These poets were in high favour with the people on account of the boldness and person'ality of their satire, and for the same reason proportionably obnoxious to the nobles and magistrates, whom they lashed without mercy, Aristophanes was much the least bitter of the three, and yet we have some smart specimens of his severity. Persius seems to make this distinction in the following passage

Audaci quicunque afflate Cratino,
Iratum Eupolidem prægrandi cum sene palles,
Aspice et hæc.

In these lines he characterizes Cratinus and Eupolis by the epithets of audax and iratus whereas he introduces Aristophanes under the description only of prægrandis senex, which is interpreted to refer to the superior gravity and dignity of his style.

Horace, in the fourth satire of his first book, instances these three poets by pre-eminence from amongst all the writers of the old comedy.

Eupolis atque Cratinus Aristophanesque poetæ, Atque alii, quorum comœdia prisca virorum est, Si quis erat dignus describi, quod malus aut fur, Quod machus foret, aut sicarius, aut alioqui Famosus, multa cum libertate notabant.

The comic poets, in its earliest age, Who form'd the manners of the Grecian stage, Was there a villain, who might justly claim A better right of being damn'd to fame, Rake, cut-throat, thief, whatever was his crime, They freely stigmatized the wretch in rhyme.

FRANCIS.

It appears by this quotation that Horace does not consider their comedy in the same light with Aristotle, as in they represented human nature in worse colours than it deserved.

Quintilian expressly says, that these are the chief writers of the old comedy-Plures ejus auctores'; Aristophanes tamen et Eupolis; Cratinusque præcipui:-And he recommends the old Greek comedy, and these authors in particular, as the best model (Homer only excepted) for his orator to form himself upon: inasmuch as it is there only he will find the Attic style in its purity and perfection; and though the old comedy, as he observes, is chiefly occupied in wit and sarcasm for the purpose of chastising vice, yet it has many excellences of a more general sort it is energetic, elegant, and full of graces; so that if Homer alone (who like his own Achilles has the privilege of being always put above comparison) be excepted, no other school for oratory can come in competition

with this.

CRATINUS.

Cratinus was the son of Callimedes an Athenian we have the titles of at least thirty come

dies of his writing, so that Suidas is mistaken in ascribing to him only twenty-one: he was & poet of strong imagination, and a florid lively style; he carried away no less than nine prizes, which is a large proportion of success compared with others, who rank amongst the highest both in the comic and tragic line. A second edict came out in his time for restraining the licentiousness of the stage in point of personality, and Cratinus, in common with the rest of his contemporaries, found himself obliged to divert his satire from the living to the dead: Sarcasms were now levelled at men's productions, not at their persons; the tragic authors felt the chief weight of the attack, though even Homer did not escape, as may be gathered from "The Ulysses" of Cratinus, in which he parodies and ridicules the Odyssey.

Cratinus lived to an extreme old age, though according to the loose morals of the Greeks he indulged his passions both natural and unnatural without restraint: he carried his love of wine to such excess, that he got the name of Pierres, launching out in praise of drinking, and rallying all sobriety 'out of countenance, asserting that no author cari be good for any thing who does not love his bottle, and that dramatic poets in particular ought to drink hard, as a duty due to Bacchus for his peculiar patronage and protection of the stage. Horace, who was not very averse from his doctrine, quotes his authority in the first lines of an epistle to Mæcenas.

Prisco si credis, Mecenas docte, Cratino,
Nulla placere diu nec vivere carmina possunt,
Quæ scribuntur aquæ potoribus.

O learned Mæcenas, hear Cratinus speak,
And take this maxim from the gay old Greek;
No verse shall please, or lasting honours gain,
Which coldly flows from waterdrinker's brain.

As for the love of wine, it seems to have stood in the place of a merit with the Greeks: but Cratinus's excess was attended in his old age with some marks of weakness and want of retention, incidental to an exhausted constitution, which gave a handle to Aristophanes, who was a younger man (and not much more abstemious) to bring his old competitor on the stage, and hold him up to ridicule for this infirmity. The charge was unmanly, and roused the aged veteran to return the attack: Cratinus, then nearly approaching to a hundred, had left off writing, but he was not yet superannuated, and lived to complete a comedy, which he appositely entitled "The Flaggon." In the plot of this piece he feigns himself married to comedy, whom he personifies, and represents the lady in disgust with her husband for his unconjugal neglect, on which account she states her charge, and roundly sues for an actual divorce: upon this hearing, certain friends and advocates are

