PREFACE. TO THE LITERARY MAGAZINE, 1756. TO THE PUBLIC. variety, where there is neither leisure nor oppor tunity for minute information. It is intended that lists shall be given of all the officers and persons in public employment; and that all the alterations shall be noted as they happen, by which our list will be a kind of Court Register always complete. THERE are some practices which custom and prejudice have so unhappily influenced, that to observe or neglect them is equally censurable. The promises made by the undertakers of any new design, every man thinks himself at liberty to deride, and yet every man expects, and expects with reason, that he who solicits the public attention should give some account of his preten-account of the labours of the learned, in which sions. We are about to exhibit to our countrymen a new Monthly Collection, to which the well deserved popularity of the first undertaking of this kind, has now made it almost necessary to prefix the name of Magazine. There are already many such periodical compilations, of which we do not envy the reception, nor shall dispute the excellence. If the nature of things would allow us to indulge our wishes, we should desire to advance our own interest without lessening that of any other, and to excite the curiosity of the vacant, rather than withdraw that which other writers have already engaged. Our design is to give the history, political and literary, of every month, and our pamphlets must consist, like other collections, of many articles unconnected and independent on each other. The chief political object of an Englishman's attention must be the great council of the nation, and we shall therefore register all public proceedings with particular care. We shall not attempt to give any regular series of debate, or to amuse our readers with senatorial rhetoric. The speeches inserted in other papers have been long known to be fictitious, and produced sometimes by men who never heard the debate, nor had any authentic information. We have no design to impose thus grossly on our readers, and shall therefore give the naked arguments used in the discussion of every question, and add, when they can be obtained, the names of the speakers. As the proceedings in parliament are unintelligible without a knowledge of the facts to which they relate, and of the state of the nations to which they extend their influence, we shall exhibit monthly a view, though contracted yet distinct, of foreign affairs, and lay open the designs and interests of those nations which are considered by English either as friends or enemies. Of transactions in our own country curiosity will demand a more particular account, and we shall record every remarkable event, extraordinary casualty, uncommon performance, or striking novelty, and shall apply our care to the discovery of truth, with very little reliance on the daily historians. The lists of births, marriages, deaths, and burials will be so drawn up, that we hope very few omissions or mistakes will be found, though some must be expected to happen in so great a The literary history necessarily contains an whether we shall show much judgment or sagacity, must be left to our readers to determine; we can promise only justness and candour. It is not to be expected that we can insert extensive extracts or critical examinations of all the writings which this age of writers may offer to our notice. A few only will deserve the distinction of criticism, and a few only will obtain it. We shall try to select the best and most important pieces, and are not without hope, that we may sometimes influence the public voice, and hasten the popularity of a valuable work.. Our regard will not be confined to books; it will extend to all the productions of science. Any new calculation, a commodious instrument, the discovery of any property in nature, or any new method of bringing known properties into use or view, shall be diligently treasured up wherever found. In a paper designed for general perusal, it will be necessary to dwell most upon things of general entertainment. The elegant trifles of literature, the wild strains of fancy, the pleasing amusements of harmless wit, shall therefore be considered as necessary to our collection. Nor shall we omit researches into antiquity, expla nations of coins or inscriptions, disquisitions on controverted history, conjectures on doubtful geography, or any other of those petty works upon which learned ingenuity is sometimes employed. To these accounts of temporary transactions and fugitive performances, we shall add some dissertations on things more permanent and stable; some inquiries into the history of nature, which has hitherto been treated as if mankind were afraid of exhausting it. There are in our own country many things and places worthy of note that are yet little known, and every day gives opportunities of new observations which are made and forgotten. We hope to find means of extending and perpetuating physiological discoveries, and with regard to this article, and all others, entreat the assistance of curious and candid correspondents. We shall labour to attain as much exactness as can be expected in such variety, and shall give as much variety as can consist with reason able exactness; for this purpose a selection has been made of men qualified for the different parts of the work, and each has the employment assigned him, which he is supposed most able to discharge. A DISSERTATION UPON THE GREEK COMEDY TRANSLATED FROM BRUMOY. ADVERTISEMENT. I CONCLUDE this work according to my promise, with an account of the Comic Theatre, and en comedy. * licentiousness of Aristophanes, their