Roger Rabutin de Bussy--M. Dassy--Trajan Boccalini--Pierre
Billard--Pietro Aretino--Felix Hemmerlin--John Giovanni
Cinelli--Nicholas Francus--Lorenzo Valla--Ferrante Pallavicino--François
Gacon--Daniel Defoe--Du Rosoi--Caspar Scioppius.
To "sit in the seat of the scorner" has often proved a dangerous
position, as the writers of satires and lampoons have found to their
cost, although their sharp weapons have often done good service in
checking the onward progress of Vice and Folly. All authors have not
shown the poet's wisdom who declared:--
"Satire's my weapon, but I'm too discreet
To run amuck, and tilt at all I meet."
Nor have all the victims of satire the calmness and self-possession
of the philosopher who said: "If evil be said of thee, and it be true,
correct thyself; if it be a lie, laugh at it." It would have been well
for those who indulged in this style of writing, if all the victims of
their pens had been of the same mind as Frederick the Great, who said
that time and experience had taught him to be a good post-horse, going
through his appointed daily stage, and caring nothing for the curs that
barked at him along the road.
Foremost among the writers of satire stands Count Roger Rabutin de
Bussy, whose mind was jocose, his wit keen, and his sarcasm severe.
He was born in 1618, and educated at a college of Jesuits, where he
manifested an extraordinary avidity for letters and precocious talents.
The glory of war fired his early zeal, and for sixteen years he followed
the pursuit of arms. Then literature claimed him as her slave. His first
book, _Les amours du Palais Royal_, excited the displeasure of King
Louis XIV., and prepared the way for his downfall. In his _Histoire
amoureuse des Gaules_ (Paris, 1665, 1 vol., in-12) he satirised the lax
manners of the French Court during the minority of the King, and had the
courage to narrate the intrigue which Louis carried on with La Vallière.
He spares few of the ladies of the Court, and lashes them all with his
satire, amongst others Mesdames d'Olonne and de Chatillon. Unhappily
for the Count, he showed the book, when it was yet in MS., to the
Marchioness de Beaume, his intimate friend. But the best of friends
sometimes quarrel, and unfortunately the Count and the good lady
quarrelled while yet the MS. was in her possession. A grand opportunity
for revenge thus presented itself. She showed to the ladies of the Court
the severe verses which the Count had written; and his victims were so
enraged that they carried their complaints to the King, who had already
felt the weight of the author's blows in some verses beginning:--
"Que Deodatus est heureux
De baiser ce bec amoureux,
Qui, d'une oreille à l'autre va.
Alléluia," etc.
This aroused the anger of the self-willed monarch, who ordered the
author to be sent to the Bastille, and then to be banished from the
kingdom for ever. Bussy passed sixteen years in exile, and occupied
his enforced leisure by writing his memoirs, _Les mémoires de Roger
de Rabutin, Comte de Bussi_ (Paris, 1697), in which he lauded himself
amazingly, and a history of the reign of Louis XIV., which abounded
in base flattery of the "Great Monarch." Bussy earned the title of the
French Petronius, by lashing with his satirical pen the debaucheries of
Louis and his Court after the same manner in which the Roman philosopher
ridiculed the depravity of Nero and his satellites. His style was always
elegant, and his satire, seemingly so playful and facetious, stung his
victims and cut them to the quick. This was a somewhat dangerous gift
to the man who wielded the whip when the Grand Monarch felt the lash
twisting around his royal person. Therefore poor Bussy was compelled to
end his days in exile.
A book fatal to its author, M. Dassy, a Parisian lawyer, was one which
bore the title _Consultation pour le Baron et la Baronne de Bagge_
(Paris, 1777, in-4). It attacked M. Titon de Villotran, counsellor
of the Grand Chamber, who caused its author to be arrested. The book
created some excitement, and contained some severe criticisms on
the magistrates and the ecclesiastical authorities as well as on the
aggrieved Villotran. Parliament confirmed the order for Dassy's arrest,
but he contrived to effect his escape to Holland. He was a rich man, who
did much to relieve and assist the poor, while he delighted to attack
and satirise the prosperous and the great.
The Italian satirist Trajan Boccalini, born at Loretto in 1556, was also
one upon whom Court favour shone. He was surrounded by a host of friends
and admirers, and was appointed Governor of the States of the Church.
