city, extremely haughty and full of derifion; it is fufficient to say, that fuch a poet could never be fuppofed to miss his characters. The applause, which his licentiousness produced, is too good a justification; besides, if he had not fucceeded, he exposed himself to the fate of Eupolis, who in a comedy called the Drowned Man, having imprudently pulled to pieces particular persons, more powerful than himself, was laid hold of, and drowned more effectually than thofe he had drowned upon the open stage,

The condemnation of the poignancy of Aristophanes, as having too much acrimony, is better founded. Such was the turn of a fpecies of comedy, in which al! licentiousness was allowed; in a nation which made every thing a fubject of laughter, in its jealoufy of immoderate liberty, and its enmity to all appearance of rule and fuperiority; for the genius of independency naturally produces a kind of fatire more keen than delicate, as may be easily obferved in most of the inhabitants of islands. If we do not fay with Longinus, that a popular government kindles eloquence, and that a lawful monarchy ftifles it; at least it is eafy to discover by the event, that eloquence in different governments takes a different appearance. In republics it is more fprightly and violent, and in monarchies more infinuating and foft. The fame thing may be faid of ridicule: it follows the caft of genius, as genius follows that of government. Thus the republican raillery, particularly of the age which we are now confidering, must have been rougher than that of the age which followed it, for the fame reason, that Horace is more delicate, and Lucilius more pointed. A dish of fatire was always a delicious treat to human malignity; but that dish was differently seasoned, as the

manners

manners were polished more or lefs. By polifhed manners I mean that good-breeding, that art of referve and felf-restraint, which is the confequence of dependence. If one was to determine the preference due to one of thofe kinds of pleafantry, of which both have their value, there would not need a moment's hesitation, every voice would join in favour of the fofter, yet without contempt of that which is rough. Menander will, therefore, be preferred, but Aristophanes will not be defpifed, especially since he was the first who quitted that wild practice of fatirifing at liberty right or wrong, and by a comedy of another caft made way for the manner of Menander, more agreeable yet, and lefs dangerous. There is yet another diftinction to be made between the acrimony of the one, and the foftnefs of the other; the works of the one are acrimonious, and of the other foft, because the one exhibited perfonal, and the other general characters; which leaves us ftill at liberty to examine, if these different designs might not be executed with equal delicacy.

We shall know this by a view of the particulars; in this place we fay only that the reigning taste, or the love of striking likeneffes, might justify Aristophanes for having turned, as Plutarch fays, art into malignity, fimplicity into brutality, merriment into farce, and amour into impudence; if in any age a poet could be excufed for painting public folly and vice in their true colours.

There is a motive of intereft at the bottom which difpofed Elian, Plutarch, and many others, to condemn this poet without appeal. Socrates, who is faid to have been destroyed by a poetical attack, at the inftigation of

two

two wretches*, has too many friends among good men, to have pardon granted to fo horrid a crime. This has filled them with an implacable hatred against Arif tophanes, which is mingled with the spirit of philosophy, a fpirit, wherever it comes, more dangerous than any other. A common enemy will confefs fome good qualities in his adversary; but a philofopher, made partial by philofophy, is never at reft till he has totally destroyed him who has hurt the most tender part of his heart; that is, has difturbed him in his adherence to fome character, which, like that of Socrates, takes poffeffion of the mind. The mind is the freeft part of man, and the most tender of its liberties: poffeffions, life, and reputation, may be in another's power, but opinion is always independent. If any man can obtain that gentle influence, by which he ingratiates himself with the understanding, and makes a fect in a commonwealth, his followers will facrifice themselves for him, and nobody will be pardoned that dares to attack him justly or unjuftly, because that truth, real or imaginary, which he maintained, is now become an idol. Time will do nothing for the extinction of this hatred; it will be propagated from age to age; and there is no hope that Ariftophanes will ever be treated with tenderness by the difciples of Plato, who made Socrates his hero. Every body else may, perhaps, confefs, that Aristophanes, though in one inftance a bad man, may nevertheless be a good poet; but diftinctions, like thefe, will not

*It is not certain, that Ariftophanes did procure the death of Socrates but, however, he is certainly criminal for having, in the Clouds, accufed him publicly of impiety.

be

be admitted by prejudice and paffion, and one or other dictates all characters, whether good or bad.

As I add my own reafons, fuch as they are, for or against Aristophanes, to thofe of Frifchlinus his defender, I must not omit one thing which he has forgot, and which, perhaps, without taking in the rest, put Plutarch out of humour, which is that perpetual farce which goes through all the comedies of Ariftophanes, like the character of Harlequin on the Italian theatre. What kind of perfonages are clouds, frogs, wafps, and birds? Plutarch, used to a comic ftage of a very different appearance, must have thought them ftrange things; and yet stranger must they appear to us, who have a newer kind of comedy, with which the Greeks were unacquainted. This is what our poet may be charged with, and what may be proved beyond refutation. This charge comprises all the reft, and against this I shall not pretend to justify him. It would be of no use to say, that Ariftophanes wrote for an age that required fhews which filled the eye, and grotefque paintings in fatirical performances; that the crowds of spectators, which fometimes neglected Cratinus to throng Aristophanes, obliged him more and more to comply with the ruling tafte, left he fhould lose the public favour by pictures more delicate and lefs ftriking; that in a state, where it was confidered as policy to lay open every thing that had the appearance of ambition, fingularity, or knavery, comedy was become a haranguer, a reformer, and a public counsellor, from whom the people learned to take care of their most valuable interefts; and that this comedy, in the attempt to lead and to please the people, claimed a right to the ftrongest touches of eloquence, and had likewife the power of perfonal painting

VOL. III.

D

painting peculiar to herself. All these reasons, and many others, would disappear immediately, and my mouth would be stopped with a fingle word, with which every body would agree: my antagonist would tell me, that such an age was to be pitied, and paffing on from age to age, till he came to our own, he would conclude flatly, that we are the only poffeffors of common sense; a determination with which the French are too much reproached, and which overthrows all the prejudice in favour of antiquity. At the fight of fo many happy touches, which one cannot help admiring in Ariftophanes, a man might, perhaps, be inclined to lament that fuch a genius was thrown into an age of fools: but what age has been without them? And have not we ourselves reafon to fear, left pofterity fhould judge of Moliere and his age, as we judge of Ariftophanes? Menander altered the taste, and was applauded in Athens; but it was after Athens was changed. Terence imitated him at Rome, and obtained the preference over Plautus, though Cafar called him but a demi-Menander, because he appears to want that spirit and vivacity which he calls the vis comica. We are now weary of the manner of Menander and Terence, and leave them for Moliere, who appears like a new star in a new courfe. Who can anfwer, that in fuch an interval of time as has past between these four writers, there will not arise another author, or another tafte, that may bring Moliere, in his turn, into neglect? Without going further, our neighbours, the English, think he wants force and fire. Whether they are right, or no, is another queftion; all that I mean to advance is, that we are to fix it as a conclufion, that comic authors must grow obsolete with the modes of life, if we admit any one age, or any one cli

mate,