author, is the performances of a single poet, a just idea of exorbitant, and it is very difficult to draw from Greek comedy. Besides, it seemed that tragedy treat the reader, whether a favourer or an enemy of the ancient drama, not to pass his censure might give a complete representation of that kind was sufficient to employ all my attention, that I upon the authors or upon me, without a regular perusal of this whole work. For, though it of writing, which was most esteemed by the seems to be composed of pieces of which each Athenians and the wiser Greeks, particularly by Socrates, who set no value upon comedy or may precede or follow without dependence upon comic actors. But the very name of that drama, the other, yet all the parts taken together, form which in polite ages, and above all others in our a system which would be destroyed by their disjunction. Which way shall we come at the own, has been so much advanced, that it has knowledge of the ancients' shows, but by com- clines me to think that I may be partly reproachbecome equal to tragedy, if not preferable, inparing together all that is left of them? The ed with an imperfect work, if, after having gone value and necessity of this comparison determined me to publish all, or to publish nothing.gedy, I did not at least sketch a draught of the as deep as I could into the nature of Greek traBesides, the reflections on each piece, and on the general taste of antiquity, which, in my I then considered, that it was not wholly imopinion, are not without importance, have a kind of obscure gradation, which I have care-culties which had stopped me, and to go somepossible to surmount, at least in part, the difffully endeavoured to preserve, and of which the what farther than the learned writers, † who have thread would be lost by him who should slightly glance sometimes upon one piece, and sometimes published in French some pieces of Aristoupon another. It is a structure which I have phanes; not that I pretend to make large translations. The same reasons which have hindered endeavoured to make as near to regularity as I with respect to the more noble parts of the Greek could, and which must be seen in its full extent drama, operate with double force upon my preand in proper succession. The reader who skips sent subject. Though ridicule, which is the here and there over the book, might make a business of comedy, be not less uniform in all hundred objections which are either anticipated or answered in those pieces which he might have times, than the passions which are moved by overlooked. I have laid such stress upon the tragic compositions; yet, if diversity of manners connexion of the parts of this work, that I have how much greater change will be made in jocu may sometimes disguise the passions themselves, declined to exhaust the subject, and have sup-larities! The truth is, that they are so much pressed many of my notions, that I might leave changed by the course of time, that pleasantry the judicious reader to please himself by forming and ridicule become dull and flat much more such conclusions as I supposed him like to dis-easily than the pathetic becomes ridiculous. cover as well as myself. I am not here attempting That which is commonly known by the term to prejudice the reader by an apology either for the ancients, or my own manner. I have not claimed a right of obliging others to determine, by my opinion, the degrees of esteem which think due to the authors of the Athenian Stage; nor do I think that their reputation in the present time, ought to depend upon my mode of thinking or expressing my thoughts, which I leave entirely to the judgment of the public. A DISSERTATION, &c. REASONS WHY ARISTOPHANES MAY BE REVIEW- jocular and comic, is nothing but a turn of expression, an airy phantom, that must be caught at a particular point. As we lose this point, we in its place. A lucky sally, which has filled a lose the jocularity, and find nothing but dulness company with laughter, will have no effect in print, because it is shown single and separate from the circumstances which gave it force. Many satirical jests, found in ancient books, have had the same fate; their spirit has evapo rated by time, and has left nothing to us but insipidity. None but the most biting passages have preserved their points unblunted. But, besides this objection, which extends universally to all translations of Aristophanes, and many allusions of which time has deprived us, Areopagus to write comedy. † Madame Dacier, M. Boivin. allow. I shall conclude with a short view of the whole, and so finish my design. HISTORY OF COMEDY. there are loose expressions thrown out to the lus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Fourthly, Upon populace to raise laughter from corrupt passions, the jest which he makes upon the gods. These which are unworthy of the curiosity of decent things will not be treated in order, as a regular readers, and which ought to rest eternally in pro- discourse seems to require, but will arise someper obscurity. Not every thing in this infancy times separately, sometimes together, from the of comedy was excellent, at least it would not view of each particular comedy, and from the appear excellent at this distance of time, in com-reflections which this free manner of writing will parison of compositions of the same kind, which lie before our eyes; and this is reason enough to save me the trouble of translating, and the reader that of perusing. As for that small number of writers who delight in those delicacies, they give themselves very little trouble about translations, except it be to find fault with them; and the majority