mendous Minotaur of Crete of immortal memory; there are fome indeed, who profefs to doubt this, and affert that it is nothing more than the flaver of a noble English maftiff, which went tame about her houfe, and, though formidable to thieves and interlopers, was ever gentle and affectionate to honest men. She has a lyre in fine prefervation, held to be the identical lyre, which Phaon played upon, when he won the heart of the amorous Sappho this alfo is made matter of difpute amongst the cognofcenti thefe will have it to be a common Italian inftrument, fuch as the ladies of that coun. try play upon to this day; this is a point they must fettle as they can, but all agree it is a well-ftrung inftrument, and difcourfes fevcet mufic. She has in her cabinet an evergreen of the cypress race, which is fuppofed to be the very individual fhrub, that led up the ball when Orpheus fiddled and the groves began a vegetable dance; and this they tell you was the origin of all country dances, now in fuch general practice. She has alfo in her poffeffion the original epiftle, which king Agenor wrote to Europa, diffuading her from her ridiculous partiality for her favourite bull, when Jupiter in the form of that animal took her off in fpite of all · Agenor's remonftrances, and carried her across the sea with him upon a tour, that has immortalized her name through the most enlightened quarter of the globe: Rhodope is fo tenacious of this manufcript, that the rarely indulges the curiofity of her friends with a fight of it; fhe has written an anfwer in Europa's behalf after the manner of Ovid's epiftle, in which the makes a very ingenious defence for her heroine, and every body, who has feen the whole of the correfpondence, allows that Agenor Agenor writes like a man, who knew little of human nature, and that Rhodope in her reply has the beft of the argument. N' CXXXVII. NOTHING now remains for compleating the literary annals of Greece, according to the plan I have proceeded upon in the foregoing volumes, but to give fome account of the Drama within that period of time, which commences with the death of Alexander of Macedon and concludes with that of Menander, or at moft extends to a very few years beyond it, when the curtain may figuratively be faid to have dropt upon all the glories of the Athenian ftage. 'This, though the laft, is yet a brilliant æra, for now flourished Menander, Philemon, Diphilus, Apollodorus, Philippides, Pofidippus; poets no lefs celebrated for the luxuriancy than for the elegance of their genius; all writers of the New Comedy; which, if it had not all the wit and fire of the old fatirical drama produced in times of greater public freedom, is generally reputed to have been far fuperior to it in delicacy, regularity and decorum. All attacks upon living characters ceafed with what is properly denominated the Old Comedy; the writers of the Middle Clafs contented themfelves with venting their raillery upon the works of their dramatic predeceffors; the perfons and politics G 5 in et longa dies del bit ferita Menandr', (T. FABER.) Menander was born at Athens, the fon of Dicpethes and Hegeftrata: He was educated in the fchool of Theophrafus the peripatetic, Ariftotle's fucceffor: At the early age of twenty he began to write for the ftage, and his paflions feem to have been no lefs forward and impetuous than his genius; his attachment to the fair fex and efpecially to his mistress Glycera is upon record, and was vehement in the extreme; feveral of his epiftles to that celebrated courtefan, written in a very ardent ftile, were collected and made public after his deccafe: The celebrity of his mufe, and the brilliancy of his wit were probably his chief recommendations to that lady's favour; for it fhould feem that nature had not been very partial to his external, befides which he fquinted most egregioufly, and was of a temper extremely irafcible: If we were to take his character as a writer from no other authorities but of the fragments, we fhould form a very different idea from that of Pliny, who fays he was omnis luxuria interpres, and this even Plutarch his avowed panegyrift is candid enough to admit: Ovid alfo fays "The gay Menander charms each youthful heart, "And Love in every fable claims a part." However this may be, the remains, which have come down to us, bear the flamp of an auflere and gloomy mufe rather than of a wanton and voluptuous one; but thefe it must be owned prove little; Terence is fuppofed to have copied all hist comedies comedies from Menander, except the Phormio and the Hecyra, and he gives us the best insight into the character of his elegant original. All Greece feems to have joined in lamenting the premature lofs of this celebrated poet, who unfortunately perished as he was bathing in the Piræan harbour, to which Ovid alludes in his Ibis Comicus ut liquidis periit dum nabat in undis. This happened in Olymp. CXXII; his first comedy, intitled Orge was performed in Olymp. CXV, which gives him fomething less than thirty years for the production of more than one hundred plays, and if we take the former account of his beginning to write for the ftage at the age of twenty, it will agree with what we have before faid refpecting the age at which he died. Fatal as was the Piraan fea to the perfon of this lamented poet, pofterity has more cause to execrate that barbarous gulph, which has fwallowed up his works; nor his alone, but thofe of above two hundred other eminent dramatic poets, whofe labours are totally loft and extinguifhed. We have fome lines of Callimachus upon the death of Menander, who was one amongst many of his poetic furvivors, that paid the tribute of their ingenious forrow to his memory: Nor poets only, but princes bewailed his lofs, particularly Ptolemy the fon of Lagus, who loved and favoured him very greatly, and maintained a friendly correfpondence with him till his death; fome of Menander's letters to this prince were publifhed with thofe addreffed to his beloved Glycera. Though Though many great authorities concur in placing Menander decidedly at the head of all the comic writers of his time, yet his contemporaries must have been of a different opinion, or elfe his rivals were more popular with their judges, for out of one hundred and five comedies, which Apollodorus ascribes to him, he tells us that he obtained only eight prizes, and that Philemon in particular triumphed over him in the fuffrages of the theatre very frequently. If thefe decifions were fo glaringly unjust and partial as we are taught to believe they were, we have fome fort of apology for the farcaftic queftion put to his fuccefsful competitor, when upon meeting him he faid-" Do you not "blufh, Philemon, when you prevail over me?" This anecdote however at beft only proves that Menander rated his own merits very highly, and that, if they were unjustly treated by thofe, who decided for Philemon, he laid the blame upon the wrong perfon, and betrayed a very irritable temper upon the occafion. We have a collection of Menander's fragments and the titles of feventy-three comedies; the fragments confift only of thort fentences, and do not give us the fpirit and character of the dialogue, much less of any one entire fcene; for though Hertelius has gone further than Grotius and Le Clerc in arranging them under diftinct topics, and has brought into one view every paffage of a correfpondent fort, ftill it is a mere disjointed medley, interesting only to the curious, but affording little edification to the generality of readers: Many of them however are to be refpected for their moral fentiment, fome are of a very elevated caft, and others, |
