direction of his rival. Under his care he returns to the habits of his youth, and is put into possession of a truce for thirty years, which Cleon had roguishly kept under lock and key. He is thus made completely happy. The chorus of the play is made up of the so-called knights, a body distinguished for their hostility to Cleon.

The "Clouds," B.C. 423, was said by Ælian (Var. Hist. ii. 13) to have been the main cause of the subsequent condemnation of the philosopher Socrates. But this cannot be altogether true, for he was not put to death till twenty years afterwards. Still, whatever was its effect, there can be no question about its tendency and the gross injustice of its misrepresentations. Plato indeed (Apologia Socratis) identifies Aristophanes with the accusers of Socrates, and their charges with his calumnies, and complains with reason of their effect in prejudicing the minds of his fellow-citizens against him, as a sceptic and an unbeliever. The plot of the play is simple. A rustic father, Strepsiades, made bankrupt by the extravagances of his son Pheidippides, resolves to become a pupil of the "palefaced, shoeless Socrates," in the hopes of being enabled to escape from and to cheat his creditors by his lessons in sophistry and chicanery. He accordingly goes to school to him, and finds him philosophising aloft in a basket: an amusing scene follows, the rusticity and obtuseness of the pupil being humorously contrasted with the subtlety and refinement of the master. The Clouds, the chorus of the play, are invoked to give their aid, and made to appear as divinities on the stage: "for they," says Socrates, "are the only true goddesses; all the rest are moonshine" (v. 359). Strepsiades, however, is too dull to learn, and by the advice of the Clouds he sends his son to take his place. Pheidippides proves an apt pupil, and shows his proficiency not only by his schemes for overreaching his father's creditors, but by offering to justify his conduct in beating his father, and then threatening to beat his mother in the same way. This raises the indignation of Strepsiades, and he wreaks his vengeance by setting fire to the school-house of Socrates, and burning out his pupils. This was a very plain intimation to the assembled Athenians, especially in conjunction with the concluding lines of the play. The play was said to have been received with loud applause, but nevertheless it did not gain the prize, owing perhaps to the influence of Alcibiades, for whom the character of Pheidippides seems to have been meant. The play which we now possess was a second edition.

In the " Wasps" the poet attacks the Athenian courts of justice, and ridicules the fondness of his fellow-citizens for acting as dicasts, "office resembling that of our Westminster special jurymen." The principal character of the play is so fond of acting in this capacity,

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that his son, by way of keeping him at home, resolves to fit up his house as a court of justice, and furnishes it accordingly. The father is pleased with the idea, and it is arranged that he should sit in judgment over all domestic offenders. The first of these is a house-dog (Labes), charged with stealing a piece of Sicilian cheese. His trial is conducted in regular form, with a mock solemnity which is very amusing, and full of comic humour. At last the dog is acquitted by mistake. Under this farce, however, lies a personal satire, directed against Laches, an Athenian general, who had commanded an expedition to Sicily, and become rich by the bribes of the enemy. From this play Racine borrowed the idea of his " Plaideurs," and it was imitated by Ben Jonson, in his "Staple of News."

The "Peace" is entirely political, and aimed against the continuance of the Peloponnesian war. The principal character, Trygæus, tired of its evils, makes a journey to heaven on the back of a beetle, to expostulate with the gods upon the subject; he finds that they are not at home, and that their chambers are occupied by War, who had thrust Peace into a deep well. With the help of a party of friends Trygæus drags her out, and carries her off to earth. The play concludes with expressions of exultation on the part of the chorus upon the restoration of peace, intermixed with raillery against those who had an interest in the continuance of the war. The drift of the "Birds" is very obscure. The theory of Süvern may be in the main correct. The " Thesmophoriazusæ❞ (B.C. 411), and the " Ranæ," or "Frogs," are both directed against Euripides. The latter was exhibited after the death of Aristophanes, and is one of the best and most amusing of his plays. In this play the god Dionysus proceeds to Hades for the purpose of bringing the departed Euripides to earth again, all the then tragic poets of Athens being good for nothing. He is accompanied by a slave, and dressed like Hercules, that he may be mistaken for him. Accordingly the meetings of Dionysus with the old acquaintances of that hero are very comic and amusing. He and his slave cross the Styx in Charon's boat, the frogs of the lake croaking a chant as they row over. On arriving in Hades, they find that there is a contest going on between Euripides and Eschylus for the tragic chair there. Dionysus is called upon to decide between them, which he does in favour of Eschylus. He then returns with him, instead of Euripides, and Sophocles is installed in the vacant chair. In this play, as in the "Peace," no great respect is shown to the popular mythology, the positions and behaviour of Dionysus being often very amusing, but very disreputable. The last play of Aristophanes was the "Plutus," or Wealth," which belongs rather to the middle comedy

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than the old, and has no chorus. No real characters are introduced upon the stage, nor has it any reference to political subjects. Its object seems to have been to point out the folly and guilt of covetousness, and of repining at the dispensations of Providence in the distribution of wealth. The argument is detailed in the four hundred and sixty-fourth number of the "Spectator."