of people of wit like comedies that may give them pleasure, without much trouble of attention, and are not much disposed to find beauties in that which requires long deductions to find it beautiful. If Helen had not appeared beautiful to the Greeks and Trojans but by force of argument, we had never been told of the Trojan war. On the other side, Aristophanes is an author more considerable than one would imagine. The History of Greece could not pass over him when it comes to touch upon the people of Athens; this alone might procure him respect, even when he was not considered as a comic poet. But when his writings are taken into view, we find him the only author from whom may be drawn a just idea of the comedy of his age; and farther, we find in his pieces, that he often makes attacks upon the tragic writers, particularly upon the three chief, whose valuable remains we have had under examination; and what is yet worse, fell sometimes upon the state, and upon the gods themselves. THE CHIEF HEADS OF THIS DISCOURSE. III. I shall not repeat here what Madame Dacier, and so many others before her, have collected of all that can be known relating to the history of comedy. Its beginnings are as obscure as those of tragedy, and there is an appearance that we take these two words in a more extensive meaning; they had both the same original, that is, they began among the festivals of the vintage, and were not distinguished from one another but by a burlesque or serious chorus, which made all the soul and all the body. But, if we give these words a stricter sense, according to the notion which has since been formed, comedy was produced after tragedy, and was in many respects a sequel and imitation of the works of Eschylus. It is in reality nothing more than an action set before the sight by the same artifice of representation. Nothing is different but the object, which is merely ridicule. This original of true comedy will be easily admitted, if we take the word of Horace, who must have known better than us the true dates of dramatic works. This poet supports the system which I have endeavoured to establish in the second discoursef so strongly as to amount to demonstra tive proof. Horace expresses himself thus: "Thespis is said to have been the first inventor of a species II. These considerations have determined me of tragedy, in which he carried about in carts, to follow, in my representation of this writer, the players smeared with the dregs of wine, of whom same method which I have taken in several some sung and others declaimed." This was tragic pieces, which is, that of giving an exact the first attempt both of tragedy and comedy: analysis as far as the matter would allow, from for Thespis made use only of one speaker, withwhich I deduce four important systems. First, out the least appearance of dialogue. "Eschylus Upon the nature of the comedy of that age, afterwards exhibited them with more dignity. without omitting that of Menander. Secondly, He placed them on a stage somewhat above the Upon the vices and government of the Athe-ground, covered their faces with masks, put busnians. Thirdly, Upon the notion we ought to entertain of Aristophanes, with respect to Eschy Menander, an Athenian, son of Diopythus and Hegistrata, was apparently the most eminent of the writers of the new comedy. He had been a scholar of Theophrastus: his passion for the women brought infamy upon him: he was squint-eyed, and very lively. Of the one hundred and eighty comedies, or, according to Suidas, the eighty which he composed, and which are all stated to be translated by Terence, we have now only a few fragments remaining. He flourished about the 115th Olympiad, 318 years before the Christian Era. He was drowned as he was bathing in the port of Preus. I have told in another place, what is said of one Philemon, his antagonist, not so good a poet as himself, but one who often gained the prize. This Philemon was older than the Great. He expressed all his wishes in two lines: him, and was much in fashion in the time of Alexander "To have health, and fortune, and pleasure, and never to be in debt, is all I desire." He was very covetous, and was pictured with his fingers hooked, so that he set his comedies at a high price. He lived about a hundred years, some say a hundred and one. Many tales are told of his death; Valerius Maximus says, that he died with laughing at a little incident: seeing an ass eating his figs, he ordered his servant to drive her away; the man made no great haste, and the ass eat them all. "Well done," says Philemon, "now give her some wine."-Apuleius and Quintilian placed this writer much below Menander, but gave him the second place. kins on their feet, dressed them in trailing robes, and made them speak in a more lofty style." Horace omits invention of dialogue, which we learn from Aristotle.