He was one of the wittiest and most versatile of authors, and would have
risen to positions of greater dignity, if only his pen had been a
little less active and his satire less severe. He wrote a book entitled
_Ragguagli di Parnasso_ (1612), which was most successful. In this work
he represents Apollo as judge of Parnassus, who cites before him kings,
authors, warriors, statesmen, and other mighty personages, minutely
examines their faults and crimes, and passes judgment upon them.
Inasmuch as these people whom Apollo condemned were his contemporaries,
it may be imagined that the book created no small stir, and aroused the
wrath of the victims of his satire. Boccalini was compelled to leave
Rome and seek safety in Venice. He also wrote a bitter satire upon
the Spanish misrule in Italy, entitled _Pietra del paragone politico_
(1615). In this book he showed that the power of the King of Spain in
Italy was not so great as men imagined, and that it would be easy to
remove the Spanish yoke from their necks. In Venice he imagined himself
safe; but his powerful foes hired assassins to "remove" the obnoxious
author. He was seized one day by four strong men, cast upon a couch, and
beaten to death with bags filled with sand. The elegance of his style,
his witticisms and fine Satire, have earned for Boccalini the title of
the Italian Lucian.
To scoff at the powerful Jesuits was not always a safe pastime, as
Pierre Billard discovered, who, on account of his work entitled _La Bête
à sept têtes_, was sent to the Bastille, and subsequently to the prisons
of Saint-Lazare and Saint-Victor. The Society objected to be compared
to the Seven-headed Beast, and were powerful enough to ruin their bold
assailant, who died at Charenton in 1726.
Another Italian satirist, Pietro Aretino, acquired great fame, but not
of a creditable kind. Born at Arezzo in 1492, he followed the trade of
a bookbinder; but not confining his labour to the external adornment
of books, he acquired some knowledge of letters. He began his career by
writing a satirical sonnet against indulgences, and was compelled to
fly from his native place and wander through Italy. At Rome he found
a temporary resting-place, where he was employed by Popes Leo X. and
Clement VII. Then he wrote sixteen gross sonnets on the sixteen obscene
pictures of Giulio Romano [Footnote: These were published under the
title of _La corona de i cazzi, cioë, sonetti lussuriosi del Pietro
Aretino. Stamp. senza Luogo ne anno, in-16_. The engravings in this
edition, the work of Marc Antonio of Bolgna, were no less scandalous
than the sonnets, and the engraver was ordered to be arrested by Pope
Clement VII., and only escaped punishment by flight.], which were so
intolerable that he was again forced to fly and seek an asylum at Milan
under the protection of the "black band" led by the famous Captain
Giovanni de Medici. On the death of this leader he repaired to Venice,
where he lived by his pen. He began a series of satires on princes and
leading men, and earned the title of _flagellum principum_. Aretino
adopted the iniquitous plan of demanding gifts from those he proposed
to attack, in order that by these bribes they might appease the libeller
and avert his onslaught. Others employed him to libel their enemies.
Thus the satirist throve and waxed rich and prosperous. His book
entitled _Capricium_ was a rude and obscene collection of satires on
great men. His prolific pen poured forth _Dialogues, Sonnets, Comedies_,
and mingled with a mass of discreditable and licentious works we find
several books on morality and theology. These he wrote, not from any
sense of piety and devotion, but simply for gain, while his immoral life
was a strange contrast to his teaching. He published a Paraphrase on
the seven Penitential Psalms (Venice, 1534), and a work entitled _De
humanitate sive incarnatione Christi_ (Venice, 1535), calling himself
Aretino the divine, and by favour of Pope Julius III. he nearly obtained
a Cardinal's hat. Concerning his Paraphrase a French poet wrote:--
"Si ce livre unit le destin
De David et de l'Arétin,
Dans leur merveilleuse science,
Lecteur n'en sois pas empêché
Qui paraphrase le péché
Paraphrase la pénitence."
Utterly venal and unscrupulous, we find him at one time enjoying the
patronage of Francis I. of France, and then abusing that monarch and
basking in the favour of the Emperor Charles V., who paid him more
lavishly. His death took place at Venice in 1557. Some say that he, the
_flagellum_ of princes, was beaten to death by command of the princes
of Italy; others narrate that he who laughed at others all his life
died through laughter. His risible faculties being on one occasion so
violently excited by certain obscene jests, he fell from his seat, and
struck his head with such violence against the ground that he died.
