A treasury like this was not easily exhausted. We shall give but one instance more: the comic poet acted, it has been before observed, as the gazetteer of the times, and his 'Foreign Intelligence' certainly furnished an intellectual repast not often found in modern journals. Thus the political fates of Prasiæ, (a town in Laconia lately destroyed by the Athenians,) of Megara, (the support given to which by the Lacedæmonians, was the principal cause of the Peloponnesian war,) and of Leontini in Sicily, (then recently suffering under the oppression of the Syracusans,) become, in the Aristophanic comedy of the Peace, the. materials of an Attic myttoton or salad, and are thus served up to the audience. SCENE-HEAVEN. A great bowl or mortar is seen upon the stage: leeks, garlic, and cheese lie around it. WAR, TRYGEUS. War. (slowly and solemnly.) Laceration, Try. War. Maceration, Grief and scorning, I do scan Unto man, The much-enduring. Cramps and stitches, Aches and pains, Rack his joints And fire his veins! Shield me, great Phoebus, 'tis indeed a mortar Double, double, And nine again, I do see Hapless state! See now, thy doom is seal'd, and ratified thy fate. (Throws a leek into the bowl.) A word nearly similar to Prasiæ in Greek signifies a leek. $ 2 Try. Try. War. Try. War. Look, Sparta, to't-'tis her concern-not our's. And your sighs be they deep. And my bowl must be full; Would work me distraction: Nicely chopp'd, minced, and drest. She may yet be at rest! * (Throws in garlic, and pounds it very small.) Sigh we for those same folk of Megara! Large floods of tears-and bitter, save the mark! Cry aloud, fair and foul, She must go to the bowl; (Scrapes cheese,† and throws it into the bowl.) Pour we some honey‡ now from Attica Upon our work. Among the public entertainments of a people so theatrically disposed as the Athenians, none we may be sure ranked higher than the superb banquet, usually given by the triumphant tribe to the successful chorus. The prize feast (ETIVIXI) is the constant encouragement by which Aristophanes stimulates exertion in his orchestral troop, and in his Female Parliament he offers a bill of fare, which is certainly very provocative. The poet, who contrary to the usual practice, was dismissing his company in a dance, gives animation to the lower members of his dancers, by an intimation addressed to their upper organs. Leader of the Female Chorus. 'Come away, come away,' "Tis no time for delay. * Garlic was one of the most plentiful productions of Megara. The reader of Theocritus need not be reminded of the rich milk and cheeses, which so frequently occur in the most exquisite of all pastoral poets. It was from the odoriferous herbs on mount Hymettus, that the excellence of the Attic honey was derived. (turns (turns to one of the Miss, I turn me to you; Chorus.) (One of the Chorus.) Throw your legs one, and two, Is as long as my *arm. There's salt fish and fresh, (the whole Chorus gradually begin dancing.) Caught with hook and with mesh. Those anchovies and dace Keep a salmon in place. Add thrush boil'd and fried, Who feed large, take, at parting, A pill for digestion.' At entertainments of this kind, the bard, who furnished the vic * A considerable part of what follows is, in the original, compressed into a word of more than seventy syllables! Under these circumstances, a little departure from strict translation seems allowable. $ 3 torious torious piece, was, of course, a most prominent guest: the poet, just quoted, had frequent occasion to experience the value of such a situation; and if we are not mistaken in a passage in Plato, he knew how to make good use of his time, when placed in it. If the following extract shews us that Aristophanes was bald, it also proves, that, like Cæsar, he tried to cover his baldness with laurels. We are sufficiently masters of our subject to be aware, that it is the guests, after all, who are to decide upon the merits of a feast, and not the caterer. One day, says Aristotle,* (and in matters of importance, it is proper to appeal to high authorities,) aλλ' x 8x μαγειρος. It is possible too, that our manner of handling some extracts introduced into these remarks, may have the effect of recalling to the reader's mind an homely adage in the culinary art-that the cook and the materials he works upon often come from very opposite regions.-We could perhaps advance a few words in our defence; but we hold it more decorous, as the hour is late, to make our bow in silence, and withdraw from the table. That we may not appear, however, wholly to have trifled with our readers, we shall close with a curious trait of national habits, and try to coax out of it a little moral for those who are not content to read merely for amusement. At great entertainments in Egypt, says Herodotus, a body carved in wood and most minutely resembling a corpse, was carried about and exhibited to each guest, with this admonition: Regulate your potations and your pleasures by this spectacle; for when you are dead, you will be no other than this.' However genteelly (TIEIxws) all this might have been done on the part of the corpse-bearers, the principal person In Polit. lib. iii. c. 11. in the drama was certainly, as Plutarch, relating the story after Herodotus, suggests, an unseasonable sort of intruder. The worthy Boeotian, who misquotes authors and himself, and who speaks of the fine arts in a tone of contempt, which must have appeared absolutely glorious to his fellow Boeotians, rarely errs on the side of good feelings; he has accordingly imparted a secret for turning even this spectacle to account. Taking times and seasons into consideration, says the philosopher of Choeronea, this addition to the feast was rather misplaced; yet was it not altogether without its suitableness: it furnished a strong dissuasion against drinking and luxury, it held out powerful motives to friendship and mutual love, and it was a sort of practical homily, that life, short as it is, ought not to be made long in the commission of evil practices. ERRATUM. P. 20, l. 16. For Harley and St. John were made Secretaries of State, read Harley was made Secretary of State, and St. John Secretary at War. TREACHERY OF THE ARABS. IN our last Number, we mentioned in a note on Burckhardt's Travels, (p. 440,) that some English officers, on their way to Palmyra, had a dispute with their Arab guides, in which one of the party, Captain Butler, of the Dragoons, was wounded:-that they laid their complaint before the Pasha, and that, in consequence, several of the Arabs had been seized and decapitated. We stated those particulars not lightly, but on the authority of a most respectable British officer, who had minuted them down on the spot from the concurrent reports of several of the natives. They afford, however, another proof, certainly not wanted, of that habitual disregard of strict truth for which the people of the east are notorious. The affair, indeed, was far more serious than we had supposed; but in the leading circumstance our correspondent was misinformed. The officers made no complaint;-but perhaps the impression made by our statement can by no mode be so effectually removed as by giving Captain Butler's own account, which we are enabled to do by the kindness of a revered relative of that gentleman. It is highly interesting; and we cannot dis $ 4 miss 1 |