§ But, however, it may be well enough inferred from the following words of Horace; this completion is mentioned while he speaks of Eschylus, and therefore to Eschylus it must be ascribed: "Then first appeared the old comedy, with great success in its beginning." Thus we see that the Greek comedy arose after tragedy, and by consequence tragedy was its parent. It was formed in imitation of Eschylus, the inventor of the tragic drama; or, to go yet higher into antiquity, had its original from Ho mer, who was the guide of Eschylus. For, if we credit Aristotle, comedy had its birth from the Margites, a satirical poem of Homer, and tragedy from the Iliad and Odyssey. Thus the design and artifice of comedy were drawn from Homer and Eschylus. This will appear less surprising, since the ideas of the human mind are always gradual, and arts are seldom invented | unsettled, or of several contemporaries, such as but by imitation. The first idea contains the these which Horace quotes. We must distinseed of the second; this second, expanding it-guish three forms which comedy wore, in conse self, gives birth to a third; and so on. Such is quence of the genius of the writers, or of the the progress of the mind of man; it proceeds in laws of the magistrates, and the change of the its productions step by step, in the same manner government of many into that of few. as ature multiplies her works by imitating, or repeating her own act, when she seems most to run into variety. In this manner it was that comedy had its birth, its increase, its improvement, its perfection, and its diversity. THE OLD, MIDDLE, AND NEW COMEDY. V. That comedy,** which Horace calls the ancient, and which, according to his account, was after Eschylus, retained something of its IV. But the question is, who was the happy original state, and of the licentiousness which it author of that imitation, and that show, whether practised, while it was yet without regularity, only one like Eschylus of tragedy, or whether and uttered loose jokes and abuse upon the they were several? for neither Horace, nor any passers-by from the cart of Thespis. Though before him, explained this.* This poet only it was now properly modelled, as might have quotes three writers, who had reputation in the been worthy of a great theatre and a numerous old comedy, Eupolis,† Cratinus, and Aristo- audience, and deserved the name of a regular phanes, of whom he says, "That they, and comedy, it was not yet much nearer to decency. athers who wrote in the same way, reprehended It was a representation of real actions, and exthe faults of particular persons with excessive hibited the dress, the motions, and the air, as far liberty." These are probably the poets of the as could be done in a mask, of any one who was greatest reputation, though they were not the thought proper to be sacrificed to public scorn. first, and we know the names of many others.§ In a city so free, or to say better, so licentious Among these three we may be sure that Aristo- as Athens was at that time, nobody was spared, phanes had the greatest character, since not not even the chief magistrate, nor the very only the king of Persia|| expressed a high esteem judges, by whose voice comedies were allowed of him to the Grecian ambassadors, as of a man or prohibited. The insolence of those perfor extremely useful to his country, and Plato mances reached to open impiety, and sport was rated him so high as to say that the Graces re-made equally with men and gods. These are sided in his bosom; but likewise because he is the features by which the greatest part of the the only writer of whom any comedies have compositions of Aristophanes will be known.made their way down to us, through the confu- In which it may be particularly observed, that sion of times. There are not indeed any proofs not the least appearance of praise will be found, that he was the inventor of comedy, properly so and therefore certainly no trace of flattery or called, especially since he had not only prede-servility. cessors who wrote in the same kind, but it is at least a sign, that he had contributed more than any other to bring comedy to the perfection in which he left it. We shall, therefore, not inquire farther, whether regular comedy was the work of a single mind, which seems yet to be "The alterations which have been made in tragedy, were perceptible, and the authors of them unknown; but comedy has lain in obscurity, being not cultivated, like tragedy, from the time of its original; for it was long before the magistrates began to give comic choruses. I was first exhibited by actors who played voluntarily, without orders of the magistrates. From the time that it began to take some settled form, we know its authors, but are not informed who first used masks, added pro logues, increased the numbers of the actors, and joined all the other things which now belong to it. The first that thought of forming comic fables were Epicharmus and Phormys, and consequently this manner came from Sicily: Crates was the first Athenian that adopted it, and forsook the practice of gross raillery that prevailed before." Aristot. ch. 5. Crates flourished in the 82nd Olympiad, 450 years before our era, twelve or thirteen years before Aristophanes. Eupolis was an Athenian; his death, which we shall mention presently, is represented differently by authors, who almost all agree that he was drowned. Elian adds an incident which deserves to be mentioned: he says, (book x. Of Animals,) that one Augeas of Eleusis, made Eupolis a present of a fine mastiff, who was so faithful to his master as to worry to death a slave who was carrying away some of his comedies. He adds, that when the poet died at Egene, his dog stayed by his tomb till he perished by grief and hunger. Cratinus of Athens, who was son of Calimedes, died at the age of ninety-seven. He composed twenty come. dies, of which nine had the prize: he was a daring writer, but a cowardly warrior. Hertelius has collected the sentences of fifty Greek Doets of the different ages of comedy. Interlude of the second act of the comedy entitled The Acharnians." Epigram auributed to Plato. This licentiousness of the poets, to which in some sort Socrates fell a sacrifice, at last was restrained by a law. For the government, which was before shared by all the inhabitants, was now confined to a settled number of citizens.