The town of Zürich was startled in the fifteenth century by finding
itself the object of the keen satire of one of its canons, Felix
Hemmerlin, who wrote a book entitled _Clarissimi viri jurumque Doctoris
Felicis Malleoli Hemmerlini variae oblectationis Opuscula et Tractatus
(Basileae_, 1494, folio). The clergy, both regular and secular, were
also subjected to his criticism. The book is divided into two parts; the
first is a dialogue _de Nobilitate et Rusticitate_, and the second is
a treatise against the mendicant friars, monks, Beghards, and Béguines.
The town of Zürich was very indignant at this bold attack, and deprived
the poor author of his benefices and of his liberty.
Italian air seems to have favoured satire, but Italian susceptibility
was somewhat fatal to the satirists. Giovanni Cinelli, born in 1625,
taught medicine at Florence and was illustrious for his literary
productions. He allied himself with Antonio Magliabecchi, who afforded
him opportunities of research in the library of the Grand Duke. He began
the great work entitled _Bibliotheca volans_, the fourth section of
which brought grievous trouble upon its author. It was all caused by
an unfortunate note which attacked the doctor of the Grand Duke. This
doctor was highly indignant, and reported Cinelli to the Tribunal. The
book was publicly burnt by the hangman, and Cinelli was confined in
prison ninety-*three days and then driven into exile. His misfortunes
roused his anger, and he published at his retreat at Venice a bitter
satire on men of all ranks entitled _Giusticazione di Giovanni Cinelli_
(1683), exciting much hostility against him. He died at the age
of seventy years in the Castle of San Lorenzo, A.D. 1705, and his
_Bibliotheca volans_ was continued and completed by Sancassani under the
fictitious name of Philoponis.
Nicholas Francus, an Italian poet of the sixteenth century, was a
graceful writer and very skilled in the Latin, Greek, and Etruscan
languages, but incurred a grievous fate on account of his severe
satire on Pope Pius IV. The stern persecutor of Carranza, the powerful
Archbishop of Toledo, was not a person to be attacked with impunity. The
cause of the poet's resentment against the Pope was the prohibition of
a certain work, entitled _Priapeia_, which Francus had commenced,
describing the feasts of Priapus. Pius IV. refused to allow the poet to
complete his book, and ordered that which he had already written to be
burned. This was too much for the equanimity of the poet, whose eye
was with fine frenzy rolling, and he began to assail the Pope with all
manner of abuse. For some time the punishment for his rash writing was
postponed, on account of the protection of a powerful Cardinal; but
on the death of Pius IV. Francus sharpened his pen afresh, and sorely
wounded the memory of his deceased foe. In one of his satires the words
of St. John's Gospel, _verbum caro factum est_, were inserted; and the
charge of profanity was brought against him. At length Pius V. condemned
him to death. Some historians narrate that the poor poet was hung on
a beam attached to the famous statue of the Gladiator in front of the
Palace of the Orsini, called the Pasquin, to which the deriders
and enemies of the Pope were accustomed to affix their epigrams and
pamphlets. These were called _Pasquinades_, from the curious method
adopted for their publication. Others declare that he suffered
punishment in a funereal chamber draped with black; while another
authority declares that the poet, the victim of his own satires, was
hung on a fork-shaped gibbet, not on account of his abuse of Pius IV.,
but through the hatred of Pius V., which some personal quarrel had
excited. This conjecture is, however, probably false.
Francus was a true poet, endowed with a vivid imagination and with a
delicate and subtle wit. He scorned the coarse invective in which the
satirists of his day used to delight. He had many enemies on account of
his plain-spoken words and keen criticisms. The problem which perplexed
the Patriarch Job--the happiness of prosperous vice, the misery of
persecuted virtue--tormented his mind and called forth his embittered
words. He inveighed against the reprobates and fools, the crowds of
monsignors who were as vain of their effeminacy as the Scipios of their
deeds of valour; he combated abuses, and with indignant pen heaped scorn
upon the fashionable vices of the age. The Pope and his Cardinals, stung
by his shafts of satire, cruelly avenged themselves upon the unhappy
poet, and, as we have said, doomed him to death in the year 1569. His
Dialogues were printed in Venice by Zuliani in 1593, under the title
_Dialoghi piacevolissimi di Nicolo Franco da Benevento_; and there is a
French translation, made by Gabriel Chapins, published at Lyons in 1579,
entitled _Dix plaisans Dialogues du sieur Nicolo Franco_.
