ters represented. Such was the
comedy, since called the _Middle Comedy_, of which there are some
instances in Aristophanes.

It continued till the time of Alexander the Great, who, having entirely
assured himself of the empire of Greece by the defeat of the Thebans,
caused a check to be put upon the licentiousness of the poets, which
increased daily. From thence the _New Comedy_ took its birth, which was
only an imitation of private life, and brought nothing upon the stage but
feigned names, and fictitious adventures.

Chacun peint avec art dans ce nouveau miroir,
S'y vit avec plaisir, ou crut ne s'y pas voir.
L'avare des premiers rit du tableau fidele
D'un avare souvent trace sur son modele;
Et mille fois un fat, finement exprime,
Meconnut le portrait sur lui-meme forme.

In this new glass, whilst each himself survey'd,
He sat with pleasure, though himself was play'd:
The miser grinn'd whilst avarice was drawn,
Nor thought the faithful likeness was his own;
His own dear self no imag'd fool could find,
But saw a thousand other fops design'd.(205)

This may properly be called fine comedy, and is that of Menander. Of one
hundred and eighty, or rather eighty plays, according to Suidas, composed
by him, all of which Terence is said to have translated, there remain only
a few fragments. We may form a judgment of the merit of the originals from
the excellence of the copy. Quintilian, in speaking of Menander, is not
afraid to say,(206) that with the beauty of his works, and the height of
his reputation, he obscured, or rather obliterated, the fame of all other
writers in the same way. He observes in another passage,(207) that his own
times were not so just to his merit as they ought to have been, which has
been the fate of many others; but that he was sufficiently made amends by
the favourable opinion of posterity. And indeed Philemon, a comic poet,
who flourished about the same period, though older than Menander, was
preferred before him.

The Theatre of the Ancients described.

I have already observed, that AEschylus was the first founder of a fixed
and durable theatre adorned with suitable decorations. It was at first, as
well as the amphitheatres, composed of wooden planks, the seats in which
rose one above another; but those having one day broke down, by having too
great a weight upon them, the Athenians, excessively enamoured of dramatic
representations, we