"'Satire' said Swift 'is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.' Over the past twenty-four centuries the mirror of satirical literature has itself taken many shapes. Nevertheless, certain techniques continually recur, and certain themes are timeless. Politics, the mismanagement of men by other men, has always been a target of satire, as has the war between sexes. The universality of satire is proved...

Political and social memoirs of English life, from 1751 to 1771.