ought to be corrected.
Indeed, many sorts of music are not to be rejected; first, tragedy,
as having nothing familiar enough for an entertainment, and being a
representation of actions attended with grief and extremity of passion.
I reject the sort of dancing which is called Pyladean from Pylades,
because it is full of pomp, very pathetical, and requires a great many
persons; but if we would admit any of those sorts that deserve those
encomiums which Socrates mentions in his discourse about dancing, I like
that sort called Bathyllean, which requires not so high a motion, but
hath something of the character of the Cordax, and resembles the motion
of an Echo, a Pan, or a Satyr frolicking with love. Old comedy is not
fit for men that are making merry, by reason of the excuses that appear
in it; for that vehemency which they use in the parabasis is loud
and indecent, and the liberty they take to scoff and abuse is very
surfeiting, too open, and full of filthy words and lewd expressions.
Besides, as at great men's tables every man hath a servant waiting at
his elbow, so each of his guests would need a grammarian to sit by him,
and explain who is Laespodias in Eupolis, Cinesias in Plato, and
Lampo in Cratinus, and who is each person that is jeered in the play.
Concerning new comedy there is no need of any long discourse. It is so
fitted, so interwoven with entertainments, that it is easier to have a
regular feast without wine, than without Menander. Its phrase is sweet
and familiar, the Humor innocent and easy, so that there is nothing
for men whilst sober to despise, or when merry to be troubled at. The
sentiments are so natural and unstudied, that midst wine, as it were in
fire, they soften and bend the rigidest temper to be pliable and easy.
And the mixture of gravity and jests seems to be contrived for nothing
so aptly as for the pleasure and profit of those that are frolicking and
making merry. The love-scenes in Menander are convenient for those who
have already drunk their cups, and who in a short time must retire home
to their wives; for in all his plays there is no love of boys mentioned,
and all rapes committed on virgins and decently in marriages at last. As
for misses, if they are impudent and jilting, they are bobbed, the young
gallants turning sober, and repenting of their lewd courses. But if they
are kind and constant, either their true parents are discovered, or a
time is determined for intrigue, which brings