introduced on the scene in behalf of the party accused, who make suit to the dame to stay her proceedings, and not to be over hasty in throwing off an old spouse; but, on the contrary, recommend to her to enter calmly into an amicable discussion of her grievances: to this proposal she at length accedes, and this gives occasion to take up the charge of Aristophanes, accusing the old bard of drunkenness and the concomitant circumstances, which had been published with so much ill nature to make him ridiculous at the end of life. Then follows a very pleasant refutation of all these libels, by which he contrives to turn the laugh against Aristophanes, and so concludes the comedy. One feels a satisfaction, even at the distance of ages, to know, that the old poet bore away the prize with this very comedy, and soon after expired in the arms of victory at the age of ninety-seven, in the first year of Olymp. LXXXIX. The Athenians gave him a monument and an epitaph, in which they omit all mention of his fine talents, and record nothing but his drunkenness. He spared no man when living, and even death itself could not protect him from retalia

tion.

σε Θανόντος ἀνδρὸς πᾶσ' ἀπόλλυται χάρις.”

STESICHORUS.

The evil that he did lived after him,
The good was all interred with his bones.

SHAKSPEARE

There is scarce a fragment of this poet, once so great a favourite, that is now to be found; the very few scraps of sentences remaining are too imperfect to merit a translation: one little spark of his genius however will be seen in the following epigrammatic turn of thought upon the loss of a statue, which being the workmanship of Dædalus, he supposes to have made use of its privilege, and escaped from its pedestal.

My statue's gone! By Dædalus 'twas made; It is not stolen therefore; it has stray'd.

EUPOLIS.

Eupolis became a very popular author some years before the death of Cratinus: the bold strong spirit of his satire recommended him to the public more than the beauties and graces of his style, which he was not studious to polish. He attacked the most obnoxious and profligate characters in Athens, without any regard to his personal safety; to expose the cheat, and ridicule the impostor was the glory of his muse, and neither the terrors of the magistracy nor the mysteries of superstition could divert him from it. He wrote two comedies professedly against Autolycus the Areopagite, whose misbehaviour in the Chæronesian war had made

him infamous, and he called them after his name, "The first and second Autolycus." In his famous comedy called "The Bapta" he inveighs against the effeminate turpitude of his countrymen, whom he exhibits dancing after the manner of the lascivious priests of Cotytto (viz. "The Bapta"), in the habits and fashion of female minstrels.

Talia secretâ coluerunt orgia tedâ
Cecropiam soliti Baptæ lassare Cotytto.

Juv.

The prevailing account of his death is, that the persons whom he had satirized in this play of the " Baptæ," suborned certain assassins to throw him into the sea, as he was passing the Hellespont with the Athenian forces, then on an expedition against the Lacedæmonians: and several authorities impute this revengeful deed to Alcibiades, who had been severely handled in that piece; but Cicero, in his first epistle of the sixth book to Atticus, speaks of this report as a vulgar error, and quotes Eratosthenes for the fact of Eupolis having written certain comedies after the time when the event of his death is dated-redarguit Eratosthenes; affert enim quas ille post id tempus fabulas docuerit.

Pausanius tells us, that his tomb was erected upon the banks of the Æsopus, in Sicyonia, and as it is not likely this honour should be paid to his memory by the Sicyonians, he being an Athenian born, unless he had died in their country; the authority of Pausanius seems to confirm the account of Eratosthenes, and discredit the fable of his being thrown into the Hellespont.

In his comedy, called "The People," by the fiction of the scene he raises the shades of their departed orators and demagogues from the dead; and when Pericles, last of the troop, arises, the poet demands, "Who is it that appears?" The question being answered, and the spirit of Pericles dismissed, he pronounces his encomium"That he was pre-eminent as an orator, for man never spoke as he spoke: when he started like a courser in the race, he threw all competitors out of sight, so rapid was the torrent of his cloquence; but with that rapidity there flowed such sweetness and persuasion from his lips, that he alone of all orators, struck a sting into the very souls of his hearers, and left it there to remain for ever.'

