and run after,άρθεις δε μέγας, και τιμηθεις, ὡς ουδεις πωπο ἐν ὑμῖν + and was it not this very Aristophanes who scourged from the stage with an unrelenting hand the low provocatives of vulgar approbation? who lopped off so many off-shoots of luxuriant absurdity? who reformed the indecent Cordax, and tempered the obscenities in which his predecessors had indulged? who breathed into the shape of Comedy,-the body he had chosen, a new soul of sense, and feeling, and morality,poetic rapture, and declamatory grandeur? Was not his very first production (the Dataleis) received, to use Mr M.'s own words, with the most flattering attention?' And was not a 'comparison between the temperate virtues of the good old times, and the unrestrained and unexampled dissoluteness of his own age,'-the very portion of the Clouds which Mr M. unfortunately selects as having caused, by its unseasonable gravity, the rejection of that play,-the whole jet and object that this performance had in view? Were the two fighting-cocks of the Nubes less welcome to a laughter-loving rabble than the ordinary characters of Sophron and Catapygon? or had the whole enlightened population of Athens been scared away by the sober horrors of the Dataleis, abandoning sense and poetry to the mercy of the mob? We have said enough to vindicate the audience of the Athenian theatre from the aspersions of Mr Mitchell; and to show that its applause, instead of being a mere ebullition' of ' noisy jollity,' unworthy the ambition of a liberal mind, might well rank with the prize, the procession,-the banquet, and all the other honours that stimulated the exertions, or rewarded the successes of the comic writer. Nor was it only an assembly, whose anticipated presence would enhance the vigour of his ef forts, but one on whom he might be sure, beforehand, that no effort would be wasted. Keen to observe, and quick to apprehend, no stroke of humour, no slyness of allusion, no fine etherial touch of subtlety, could be lost upon it. It was an atmosphere impregnated with the electricity of wit, that needed but a spark from the poet to inflame it. In every mixture, however, there must be dregs, and undoubtedly together with the better judges of poetical merit, there was blended a proportion of the lower orders, who, like our own imperious vulgar, were to be amused with pantomimic tricks and boorish jocularity. The smiles of the polite few were not enough for the comedian, he must join to them the shouts of the million; and the variety of functions he had to discharge-the diversified at + Vespa. v. 1059. ‡ Nubes. v. 538. § Ibid. v. 540. tractions of the ancient comedy-gave him charms for both. For all tastes he had to cater; and all-provided he spared not for high seasoning, but made the most of his matériel-he was sure to please. As Public Satirist, an office with which he found himself virtually invested, he had to exercise a Censorship far more formidable than that of the Archon: there was no shift to elude his doxiasia: nor could any bribe persuade him to arrest the lash, when cnce his arm was raised for flagellation. * As State Journalist,-for no daily reams then issued from the press to pour a deluge of intelligence, and pall the appetite of curiosity itself, he had to chronicle the events of the passing year, to comment on the conduct of the ruling powers, to animate the patriotism, instruct the zeal, or direct the aversions of his countrymen. As Periodical Critic, he had to watch with a jealous eye the productions of contemporary writers, -as PrizeCompetitor, he had so to regulate, or so to humour the public taste, as to secure indulgence for his own. In the last-mentioned capacity, Aristophanes boldly chose the nobler part; and made the caprices of even Athenians bent before his juster notions of the xenosμor and idu,—what should be at once beneficial and agreeable,—in the line of composition he had pitched upon. The strain they heard was of an higher mood' than they had been wont to listen to; but it came upon them recommended by such a richness of melody, and such a force of inspiration, that they could not turn a deaf ear to its enchantments. The chord he struck was new, but every bosom vibrated in answer to its tones. Not that in his hands Comedy forgot her broadest grins, though she acquired graces of a more majestic cast. Never was calumny so ungrounded as that monstrous position maintained by Plutarch, that Aristophanes ⚫ can neither please the multitude, nor be endured by the re'fined, but that his Muse, resembling a decayed courtesan that imitates the dignity of a matron, is at once disgusting to the many from her insolent assumptions, and abominated by the graver few for her lewdness and malignity.' The literal reverse of this judgment might be stated as the true one. Compounding and concocting the utile and dulce,-with many a laughable jest, and many a serious appeal; § for the lively rab * See the Wasps, v. 1062, &c. † Αρισοφάνης μεν ἐν ἐλε τοις πολλοις άρεσας, ἔτε τοις φρονίμοις ἀνεκλος, ἀλλ ̓ ώσπερ έταιρας της ποιησεως παρηκμακυίας, έλα μιμεμένης γαμετην, ἔτε δι πολκαι την αυθάδειαν ὑπομενεσιν, (Reiske.) δι τε σεμνοι βδελύττονται το ἀκολασον xaxaxoness.-Plutarch. Aristoph. et Menandri Comp. § Πολλά μεν γελοια ει πειν, πολλα δε σπουδαια, Rang. v. 389. ble he has practical jokes, good-humoured merriment, interminable slang, the puns of the Peiræus,' the proverbs of the Agora,' the ribaldry of the popular assembly, and the professional pleasantries of the courts of justice;-while for souls of brighter mould he unveils the awful face of genuine Poesy, and bids the mighty mother smile upon her votaries. * The patriot learned from him to glow at the recollections of Marathon; the poetical aspirant to invoke the shade of Homer; t the youth to shudder at the hideousness of vice; § and the aged to repose in the security of virtue. § Though diffidence (for modesty was no stranger to the breast of Aristophanes) induced him to have his first play acted under the shelter of another's name, the sentiments, we may safely conjecture, as well as the tendency of that composition, were conceived in a spirit all his own. We know that the subject was serious, and it would neither be weakened nor degraded by his treatment of it. The applause which crowned this effort taught him, that, even among such an audience as Democratic Athens afforded,--however future Mitchells or Mitfords were to blacken at the notion,-there were some hearts that beat in perfect unison with his own, and