— It was ordered that no man's name should be mentioned on the stage; but poetical malignity was not long in finding the secret of defeating the purpose of the law, and of making ample compensation for the restraint laid upon authors, by the necessity of inventing false names. They set themselves to work upon known and real characters, so that they had now the advantage of giving a more exquisite gratification to the vanity of poets, and the malice of spectators. One had the refined pleasure of setting others to guess, and the other that of guessing right by naming the masks. When pictures are so like that the name is not wanted, nobody inscribes it. The consequence of the law, therefore, was nothing more than to make that done with delicacy, which was done grossly be fore; and the art, which was expected would be confined within the limits of duty, was only partly transgressed with more ingenuity. Of this Aristophanes, who was comprehended in this law, gives us good examples in some of his poems. Such was that which was afterwards called the middle comedy. The new comedy, or that which followed, was again an excellent refinement, prescribed ** This history of the three ages of comedy, and their different characters, is taken in part from the valuable fragments of Platonius. if It will be shown how and in what sense this was ab lowed. by the magistrates, who as they had before Chacun peint avec art dans ce nouveau miroir The comedy of Menander and Terence is, in propriety of speech, the fine comedy. I do not repeat all this after so many writers, but just to recall it to memory, and to add to what they have said, something which they have omitted, a singular effect of public edicts appearing in the successive progress of the art. A naked history of poets and of poetry, such as has been often given, is a mere body without soul, unless it be enlivened with an account of the birth, progress, and perfection of the art, and of the causes by which they were produced. THE LATIN COMEDY. Trabeata,* from Trabea, the dress of the consuls in peace, and the generals in triumph. The second species introduced the senators not in great offices, but as private men; this was called Togata, from Toga. The last species was named Tabernaria, from the tunic, or the common dress of the people, or rather from the mean houses which were painted on the scene. There is no need of mentioning the farces which took their name and original from Atella, an ancient town of Campania in Italy, because they differed from the low comedy only by greater licentiousness; nor of those which were called Palliates, from the Greek, a cloak, in which the Greek characters were dressed upon the Roman stage, because that habit only distinguished the nation, not the dignity or character, like those which have been mentioned before. To say truth, these are but trifling distinctions; for, as we shall show in the following pages, comedy may be more usefully and judiciously distinguished by the general nature of its subjects. As to the Romans, whether they had or had not, reason for these names, they have left us so little upon the subject which is come down to us, that we need affords us no solid satisfaction. Plautus and not trouble ourselves with a distinction which Terence, the only authors of whom we are in possession, give us a fuller notion of the real nature of their comedy, with respect at least to their own times, than can be received from names and terms, from which we have no real exemplification. VI. To omit nothing essential which con- THE GREEK COMEDY IS REDUCED ONLY TO VII. Not to go too far out of our way, let us return to Aristophanes, the only poet in whom we can now find the Greek comedy. He is the single writer whom the violence of time has in some degree spared, after having buried in darkness, and almost in forgetfulness, so many great men, of whom we have nothing but the names and a few fragments, and such slight memorials as are scarcely sufficient to defend them against the enemies of the honour of antiquity; yet these memorials are like the last glimmer of the setting sun, which scarcely affords us a weak and fading light: yet from this glimmer we must endeavour to collect rays of sufficient strength to form a picture of the Greek comedy, approach But the Romans, without troubling themselves with this order of succession, distinguished their comedies by the dresses of the players. The robe, called Prætexta, with large borders of purple, being the formal dress of magistrates in their dignity and in the exercises of their office, the actors who had this dress gave its name to the comedy. This is the same with that called little is known; what account we can give of it Of the personal character of Aristophanes must therefore be had from his comedies. It can scarcely be said with certainty of what country he was: the invectives of his enemies so often called in question his qualification as a citizen, that they have made it doubtful. Some said, he was of Rhodes, others of Egena, a little island in the neighbourhood, and all agreed that he wa a stranger. As to himself, he said that he was the son of Philip, and born in the Cydathenian quarter; but he confessed that some of his fortune was in Egena, which was probably the original seat of his family. He was, however, formally declared a citizen of Athens, upon evi * Perhaps the chorus was forbid in the middle age of dence, whether good or bad, upon a decisive the comedy. Platonius seems to say so. Despreaux Art, Poet. chant 8. The year of Rome 514, the first year of the 135th Olympiad. Prætexta, Togata, Tabernaria. judgment, and this for having made his judges * Suet. de Claris Grammat. says that C. Gelissus, libra rian to Augustus, was the author of it. |