I think it probable the following fragment has been the opening speech of this very comedy; for in it he addresses the people, and complains of the preference they are apt to bestow upon foreigners, to the neglect of their own countrymen -"Receiving every thing with favour that falls from their lips, and applauding them as oracles of human wisdom; whereas, if any one of your own countrymen addresses you (though in no respect their inferior) you look down upon him

Rr

with contempt; nay, you are ready to pronounce that the man is in his dotage; a fool who never had senses, or a madman who has lost them-but hark ye, gentlemen! let me have a word with you at starting; let me prevail with you to revoke these unjust proceedings, and give a fellow-citizen, and your humble servant, a fair hearing and impartial judgment."

I suspect this to be a sly blow at Aristophanes, who was not an Athenian born, and perhaps at this time had not his adoption. He proceeds to lament the state of public affairs, and the degeneracy of the times; for in the old comedy it was usual for the poet to harangue the theatre, either in the opening of the piece, or at any convenient interval between the scenes, sometimes in his own person, sometimes by the chorus. We cannot wonder if such sentiments as the following, delivered from the stage, should render Eupolis obnoxious to men in power.

Address to the Audience by Eupolis.

"Of many things, which offer themselves to my consideration, cannot find words to speak, so penetrated am I with affliction, when I turn my thoughts to the condition of the commonwealth; for you must be conscious, O citizens, it was not so administered in times past, when men of high birth, men whose rank, fortune, and merit gave them a consideration in the state, filled the first offices of government: to such we deferred, as to the deities themselves; for they merited our respect, and under their protection we enjoyed security: now we have no other guide in our election but blind ignoble chance, and on whatsoever head it falls, though he be the worst and meanest of mankind, he starts up a great man at once, and is installed with all proper solemnity a rogue in state.

Here the poet speaks out of the rostrum rather than from the stage: this is plain bold language; and tempts me to call our countryman Ben Jonson on the scene, who was deep in all these remnants of the old Greek poets, and frequently talks the very language of the Athe

nian theatre.

Asper, in character of Presenter of the play, thus opens the comedy of "Every Man out of his Humour."

Address to the Audience by B. Jonson.

Away!

Who is so patient of this impious world,
That he can check his spirit or rein his tongue?
Who can behold such prodigies as these,
And have his lips sealed up? Not I: my soul
Was never ground into such oily colours,
To flatter vice and daub iniquity:
But with an armed and resolved hand
I'll strip the ragged follies of the time,
Naked as at their birth-

I fear no mood stamped in a private brow, When I am pleased to unmask a public vice I fear no strumpet's drags, nor ruffian's stab. Should I detect their hateful luxuries: No broker's, usurer's, or lawyer's gripe, Were I disposed to say, They're all corrupt. I fear no courtier's frown, should I applaud The easy flexure of his supple hams. Tut! these are so innate and popular, That drunken custom would not shame to laugh In scorn at him, that should not dare to tax them. &c. &c.

This is the very spirit of the old Greek comedy, speaking through the organs of our English Aristophanes, and old Ben fills the character of the prægrandis senex as well as he for whom it was designed. It is the Comedia, vocem tollens, and asserting her determination to keep up her rights, according to ancient custom of her founders-Si quis erat dignus describi.-In the third year of Olymp. lxxxix. which was two years after the decease of Cratinus, Eupolus acted his comedy, called "The Flatterers," Alcæus being archon. I cannot doubt but the following is a fragment of this comedy; it is a part of the speech of a parasite, and runs over a few of the arts by which he gulls the rich boobies that fall in his way.

The Parasite of Eupolis.

Mark now, and learn of me the thriving arts,
By which we parasites contrive to live:
Fine rogues we are, my friend (of that be sure),
And daintily we gull mankind.-Observe!
First I provide myself a nimble thing
To be my page, a varlet of all crafts;
Next two new suits for feasts and gala days,
Which I promote by turns, when I walk forth
To sun myself upon the public square:
There if perchance I spy some rich dull knave,
Strait I accost him, do him reverence,
And, sauntering up and down with idle chat,
Hold him awhile in play; at every word,
Which his wise worship utters, I stop short
And bless myself for wonder; if he ventures
On some vile joke, I blow it to the skies,
And hold my sides for laughter-Then to supper
With others of our brotherhood to mess
In some night-cellar on our barley cakes,
And club inventions for the next day's shift.

The Parasite of Ben Jonson.

MOSCA.

