ARISTOPHANES, a celebrated Cacetc COMIC ter ; and the only one of whose dramatic genius any en tire specimens have survived. Of the circumstances of his private life little is known : nor have the dates of his birth and death been ascertained with any degree of precision. He flourished, however, at that remarkable period, when the Athenian commonwealth, under the auspices of Pericles, attained its highest prosperity and political consequence among the states of Greece ; when Euripides was carrying the tragic drama to its greatest perfection ; and when Socrates was occupied with the promulgation of a purer and mote enlightened philoso phy. His title to the rights and qualifications of an Athenian citizen was frequently called in question by his enemies ; but he at length successfully contested the point : having procured a decisive judgment in his fa vour ; for which he was indebted chiefly, it is said, to a happy application of a saying of Telemachus, in IIomer's Odyssey, of which the following is the sense : I am, as my mother tells me, the son of Philip : for my own part, I know little of the matter ; for what child knows his own father ?" Of the comedies of Aristophanes, eleven are still ex tant. Of these, ten belong to the period of the old comedy ; the Plutus being a solitary specimen of the middle.. These comedies are highly valuable in more that one respect. Independently of their own individual merits, they constitute the only remaining entire pieces, which can enable us to form an adequate judgment of the early Greek comedy ; and, besides, they present to our view a curious and lively picture of the manners of the age.
During the period in which Aristophanes wrote, co medy was still in an extremely rude state ; having made few perceptible approaches towards that perfection which it afterwards attained, in consequence of the efforts of succeeding writers. Not only was the most direct and most poignant personal satire tolerated ; but, in truth, no character was deemed sufficiently elevated, or sufficiently sacred, to exempt it from the exercise of the poet's lash.
Poets, philosophers, statesmen, good and bad charac ters, nay the gods themselves, were frequently introduc ed upon the stage, and exhibited in such ridiculous situations, as were calculated to excite the laughter and contempt of the spectators: This license went at length so far, and became so generally obnoxious, as to attract the attention of the government ; and a law was, in con sequence, passed by the Athenian legislature, which prohibited the any individual on the theatre by name. This enarmoon'. birth to what is called
the middle comedy the s * indeed was oblig ed to conceal they-lf the • 4 victims, but, at the same time, rent.' 'he •utill notorious, by marks which could '110... In process of time, this species was-, and now arose the new comedv,—mb. s precur sors, and distinguished by mord'Ke'rieral s'attfe, more de licatrwit, and more genuine and harmless humour.
The comedies of Aristophanes possess all the faults and imperfections peculiar to the old comedy. The construction of his plots, and the arrangement of his in cidents, are generally loose and ill contrived ; his scenes abound in ribaldry, obscenity, and impiety. The great est characters of the day arc the most common objects of his ridicule ; his humour frequently degenerates into grossness, his wit into licentiousness, his satire irtre)• lampoon. His great ambition seems to have been to make the populace laugh. In this he undoubtedly suc ceeded, and to this he made no scruple to sacrifice both truth and decorum. But, notwithstanding his manifold and glaring defects, we must still agree in opinion with the elegant and nervous Gravina : " Told Ball' opere sue qucsti vizi, the nascon da mente contaminaia, rimango no della sua pocsia virtu maravigliosc." (Della ragion poetics. L. i. c. 20.) His excellencies arc indeed various and striking ; the boldness with which he attacks the conduct and measures of the government, and with which he exposes the follies of the whole people ; the sudden, inimitable, and irresistible flashes of wit and humour, which he deals out when least expected ; his thorough command of language and expression, and the atticism of his style, have drawn forth the admiration of his critics. " No man," says Madame Dacier, " had ever more discernment than him in finding out the ridiculous, nor a more ingenious manner of shcwing it to others. His remarks are natural and easy ; and, what very rarely can be found, with great copiousness he has great deli cacy. To say all at once, the attic wit of which the ancients made such boast, appears more in Arisiophanes than in any other that I know of in anti:juity. But what is most of all to be admired in him, is, that lie is always so much master of the subject before him, that, without doing any violence to himself, he finds a way to intro duce naturally things, which at first appeared most dis tant from his purpose; and even the most quick and un expected of his desultory sallies appear the necessary consequence of the foregoing incidents.