Lorenzo Valla, born at Rome in 1406, was one of the greatest scholars of
his age, and contributed more than any other man to the revival of
the love of Latin literature in the fifteenth century. His works
are voluminous. He translated into Latin _Herodotus_ (Paris, 1510),
_Thucydides_ (Lyons, 1543), _The Iliad_ (Venice, 1502), _Fables of
Aesop_ (Venice, 1519); and wrote _Elegantiae Sermonis Latini_, a history
of Ferdinand Aragon (Paris, 1521), and many other works, which are the
monuments of his learning and industry. But Valla raised against him
many enemies by the severity of his satire on almost all the learned men
of his time. He spared no one, and least of all the clerics, who sought
his destruction. A friend advised him that, unless he was weary of life,
he ought to avoid heaping his satirical abuse on the Roman priests and
bishops. He published a work on the pretended Donation of Constantine to
the Papal See, and for this and other writings pronounced heretical by
the Inquisition he was cast into prison, and would have suffered death
by fire had not his powerful friend Alphonso V., King of Aragon, rescued
him from the merciless Holy Office. Valla was compelled publicly
to renounce his heretical opinions, and then, within the walls of a
monastery, his hands having been bound, he was beaten with rods. It is
unnecessary to follow the fortunes of Valla further. He was engaged in
a long controversy with the learned men of his time, especially with the
facetious Poggio, whose wit was keener though his language was not so
forcible. Erasmus in his Second Epistle defends Valla in his attacks
upon the clergy, and asks, "Did he speak falsely, because he spoke the
truth too severely?" Valla died at Naples in 1465. The following epigram
testifies to the correctness of his Latinity and the severity of his
criticisms:--
_Nunc postquam manes defunctus Valla petivit,
Non audet Pluto verba latina loqui.
Jupiter hunc coeli dignatus honore fuisset,
Censorem lingua sed timet esse suae._
Raphael Maffei, surnamed Volaterranus, the compiler of the _Commentarii
urbani_ (1506), a huge encyclopaedia published in thirty-eight books,
composed the following witty stanza on the death of Valla:--
_Tandem Valla silet solitus qui parcere nulli est
Si quaeris quid agat? nunc quoque mordet humum._
Our list of Italian satirists closes with Ferrante Pallavicino, a witty
Canon, born at Plaisance in 1618, who ventured to write satirical
poems on the famous nepotist, Pope Urban VIII., and all his family, the
Barberini. Some of his poems were entitled _Il corriero sualigiato, Il
divortio celeste, La baccinata_, which were published in a collection of
his complete works at Venice in 1655. His selected works were published
at Geneva in 1660. He made a playful allusion to the Barberini on the
title-page of his work, where there appeared a crucifix surrounded by
burning thorns and bees, with the verse of the Psalmist _Circumdederunt
me sicut apes, et exarserunt sicut ignis in spinis_, alluding to the
bees which that family bear on their arms. Pallavicino lived in safety
for some time at Venice, braving the anger of his enemies. Unfortunately
he wished to retire to France, and during his journey passed through the
territory of the Pope. He was accompanied by a Frenchman, one Charles
Morfu, who pretended great friendship for him, admired his works, and
scoffed at the Barberini with jests as keen as the Canon's own satires.
But the Frenchman betrayed him to his foes, and poor Pallavicino paid
the penalty of his rashness by a cruel death in the Papal Palace at
Avignon at the early age of twenty-nine years. His strictures on Urban
and his family were well deserved. The Pope heaped riches and favours
on his relations. He made three of his nephews cardinals, and the fourth
was appointed General of the Papal troops. So odious did the family
make themselves by their exactions that on the death of Urban they
were forced to leave Rome and take refuge in France. Pallavicino had
certainly fitting subjects for his satirical verses.
François Gacon, a French poet and satirist of the eighteenth century,
suffered imprisonment on account of his poems, entitled _Le Poëte sans
fard, ou Discours satyriques sur toutes sortes de sujets_ (Paris, 2
vols., in-12). His satire was very biting and not a little scurrilous,
and was famous for the quantity rather than the quality of his poetical
effusions. We give the following example of his skill, in which he
discourses upon the different effects which age produces on wine and
women:--
"Une beauté, quand elle avance en âge,
A ses amans inspire du dégoût;
Mais, pour le vin, il a cet avantage,
Plus il vieillit, plus il flatte le goût."
