" Then turning out a vessel like a tun, " Simp'ring exclaim'd-Observe! I drink but one." (PHERECRATES.) Athenæus has preserved a confiderable fragment from this author, extracted from his comedy of The Miners, which I look upon to be as curious a fpecimen of the old comedy as I have met with. It is a very luxuriant description of the riches and abundance of fome former times to which he alludes, strongly dashed with comic ftrokes of wild extravagance and hyperbole. These Miners were probably the chorus of the drama, which no doubt was of a fatirical fort, and pointed at the luxuries of the rich. By the mention made of Plutus in the first line, we may suppose that these Mines were of gold, and probably the deity of that precious metal was one of the perfons of the drama. FROM THE MINERS OF PHERECRATES. "The days of Plutus were the days of gold; "The feafon of high feeding and good cheer : "Rivers of goodly beef and brewis ran "Boiling and bubbling thro' the steaming streets, "With iflands of fat dumplings, cut in sops "And flippery gobbets, moulded into mouthfuls, "That dead men might have swallow'd; floating tripes "And fleets of fausages in luscious morsels "Stuck to the banks like oysters: Here and there, "For " For relishers, a falt-fish season'd high " Swam down the favoury tide: When foon behold! "The portly gammon failing in full state " Upon his smoaking platter heaves in fight, " Encompass'd with his bandoliers like guards, "And convoy'd by huge bowls of frumenty, "That with their generous odours scent the air.” "You stagger me to tell of these good days, "And yet to live with us on our hard fare, "When death's a deed as easy as to drink." "If your mouth waters now, what had it done, "Cou'd you have seen our delicate fine thrushes "Hot from the spit, with myrtle-berries cramm'd, "And larded well with celandine and parsley, "Bob at your hungry lips, crying-Come eat me ! " Nor was this all; for pendant over-head "The fairest choicest fruits in clusters hung; "Girls too, young girls just budding into bloom, " Clad in transparent vests, stood near at hand "To serve us with fresh roses and full cups "Of rich and fragrant wine, of which one glafs "No fooner was dispatch'd, than strait behold! "Two goblets, fresh and sparkling as the first, "Provok'd us to repeat the encreasing draught. "Away then with your ploughs, we need them not, "Your scythes, your fickles, and your pruning-hooks! " Away with all your trumpery at once! "Seed-time and harvesst-home and vintage wakes"Your holidays are nothing worth to us. "Our rivers roll with luxury, our vats "O'erflow with nectar, which providing Jove " Showers down by cataracts; the very gutters "From our house-tops spout wine, vast forests wave "Whofe "Whose very leaves drop fatness, finoaking viands "Like mountains rife-All nature's one great feast." AMPHIS, the son of Amphicrates an Athenian, was a celebrated comic poet: We have the titles of one and twenty comedies, and he probably wrote many more: By these titles it appears that he wrote in the fatirical vein of the old comedy, and I meet with a stroke at his contemporary Plato the philofopher. He has a play intitled The Seven Chiefs against Thebes, which is probably a parody upon Efchylus, and proves that he wrote after the perfonal drama was prohibited: There is another called The Dicers; and by several scattered passages he appears to have exposed the perfons of drunkards, gamesters, courtefans, parafites, and other vicious characters of his time, with great moral feverity: There are also two comedies, intitled Women's Love and Women's Tyranny. HERMIPPUS was a writer of the old comedy, and an Athenian. No less than forty comedies are given to this author by Suidas; he attacks Pericles for his dissolute morals, and in one of his plays calls him King of the Satyrs, advising him to assume the proper attributes of his lascivious character: He was the fon of Lyfides, and the brother of Myrtilus, a comic writer also. HIPPARCHUS, HIPPARCHUS, PHILONIDES and THEOPOMPUS complete the lift of poets of the old comedy. Philonides, before he became a votary of the muse, followed the trade of a fuller, and, if we are to take the word of Ariftophanes, was a very filly vulgar fellow, illiterate to a proverb. Athenæus and Stobæus have however given us some short quotations, which by no means favour this account, and it is probable there was more fatire than truth in Ariftophanes's character of him. Theopompus is described as a man of excellent morals, and though he was long afflicted with a defluxion in his eyes, which put him from his studies, time has preserved the titles of twenty-four comedies of his compofing: Very little remains upon record either of him or his works. One short fragment of Philonides is all that remains of his works, and it is a specimen which convinces me that we must not always take the character of a poet from a contemporary wit, engaged in the same studies. FRAGMENT OF PHILONIDES. "Because I hold the laws in due refpect, 1 Soli ----Soli æquus virtuti atque ejus amicis. I now take leave of what is properly called The Old Comedy: In the further profecution of this work (if that shall be permitted to me) it is my intention to review the writers of the Middle, and conclude with those of the New Comedy. 1 : P 1 N° LXXIX. t REJUDICE is fo wide a word, that if we would have ourselves understood, we must always use some auxiliary term with it to define our meaning: Thus when we speak of national prejudices, prejudices of education, or religious prejudices, by compounding our expreffion we convey ideas very different from each other.. National prejudice is by fome called a virtue, but the virtue of it confifts only in the proper application and moderate degree of it. It must be confefied a happy attachment, which can reconcile the Laplander to his freezing snows, and the African to his scorching fun. There are some portions of the globe so partially endowed |