They are wonderful compositions in every sense of the word. The
sparkling wit, the ready raillery, the cutting irony, the biting
sarcasm, and the sardonic cynicism which characterize almost every line
of them are united to a brilliancy of imagination, a swiftness as well
as a felicity of thought, and an epigrammatic terseness of phrase which
even Byron himself has equalled nowhere else in his works. _The Vision
of Judgment_ is an example in the first instance of parody, and, in the
second, but not by any means so distinctly, of allegory. Its savage
ferocity of sarcasm crucified Southey upon the cross of scornful
contempt. Byron is not as good a metrist as a satirist, and the _Ottava
rima_ in his hands sometimes halts a little; still, the poem is a
notable example of a satiric parody written with such distinguished
success in a measure of great technical difficulty.

It is somewhat curious that all three of Byron's great satiric poems
should be written in the same measure. Yet so it is, for the poet,
having become enamoured of the metre after reading Frere's clever
satire, _Whistlecraft_, ever afterwards had a peculiar fondness for
it. Both _Beppo_ and _Don Juan_ are also excellent examples of the
metrical "satiric tale". The former, being the earlier satire of the
two, was Byron's first essay in this new type of satiric composition.
His success therein stimulated him to attempt another "tale" which in
some respects presents features that ally it to the mock-epic. _Beppo_
is a perfect storehouse of well-rounded satirical phrases that cleave
to the memory, such as "the deep damnation of his 'bah'" and the
description of the "budding miss",

"So much alarmed that she is quite alarming,
All giggle, blush, half pertness and half pout".