d poet, he is still at a loss to make it serve
the interests of the piece. He appears to have written principally
for the purpose of inculcating political and moral axioms. The dogmas,
like _valets de place_, serve any master, and run to any quarter.
Even when new, they are nevertheless miserably flat and idle.

_North_.--Aristophanes ridiculed him.

_Landor_.--Yes, Aristophanes had, however, but little true wit. [61]

_North_.--That was lucky for Euripides.

_Landor_.-A more skilful archer would have pierced him through
bone and marrow, and saved him from the dogs of Archelaus.

_North_.--That story is probably an allegory, signifying that
Euripides was after all worried out of life by the curs of criticism
in his old age.

_Landor_.--As our Keats was in his youth, eh, Mr. North? A worse
fate than that of Aeschylus, who had his skull cracked by a tortoise
dropt by an eagle that mistook his bald head for a stone.

_North_.--Another fable of his inventive countrymen. He died of
brain-fever, followed by paralysis, the effect of drunkenness. He
was a jolly old toper: I am sorry for him. You just now said that
Aristophanes wanted wit. What foolish fellows then the Athenians
must have been, in the very meridian of their literature, to be so
delighted with what they mistook for wit as to decree him a crown
of olive! He has been styled the Prince of Old Comedy too. How do you
like Menander?

[Footnote 52: Vol. ii. p. 298.]

[Footnote 53: Vol. iii p. 514.]

[Footnote 54: Vol. iv. p 80.]

[Footnote 55: Vol. i. p. 233.]

[Footnote 56: Vol. ii. p. 331.]

[Footnote 57: Vol. iii. p. 35.]

[Footnote 58: Vol. ii. p. 332.]

[Footnote 59: Vol. i. pp. 299, 298, 297.]

[Footnote 60: Vol. i. p. 298.]

[Footnote 61: Vol. ii. p. 12.]

_Landor_.--We have not much of him, unless in Terence. [62] The
characters on which Menander raised his glory were trivial and
contemptible.

[Footnote 62: Vol. ii. p. 5. At p. 6th, Mr. Landor produces some verses
of his own "in the manner of Menander," fathers them on Andrew Marvel,
and makes Milton praise them!]

_North_.--Now that you have demolished the Greeks, let us go back
to Rome, and have another touch at the Latins. From Menander to
Terence is an easy jump. How do you esteem Terence?

_Landor_.--Every one knows that he is rather an expert translator
from the Greek than an original writer. There is more pith in Plautus.

_North_.--You like Plautus, then, and endure Terence