"Why, foolish painter, give thofe wings to. Love?
"Love is not light, as my fad heart can prove :
"Love hath no wings, or none that I can fee;
"If he can fly-oh! bid him fly from me!"

EUPHRON.

Euphron is another poet of our Middle lift, and one whose fame has outlived the works on which it was founded. Six of his comedies only have bequeathed their names to us, and a very scanty portion of their contents. One of thefe was intitled Adelphi, another claimant perhaps upon Terence. Athenæus and Stobæus, (thanks to their paffion for quotations and fragments) have favoured us with a few small reliques. There is fomething in the following diftich of a melancholy and touching fimplicity

“Tell me, all-judging Jove, if this be fair "To make fo fhort a life fo full of care?"

What next enfues I recommend to the gentlemen, who amuse themselves with cutting out work for Doctors-Commons:

"Hence, vile adulterer, I fcorn to gain
"Pleafures extorted from another's pain!"

The antients had a notion, that a man, who took no care of his own affairs, was not the fitteft

H 2

fitteft perfon in the world to be entrusted with those of others; writers for the ftage muft make the most of vulgar errors, whilft they are in fashion, and this may have betrayed our poet into a fentiment, which modern wits will not give him much credit for

"Let not his fingers touch the public chest, "Who by his own profufion is distrest;

"For long long years of care it needs must take

"To heal those wounds, which one fhort hour will "make."

I think the reader will acknowledge a very fpirited and striking turn of thought in this fhort apostrophe.

"Wretch find new gods to witness to new lies,
"Thy perjuries have made the old too wife !"

HENIOCH US.

Heniochus, the author of a numerous collection of comedies, was, born at Athens, a writer of a grave fententious caft, and one, who fcrupled not to give a perfonal name to one of his comedies, written profeffedly against the character of Thorucion, a certain military prefect in those times, and a notorious traitor to his country. The titles of fifteen comedies are upon the lift of this poet's works: from one of

these

thefe a curious fragment has been saved, and though it seems rather of a political than a dramatic complexion, I think it's good fenfe is fufficient to recommend it to a place in this collection.

"I will enumerate to you feveral cities, which " in the course of time have fallen into egregious "folly and declenfion: You may demand why "I inftance them at this time and in this place"I answer that we are now prefent in the city of “ Olympia, and you may figure to yourself a "kind of Pythian folemnity in the scene before "us-Granted! you'll fay, and what then? "Why then I may conceive these several cities "here affembled by their reprefentatives for the

purpose of celebrating their redemption from "flavery by folemn facrifices to the Genius of 'Liberty: This performed, they deliver them"felves over to be governed at the difcretion of "two certain female perfonages, whom I fhall "name to you the one Democracy, Ariftocracy "the other-From this fatal moment univerfal "anarchy and mifrule inevitably fall upon thofe "cities, and they are loft."

MNESIMA CHUS.

This poet is recorded by Ælian and Athenæus, and by the famples we have of his co

medy, few as they are, we may fee that he was a minute defcriber of the familiar manners and characters of the age he lived in: I take him to have been a writer of a peculiar caft, a dealer in low and loquacious dialogue, a strong coarse colourift, and one, who, if time had spared his works, would probably have imparted to us more of the Coftuma, as it is called, than any of his contemporaries I perfuade myfelf that the samples I am about to produce will juflify these furmises with refpect to Mnelimachus.

Jonfon could not defcribe, nor Mortimer delineate, a company of banditti or bravos at their meal in bolder caricature, than what the following fketch difplays.

"Doft know whom thou'rt to fup with, friend ?—I'll << tell thee;

"With gladiators, not with peaceful guests; "Inftead of knives we're arm'd with naked fwords, "And fwallow firebrands in the place of food : "Daggers of Crete are ferv'd us for confections, "And for a plate of pease a fricaffee

"Of shatter'd fpears: the cushions we repose on "Are fhields and breaft-plates, at our feet a pile "Of flings and arrows, and our foreheads wreath'd "With military enfigns, not with myrtle.”

There remains a very curious fragment of a dialogue between a mafter and his slave, which

`lays

lays open to the reader the whole catalogue of an Athenian fish-market, and after all the pains it has occafioned me in the decyphering, leaves me under the neceffity of fetting down a few of the articles in their original names, not being able to find any lexicon or grammarian in the humour to help me out of my difficulty.

Mafter. Harkye, fellow! make the best "of your way to Phidon's riding-school (your "road lies through the cypress-grove burying"place to the forum by the public baths, where "our tribunes hold their meetings) and tell "thofe pretty gentlemen, who are there at their "exercises of vaulting on their horses and off "their horfes (you know well enough whom I

mean) tell 'em I fay that their fupper is grown "cold, their liquor hot, their pastry dry, their "bread ftale, their roaft done to powder, their

falt-meat ftript from the very bones, their "tripes, chitterlings, faufages and stuft-pud"dings mangled and devoured by guests, who "are before-hand with 'em: The glafs has gone "round, and the wine is nearly out; the com66 pany are at their frolicks, and the house thrown "out of windows-Now mark and remember "every fyllable I have faid to you-Doft yawn, "rafcal?-Let me hear if you can repeat the "meffage I have given you. « Servant.