Oh! might I never more behold a woman!

Rather than I should meet that object, Gods!
Strike out my eyes-I'll thank you for your mercy.'

We are indebted to Athenæus for part of a dialogue, in which Antiphanes has introduced a traveller to relate a whimsical contrivance, which the king of Cyprus had made use of for cooling the air of his banqueting-chamber, whilst he sate at supper.

'A. You say you've pass'd much of your time in Cyprus.
B. All; for the war prevented my departure.
A. In what place chiefly, may I ask?

B. In Paphos ;

Where I saw elegance in such perfection,

As almost mocks belief.

A. Of what kind, pray you?

B. Take this for one-The monarch, when he sups, Is fann'd by living doves.

A. You make me curious

How this is to be done; all other questions

I will put by to be resolv'd in this.

B. There is a juice drawn from the Carpin tree, To which your dove instinctively is wedded

With a most loving appetite; with this

The king annoints his temples, and the odour
No sooner captivates the silly birds,

Than straight they flutter round him, nay, would fle
A bolder pitch, so strong a love-charm draws them,
And perch, O horror! on his sacred crown,
If that such prophanation were permitted
Of the by-standers, who, with reverend care
Fright them away, till thus, retreating now
And now advancing, they keep such a coil
With their broad vans, and beat the lazy air
Into so quick a stir, that in the conflict
His royal lungs are comfortably cool'd,
And thus he sups as Paphian monarchs should.'

An old man in the comedy, as it should seem, of the
Γηρατάδης, reasons thus-

'I grant you that an old fellow like myself, if he be a wise fellow withal, one that has seen much and learnt a great deal, may be good for something and keep a shop open for all customers, who want advice in points of difficulty. Age is as it were an altar of refuge for human distresses to

fly to.

Oh! longevity, coveted by all who are advancing towards thee, cursed by all who have attained thee; railed at by the wise, betrayed by them who consult thee, and well spoken of by no one-And yet what is it we old fellows can be charged with? We are no spendthrifts, do not consume our means in gluttony, run mad for a wench, or break locks to get at her; and why then may not old age, seeing such discretion belongs to it, be allowed its pretensions to happiness?'

A servant thus rallies his master upon a species of hypocrisy natural to old age.

'Ah good my master, you may sigh for death,
And call amain upon him to release you,
But will you bid him welcome when he comes?
Not you. Old Charon, has a stubborn task
To tug you to his wherry and dislodge you
From your rich tables, when your hour is come:
I muse the Gods send not a plague amongst you,
A good, brisk, sweeping, epidemic plague :
There's nothing else can make you all immortal.'

Surely there is good comedy in this raillery of the servant-The following short passages have a very neat turn of expression in the original.

'An honest man to law makes no resort; His conscience is the better rule of court.'

The man, who first laid down the pedant rule,

That love is folly, was himself the fool:
For if to life that transport you deny,
What privilege is left us-but to die?

Cease, mourners, cease complaint, and weep no more! Your lost friends are not dead, but gone before, Advanced a stage or two upon that road, Which you must travel in the steps they trode ; In the same inn we all shall meet at last,

There take new life and laugh at sorrows past.'

When I meet these and many other familiar sentiments, which these designers after nature abound in, I ask myself where originality is to be sought for; not with these poets it is clear, for their sickles are for ever in each other's corn: nor even with the founders of the Greek drama,for they all leant upon Homer, as he perhaps on others antecedent to his æra. As for the earliest writers of our own stage, the little I have read of their rude beginnings seems to be a dull mass of second hand pedantry coarsely daubed with ribaldry. In Shakspeare you meet originality of the purest cast, a new creation, bright and beaming with unrivalled lustre; his contemporary Jonson did not seem to aim at it.

Though I have already given a Parasite from Eupolis, and compared him with Jonson's admirable Mosca, yet, I cannot refuse admission to a very pleasant, impudent fellow, who gives name to a comedy of Antiphanes, and in the following spirited apology for his life and actions, takes upon him the office of being his own historian.

'What art, vocation, trade or mystery,
Can match with your fine Parasite?—The painter?
He! a mere dauber: A vile drudge the Farmer :
Their business is to labour, our's to laugh,
To jeer, to quibble, faith Sirs! and to drink,
Aye, and to drink lustily. Is not this rare?
'Tis life, my life at least: the first of pleasures
Were to be rich myself; but next to this
I hold it best to be a Parasite,

And feed upon the rich. Now mark me right!

Set down my virtues one by one: imprimis,
Good-will to all men-
-Would they were all rich
So might I gull them all: malice to none;
I envy no man's fortune, all I wish

Is but to share it: would you have a friend,
A gallant steady friend? I am your man:
No striker I, no swaggerer, no defamer,
But one to bear all these and still forbear:
If you insult, I laugh, unruffled, merry,
Invincibly good-humour'd still I laugh :
A stout good soldier I, valorous to a fault,
When once my stomach's up and supper serv'd:
You know my humour, not one spark of pride,
Such and the same for ever to my friends:
If cudgell'd, molten iron to the hammer
Is not so malleable; but if I cudgel,
Bold as the thunder: is one to be blinded?
I am the lightning's flash: to be puff'd up,

I am the wind to blow him to the bursting:

Choak'd, strangled? I can do't and save a halter: Would you break down his doors? Behold an earthquake: Open and enter them? A battering-ram :

Will you sit down to supper? I'm your guest,

Your very Fly to enter without bidding:

Would you move off? You'll move a well as soon:
I'm for all work, and tho' the job were stabbing,
Betraying, false-accusing, only say,

Do this, and it is done! I stick at nothing;
They call me Thunder-bolt for my dispatch;
Friend of my friends am I: Let actions speak me ;
I'm much too modest to commend myself.'

I must consider this fragment as a very striking specimen of the author, and the only licence I have used is to tack together two separate extracts from the same original, which meet in the break of the tenth line, and so appositely, that it is highly probable they both belong to the same speech; more than probable to the same comedy and character. Lucian's Parasite seems much beholden to this of Antiphanes,

Antiphanes was on a certain occasion commanded to read one of his comedies in the presence of Alexander the Great; he had the mortification to find that the play did not please the royal critic; the moment was painful, but the poet addressing the mo narch as follows, ingeniously contrived to vindicate his own production, at the same time he was passing a courtly compliment to the prince, at whose command he read it- I cannot wonder, O king! that you disapprove of my comedy; for he, who could be entertained by it, must have been present at the scenes it represents; he must be acquainted with the vulgar humours of our public ordinaries, have been familiar with the impure manners of our courtesans, a party in the beating-up of many a brothel, and a sufferer as well as an actor in those unseemly frays and riots. Of all these things, you, Great Sir! are not informed, and the fault lies more in my presumption for intruding them upon your hearing, than in any want of fidelity with which I have described them.'