“Aristophanes,” says father Rapin, “is not exact in the contrivance of his fables; his fictions are not probable; he brings real characters upon the stage too coarsely, and too openly.  Socrates, whom he ridicules so much in his plays, had a more delicate turn of burlesque than himself, and had his merriment without his impudence.  It is true, that Aristophanes wrote amidst the confusion and licentiousness of the old comedy, and he was well acquainted with the humour of the Athenians, to whom uncommon merit always gave disgust, and, therefore, he made the eminent men of his time the subject of his merriment.  But the too great desire which he had to delight the people, by exposing worthy characters upon the stage, made him, at the same time, an unworthy man; and the turn of his genius, to ridicule was disfigured and corrupted by the indelicacy and outrageousness of his manners.  After all, his pleasantry consists chiefly in new-coined puffy language.  The dish of twenty-six syllables, which he gives, in his last scene of his Female Orators, would please few tastes in our days.  His language is sometimes obscure, perplexed and vulgar; and his frequent play with words, his oppositions of contradictory terms, his mixture of tragick and comick, of serious and burlesque, are all flat; and his jocularity, if you examine it to the bottom, is all false.  Menander is diverting in a more elegant manner; his style is pure, clear, elevated, and natural; he persuades like an orator, and instructs like a philosopher; and, if we may venture to judge upon the fragments which remain, it appears that his pictures of civil life are pleasing, that he makes every one speak according to his character, that every man may apply his pictures of life to himself, because he always follows nature, and feels for the personages which he brings upon the stage.  To conclude, Plutarch, in his comparison of these authors, says, that the muse of Aristophanes is an abandoned prostitute, and that of Menander a modest woman.”

It is evident that this whole character is taken from Plutarch.  Let us now go on with this remark of father Rapin, since we have already spoken of the Latin comedy, of which he gives us a description.

“With respect, to the two Latin comick poets, Plautus is ingenious in his designs, happy in his conceptions, and fruitful of invention.  He has, however, according to Horace, some low jocularities; and those smart sayings, which made the vulgar laugh, made him be pitied by men of higher taste.  It is true, that some of his jests are extremely good, but others, likewise, are very bad.  To this every man is exposed, who is too much determined to make sallies of merriment; they endeavour to raise that laughter by hyperboles, which would not arise by a just representation of things.  Plautus is not quite so regular as Terence in the scheme of his designs, or in the distribution of his acts, but he is more simple in his plot; for the fables of Terence are commonly