in the sight of a whole city extremely haughty and full of derision; it is sufficient to say, that such a poet could never be supposed to miss his characters.  The applause which his licentiousness produced, is too good a justification; besides, if he had not succeeded, he exposed himself to the fate of Eupolis, who, in a comedy called the Drowned Man, having imprudently pulled to pieces particular persons, more powerful than himself, was laid hold of, and drowned more effectually than those he had drowned upon the open stage.

The condemnation of the poignancy of Aristophanes, as having too much acrimony, is better founded.  Such was the turn of a species of comedy, in which all licentiousness was allowed; in a nation which made every thing a subject of laughter, in its jealousy of immoderate liberty, and its enmity, to all appearance, of rule and superiority; for the genius of independency, naturally produces a kind of satire, more keen than delicate, as may be easily observed in most of the inhabitants of islands.  If we do not say, with Longinus, that a popular government kindles eloquence, and that a lawful monarchy stifles it; at least it is easy to discover, by the event, that eloquence in different governments takes a different appearance.  In republicks it is more sprightly and violent, and in monarchies more insinuating and soft.  The same thing may be said of ridicule; it follows the cast of genius, as genius follows that of government.  Thus the republican raillery, particularly of the age which we are now considering, must have been rougher than that of the age which followed it, for the same reason that Horace is more delicate, and Lucilius more pointed.  A dish of satire was always a delicious treat to human malignity; but that dish was differently seasoned, as the manners were polished more or less.  By polished manners I mean that good-breeding, that art of reserve and self-restraint, which is the consequence of dependance.  If one was to determine the preference due to one of those kinds of pleasantry, of which both have their value, there would not need a moment’s hesitation:  every voice would join in favour of the softer, yet without contempt of that which is rough.  Menander will, therefore, be preferred, but Aristophanes will not be despised, especially since he was the first who quitted that wild practice of satirizing at liberty right or wrong, and by a comedy of another cast, made way for the manner of Menander, more agreeable yet, and less dangerous.  There is, yet, another distinction to be made between the acrimony of the one, and the softness of the other; the works of the one are acrimonious, and of the other soft, because, the one exhibited personal, and the other, general characters; which leaves us still at liberty to examine, if these different designs might not be executed with equal delicacy.

We shall know this by a view of the particulars; in this place we say only that the reigning taste, or the love of striking likenesses, might justify Aristophanes for having turned, as Plutarch says, art into malignity, simplicity into brutality, merriment into farce, and amour into impudence; if, in any age, a poet could be excused for painting publick folly and vice, in their true colours.