SOURCE: Main, C. F. “The Right Vein of Rochester's Satyr.” In Essays in Literary History, Presented to J. Milton French, edited by Rudolf Kirk and C. F. Main, pp. 93-112. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1960.

In the essay which follows, Main seeks to uncover the “true vein” of Rochester's A Satire Against Mankind and argues that the work is a formal classical verse satire, as it contains typical elements of such a work, including the arraignment of one vice and commendation of its opposite virtue; a two-part structure; a single theme; the use of an unpleasant, satirical person; and a retraction at the end of the poem.

John Aubrey records an interesting contemporary opinion of the Earl of Rochester as a satirist. Andrew Marvell, he tells us, was wont to say that Rochester “was the best English Satyrist and had the right vein.”¹ If modern commentators...