An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad

wide gap between the real satanic host and its London auxiliary, there is little doubt that Harte grasped the underlying seriousness of his mentor's analogies and his own.

* * * * *

A few words remain to be said about Boileau's Discourse of Satires Arraigning Persons by Name, which so far as I know appeared with all early printings of Harte's Essay.

The Discourse was first published in 1668, with the separately printed edition of Boileau's ninth satire; in the same year it was included in a collected edition of the satires. It was occasioned, evidently, by a critic's complaint that the modern satirist, departing from ancient practice, "offers insults to individuals."[24]

The only English translation of the Discourse that I have discovered before 1730 appears in volume two (1711) of a three-volume translation of Boileau's works. This, however, is not the same translation as the one accompanying Harte's Essay; it is noticeably less fluent