-Oh! your parasite

Is a most precious thing, dropped from above,
Not bred amongst clods and clot-poles here on earth,
I muse the mystery was not made a science,
It is so liberally professed. Almost

All the wise world is little else in nature
But parasites and sub-parasites. And yet

I mean not those, that have your bare town art,
To know who's fit to feed them; have no house,
No family, no care, and therefore mould
Tales for men's ears, to bait that sense-nor those
With their court dog tricks, that can fawn and fleer,
Make their revenue out of legs and faces,

Boho, My Lord, and lick away a moth;
But your fine elegant rascal, that can rise,
And stoop almost together like an arrow,
Shoot through the air as nimbly as a star,
Turn short as doth a swallow, and be here,
And there and here, and yonder all at once;
Present to any humour, all oocasion,

And change a vizor swifter than a thought;
This is the creature had the art born with him.

Lucian's Parasite, which is a masterpiece of character and comic writing, and Horace's dialogue between Tiresias and Ulysses (which is the fifth satire of the second book,) might perhaps be traced in passages of this comedy of Eupolis, if we had it entire.

Eupolis, in his Lacedæmonians, attacks both the public and private character of Cimon, charging him with improper partiality for the Lacedæmonians, with drunkenness, and even with incestuous commerce with his own sister Pnyce Plutarch takes notice of this attack, and says it had a great effect in stirring up the populace against this celebrated commander.

He wrote his comedy, entitled Marica, against the orator Hyperbolus, whom Thucydides mentions to have been banished by Ostra

have his own authority for his baldness; but whether this was as disgraceful at Athens, as it was amongst the Romans, I have not been anxious to inquire. He was, in private life, of a free, open, and companionable temper, and his company was sought after by the greatest characters of the age with all possible avidity: Plato, and even Socrates, shared many social hours with him: he was much the most popular character in Athens, as the great demagogue Cleon experienced to his cost, not to mention Socrates himself: every honour that could be paid to a poet was publicly bestowed upon Aristophanes by the Athenian people; nor did they confine their rewards to honorary prizes only, but decreed him fines and pecuniary confiscations from those who ventured to attack him with suits and prosecutions: Dionysius of Syracuse in vain made overtures to him of the most flattering sort, at the time when Eschines and Aristippus, Socratic philosophers, were retained in his court with so much infamy to their private characters, and when even Plato himself had solicited his notice by three several visits to Syracuse, where he had not the good fortune to render himself very agreeable.-The fame of Aristophanes had reached to the court of Persia,

NUMBER CXXXVIII.

ARISTOPHANES.

Ut templum Charites, quod non labatur, haberent, Invenere tuum pectus, Aristophanes.

Jos. SCALIGER EX PLATONE.

king himself, who considered him not only as the first poet, but as the most conspicuous personage at Athens. I do not find him. marked with any other immorality than that of intemperance with regard to wine, the fashionable excess of the time, and in some degree a kind of prerogative of his profession, a licentia poetica: Athenæus the Deipnosophist says he was drunk when he composed, but this is a charge that will not pass upon any man who is sober; and if we rejected it from Sophocles in the case of Eschylus, we shall not receive it but with contempt from such an accuser as Athenæus. He was not happy in his domestic connections,

THIS is an eulogy the more honourable to Aristophanes, as it fell from Plato, the disciple of Socrates. If I were to collect all the testimonies that are scattered through the works of the learned in behalf of the author we are now about to review, I should fill my pages with panegyric; but this I am the less concerned to do, as the reader has a part of him in possession, which as it is near a fourth of the whole man, he has more than the foot by which to measure this Hercules.

Both the parentage and birth place of Aristophanes are doubtful; he was an adopted, not a natural citizen of Athens, and I incline to think he was the son of Philippus, a native of Ægina, where our poet had some patrimony. He was in person very tall, bony and robust, and we

his wife"-Tv juraïna d' dioxúvoμm, and as for his two sons, Philippus and Ararotes, they did him as little credit, and he considered them accordingly. He was blessed with a good constitution, and lived to turn above seventy years, though the date of his death is not precisely laid down.

Though he was resolute in opposing himself to the torrent of vice and corruption which overspread the manners of his country, yet he was far more temperate in his personal invective than his contemporaries. He was too sensitive in his nature to undertake "the performance of his own parts in person, which was general with all the comic poets of his time: and he stood their raillery for not venturing to tread the stage as they did. Amipsias and Aristonymus, both rival authors, charged him with availing himself of the talents of other people, from consciousness of his own insufficiency: their raillery