Modern revaluation of Restoration and eighteenth-century literature has helped Rochester's reputation as both man and poet: many of the nastier myths of his life have been exploded, his poetry has been reliably edited, and critical and scholarly studies have illuminated aspects of his intellectual context and poetic achievement. The Letter from Artemisia in the Town to Chloe in the Country (1679), however, has received sparse critical comment and is excluded from the latest, weighty, anthology of contemporary literature. This is unfortunate, not only because of our ignorance of the poem that is probably Rochester's masterpiece, but also because the Letter helps to show Rochester's broad exercise of satiric talent and, especially, his mastery of the most pessimistic form of serious contemporary satire.

Of course it is difficult to label and classify the varieties of so-called “Augustan” satires, but three broad and, sometimes, overlapping classes may be found. I call these punitive satire, formal verse satire, and apocalyptic or revelatory satire. In the first the poet hopes to punish an adversary rather than correct him, as in Rochester's “On Poet Ninny” (1680), a lampoon upon Sir Carr Scroope. Though there are certain implicit and explicit norms – beauty is preferable to ugliness, pride is bad – the main thrust of the satire is towards abuse rather than instruction: