I know this interpretation of Zarottus is controverted upon the authority of Paufanias, and Ovid is fuppofed by fome to point at Mævius, by others at Hipponax; but as the name of the fufferer is not given, thofe, who incline to the conftruction of Euftathius as well as Zarottus, will apply it to our author.

Of the titles of his comedies eight and twenty remain, but for his fragments, which are few in number, I discover none, which seem to merit a tranflation; had he fpared thofe which his paffion destroyed, happy chance might perhaps have rescued something worth our notice.

ARISTOPH ON.

This poet has left us more and better remembrancers of his mufe, though fewer of his hiftory: That he was a writer of the Middle Comedy is all I can collect, which perfonally concerns him: The titles of four of his comedies are in my hands, but though Plutarch, Athenæ us, Laertius in his Pythagoras, Stobæus and Gyraldus all make mention of his name, none of them have given us any anecdotes of his history.

Love and matrimony, which are subjects little touched upon by the writers of the Old Comedy, became important perfonages in the Middle Drama;

Drama; the former feems to have opened a very flowery field to fancy, the last appears generally to have been fet up as the butt of ridicule and invective. Our author for inftance tells us

"A man may marry once without a crime,
"But curft is he, who weds a fecond time."

On the topic of love he is more playful and ingenious

"Love, the difturber of the peace of heaven,
And grand fomenter of Olympian feuds,
Was banish'd from the fynod of the Gods:
They drove him down to earth at the expence
"Of us poor mortals, and curtail'd his wings
"To fpoil his foaring and fecure themfelves
"From his annoyance-Selfish, hard decree!

For ever fince he roams th' unquiet world,
The tyrant and defpoiler of mankind."

There is a fragment of his comedy of the Pythagorifta, in which he ridicules that philofopher's pretended vifit to the regions of the dead

"I've heard this arrogant impoftor tell,
"Amongst the wonders which he faw in hell,
"That Pluto with his fcholars fate and fed,
"Singling them out from the inferior dead :
"Good faith the monarch was not over-nice,

Thus to take up with beggary and lice."

In

In another paffage of the fame fatirical.co. medy he thus humorously defcribes the difciples of Pythagoras

"So gaunt they feem, that famine never made "Of lank Philippides fo mere a shade;

Of falted tunny-fifh their feanty dole, "Their beverage, like the frog's, a standing pool, With now and then a cabbage, at the best "The leavings of the caterpillar's feaft: "No comb approaches their dishevell`d hair "To rout the long-establish'd myriads there; "On the bare ground their bed, nor do they know "A warmer coverlid than ferves the crow;

Flames the meridian fun without a cloud?

"They bafk like grafshoppers and chirp as loud;
"With oil they never even feaft their eyes;
"The luxury of stockings they despise,
"But bare-foot as the crane still march along

All night in chorus with the screech-owi's fong."

Of AXIONICUS the comic poet I have nothing to relate but that he was a writer of reputation in the period we are describing, and that we have the titles of fix of his comedies with a small parcel of uninterefting fragments, chiefly to be found in Athenæus.

BATHON I muft alfo pafs over like the former, no records of his hiftory and only a few fragments of his comedies with three of their titles remaining.

Though I clafs CHÆREMON amongst the

writers

writers of the Middle Comedy, I have fome doubt if he should not have been in the lift of . Old Dramatifts, being faid to have been the scholar of Socrates: He is celebrated by Ariftotle, Athenæus, Suidas, Stobæus, Theophraftus and others, and the titles of nine of his comedies are preserved in those authors with fome fcraps of his dialogue. Ariftotle relates that in his comedy of The Hippocentaur he introduced a rhapfody, in which he contrived to mix every fpecies of metre, inventing as it should feem a characteristic meafure for a compound monster out of nature.

Of CLEARCHUS we have a few fragments and the titles of three comedies preferved by Athenæus; the fame author gives us the title of one comedy by CRITON, of four by CROBYLUS and of two by DEMOXENUS, one of which is The Self-Tormentor, or Heautontimorumenos ; this poet was an Athenian born, and seems to have been a voluminous writer. Of DEMETRIUS there remains only one fragment, yet we have testimony of his having been a comic poet of this period in great reputation.

DIODORUS was a native of Sinope, a city of Pontus, and the birth-place of many eminent poets and philofophers; we have the titles of three of his comedies, and from the few frag

ments

ments of his works now exifting I have selected thefe which follow

"This is my rule, and to this rule I'll hold, "To chufe my wife by merit not by gold; "For on that one election must depend "Whether I wed a fury or a friend.”

"When your foe dies let all refentment ceafe,
Make peace with death, and death fhall give you
"peace."

I meet with another fragment of this author,
which is fo far curious, as it contains a bold
blafphemy against the fupreme of the heathen
deities, and marks the very loose hold, which
the established religion had upon the minds of
the common people of Athens at this period,
who must have been wonderfully changed by the
new philosophy from the times of Æfchylus and
Ariftophanes, who both incurred their refent-
ment in a very high degree for daring to affront
the Gods, though it is probable neither went the
length of Diodorus's Parafite, who afferts the
fuperior dignity, authority and even divinity of
his vocation with the following hardy allufion to
Jupiter himself "All other arts," fays he,
"have been of man's invention without the
"help of the Gods, but Jupiter himself, who is
"our partner in the trade, firft taught us how

< to

n