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unhappy change, and that his poems do not furnish the means of judging of the state of manners and taste, in the time of Aristophanes which is partly just. Then we say that the contemporary literature, the history, the oratory, the tragedy of Athens, do not allow us to regard the general state of society as so corrupt, and the general state of literature so defective, as to authorize the indecency of Aristophanes. The comedy, we grant, is very different from the other branches of literature specified; it is more licentious in its nature. But if the defence be that the license was universal, something of it must be traced in all the literature; something must be found in every department, which bears the impress of this revolting sensuality. It is true, when we come down to a much later period, to a degenerate age of Greece; to an era alike of political slavery, literary decline, and moral corruption, we fall on a most depraved and impure taste, of which Athenæus, in his ordinary compilation, has collected monuments, that had better perished. But in defending Aristophanes, we have no more right to avail ourselves of the example of the miserable grammarians and epigrammatists, at a period subsequent by centu ries to Aristophanes, than we have to quote against him the example of Homer from a period as much anterior. We just admitted that the latter cannot in justice be done, nor is there any more reason in the former. It is most unfortunate for this inquiry, that the works of the other ancient comedians are all lost; and that we are unable to compare Aristophanes with his predecessors or contemporaries, in the same department. If, however, we can appeal to the testimony of one of those who were able to make the comparison between Aristophanes and his contemporaries, of one who lived when the numerous au→ thors of the ancient, middle, and new comedy, now lost, were yet extant, he certainly will be entitled to be heard with deference, in the question. Such a person is Plutarch, to whose diligence and philosophical curiosity we are indebted for the preservation of so many portions of Grecian history, and so many monuments and notices of Grecian manners, opinions, and literature. Among his moral works, as they are commonly but improperly termed, is the epitome of an essay containing an express and formal comparison between Aristophanes and Menander. It is much to be regretted that the entire work is lost. Still, however, there is no reason to distrust the justice of the abstract, which has come down to us.

From this abstract, we shall make a free but faithful quotation, just repeating, that Plutarch had the great mass of the comic literature open before him, and was able to estimate Aristophanes, in comparison with his colleagues; that it does not appear that Plutarch had any personal motive for doing Aristophanes injustice; and that, though he censures him extravagantly, it does not appear that he had any provocation thus to censure him beyond what was furnished by the works themselves of Aristophanes. At this period,' says Plutarch, 'that the city abounds with good actors of comedy, it is found that the comedies of Menander are replete with a spirit as innocent and even pious, as if it had its origin from the waves, whence Venus sprung. The spirit of Aristophanes, on the other hand, is bitter and harsh; it has a keen, biting, yea an ulcerating severity. Nor can I any where discern, either in the characters or language of his comedies, his boasted skill. What he imitates he debases. He represents not a polite but a malicious cunning; and his rusticity, instead of being confiding, is doltish. His humor is that not of laughter but derision, and his amours, instead of being gay, are profligate. The man seems not to have written for any person of discretion; but to have indulged in what is base and lascivious, that he might please the profligate, and in what is slanderous and bitter, that he might gratify the envious and malignant.—OP. II. 854.

This is the severe judgment of Plutarch, on the merits of Aristophanes. We may not choose to go the whole length of his condemnation, nor extend it to the literary merits of the poet. This is a point of taste, which we have a right to discuss with Plutarch. But as to his purity and impurity, which is not a matter of literary taste, but moral sentiment, and which we expressly refer to the standard of the age, to be settled by that, we maintain that Plutarch, with all the comic literature of the Greeks before him, and while instituting a formal comparison between Aristophanes and Menander, has a right to be heard. We see not why he should not command our assent.

We have urged this topic, and have quoted this passage from Plutarch, for the sake of adding to the considerations, with which Wieland fortifies his opinion of the moral character of Aristophanes. In that opinion, we sincerely concur, and without wishing, with a puritanical sternness, to enter into judgment with the license, into which the pride of genius and

popularity in a lax age, and in unguarded moments, may have betrayed their possessors, are well persuaded that he is justly obnoxious to the charge of a corrupt moral taste, and a cold selfish heart. With these premises, in respect to the province assigned to the ancient comedy, its practical harmlessness, and the personal character of Aristophanes, our readers will be prepared for Wieland's last proposition, that though Aristophanes is neither to be justified nor excused for his attack on Socrates, he is not to be set down as of a spirit so remorseless, that he intended to pursue him to the death. On the other hand, the known inefficiency, to which the comedy had reduced itself as a means of affecting character, and the example of the most successful of the satires of Aristophanes, which had not cost their subjects the favor of the people, might have rendered the poet indifferent to the application he was making of it, in the case of Socrates, and so turn what many have considered blood-thirsty persecution, into mere selfish levity of spirit, which was willing to hold up to hatred and ridicule a man, whose outward singularities had made him a promising object of such an attack.

