160 
of Caricature 
Gr0z'q[Que 
and 
verfe. The tirtt of thefe, in his "Polycraticus," Walter Mapes, in his 
book "De Nugis Curialiurn," and Giraldus. in his " Speculum Eccletiae," 
and feveral other of his writings, lay the lath on the corruptions and vices 
of their contemporaries with no tender hand. The two molt remarkable 
Englifh fatiritis of the twelfth century were John de Hauteville and 
Nigellus VVireker. The former wrote, in the year 1184, a poem in nine 
books of Latin hexameters, entitled, after the name of its hero, " Archi- 
trenius," or the Arch-mourner. Architrenius is reprefented as a youth, 
arrived at years of maturity, who forrows over the fpeetacle of human 
vices and weaknetfes, until he refolves to go on a pilgrimage to Dame 
Nature, in order to expottulate with her for having made him feeble to 
rehtt the temptations of the world, and to entreat her atiiftance. On his 
way, he arrives fuccetiively at the court of Venus and at the abode of 
Gluttony, which give him the occaiion to dwell at confiderable length 
on the licenfe and luxury which prevailed among his contemporaries. 
He next reaches Paris, and vifits the famous mediaeval univernty, and his 
iatire on the manners of the ftuclents and the fruitleifnells of their Iludies, 
forms a remarkable and interetting picture of the age. The pilgrim 
next arrives at the Mount of Ambition, tempting by its beauty and by the 
ftately palace with which it was crowned, and here we are prefented with 
a fatire on the manners and corruptions of the court. Near to this was 
the Hill of Prefutnption, which was inhabited by eccletiaftics of all claH'es, 
great fcbolaftic doctors and profetfors, monks, and the like. It is a 
fatire on the manners of the clergy. As Arcbitrenius turns from this 
painful fpeetacle, he encounters a gigantic and hideous monfter named 
Cupidity, is led into a feries of redetitions upon the greedinefs and 
avarice of the prelates, from which he is roufed by the uproar caufed by 
a fierce combat between the prodigals and the mifers. He is fubfequently 
carried to the ifland of far-diftant Thule, which he finds to be the refting- 
place of the philofophers of ancient Greece, and he littens to their 
declamations againit the vices of mankind. After this vifit, Architrenius 
reaches the end of his pilgrimage. He finds Nature in the form of a 
beautiful woman, dwelling with a hott of attendants in the midlt of a 
flowery plain, and meats with a courteous reception, but {he begins by 
giving