val. It was said
that he drowned himself in consequence of Philemon's victory: but this
report has never been credited, being at variance with all the accounts
given by the best authorities, who, on the contrary, relate that so far
from being affected at the success of the other, the only notice he ever
took of it was, once to ask the victor, "Philemon! do you not blush to
wear that laurel?"

Of the incomparable merit of this great man, the principal evidence now
existing is the unanimous praise of some of the greatest men of
antiquity, since of one hundred and eight comedies which he wrote,
nothing but a few fragments remain in their original state. How much the
world ought to deplore the loss of those valuable compositions may be
collected from the admiration in which they were held by the Romans,
who, as we are assured by the ancients, maintained that their favourite
TERENCE was very much inferior to Menander. Terence borrowed six or at
least four of his plays from this admirable Greek poet, and those though
now considered excellent are allowed by his countrymen to have lost much
of the spirit of the great originals.

It cannot be doubted that he possessed to an astonishing fulness the
talent so little known in the ancient world, and which has exalted our
Shakspeare in lofty preeminence above the rest of mankind, of portraying
nature in every condition of human life. We have heard of, and
frequently read many terse and witty compliments to the genius of
Shakspeare, on account of his intimacy with nature; but we know of none
superior to that paid to Menander by the great Byzantian grammarian
Aristophanes, who, on reading his comedies exclaimed in an ecstasy, "O
MENANDER! O NATURE! WHICH OF YOU HAVE COPIED THE WORKS OF THE OTHER?"
Ovid held him in no less admiration; and Plutarch has been lavish in his
praise: the old rhetoricians recommend his works as the true and perfect
patterns of every thing beautiful and graceful in public speaking.
Quintilian advises an orator to seek in Menander for copiousness of
invention, for elegance of expression, and all that universal genius
which is able to accommodate itself to persons, things, and affections:
but that which appears to us more decisive than any other eulogy
bestowed upon him, is the opinion of Caesar, who, praising his favourite
Terence, calls him a half-Menander, thereby leaving upon record his
testimony that Menander had twice the merit of the greatest comic poet