66

"mediocrity of style, he defcends without meannefs; "when he attempts the fublime, he is elevated without obfcurity; and no man has ever had the art of "blending all the different kinds of writing fo equally "together. After having ftudied all that is left us. "of Grecian learning, if we have not read Aristophanes, we cannot yet know all the charms and beauties of "that language."

Plutarch's fentiment upon 4riftophanes and Menander.

IX. This is a pompous elogium: but let us fufpend our opinion, and hear that of Plutarch, who, being an ancient, well deferves our attention, at least after we have heard the moderns before him. This is then the fum of his judgment concerning Ariftophanes and Menander. To Menander he gives the preference, without allowing much competition. He objects to Ariftophanes, that he carries all his thoughts beyond nature, that he writes rather to the crowd than to men of character; that he affects a style obfcure and licentious; tragical, pompous, and mean, fometimes serious, and fometimes ludicrous, even to puerility; that he makes none of his perfonages speak according to any diftinct character, fo that in his scenes the fon cannot be known from the father, the citizen from the boor, the hero from the shopkeeper, or the divine from the ferving-man. Whereas the diction of Menander, which is always uniform and pure, is very juftly adapted to different characters, rifing when it is neceffary to vigorous and fprightly comedy, yet without tranfgreffing the proper limits, or lofing fight of nature, in which Menander, fays Plutarch, has attained a perfection to which no other writer has arrived. For, what man, befides himself, has ever found the art of making a diction equally fuitable to women and chil.

dren, to old and young, to divinities and heroes? Now Menander has found this happy fecret, in the equality and flexibility of his diction, which, though always the fame, is nevertheless different upon different occafions; like a current of clear water (to keep clofely to the thoughts of Plutarch), which running through banks differently turned, complies with all their turns backward and forward, without changing any thing of its nature or its purity. Plutarch mentions it as a part of the merit of Menander, that he began very young, and was ftopped only by old age, at a time when he would have produced the greatest wonders, if death had not prevented him. This, joined to a reflection, which he' makes as he returns to Ariftophanes, fhews that Ariftophanes continued a long time to difplay his powers: for his poetry, says Plutarch, is a ftrumpet that affects fometimes the airs of a prude, but whofe impudence cannot pe forgiven by the people, and whofe affected modefty is despised by men of decency. Menander, on the contrary, always fhews himself a man agreeable and witty, a companion defirable upon the stage, at table, and in gay affemblies; an extract of all the treasures of Greece, who deferves always to be read, and always to please. His irresistible power of perfuafion, and the reputation which he has had, of being the beft mafter of language of Greece, fufficiently fhews the delightfulness of his ftyle. Upon this article of Menander, Plutarch does not know how to make an end; he fays, that he is the delight of philofophers fatigued with ftudy; that they ufe his works as a meadow enamelled with flowers, where a purer air gratifies the fenfe; that notwithstanding the powers of the other comick poets of Athens, Menander has always been confidered as poffeffing a falt peculiar to himself,

drawn

drawn from the fame waters that gave birth to Venus. That, on the contrary, the falt of Ariftophanes is bitter, keen, coarse, and corrofive; that one cannot tell whether his dexterity, which has been fo much boasted, confists not more in the characters than in the expreffion, for he is charged with playing often upon words, with affecting antithetical allufions; that he has spoiled the copies which he endeavoured to take after nature; that artifice in his plays is wickedness, and fimplicity, brutishness; that his jocularity ought to raise hiffes rather than laughter; that. his amours have more impudence than gaiety; and that he has not fo much written for men of understanding,' as for minds blackened with envy and corrupted with debauchery.

The juftification of Arifto

phanes.

IX. After fuch a character there feems no need of going further; and one would think that it would be better to bury for ever the memory of fo hateful a writer, that makes us fo poor a recompenfe for the lofs of Menander, who cannot be recalled. But, without fhewing any mercy to the indecent or malicious fallies of Ariftophanes, any more than to Plautus his imitator, or at least the inheritor of his genius, may it not be allowed us to do, with refpect to him, what, if I mistake not, Lucretius* did to Ennius, from whofe muddy verfes he gathered jewels? Enni de fercore gemmas.

Befides, we must not believe that Plutarch, who lived more than four ages after Menander, and more than five after Ariftophanes, has paffed fo exact a judgment upon both, but that it may be fit to re-examine it. Plato, the contemporary of Ariftophanes, thought very diffe

Brumoy has miftaken Lucretius for Virgil.

rently,

rently at least of his genius; for, in his piece called The Entertainment, he gives that poet a diftinguished place, and makes him speak, according to his character, with Socrates himself; from which, by the way, it is apparent, that this dialogue of Plato was compofed before the time that Ariftophanes wrote his Clouds against Socrates, Plato is likewife faid to have fent a copy of Ariftophanes to Dionyfius the tyrant, with advice to read it diligently, if he would attain a complete judgment of the ftate of the Athenian republick.

Many other scholars have thought, that they might depart fomewhat from the opinion of Plutarch. Frischlinus, for example, one of the commentators upon Ariftophanes, though he juftly allows his tafte to be lefs pure than that of Menander, has yet undertaken his defence against the outrageous cenfure of the ancient critick. In the first place, he condemns without mercy his ribaldry and obfcenity. But this part, fo worthy of contempt, and written only for the lower people, according to the remark of Boivin, bad as it is, after all is not the chief part which is left of Ariftophanes. I will not fay with Frifchlinus, that Plutarch feems in this to contradict himself, and in reality commends the poet, when he accufes him of having adapted his language to the ftage; by the ftage, in this place, he meant the theatre of Farces, on which low mirth and buffoonry was exhibited. This plea of Frischlinus is a mere cavil; and though the poet had obtained his end, which was to divert a corrupted populace, he would not have been lefs a bad man, nor lefs a despicable poet, notwithstanding the excufe of his defender. To be able in the highest degree to divert fools and libertines, will not make a poet: it is not,

therefore, by this defence that we must justify the character of Ariftophanes. The depraved taste of the crowd, who once drove away Cratinus and his company, because the scenes had not low buffoonry enough for their taste, will not justify Aristophanes, fince Menander found a way of changing the tafte by giving a fort of comedy, not indeed fo modeft as Plutarch reprefents it, but lefs licentious than before. Nor is Ariftophanes better juftified by the reason which he himself offers, when he says, that he exhibited debauchery upon the ftage, not to corrupt the morals, but to mend them. The fight of grofs faults is rather a poison than a remedy.

The apologist has forgot one reafon, which appears to me to be effential to a juft account. As far as we can judge by appearance, Plutarch had in his hands all the plays of Aristophanes, which were at least fifty in number. In these he faw more licentiousness than has come to our hands, though in the eleven that are ftill remaining, there is much more than could be wished.

Plutarch cenfures him in the fecond place for playing upon words; and against this charge Frischlinus. defends him with lefs fkill. It is impoffible to exem¬ plify this in French. But after all, this part is fa little, that it deferved not fo fevere a reprehenfion, especially fince amongst those sayings, there are fome fo mischievously malignant, that they became proverbial, at least by the fting of their malice, if not by the delicacy of their wit. One example will be sufficient: fpeaking of the tax-gatherers, or the excifemen of Athens, he crushes them at once by observing, non quod effent rapial fed λapiai. The word lamia figni