The names and fragments of the plays of Aristophanes which are no longer extant are given by Meineke, ii. 2. p. 993. The most lucid and satisfactory account of Aristophanes which we have seen in the English language is given by Thirlwall, in his " History of Greece," iv. 250. The authorities for the life of Aristophanes, independent of what is collected from his own works, are little else than the accounts of Suidas and the Greek grammarians, which may be found in Meineke, vol. i.

The modern writers and commentators on the works of Aristophanes are very numerous. Most of them are enumerated by Bode, Geschichte der Hellenischen Komik, p. 220, and by Hoffmann, Lexicon Bibliographicum.

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The first edition of Aristophanes is the Aldine, printed at Venice, 1498, folio, containing only nine plays, the "Lysistrate" and Thesmophoriazusæ not being then discovered. A second complete edition was published at Florence by Bernard Junta, 1515, 8vo. That of Kuster, Amsterdam, 1710, folio, contains the valuable Greek scholia. One of the most complete is by Bekker, five volumes, 8vo., London, 1829. This also contains the scholia and a Latin version. There are also complete editions by Brunck, Boissonade, Bothe, Dindorf, and others; of the "Acharnians," by Elmsley; of the "Acharnians," "Knights," Wasps," "Clouds," and "Frogs," by Mitchell; and of several single plays, by others. The scholia on Aristophanes were published by Dindorf, in three vols., Leipzig, 1826.

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There are various translations of the different plays of Aristophanes. The first that appeared in England was a version of the Plutus," by Thomas Randolph, London, 1651, with the title of " Hey for Honesty! Down with Knavery!" One of the best English versions is Cumberland's translation of the “Clouds,” in blank verse, published in 1797. Among the more recent English verse translations of different plays are those by Mitchell and Walsh; of the "Birds," by Cary; and of all the plays, by Wheelwright. The "Acharnians," "Knights," and "Birds," have been admirably translated by Mr. J. Hookham Frere: this translation was printed at Malta. Mr. Frere has also translated the "Frogs," which was executed before the others; and he is the author of some translations from Aristophanes which appeared in the "Quarterly Review" some years ago. There are also several English prose translations of

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different plays: of the "Plutus," by Fielding and Young; of the "Birds," by an anonymous author (London, 1812); of the "Acharnians," Knights," Wasps," and "Birds,” by a Graduate of Oxford (Oxford, 1832). In French, Aristophanes has been translated by Poinsinet de Sivry. In German all the plays have been translated by Voss and Droysen; the "Acharnians," Knights," Clouds," and "Birds," by Wieland; the "Clouds" and "Frogs," by Welcker.

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R. W-n. ARISTOPHANES of BYZANTIUM ('Apioτοφάνης Βυζάντιος), one of the most celebrated of the Alexandrine grammarians and critics, was the son of a military man named Apelles. He lived in the third century before our æra, during the reigns of Ptolemy Philopator and Ptolemy Epiphanes. He studied philology and criticism, as those sciences were then studied, under several eminent teachers, of whom Eratosthenes was one, while another was Zenodotus, the founder of the Alexandrine school of commentators upon Homer. Afterwards Aristophanes was appointed to superintend the library of Alexandria; an appointment which he probably owed to his increasing reputation, but certainly not to any such proof of perspicacity as that which is recorded in a foolish story told by Vitruvius. He now in his turn received pupils, among whom were several eminent Homerists, the greatest of these being the prince of the Homeric critics, the celebrated Aristarchus. Aristophanes himself held a high place as an annotator on the poet; and his name is usually joined in that character with those of his teacher and of his famous pupil. The grounds of his Homeric reputation may be in some degree understood from Villoison's Venetian Scholia; but still nothing is known sufficient to found anything beyond partial conjectures, in which, indeed, one or two recent German scholars have freely indulged in treating of this ancient critic. Wolf thinks that there is good evidence of his having been very cautious in his proposals of innovation, but is disposed to believe that neither in the criticism nor in the interpretation of the Homeric poems do the notices we possess of his readings, or of the passages which he considered as spurious, indicate any decisive advance beyond the point which had been already reached by Zenodotus. Questions of literary genuineness, however, appear to have had peculiar attractions for the mind of Aristophanes, and to have been treated by him with a comprehensiveness of thought much superior to the usual spirit of the school to which he belonged. He was the author of an opinion, which was afterwards more fully developed by Aristarchus, and has been keenly argued in our own day, that the genuine Odyssey ends at the two hundred and ninety-sixth line of the twentythird book. His authority led also to the