The literary world of Paris in 1708 was very much disturbed by certain
satirical verses which seemed to come from an unknown hand and empty
cafés as if with the magic of a bomb. The Café de la Laurent was the
famous resort of the writers of the time, where Rousseau and Lamothe
reigned as chiefs of the literary Parnassus amid a throng of poets,
politicians, and wits. Some malcontent poet thought fit to disturb the
harmony of this brilliant company by publishing some very satirical
couplets directed against the frequenters of the café. This so enraged
the company that they deserted the unfortunate café, and selected
another for their rendezvous. But other verses, still more severe,
followed them. Jean Baptist Rousseau was suspected as their author; he
denied the supposition and accused Saurin; but Rousseau was found to
be guilty and was banished from the kingdom for ever, as the author and
distributer of "certain impure and satirical verses."
Amongst satirical writers who have suffered hard fates we must mention
the illustrious author of _Robinson Crusoe_, Daniel Defoe. A strong
partisan of the Nonconformist cause during the controversial struggle
between Church and Dissent in the reign of Queen Anne, he published
a pamphlet entitled _The Shortest Way with the Dissenters_ (1702), in
which he ironically advised their entire extermination. This pleased
certain of the Church Party who had not learned the duty of charity
towards the opinions of others, nor the advantages of Religious Liberty.
Nor were they singular in this respect, as the Dissenting Party had
plainly shown when the power was in their hands. Happily wiser counsels
prevail now. When Defoe's jest was discovered, and his opponents found
that the book was "writ sarcastic," they caused the unhappy author to be
severely punished. Parliament condemned his book to the flames, and
its author to the pillory and to prison. On his release he wrote other
political pamphlets, which involved him in new troubles; and, disgusted
with politics, he turned his versatile talents to other literary
work, and produced his immortal book _Robinson Crusoe_, which has been
translated into all languages, and is known and read by every one.
Young's _Night Thoughts_ might not be considered a suitable form of poem
for parody, but this M. Durosoi, or Du Rosoi, accomplished in his _Les
Jours d'Ariste_ (1770), and was sent to the Bastille for his pains. The
cause of his condemnation was that he had published this work without
permission, and also perhaps on account of certain political allusions
contained in his second work, _Le Nouvel Ami des Hommes_, published
in the same year. But a worse fate awaited Du Rosoi on account of his
writings. In the dangerous years of 1791 and 1792 he edited _La Gazette
de Paris_, which procured greater celebrity for him, and brought about
his death. When the fatal tenth of August came, the Editor was not to
be found in Paris. However, ultimately he was secured and condemned
to death by the tribunal extraordinary appointed by the Legislative
Assembly to judge the enemies of the new government. He died with great
bravery at the hands of the revolutionary assassins, after telling his
judges that as a friend of the King he was accounted worthy to die on
that day, the Feast of Saint Louis.
All the venom of satirical writers seems to have been collected by
that strange author Gaspar Scioppius, who had such a singular lust for
powerful invective that he cared not whom he attacked, and made himself
abhorred by all. This Attila of authors was born in Germany in 1576,
went to Rome, abjured Protestantism, and was raised to high honours
by Pope Clement VIII. In return for these favours he wrote
several treatises in support of the Papal claims, amongst others
_Ecclesiasticus_, which was directed against James I. of England.
Concerning this book Casaubon wrote in his Epistle CLV.: "Know
concerning Scioppius that some of his works have been burned not only
here at London by the command of our most wise King, but also at Paris
by the hand of the hangsman. I have written a letter, which I will send
to you, if I am able, against that beast." He poured the vials of his
wrath upon the Jesuits, declaring in his _Relatio ad reges et principes
de stratagematibus Societatis Jesu_ (1635) that there was no truth to
be found in Italy, and that this was owing entirely to the Jesuits, who
"keep back the truth in injustice, who, rejecting the cup of Christ,
drink the cup of devils full of all abominations." This roused their
wrath, and by their designs our author was imprisoned at Venice. There
he would have been slain, if he had not enjoyed the protection of a
powerful Venetian. He boasted that his writings had had such an effect
on two of his literary opponents, Casaubon and Scaliger, as to cause
them to die from vexation and disappointment. He made himself so many
powerful enemies that towards the end of his life he knew not where to
find a secure retreat. This "public pest of letters and society," as the
Jesuits delighted to call him, died at Padua in 1649 hated by all, both
Catholics and Protestants. He wrote one hundred and four works, of
which the most admired is his _Elementa philosophiae moralis stoicae_
(Mayence, 1606).