ce
of trampling upon us. It has become a breach of etiquette to praise the
enemy; whereas when the enemy is strong every honest scout ought to
praise the enemy. It is impossible to vanquish an army without having a
full account of its strength. It is impossible to satirise a man without
having a full account of his virtues. It is too much the custom in
politics to describe a political opponent as utterly inhumane, as
utterly careless of his country, as utterly cynical, which no man ever
was since the beginning of the world. This kind of invective may often
have a great superficial success: it may hit the mood of the moment; it
may raise excitement and applause; it may impress millions. But there is
one man among all those millions whom it does not impress, whom it
hardly even touches; that is the man against whom it is directed. The
one person for whom the whole satire has been written in vain is the man
whom it is the whole object of the institution of satire to reach. He
knows that such a description of him is not true. He knows that he is
not utterly unpatriotic, or utterly self-seeking, or utterly barbarous
and revengeful. He knows that he is an ordinary man, and that he can
count as many kindly memories, as many humane instincts, as many hours
of decent work and responsibility as any other ordinary man. But behind
all this he has his real weaknesses, the real ironies of his soul:
behind all these ordinary merits lie the mean compromises, the craven
silences, the sullen vanities, the secret brutalities, the unmanly
visions of revenge. It is to these that satire should reach if it is to
touch the man at whom it is aimed. And to reach these it must pass and
salute a whole army of virtues.

If we turn to the great English satirists of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, for example, we find that they had this rough but
firm grasp of the size and strength, the value and the best points of
their adversary. Dryden, before hewing Ahitophel in pieces, gives a
splendid and spirited account of the insane valour and inspired cunning
of the

'daring pilot in extremity,'

who was more untrustworthy in calm than in storm, and

'Steered too near the rocks to boast his wit.'

The whole is, so far as it goes, a sound and picturesque version of the
great Shaftesbury. It would, in many ways, serve as a very sound and
picturesque account of Lord Randolph Churchill. But here comes in very
pointedly the difference bet