e has forgot, and which, perhaps, without taking in the rest, put
Plutarch out of humour, which is that perpetual farce which goes through
all the comedies of Aristophanes, like the character of harlequin on the
Italian theatre. What kind of personages are clouds, frogs, wasps, and
birds? Plutarch, used to a comick stage of a very different appearance,
must have thought them strange things; and, yet stranger must they
appear to us, who have a newer kind of comedy, with which the Greeks
were unacquainted. This is what our poet may be charged with, and what
may be proved beyond refutation. This charge comprises all the rest, and
against this I shall not pretend to justify him. It would be of no use
to say, that Aristophanes wrote for an age that required shows which
filled the eye, and grotesque paintings in satirical performances; that
the crowds of spectators, which sometimes neglected Cratinus to throng
Aristophanes, obliged him, more and more, to comply with the ruling
taste, lest he should lose the publick favour by pictures more delicate
and less striking; that, in a state, where it was considered as policy
to lay open every thing that had the appearance of ambition,
singularity, or knavery, comedy was become a haranguer, a reformer, and
a publick counsellor, from whom the people learned to take care of their
most valuable interests; and that this comedy, in the attempt to lead,
and to please the people, claimed a right to the strongest touches of
eloquence, and had, likewise, the power of personal painting, peculiar
to herself. All these reasons, and many others, would disappear
immediately, and my mouth would be stopped with a single word, with
which every body would agree: my antagonist would tell me that such an
age was to be pitied, and, passing on from age to age, till he came to
our own, he would conclude flatly, that we are the only possessours of
common sense; a determination with which the French are too much
reproached, and which overthrows all the prejudice in favour of
antiquity. At the sight of so many happy touches, which one cannot help
admiring in Aristophanes, a man might, perhaps, be inclined to lament
that such a genius was thrown into an age of fools; but what age has
been without them? And have not we ourselves reason to fear, lest
posterity should judge of Moliere and his age, as we judge of
Aristophanes? Menander altered the taste, and was applauded in Athens,
but it was after Athens was change