many that, while they had chosen the wrong path, could yet discern the right, and had neither lost the sense to understand, nor the feeling to admire him. We feel as if treading upon holy ground, in venturing to treat of a subject that has so lately been discussed and adorned by the labours of the Messrs Schlegels. We promise that our steps shall be as light and rapid as we can make them,but mixed with the gratitude we entertain towards those distinguished critics, for rescuing Aristophanes from the obloquies of ignorant contempt, and asserting with so much spirit his proper place among the poets of antiquity,-there is a wish, for which our readers must hold us excused, to add our own homage, however insignificant, to theirs. In every light in which we can view the works of this extraordinary genius, there is an union of different qualities perceptible, singular and striking when contemplated separately, but utterly amazing when considered in the aggregate. As a patriot,' says Mons. Schlegel, his principal merit consists in the fidelity with which he paints *His own words are Σμικρον δ' ὑποθεσθαι τοις κριταισι βελομαι + Vespæ. v. 1109. Vespa, v. 1054. Ecclesiaz. v. 1154. ff Passim. all the corruptions of the state, and in the chastisement which he inflicts on the pestilent demagogues who caused that corruption, or profited by its effects. But to the tone of proud defiance and indignant eloquence in which, at all personal hazards to himself, he so discharged this patriotic duty, as to deserve the crown of sacred Olive from the hands of his countrymen, there is to be added that spirit of impartial scrutiny, preserved amid the rage of declamation, and that minuteness of historical detail, that caused even his adversary Plato to send his comedies to Dionysius in Sicily, as the most faithful record of Grecian affairs and politics for the period during which he wrote. In satire, though, when justice demands it, he can be severe, caustic, terrible, yet the vein of brisk and sprightly raillery,―of lively and not illnatured quizzing, if we may use such an expression, in which he so often indulges, seems more congenial to his temper and dispositions. If he might have said with Junius, in his haughtier moments, What public question have I declined? What villain have I spared?'-we suspect that in general he would have been more pleased to claim that facetious and civil way of jesting,' that Heinsius commends in Horace, and Scaliger means to describe where he talks of a poet's grinning merely to show his white teeth, without a thought of using them. There is sometimes, to be sure, a little butchering,-as when he falls foul of a Cleon or a Cleisthenes; but, for the most part, we have to admire that decisive criterion of a superior genius, the insinuated sarcasm, the delicate invective,-in Dryden's language the fineness of the stroke that separates the head from the body, and leaves it standing in its place. Any man,' said the wife of a very useful though ignoble member of the commonwealth,-' any man is capable of a plain piece of work-a bare hanging; but to make a malefactor die sweetly,—'tis only my Mr Ketch can do that!' Aristophanes has all this merit. He certainly executes with grace; and the very victim must have found it difficult to refrain from joining in the laughter raised at his expense. But the prominent feature-the differential quality that distinguishes his satire from that of other poets, is neither its occasional vigour, nor its general facetiousness. Among the Latins, we have Juvenal his equal in the first respect, and Horace in the last. It is that unfailing fluency and copiousnessthat sort of active magnetism, by which one conception rising in his mind draws after it in full exuberance an endless train of corresponding thoughts and connected allusions-that magie power that conjures and compels into its service the most re mote, refractory ideas, and surprises us at every turn, like unexpected light, with something that at once startles and delights the mind. As the fabled touch of the Phrygian monarch transmuted the meanest materials into gold,-or as the chemist extracts a spirit from a thousand seemingly unpromising substances, the unwearied and prolific fancy of Aristophanes can find matter for his drollery or sarcasm, where a less fertile or less energetic genius would slumber or despair. A beard, *—a puff of smoke, ta termination, -the blunder of a clown, the lisp of Alcibiades, §-every thing and any thing is made subservient to his purposes of personal attack. Once let him be started, and it is vain to conjecture whither he will lead, or where please to stop. His restless wit flows on-sometimes sparkling in antithesis-sometimes pungent in a gibe-sometimes insipid in a pun, ¶—but never for an instant failing him, or threatening his readers with a drought. Persius, ++-a satirist to whom Dry || Ib. v. 213. * Ecclesiaz, v. 101. + Vespæ, v. 342. Nubes, v. 642. Vespæ, v. 45. His passion for puns might have made him, in later times, the pride and envy of a Cambridge common-room. Attic ears may have relished them well enough,-but we should pity the translator who could think it worth while to imitate them in his vernacular idiom. †† A word in behalf of a favourite author, who is not near so much read or admired as he ought to be, must be allowed us. We forget whose observation it is that the difficulty in Juvenal is to choose a meaning-in Persius to find one;' in which there is much more quaintness than truth. His difficulties are much magnified through the self-created mists with which laziness surrounds him, and may generally be easily dispelled if we will but recollect the dramatic air he has studiously given to his compositions, and the extreme compression of thought at which he aims. His metre may be called scabrous and hobbling ; but it is at least as harmonious as that of Horace, and, for more important particulars, even Dryden acknowledges that he is never wanting to us in some profitable doctrine, and in exposing the opposite vices to it; nor can he stigmatize him for great indecency, except in one passage of his 4th Satire.-In some bursts of serious poetry he is wonderfully striking and sublime. There can be nothing finer than that apostrophe in the 3d Satire, Magne pater Divûm!' &c., whence Milton has taken saw Virtue in her shape how lovely; saw, and pin'd His loss; and the magnificent close of the 2d, eulogized by Lord Chatliam, which we trace in Milton's lines O Spirit, that dost prefer |