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poetry and numbers to support it, when united with music and dancing.

Of the Old, Middle, and New Comedy.

WHILST tragedy was thus rising to perfection at Athens, comedy, the second species of dramatic poetry, and which, till then, had been much neglected, began to be cultivated with more attention. Nature was the common parent of both. We are sensibly affected with the dangers, distresses, misfortunes, and, in a word, with whatever relates to the lives and conduct of illustrious persons; and this gave birth to tragedy. And we are as curious to know the adventures, conduct, and defects of our equals; which supply us with occasions of laughing, and being merry at the expence of others. Hence comedy derives itfelf; which is properly an image of private life. Its design is to expose defects and vices upon the stage, and by affixing ridicule to them, to make them contemptible; ond consequently, to instruct by diverting. Ridicule, there fore, (or to express the same word by another, Pleasantry,) ought to prevail in comedy.

This species of entertainment took at different times three different forms at Athens. as well from the genius of the poets, as from the influence of the government, which occasioned various alterations

in it.

The old comedy, so called by Horace, and which he dates after the time of Eschylus, retained something of its original rudeness, and the liberty it had been used to take of throwing out coarse jests, and reviling the spectators from the cart of Thespis. Though it was become regular in its plan, and worthy of a great theatre, it had not learnt to be more reserved. It represented real transactions, with the names, dress, gestures, and likeness, in

* Successit vetus his comœdia non sine multá

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masks, of whomsoever it thought fit to sacrifice to the public derision. In a state where it was held good policy to unmask whatever carried the air of ambition, singularity, or knavery, comedy assumed the privilege to harangue, reform, and advise the people upon their most important interests. No one was spared in a city of so much liberty, or rather licentiousness, as Athens was at that time. Generals, magistrates, government, the very gods were abandoned to the poet's satirical vein; and all was well received, provided the comedy was diverting, and the attic salt not wanting.

"In one of these comedies, not only the priest of Jupiter determines to quit his service, because no more sacrifices are offered to the god; but Mercury himself comes, in a starving condition, to seek his fortune amongst mankind, and offers to serve as a porter, sutler, bailiff, guide, door-keeper; in short, in any capacity, rather than return to heaven. In another, the same gods, reduced to the extremity of famine, from the birds having built a city in the air, whereby their provisions are cut off, and the smoke of incense and sacrifices prevented from ascending to heaven, depute three ambassadors in the name of Jupiter to conclude a treaty of accommodation with the birds, upon such conditions as they shall approve. The chamber of audience, where the three famished gods are received, is a kitchen well stored with excellent game of all sorts. Here Hercules, deeply smitten with the smell of roast meat, which he apprehends to be more exquisite and nutritious than that of incense, begs leave to make his abode, and to turn the spit, and assist the cook upon occasion. The other peices of Aristophanes abound with strokes still more satirical and severe upon the principal divinities.

I am not much surprised at the poet's insulting

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the gods, and treating the with the utmost contempt, as from them he had nothing to fear; but I cannot help wondering at his having brought the most illustrious and powerful persons of Athens upon the stage, and presuming to attack the government itself, without any manner of respect or

reserve.

Cleon having returned triumphant, contrary to the general expectation, from the expedition against Sphacteria, was looked upon by the people as the greatest captain of that age. Aristophanes, to set that bad man in a true light, who was the son of a tanner, and a tanner himself, and whose rise was owing solely to his temerity and impudence, was so bold as to make him the subject of a comedy, without being awed by his power and influence: but he was obliged to play the part of Cleon himself, and appeared for the first time upon the stage in that character; not one of the comedians daring to represent it, nor to expose himself to the resentment of so formidable an enemy. His face was smeared over with wine-lees; because no workman could be found, that would venture to make a mask resembling Cleon, as was usual when persons were brought upon the stage. In this piece he reproached him with embezzling the public treasures, with a violent passion for bribes and presents, with craft in seducing the people, and denies him the glory of the action at Sphacteria, which he attributes chiefly to the share his colleague had in it,

In the Acharnians, he accuses Lamachus of having been made general, rather by bribery than merit, He imputes to him his youth, inexperience, and idleness; at the same time that he, and many others, whom he covertly designates, convert to their own use the rewards due only to valour and real services. He reproaches the republic with their

▾ The Knights.

preference of the younger citizens to the elder, in the government of the state, and the command of their armies. He tells them plainly, that when peace shall be concluded, neither Cleonymus, Hyperbolus, nor many other such knaves, all mentioned by name, shall have any share in the public affairs; they being always ready to accuse their fellow citizens of crimes, and to enrich themselves by such informations.

In his comedy called the Wasps, imitated by Racine in his Plaideurs, he exposes the mad passion of the people for prosecutions aud trials at law, and the enormous injustice frequently committed in passing sentence and giving judgment.

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The poet, concerned to see the republic obstinately bent upon the unhappy expedition to Sicily, endeavours to excite in the people a thorough disgust for so ruinous a war, and to inspire them with the desire of a peace, as much the interest of the victors as the vanquished, after a war of several years' duration, equally pernicious to each party, and capable of involving all Greece in ruin.

None of Aristophanes's pieces explains better his boldness, in speaking upon the most delicate affairs of the state in the crowded theatre, than his comedy called Lysistrata. One of the principal magistrates of Athens had a wife of that name, who is supposed to have taken it into her head to compel Greece to conclude a peace. She relates, how, during the war, the women enquiring of their husbands the result of their counsels, and whether they had not resolved to make peace with Sparta, received no answers but imperious looks, and orders to mind their own business: that, however, they perceived plainly to what a low condition the government was declined: that they took the liberty to remonstrate mildly to their husbands upon the sad consequences of their rash determinations,

z The Peace.

but that their humble representations had no other effect than to offend and enrage them: that, at length, being confirmed by the general opinion of all Attica, that there were no longer any men in the state, nor heads for the administration of affairs, their patience being quite exhausted, the women had thought it proper and advisable to take the government upon themselves, and preserve Greece, whether it would or no, from the folly and madness of its resolves. "For her part, she declares, that "she has taken possession of the city and treasury, "in order," says she, "to prevent Pisander and "his confederates, the four hundred administrators, "from exciting troubles, according to their custom, "and from robbing the public as usual." (Was ever any thing so bold?) She goes on to prove, that the women only are capable of retrieving affairs, by this burlesque argument; that admitting things to be in such a state of perplexity and confusion, the sex, accustomed to untangling their threads, were the only persons to set them right again, as being best qualified with the necessary address, patience, and moderation. The Athenian politics are thus made inferior to those of the women, who are only represented in a ridiculous light, to turn the derision upon their husbands, who were engaged in the administration of the government.

These extracts from Aristophanes, taken almost word for word from father Brumoi, seemed to me very proper to give an insight into that poet's character, and the genius of the ancient comedy, which was, as we see, a satire of the most poignant and servere kind, that had assumed to itself an independency from respect to persons, and to which nothing was sacred. It is no wonder that Cicero condemns so licentious and uncurbed a liberty. *It might, he says, have been tolerable, had it

* Quem illa non attigit, vel potiùs quem non veravit ? Eslo, populares homines, improbos, in remp, seditiosos, Cleonem, Cleo

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