The metres adopted by Satire was originally indifferent. The _Saturae_ of Ennius were composed in trochaics, hexameters, and iambics; those of Varro (called _Menippean_, from Menippus of Gadara), mingled together prose and verse. [6] But from Lucilius onwards, Satire, accurately so called, was always treated in hexameter verse. [7]
Nevertheless, Horace is unquestionably right in saying that it had more real affinity for prose than for poetry of any kind--
"Primum ego me illorum, dederim quibus esse poetis, Excerpam numero: neque enim concludere versum Dixeris esse satis; neque si quis scribat, uti nos, Sermoni propiora, pates hunc esse poetam." [8]
The essence of satiric talent is that it should be able to understand the complexities of real life, that it should penetrate beneath the surface to the true motives of action, and if these are bad, should indicate by life- like touches their ridiculous or contemptible nature. There is room here for great variety of treatment and difference of _personnel_. One may have a broad and masculine grasp of the main outlines of social intercourse; another with subtler analysis may thread his way through the intricacies of dissimulation, and lay bare to the hypocrite secrets which he had concealed even from himself; a third may select certain provinces of conduct or thought, and by a good-humoured but discriminating portraiture, throw them into so new and clear a light, as to enable mankind to look at them, free from the prejudices with which convention so often blinds our view.
The qualifications for excelling in this kind of writing are clearly such as have no special connection with poetry. Had the modern prose essay existed at Rome, it is probable the satirists would have availed themselves of it. From the fragments of Lucilius we should judge that he found the trammels of verse somewhat embarrassing. Practice had indeed enabled him to write with unexampled fluency; [9] but except in this mechanical facility he shows none of the characteristics of a poet. The accumulated experience of modern life has pronounced in favour of abandoning the poetic form, and including Satire in the domain of prose. No doubt many celebrated poets in France and England have cultivated verse satire; but in most cases they have merely imitated, whereas the prose essay is a true formation of modern literary art. Conington, in an interesting article, [10] regards the progressive enlargement of the sphere of prose composition as a test of a nation's intellectual advance. Thus considered, poetry is the imperfect attempt to embody in vivid language ideas which have themselves hardly assumed definite form, and necessarily gives way to prose when clearness of thought and sequence of reasoning have established for themselves a more perfect vehicle. However inadequate such a view may be to explain the full nature of poetry, it is certainly true so far as concerns the case at present before us. The assignment of each special exercise of mind to its proper department of literature is undoubtedly a late growth of human culture, and such nations as have not attained to it, whatever may be the splendour of their literary creations, cannot be said to have reached the full maturity of intellectual development.