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abound in, I ask myself where originality is to be fought for; not with these poets it is clear, for their fickles are for ever in each other's corn; nor even with the founders of the Greek drama, for they all leant upon Homer, as he perhaps on others antecedent to his æra. As for the earliest writers of our own stage, the little I have read of their rude beginnings feems to be a dull mass of fecond-hand pedantry coarsely daubed with ribaldry: In Shakespear you meet originality of the purest cast, a new creation, bright and beaming with unrivalled luftre; his contemporary Jonfon did not feem to aim at it.

Though I have already given a Parafite from Eupolis, and compared him with Jonfon's admirable Mosca, yet I cannot refuse admiffion to a very pleafant, impudent fellow, who gives name to a comedy of Antiphanes, and in the following spirited apology for his life and actions takes upon him the office of being his own hiftorian.

"What art, vocation, trade or mystery

"Can match with your fine Parafite?-The Painter ?
"He! a mere dauber: A vile drudge the Farm;r:
"Their bufinefs is to labour, our's to laugh,
"To jeer, to quibble, faith Sirs! and to drink,

Aye, and drink luftily. Is not this rare ?
""Tis life, my life at leaft: The firth of pleafures
"Were to be rich myfelf, but next to this

"I hold

"I hold it beft to be a Parafite,

"And feed upon the rich. Now mark me right!
"Set down my virtues one by one: Imprimis,
"Good-will to all men-Would they were all rich
"So might I gull them all: Malice to none;
"I envy no man's fortune, all I wish

"Is but to share it Would you have à friend,
"A gallant, steady friend? I am your man :'

No ftriker I, no fwaggerer, no defamer, "But one to bear all these and ftill forbear: "If you infult, I laugh, unruffled, merry, "Invincibly good-humour'd still I laugh: "A ftout good foldier I, valorous to a fault, "When once my ftomach's up and fupper ferv'd: "You know my humour, not one spark of pride, "Such and the fame for ever to my friends: "If cudgell'd, molten iron to the hammer "Is not fo malleable; but if I cudgel,

Bold as the thunder: Is one to be blinded? I am the lightning's flafh: to be puff'd up, "I am the wind to blow him to the bursting: "Choak'd, ftrangled ?—I can do't and fave a halter: "Would you break down his doors? Behold an earth"quake:

"Open and enter them ?-A battering-ram:
"Will you fit down to fupper? I'm your guest,

"Your very Fly to enter without bidding:

Would you move off? You'll move a well as foon : "I'm for all work, and tho' the job were ftabbing, "Betraying, falfe-accufing, only fay

"Do this, and it is done! I ftick at nothing; "They call me Thunder-bolt for my dispatch; "Friend of my friends am I: Let actions fpeak me; "I'm much too modelt to commend myself.”

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I must confider this fragment as a very striking fpecimen of the author, and the only licence I have used is to tack together two separate extracts from the fame original, which meet in the break of the tenth line, and fo appofitely that it is highly probable they both belong to the fame speech; more than probable to the fame comedy and character. Lucian's Parafite feems much beholden to this of Antiphanes.

Antiphanes was on a certain occafion commanded to read one of his comedies in the prefence of Alexander the Great; he had the mortification to find that the play did not please the royal critic; the moment was painful, but the poet, addreffing the monarch as follows, ingenioufly contrived to vindicate his own production at the fame time he was paffing a courtly compliment to the prince, at whose command he read it" I cannot wonder, O king! that you " disapprove of my comedy; for he, who could "be entertained by it, muft have been present "at the scenes it represents; he must be ac"quainted with the vulgar humours of our "public ordinaries, have been familiar with the "impure manners of our courtefans, a party in "the beating-up of many a brothel, and a suf"ferer as well as an actor in those unseemly " frays and riots: Of all these things, you, "Great

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"Great Sir! are not informed, and the fault "lies more in my prefumption for intruding ❝ them upon your hearing, than in any want of "fidelity, with which I have described them,"

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N° CIII.

ANA XANDRIDES,

NAXANDRIDES of Rhodes, fon of Anaxander, was author of fixty-five co. medies, with ten of which he bore away the. prizes from his competitors. Nature bestowed upon this poet not only a fine genius, but a moft beautiful perfon; his ftature was of the tallest, his air elegant and engaging, and, whilft he affected an effeminate delicacy in his habit and appearance, he was a victim to the most violent and uncontroulable paffions, which, whenever he was disappointed of the prize he contended for, were vented upon every person and thing that fell in his way, not excepting even his own unfortunate dramas, which he would tear in pieces and scatter amongst the mob, or at other times

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times devote them to the moft ignominious ufes he could devife: Of thefe he would preferve no copy, and thus it came to pass that many admirable comedies were actually deftroyed and loft to pofterity. His dress was fplendid and extravagant in the extreme, being of the finest purple richly fringed with gold, and his hair was not coiled up in the Athenian fashion, but fuffered to fall over his shoulders at it's full length: His mufe was no lefs wanton and voluptuous than his manners, for it is recorded of him, that he was the first comic poet, who ventured to introduce upon the scene incidents of the grossest intrigue: He was not only fevere upon Plato and the Academy, but attacked the magistracy of Athens, charging them with the depravity of their lives in fo daring and contemptuous a ftile, that they brought him to trial, and by one of the moft cruel fentences upon record condemned the unhappy poet to be flarved to death.

Zarottus and fome other commentators upon Ovid interpret that diftich in his Ibis to allude to Anaxandrides, where he fays, ver. 525-6.

Utve parum ftabili qui carmine læfit Athenas,
Invifus pereas deficiente cibo.

"Or meet the libeller's unpitied fate,
"Starv'd for traducing the Athenian state."

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