his career of perfonality, and compofed his Eoloficon upon the plan of what we now de nominate the Middle Comedy. Cratinus alfo, though the bitterest of all the old writers, began to fweeten his gall, and, conforming to the neceffity of the times, condefcended to take up with the resource of parody, and wrote his Ulyffes upon the fame fyftem of reform; no longer permitted to vent his fatire upon living characters, he took poft on the boldeft ground, that was left for him to ftand on, and opened his attack upon the dead by ridiculing the immortal Odyffey of Homer. The chorus was now withdrawn, and the poet no longer spoke his own fentiments or harangued his audience by proxy; parody is fatire of fo inferior a fpecies, that if comedy did not very fenfibly decline in it's middle æra (which there is no reason to think was the cafe), it must have been upheld by a very frong exertion of talents, or by collateral refources of a better ftamp than this, which we are fpeaking of. Some, who are ranked in the old class of comic writers, continued to compofe for the ftage, as we have already inftanced; it may well be prefumed that they at least drooped the wing, and flagged under the preffure of unexperienced reftraints; but if I may form a conjecture of the comparative spirit and excel

lence

lence of the Middle Comedy from the famples and fragments of thofe dramatifts, who properly and exclufively belong to it, I find nothing which difpofes me to fufpect that it had in the leaft declined from the merit of the first writers, but on the contrary should conceive, that it advanced in perfection no lefs than it did in time by the revolution which took place.

I fhall now produce fome fpecimens of the comedies, which fall under this clafs, and fuch accounts as I have been able to collect of their authors, whom I have ranged alphabetically; the first therefore, which I fhall fpeak of, will be the poet Alexis.

ALEX I S.

This poet was a native of Thurium in Magna Græcia, a town celebrated for being the birthplace of Herodotus; he was great uncle by the father's fide to Menander, and was the firft to discover and encourage the early genius of that admired writer. Alexis lived to a great age, and we have the authority of Plutarch for faying that the vigour of his faculties was preserved to the laft; "The comic poets Alexis and Phi"lemon," fays that author, "continued to write "for the ftage to the latest period of their lives, * and when death at length furprised them, he VOL. IV. F "found

"found them crowned with the trophies of fuc"cefs and triumphing in the plaudits of the "theatre." The numerous productions of our poet confirm this affertion of Plutarch, for Suidas fays he was author of no less than two hundred and forty-five dramas, and I find the titles of one hundred and thirteen of this collection even now upon record; this proves that he possessed a very copious vein of invention, and the fragments, which remain out of the general wreck of his works, indicate the richness as well as copioufnefs of that vein.. The works of fuch a mafter were of themselves a ftudy, and as Menander formed himself upon his inftructions, we cannot fail to conceive very highly of the preceptor from the acknowledged excellence of the pupil. I discover a comedy of Alexis intitled Adelphi ; it is generally fuppofed that Terence copied his comedy of that name from Menander, but unless his commentators have given fome better reafon, than I have yet met with, for the fact, it will bear a doubt at least whether that elegant copy may not have been as much indebted to the uncle as to the nephew for the charms of it's dialogue and the delicacy of it's character.

Agellius informs us that Alexis formed the plot of one of his comedies upon the life and actions of Pythagoras; pofterity will give him credit for his choice, as we cannot conceive a happier

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happier fable for an ingenious author to work upon, nor any that would afford a more fruitful field for facetious raillery than the extravagant and juggling tricks and contrivances, which that impoftor's ftory teems with. Amongst his fragments I difcover one little fcrap, which, though a very small one, feems to have been a fplinter of the wreck, wherein he ridicules a certain gluttonous Pythagorean, named Epicharides, for evading the abftemious rule of his fect for eating nothing that has life, by fwearing that his meat is killed before it is cooked; there can be no doubt but the tenour of the piece was altogether fatirical, for it cannot be supposed that the fame man, who lampooned Plato, would spare Pythagoras; and that he did treat Plato in this contemptuous ftrain we have the word of Laertius, who refers to no less than four of his comedies, in which he ridicules him very feverely; there is one fhort paffage ftill remaining, which conveys a fneer at this philofopher, and fo far as it goes confirms the anecdote, which Laertius gives us; but the biographer does more than the admirers of the divine Plato will thank him for, when hẽ informs us of the grace and comeliness of Alexis's perfon, and of Plato's partiality to him on that account; and amongst many other gallantries of the like nature we find fome verfes

addreffed to Alexis in praise of his beauty by the enamoured philofopher, whofe mufe feems to have vifited him pretty frequently on these occafions: There is no great point in his loveepigram to Alexis, but in that to a certain young man named Stella, who was his fellowstudent in aftrology, he feems to have been as extravagant in imagination, as Juliet's concetto of cutting Romeo into little ftars, for I question if the whole school of Epicurus can furnish a more ridiculous start of rhapfodical bombast than the following

"Oh! that I were that heaven on which you gaze, "To dart upon thee with a thousand rays!"

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What a plunge is this for Pegasus to make with a grave philofopher on his back! Whether it was fuccefsful or not with the young ftargazer I am not curious to enquire; if he was in the humour to be tickled with nonfenfe I fhould think such an addrefs must have been irresistibly charming; but we may be very fure that Alexis was not fo complying, and that, instead of being pleased with the flattery, he turned the flatterer into ridicule upon all occafions, first in his Meropis, again in his Ancylion, his Olympiodorus, and most of all in his celebrated comedy intitled The Parafite. Ariftotle records an answer made by