n moderation of passions, and in such a temper of mind as
measures all things by the use of Nature.

Wherefore, upon all these accounts, as well as for all the reasons
before mentioned, youth stands in need of good government to manage it
in the reading of poetry, that being free from all prejudicate opinions,
and rather instructed beforehand in conformity thereunto, it may with
more calmness, friendliness, and familiarity pass from thence to the
study of philosophy.

END OF FOURTEEN------------

ABSTRACT OF A COMPARISON BETWEEN ARISTOPHANE AND MENANDER

To speak in sum and in general, he prefers Menander by far; and as
to particulars, he adds what here ensues. Aristophanes, he saith, is
importune, theatric, and sordid in his expression; but Menander not
so at all. For the rude and vulgar person is taken with the things the
former speaketh; but the well-bred man will be quite out of humor with
them. I mean, his opposed terms, his words of one cadence, and his
derivatives. For the one makes use of these with due observance and
but seldom, and bestows care upon them; but the other frequently,
unseasonably, and frigidly. "For he is much commended," said he, "for
ducking the chamberlains, they being indeed not chamberlains [Greek
omitted] but witches."[Greek omitted]. And again,--"This rascal breathes
out nothing but roguery and sycophanty"; and "Smite him well in his
belly with the entrails and the guts"; and, "By laughing I shall get to
Laughington [Greek omitted]"; and, "Thou poor sharded ostracized pot,
what shall I do with thee?" and, "To you women surely he is a mad
plague, for he was brought up among these mad worts";--and, "Look here,
how the moths have eaten away my crest"; and, "Bring me hither the
gorgon-backed circle of my shield"; "Give me the round-backed circle
of a cheese-cake";--and much more of the same kind. (See Aristophanes,
"Knights," 437, 455; "Thesmophoriazusae," 455; Acharnians," 1109,
1124.) There is then in the structure of his words something tragic and
something comic, something blustering and something low, an obscurity, a
vulgarness, a turgidness, and a strutting, with a nauseous prattling and
fooling. And as his style has so great varieties and dissonances in it,
so neither doth he give to his persons what is fitting and proper
to each,--as state (for instance) to a prince, force to an orator,
innocence to a woman, meanness of language to a poor man, and sauciness
to a tradesman,-