No. CXLII. I SHALL now resume the plan I have pursued in the foregoing numbers, and proceed with my review of the writers of the Greek stage. In No. CXLI. I took leave of what is properly called the The Old Comedy; I am next to speak of that class of authors, who are generally styled writers of the The Middle Comedy. The spirit of a free people will discover itself in the productions of their stage; the comic drama, being a professed representation of living manners, will paint these likenesses in stronger or in fainter colours, according to the degree of licence or restraint which may prevail in different places, or in the fame place at different periods. We are now upon that particular æra in the Athenian constitution, when it began to feel such a degree of controul under the rising power of the Macedonian princes, as put a stop to the personal licentiousness of the comic poets: If we are to consider Athens only as the capital seat of genius, we must bewail this declension from her former state of freedom, which had produced so brilliant a period in the annals of her literature; but speak of her in a political sense, and it must be acknowledged that whatever restraints were put upon her liberty, and however humbling the disgraces were which she incurred, they could not well be more than she merited by her notorious abuse of public prosperity, and most ingrateful treatment of her best and most de No. CXLII. I SHALL now resume the plan I have pursued in the foregoing numbers, and proceed with iny review of the writers of the Greek stage. In No. CXLI. I took leave of what is properly called the The Old Comedy; I am next to speak of that class of authors, who are generally styled writers of the The Middle Comedy. The spirit of a free people will discover itself in the productions of their stage; the comic drama, being a professed representation of living manners, will paint these likenesses in stronger or in fainter colours, according to the degree of licence or restraint which may prevail in different places, or in the fame place at different periods. We are now upon that particular æra in the Athenian constitution, when it began to feel such a degree of controul under the rising power of the Macedonian princes, as put a stop to the personal licentiousness of the comic poets: If we are to consider Athens only as the capital seat of genius, we must bewail this declension from her former state of freedom, which had produced so brilliant a period in the annals of her literature; but speak of her in a political sense, and it must be acknowledged that whatever restraints were put upon her liberty, and however humbling the disgraces were which she incurred, they could not well be more than she merited by her notorious abuse of public prosperity, and most ingrateful treatment of her best and most de serving citizens. When the thunder of oratory was silenced, the flashes of wit were no longer displayed; death stopped the impetuous tongue of Demosthenes, and the hand of power controuled the acrimonious muse of Aristophanes; obedient to the reign, the poet checked his career of personality, and composed his Eolosicon upon the plan of what we now denominate the Middle Comedy. Cratinus also, though the bitterest of all the old writers, began to sweeten his gall, and, conforming to the necessity of the times, condescended to take up with the resource of parody, and wrote his Ulysses upon the same system of reform; no longer permitted to vent his satire upon living characters, he took post on the boldest ground that was left for him to stand on, and opened his attack upon the dead by ridiculing the immortal Odyssey of Homer. The chorus was now withdrawn, and the poet no longer spoke his own sentiments or harangued his audience by proxy; parody is satire of so inferior a species, that if comedy did not very sensibly decline in its middle æra (which there is no reason to think was the case) it must have been upheld by a very strong exertion of talents, or by collateral resources of a better stamp than this which we are speaking of. Some, who are ranked in the old class of comic writers, continued to com pose for the stage, as we have already instanced, it may well be prefumed that they at least droopedt he wing, and flagged under the pressure of unexperienced restraints; but if I may form a conjecture of the comparative spirit and excellence of the Middle Comedy from the samples and fragments of those dramatists, who properly and exclusively belong to it, I find nothing which disposes me to suspect that it had in the least declined from the merit of the first writers, but on the contrary should conceive, that it advanced in perfection no less than it did in time by the revolution which took place. I shall now produce some specimens of the comedies, which fall under this class, and such accounts as I have been able to collect of their authors, whom I have ranged alphabetically; the first therefore, which I shall speak of, will be the poet Alexis. ALEXIS. This poet was a native of Thurium in Magna Græcia, a town celebrated for being the birth-place of Herodotus; he was great uncle by the father's side to Menander, and was the first to discover and encourage the early genius of that admired writer. Alexis lived to a great age, and we have the authority of Plutarch for saying, that the vigour of his faculties was preserved to the last: "The comic poets, Alexis and Philemon," says that author, " continued to write for the stage to the latest period of their lives, and when death at length surprised them, he found them crowned with the trophies of success, and triumphing in the plaudits of the theatre." The numerous productions of our poet confirm this assertion of Plutarch, for Suidas says he was author of no less than two hundred and forty-five dramas, and I find the titles of one hundred and thirteen of this collection even now upon record; this proves that he possessed a very copious vein of invention, and the fragments, which remain out of the general wreck of his works, indicate the richness as well as copiousness of that vein. The works of such a master were of themselves a study, and as Menander formed himself upon his instructions, we cannot fail to conceive very highly of the preceptor from the acknowledged excellence of the pupil. I |