his poem. Unlike Dryden, in whose Discourse the account of the "progress" of satire is confined almost exclusively to a few Roman writers, Harte begins his account of its progress with Homer and brings it down to Pope. Deriving the ancestry of The Dunciad from Homer, the greatest epic poet, obviously enhances Pope's satire. Perhaps less obviously, by extending Dryden's account to the present, Harte makes The Dunciad not only a chronological terminus ad quem but, far more important, the fruit of centuries of slowly accumulating mastery and wisdom.