y, which forms were all
fatal to the state, because they were not built upon lasting
foundations, and had all in them the principles of destruction. A
strange contrivance it was to perpetuate a state, by changing the just
proportion which Solon had wisely settled between the nobles and the
people, and by opening a gate to the skilful ambition of those who had
art or courage enough to force themselves into the government by means
of the people, whom they flattered with protections, that they might
more certainly crush them.

4. THE TRAGICK POETS RALLIED.

Another part of the works of Aristophanes, are his pleasant reflections
upon the most celebrated poets. The shafts which he lets fly at the
three heroes of tragedy, and particularly at Euripides, might incline
the reader to believe that he had little esteem for those great men, and
that, probably, the spectators that applauded him were of his opinion.
This conclusion would not be just, as I have already shown by arguments,
which, if I had not offered them, the reader might have discovered
better than I. But, that I may leave no room for objections, and prevent
any shadow of captiousness, I shall venture to observe, that posterity
will not consider Racine as less a master of the French stage, because
his plays were ridiculed by parodies. Parody always fixes upon the best
pieces, and was more to the taste of the Greeks than to ours. At
present, the high theatres give it up to stages of inferiour rank; but
in Athens the comick theatre considered parody as its principal
ornament, for a reason which is worth examining. The ancient comedy was
not, like ours, a remote and delicate imitation; it was the art of gross
mimickry, and would have been supposed to have missed its aim, had it
not copied the mien, the walk, the dress, the motions of the face of
those whom it exhibited. Now parody is an imitation of this kind; it is
a change of serious to burlesque, by a slight variation of words,
inflection of voice, or an imperceptible art of mimickry. Parody is to
poetry, as a masque to a face. As the tragedies of Eschylus, of
Sophocles, and of Euripides were much in fashion, and were known by
memory to the people, the parodies upon them would naturally strike and
please, when they were accompanied by the grimaces of a good comedian,
who mimicked with archness a serious character. Such is the malignity of
human nature; we love to laugh at those whom we esteem most, and by this
make