Satire--that is, a literary work which searches out the faults
of men or institutions in order to hold them up to ridicule--is
at best a destructive kind of criticism. A satirist is like a
laborer who clears away the ruins and rubbish of an old house
before the architect and builders begin on a new and beautiful
structure. The work may sometimes be necessary, but it rarely
arouses our enthusiasm. While the satires of Pope, Swift, and
Addison are doubtless the best in our language, we hardly place
them with our great literature, which is always constructive
in spirit; and we have the feeling that all these men were
capable of better things than they ever wrote.--WILLIAM J.
LONG, “English Literature.”
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