Sir Hugh Evans, in the Merry wives of Windfor, is full of these elegant tautologies so proper to his character; in Act I. Sc. I. Ev. "Shall "I tell you a lie? I do defpife a liar as I do "despise one that is false; or as I despise one "that is not true. So Hamlet, in a jocose vein, says, For if the king like not the comedy; Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy. There is no reason to tire the reader with more inftances, for a hint of this nature is fufficient. Xenophon in his treatise of the Athenian republic takes notice of the exceffive fcurrilities of the old comedians. But the emperor Marcus Antoninus fpeaks more favourable of them; and fays this freedom of fpeech had an air of discipline and inftruction, and by inveighing against personal vices was of ufe to humble the pride and arrogance of the great. What a reflection to come from fo great a man! The 22 old comedy, without any scruple, expofed real perfons, and brought real stories on the 22 Concerning the difference of comedy, fee Platonius, and the other writers of comedy prefixed to Kufter's edition of Ariftophanes. Of the old comedy were written in all the stage, sparing neither magiftrates or philofophers, a Cleo, Hyperbolus, or Secrates. Eapolis, atque Cratinus, Ariftopbanefque poetae, While the people kept the power in their own hands, they had full scope of indulging this licentious fpirit; but when the tyranny of a few at Athens prevailed, the poets were obliged to be more circumfpect. Socrates might laugh with the laughers; but a jeft upon a corrupt magiftrate was felt to the quick. Hence arofe another fpecies of comedy, called the middle comedy, in which the names were feigned, but the story was real: the chorus too was dropped, because here the poet more particularly indulged his ridiculing vein. 365 plays; of the middle, 617; Athenaeus fays he had red above 800 of the new, there were 5. poets.. Menander alone wrote 108 plays. We have only now preserved a few of the plays of Ariftophanes; and thefe perhaps chiefly by the care of St. Chryfoftom. 23 Sed in vitium libertas excidit, et vim Dignam lege regi: lex eft accepta: chorusque When the middle comedy took place, and the chorus was repreffed, and the poets not allowed to name the perfons; yet by relating of real facts, the dulleft of the audience could not be ignorant at whom the jeft was pointed. All 24 23 Horat. art. poet. . 282. 'Twas likewife no uncommon thing in the chorus of the old comedy for the poet to speak to the audience in his own proper person. This was called Пagábaσs. So the scholiaft on the clouds of Ariftophanes, . 518. informs us, H wagábaσis doxst μὲν ἐκ τὸ χορᾶ λέξεσθαι· εἰσάγει δὲ τὸ ἑαυ]ἔ πρόσωπον ὁ ποιήτης. παράβασις δέ ἐσιν, ὅταν ἐκ τῆς προτέρας τάσεως ὁ χορὸς μέλα βας, ἀπαγγέλῃ πρὸς τὸν δῆμον ἀφορῶν. This fame fort of wagaCars Shakespeare uses at the end of every act in his Henry the Fifth. In the fourth, he pays a handsome com. plement to queen Elizabeth and the earl of Effex. Were now the general of our gratious emprefs To welcome him? After the fame manner the conclufion of As you like it, and of Troilus and Creffida, is to be confidered. 24 The writers of the Middle Comedy, as they are called, are loft. But there is a play however of the Middle Comedy remaining, written by Ariftophanes, viz. Plutus. I don't know that any commentator calls this a play of the Middle Comedy, tho' doubtless 'tis one. the writers of the middle comedy are loft. We have the comedies of our own country, among the Rehearsal, written after this model : for here Bays ftands for Dryden; the two kings, for Charles and his brother James; and the "parodies have all the cast of this ancient humour. But we can now have no more fuch instances; the government here, as formerly at Athens, putting a stop to this licentious fpirit. And to their thus interfering was owing the rise of the new comedy, and of a Menander. Happy for 25 Parodies were invented by Hegemon of Thafos, as Ariftotle fays; or at least he highly excelled in them, and brought them on the ftage. Horace has an elegant parody on a verse of Furius, who in a poem wrote, Jupiter hybernas cana nive confpuit Alpes. He turns it thus, Furius hybernas cana nive confpuit Alpes. Ariftophanes is full of these parodies, the bombaft tragedians, and Euripides, being the constant objects of his ridicule. So Piftol in our poet talks in a fuftian stile, in fcraps of verses from the older tragedians: and the whole play introduced in Hamlet, is to be confidered in this light. Sometimes parodies are used not to ridicule the verses thus changed, but they have an air of pleasantry and imitation; fuch are many paffages from Homer and Euripides parodized by Plato and by Julian in his Caefars. I wonder the for us, would the fame caufes produce the fame effects, and new Menanders arife! But I am afraid we want fome Attic manners. We attempt to paint the characters of others, without having any character ourselves: and our men of wit have been fo loft to whatever is decent and grave, that their vicious principles appear thro' all the cobweb fophiftry, in which they try to invelope them. What Menander was, may be partly gueffed from fome few remaining fragments of his plays, and from his tranflator Terence. But does it not look like want of invention in Terence, that he made use of Athenian the following fhould escape the commentators, where Silenus applies the verfe ufed by Homer concerning a gay Trojan to Gallienus. Ὃς καὶ χρυσὸν ἔχων πόλεμόνδ ̓ ἴεν, ούτε κάρη. Hom. II. 6. 872. Ὃς καὶ χρυσὸν ἔχων πάντη τρυφᾷ, ούτε κάρη. Julian. There are parodies still more elegant, when a difcourfe has a quite different turn given it ;, as in the Adelphi, where Demea full of his own praises tells Syrus, how he educates his fon; and Syrus afterwards repeats Demea's own words, giving him an account how he inftructs his inferior servants. Adelp. A& III. fc. 4. and in the first part of K. Henry the fourth, Act 2. where Hal humouroufly imitating Falstaff's manner, turns his own speech against him. manners |