23 Sed in vitium libertas excidit, et vim Dignam lege regi: lex eft accepta: chorufque 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. 4 All 23 Horat. art. poet. y. 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 Пagalaos. So the scholiaft on the clouds of Aristophanes, . 518. informs us, H wagábaσis donet μὲν ἐκ τῶ χορᾶ λέξεσθαι· εἰσώδει δὲ τὸ ἑαυτῶ πρόσωπον ὁ ποιήτης. παράβασις δέ ἔσιν, ὅταν ἐκ τῆς προτέρας τάσεως ὁ χορὸς μελά βὰς, ἀπαγγέλῃ πρὸς τὸν δῆμον ἀφορῶν. This fame fort of παράβασις Shakefpeare ufes 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 empress How many would the peaceful city quit 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 Aristophanes, 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 among the comedies of our own country, the Rehearsal, written after this model : for here Bays ftands for Dryden; the two kings, for Charles and his brother James; and the 25 parodies have all the caft of this ancient humour. But we can now have no more fuch instances; the government here, as formerly at Athens, putting a ftop to this licentious fpirit. And to their thus interfering was owing the rife of the new comedy, and of a Menander. Happy for 25 Parodies were invented by Hegemon of Thafos, as Aristotle fays; or at least he highly excelled in them, and brought them on the ftage. Horace has an elegant parody on a verfe 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 conftant objects of his ridicule. So Piftol in our poet talks in a fuftian ftile, in fcraps of verfes 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 causes produce the fame the following should escape the commentators, where Sile- Ὃς καὶ χρυσὸν ἔχων πόλεμόνδ ̓ ἴεν, οΰτε κάρη. Ὃς καὶ χρυσὸν ἔχων πάντῃ τρυφᾷ, οΰτε κέρη. 4 Julian. There are parodies still more elegant, when a discourse 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 fervants. Adelp. A&t III. fc. 4. and in the first part of K. Henry the fourth, Act 2. where Hal humourously imitating Falstaff's manner, turns his own speech against him. manners manners and characters, when he brought Menander's plays upon the Roman stage? 'Tis the humours and customs of their own times, that people love to fee represented; not being over follicitous or interefted in what is tranfacted in other countries. Hence 'twas wifely judged by Steele, in his imitation of the Andria, to work it into an English ftory. And 'twas barrennefs of invention that made the Latin ftage-writer's meerly translators. Indeed the Romans had few authors that can be called originals. Their government was military, and the foldier had the chief praife; the scholar stood only in a fecond rank. And just as Virgil and Horace began to flourish, a young tyrant fprung up, and riveted on the Romans by degrees fuch fhackles of fervitude, that they have never even to this day been able to fhake them off. And fhould it ever be the misfortune of this island to feel the effects of tyranny, we muft bid farewell to our Miltons and Shakespeares, and take up contentedly again with popifh myfteries and moralities. SECT. SECT. XV. I T was finely and truly observed by a certain philosopher, whom the rhetorician Longinus praises, that popular government (where the publick good alone, in contradiftinction to all private interest and selfish fyftems, prevails) is the only nurse of great genius's. For while the laws, which know no foolish compaffion, correct the greater vices, men are left to be either perfuaded or laughed out of their leffer follies. Hence will neceffarily arife orators, poets, philofophers, critics, &c. Wit will polish and refinë wit; and he, whom nature has marked for a flave, will ever continue in his proper fphere." In tyrannic forms of government, the whole is reversed; the people are well dealt with, if they are amused with even mock-virtues and mockfciences. This is vifible in a neighbouring nation, where modern honour is fubftituted in the room of ancient honesty; hypocritical address, inftead of morals and manners; flattery and subordinate homage is introduced, and easily swallowed, that every one in his turn might play 'the petty tyrant on his inferior. 1 Longin. Hegi 4. feet. XLIV. 3 |