The comedies of Aristophanes, tr. into familiar blank verse, with notes, by C.A. Wheelwright

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Page 249 - That eagle's fate and mine are one, Which, on the shaft that made him die, Espied a feather of his own, Wherewith he wont to soar so high.
Page ix - ... palliation of this fault, that he never puts obscenity but in the mouths of obscene characters, and so supplies it as to give his hearers a disgust for such unseemly habits. Morality I confess deserves a purer vehicle, yet I contend that his purpose was honest, and I dare believe went farther towards reforming the loose Athenians, than all the indecisive positions of the philosophers, who being enlisted into sects and factions, scarce agreed in any one point of common morality.
Page viii - ... occasions it is elevated, grave, sublime and polished to a wonderful degree of brilliancy and beauty; on others it sinks and descends into humble dialogue, provincial rusticity, coarse naked obscenity...
Page viii - We receive them as treasures thrown up from a wreck, or more properly as one passenger escaped out of a fleet, whose narrative we listen to with the more eagerness and curiosity, because it is from this alone we can gain intelligence of the nature of the expedition, the quality of the armament, and the characters and talents of the commanders, who have perished and gone down into the abyss together. The comedies of Aristophanes are universally esteemed to be the standard of Attic writing in its greatest...
Page ix - Among the ancients, plain-speaking was the fashion ; nor was that ceremonious delicacy introduced, which has taught men to abuse each other with the utmost politeness, and express the most indecent ideas in the most modest language.
Page 115 - Agricolae prisci, fortes, parvoque beati, Condita post frumenta, levantes tempore festo Corpus et ipsum animum spe finis dura ferentem, Cum sociis operum, pueris, et conjuge fida, Tellurem porco, Silvanum lacte piabant, Floribus et vino Genium, memorem brevis aevi. Fescennina per hune inventa licentia morem Versibus alternis opprobria rustica fudit...
Page ix - Crasinus before his eyes, who was driven from the stage because he scrupled to amuse the public ear with tawdry jests, it is not to be wondered at, if an author, emulous of applause, should fall in with the wishes of the theatre, unbecoming as they were...
Page 133 - Ptolemies ; being used chiefly in the winter, as the sun-dials in the summer. But they had two great defects ; the one, that the water ran out with a greater or less facility, as the air was more or less dense ; the other, that it ran more readily at the beginning than towards the conclusion.
Page vi - It is generally supposed that we owe these remains of Aristophanes to St. Chrysostom, who happily rescued this valuable, though small portion of his favourite author from his more scrupulous Christian contemporaries, whose zeal was fatally too successful in destroying every other comic author, out of a very numerous collection, of which no one entire scene now remains.
Page ix - I shall never repine under the weight of any burthen, which the merit of my contemporaries lays upon me. His wit is of various kinds ; much is of a general and permanent stamp ; much is local, personal and untransferable to posterity : no author still retains so many brilliant passages, yet none has suffered such injury by the depredations of time : of his powers in ridicule and humour, whether of character or dialogue, there might be no end to instances : if Plautus gives us the model of Epicharmus,...

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