Such is the account which is given by Wieland, and which we have endeavoured to illustrate and strengthen. It would admit of various confirmation from other quarters. We might show that just such a course, as we conceive Aristophanes to have pursued toward Socrates, did he also pursue toward Euripides, the friend of Socrates; and the delight of all who are touched by the portraiture of the human heart. What could seemingly be more ferocious, than the tone and perseverance with which this last great member of the tragical triumvirate of Athens, is pursued by his satirical foe? What more inconsistent with real goodness of feeling and elevation of character? What more indicative of a cold, heartless, selfish reliance on his own skill and power, triumphing over that feeling of mutual dependence of man on man, which keeps men within bounds, and teaches them to attack, as those who may in turn be assailed? We might insist on this; and we might also enter upon the defence of Socrates, on the merits of his own character; a subject which, our readers perceive, we have hitherto left untouched. Did our limits now permit us, we should cheerfully do this; and we do not despair of an opportunity hereafter of submitting our thoughts upon it to the decision of our readers, confident as we are, that on all the points of doubt

in the character of Socrates, it admits of an explanation, consistent with his spotless purity. It may be thought but a faint championship to talk of explanation. But it is not often that human virtue admits of more, and it has been the fortune of Socrates, partly no doubt in consequence of the bad notoriety cast upon him by the play of the Clouds, to be more involved than could be wished in the suspicion of not having been wiser and better than his age in points, where he ought to have been, and we believe was, both.

We have been content to leave the correctness of the foregoing statements to the decision of our readers, without anxiously mustering the names of those, who patronize or refuting the objections of those, who call them in question. But inasmuch as the idea has been held up that the representation of the character of Socrates timidly hinted at by Mr Mitchell, and more boldly threatened by one of his reviewers, has received the unqualified support of the Messrs Schlegel in the same degree, in which the literary merit of the great comedian has been enforced by them, we think it necessary to add, that this too must be taken with qualification. We have already quoted some remarks of Mr F. Schlegel, which go only to maintain the poetical and patriotic character of Aristophanes, without justifying him in his warfare against Socrates. One of Mr A. W. Schlegel's lectures on dramatic art and literature is devoted to the subject of the ancient comedy; and in this, he represents the genius and character of Aristophanes, in the most favorable light. He does not, however, deny that his moral sentiment was corrupt, and he attributes his persecution of Socrates to personal enmity. In all that he says, it is plain that he treats the subject exclusively in its connexion with taste and criticism; and while we bow to his judgment in these departments, we are unwilling to admit, that a moral acquittal, were the Messrs Schlegel, as they are not, disposed to pronounce one, would come with any other force from these gentlemen, than what it would carry with it, in the reasons on which it is built. Whatever apology may be made for the impurity of Aristophanes, on the score of the low standard of morals in the age in which he lived, we apprehend that this apology can hardly be extended to the good natured toleration, with which his worst pieces are characterized in the lecture of Mr A. W. Schlegel alluded to: and we may be equally allowed to doubt, whether the author of the Lucinda is to be

admitted as a judge without appeal, on the morality of the author of the Lysistrata.

We have left ourselves scarce any room to speak of the work named at the head of our article, the first volume of Mr Mitchell's Aristophanes. This we have the less reason to regret, as our classical readers are already well possessed of its contents and character. The elaborate and ingenious preliminary discourse, consisting of one hundred and sixty pages, is, with a few slight alterations, the first article in the Quarterly Review for September 1819, there given as a review of Mr F. Schlegel's lectures. The reviews of Mr Mitchell's volume, in the Quarterly and Edinburgh, particularly the former, are so ample and satisfactory, and so generally in our readers' hands, that we think it superfluous to prolong our article. We cannot but enter our protest, however, against the mode of translating, which Mr Mitchell has adopted, in giving up, as it should seem, in despair, many passages equally susceptible, in his hands, with many that he has translated, of a pleasing English transfusion, and supplying their place by a cold analysis of their substance in prose. We trust Mr Mitchell has amended this matter in the continuation of his work, which we see announced in London, and which we beg leave to assure him is expected with impatience on this side of the Atlantic. When we are favored with it, we shall renew the consideration of the subject, and endeavor to render a more distinct testimony of our own to Mr Mitchell's felicity as a translator.

ART. XV.-Herculanensium Voluminum quæ supersunt. Tomus II. Neapoli, 1809. Fol.

THIS volume, the last which has been published by the Academicians of Portici, contains fragments of two books of Epicurus de Natura, being a portion of the treatise of thirtyseven books on this subject, ascribed by Diogenes Laertius to Epicurus. There are probably few of our readers, to whom the earlier history of the discovery, made of manuscripts, in the ruins of Herculaneum, is unknown. No event in modern times had excited greater interest in the literary world; and rarely has so lively an interest been succeeded, by such indifference. The causes of this indifference are obvious;-such as the time,

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