of Menander distinguishing itself from tragedy, but not as the
genuine old comedy, contrasting with, and opposing it. Tragedy, indeed,
carried the thoughts into the mythologic world, in order to raise the
emotions, the fears, and the hopes, which convince the inmost heart that
their final cause is not to be discovered in the limits of mere mortal
life, and force us into a presentiment, however dim, of a state in which
those struggles of inward free will with outward necessity, which form the
true subject of the tragedian, shall be reconciled and solved;--the
entertainment or new comedy, on the other hand, remained within the circle
of experience. Instead of the tragic destiny, it introduced the power of
chance; even in the few fragments of Menander and Philemon now remaining
to us, we find many exclamations and reflections concerning chance and
fortune, as in the tragic poets concerning destiny. In tragedy, the moral
law, either as obeyed or violated, above all consequences--its own
maintenance or violation constituting the most important of all
consequences--forms the ground; the new comedy, and our modern comedy in
general (Shakespeare excepted as before) lies in prudence or imprudence,
enlightened or misled self-love. The whole moral system of the
entertainment exactly like that of fable, consists in rules of prudence,
with an exquisite conciseness, and at the same time an exhaustive fulness
of sense. An old critic said that tragedy was the flight or elevation of
life, comedy (that of Menander) its arrangement or ordonnance.

Add to these features a portrait-like truth of character,--not so far
indeed as that a _bona fide_ individual should be described or imagined,
but yet so that the features which give interest and permanence to the
class should be individualized. The old tragedy moved in an ideal
world,--the old comedy in a fantastic world. As the entertainment, or new
comedy, restrained the creative activity both of the fancy and the
imagination, it indemnified the understanding in appealing to the judgment
for the probability of the scenes represented. The ancients themselves
acknowledged the new comedy as an exact copy of real life. The grammarian,
Aristophanes, somewhat affectedly exclaimed:--"O Life and Menander! which
of you two imitated the other?" In short the form of this species of drama
was poetry, the stuff or matter was prose. It was prose rendered
delightful by the blandishments and measured motions