rs treated the
principal persons of the state, that they conceived their liberty in some
measure to consist in it.

Three poets(201) particularly excelled in the old comedy; Eupolis,
Cratinus, and Aristophanes. The last is the only one of them, whose pieces
have come down to us entire; and, out of the great number which he
composed, eleven are all that remain. He flourished in an age when Greece
abounded with great men, and was contemporary with Socrates and Euripides,
whom he survived. During the Peloponnesian war, he made his greatest
figure; less as a writer to amuse the people with his comedies, than as a
censor of the government, retained to reform the state, and to be almost
the arbiter of his country.

He is admired for an elegance, poignancy, and happiness of expression, or,
in a word, that Attic salt and spirit, to which the Roman language could
never attain, and for which Aristophanes(202) is more remarkable than any
other of the Greek authors. His particular excellence was raillery. None
ever touched what was ridiculous in the characters whom he wished to
expose with such success, or knew better how to convey it in all its full
force to others. But it would be necessary to have lived in his times, to
be qualified to judge of this. The subtle salt and spirit of the ancient
raillery, according to father Brumoi, is evaporated through length of
time, and what remains of it is become flat and insipid to us; though the
sharpest part will retain its vigour throughout all ages.

Two considerable defects are justly imputed to this poet, which very much
obscure, if not entirely efface, his glory. These are, low buffoonery, and
gross obscenity; and it has in vain been attempted to offer, in excuse for
the first of these faults, the character of his audience; the bulk of
which generally consisted of the poor, the ignorant, and dregs of the
people, whom, however, it was as necessary to please, as the learned and
the rich. The depraved taste of the lower order of people, which once
banished Cratinus and his company, because his scenes were not grossly
comic enough for them, is no excuse for Aristophanes, as Menander could
find out the art of changing that grovelling taste, by introducing a
species of comedy, not altogether so modest as Plutarch seems to
insinuate, yet much less licentious than any before his time.

The gross obscenities, with which all Aristophanes's comedies abound, have
no excuse; they only denote to